Desperate times called for desperate measures and with the offer of a cure on the cards, the golden wolf was willing to do anything to return to his pack in one piece. Even if it meant making a deal with the devil. The orders had been simple. Find the pack with pups on the mountain, and scare the golden one out. It wouldn’t be like last time, he wasn’t physically taking a child... Just, giving them a little fright was all. After all, his sister was long gone from the lake and no doubt her children with her... He couldn’t know the pack he had been sent in search of was his sisters pack which had relocated... He wasn’t aware she had managed to get back into Lore at all. He couldn’t know that it was his own flesh and blood he would be bringing harm to again. After all, the smooth talking brown wolf hadn’t revealed all his plans for Kanosak’s oldest nephew.

With a lack of children at the lake he continued onwards and upwards. The one pup he had sighted had been more brown than golden, the spitting image of his sister at that age and it made him wonder what had happened to the rest in the end? Had the black child survived the wilds with his sister or had they both perished from the trials of loner life? His thoughts were interrupted by a burning itch where his bite had been and saliva began to drip from his jaws. The madness came in dribs and drabs, the world taking on an almost red hue. He knew it wouldn’t be long now before it was too late for him. He had to get a move on.

The air up here was so thin, it left the battered wolf gasping for air and by the time he finally caught the scent of a pack on the breeze, one laced with all too familiar scents, his legs were shaking and long trails of spittle dangled from his jaws. He truly looked every inch the zombie his nephew would fear the most.

Keeping his distance well back from the clear markers of the pass, he began to seek out the trail of a younger wolf. The sooner this was over with, the sooner he would have his cure.

• slight powerplay, tell me if it's not okay. just imagining that kano is a bit confused and such.

"Man, are you a dumb intruder or what?"

The golden boy stood just behind him, proud and erect. For awhile now, he had been following this stranger who had been so bold as to walk the length of their borders. Datura wasn't sure what this loner was looking for — for the boy could was not sure he could detect another pack scent under that rancidness wafting up from the wretched wolf — but he was quite sure that his mother probably wouldn't approve of him doing any of his looking so close to the Pass.

He carried a heavy limp, his walk up the mountain had not been an easy one. His neck itched and saliva began to run from his taught jaw, his lips pulled in a worried line across his face as he panted. Water. He needed water, but there was something repulsive about every body of it he found. He lowered his head to bite at the snow but as soon as the cold substance began to melt on his warm tongue he spat it out with a frustrated growl. Was every patch of snow pissed on up here?

It was then the voice sounded behind him. Young, brash and bold. Could it really be this easy?

Heavily his head spun about, his torn lip revealing yellowing teeth, foam beginning to gather at the corners of his mouth. The boy was young, and he was golden, just like him. And he smelled of her. Despair and anger warred within him as slowly a red haze descended across his vision. A growl bubbled in his chest as he turned to limp toward the young wolf. Pausing his chorus to lick some of the excess saliva away from his muzzle.

A threatening clack of his teeth as he drew near the child was all the warning he could give. He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t bite the child if he came within reach.

All his boastful pretense was forgotten the instance the stranger turned to face him.

All he saw was festering skin, puckered, ugly skin that had been torn and stripped to the bone about the muzzle of a wolf that appeared to be yet another terrible zombie. But this zombie was far more terrible and frightening than the last one had been, far more emaciated and broken. He smelled like a corpse that had been left out to rot under a blazing sun. He smelled sick. So extroverted and literal, Datura never found the time to consider anything beyond the physical world as it appeared to him, and so he saw zombies, he saw only the differences. He could not have seen all the similarities, the identical hairs of spun gold that wrapped themselves about the two wolves or their deep honey eyes. He could not see the uncle he never knew he had. No, he saw only a zombie.

It was hardly a surprise this time when his bladder suddenly burst and urine trickled down his golden legs. This time, however, when he heard the threatening thunder of snarls he froze only for a moment before regaining his senses. Run, he urged his legs, Run! And suddenly he found the courage to move, to reel about and gallop in the opposite direction of this terrifying, grizzled monster.

Fear seemed to rob the boy of any grace he had formally possessed. Only a hundred yards had opened up between the boy and the zombie before suddenly Datura's paws slipped. A small, precariously placed pebble shifted underneath his carelessly placed step and suddenly his leg slipped and his balance was gone. His body lurched forwards towards the rock. His nose was the first thing to hit the ground, but Datura, who was afraid of irreparably damaging such a prominent facial feature, quickly twisted his head so that his skull crashed into he ground seconds later, taking much of the impact with a sickening crack. But his brains were much less important than his nose.

The young boy knew he could not remained grounded for long, and instantly he was trying to scramble back onto his paws. But when he tried to put his weight back onto the paw that had betrayed him he found that the muscles screamed, unwilling to submit to his command. The realization that flooded his mind was suddenly nauseating: he would not be able to run away. He must hide.

But where?

As he could not go very far and he had never been a particularly careful analyst of his surroundings, the golden boy threw himself behind the most likely looking bolder only a few feet away. However, what appeared a likely place of concealment to the Aquila boy would have made any one else laugh. The boulder was much too narrow and could not shelter even two thirds of the boy's steadily growing body. But Datura, cowering behind the rock with eyes clamped shut, had no idea how vulnerable he was. He merely wished it to be over.

From somewhere close by, though, he heard the sounds of battle: the growling drums of war and teeth snapping shut. Some shale clattered to the ground — the sound of retreat. Before Datura could even begin to wonder what the outcome of this little fight was, though, the voice of the victor rose triumphantly out towards him. Instantly, Datura peeked out from behind the rocks, reassured by the friendly, heroic tone, looking for its owner.

Where the monster had stood only several seconds earlier there was a different wolf standing. A proud wolf, a brave wolf. His black fur seemed to steal colors from the sunlight so that when a gust of wind buffeted him his body was awash with vibrant blues and greens. He was a fearsome sight, especially with that scar of puckered tissue that went down the length of his hindquarter(?). Damn. Catiously, Datura raised his voice, "Is the zombie gone?"

“Thankfully. For now. But we should move. He might come back...”

"You saved me." The words came out of his mouth in short bursts, ragged gasps as he tried to regain mastery of himself. This man saved him. Him — Datura. Shame began to seep in to the cracks in the golden boy's ego where his pride was supposed to be. This was wrong, this was all wrong. Datura was supposed to be the strapping lad who did heroic deeds and wore shining armor, not the damsel in distress. Was he a weakling after all? No, no, this was all wrong. His furrowed eyebrows shadowed his face in an expression that could have been fear and worry given the situation. Desperately the boy fought for the silver lining, some way out of this pit of helplessness he had walked into. He didn't want to be pitiful, he didn't want the man to see him like —

“You know once a zombie gets your scent it’ll track you forever right? You need be really clever to outwit one of those things...”

A stab of fear lanced his heart, and the boy of woven gold and copper flinched at the word "zombie," as if it by merely saying it one was likely to appear. But when the knee-jerk reaction faded, all that was left was more shame in his heart. He threw an ugly, frenzied look at his savior. How dare he rescue him. How dare he strip Datura of his pride like this and look on so unabashed with so little decency. How could he do this to him? But what had begun as shame and turned to outrage quickly turned to hate in the boy's heart. He had always believed himself to be so perfect, so invincible... he did not want to be seen like this.

“I think I know somewhere we can go where he’ll never find us...”

Once more the dark hero dealt his pride another blow. His ears twitched as he struggled to keep his face neutral. But what else could he do besides assent to this offer of shelter from his savior? No matter how hard Datura tried to force this weakness of his aside, he could not. The fear of the undead still lingered with him even now. The boy moved out from behind the rocks with his tail trailing against the ground submissively, implying that he would come with the man.

"How can I ever repay you?"

Because that was all Datura could think about now. He needed to clear his name, he needed to make up for this loss of face and restore himself. Write over his weakness with something courageous.

“Just come with me to where it is safe...”

That kind of request didn't sound unreasonable. Safe places were nice places on principal, so Datura liked safe places. Plus, Datura naturally benefited from going somewhere away from the zombie, somewhere else, somewhere safe, regardless of how much he resented his savior. here was no reason he could refuse his hero, and so he bobbed his guileless head and limped after the black man. Though the scarred wolf now seemed to be walking away from the Pass, moving down the mountain side, Datura was unperturbed. Why should anything be amiss about descending the mountain? Sure, the golden boy had never bothered to travel that way before, but he was sure there were many safe places farther down the slope.

He had no idea he would travel so far from home, and it would have be quite sometime before the boy bothered to ask where they were headed as the light was fading from the sky. But, being slightly injured from the zombie fiasco, Datura traveled quite some ways behind his savior and the man never seemed to hear him. Ah well, being the trusting wolf that he was, Datura was sure that he would find out where he was going when he got there. For a long time such an expectation seemed only natural, because even if Datura found himself disgusted with this man and the shame he had brought upon him, there hadn't been any indication that he was untrustworthy. He had saved his life after all.

Oh, how wrong he was.