Wild Rye Fields the emptiest of fields

@Niles. Set after his joining. <3 Also, I may have pped Niles a bit here? Sorry 'bout that.

Yes, it had been cruel of her to leave Niles to fend for himself against @Drestig, but Cas had never been accused of being anything less. So, when her - their - alpha had accepted the dark-furred boy into the pack, and then called Cas out on abandoning him to his fate, the little wolf had just laughed softly and slipped out from under the bush to speak with them. After, she had just headed back to the Rye wolves' den to sleep, because it had been very late, and had dropped off to sleep beside her new packmate.

The next morning was quite pretty. Cold, of course, but very pretty. Better than the blizzard-y weather that had been swirling about the days after Phoenix had gone missing. Worry prickled in her heart at the thought of the young pup being on her own, and she sighed before carefully extracting herself from her companion's side and heading out of the den. It was pretty early, and she didn't want to wake him up if she could help it.

It was then that she noticed how sore she was. Her left foreleg - the one that was always giving her fits - throbbed with a vengeance and she sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. Between heading so far down south, then traveling with Niles, and then helping Askan search for Percy, Cas was pretty much positive her body had had enough of it.

"Dammit," she breathed, putting a bit of weight on that paw and flattening her ears to her skull with a soft growl of pain. She was glad that none of her packmates were around to see her predicament - she was exhausted, her body was aching with a dull pain from what felt like everywhere, and she could hardly put weight on her left front leg. She knew that she needed to get a hold of it quickly, before everyone woke up.

Before Niles woke up.

She really, really, did not want him to find out about her being sick. At least, not now. Not when she was pretty sure things were going well with the two of them. Not when she was pretty sure that he liked her back. Why else would he follow her up north and join her pack, if he didn't like her?

Perhaps she really was cruel, to let the poor boy get attached to a dying wolf.

Her shoulders hunched over at the thought, her normally-bright and cheerful nature entirely gone as she allowed herself a few moments of moroseness and self-pity. She was hurting - it was evident in every tense muscle on her coiled body - and, since the sun had yet to rise fully, there was no one around to see her suffer.

Or, she hoped there wasn't, anyway.

Totally cool~ c:

NILES ARCHER LYALL

When Niles had been accepted, there were no words that could have described the feeling he felt as @Drestig ushered both him and @Castel over the borders and into the pack den for the night. The lone oak tree was a welcome sight, and it was in the entryway of the underground den that Niles found his spot. Between Castel and the cool earthen wall of the burrow, he drifted off to sleep, dreaming of nothing but the blackness behind his dark lids. When his companion had awoken for the day, before daybreak, the Lyall slumbered. Even as their Leaders and older pack mates rose to get a headstart on the day, he remained lost in dream.

It was only when he felt that actual chill of the morning - and no other source of body heat and warmth nearby - that he shivered awake. His eyes slowly blinked open and his large ears came up. It was too quiet and being here on his own would take a while to get used to. He wiggled his frost-nipped digits then stretched his long hind limbs out behind him before crawling out of the pack den. The morning had yet to fully greet the sun, the first rays still hidden behind the horizon; and, yet, he still squinted, his eyes searching across the open fields for any sign of Castel.

He rolled his shoulders and gave his neck a dull pop on each side before setting his nose to the ground. There were so many tracks here, it was almost dizzying, but he did manage to single her out. Her own scent trail wandered off and away, leading him some distance from the den before he finally saw her. She was on her own, fully engrossed with her thoughts it seemed with how she stood, hunched shoulders and all.

Niles smiled to himself, his tail already set in a slow wag as he came to approach her. "G'morning," he chuffed from some distance away, oh so eager to see her smile, the way she lit up whenever she talked to him.

tell me everyday I get to wake up to that smile

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity

SoW knew they wanted to fish e.e

Though Niles wasn't loud or abrasive in the slightest, and he stopped a distance away before speaking, Cas was still startled. She jumped and spun around as though she'd been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to do - the same look a pup might have after wasting food or sneaking out of the den at night. It took the young wolf a moment or two longer than necessary to process the fact that it was only Niles that had approached her and not some stranger. Which was good, because if it were a stranger, Cas obviously couldn't put up much of a fight. She was still hunched in a bit, eyes slightly glazed and tired, and fur kinked and ruffled everywhere from restless sleep. She clearly did not feel well.

Not a pretty sight.

Regardless, the ash-dusted Rye wolf blinked a few times to clear her vision and offered him a smile and wag of her tail, putting a considerable amount of energy and effort into the gesture. "'Mornin'," she replied, a small yawn parting her maw as she realized that it was still quite early in the morning - if she peered, she could see the first rays of sun rising over the mountains in the distance, coloring the grayish air in soft pinkish yellow lighting.

"Did you sleep okay? I didn't kick you or anything, did I?" she asked, slightly worried that her inability to get comfortable had bothered him any. She'd tried to be still, but she knew that she had probably moved around quite a bit, indeed. And then, of course, had left him in the early hours of the morning to freeze on his own, pressed against the side of the den. The cruelty of that gesture hit her. "I left you, too. I'm sorry." A whine punctuated her apology, and she dropped her tail low before wagging it slowly.

She approached him, head under his chin, and pressed her muzzle to his shoulder in a greeting and an 'I'm sorry' rolled into one. And, if there was a little personal comfort that she was soaking up just through physical contact - something she'd not had in a long while of being sick - who would know?

(This post was last modified: Feb 14, 2017, 02:57 AM by Castel.)

NILES ARCHER LYALL

She jumped, startled by his approach. His jaw quivered; he probably should have made some sort of sound - that characteristic throat-clearing that he was slowly adopting, perhaps - to announce his arrival. Their eyes met, her shocked expression meeting his half-apologetic, half-distressed one. He thought he could see what pain was visible in the way her eyes were glassy and how she didn't move much from her original stance. It took a few moments, some silence in which they merely blinked at one another but her reply eventually came with a yawn:

"Mornin'."

His tail gave a cautious wag, the gesture still amiable in the least. It seemed that she had been worried. Niles' ears flipped back briefly before coming back to their relaxed, neutral position atop his head. He shook his head in response to her question. Truth be told, having traveled so much and walked so far, he slept like a rock. She might have kicked him or rolled up against him several times in the night and he probably didn't even wake up from it. If he had, he didn't remember it.

She added,"I left you, too. I'm sorry." Then, before he could even think to close the distance between them, she moved forward. Her muzzle came to his shoulder and he nestled his head over her, nestling the side of his face to whatever he could embrace - the back of her skull, her nape, her neck - as she moved. He drew in a deep breath, releasing it in a rather relieved sigh. "Iss-awlright," he rasped, his larynx still sluggish from disuse and tiredness. "No need t'be sorry."

He withdrew from her a bit, unsure if the prolonged contact between them was socially appropriate (pack-wise or age-wise). The bit of matted fur he saw along her shoulders, though, he gently used his teeth and tongue to make it lay they it was meant to. He exhaled through his nose when he was through, a small bit of satisfaction rising up in him as he regarded his companion again. A soft smile crept back along his lips, not even minding the way his voice cracked for once, "Ya di'n't tell me how beautiful it was 'ere in th'mornings."

tell me everyday I get to wake up to that smile

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

It seemed like he forgave her for leaving him by himself, and he even went so far as to reciprocate her affection and groom her matted fur where he could reach. She shook out her fur when he withdrew, a bit disappointed at the lack of contact, but not enough for her to try and regain it. Her muddled brain was trying to keep up with everything that was going on, and she was still overwhelmed with the mixture of sharp pinpricks and dull waves of pain radiating from seemingly every part of her body.

The multicolored girl tried for a wave of her tail, as well, but the movement was stiff and slightly forced. She tried to keep up with his broken speech - she actually found the impediment very endearing, but it made it kinda hard to understand when you were only working at half-speed. She gathered that he had forgiven her, and waved her tail softly, her gaze drifting by accident when it became a little difficult to keep her head raised enough to meet his gaze.

He made another statement afterward, and Cas took a bit longer to process it than the first time. Her glassy blue eyes narrowed a bit, her brows drawing together in confusion. "Um..." she began, then found an answer that might be somewhere in the ballpark as a response to his claim. "Yeah, it is a beautiful morning." Cold as hell, yeah, but beautiful.

She took a step backward, putting no weight on her left foreleg and resulting in a limp. "Are-are you hungry? We have some caches around here somewhere." She herself was not at all hungry, though she understood that she needed food. But the very thought of it made her stomach churn wildly, and her nose wrinkled in distaste.

NILES ARCHER LYALL

"Um..." she began. "Yeah, it is a beautiful morning." Niles smiled and smiled and smiled at her. She never ceased to amaze and amuse him. This side of her, though very much the polar opposite, was a whole new level. To him, it seemed thoughtful, perhaps even profound in the sense that proved she had a deeper grasp on the world than most other wolves. At least, that was until she took that single step backwards.

The boy couldn't help but look at her willowy limbs as she asked him if he was hungry. He had ransacked a poor mouse family's underground burrow just the other day. Needless to say, he enjoyed them, but that didn't mean he would skip sharing a snack with her. All thoughts of food aside, though, he was transfixed on what he could pick up from the way she held herself, the way she moved... the way she wasn't her usual chatty self...

His forehead wrinkled and his whiskered brows drew upwards as he peered into her face, "You-- all right?" He had taken note of the stiffness in her tail, but only now realized that he might have stepped over a line or something had happened when he hadn't been with her. "Wha-at's wrong?"

tell me everyday I get to wake up to that smile

(This post was last modified: Apr 19, 2017, 08:23 PM by Niles.)

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

Well, shit. Cas might have been out of it, but she was with it enough to know that this freaking sucked. The little wolf tucked her tail slightly and lowered her posture a bit, allowing herself to be both more obvious in her pain and to apologize to him in a nonverbal way. She really did feel bad, to drag him into the pack and then get sick. Or, well, get sicker. A soft, wobbly whine escaped her without her permission, and she glanced up at him, but couldn't meet his gaze because her own vision was too blurry.

"Um, I'm -" she cut herself off, about to claim that she was fine when she was obviously very not fine. Her stomach did an uncomfortable somersault, and she swallowed a reflexive gag. "I'm not alright," she replied, ears flattening as she lowered her head enough to brush her nose against the snow beneath her.

The tremors picked up slightly out of fear, and she was trapped between wanting to step backward and wanting to approach him and soak up any comfort he might be able to offer. Her muddied mind caused her to hesitate, and she closed her eyes to fend off some of the dizziness swimming around her. "I don't fe-feel good," she told him, cursing inwardly when her voice cracked in the middle of her sentence and ended in a whimper. Instead of how she had told Askan and Drestig - in a calm, level way - it came out stuttered when she said it aloud to Niles. And she hadn't even told him all of it yet - nor would she.

It was just a blatant, obvious show of why she would never get to live a normal life.

"I'm... I want to go lay d-down," she tried to explain. "Co-cold..." Yeah, she was cold, and yet hot at the same time. Probably feverish - no, definitely feverish. Her shivering was bone-deep and she wobbled where she stood, blue eyes cast to the swirling ground underneath her.

She stuttered in reply, but Niles was all ears. She wasn't all right and she didn't feel good. He made to move closer to her but as she mentioned that she wanted to lay down, he scanned the rolling knolls that made up the fields. There wasn't a whole lot of places they could hide, but instinct drove him to just take a step back and just lay down. He flattened the snow with his side, almost rolling over but realizing that Castel would probably be fine without having so much space. They weren't in a confining den or tucked away at the base of a boulder or sheltered by anything like the cage-like branches of a willow tree.

He stood up and gently prodded her with his nose, "S'all right, jus'... jus' lay down then." With a paw he gently pressed down on her back, hoping it would make her sit then full recline forward. He winced as he noticed now just how badly she was shaking, encouraging her with a hushed, "C'mere, relax." If he could get her off her feet and on the ground beside him, then he could assess her further. It was at a time like this that he wished he had paid closer attention to what his mother was trying to teach him. Surely, Ravenna knew more about shivers and sniffles and being dizzy and how to 'cure' it, but he was a long way from home now. He was on his own.

we can say goodbye, just head home, but if we're going to be alone
Chimera is currently traveling with Niles and may hop into this IC thread!

We can fade with this, or your next post if this isn't enough

The little wolf was too far out of it to register much more than the coruscant snow around them and Niles' dark figure against the white backdrop. But then he was touching her with his nose, coaxing her to lie down, and she was more than content to obey. The silvery girl folded her forelegs underneath her like a horse would, ending up dipping her nose into the snow as she settled down beside her companion. Her blue eyes were clouded and hazy, and she teetered a bit as she tried to lean closer to Niles. He was warm and solid and safe, and though more warmth was likely the last thing she needed, she still desired the comfort and stability he could offer.

She curled up against his side, her flank rising and falling rapidly as she dropped off into sleep almost the instant her eyes shut. She whimpered a bit and cuddled next to him, burying her nose underneath her tail and forming a semicircle with her body in an attempt to curl in on herself and escape from the pain, sickness, and confusion that was overwhelming her. It was all too much for her at the moment, and so she just opted to hide herself from the world and sleep beside Niles.