Windsong Fjord the great escape

@Bennet

The sky was grey and cloudy, threatening rain, but for now sunlight still glimmered down from between the clouds, providing a touch of warmth to the inhabitant below. Lorcan had decided to take the opportunity to go for stroll, and with the majority of the plants disappearing due to the recent spells of snow, had decided to focus his attention on hunting down any prey that he happened to come across.

Strolling casually along the edge of the river, Lorcan kept his eyes peeled for any opportunity. Whilst most of the larger fish had migrated away for the winter, smaller fish still remained. Golden eyes scanned the water’s depths as he traipsed gingerly along, keeping an eye out for any signs of splashing movement as he approached. To the subordinate’s disappointment, the waters seemed quiet today. Pausing to stand and gaze out across the river in search of a better strip to focus on, he caught movement of a small furry thing out of the corner of his eye. Russet ears perked up and his golden eyes widened in surprise the muskrat scuttled quickly between his legs.

Shocked by the critters sudden appearance, Lorcan jumped up before swiveling his body right around to immediately scramble after the tasty morsel.

# P O R C A N

sometimes, two people have to fall apart to realise

how much they need to fall back together

Perhaps she was sentimental, at least a little. There was no other way she could think of to explain her urge to come back to this place where the river ran thick and fast through the fjord, the sight and sound of it a strange comfort. The Veil was her home now, but she couldn't deny that there were times when her mind drifted without her consent or conscious thought. @Kyrios and @Atropos haunted her occasionally, their faces swimming into her mind unbidden, but always she shooed them away. @Kjors and @Karina were all she needed. Kjors and Karina and the All-Mother who went with her everywhere, who could not be avoided, who permeated existence.

Maybe that was who she had come to see; to marvel at Her wonders, to find a private place to recite prayers that she normally repeated in the sanctity of the Fold. Yes, that must have been it. Comforted by her shunning of unnecessarily sentimentality, the dark girl trotted on, enjoying the dramatic landscape and its great slopes which tumbled down, down into where the river ran relentlessly. Yet her visit was not to be solitary; eyes high, she had missed that there was someone stood by the river, also too intent on his mission to notice a dark slip of a child approaching on the same side. It was not until the wolf jumped did she notice him herself, and hesitated, but just as quickly did she spot what was happening.

The rumble again.

The chase almost immediately turned towards her, and her ears pinned back and fur bristled as she was caught by surprise and unsure what to do, and all the while the muskrat unwittingly led them closer to her.

@Bennet

He hadn’t noticed the smaller dark furred figure along the river up ahead, having been too consumed in his search for aquatic prey in the rushing currents the bubbled alongside him. As the muskrat darted away, Lorcan immediately gave chase – rather un-majestically, with his rump in the air and his tail flagging excitedly behind him, Lorcan bounded quickly forwards after the scurrying brown fur ball.

Golden eyes remained trained on the rodent as he quickly advanced, unwittingly, ever closer towards the young dark furred girl. Pale forepaws reached out every so often to swipe and plummet down on the small body of the muskrat, but every time when he lifted his paw, his eyes were drawn to it’s fleeting behind as it evaded his attempts to get hold of it.

Growing frustrated, Lorcan decided to change his tactic and instead of chasing after it and then pausing to paw at the tasty morsel, he decided to just flat-out sprint after it and hope that he could get close enough to clamp his jaws down on it. Increasing his speed, Lorcan made quick work of matching the rodents pace and his golden eyes widened in delight as he narrowed in on the creature, jaws parting wide in preparation to strike.

However it was at that very moment that he noticed the small shadowy figure immediately in front of him and slamming his paws down to slide to an abrupt halt, his jaws clamped down to grab the muskrat just before the collision. Eyes closed tightly as he felt a small thud to his abdomen, and glancing down he only then noticed when he had bumped into.

“Oh, um, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?!” Came the panicked voice, momentarily forgetting about the muskrat clamped between his jaws, which fell to the ground before remarkably scuttling away back into the undergrowth.

(This post was last modified: Nov 18, 2016, 04:25 PM by Lorcan.)

# P O R C A N

sometimes, two people have to fall apart to realise

how much they need to fall back together

Hunting was such a structured and procedure-heavy process that being thrust right into the middle of someone else's hunt completely short-circuited her. Bennet struggled with self-subsistence, even with the constant encouragement and guidance of her more skilled parents, and very rarely managed to catch anything of worth on her own. She hated to blame anything on her age, but perhaps that simply was the reason, and she would improve with time - she had to. Relying on Kjors and Karina to survive was acceptable now, but not when she was fully grown. Dragons shouldn't need to be dependents.

But then dragons shouldn't also be locked into a stupor by indecision, yet here she was.

The wolf snapped at his prey but missed over and over, and for a time Bennet thought that they would just pass her by obliviously. The pair moved from side to side so quickly it was impossible to predict, and surely if she moved she would simply get in their way, but the dice roll worked against her. It was over pretty quickly. Eyes tight shut from expecting the collision, she ended up knocked into the ground with him above her, the sound of a lucky muskrat escaping eclipsed by her own beating heart and the sudden and alarmed apologies.

Cracking an eye open, Bennet saw him stood over her, concern laced in his expression, and time stopped for a moment. She evaluated his question. Was she okay? A quick mental once-over of her main body parts reported no meaningful pain, just shock. Opening the other eye, she looked up at him, face blank. "... yes. I'm okay."

A heartbeat. "Are you?" It's what her mother would ask.

@Bennet

The collision was over in an instant and as the agouti male recovered mentally from the shock of the collision, he immediately set about untangling his limbs from those of the younger girl, shifting his paws so that he now placed them in the area immediately around her sprawled body rather than on top of it.

An apologetic whine whistled past his charcoal lips as he vision gave her the once over, making sure that she wasn’t obviously injured from the physical assault. Golden eyes met the puppy blue shade of her single exposed iris, holding her gaze for a moment as he waited desperately for her to respond to him. Thankfully, she finally opened the other eye and declared herself fine to which Lorcan responded with a heavy sigh of relief.

“Good..” He breathed, golden eyes flitting over her smaller frame to once again check her over, before noticing that he was in fact still standing over her, and quickly shuffled his paws back to stand less imposingly before her. He whined again, feeling rather foolish.

The girl’s question to him surprised him a little and, blushing, he stuttered to a response. “Y-Yea—err, I’m fine.” He mumbled, golden eyes glancing away from her face for a moment, feeling awkward.

“Are you sure you’re okay? How can I make it up to you?” He offered sincerely.

(This post was last modified: Nov 18, 2016, 04:54 PM by Lorcan.)

# P O R C A N

sometimes, two people have to fall apart to realise

how much they need to fall back together

Their reactions were certainly markedly different, she noted almost absently, observing his rather more frantic attempts to detangle himself from the results of the collision. Bennet herself stayed quite still, which in itself helped him be able to remove himself quicker, as compared to if she was complaining and flailing about in protest. He'd hit her by accident - she knew that. She'd watched it happen. In most ways, it was her fault, and so she found his sheepishly apologetic manner somewhat perplexing.

His stammered response to her question quirked her brow up in confusion. Had it been the wrong thing to ask? She thought that that was the sort of thing friendly wolves did, make sure each other were okay, even if they were strangers. Again - it's what her mother would have done. What the All-Mother wanted. Hers was a message of love and goodness, and Bennet strove to satisfy them even if she found it difficult to reconcile with her own fallible nature. She would take a hammer to the ill-fitting pieces and smash them into the puzzle of herself until they sat snug and tidy.

Her raised brows turned into a frown as he questioned her reply, doubting her honesty, but his remaining offer left her perplexed once more, and she was beginning to wish that she'd just jumped into the river or something to avoid this whole situation she didn't know how to handle. "... what do you mean?"

@Bennet

Lorcan’s offer of reprisal seemed to only confuse the young swarthy girl, which the agouti subordinate noticed by the raising of her dark brows before her questioning response even rung in the air. Lorcan offered an awkward smile, huffing slightly through his charcoal nose at the less than flowing conversion between him.

“I mean, it was my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going..” He responded, golden eyes flickering to the side as he mentally recalled the moments leading up to the collision. “I don’t want you going back home upset because of me..” He smiled then, a warm expression which confirmed his good intentions. His idea of payback was not completely usual; others would have perhaps just shrugged the incident off – but not Lorcan. He was morally obliged to put things right.

Glancing down to the ground around them, Lorcan searched for the small furry body of the muskrat he had caught moments before the collision, but found no trace of the critter. Frowning with slight confusion, he glanced back up to meet the girl, perplexed. “I would have offered you that muskrat…but it seems to have disappeared.” His voice trailed off and his head tilted to the side as he frowned, wondering just how the rodent had managed to escape unscathed.

(This post was last modified: Nov 18, 2016, 05:24 PM by Lorcan.)

# P O R C A N

sometimes, two people have to fall apart to realise

how much they need to fall back together

His fault? She blinked at him as he explained, slowly hefting herself back up onto all fours. Why wouldn't he want her to go home upset, why would that affect him...? But while she was still trying to make sense of it, he suddenly smiled, and the radiant kindness hidden within it took her off guard.

Then it struck her, just like he had, but this time it was a moment of pure clarity; he was sent by Her, surely, a creature of pure goodness. The fact that he had been clumsy enough to collide with her in the first place was hardly any sign to the contrary, for Bennet's mother made no pretense of the fact that she was flawed, ever striving to uphold Her perfection, an unobtainable but worthy life goal.

The dumb confusion in her face had melted away for a slow but steady comprehension, and she stared at the older wolf as he spoke of offering her the muskrat he had been chasing, and by that point she was smiling back at him. How can I make it up to you? he had asked, because of course he would, as a bastion of Her kindness, and Bennet was not about to reject such an offering.

"I'm not upset," she said, truthfully as ever, tail twitching up and daring to wag once or twice. "But I am hungry."

Pray hard, believe honestly, and strive for goodness, and She will reward you.

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

@Bennet , if you wanna PP another prey appearing to move it along a bit quicker, you can :)

As he talked about his intention of potentially offering up the muskrat as a peace offering, he noticed the confusion melt away from her face, a soft smile replacing her once perplexed expression. Lorcan couldn’t help but mirror her expression, a small smile tugging at the corners of his own ebony lips, as he felt his heart grow warm with the reassurance that he was perhaps making their girl’s day just a little bit brighter – even after their small hiccup.

Her reaffirmation that he had not managed to actually upset her, pleased him even more. “You’re a tough one, aren’t you?” He joked, though he did truthfully admire her laid back and resilient attitude – one so polar from his own.

Russet ears perked up and a slight grin pulled at his lips when the young girl gave hint to what she desired. Her response did not surprise him one bit. She was still a pup and food was something that all pups, it seemed, could never get enough of.  Tail swaying in thought behind him, Lorcan began to glance to the area around them.

“Let’s see if I get lucky the second time round, shall we?” He was more relaxed now, behaving as he would around the youth of the monadnock. Stepping away from the young girl, Lorcan wandered back towards the river, glancing back and gesturing with his muzzle for the swarthy pup to follow. “I’m Lorcan, by the way. May I ask your name, little miss?” He smiled back at her, before turned back to cast his golden eyes along the edge of the river bank as he drew up to it, before realising that when he had directed his nose towards her just then, he had smelt no scent of a pack.

“And…if you don’t mind me asking, where are you from? I can’t smell any pack scents on you that I recognise from around here.” He asked her casually, his golden eyes still trained on the river bank as he searched around for clues of other small prey, though inside he was burning with curiosity. Who was this young girl?

(This post was last modified: Nov 18, 2016, 08:41 PM by Lorcan.)

# P O R C A N

sometimes, two people have to fall apart to realise

how much they need to fall back together