Bramble Falls chase that disco ball around

@Chan -- Vayko, you come across a bear cub but can't locate its mother.

what i really need now is a double shot of crown

Vayko had done enough exploring of what was west of the Wildwood, so he made his venture north east, exploring the Falls that nestled so easily next to a massive mountain he had no intention of scaling. He wasn’t afraid of heights or anything, they just unnerved him because it was so easy to just fall. Still, he huffed as he found his way to the edge of the falls, glancing at the water It wasn’t quite cold enough to freeze all the way through, though patches of ice lingered across the top. He wouldn’t dare try to place a paw on it.

He heard scratching in the distance, his ears perking as his head instantly turned to see a bear cub out of hibernation, eyes widening as he turned, his hackles raised with a sharp growl on his features. Where there was a cub, there was almost always a mother and he needed to be prepared to flee in the opposite direction. He wasn’t idiotic enough to believe that he could take on a mother bear and live to tell the tale. A cub? Sure… just… not the mother. He waited, watching as the cub got closer, to which he was backing off. Time seemed to pass, and yet he didn’t see a mother so he took a whiff of the air from a distance.

Where was the mother? The question rang in his head as he moved back in the direction the cub had come from, but he failed to find any interlaying scents… this land was so fucking weird. He was never going to be able to tell left from right with all of the things that kept happening to him or his sister or their cousins. "Where the hell is your mother, little one?" He asked with a frown as he plopped into the snow not too far from it. Perhaps the strange two-legs had dropped it here too.

Chan could smell the young animal, and while he couldn't immediately sense it's mother's presence, he knew better than to linger around and wait for her return. The problem was the scent of wolf that accompanied it. Nervous that another of his kind but be in a dangerous position, he chose to approach. In short time he spotted a fresh-faced young man, sitting as few paces away from the bear cub. Chan looked side to side, checking again for the mother before getting too close, and faintly heard the other wolf's voice.

Chan got closer.

"Hey, you should really leave that thing alone kid," Chan spoke only as loudly as needed to carry the words to his ilk, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention to them all.

CHAN EASTFALL

what i really need now is a double shot of crown

Vayko’s attention had been focused solely on the cub, his eyes narrowed at it as if he would expect a response from it. A voice carried the air and he snapped his head around, curiosity lingering on his features as he huffed softly. “Is it yours?” He asked unamused with the situation. “Went lookin’ around and couldn’t find it’s mother about.” He couldn’t even find a scent trail for the mama bear as it were.

It left him with so many questions unanswered, a boiling in his blood because why would a mother just abandon her cub out here? Weren’t bears supposed to be ferocious? “Why would a mother just leave her cub out here?” The question fell because perhaps the man had an answer for it, because Vayko sure didn’t know. This place wasn’t terribly far off from what would be his new home, so he certainly did not want to find out there were a bunch of protective mothers out there to get in his way.

The grown yearling didn't appear to mind Chan's warning one bit. Continuously checking around them, he maintained enough of a distance to ditch the cub without issue, just in case. After all, he hadn't done his own investigation and couldn't be promised that the mother wouldn't come.

"Definitely not," he answered the stranger under breath. The next question caused his ears to pick up, giving a large clue as to why the teen was apparently stuck on this rival predator's predicament. Still, the other wolf was very lucky his search had been fruitless.

"She wouldn't," Chan confirmed.

"Somethings keeping her, but long as she's alive it won't be for much longer."

CHAN EASTFALL

what i really need now is a double shot of crown

A lack of amusement was on his features. If the cub wasn’t following him around like a lost puppy, then where did it come from? Vayko didn’t like mystery. He liked solving mystery, and he felt like he didn’t have much of a chance of doing something else while his brain was trying to figure all of this out.

The man just confirmed his suspicions and he frowned, eyeing the little thing. “Never seen a bear outside it’s den in winter either.” Granted, this was only his second winter so he hadn’t exactly seen too much. “I reckon she’s dead. There isn’t a thing to worry about.” He was almost positive of it, because he had that much faith in his own investigation skills. Still, he moved away from the cub feeling as though he had adequately solved this mystery. “My name’s Vayko, and you are?”

Chan had expected that he might need to encourage the younger wolf away from attempting to save the young rival, especially after he announced that it's mother must be dead. The older man wasn't so certain; he'd lived long enough to know that positive was rarely something one could afford to be, especially when it came to something you couldn't talk to and reason with.

It would seem that the stranger wasn't caught up on it at all, however. He seemed to dismiss the situation entirely, shifting his focus entirely onto Chan as though the conclusion he'd drawn had entirely finished things. It struck him as strange, but not necessarily in a negative way.

"Chan. I live up on the mountain. How familiar are you with the Lore?"

Given that he'd gathered the forests had been empty for longer than what he estimated this kid to have lived, he doubted Vayko was a native. That didn't mean he wasn't family to someone who had been, or otherwise had some of the information that Chan was seeking.

what i really need now is a double shot of crown

Vayko saw it as a clever game of King of the Hill. He had been thorough in his investigation, and claiming he knew what he was talking about gave him a sense of security in these strange lands. Besides, if he was to be a king some day, he would need to work on projecting his authority. His attention focused on the man because he certainly found him more interesting than some abandoned cub. The mountains? Who on earth would want to live on a mountain? These lands got stranger and stranger every day.

The Lore? Was that what this place was called. “Never heard of ‘the Lore’ before… but no, I’m not super familiar with these lands either.” He admitted, head tilting to the side. “Are you? My impression was these lands were abandoned… strange two-legged creatures dropped us here, and there are others too, new that weren’t brought here against their will.” He spat with the distaste of having the choice ripped away from him, not directed at the man in front of him or the lands that they were now in which showed in his posturing. He had to admit these lands were growing on him, even if it never quite reached the comfortable feeling of home or the salty tang of the sea.

Chan smiled at Vayko's initial answer. So likely not a relative of a native wolf either, oh well. What else the younger wolf had to say was definitely of interest, and finally a thread to follow. Two-legged creatures dropped him here? There were a lot of animals that either could stand upright or had two legs, but he couldn't imagine any having the ability to carry a wolf somewhere, much less a pack of them. He assumed that's who was meant by 'us', anyways...

"Yeah I uh. It hasn't always been this empty, just the last couple of years I guess. I was born here, and there used to be a ton of packs. I've been trying to figure out what happened to them all. I guess maybe... what do you mean, two-legged? Like a marmot, or like a bird? How'd they drop you?"

Chan was forgetting to check for the cub's mother as frequently, definitely thoroughly interested in Vayko's experience. The creature snuffled about as though they didn't exist.

(This post was last modified: Feb 06, 2021, 02:49 AM by Chan.)

what i really need now is a double shot of crown

Vayko had not stopped to consider the possibility that this wasn’t a normal occurrence for this region. He supposed he had just assumed that any wolf who had been in this region for awhile would know about the two-legged creatures strange behaviors… but then the question came, and he frowned, his head tilting to the side in confusion. He had forgotten completely about the cub and it’s mother in this instant, instead finding himself enthralled in conversation.

“Nope. Not a bird, definitely not a marmot either.” He clarified because that was the most important clarification. “They were scrawny, but taller than you or I… taller than any wolf. What was weirder is they didn’t have any fur, except for on top of what I assume was their weird head. They bit us with something that made us sleep, and found a way to carry us here. We woke up in a forest to the west of here dazed and confused.” He explained with a frown. “I don’t know if they dropped us per say but it certainly felt like it. I had to take one hell of a nap to shake whatever they did do off. I assumed this kind of thing was popular around here... guess not.”

It came across to Chan that the other wolf was somewhat familiar with these animals, despite how novel their description was to him. The man's muzzle crinkled as Vayko spoke, becoming increasingly disturbed by what he was hearing. Had some... new species swept in and abducted the wolves of the Lore? Then, returned to transplant new wolves here years later? It made no sense, and briefly something occurred to him: the kid could either be a skilled liar, or afflicted by some kind of derangement.

Still... he needed to remember this, all of it.

"Not at all," Chan answered, brows lightly furrowed with concern and empathy. It no longer sounded like Vayko had known of these two-leggeds before his forced encounter with them, and the Eastfall truly did not know what to make of it all, so he simply pursued more information. If it wasn't real, then heckin' yay. If it was? Chan had family to defend, and he would give them all as best a chance as he could.

"Maybe it was some kind of... non-lethal venom? Did they have scales instead of fur? Are you all here now? Your, pack, I'm assuming?"

Because the only reason in Chan's world for biting and disabling and capturing was to feed, not just mess around with an animal's head and play games...