Cedarwood Forest volcanoes melt you down

March 23rd; Afternoon; Overcast; 52° F/11° C

She was getting close, she just knew it. For the past few days, every time she paced by that particular boulder, that particular stick, that particular fallen log, that particular depression of mud... Taima felt as though she had been beside it only some time before. Well, not just, say, a few days ago or a month ago, but years ago when a part - maybe this part, where she currently resided just past the Cut Rock River pack's borders - of Cedarwood Forest had belonged to her mother and father. It had only taken a moment's thought when she stared at a certain tree with her head tilted to one side that she recognized it. This certain tree had been the one that she had once sought refuge under while she collected herself after meeting @Datura Aquila for the first time. Beneath its boughs, she sat in her damp fur with a girlish smile spread across her masked face.

The golden prince had been handsome, even then, and the way he had saved her from the agitated "stinky" (something the cub Taima later learned was a "skunk") had stolen her heart. She had been blinded by his greatness, his chivalry and winsome ways outshining the wraith of a man who had been her imaginary friend and suitor for so long. Now nearing the end of her pregnancy (at 57 days in and, unknowingly, 5 days left to endure), she had no choice but to waddle over to the landmark. It bore nothing but its usual scents - the aroma of new growth and the sticky, sweet scent of sap - but the young Lyall still fancied the notion that once upon a time, her parents had marked the tree with their own signature scents.

She was about to sit down and relive the moment of smelling like skunk and fawning over her beloved prince when she saw it. There. On a tree that was far more familiar than the one she had thought of settling down under. A very obvious mark that was made by the lord and lady of Grizzly Hollow. She eagerly approached it, bearing herself - protruding belly and all - on her hind legs just long enough to gauge that it really had been one of her parents who had scarred the old cedar. Two years ago, as a cub, she had never been able to reach the imprint in the trunk where its bark had been scraped away; it tugged at her heartstrings now that she was able to.

My, how the time had flown by...

She remembered Renier in the forest and how large and hunky he had become despite the hardships the previous winter had subjected all of Relic Lore to. With a soft thud on the forest floor, she sat back down on the carpet of pine needles, left to stare at the telltale sign that, at long last, she, the heiress of Grizzly Hollow, had come home...

Well, Maksim pretty pissed... but somehow Datura has escaped with his tail and both his ears and he and Taima were still allowed to lurk at the fringes of the territory. Not that Datura particularly wanted to spend any time near Maksim or the other pack mates any more. His patience with Taima's memory was running out, and at night when she had fallen asleep and he was sure she could not here him he quietly begged her to find her parent's old lands before the children were born. He did not want them born in the Riverlands. Somehow, Datura could not be sure that the monarch wouldn't take one look at their offspring and, being the unquestioned ruler of this stretch of forest, take them for himself and let his fat wife raise them as theirs. A sneer creased the golden boy's face: he wasn't sure he liked the fat wife either, though he had only gotten glimpses of her here and there. Datura couldn't be sure the pregnancy had swelled @Kisla like that or if she had always been that large, but it didn't become her at all...

Even Taima was not safe from Datura's shallow perceptions of physical beauty. She, too, had bloated to the point at which she reminded Datura of some sort of... moose or something. At first he had encouraged her to exercise more, to try and burn off some of that extra weight that surely hadn't come from the heirs developing inside of her. Taima was never happy when he said these things, and after a time he just gave up. If she wanted to let her garden go to seed, the that was her blunder. The golden boy, on the other hand, looked as radiant as ever. One of them had to keep up appearances.

As he roamed the forest with one nostril trained on his wife and another trained on the scents of little creatures hiding in the bracken he wandered farther from Taima and closer to the food. Maybe she would enjoy a squirrel or something after all this walking. She would be very tired indeed by now, since they had been searching this patch of the woods most of the morning. Datura's hunting skills, however, seemed to fail him at every turn. The breeze or his paws thwarted any attempt to creep up on anything remotely edible and eventually the brute sided and trotted back towards his wife.

Alarm gripped his heart when he came upon her and she was standing on her hind legs, inspecting some scar in the tree bark. "Taima, get down!" he barked, unwilling to have her trip and damage their children. Her hind paws could have easily given out under what Datura imagined was a tremendous load. But Taima was back down on four paws and reclining to a sit before he even had time to take another step towards her. He sighed, coming up behind her. Her pale eyes were certainly intent on that mark. "Is there... a reason you needed a closer look at that thing?" He drawled petulantly.

His shouting might have initially startled her but as she turned to acknowledge His Grace, she openly scowled at him if only for the briefest of moments. Her eyes went back to the tree trunk she had been so avidly focused on, her fur bristling and tingling at the shoulder as Datura came up alongside her. The was nothing extraordinary about the thing she was staring at - in essence it was basically a part of a cedar tree in which the trunk had been "scarred" and where the bark had grown back, the pigment was lighter in coloration. It could have been caused by a number of things (save for lightning, since the damage itself measured only as long as the forearm of a wolf of a Large physique), wood-boring beetles, antlered deer, or maybe even woodpeckers, but the deep and narrow grooves had fit her paws. Where her nails pressed into the tree, the shallow indentations were a match for them, meaning that it was very likely that this was the edge of Grizzly Hollow.

Her tail waved about behind her and she smiled so widely that it had seemed like the sunshine had nestled and shone in her eyes. "Yes," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. It held up for some time but, eventually, her grin gave way. She gave her prince one more small smile, "This means that I know where we are." She would have edged forward to give him a 'kiss' to the base of his ear but she respected his space. Taima was very well aware, now more than ever, of the growing concern and disappointment that revolved around her pregnancy that she knew better than to agitate him further (or subject herself to even more upsetting conversations and, these days, those seemed more frequent than ever).

"Come on," she coaxed him to follow, hoping to lead him on an impromptu tour of her homeland. At the very least, she could let muscle memory and a bit of explorer's excitement do the work for her; from here, both the invisible and not-so-invisible paths that led to and from the old bear den, were easy to recall. As she slowly led away from the characteristic cedar, she waddled at a slow and leisurely pace where she might have taken leaps and bounds at the discovery of her homecoming. She held her head high, taking in the canopies above her and the familiar scents that enshrouded this part of Cedarwood Forest by the creek. Renier had been right when he had told her that their family had left, but that fact had not been enough to drag her down. Yes, her mother and father were gone, she had accepted that a long time ago, but the place she had called home ignited within her the will to be happy. To feel secure. To be at peace. They might have been on the farthest outskirts of Maksim Baranski's territory, but for Taima Lyall, this part of the woods was hers... and once she had possibly laid claim over them, perhaps, it would be enough to keep her and her family safe.

The further she walked, the more she attempted to see what had been left behind. Broken twigs from where her brother Ryvet might have tried to make his mark, the depressions in the ground where her family commonly walked through and along year-round, the gaps between the trees where she and her mother and sister used to play. This expanse of land might have been abandoned and void of the warmth a close-knit family brought for some time now but all the silver heiress could see was hope and the possibility that it could all be restored. When it felt as though her elbows and knees were burning and throbbing in pain, she came to stand-still, only half-sure that she was just within meters of the underground burrow. She turned around to smile at Datura, certain that he would have at least followed out of both respect in keeping away from Maksim and utmost concern for her wellbeing.

Her golden eyes went briefly to the Cut Rock River borders she had left mere moments ago, her next words a murmur on her tongue, "I think I'm going to stay here..."

He had always just kind of assumed that there would be some big explosion of recognition for Taima when they finally found her home, and that he would know it when he saw it, too. Naively, Datura figured that the nook of the Cedarwood that concealed the lands of Grizzly Hollow would look like something meaningful, something still resembling a well-defended, already claimed land he could perceptible even to him. (He had also childishly assumed it would smell like bears. It did not.) But it was just an overgrown series of glorified deer-paths and occasionally scared trees. Warily he followed Taima, wondering if this would be another one of those false alarms instigated by confused memories.

The forest was older and the trees were broader here. Datura sighed, comforted by the the fact that the space was open and the trunks did not barricade him in to some dark, narrow space. It was easier to breath here. Unknowingly a smile came to his lips, but it was quickly snuffed out by Taima's determination to stay here, to live here. "What are you talking about, Taima. There aren't any wolves out here." A flippant paw gestured out at this very wide, very empty space. "You might have grown up here. But this isn't Grizzly Hollow. Not without others to fill it."

"You'll be in danger if you stay out here. Our children will be in danger." There were no craggy rocks to hide behind, no alcoves to take shelter in. This was wide open space and who knew what other creatures were lurking out there, waiting for nightfall. He shook his head. "You've got to be kidding" he said with a derisive burst of laughter, "This is insane!"

(This post was last modified: Jul 08, 2014, 05:39 PM by Datura.)

Datura seemed less than pleased by how quickly his smile disappeared from his face. She had found her parents' lands! He should have been happy for her! For them! "What are you talking about, Taima," his voice sounded reprimanding, it wounded her. "There aren't any wolves out here." The girl grit her teeth, her silver-masked face morphing with a wince. Her expression settled the further he rambled on. Datura was right, though, this place was not and would not be Grizzly Hollow without other souls to fill it. Without family, friends, or mere acquaintances Grizzly Hollow would be, for once, unsettlingly true to its name - hollow.

Taima bit back a whine, her hormones and emotions getting the best of her. If that had not been enough, the Aquila pushed her off the deep end, telling her straightforwardly that she and the children she carried in her womb would be in danger. He shook his lion-like head and she moved to look away, to fully turn her back on him. "You've got to be kidding. This is insane!"

She moved away from him with heavy steps, sniffling and trying hard to brush off all her beloved prince had said. They would not be in danger, she could fend for herself... She had made it this far, what made him think that she could not manage on her own? She openly scowled at him the next time she looked over her shoulder, shuffling along with her tail in the air. "Fine," she countered. "Think what you like, but I am staying here. Do what you want. I'm not going to stop you." Surely, if she stayed within this part of the forest, at least one wolf on her father's lands, it wouldn't be empty. In fact, give or take a few days, it would only be a matter of time before the cries of her children filled those lands, and maybe then the relics and remains attributed to her mother and father's endeavors would not seem as lifeless and empty.

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity