Stonewatch Timbers [s] i thought of angels choking on their halos

Of everything that she had expected to experience in her life, she had not planned to be whisked away from her home and dropped unceremoniously into this... new place. For the first time she could remember, she had no clue where her family was, and that was unsettling, to say the least. Xules had taken pride in her ability to protect her packmates for their entire lives, and here she was, alone and with no idea where to start searching for them.

It had been intuitive to reach as tall a place as she could manage, and this just happened to be it. A vantage point, where she could get a good look at her surroundings. These woods were much more dense than she was used to, and she already missed the scent of salt on the breeze. Here, things were more difficult to navigate.

But there was no use in complaining about it.

Long limbs carried her quickly up the hills, and she stopped at the summit. Thankfully, most of the trees had lost their leaves, and she had a decent view of the land she would soon have to traverse. Hopefully, there would be some familiar faces out there for her to find, or she'd simply have to get back to the Estuary... somehow.

"Damn it," she hissed under her breath, golden eyes narrowed into chips. Under normal circumstances, she would have a plan in place already. If she had just been dropped off with one other wolf that she knew, she didn't think her mind would be running circles quite like it was now.

As it were, the girl was fighting to keep herself from panicking. "They'd be looking for water," she murmured to herself, gaze fixated on a sharp stone at her paws. It seemed accurate that her packmates might be looking for a river or a lake; something that reminded them of home. So should she start with that, and follow what streams she could, or should she head over to the mountains in the distance to try and get a better look at the surrounding territories?

Momentarily, she was stuck, mind running in circles and body still.

(This post was last modified: Jan 17, 2021, 11:37 PM by Maugrim. Edit Reason: adding swear tag cause maugrim swore~ )

maybe @Hrun will join? or not, up to ya'll

His brother was still sleeping when they parted ways. Which was fine—probably fine. The snow was still thick down in the glen they'd hunkered down in, so the trail Maugrim's strides left would be evident. And if Hrun didn't follow him, well, then the dark wolf would just shrug his shoulders and follow those same tracks back until they reunited. Then they would continue their wandering.

Maugrim was of a similar mind to Xulia, though he didn't know it yet. He was also interested in the knowledge and opportunities that a vantage point could afford. Down in that thicket they had come through it was impossible to see father than 10 foxes ahead, leading them into several clots of brambles and underbrush dead ends. What he really wanted to find was a reliable source of water. Water was life, for himself and for others. They'd already met that one old lady who had her daughter, but he was interested in seeing if there were perhaps others that could tell him about this Ruin of Wildwood. And from up high he would be able to see a good path to a river or lake or something like that.

So he scaled. At first the land just slanted up, the trees still growing straight up even with the ground all wonky. Then the ground became flinty and soon gave way for gigantic, wind-smoothed boulders. Occasionally he looked behind him only to be met with the tops of trees and no real view of anything special. He would have to climb higher. The snow was less here: baked by the sun and melted away. But there were occasional pockets of ice that made the going traitorous. Maugrim tried to pay attention.

After a time the young wolf stopped for a breather, a little relaxing nap or something, when he heard a small sound. He blinked and twisted his ears in the direction of the sound. A voice? Immediately, he picked himself up and trotted over and around yet another great rock.

"They'd be looking for water," he heard the small girl hum, and he stood up straight.

"Oh, water!" Maugrim said brightly, "Have ya found any? I came up here to look myself." He gazed out over the vague canopy in front of him, seeing only a sliver of bare land very far away. Without turning his head, his eyes wandered back to the girl. If he was being truthful, she looked a little bothered. It wasn't really his business, though.

It took a surprisingly short time for her reverie to be interrupted. Xulia blinked slowly and turned her head to seek out the one who had approached her. A boy, a bit older than she was, but a couple of inches shorter. Dark brown fur, yellow eyes, a diamond on his forehead. He appeared to be strong.

The lack of wolf scent had been unsettling before, and though Xules had little interest in those beyond her packmates back home, it was nearly relieving to see that this land actually was inhabited. She squandered the initial flame of anger she'd felt upon hearing his voice for the first time and resigned herself to the fact that this was her life now. The silver girl was alone for the first time, and it would be absolutely ridiculous of her to chase away any help she might receive.

Xules shook her head and glanced back out over the expanse of wilderness beneath them. A horrible thought niggled in the back of her mind - perhaps all of this land was free to claim. Having avidly disagreed with how the pack was run back home, but also being as young as she was, she had not been able to do much about it.

That might change, now, if she were free to stretch her wings and create a place of her own.

"I haven't, yet," she admitted to the boy, golden eyes flickering over toward him. "But I'm willing to bet there will be some nearer to that mountain." Perhaps a creek or river near the foot. It would be good to have for fishing, and perhaps some of her family would be there as well.

Turning her attention back over to the stranger, she took another moment to assess him. He certainly didn't smell like pack. "I take it you don't live around here?" she hazarded a guess.

When the girl didn't react in any strong or negative way, Maugrim let his shoulders slide back and—without realizing it—let out a breath. It was a relief that strangers in "these parts" were not quite so ornery than back in Mosquito Bay, even if he hasn't really met enough of them to draw any sound conclusions. So far they all seemed fairly at ease with him just appearing, despite his lonesome scent and unfamiliar appearance.

No water, though. Bummer.

He shuddered when he met her metallic gaze ever so briefly, feeling a flash of embarrassment for a moment—I should have known to look away! The body language of others was hard for him to anticipate sometimes. It was why he was usually just in the company of his brother. Didn't rub shoulders with many others. His former packmates hadn't enjoyed him for some reason. At any rate, he immediately sent his eyes towards the location her words were indicating. Ah.

A moment ago Maugrim had been looking distinctly south. The girl, though, was facing east towards the sharp, meandering line of foreboding mountains that nearly took his breath away. One peak stood out taller than the rest. Impossibly high, he figured, since the top of it was nearly shrouded in the clouds. The girl thought there would be water there? It sounded arbitrary to him—but also what did he know? Maugrim wasn't really sure where water would be. He had been hoping to catch a real sighting. "Interesting..."

Not wanting to accidentally meet her eyes again, and feeling a social safety from continuing to let his eyes trace the top of the mountain range, Maugrim did not turn to face her. "Nah," he said with a shrug, "My brother and I just uhhh, arrived I guess. We've been wandering. Haven't seen anyone else along the way, and now you're the second encounter. So I'm starting to wonder if this might be a populated place."

"And yourself?"

He was avoiding her gaze, and while some part of Xulia liked that - yes, submit to me - another part of her found it unsettling. She was never the type to demand great physical submission, and to have it so freely offered was suspicious. Still, she decided to overlook it for now and instead study the layout of the land that she could see.

"It doesn't seem to be," she agreed, in terms of how populated this place was. It was like a ghost town, but it was relieving that he'd found more than just her out there. And his brother, too - perhaps there were more wolves here than she'd initially planned for.

She looked over at him again, but respectfully did not stare for too long. It wouldn't do well to make him uncomfortable, and he wasn't overly annoying, so she figured that she could deal with him for a while. As long as he didn't try anything funny. "I just got here, as well. I don't really know how - I just... woke up here." Which was the weirdest thing that she could possibly conceive of. It sounded almost fake. "I'm hoping that some of my family was brought out here as well." Some more than others. She certainly didn't hope that all of her family had been brought there.

"Do you have a name?" she questioned, glancing toward the boy and tipping her head to the side.

"Maybe we're just on the edge of it," he moving his thoughts around like puzzle pieces out loud, "Maybe more near the mountain... A big a land mark as any..." It could have been like those chunks of iron back home that randomly, strangely pulled other rocks nearer to it. Sometimes they stuck together. A big mountain like that, and surely others would want to hear towards it and check it out. Maugrim felt that way, at least. But he stopped as soon as she began explaining what her story was. That seemed like an even greater puzzle.

"You what?" He interjected briefly for clamming himself up again. She'd had family, but somehow she just miraculously appeared in a new place. Maugrim openly stared at her now, for that was probably the strangest tale he'd head in his brief life. Wolves could not fly like birds, and even birds were conscious that they were moving. "Brought?" Maugrim lamely added at the end.

"I mean. I'm Maugrim. My brother's Hrun." To at least get his introduction out of the way.

"When you say 'brought' you make it... like, make it sound like someone brought you," rather than teleporting. If someone was brought there was always someone to do the bringing, too. But a wolf could not drag another wolf around. Not a great distance, in any case. "I'm sorry, that's just the oddest thing I've ever heard."

"You sure you weren't drugged?" Maugrim had heard about strange properties of herbs. He hadn't partaken in anything like that, though.

"That's part of what I was thinking. It's a big land mark. It might draw more wolves to it." Maybe her family, as well. Her brothers, cousins. Hopefully not her aunts. Hopefully not Rochus. Or anyone who might pose a threat to her potential claims on this land, because while she wanted to lead, she would rather not get her paws too dirty with it.

Yeah, her story was weird. She knew that, and being stared at like she was crazy caused her temper to flare back up a bit. "Yeah, I know, it's weird," she defended, shaking her head and letting out a short off. "All I remember was like... a sting? And then there were these weird creatures that picked me up and I don't remember a lot of it." It didn't make any sense, and she hated things that didn't make sense, so ergo, she hated talking about it.

His name and his brothers were filed away somewhere as he spoke them, but she didn't partake in the customary nice to meet you's, because honestly, she really didn't like this situation much and being super polite wasn't the first thing on her mind.

"It sounds odd to me, too." And then he used the word drugged, like with herbs. Which made a lot more sense, so she hung onto that. "Yeah, uh... that sounds pretty likely. It might've been in the sting," she reasoned out, then shook her head, finally coming back around to the introduction.

"I'm Xulia. Or Xules. I swear I'm not crazy," the girl informed him seriously, meeting his eyes.

Maugrim flinched ever so slightly when the girl got a little huffy. Wow, he mused, Touchy subject. Women were always the more emotional sex, at least if his father was to be believed. Maugrim didn't believe too much his father said, as a rule, but this one thing might have held true. Maybe what she was defending was this story, which became even weirder now that it included a "string" and some "weird creatures". Neither of these clues he could make heads nor tails of. Maugrim only knew of stings from bees, beetles, mosquitos, and thorns, and none of those things had ever knocked him unconscious.

It occurred to him that just maybe she was not telling the truth.

She was either sane and kidnapped by "weird creatures," off her rocker, or lying. What cause she might have to conceal the truth was beyond him, but it was worth considering. Maugrim had to maintain constant vigilance in these strange parts. She was willing to accept that maybe herbs or plants were involved and he nodded like he was following a long, in an "I feel you," kind of way. Maybe she'd had drugs even before the sting.

Maybe she was crazy.

Maybe she was lying! He told himself again.

Instead, he laughed and said, "Sure sure. Not-crazy-Xules. I'll remember that." After a heartbeat he was already looking away, off into the trees where he thought he might have heard a crow take flight, or maybe sensed another presence. There was nothing there, though. Nothing alive, anyway. As he squinted he could see, poking through the trees, some strange sort of rocks. "Hang on a minute," he said as he got up and wandered towards them.

What he encountered when he'd rounded the small cluster of trees was a clearing with some very curious stones. In this remarkably level and stomped-open clearing were rocks. But rocks on top of rocks. He blinked, because they weren't even normal rocks. They were very skinny and irregular in that the lines seemed perfectly straight. Entirely unnatural in this wild word, and something he had not the words to describe. They were all about the same size and shape, which struck him because he had never seen an identical anything before. And spanning two tall ones, rising straight out of the ground, was one flat looking one. He frowned, tapping one paw on the ground. They were covered in moss.

He laughed at her. Xulia was momentarily appalled. It was weird to her, too, really, but it wasn't like she could help it. It was what had happened, and it wasn't funny, because here she was, several months shy of her second birthday, all alone, and she had no idea where her family was. This was the furthest thing from funny that she could imagine.

She was neither crazy nor lying. And she'd never done drugs. So she had no clue what else this could have been other than her getting stolen by big creatures and dropped off here.

Embarrassment burned under her fur and she bristled a bit, defensive.

One thing was for sure - she would be keeping this story to herself from now on.

Luckily, she was saved from having to comment, as the boy had gotten distracted. Curious, she followed, brows furrowed and head tipped to the side. She'd never seen rocks like these before - so symmetrical and purposefully placed. Certainly not placed there by wolves, or even bears. She didn't know anything that could do something like this.

"Strange things happen around here," she whispered, narrowing her eyes at the structure and approaching it. Reaching out, she placed a paw on the mossy surface. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"For real," as he came up behind him somewhere. This day, this place, just kept getting stranger and stranger. First, a literal stranger; second, a weird abduction story; third, some fucking big stacked rocks! There was never a moment for him to get his bearings. He watched as she lifted her paw and placed it lightly on the coated surface of the stone. He wondered if that was okay to do. For some reason, he felt that it was not, but then the feeling passed and he was wondering why the thought had occurred to him at all.

"Not at all..." he said, letting his thoughts trail out so that the sound of his voice lingered, like he might say something else. But for a long minute Maugrim fell completely and uncharacteristically silent. This was a lot to take in. Maugrim had told Hrun that this could be their home, but he did not particularly like all these weird happenings. And this girl could just be doing things to drive him off, maybe. Act crazy and keep a whole swath of uncharted territory for yourself. And her family. She didn't smell like them right now, sure, but there were ways of concealing that. Maugrim was just worried about competition. He and his brother hadn't come all this way just to content with another family for territory and resources.

Slowly, his dark body snaked around and through the arch made by the three stones. His starred head appeared around the other side and he grinned at her, "I'm hoping I haven't been stung too. Cause these are weird." Maugrim hadn't felt anything, but he had also heard that drugs impact some wolves differently.

"So you're not with your uhhh... family or anything now?"