Chinook Coulee ghost in your house, ghost in your arms

Underneath his pale fur Azra's skin grew hot as the geezer declared them to be "no cubbin'" after all. If that's all it took, Azra hadn't been a "cubbin" in quite awhile. He vividly, traumatically remembered the hour he had learned about the "birds and the bees" from some obnoxious yearlings trying to have some fun at Azra's expense. Honestly, the whole thing had been so overwhelming and eye-opening that he had never really wanted to revisit or think about the topic they had broached so indecorously. The falling of innocence. "Aaaahhh..." was all he could really "say" in response, his mouth hanging open and a low sound just sliding out. "Sorry."

Ears peaked, he turned to the old man who was now standing—by some miracle, since his legs looked so dried and brittle they might just snap at the knee. He was breathing kind of funny, though Azra couldn't be sure if that was his laugh or perhaps an illness. It seemed now that Annie would goad him into introducing himself to them. The flush began to subside from his cheeks and he sighed audibly, hoping that all the sex talk was behind them.

Right?

He might have waddled off into the snowy night, content to let them squabble with each other and do whatever youngins did. Well had the girl not spoken to him that was. She offered him a simple question that (hopefully) didn't require any more muddy conversational waters to wade through.

"Walleye." He offered easily enough, introductions seemed simpler the older he grew to be. Eyed the both of them, still not entirely sure on just how old they were if they weren't cubbin'. Maybe rowdy teens who had slipped out to cause trouble. "And you?" Whichever wanted to answer could, he would leave the floor entirely open for them.

walleye cannot travel through mountains
and will travel normal terrain at 1/2 speed

Azra was far sheepish than Marian would ever care to be. Taking her mistake-mostly- in her stride she was quick to shoo it away as though she hadn't just fuddled right in front of an old gaffer. Instead he was quick to introduce himself, calling himself Walleye which...Okay that was a new one. She expected something old timey like...Rolf or Bernard, but she supposed that would do just fine. Not that she really cared. He could have called himself Dick and she...would have had a hard time keeping a straight face. Some things never changed all right?

"Marian. This is Azra." She gestured to her friend in turn with a casual flick of her tail. "You usually just take a snooze out here like that? Is it an elderly thing?"

Aka was that a bright future that laid ahead of her? One day the soft browns of her coat would be mottled grey and her eyes would lose their youthful shine. She cringed.

Marian and Azra.

Bunch of hip kid names or something. He didn't...understand them. The names. What did they even mean? Except he came from a long line of wolves named after fish. So. Maybe don't be so quick to judge, Walleye.

"Oh, yeah." He nodded nonchalant. Elderly thing. Damn kids, what the hell? He knew he was old but brat sure did know how to kick them when they were down. "It's just...all random naps in the middle of nowhere and wiggling teeth. If you're lucky, your coat will stay decent. Otherwise that goes too." He teased with a bit of a scrunch look upon his face. Old man humor.

walleye cannot travel through mountains
and will travel normal terrain at 1/2 speed

The old geezer's attention seemed to be wavering before he reeled back from the grave in order to answer Marian's question. Walleye. Like the fish? Azra could feel one of his eyebrows raising and nearly put a paw over his face to pull it back down before he regained control. Certainly seemed like there were better fish names out there, if it had to be a fish.

Marian introduced the pair of them in return and tacked onto the end one of her very blunt questions. Azra inhaled sharply. He felt that Annie should take it easy on the man. One question too strong and she was likely to just knock him over. But, in the end she did have a point. Walleye had just been discovered asleep, sitting straight up in a very ominous, animated-dead kind of way. Azra, too, wanted to know if that was what awaited him.

Azra was not sure if he wanted to believe Walleye. Wiggling teeth? He raised a paw to his muzzle, as if to check that all his chompers were still there. He wondered if Walleye was missing some. Azra's coat was already white, though, so he assumed it couldn't get any lighter. "And then....?" he said softly, uncertainly.

For an old guy he had a pretty dry sense of humour, Marian could appreciate that. He went onto explain the woes of getting old and Marian grimaced at the thought of losing her teeth. She wouldn't care so much if her coat went all salt and peppery, grey around the muzzle, cause she'd never put too much time into dolling herself up. As long as she was mostly presentable and decently clean she was content, but a wolf's teeth were important. Maybe the best thing they had going for them. So the thought of being an old biddy, all gum and no bite who had to slurp up meat like a snake...Yeah, she'd sooner die then sink that low.

Azra's words trailed off with such a heavy sense of uncertainty that Marian just had to cut in, forever the cynic.

"Then you die. " She drawled, bumping into Azra's shoulder in a not so gentle show of force. Just because she could. "But I think we've got some time, no use in thinking on the whats on whens."

"And then...?"

Oh he was full of awful things to tell them. How every bone creaked and his joints grew stiff in the winter months. How most things were just plain ol' hard. Except Marian there quipped in with the grim end to his horror story. Sucked all the fun right out of scaring the poor boy.

"Beat me to the ending, cubbin'." He teased with a wheeze for a laugh. "Figure that's my cue to go fall asleep somewhere else, though. Let you two figure out the rest of the woes of gettin' old." And if not stopped, he did truly plan to do just that.

walleye cannot travel through mountains
and will travel normal terrain at 1/2 speed

A young fawn has gotten separated from its herd. Hunt Opportunity, +8 Health

"Oh... right." He just figured maybe something else more dramatic or notable happened between the teeth and the fur thing and death. But maybe all the exciting stuff was already done by the time things were falling out of your body/head. That was sort of sad. Walleye seemed like he maybe could do some things, still.

But all he wanted to do was sleep.

"Uhhh, yep. We'll leave you to that. Come on Marian." And they walked away.