Oak Tree Bend baby, it's cold outside

takes place BEFORE pack meeting (presumably set 2/16 by the thread date) probably like a week before, or something. Stuck in the den are @Spieden @Triell @Leotie @Kyna, outside the den is ...pretty much anyone else. in-den people, don't feel pressured to be the first to post as we can make it work without immediately establishing ya'll as being in the den or something. ANYWAY YEAH. @Kino if you would like Kino to have been with Sahalie during the snowstorm, you're free to do that.

Sahalie had meant to be home in the den well before the snowstorm hit in the late afternoon, but the winds were simply too strong and the snow too heavy for her to travel reasonably in any direction. She had been forced to hunker down in a hole she had dug herself in the snow. It had surprised her, how she could be surrounded by a substance so cold yet feel so warm inside her veritable igloo. In the morning she noted that the opening she had created was disappeared, and for a moment she panicked about which way might lead out. The snow around her was hard packed. But as she wiggled to the end of the tunnel, the snow at the end gave away easily enough after some digging.

Her head burst comically through the snow drift, and with sleepy eyes she surveyed the massive amount of snow that had been dumped on her overnight. Shaking the powder from her head, the otter girl awkwardly picked her way out of her sleeping-hole and, with much effort in the near two feet of snow, managed to make it back to the main den.

Only when she got there it was nowhere to be found. The great oak was there, sure, but everything else seemed a slightly wrinkled blanket overtop a landscape she had thought she had known like the back of her hand.

"Guys?" she called hesitantly, not sure if her voice was loud enough.

(This post was last modified: Feb 23, 2016, 12:13 AM by Sahalie.)

Kino gave very little care about anyone anymore, perhaps the only few in the world being his sister and, now, Sahalie. Which was why, as the sky began to darken with rolling clouds and the temperature began to plummet, when his dark friend had yet to return his pulse beat a bit quicker in his throat. The snow had begun to fall, and he decided he couldn’t sit around any longer. Instead, he’d headed out to go and find her himself despite the conditions. He called for her, trying desperately to listen for any sort of reply as his vision was all but useless in the whiteout storm. Eventually it seemed that it wasn’t going to be dying down anytime soon and he needed to find shelter. He wasn’t stupid, and despite his worries he knew that she wasn’t either. So, the silver boy had hunkered down in a hole betwixt some roots of his own to wait out the storm until the next day.

When he’d awoken, he found the world covered in a thick blanket of snow and he audibly groaned. He was plain tired of the stuff by now, and he longed for the warmth of his younger days. Even though some days it had been nearly unbearable, he’d much prefer the heat over the choking and breaking cold. He squinted in the filtering light that clashed against the pure powder, threatening to blind him if he stared for too long. It muffled the world around him, made him feel mute and…odd. Still, out of the soundlessness came a faint noise. A voice, it seemed. His auds strained toward the sound, trying to find where it had come from as it bounced off the hibernating trees. The tone was one he knew well, and he felt relief flood through his bones.“Hal!” he called, powering as best as he could through the dense white stuff. Slowly, her scent began to meet his nose and then there she was. Her dark pelt stood out daringly against the pale world around them, and his breath came in pale clouds from his jaws. “Are you all right? That storm last night was horrible,” he said with furrowed brows, looking over her protectively to be sure nothing bad had happened.

Aponi had been out for part of the night.  That in and of itself was not that unusual – together again, the girl found her mother to be a bit of a restless spirit.  Having outgrown her extreme clinginess, she no longer minded when the adult crawled out of their shared den to do whatever it was she needed to do.  Eventually, she came back – and despite everything, she’d always come back, hadn’t she?  Even when she gone for months, @Aponihad come back for her.  That was something the youth hadn’t figured out how to digest, just yet, but the fact remained.

The unusual part of the evening was that Kyna did not stay in the personal den.  Snow had begun to fall, and it had gotten incredibly cold.  They’d joined the pack’s communal den a time or two before, and so the honey-colored female assumed her mother would not mind too much if she joined the others, hoping to cuddle up next to Sahalie for the rest of the night.  That particular wish did not come true, but the pup was warm, at least, and slept soundly through the rest of the night, into the morning, until—

Guys?

Kyna poked her head up, briefly surveying the other sleeping wolves.  The voice sounded muffled, none of them, and she shifted to peek outside the den when she realized a hard, dark pack blocked the exit.  She picked her way forward, trying not to bother anyone else.

“Sahalie?” she whined, paying hesitantly at the pack.  It was so hard.  “Halie?  W-why is the s-snow so h-hard?”

(This post was last modified: Feb 24, 2016, 02:55 PM by Kyna.)

A wild dissertation appears!

Everything was wrong. It was too dark, too quiet, the air too still, and Spieden had the groggy feeling of having slept way too long. She had awoken to muffled voices coming from somewhere, her eyes peering through the scant light and settling on a dark wall that only stood out from the rest of the den from being just the slightest bit brighter, nearly blue. A small whining voice called out close to her for Sahalie, and Spieden rose to her paws. She felt her way towards the wall and the small figure before it, her brows deeply furrowed as she tried to understand just what the hell was going on. 


Spieden snorted, nose brushing over the surface, finding frigid cold snow that sealed the den shut. "Shit..." She cursed under her breath. She reached forward with a large paw, claws scratching over the surface that seemed to be hard packed. This could take <i>hours</i> on her own, it was too dark to tell who else was inside with her besides Kyna. "Damn it," she groaned in irritation. She liked a good dig every now and then as much as the next wolf, but this was ridiculous. "Better get diggin' if you wanna get out of here this season, kid." Spieden said, placing both forepaws against the barrier and scraping away what snow and ice she could. 

Those inside the den please feel free to say that Leotie tripped over one of you.

Since joining Leotie had been staying in the communal den and now that winter had set in and the temperature had dropped she was very glad that she was still staying in the den. With the other wolves staying in there as well it was very warm so she didn’t have to worry about getting cold at night while she was sleeping. She’d heard about a storm coming in the night so she expected to wake to a snow covering the following morning.

When she finally did awake it was to the sound of voices inside the den of her pack mates. She was still too groggy to understand what they were saying but as her sleepiness started to wear off she realized that something wasn’t quite right. Even growing up in a house she knew enough to know that if it had snowed there should be more light at the entrance but it was pitch dark inside the den. Also the quiet and stillness inside was almost too much. Finally Spieden’s words hit her dig out? “What’s happened?” She asked worriedly as she rose from her place to move to where the voices had come from. Leotie hoped that it was in the direction of the den entrance and that she didn’t trip over anyone on the way.

(This post was last modified: Mar 01, 2016, 08:41 PM by Leotie.)

Please see Kajika's OOC profile for OOC preferences, thank you

Usually, he didn't take refuge in the pack den. Lately as the pack grew he found it oddly comforting to rest inside now and than. By rest he meant just laying down, not actually sleeping. With the stress of the last weeks he had fallen into a slumber well into the night. In fact he was so exhausted he didn't wake to know they had had a snow storm. Nor even when his daughter's voice rang from the outside. Instead it was something else that called to him. Oh Spieden snorting, that was it. Tri recalled how the peppery lady had found refuge here as well. He hadn't been dreaming about Spieden.

Eyes peeked open, and he tried to focus on something. It was about than he felt a leg thump into his back, and a medium-warm wolf topple over him. A grunt squished from his rib cage. At least he hadn't growled. Damn it. There wasn't much light to help guide him, but he did see something fuzzy not far from his face now. "Leotie?" His nose was the only helpful thing in the situation. At the screech of claws he tried to push himself to a sit, finally seeing Spieden, Kyna over by the entrance. "Don't tell me, we are all stuck in here," he grumpily retorted. He checked that Miss Rhys was all right, than ventured next to the other two women. Their leader was well ahead of the game, and without another word he took up post beside Kyna, trying to clip away at the white wall too.

(This post was last modified: Mar 04, 2016, 04:17 AM by Triell.)

are you with me through it all?

It had become somewhat of a routine for Aponi to go to bed with her daughter but awake in the wee hours of the night to do out and perform some duties while the others slept. It gave her an excuse to do them alone and avoid the others and someone had to patrol the borders at night to keep away any pests or strays. She would normally return to the tiny family den her and Kyna shared just before dawn to sleep until her daughter arose and then nap early in the afternoon to make up for the couple of hours of sleep that she missed. When she had left the den it had been snowing but nothing too dreadful but soon after the snows and winds were so bad the silver mother could barely see a foot in front of her.

Taking shelter against the bough of a large oak Aponi had rested her muscles but not her mind as she couldn't coax herself to sleep amidst the howling of the wind. In the morning she had returned to the shared den which was dug out fairly easily but Kyna was not inside. It didn't worry the fae much as sometimes they had joined the communal dens on nights like this before so she made the trek through the deepened powder until she reached where the communal den used to be.

Just as their shared den had been this one had been snowed over, but it looked denser and judging by previous experience the heat of all the wolves inside would have created ice along the inner wall. Blue eyes swept over who had already arrived, just two pups. So she would be doing all the work then. Muscles already tired from trapezing around the territory and digging out one den she grunted in frustration. Moving past the children the silver paws began to dig into the thick blanket and just as she expected it was much denser and heavier than the snow in other areas. Glancing over her shoulder towards Sahalie and the new boy she grunted once more, "You going to dig or just stand there?" Then she fell silent. No need wasting energy on talking when she was already wasting it doing all the work.

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

@Jessie you can still pop in if you want, I just wanted to start another round since the thread is already a month old, @Kino @Kyna @Spieden @Leotie @Triell there is no posting order. dunno if you guys wanna have them start to run out of oxygen or anything xD /dramatic

She could not—did not—want to hide the relief that overtook her face when her silver giant came tumbling through the heavy snow. Eagerly, though with difficulty, she bunny hopped to cover the remaining distance between them, her muzzle tapping the underside of his frosted jawline. "Mhmm!" she trilled, bobbing her head several times. 

She would have taken the time to make her own comments on the weather and regale him with the tail of her adventure of the previous night, but a faint sound was tickling the fur of her ears. "D'y hear that?" she said to Kino, her eyes narrowing with concentration as she stared straight through him and into the snowbank behind him. It sounded like the whine of the wind, something soft and gentle. Yet in this moment, there was not even the gentlest breeze. The world was quiet. The trees did not creak with agitation as they usually did. Perhaps it was— 

More curious sounds seemed to rise up from the ground, though these were deeper. At least these noises came with the cadence of speech, and though the message was undecipherable the prosody was enough to finally grant her the realization. Her eyes locked back onto Kino's, her mouth open in her neat, characteristic "O" of surprise. Somewhere nearby the snow was now creaking and moaning as someone attempted to move it. Her head, along with her ears, twisted left and right as she searched for the origin. More vague, unnamed voices joined into the orchestra of mumbles, and at this point Sahalie came to understand, "—The den!" she cried, eyes desperately roving over the ground as she took several steps left and then several more in another direction, "Oh god, they're snowed in!"

Out of nowhere their other grey packmate appeared, Kyna's mother. How long has she been there for? But there was no time to ask questions, especially considering how frustrated and grumpy the woman appeared to be. She seemed to know instinctively where the den was, wasting no time in starting to dig even though the location seemed almost random to the girl who was unaccustomed to such snow. "Uh-uh-uhf course!" Sahalie barked, bounding over towards the woman in her bunny hops —her small stature allowing her nothing else— and chose an arbitrary patch of white next to the woman to worry at.

"Guys can you hear me! We're gunna get you out!"

(This post was last modified: Mar 23, 2016, 10:57 PM by Sahalie.)

I'm sorry that I suck.

It was not often that Jessie ventured near the communal den. She never slept there, ever, even during the coldest days of the year. It was those days that she felt an even larger hole in her chest and soul because she knew that she wouldn’t be able to huddle closer for warmth and rely on his warm breath on her nose when she felt like it was about to fall off. The reminder tore at her every day and it was what drove her towards the communal den. The widowed Tainn knew that Triell spelt there, generally, and she hoped to gain some comfort from her brother. The snow that covered the ground was heavy and it was quite a hindrance to have to go through. Her small body made it harder for her to maneuver through when her slim build sunk into the snow. She huffed in annoyance. At this point, it would take her all day to get to the den and by that time Triell would surely be on his way doing his duties. Never the less, she pressed on, knowing full well that once she got there and if he was gone, she would be able to track his scent and if it proved too much of a trouble, she would just find him another day. However, what greeted her when she arrived was something quite different. Sahalie, a boy, and another woman, that she was not overtly familiar with, was outside the den that was…packed in. Jessie did not utter a word. Not wanting to get on the other woman’s side, Jessie got on the outskirts of the other woman and began to dig, her emerald eyes focused on the task in front of her. Sahalie’s words of encouragement of the murmurs inside fell on deaf ears as Jess did what needed to be done. Hopefully, they would break through and get whoever needed to get out of there out.   Jessie Tainn

feainne-stock & Dawnthieves.de