Hidden Tree lines overlap

<i>Wasn't sure where Hidden Tree was specifically, but I figured he'd make a visit. <3 Set <a href='http://relic-lore.net/index.php?&act=ST&f=2&t=1330' target='_blank'>after this thread</a>; supposedly late afternoon?</i>

<blockquote>After a morning full of action and a full belly, Fenru didn't wait long to evacuate the hunting site where a whole boar once laid. He followed after his family for a few paces as the adults carried pieces of meat to cache away for the coming winter. He had thought of offering to help Uncle Triell carry part of a gooey and slimy organ, but he had found something else to take back with him: a small scrap of the boar's grizzly brown hide.

His gaze went around the trunks of trees and the debris-covered forest floor, but it wasn't long until his attention was snagged by a gnarled tree that barely towered above the treetops. The pup glanced to the back of his siblings before slowly edging away; he'd follow soon enough, he just wanted to see what <i>was up</i> with this specific oak tree and if anything actually lived in the burrow dug out underneath. When he finally arrived to the landmark in question, he realized that the soil, for meters or a mile or so around it, was <i>black</i>.He tightened his jaw and chewed on his trinket a bit before cautiously creeping toward it. Warily, once he crawled on his belly to the den opening, he stuck his head down what seemed like a large tunnel.

<b>"'Elloo?"</b> he called. Nothing and no one answered back.</blockquote>

(This post was last modified: Nov 19, 2011, 05:07 AM by Fenru.)

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<3

Gone Tomorrow

The tawny brown youth thought that he had escaped unnoticed, but Corinna was a mother, and her green eyes saw everything that her young ones did. As the pack began to disperse back towards the Swift River territory, each of the adults claiming some portion of the kill to store as a cache, Cori watched her youngest son sneak off. He had not taken meat for a cache, but rather had taken a bit of the boar's pelt as a trophy. Nipping Indru's flank and nodding in the general direction of their son, she left the trailing pack behind and set off after him. Leaving enough distance between her and her son so that he would not realize she was tailing him, she settled into step, green eyes keeping aware of any potential danger.

Why had he come here? The tree loomed up in her immediate vision. The black soil caused her young one to pause, and she smiled to herself. He had no idea of the damage that mother nature could cause when she got angry. But, Cori's tail wagged behind her as she watched Fenru approach the tunnel, Mother Nature could be just as kind when she wanted to. Hearing her son call out a greeting into the black hole, the mother decided it was time to make her presence known. "Hellooooooo" she called back, relaxing back to her haunches a few yards away from the base of the tree.

<i>derp. lol. <3</i>

<blockquote>Well, no one had answered him from inside the cavernous underground dwelling but a familiar <i>"Hellooooooo"</i> called out from behind him. He knew that voice... and hearing it made his tail wave about like a flag in the wind. Careful not to lose track of his snippet of boar hide, he placed it at his feet then pinned it securely to the ground with a large forepaw before looking over his shoulder with a sheepish grin. <b>"Mum!"</b> he beamed. <b>"Loooook!"</b>

He pointed with his nose to the den he had found then sat up to reveal his soot-covered belly. <b>"Look!"</b> he chirped again with just as much enthusiasm. <b>"A hole!"</b> While the word "den" was a more proper title for the place, he used the word "hole" for convenience; "the den" had always been the other term for "home." He dropped back onto his elbows and his tail continued to sweep the charred ground cover to either side of him. <b>"I think its... its empty."</b> His ears perked forward after he thought he heard something shift around in the dark, but he glanced back to his mother to see what she thought of his discovery.</blockquote>

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He's so cute <3

Gone Tomorrow

Her's had been the first voice he had ever heard, so it was no surprise that even with his head peering into a dark abyss Fenru recognized the sound of his mother. Corinna smiled and rose from her haunches, stepping into the dark ash as she approached him. She noted the careful pride he took in his trinket, setting the patch of fur between his paws as he turned to look at her. As he shifted, she chuckled aloud as she saw the darkened fur of his stomach, dirtied by the ashen mud beneath him. Of the three, Fenru was always getting into the most mischief and more often than not, it was he who she had to clean up after a long day of play.

"It is a hole," she confirmed, tail sweeping backwards before rising in an arc as she approached him, stopping short of his flank by only a few feet. After breathing in deeply, the female assessed that there was no immediate danger, but that did not mean the old Hidden Tree den was unoccupied. Fenru's body was blocking the entrance and the scent of the kill still hung to her nose - an innocent mammal could very well have taken residence in the old den. "What do you think, Fen?" she asked him, giving him an encouraging smile. "Does it smell empty?" Perhaps today she would tell him the story of his father's birth, and how this was the very place that his father, uncles, and aunts had been brought into the world.

<blockquote>Corinna drew closer and Fen practically smiled from ear to ear as he heard her repeat the title of his discovery. His copper eyes scanned the darkness for a while. <i>"What do you think, Fen?"</i> she prompted. <i>"Does it smell empty?"</i> The youth's nose twitched and he craned his neck slightly deeper inside the dwelling. Aside from the scent of blood, boar, and some sort of earthy type of smell, he couldn't quite name what else or who else had been inside. <b>"Well, maybe it's not empty,"</b> he decided, withdrawing his head out from underneath the tunnel ceiling to glance up at Cori.

<b>"But..."</b> he added, quietly. <b>"It smells like... Like..."</b> He paused for a while to think, to put names to the individual scents he knew now from memory. A rabbit was here not more than a day ago, that was for sure, and maybe a squirrel or two, but everything else was out of his mind's grasp. A frown crinkled his forehead and flattened his ears, <b>"Like fur..."</b> The animals "fox" and "badger" and, perhaps, "porcupine" might have been suggested, but the youngest Tainn had never seen one of those creatures before. He had wanted to say "wolf" but the scent of whoever had once been here had practically faded away.</blockquote>

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Gone Tomorrow

Green eyes watched Fenru with some expectancy, wondering what it was his nose would find. There were the usual small mammals to contend with, but she doubted very much that the den was occupied at the moment. Glancing upwards, she looked at the barren top of the tree - it hadn't been that long since she had been here with Borlla. But their scents were faded by now, certainly not ones that Fenru would be able to identify. But he did correctly identify the scent of fur, and the mother nodded her head in agreement. Smiling, she nudged his flank with her nose to get his attention.

"Yep. This used to be a den, just like the one we live in now. Actually..." she smiled and looked up again at the treetop, imagining it in its former glory, where this had once been the pride and joy of the Hidden Tree pack. "This was where your dad, Uncle Triell, Uncle Ruiko, Uncle Kinis, and Aunt Borlla were born. A long time ago." A little piece of the past for her son, who she was sure would gobble the information up with interest.

<blockquote>Fenru soaked up his mother's praise, listening attentively as she told him that the place underneath the tree, the gaping hole that he was rather eager to explore, used to be a den. One that is just like the one he and his family called home, in fact. <b>"Oh,"</b> he sounded, turning his eyes back into the tunnel.

She glanced up at the branches high above them and Fen craned his neck down into the den entrance. Corinna then told him that Dad, his Uncles, and his Aunt Borlla were born in the cavernous dwelling and he immediately turned his gaze back to her. His eyebrows rose in interest. <b>"Really?!"</b> he trilled.

His head then tilted slightly. <b>"How come... they don't live here any-anymore?"</b></blockquote>

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Gone Tomorrow

The little bit of information had grabbed her son's attention, just as Corinna knew it would. Ever since Indru had returned home, the love that she had once received unconditionally from her pups had to be divided between her and their previously absent father. And while there was no denying that she preferred to have her tawny mate home, there was a part of her who was jealous for the divided attention. No longer was she the deferred to leader, in either pack nor pups' eye. So it was a treat for her today to be able to impart this knowledge to youngest son.

Nodding her head, the she-wolf smiled at him. "Yep. Really." She would let him go explore it if he wanted to, and she indicated her head in the direction of the dark hole. But Fen caught her upwards look, and she watched as he imitated her with his cocked head. It was a signature trait of her's, to slip her head to the side whenever she was making an inquiry or was confused. A mannerism that had seemingly found its way into her son as well.

The question that followed, though inevitable, was one she was not immediately sure how to answer. Closing her eyes for a moment, Cori thought about the answer. How to tell the youngest member of the Tainn family that a wildfire had broken out here and had caused the death of his grandparents? Perhaps just the first part. "Do you remember a while ago, when it was really hot and you were still little?" The fire had happened in summer. "You remember sometimes,when it is raining, lightning flashes across the sky? Well sometimes, it comes to the ground. And when that happens, a fire breaks out." She paused. How do you explain fire to a six month old? "Fire...it's a dangerous thing. It's very, very hot. When it broke out, it burned the tree here. See how the ground is dark all around? That's called "ash". This ash used to be the tree branches and leaves." Pausing, she looked at her son, hoping that she was educating him, rather than confusing him.

<i>O O C | lolz, as much as I want to also encourage him to check out the den, I kinda don't wanna for the sake of disturbing the site. :s I think I read somewhere that the Hidden Tree leaders had perished inside? (Maybe I misread...)</i>
<blockquote>The youngest Tainn waited patiently for the answer to his question and as Corinna began to explain to him why the other members of their family - his aunt and uncles - no longer lived in the den underneath this distinctly different tree. He nose twitched as he thought hard to recall what summer felt like. He did remember it being hot a while ago and how he usually stayed in the den because the soil there was almost always cool underneath his paws. <b>"Yeahhh,"</b> he said slowly, nodding once. How Kisla and Rihael could explore and frolic in the sun was well beyond him those days, and he wondered now if his siblings found a shady place by the river to play. Deep down he wished he had often gone with them.

She then brought the image of a storm to him... the flashes of light and the rolling of thunder... and he grimaced. If there was one thing much more scarier than "crovens" it had to be when the sky lit up the clouds and the sky growled high above them. Cori continued to tell him that the lightning... came to the ground! His eyes widened at first in a streak of fear but later narrowed nervously when he learned that lightning on the ground meant <i>fire</i>; and, fire... is dangerous because it's very, <i>very</i> hot.

His gaze went to the trunk of the tree when she explained that the fire burnt it <i>and</i> the ground around it... turning the branches and leaves into ash. The large ears atop his head drooped down then perked back up. <b>"It smells funky,"</b> he stated after discerning the rest of the scents he could name apart from the aged stench of scorched earth and debris.</blockquote>

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<i>You're right, they did. But enough time has passed (it's been over a year after all) that the bodies would have decomposed by now (so there wouldn't be anything to see), so you'd be free to let Fen go in if you want. It's totally up to you. =)</i>

Gone Tomorrow

Green eyes were attentive to her son, watching his face for his reaction to what she was telling him. She didn't want to confuse the poor boy, but she also did not want to evade his question. It was a natural one to ask, and had the fire not burned this section of the forest to the ground, it was very likely that Fenru and his siblings could have been born inside this very same hollow. But then again, who knew? There were so many "what ifs?" to ask in relation to the deadly wildfire that had, in a sense, made Relic Lore what it was today.

Her son's choice of words brought a small chuckle to her lips, and she smiled at him and wagged her tail easily behind her. "Yes, it does smell funky," she confirmed, breathing in deeply, the edges of her black nose flaring as she did so. There were many scents here, mostly of the lone mammals that had taken shelter here at some point or another. But beneath it all was the underlying scent of something be burned. It would stick with them both for sometime after visiting, the small particles of ash being disturbed by their paws. But eventually the air would return to normal, and things would not smell so strange. "Do you want to look inside?"