Whisper Marsh do you still believe in one another

@Veho
my brain is so dead

She was doing a gravely horrible thing. She hadn't meant to, of course. Nineva was adventurous and liked to push her limits, but she wouldn't have broken the rules this severely by choice. Leaving the pack lands may as well have been a death sentence given the way her parents spoke and enforced the law of never leaving their domain, if she could comprehend the finality of such a decree. And as much as Nineva yearned to know what existed beyond her world, especially since Namid and Desideria's visit, she hadn't dared disobey her parents to that extent. Anyways, there was enough unknown left in her own world to keep her satisfied, but that was exactly what had gotten her into this mess to begin with. A frog was nothing she'd seen before, and of course that meant it must be investigated. Given its small size, she knew that she would be able to capture and easily contain it, and therefor proceeded to undertake the venture with gusto. The little girl had yet run into anything small that could harm her, unaware of what venom was, therefor she had nothing to fear from this unfamiliar, slimy beast. Still, it was quick and unpredictable. Each time she leapt at it, the thing managed to launch itself through the air at incredible length and evade her clumsy paws. So enraptured by the chase was she, that Nineva did not realize she had broken past her parents' clearly marked borders until both the frog and her forepaws disappeared into duckweed-laden water. This transition was so sudden that Nineva froze completely, the frog's existence vanishing from her mind as she felt the sludge beneath the dark water squish between her toes. A grimace formed upon her maw before her entire face twisted completely with disgust. "ewwwWWWWW!" she wailed, before pulling herself from the water. A deep sucking sound was made as the marsh attempted to keep its hold on her, but thankfully the little girl hadn't wandered too deeply and the mud was not thick enough to mire her.

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Perhaps, Veho thought absently, lounging on the marshy earth, it would have been wise to eat his mushrooms after arriving at his destination. While the quagmire was all well and good, his belly was really beginning to feel quite damp, and he hadn’t quite the energy to move just yet. Complaining would get him no where, he well knew, but the spirits lurking around Whisper Marsh were not the ones he wished to contact, no matter how stories they had to tell. Rolling onto his side, the male hummed loudly as his tail thumped, murmuring under his breath as he stared into the distance. A wolf who did not know the medicine man and his particular habits might have thought him in a neurotic fit!

Fortunately, no one stumbled upon him – he was brought forth from the veil was a disgusted shriek. It sounded small, and high, and all at once the male rolled onto his middle with his head perked, ears swiveling like an alert guard dog. Urged onwards by the spirit he’d spoken with, the male gathered his feet underneath him and began a steady trot, carefully avoiding pitfalls as he sought the damsel in distress.

A few minutes later, he found a young pup on the water’s edge, covered in much and slime. Veho was in a similar state, the left side of his face coated in thick, brown mud, as was the rest of his side. He approached with a smile and a friendly wag of his tail, feeling no need to assert dominance over a child, of all things. “Hello, little one! Are you quite alright?” he asked, glancing into the water. “Looks like you’ve taken a bit of a spill.”

The small girl tracked furiously backward, dragging her soiled paws through the damp grass in a desperate attempt to rid herself of the black filth. So distracted by this task was she, that Nineva didn't realize anyone was near by, and certainly didn't know of Veho's presence until he was right on top of her. A shadow cast itself, darkening the ground and falling upon her. Jerking her head up she fixed her mismatched gaze upon the stranger, and what she saw sent terror reeling through her veins. A scream escape her as standing right before her was a monster, risen up from the black water! It's pale eyes were unfocused and as crazed as anything she'd ever seen before, and it was coated in dominating patches by the muck that so stubbornly clung to her fur! Her mind faintly registered that it had spoken to her, but she couldn't trace back any understanding of the words. She scrambled backward, mouth agape and eyes bulging from her over-sized head, but the farther she wheeled the more complete the picture in front of her was and slowly she realized that this was just another wolf. A dirty other wolf, but something familiar and recognizable all the same. Relief took its time settling over her, but he escaping movements had ceased and her jaw rehinged itself. This was a stranger, just as Namid and Desideria had been. Though eevn this wasn't quite the same, as her parents had seemed know them from before, and regardless had been with her at the time. Now, she was alone, and honestly didn't know where she was at this point. The Caverns monarchs' warnings of danger flittered briefly into her head, but all that stayed there was curiosity. "I... I'm sorry I thought..." Nineva's voice stammered, and she took a big gulping swallow to try and stabilize herself. "I-I thought you were a m-monster..." Could monsters disguise themselves as wolves? "Wh-what are you...?" Dumb question, Nineva. You sound so dumb! Get it together! She had never been this nervous before, certainly not in the safe confines of her parents' domain. Hating this feeling, the pup mustered all of her will power and amended her question quickly, "What are you doing here?!"

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(This post was last modified: Sep 04, 2015, 02:26 PM by Nineva.)

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

Were he not high as a kite, the scream might have startled Veho has much as the muddy apparition had terrified the child. As it were, the moon-eyed male simply stared back at the puppy, the fog in his mind leaving him slow to comprehend just why he’d frightened her. At the very least, he didn’t give chase, allowing the girl to collect her thoughts as he gathered his own. About the time the child was willing to speak, his ears had turned forward once more – he was able to listen and likely comprehend the words shared with him.

“My apologies, little one!” the male crowed, voice a bit raspy from his previous indulgences. Eyes sparkled as he bowed his head – muddy on one side, he was still a wolf, and that much could be seen on the side he’d not been laying upon. Without really thinking about it, the medic gave his pelt a good shake, slinging the smelly sludge in all directions. It left his coat standing up in small spikes, but perhaps he looked more canine than he had only a few moments ago, and he finally introduced himself. “I am Merlin, a traveling medic. Or, no, not traveling any longer. I belong to Grizzly Hollow,” Veho explained, perhaps more for himself than for the benefit of the girl standing afore him.

That was not actually the question she’d asked him, however, and he forced himself to plow onwards. Why was he here? Oh yes! “There are a great many spirits in this wetland, I’ve found. I came to converse with my Ancestors where the veil is weak. Why are you here, child? Seems a poor place to play – especially with no parents about!”

The child flinched backward, alarmed by the abrupt volume of the man's voice. Her eyes began to search side to side, seeking an escape route should the need be. Having not been focusing entirely on the stranger, she was caught off guard by a pellet of grime that assaulted her cheek, eliciting a startled yelp. Folding her limbs over her head she could do nothing but cower under the onslaught of muck that rained down upon her. When finally it stopped, she peered out hesitantly, meeting those wide silver eyes with fear. It wasn't that his words were comforting. Far from it, truly, for the names mentioned did not click within her head and she was unable to know that he was an ally to her parents. Still, they pulled her from the withdrawn state, curiosity thawing her little body thoroughly. Hesitantly, she stood, but dared not to come any closer. It occurred to her that perhaps she shouldn't pursue the many mysteries his little bout had created within her head, that she should turn home instead. This caused her to be silent for a moment, but then the dam failed and she suddenly rushed out a volley of her own. "What's a medic? And a Grizzly? And a spirit? Are Ancestors spirits? Why do they live in a veil? Why is it weak?" A piece of her knew that he could not answer all of these at once, and yet she couldn't pause the flow, for repeating the words helped to commit them to memory and she didn't want to lose a single one. She wanted to know what all of this strangeness was that he spoke about, distracted so thoroughly even that she didn't think to answer his own questions.

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Ah, a barrage of questions! For a moment, Veho was stunned into silence – for a bit there, he’d rather frightened the pup and had assumed she’d go running home to her parents. (Something he hoped to avoid, to be honest. His intentions were pure, and had little to do with the small girl he’d stumbled upon. However, parents, and alphas, were always less than keen to tolerate those threatening their young in his limited experience, and he’d not the wherewithal to pick his way through the marsh carefully, much less defend himself if forced.)

Breathing a sigh of relief, the medic plopped his rump back into the quagmire, the mud squelching beneath his fur as he studied the girl. Where to begin? Perhaps the first question.

“I am a medic. I use plants and flowers to help other wolves when they are sick, and hurt. Each plant does something different, and so I collect them, to help my packmates,” Veho explained, hoping the explanation was simple enough for a pup to comprehend. It was more than likely her own pack had a healer, and perhaps the brief answer would ring a bell. Satisified, he continued. “A Grizzly is a bear – a very large, very angry brown bear. It is so fierce, even wolves do not bother a grizzle in her territory. As far as I understand, there are none left in the forest. The pack is named for the abandoned bear den it was founded at.”

Only one third down! The rest of the questions were significantly more existential. Had the girl ever experienced death? Perhaps not of a fellow wolf, but she looked old enough to have begun eating meat. Based on the assumption the pack had been hunting for the girl, Veho tried his best to clarify the topic in a way a puppy could understand. “A spirit…is what makes you more than just a body. Your spirit is what makes you alive, and makes you different from me. We all have our own spirit,” he murmured quietly, tipping his head. “Spirits exist beyond our mortal life, so once we pass and our spirit is no longer in us, much like a rabbit your parents bring for you to eat. Its spirit is gone to the next realm, which is beyond the veil. The veil is what keeps you and I from wandering around the spirit world. We wouldn’t like that. It is not made for us.”

Did that make sense? Even Veho was starting to wonder, but it was too late to take it back. What was the other thing? About the Ancestors?

“Oh! Yes, the Ancestors were wolves, once. The Ancestors are the wolves in our families that have come before us. I speak to mine, when I need advice. I find them very helpful.”

A pause, and a tip of his head. “I…am sorry if I’ve asked already, but what is your name, little one? Are you lost?”

She drank in every word, the logophile in her relishing every definition offered up to her wondering mind. As he plopped down upon the waterlogged ground, so did she, squat rump immediately soaking up the blackish muk, but she didn't mind. As she aged, she would learn more and more to present herself regally, to maintain appearances in order to maintain the respect of her constituents. As a child, however, she held no concerns for the state of her coat, whether it be ruffled or soiled or both. Her gaze was suspended upon his lips, watching them move around each syllable, the awe she felt clearly relayed within both bright orbs even as only one of them truly saw him. At the end of it all, despite how much had been offered up by the foreign man, she still had so many questions, and they all boiled forth, threatening to spill from her throat any second, but this time she could not ignore again that he had asked her an inquiry of his own. Her lips sealed tightly as her ears flicked backward, embarrassment evident as she realized that he had indeed asked her before, she had simply (even though unintentionally) brushed it off in the rush her own excitement. How rude of her! @Narimé certainly would have been disappointed with her lack of manners. "Sorry," she offered with a sheepish smile. "I'm Nineva. I um... kinda. I was chasin' a jumpy thing, and didn't realize I wasn't home until..." she lifted a paw, and let the rich mud drip from it to make her point; until she'd found herself in the marsh and everything was suddenly different. "Why aren't ancestors wolves anymore? Why don't we want to go in the veil? What's there? How long do spirits live? Can they visit?" A beat of silence, as her mind pondered the connection made to the food brought to her by her parents. She knew by now that her parents had to kill the animal to bring it to her, and so she had to wonder, "Is the foods spirits mad at us?"

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(This post was last modified: Nov 10, 2015, 11:49 PM by Nineva.)

Chasing a jumpy thing…? How curious.

Veho could not help his small smile at the child’s explanation – ah, the joys of youth. He could remember those days, before he’d been plagued with worry and guilt. There were no frogs for him to chase pack on the plains (and he assumed it was a frog she spoke of, for he couldn’t think of much else that would hop and also resided in a swamp), but he bothered all the gophers and burrowing owls with great delight.

He might have commented on it, had Nineva not had a boatload of questions for him concerning his particular manner of expertise. Were he of clearer mind, he might have had a better explanation for the little girl – as it were, he hummed, and answered simply, bluntly, and perhaps not as delicately as one should for a youth. “The Ancestors are no longer wolves because they have died. They lose their earthly body.” Here, he lifted one paw, as the silvery fae had only moments ago, trying to illustrate his point. “And this is the reason we cannot enter the veil – nothing earthly can cross it. Beyond the veil is where the spirits live, where the Ancestors live. They usually stay there, for the world is very difficult to interact with when you no longer have a body, but they do visit, sometimes. Usually if you need help, they will try to offer you guidance, or if you are alone, they might keep watch over you for a night.”

Veho paused, tail swishing.

“That is why I talk to them, sometimes. To let them know I still care about them, even if I am not asking for help. That they are still remembered, even though they are gone.”

Her last question caught him off guard, and he tipped his head to one side. “…food spirits? I am afraid I don’t understand.”

@Veho feel free to fade & archive with your next post of them chatting/him taking her home, unless you want to keep going. <3

She absorbed it all, every delicious morsel of information, with eyes widened by wonder and transfixed upon his jaws. So there was more than just this world, this life? That was fascinating and exciting all the same time. She wondered how much of an impact this life might have on the next, or whether there was a third level, perhaps an infinite amount of afterlifes. For such a young mind, uncomprehending of the true reality of death and ending of time, this seemed a far easier explanation to wrap her head around. It was also interesting to know that while they could not walk into their territory, they could still communicate with these spirits, and the spirits could commit the reverse transcendence, stepping into the realm of the living. "Food's spirits," she repeated, eager for this to be clarified so that he could continue feeding her information. "Like the rabbits and the deers, when we kill them for food. Are they mad about it?" She had to wonder, especially if they were allowed to come back, if they might seek vengeance. Was that the reason she sometimes seemed to trip over nothing? Was the jumpy thing even a spirit that had purposefully led her astray? For as long as answers weren't given, her mind would race ahead, imagination running wild with all of the possibilities.

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