But maybe it's 'cause I'm wearing your cologne,

The land hummed, as a dreariness took over. A fog hanging toward the ground, as the sun was just barely rising. Dew was within the ground, as she padded and felt the wetness between her paws ; and there did Celnes stand before what she would dub, The Wall. Although there was nothing there, somewhere a border stood, where no one could really pass forward to. It almost seemed like one wasn't moving, stand-still as the tree she once saw would repeat over and over, a running scenary despite knowing she went ahead.

Something invisible, stopping her.

But on this day that Wall held a fog. She sat before it, snake-eyes gazing at it with a serious look as she watched.. Hearing the moaning before the foggy shadows, and though she could swear to see something lurking within, nothing was for certain, or to show. Trickery, of the eye — but the sounds would lay onwards. Something, was there.. But it never moved, never twisted forward to snap and kill..

What was this land she was brought to?

---

directly on the temperate map border! discovering cannot go beyond the line

the staff team luvs u

---

He didn't much know where his paws were leading him, he only understood that stopping wasn't an option; ever used to the constant of patrolling borders he called his own, something inside him twisted and ached for something he couldn't put into word; hardly well-versed with his vocabulary to begin with. So when the beach was traded for something wet and foliage rich, he maneuvered with an unfamiliarity, accustomed to dryer, sun-bleached landscapes.

Nikolai was searching for something to fill his stomach when the sight of another, built no differently than an oak and adorned in similar shades, but it was the strange way they observed the fog (and, just a little, the peculiarity of the sounds it made) that drew him closer. "Now ain't that a sight?"

---

the staff team luvs u

Another approached, the size of was not a dog but looked every sorts of one ; a mixbreed, perhaps? A rarity she had not seen often in these lands, Celnes thought, as she glanced at the brown and black man. He was near, observing what she saw and the Deorwine couldn't help but ask, "do you hear it?" she said, a paw lifted and motioning toward the fog and the unholy sound that came from it. She didn't know whether it was an imagination or but something altogether ; it was eerie, far more eerie then anything she had stumbled across. Even more when the sky had broke.

As she tried to see beyond the fog, all there was, was the mixture of trees that were similar to The Elk's Crown. All the same, to the ground, to the sky and the trees, the scenary was all the same and yet.. Not. Something frozen in time itself, and it made one truly wonder ; if they were crazy.

the staff team luvs u

---

He drank in the sight before them both, shuddering once though he remained as unwavering as stone, with a weary mind the fog rising as it did reminded the wolfdog of the sputtering smoke that announced the flames but he only watched, in his own enough to discern ghost from... this. "I was 'bout to ask ya' the same thing," he said, voice a low rumble as he looked to the wolf. "Ya'd think it was tryin' to talk the way it sounds."

What is it...? Nikolai wanted to ask, refraining only because he could presume she wouldn't be here gawking as he did if it was something she knew.

Nikolai turned back to the fog, quirking his short ears a bit to the ruckus inside. "It don't look nothin' special beyond it but that don't make no sense, does it? Weird thing as it is..."

---

the staff team luvs u

So she wasn't crazy.

Her paw tapped the ground, staring at the unknown that faced before them. She could hear a bird in the distance, a hawk that swarmed above them awaiting for something ; and as she saw it start to head toward what was the wall... It made a quick turn, and brushed away. Although could be said but a coincidence, Celnes did not think so — something, was driving everyone away.

She looked at him, "how long have you been in this land?" There was far more strangeness that could tie everything together, to the sky breaking, to their awakening.. But she required some information before bouncing somethings off — but an eye with a stranger, would perhaps enlighten to a new experience.

the staff team luvs u

---

There wasn't much to make of it, not really, not enough tangible aspects were there to pick apart—even in the smoke, he remembered being able to charge through it, the flames, while painful to be even close to, were not impenetrable if you were stupid or desperate. Nikolai had seen enough of both; stupid were his comrades that thought they could beat the inevitable, desperate were those of the flock made solely prey by no fault of their own who ran and ran because it wasn't their purpose to think as it was his. But this... this was different. The hawk above proved it, effortlessly turning back from its path ahead. Something made the fog but a wall not even the unbound could cross.

Her voice pulled him to the moment, thoughts dispersed, and he faced her with a hardened stare that was merely instinctive. "Not long," he said, finding no reason to hide his circumstance. He stunk of it, he knew. "Washed up near the mountains, the bluffs, hardly know how... Not at all where I remember bein' before 'ere." After a beat, Nikolai looked back to the fog, huffing. "How long have ya' been here?"

---

the staff team luvs u