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 Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:12 pm
 "What I need," she thought aloud that morning, yawning and letting her tongue loll, "is a nap." She choked as an insect flew into her open mouth.
The one called Merrill had done a good night's worth of travelling, and with the rising of the sun was beginning to find at last the tendrils of exhaustion creep at her. Nevermind the fact that she had never been much of a nocturnal varg to begin with! But this particular gamma denied herself sleep for one sole reason: she had yet to find the bird - and a meal to keep her going, came the after thought, since bugs were hardly things she considered good meat.
Merrill was a refuge the higher mountains, a remnant of the pack lost in the crags and snow of last winter. Almost half a year later, she was but a wanderer making her rounds about as usual, barely tied down to a pack and disliking that feeling of absolute freedom. She was a busy-body without work, and that was a big, big no-no; the extended vacation of sorts was not healthy for her. She needed a pack and would look for that along for that bird - the sole creature she had seen both the night before her worst nightmare and the deathly silent day after. Surely it knew something . . . Meme kept her eyes pinned to the skies, barely watching where her paws took her in the short-bladed fields she was now in, the sounds of rushing water not too far away.
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 12:10 am
 "What I need," Jet said aloud, yawning as he stretched, "is a leaf." He choked on his own saliva.
After his coughing had spluttered to a stop, he looked around, pawing at his ear with a forepaw as he had seen rabbits do. It seemed he had woken up at the crack of dawn, and the grass around him was still wet with dew. He nosed at it curiously (he rarely woke up so early, as he preferred the soft light of Tor over the burning rays of Fenris) before rolling around on it, deeming it safe to play with.
He probably would have stayed there, rolling in the damp grass, for who knows how long, if a butterfly hadn't fluttered past, catching his attention. Sitting ram-rod straight, he slowly lowered himself, watching it intently with his half-closed eyes. He followed it quietly, so concentrated on stalking the insect that he could have been skipping along the edge of a cliff and not notice. Soon, it fluttered to a stop, and Jet pounced. But instead of catching a butterfly in his paws, he crashed into something with fur -- and lots of it.
"It's a monster!" he shrieked, flailing on the ground where he had fallen, as if wounded.
((Lol, jah, I had a sudden desire to kinda-sorta-maybe mimic your first two sentences. Hope you don't mind. o Ao;
I've also noticed Jet's always playing with a butterfly when he goes into one of your ORPs. xD))
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:35 am
Of course having her eyes up above and her mind somewhere else completely different, Merrill didn't notice the male's appraoch until maybe two seconds before collision, whereupon she had seen a flash of color pass by her nose - then suddenly the air was thrown out of her, and a wail rang in her ears. "Wha-OHMPH!" Merrill was knocked off balance and onto her side, a flurry of dark paws just by her. Panting to catch her breath again, she rolled away and sat up, giving the guy a curious look. "Is that how plainsmen greet one another? How strange . . . Well, I don't see any monster, so you don't have to worry. You look fine," she observed. "Though . . . were you chased here by one?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:42 am
At the female's words, Jet paused his flailing to look himself over. "Oh... you're right," he said, his voice expressing the shock he felt. He sat up and nibbled on a paw, as if to make sure, looking up at the female he had collided with. Thankfully, she seemed to be more of a Varg than a monster, but it was really hard to tell the difference, he told himself consolingly.
When she asked if she was chased by one, he widenend his eyes and gasped. "I was!" he cried, shuffling closer to her. "Did you see it? It was massive. Almost the size of my paw!" he held up the paw he had been chewing on moments before and pressed it close to her face, as if to emphasize the fear he felt from such a large being.
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 11:43 am
Merrill gained a nose-full of paw within seconds and the myriad of scents with it: various Varg scents vaguely clinged to it, dirt, flowers he might have tromped through on his way over - but monster? "I don't smell any monster on you, though," Merrill replied with a slight frown after pulling her head back to view him; because of course being chased by a monster also meant he had to smell like it. Belatedly she noticed that the male had strange eyes, black where they should have been white, silver where there should have been color - she might have thought him blind (he had run into her after all) had the Varg not been able to look at her properly where he could promptly stick his paw in her face. Were plainsdwellers so upfront about things? She didn't mind, though the paw deal was a bit much.
"Did it happen to have a lot of color on it?" Merrill asked, blinking as he shuffled closer and wondering if she was speaking with a natural coward - despite his size, he seemed more pup-like than adult, and in this it brought out more protective feelings from the ex-beta. "I saw something fly before my eyes before you tumbled over. It looked like a bird or a butterfly, I couldn't tell." Bird! Maybe it was the one she was looking for. "And anyway, why was a monster chasing you anyway?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 12:14 pm
"Monsters smell, too?" Jet asked, surprised. Slowly, he took pack his paw and pressed it against his nose, snuffling at it. "It smells just like me!" he exclaimed. Did that mean... he was the monster? Well, he certainly hoped not. If he was the size of his own paw, not only would that be confusing, unrealistic, and against the laws of Nature itself, but worst of all, he'd be small!
His train of horrified thought was broken when the female spoke again, and he nodded vigorously in agreement. "It had lots of color," he continued to nod, and at this point, many would wonder if he was a bobble head of sorts. "And it flew, too. Like a leaf!"
At her question and his latest comment, a sudden look of realization came about him. He looked around suspiciously, and lowered his head so that his muzzle was level with her ear, as if he were about to tell her a grave secret. "Well," he started, his hushed whisper so loud he might as well have been talking normally, "I ate a leaf once. D'you think its family was trying to get revenge?" he asked, with such concern in his voice it would be easy to believe he was being serious, despite what he had just said.
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 12:29 pm
Yeah, definitely a pup, not an adult. Playful companions weren't very common up in the mountains, where a simple wrong-aimed leap could end friendships and mountain goats were a terrible problem, where snow chilled more than just paws for some and often made hardened hearts. Merrill was equipped for tough terrain, not prepared to listen to a light-hearted Varg's musings. So it wasn't without reason that at first she just blinked, her mind needing some time to process his illogical logic and come up with an answer.
"Um . . . leaves can't fly. I think. What are leaves again?" she asked, plainly showing her ignorance of plants and not seeming to mind doing so. She needed to learn about this new land. "That's what's growing on those brown rocks everywhere, right?" Her pack had lived in the barest parts of the mountains where not even summer touched the crags, let alone flowers. Rocks, snow, sleet, and rain, and the occassional pinprick of sunlight beyond the uniformed gray sky: that had been her old life. The plains almost shocked her with the utter color it was saturated with. "If they're living creatures, maybe they're getting revenge, yes. Though why not go after a hare or squirrel instead? Meat tastes much better than anything else you could find."
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 12:45 pm
Jet waited nervously for the female's reply. With each passing second, his ears pressed closer to his head, and he wondered if her silence meant he should fear for himself. After all, he had bended the truth a little. He hadn't had just one leaf, but whole clumps of them, during a phase where he was insistent on showing Loopy, his adopted father, that he was a rabbit to the core. (Although he was not aware rabbits didn't eat leaves, he did know they seemed to like plants.) It was a phase he was not completely over to this day, as was evident from the way he suddenly twitched his muzzle, in a horrible imitation of the way a rabbit would often twitch its whiskers. But at least, for the most part, he had removed leaves from his main diet.
"They can," he insisted, his ears flopping back up with relief. "You've never seen the wind blow right under them at the riiight moment, to-- you've never seen a leaf before?" he asked. He cocked his head curiously at the mention of brown stones before continuing. "Well, no, they're more like...." he paused, wondering how to decribe it. "Like... well, they're like leaves, you know?" he said, smiling, satisfied to have been able to explain it to the female so well. "And most Varg don't seem to like eating them, but some do, right? I mean, they have to go somewhere when they fall."
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 1:00 pm
"Perhaps the ground?" she offered, tapping the dirt with a paw. The ear he had whispered in twitched, itchign from the warm breath, and she took a moment to scratch at it with a backpaw, missing a few times before finding her mark. "Is that what it's made of? This land is so much softer than the mountains, so it can't possibly be rock I'm walking on." It was funny how easily this stranger passed over her apparant ignorance, and it made Merrill wonder what sort of life the male led to be so easily satisfied. Obviously by the smells on him, he didn't live alone . . . Maybe it was a pack? She perked at the thought as she lowered her backleg and sat back up. If he indeed happened to live in a pack, she needed to be more professional! "I never got your name, Leaf-Eater, and I apologize for my rudeness in not giving mine. I am Merrill, and if you couldn't tell I am new to these lands. I was born much higher up where snow never melts, so seeing so much color and life down here is a bit . . . disconcerting. Though nonetheless beautiful."
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 1:48 pm
"But they disappear," Jet countered, but he couldn't deny what she had said, and he looked at the ground with new fascination. He pawed at it, loosening a clump of dirt, and leaned down to nose at it before licking it. Soon, he was gagging it out, exclaiming, "That didn't taste like a leaf... like, at all." He sounded disappointed, as if it wasn't obvious that dirt and leaves wouldn't taste the same.
He looked up towards the female when she straightened, and mirrored her movement, wondering what they were doing. "They call me Jet, but you can call me Jet," he said, nodding. "I'm new here, too! We can be buddies and look around together!" he said, tail wagging furiously at the thought of having a friend to be with.
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 2:08 pm
New? She cocked her head a bit, a slight frown on her face. "Yet you smell of many other Varg, Jet," she pointed out, not sure how a wolf could possibly be new when it was obvious he was with company. And by the smells of it, there were more than just a pawful there! The lower lands were apparantly more kind towards large bands than the mountains were, and far more abundant prey to catch. "Of course I don't mind being friends, but tell me: are you part of a pack? I've been on the lookout for one ever since I came here, but it's been surprisingly hard." Have you seen a blood-touched raven? Have you seen other Varg who look like me? Has the plague spread here too? Merrill wanted to ask him several things, but by her observations of his behavior so far, it wouldn't be wise to overload him with questions.
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 3:14 pm
"Well, I'm not new to the area," Jet clarified. "But to this specific place, yeah?" he said, ending his sentence as a question, as if unsure of it himself. He looked around, ears twitching, noted the trees and the grass, deemed the place unfamiliar, and gave a brisk nod before repeating, "Yeah."
He gave a deligted yip when she agreed to befriend him, and pawed the ground excitedly. "Do we give each other nicknames?" he asked, nosing her paw and looking up at her. "I can call you Merrill and you can call me Jet!" he suggested enthusiastically, before lying down and literally rolling a few ways off.
"A pack? Yeah, I guess you can call it that. My family's pretty big. There's like... a hundred of us."
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 3:26 pm
Mm, nicknames; she'd been notorious for giving those back home, though her creativity with them was questioned. "Call me as you want, Jet," Merrill said with a nod, wondering whether to create one for him or just leave it as it was; it was simple enough after all, she couldn't possibly forget it. And if she did, well, it was just a sign that she was going senile early into her adulthood and there'd be little point in worrying over something she couldn't control. Though her brothers would be more than happy to hear their predictions came true if that was the case.
"Family, is it? Are there really . . . one . . . hundred . . . ?" Her question got broken into long pauses as Merrill realized that she wasn't asking Jet, but the spot Jet was in a few seconds ago; he had rolled away apparantly, and to this even the reserved Varg had to crack a smile as she padded after him. "The poor females must be so tired after producing you all. Your eyes are a genetic condition, then?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:23 pm
Jet slowed to a stop and stayed where he was, lying on the grass with his eyes towards the drifting clouds above. He feared what would happen if a flock of birds were to pass by, but thankfully the sky was empty save for the mass of soft white and the burning light of Fenris.
"We're all adopted, so it's okay," he told her, flailing as he tried to grab his tail while on his back. "Loopy, my dad, he adopts anyone that looks like they need a home, and anyone who wants to join, so long as they're nice." Pausing in his attempts for a moment, he continued. "But Rag, my other dad, doesn't seem too happy about it. But it's not like he can just say 'Oh, yes, we have the means to feed and shelter you, but we're not going to.' to an abandoned pup, you know?"
He eyed Merrill's tail and batted at it with a paw, even though it was too far for him to reach. "I dunno. None of my parents, or anyone else I knew had 'em."
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Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 7:58 am
"How strange . . ." Were there other strange mutations going on here? Maybe they had built up defenses against the plague? If so, then maybe it originated here and she could find out more information . . . Would it lead her to that raven? It would do her well to follow up this possible lead, though at the same time . . . "Then this is a family, not a pack you have?" Merrill asked him, seeming a tad crestfallen. Not that she was averse to meeting them for more possible leads, but certainly she wasn't a Varg that needed adoption when she was looking for work. "I'd hate to impose myself on them if they already have so many to watch and care for. But what of packs? Do you know any, Jet? My paws have been itching to do border patrol for ages now it seems."
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