Red Fern Forest ghosts

Under the red and orange of the sky above, the ghost moves at an easy pace. Unknowingly he had stumbled across a very important place that held some face value but this was just another world to him today. There was little to stop him from continuing to wander, his eyes bright with the curiosity of something new. It had been several months since he had said anything more than a a subtle hello to anyone aside from a passerby. Though judging from all the smells here he could guess that he certainly was not alone and that there was likely somebody watching him. As far as he could tell, no one had laid claim to this brightly colored attraction. Obviously sometimes that meant absolutely nothing but he was certainly on guard, prepared to be chased out if it came to that.

(This post was last modified: Feb 10, 2018, 10:50 PM by Idris.)

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He had no intentions of wandering so far this time, but once again the Edge Lord found himself outside of the Shallow's borders.  Rather than head to the north or west as he so often did, Askan pushed on south till he was firmly in the land of the ferns. The south of his home had a fair amount of red, or at least it did beneath all the snow, but it wasn't quite like this place. Nor were the ferns quite home.

When he saw the shadow lurking ahead for a moment he assumed it was Cancer or perhaps even Percy, but as his vision focused he came to realise that they were a stranger. His nose twitched, once then twice and the scent that drifted into his nostrils solidified that fact. These woods were not his own, they weren't so close to the Shallows that he felt the need to chase them away, but nonetheless he approached, curious and more than a little nosy. Old habits died hard and just like before he wanted to know what this loner intended to do in these parts.

"Hey." Was all Askan said in way of greeting, his tone neither friendly nor particularly hostile. Just slap bang in the middle, so neutral it almost tasted like grey in his mouth. His posture wasn't so bland, he held himself tall (as much as he could anyway) and his eyes were alert, bright, as if to make up for how dark it was during these short winter days.

Over time you learn not to expect much from anyone other than yourself. With the oncoming death of his mother he was sure that he would be able to feel that part of him disappear but he kept walking. They hadn't wanted him there for any reason other than to be play mom's caretaker and poor Idris was not cut out to take care of a wailing woman. Especially not one that resented him for breathing.

So the subtle inclusion of company gave him quite a surprise, his narrow muzzle turning to see the ashy brown wolf lingering nearby. Orange eyes wandered the male's frame carefully, wondrously, before lowering his head just slightly and the right of his lips curling upwards in a smirk. Hey yourself, he greeted back to the fetching adult in front of him. Who was he??

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Meetings with loners often went one of two ways. Usually, for the most part they were pretty predictable, same old same old. But every once and a while he met someone with a spine who didn't stumble over their own words when they realised a pack scent clung to his coat. There were no apologies from this one and no worried stares, just curiosity and a bit of sass.

For once the Edge Lord was in a favourable mood, which was to say that he wasn't scowling at the world as though it had personally insulted his Mother. Still, the loner's words earned an eye roll before some equally snarky response slipped out of Askan's mouth. They said never to fight fire with fire but Askan didn't give a shit about that, it's all he was about really. He burned hotter, brighter.

"How original. What are you doing? Not really weather to be wandering about in, unless you're an idiot." Which of course Askan realised that sort of implied he was an idiot too but....Whatever. He knew he wasn't. "Don't you have somewhere better to be?" He asked, though not entirely unkind as his tail flicked to gesture the snow covered land around them.

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

At his young age, it had never been exactly fruitful to know what to do and when to do it. The pack he had been born into didn't exactly teach how to make conversation with other pack wolves when you're a loner. They don't prepare you for that sort of encounter but judging by the fact that they let a nine month old out into the world, they probably should have. Maybe he was just a liability and they knew he would choose to leave rather than to stay so he was one less mouth to feed. Either way, it was easy enough to see, by word alone, that the greeting he had given wasn't satisfactory.

Nevertheless, he stood there in a vaguely submissive manner to the older and more prominent wolf of these parts. One thing easy to understand was that he was a stranger here and this large,burly male here was something native. A figure that seemed to demand respect even without asking for it. While he could easily argue that it wasn't entirely his choice to be out in the freezing cold, it was simply circumstance, Idris wasn't all that interested in arguing a moot point.

Nor did he feel like he had to answer any of the questions laid out in front of him but Idris rather liked company and didn't want to be alone. Probably, his response is said before he understands that it was yet another somewhat cheeky response to which he licked his lips and cleared his throat, but they didn't exactly have room for me. Not that he had looked anywher that could have room but it was much easier to say that his pack didn't have room for another adult to feed rather than he left because he didn't want to take care of a psychotic mother. Dare he ask if this stranger had somewhere for him to be?

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Askan wasn't expecting a monologue and thankfully he didn't get one. Whilst the Edge Lord could certainly be mouthy he wasn't exactly a conversationalist, the art was still lost on him and he had very little interest in refining the skill till he could spin words like webs. He'd leave that to someone else, being brash served him just fine.

The loner's response wasn't all that telling and honestly, Askan was content to leave it at that. But if he had to guess then he would have assumed that the loner was referring to family or a pack perhaps. Either or worked fine. The prospect of not having enough room was a little odd to the Selwyn. Long ago the clan had been massive, sprawling, and they had coped just fine. Were other packs not as well organised? Possibly. Not all leaders had their heads screwed on tight, some packs just weren't meant to last the ages.

The same couldn't be said for Shallows Edge, Askan was determined to damn well make sure of that.

"So they kicked you out, just like that?" His nose wrinkled in distaste. "Dick move."

Turns out even though he was more sociable than the father who had weaved around in this place,Idris still had a way of running around a conversation. While he enjoyed the art of connections, he had a bad habit of not knowing when he needed to get straight to the point. Like now. He didn't know that it was usually in a loner's best interest to disclose that he was just passing through or not looking for trouble. All the yearling understood was that this male had sought him out but the reason was unknown.

The pack he came from had always fended for themselves. They looked after the individual, not the pack - weird, right? Just like that, he answered with a purse of his lips as the whiskers at his brows wiggled, yeah... dick move. The derogatory and pointed word questionable in his mind as he hadn't a clue what it meant but it held enough meaning to know that it was negative. Though, he wasn't at all bothered by being alone or removed from the pack's ranks. So far it was better out in the free roam world than back there where he was pretty sure he had been suffocating without realizing it. So... where am I, exactly?

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Askan quirked a brow at his response. That response was a bit of a cop out, almost as though he didn't quite- well, if he hadn't heard of that word before he had now.  Wasn't Askan such a good role model, teaching kids to swear like ferals? Ugh, if his Mother was about she would have no doubt tugged at his ear for that and rightly so. He'd been brought up better than this, using such vulgar language was pretty damn beneath him. But whatever, he was his own man, he could speak nice he just chose not to.

That was a question Askan had heard more times than he could count. As annoying as repetition was he could sympathise, sort of, he'd wondered just that when he'd arrived in the Lore. The Lowlands had seemed familiar, but not, with all the wrong scents and not a Selwyn in sight. Exactly what he'd wanted and yet it had made him sad all the same, not that he'd shown or admitted it at the time, or even to this very day.

"Relic Lore." He stated bluntly, waiting to see if that name rang a bell. It hardly ever did. "More specifically though, Red Fern Forest. Couple of hours away from my borders."

That always spurred some interest. He wasn't exactly recruiting per se, it was closer to bragging really...Or rather letting others know that his home was nearby, like the marked borders but vocal and somehow more obtrusive then the stink of pee. That said, the scent markers hadn't stopped a pair of idiots barging right in so maybe Askan was going about this the right way. Maybe he should brag more often.

One way or another, Idris would have come to know vulgar language. Even as a child he had picked up on others vocabulary and speech without hesitation and it certainly would continue this way. There was some luck in the fact that he hadn't much one-on-one teachings growing up as there was one woman per six cubs and even that was too much to look after for her. Old age didn't help.

Arriving here he was relieved to not know anyone or know a single thing about where he had come to, but it seemed that even in his dizziest daydreams he couldn't avoid being his father's son. Great, he murmured and practically rolled his eyes though certainly not at this stranger but at the name that had been given, makes sense that I would come here unintentionally. Or was it intentional without intention? Either way, it seemed he had found his father's old place. Not that this stranger would know what was meant by this and for a few moments he wonders if its even worth telling the stranger what he meant.

This burly brown bear seemed to point out that they were hours away from his borders which meant something pretty important but it didn't really help Idris overcome the feeling of wanting to leave. My useless father lived here once, he shook his head, probably not here but somewhere around here. A sigh, frustrated that he had crawl into the very home that his father had lived in for years. A place that had held his loyalty far longer than his mother had.

Your pack, hm? Desperate to move away from how angry he was at his unmistakable choices. Only at this point does he wish to push himself onto this unnamed stranger and move on. It wasn't something he had intended upon doing and he really shouldn't stay but he had, in a way, already committed to seeing what this Relic Lore had to offer. Why back down now?

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