Spectral Woods live this night over and over

@Noble
notes: takes place on the border. Night, cool, light rain

After her little oopsie the other night with Drestig, Sahalie decided it would be best that she commit the border to memory. If this was to be her home she would have to figure out just how big her world was allowed to be. She didn't want anyone interfering with this activity, and so she found herself sneaking out of the den in the dead of night. Hopefully Drift didn't wake up without her there next to him. Spieden was almost rarely in the den these days now that they had started eating "real food" — an idea that Spieden had pushed on them with just a hint of pressure — so it wasn't like she would be notice Sahalie's absence and come after her.

The dark bundle was free to move as she pleased in the dark forest of her home. It was hard to comfortable with it still. There was no moon to illuminate her path out here where the trees were thicker. But at least the pawsteps had been well worn by her family members. Their scents were there to guide her, she knew that now. She breathed in the thick, oak-laden odor that lead out some miles until, suddenly, as if she had tumbled over the edge of a cliff, the smell of home rose to an ultimate crescendo and died away. Her eyes widened. Immediately she back-pedalled to the safety of what knew now must have been the border. She knew it for sure.

The Triell's youngest daughter closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She could smell dad in there, along with Spieden and Jessie and Drestrig, and the others that she didn't know so well. They were all here. But unlike back at the den, there were no signs of herself, of Drift. The two of them had not yet been this far. She pouted slightly.

Before she could even think to leave a marker, the skies suddenly opened up and rain drops began to fall quite suddenly, quite softly over the forest. The scents of home, to her genuine surprise, began to fade from her nostrils. It was as if she had stuck her nose so deep into her brothers fur that she could smell nothing. Sahalie whimpered quietly. What made it home if it did not smell the way home did?

I referenced the oak saplings that Skadi chewed here, xD I like it when stuff ties together

The rain was a good time to do this. There was no need to worry over finding a stream or something odorous to cover the smell of herself. Once Noble would have been proud of the scent she belonged to, now she spent all her time trying to fade into the back ground. The yearling stepped sidelong into a patch of oak saplings, holding herself lower to gaze through leaves and willowy limbs. She was made for the night-time, a pelt of black and muted brown. The only thing that might give her away was the gleam of her golden iris'. Despite everything Noble had done and had lost since winter, they were still bright as ever. Scent was easy to shed, family was easy to lose, her eyes were the most true and noble part of her.

Black lids covered the gold in a slow blink. She didn't see anyone. Soft rain fell all around, slicking dark fur to a body that was still leaner than typical. A deep breath brought nothing but the smell of clean rain. Noble moved from the saplings, extricating herself carefully to avoid the jagged ends. She could only guess at what had chewed the ends of the saplings off, but it was more evidence of the pack here. Carefully she padded closer till the stench of others made both ears swivel back. There, that was close enough. Tonight was not a night for going closer. She was going to be thorough; Noble was going to succeed this time, all by herself.

Her paws made little noise on the damp earth. Water-stained leaves dragged silently along a black pelt. She searched for uncounted minutes, glancing occasionally in the direction of the pack. It was hard to scent possible caches in the rain, but she looked for wolf tracks; noting where they were most frequent and pressing her nose deep into the mud for a lingering trace of the meal she planned on stealing. Noble thought she was alone and froze at the sound of a whimper, turning bright eyes in the direction of the Bend pup.

@Noble
Only moments after letting that whine slide from her throat did she clamp her jaws shut. Someone was here. They would know she had walked all the way out here in the dead of night, after she had already gotten lost once, and they would be pissed. Guilt seeped in through every crack in her fragile heart. If anyone had taught her any cheeky swear words, she would have used them now. Instead she was straightening herself, looking every which way to find the source of the sound.

Oh. It was another dark wolf like her. She had been quite hard to make out in the darkness, but the gleam of gold gave it away. It was impossible to make out the wolf's scent in this weather. "Dad?" though in the half-light she saw the feminine curves and was left to assume it must be, "Spieden??" Please let it not be Spieden. But it was much smaller than the all-dark. That at least left only one other wolf. "Zera?" It seemed only natural to conclude that this wolf was from the Bend as she was. After all, nearly all the wolf she lived with were dark —almost half.

"Zera please don't tell," she whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She didn't know her older sister too well, but figured she might as well have all her bases covered in case sorry worked just poorly as it did in everyone else in the family. The poor girl was grasping at straws.

The current mishap continued. This is not how this was supposed to go. Noble listened to the drip of rain and flinched at the low voice that drifted to her from the borders. No, this is not at all how this was supposed to go. The hopeful question made her cringe away. A pup. Christ, it was a pup. The dark yearling pressed her body into the mud, now thoroughly despondent with how this was going. It was so much easier with adults, the lines of disapproval and immaturity were so much sharper. How could Noble possibly play the woe-is-me card in her mind when Sahalie was so much younger and more vulnerable than her?

Every successive question made her pull back farther. She didn't want to know these wolves Sahalie that named, didn't want the added guilt of realizing she'd stolen from someone's father and from Spieden. Noble wanted them to stay the nameless victims and certainly she didn't want them to apologize to her. "I won't." The yearling quickly rasped back. "I'm not-"

She crept nearer, worried the child would come closer if she didn't close the distance herself. "Why are you apologizing?" Fear thrummed with the rain, prickling her the closer the yearling came to the borders. Dangerous! Bad! Risky! But what would happen if she turned and fled into the night right now? Clearly Sahalie believed Noble was someone she wasn't. If this "Zera" raced into the rain, would the girl follow after? The night was empty, save for the two of them. There would be no one to retrieve Sahalie, just as there had been no one to retrieve Noble the day she'd become lost.

Noble stopped just beyond the border and let her gold gaze fall down on the Tainn pup like the rain. Black ears fell to her skull. She couldn't, wouldn't, let the same fate come to this child. "I'm not upset with you."

@Noble
No one had really told Sahalie much about Zera beyond her relation to the girl. Zera was her old sister, like Darrah was her older brother. They had been born together like she and Drift had. Sahalie knew Zera had been gone for awhile, and thus it seemed reasonable to assume that she could have found her older sister on the other side of the border rather than back in the pack lands. Sahalie squinted. The wolf was coming closer. She looked thin. She frowned. "Cause I snuck out here." Sahalie knew the rules even though no one had ever told them to her. It seemed very like it was the wrong thing to do. Drift didn't come out here. No one had taken her out here. "I was bad."

Looking for consolation, the young Tainn trotted up to what she imagined to be her sister before stopping short. Was Zera like Drestig or was she like Spieden? Squinting harder made no difference. This was the sort of the thing you could not tell by looking at a person. "I'm cold," she mumbled at her muddy paws of the stranger. The rain was not particularly hard, but it had been going long enough to make Sahalie look more like a wet little river otter than a wolf cub. A shiver ran down her spine and she could feel a curious tickle in her nose. "And I can't smell home cause it's wet."

Shyly, the little girl turned her muzzle up towards the lanky yearling, searching her eyes. "You know the way don't you?"

There are several fresh rabbit tracks in the mud. Hunt Opportunity

not sure if you wanted Sahalie to clue in? I'm fine with either!

Puppy eyes squinted and all Noble could think was that she really hoped Zera looked similar to her. Black ears remained flattened to her skull, rain dripping off of the tips, as some sort of evaluation was made. There was no doubt that this interaction would become as dangerous as any other. All this girl-child would have to do was raise the alarm and summon her parents.

Wet, sodden ears swung forward as Sahalie spoke back up. She didn't know what to say back to that. It was only moments ago that she'd been made aware of the fact that wolves younger than her even existed. Noble had no clue how to interact with this smaller and more impressionable version of herself. Thin shoulders shrugged, still at a loss, but feeling she needed to respond in some way. "It's not bad. It's just... dangerous." Whether it was more dangerous for the pup or for the thief was unknown as yet.

Noble felt herself crouch faintly in wariness as Sahalie came closer. This was a risky situation and every moment was digging her deeper. Her muzzle hovered over the child, feeling sorry for the youngster's plight and simultaneously unwilling to touch her and leave a damning scent on the pup's pelt. Noble was in enough potential trouble as it was. Eventually she had to pull back.

"I can't," Noble blurted out, eyes widening at the absolute disaster that would be. "I'm not staying tonight." Deep gold eyes turned to look at the wet and empty forest. Forlorn it might be, but the loneliness was familiar. The idea of strange wolves being around... cutting off every escape... watching while she slept. It was enough for a shiver to run down Noble's spine. She looked into the pack lands and then down at the pup. "Don't you know your own way back?" Even if Noble had been so inclined, she would have been as geographically lost as Sahalie.

@Noble
Her ears swept back as if she had been kicked. It was not news to her that the wolves in her pack came and went hourly, daily, weekly. Their scents waned and waxed as the moon had. Some came back and some did not. Already a couple of scents had faded from the pack. Sahalie had never met them, but their fading had been accompanied by a breath taking somberness that infiltrated the cracks in all the hearts around her. Though she had never known her mother, had never even realized she was missing, Sahalie knew what it was for other wolves to go. And since it made others so sad, it made her sad as well. She did not know how to tell when a wolf would come back, as no one paid much attention to her or thought to mention an estimated time of arrival to her. It was hard to stop herself from thinking that these wolves that left were coming back at all. She herself had tried to go.

But she was just a little puppy and she had no way of stopping her false-sister from leaving if there was something that needed to be done. Her eyes wandered around the shadows as she blinked away the tears, hoping they would go unnoticed. "Uhm... " Her heart thumped painfully in her chest. She was stupid to expect her sister would lead her home when she had things to do. Sahalie was always such a bother. "I ... guess I can do it if I try real hard..." But she didn't really want to leave just yet. She did not feel like she knew her sister as well as she ought to. 

The slick-furred pup tried to buy for time. "Do you wanna eat before you go though? You... you don't go away on an empty stomach." 

PP with Sarah's permission xD

She tried very hard at impassivity. Did not react as Sahalie's ears folded flat and tried not to think too much into that crestfallen gesture. It was none of her business, she told herself. Not her responsibility, despite the hand she was currently playing in it. Stood quietly when the young girl cast about for anything in the shadows. She felt much the same, grasping at straws in this encounter. Looking for anything that might make the child leave. The subsequent faltering sound made the heart twist in her chest, worried despite herself that the child would lose her way and fall into danger. There was so much worse in this life than a desperate thief. Noble nodded weakly at the claim, it was far more than she'd been able to accomplish over the winter.

The irony was far from lost on her and it only continued. Noble suppressed a whine at the innocent offer. She couldn't even say anything back, simply swallowed hard several times and let the rain drip from her coat. Finally she whispered something back, "I'll wait right here." Under no circumstances, could Noble follow this young pup into the metaphorical lion's mouth. She waited until the pup melted into the shadows, gold eyes tracing after the small figure and making note of the path she took. That information would come in handy very soon.

Like a thief she stole away from the border and into the shadows herself. Just as she could not follow Sahalie, the child must not be allowed to follow her. It was for her own good, but Noble felt miserable as she hide from the child under a patch of brush.

(This post was last modified: Sep 06, 2015, 08:41 PM by Noble.)

@Noble
Dutifully Sahalie had nodded as she bounded deeper into the treeline. She knew a cache that was nearby. She forgot who had showed it to her, but it was likely Spieden or someone of the sort. It was mostly meat. None of it was chewed yet, so it didn't seem particularly valuable to the little girl herself, who could not chew. From all she had seen of dinner time at home, it looked like the adults— i.e. Spieden— liked eating their meet pre-chewed as well, only Spiden was actually able to do the chewing. Certainly no one would mind if she gave some of it to Zera so she would be able to have a snack along the way, if she had time to chew it first. With effort the little girl slammed her forepaws against a partially rotted log, moving it to reveal bundles of sticks and more than a little dirt. Eagerly she busied herself with digging, an activity that was much more suited to her muddy brother @Drift.

Maybe it had taken her longer than she had thought, but when she arrived back at the borders Zera was gone. The limp and quickly ripening squirrel slipped out of her mouth and landed in a puddle of mud. "Zera?" she whimpered uncertainly. Her nose was useless. She considered the fact that she might not have even returned to the right place at the border. She stared down at the squirrel, feeling vaguely queasy at the thought of picking it up again.

"Eeeaaaaaa, eeeeaaaaa!" she called through a mouthful of squirrel. She felt ready to cry. The fur was yucky in her mouth and she had been abandoned. She had tried to do good but it had gone —as it always seemed to go— unwanted.

Bitterly, she hurled the squirrel some five yards beyond the border, an uncharacteristic scowl on her face. "Fine," she huffed. "Just leave then." Everyone seemed to leave anyway. It would be a better use of her time to concern herself with finding the way home. Definitely sooner rather than later.

Sighing, she turned tail and listlessly meandered deeper into the woods. She hoped that her memory of the landmarks would be enough.