Round Stone Crest I have always been a storm

OOC: For @Calanthe - We will be using the RE "A rather sudden thunderstorm trembles the very grounds of Relic Lore." 
Let me know if any of this PP needs to be changed!


8/11/2015
Weather:
55° F, 13° C
Impending thunderstorm
2:35 PM

Oh she could feel it in her paws. The latest roaring rumble of thunder reverberated through the dirt as her feet drummed along. The sky had been darkening for some time now; threatening the Crest with the potential for hail and downpours. The sudden change in temperature would have given her a chill, had she been less than covered in warm fur. Instead it was refreshing as the timbers overhead swayed in its wake. She would never tire of the mountain air. When the front had hit, her first thoughts had been of the others. Presumably most were taking shelter, but she needed to be as sure as she could be as an aspiring advisor; especially with new blood in the ranks. Her rounds would end with Calanthe; the skinny woman Gent had taken in.  Checking around the territory like this had whittled away valuable time. She herself would probably have to find shelter alongside the new recruit. It was a good excuse among others to get to know this pack mate; and the woman's friendly nature told Raela she'd probably be welcomed to chat. Luckily the wind was in her favor, aiding in the tracking of the paler girl. Drawing nearer with the dark sky hovering ominously above the pines, Raela's teeth parted in a somewhat hurried bark, to get the female's attention before she was on the scene. Another horrid rumble seemed to shake her ribs as she loped toward the other wolf. This is gonna be bad... It was a much louder storm than the one before; where she had hidden with Gent and followed the deserter Loki. She worried that this one really would bring hail.  Her knowledge of the area brought a good hiding place to mind just as her eyes found their target. Calanthe was no doubt looking at her already as she came down the slope. A hasty introduction made its way to her lips as the wind picked up. “Hey, we need to find a place to hide from this.” Her voice rose in volume to fight the wind; her body bracing against it. No overhanging tree would do for this one. Ideally they would have slipped into the den, but the storm had come on so suddenly that everyone was scattered. They were too far to make it back now, and too far from the cave she'd hidden in with Gent, but there was one last idea in the pack wolf's mind.  The unforgiving wind whipped against her pelt and reduced her eyes to slits in its fury. She could have sworn she heard a foreboding crack from one of the deadwoods around her. Well if it doesn't fall now, its going to in this storm, she mused. They needed rock. There was of course, no shortage of boulders and outcroppings around, but finding one that functioned as a good storm shelter was much more difficult. “Follow me!” She barked, sounding more worried than commanding. The agouti woman turned, resuming her galloping pace with little doubt that her subordinate would obey. Droplets of rain seemed to ride down on the wind; far gentler than what the wolves knew would come after. Their coats suffered little dampening before Raela's intended shelter came into view.  It was a rocky outcrop with a high wall that faced the wind. It hadn't been much of anything when she found it, but with a little digging into the hill it was worth far more than any ditch or tree. She planned to outfit as many of these ledges as she could with little hideaways. They'd have to press up to the wall pretty close to avoid the rain. There was just barely enough room for the two of them, but it would work. Rae dropped to her belly with haste; pressing her damp fur against the stone. She'd let Calanthe have the spot closer to the back. The subordinate's brilliant yellow eyes watched the other warily; glancing to indicate her spot. She was panting from the sprint. I found them all. She thought, watching the other woman. No one would be lost in this storm, at least.  Image © Chris Smith Photography Manipulation © Jenandra

            

She felt stronger now, after a few days of living in one place and being able to actually eat properly. Calanthe's ribs and spine still showed through her fur, but her legs didn't tremble with constant hunger and she no longer woke up to the feeling of her stomach trying to gnaw its way through her backbone, and that was a good sign as well as a shockingly pleasant change of pace... not that she would admit to the latter out loud. Not having to run from danger - real or perceived - was another appreciated bonus; here there was a much smaller chance of running across something unfriendly, and a much greater chance of someone being nearby to help if she did.

So, of course, this was the perfect time for a blasted thunderstorm to strike.

The pale woman had been through storms before - ice-and-water storms weren't unheard of during the winters in Spirit's Gamble, and no storm could compete with the fire. Still, this one looked as though it was gearing up to really rattle the territory, and Calanthe didn't appear to be near any suitable shelter. With thunder in the air, there was a threat of lightning, too, and she didn't dare hide under anything even remotely flammable with that looming overhead.

When Raela appeared, Calanthe was quick to nod in agreement; she doubted she would be entirely capable of raising her voice above the growing wind like the agouti woman did. It was still a challenge at times to put the right words together.

Calanthe flinched, hearing the same crack as Raela had, and followed the other woman without argument as they charged off through the rain. The droplets were soft-falling, for now, in spite of the wind that carried it along; Calanthe didn't trust that softness for one second. Sparks, too, were tiny - until they sparked whole forest fires.

The shelter Raela chose was cramped, but as she had no better ideas (and with the storm's growling growing louder and louder every minutes) Calanthe was quick to crowd inside with the other woman, taking the space Raela indicated and turning her pale yellow eyes to the storm just outside.

"Well, this is a lovely way to spend the afternoon." Calanthe gave her mane a hard shake and snorted irritably at the storm. "At least if anything falls over... or breaks... we won't get squished." She gave herself another shake, then winced and said, "At least it isn't fire this time."

The older woman was still staring at the raging wind, her ears flicking to the sound of intensifying rain. But they were safe now, all of them. She took comfort in knowing that especially the pups had been rounded up for this one. Calanthe's voice came to interrupt this train of thought, and Raela found herself leaning away from the spray of water as it left her coat. A knowing smirk graced her lips at the other's irritation. She agreed with the second sentiment, offering a quick “yeah,” while the pale female shook again. What she wasn't expecting to hear, was the newcomer's final utterance. Fire? Her eyes drifted over the skinny wolf's protruding bones. What had happened to her? Raela was beginning to remember how she had looked the previous winter. It couldn't have been far from how this woman appeared now. Her face softened with concern. She could only hope that whatever Calanthe had been through, it was not as bad as living with Asurns. She couldn't help the question that was forming on her tongue. “Fire?” she asked lightly, hoping that she wasn't stepping on dangerous ground. She'd barely witnessed any fire in her short life. Perhaps the odd flare up due to a lightning strike, but not a huge blaze like she'd heard of from other, more experienced wolves. A brilliant flash of the aforementioned lightning crashed to the earth outside; blinding her with brilliant white light. It was close enough that the roaring thunder was nearly instant; pounding the sky over their heads and sending even more rain from the heavens. Her head snapped back to the weather outside, while her torn ear faced Calanthe. What a storm.  Image © Chris Smith Photography Manipulation © Jenandra

            

A young deer has been separated from the rest of its herd. Hunt Opportunity

Calanthe flinched and shrank lower against the ground as lightning flared overhead, turning the sky a dazzling white. The world went black for a moment once the light flickered out again, and another roll of thunder growled in response. Wonderful, she thought anxiously. Fire from the sky. Brilliant.

"My... first home," she explained to Raela, yellow eyes still locked on the sky. If the next bolt set something ablaze, she wanted to see it in time to get out of here safely. "Spirit's Gamble, we called it. The summer was... dry. Unusually dry... And then the fire came. I... don't know what caused it. It just... came."

Her fur pricked along her spine at the memory; she still had nightmares of it - of watching the trees go up in a storm of red and orange and burning gold, of hearing ancient pines crack and tumble into other, smaller trees, no longer colored in rich greens and browns but charred black and veined with lines of brilliant scarlet. Her feet curled and relaxed, aching with the memory of her race over a patch of embers that had blocked her path; the thin patches in her fur felt raw again with the memory of sparks falling on her pelt and burning branches scraping past her sides.

"There wasn't much to go back to... after it ended," she said. "I looked for... the others. They were nowhere... so I left." She shrugged helplessly. "That's... what we were always told to do. If the pack was gone... survive."

Calanthe seemed perfectly willing to entertain Raela's inquiry, something the latter hardly expected from her. They hardly knew each other, and she couldn't help but feel privileged to be let in on the pain of a stranger's past. Her ears snapped back with attention to the voice behind her, eyes still watching the rage outside. She hungrily took in every detail, waiting patiently on each stretched word; every reluctant utterance. It was a similar story to the ones she'd heard before, but undoubtedly more tragic in ending. The sky above was perfectly happy to punctuate this tale with its own dramatic music. Sympathy came down on her in crushing waves at what her mind's eye imagined for Calanthe. With soft eyes she turned, watching the thin woman shrug as she finished.  The words were begging to be let out. “Well you certainly have,” she commented in attempted reassurance. “I'm sorry.” She knew it would do little good, but she could at least let the other girl know she felt bad. It never brought her pleasure to make others relive such awful memories, but she relished in the chance to support them through their pain; and to be allowed into such a private place in their memories. Hey, she probably was just glad to have someone else to tell it too. It was about time Raela offered some of her own in exchange. “I was exiled from my pack.” Her eyes drifted downward as the mental images returned. “When my brother was injured they murdered him, so he wouldn't weigh them down.” Orange-furred ears pinned back angrily against her neck as another crack of thunder shook the ground yet again. She waited a moment to gain composure before speaking again.  “Anyway I was chased out, and on my own for eight months. I was lucky enough to be given a home here.” Her face and tone relaxed as she recalled that winter morning. With a slight smirk she regarded the girl's ribs. “I looked a lot like you by then.” The glimmer in her eyes slipped away again with a quiet chuckle. “But here we both are.” It was a much lighter sounding admission. She turned to see the wind-driven rain, now pooling in puddles on the ground. Another crack could be heard off in the distance; probably another dying tree. The storm would clear many of them. She let some moments pass, her thoughts meandering from her final sentence. There was something she'd been meaning to ask the newcomer about – she remembered now.   “Speaking of here, how do you like it?” Image © Chris Smith Photography Manipulation © Jenandra

            

Calanthe cringed at Raela's story. She tried to imagine her own pack ever stooping to a level where they would kill one of their own rather than care for them... and failed miserably. The nameless spirit was a trickster who threw more bad luck than good towards wolves, but that didn't mean suffering a bit of bad luck was enough to warrant that kind of... heartlessness. Her heart ached for Raela - an unexpected reaction, to be sure. Calanthe had done her level best to start mingling with her packmates (which, admittedly, wasn't fantastic; she was still skittish around very large crowds,) but the truth was they were all still more or less strangers to her.

She decided to take it as another positive that she was already able to feel badly for any of them. It must mean she was starting to feel more as though she belonged with these wolves, and that was... alien, but not a bad feeling. Honestly, it was more of a relief.

She dragged her attention away from the storm to smile slightly at Raela. "It's... nice here." Hmm... nice didn't really seem to cover it. Was there a better word she knew...? "I'm happy to be here. And I'm happy to have been accepted so quickly." She looked back out as another flash of lightning split the sky. The light it gave off turned the raindrops into a million tiny diamonds. "It's nice... not to be alone anymore."

"I just wish I wasn't still so... skinny." She cast a disdainful look down at her side. "The sooner I can get my strength back, the sooner I can start being useful to the pack." She gave herself another irritable little shake. "I don't like feeling like a deadweight. It's... frustrating."

It was easy enough to listen to the now mellifluous voice her company had adopted. The conversation continued now with almost a catharsis to the air. Both understood something of the other's pain; that was assured. Raela was gaining an almost maternal demeanor as she realized the similarities of their situations. She didn't know just how long Calanthe had been alone, but she couldn't agree more. Being alone was awful. A knowing smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she turned back to listen. Poor dear. Poor both of them. She couldn't spend much time on pity, however, as the topic suddenly changed. Another Raela knew all too well. Her smile faded with seriousness as her own eyes followed Calanthe's to the female's protruding ribs.  “You're lucky you joined when you did. When I joined the leaders' pups had gone missing, and we searched for them day and night. For some weeks that went on, and it slowed my recovery to a snail's pace.” Memories of slogging through the mud and feeling her paws ache with every step drew her eyes away for a moment, only to return to Calanthe's face. “It's nothing I would complain about, but you'll be healed much faster.” She hadn't thought about Noble in a while; the lost princess. Did she still believe the child could be alive? Deciding the train of thought wasn't worth pursuing, Raela turned her attention to the woman's last statement.  “But after that, you'll probably want to pick up a role.” Her eyes flitted over the skinny woman again. Even in her prime she doubted this was a wolf geared toward strength. Both curiosity and duty led to her next words. “I don't know if anyone's asked yet, but do you know which role you want to pursue?” Inwardly she hoped the woman had some healing knowledge; with their herbalist missing Gent was the only one she knew of that had decent medical knowledge. Medicine might as well have been flying; the Asurns never even spoke of it. As she waited, a new sound tipped her ears toward the outside. It was the unmistakable clatter of hailstones on their rocky shelter. A half-smile appeared on her face as she watched the little balls bounce around outside. Hopefully they wouldn't get much bigger... Image © Chris Smith Photography Manipulation © Jenandra

            

Calanthe winced; she didn't doubt that she could have helped if someone had been missing when she arrived... but a search for the lost, as she knew from bitter experience, was leaps and bounds more urgent than a nomad's wander from one meal to the next. There would have been no resting and recovering; she could only imagine how hard it had been for Raela to have kept up.

The sound of hail made Calanthe's ears flick, but she was under a sturdy enough shelter for the moment, so it was nothing to worry about. Instead she focused on answering Raela's question: "I... would have been a scout, I think. Before Spirit's Gamble burned, that's what I was trained towards. My family..." - ah! It still hurt to mention them - "were all scouts or hunters. That's... what we were built for. Born for."

She frowned, searching for a good way to explain it. After a few days living at the Crest, she could already tell these wolves did things differently: They seemed to have chosen and earned their roles, rather than allowing their king and queen to decide for them based on lineage or build. (They also did not appear to believe in any nameless spirit - they didn't glance over their shoulders when things went wrong, the way Calanthe's first pack had, and they didn't flinch from centipedes like Calanthe herself still did. Strange wolves.)

"We all inherited our roles," she finally said. "My family, the other subordinate family, and the ruling line... everybody knew their place from birth, and they all kept to it. Even members of the same family never bickered over roles."

But this was a different pack, and the rules were different. Calanthe gave herself another appraising look. "I think I would be a scout either way, though. I don't seem built for anything else, and I don't really... understand the things a medic should."

The other woman's mention of scouting was predictable surely, but it presented a problem. They already had a scout in training, and Raela herself could function as one should something become of Cessair. A scout was one of the least needed positions at the time. Still, she listened patiently while Calanthe continued speaking. Scouts or hunters hmm? Now that was a role that could be of use to them; one she'd considered pursuing before answering Gent's call as advisor-in-training. She found it peculiar that a whole pack could specialize in just scouting and hunting. Who defended them? The Asurns were also one-trick ponies, but at least they had strength on their side. It had served them well.  As she continued, Raela began putting the pieces together; her expression serious and attentive. The other subordinate family? Like how the Asurn pack has splinters? It was familiar to hear of wolves being assigned roles from birth and all, and she supposed there would be multiple families in other packs, like how her's did it. A notion occurred to her; wondering if the woman before her had wished for another task. The answer came swiftly enough, and inwardly Raela winced. There was no need for another scout. Calanthe didn't seem particularly passionate about the assignment, so she hoped guiding her into another role wouldn't be a source of disappointment or irritation. Perhaps it was best to bring up the Alpha's take on roles. And oh, it was a pity she didn't know medicine.  Moving her yes up and away, as if to excuse herself from the conversation long enough to formulate a response, Raela mused. “Hmm, well right now we don't have particular need for a scout; Cessair is in training for it.” her expression lightened at the woman's name. “I don't know if you've really met her, but she's got a similar pelt. She's a nice woman.” But that was enough about Cessair. Thinking back to her “inheritance” comment, Raela backtracked a bit. “The leaders will usually let you choose whatever role you want so long as its needed. Sometimes they assign them though, if its important enough at the time. Our guardian was actually chosen by Gent after the previous one left.” She knew the paler woman was at least familiar with him by now.  Her face turned to thoughtfulness, and again she glanced at the thinner female. She had mentioned something else of use... “You said some of your family were hunters? Do you have any skill with that?” She tipped her head ever so slightly with the inquiry. It was a good feeling to be able to help organize the pack like this. If she could find the pack a dedicated hunter, they'd definitely benefit from it. It was one of the most essential, after all, but they had no specialist aside from Minka. The leader didn't have nearly enough time to hunt for all of them. She had children to attend to. None of their adult members were poor hunters, but the crest subordinate knew it was always better to have someone assigned to it at all times.  Image © Chris Smith Photography Manipulation © Jenandra