Cedarwood Forest If You Close Your Eyes

((This is Vet posting for Hachi since his computer is still not cooperating! Thread for Falcon for now, then potentially open up to Cut Rock River Pack?))
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The sky is starting to darken. Clouds creeping like shadows, enveloping the last rays of sunlight and choking them from existence. While dusk is only starting to approach, the winds remain light and playful. They rustle the sprawling branches of the thick trees that cover the area below, causing the broad leaves to rattle against one another. Very soon, true darkness will approach.

And Falcon is still missing.

Jackdaw sprints through the dense forest, ears rammed forward to catch any sounds that may reveal the whereabouts of his wayward sister. He’s going to choke her to death. He’s going to beat her until she can’t leave his line of sight again. He had finally managed to capture the sleep that kept alluding him but awoke to a missing sister and stale scent trails. What a fucking price to pay for some damned shut-eye. This has to be why he can’t sleep at night. Nothing to do with night-terrors and chucklevoodoos, nope.

He skids to a halt by the edge of the forest. This is a boundary line, he can feel it. She wouldn’t have been brain damaged enough to cross it, would she? Tors’ swollen mammary glands, of course she would! Oh look, a pretty little flutterbeast! Let me chase it out of the fucking Forest of Disembowelment which shelters me and keeps me drawing breath through my giant noise maker and not a perfectly formed hole in my oesophagus!

If she’s horribly wounded when he finds her, and he will fucking find her, then he’s just going to leave her and not tend to her hurts. She clearly doesn’t learn shit when he does. Maybe a few scars will remind her to not go sauntering off into the sunset like some sort of lore-creature.

Jackdaw runs his tongue over his scarred muzzle, definitely becoming a nervous tic, as he paces alongside the border. He can’t cross it. He’s breaking the fucking Laws of The Forest if he crosses the invisible border. He will be converged upon on all sides, packs forming together when they were once enemies just so they can rip him to tiny, sticky shreds and smear him over the invisible fucking border. They will regale their yippers with the tale of Jackdaw The Brain Dead and how he offered himself so willingly to their righteous fangs, how he squirmed and screamed as they tore him limb from limb and the great stench he sent up as they left him to rot outside their dens. This is his legacy. He wants them all to know that it was Falcon The Fucking ADD Extravaganzas’ fault. May the cawbeasts eat her eyes.

But if Falcon went over the invisible border then she could be getting converged on from all sides! Fuck shitting taint licking scum-fuckers! Couldn’t she have stayed inside The Forest Of Disembowelment? Is it really so fucking much to ask for?!

Jackdaw spins in place a few times, snapping his teeth and tossing his head. Fuck it all, he’s dead anyway. He tips his head back with such force that his forelegs lift from the ground as he sends out a short, sharp howl.

Falcon better get her mangy tail back here soon or Tor help him. . .

Falcon
the ghosts of cedarwood forest know my name

OOC here!

She has so much to tell him! What a day! Falcon is still reeling from her most recent adventures, her insides still gooey from time spent with the most adorable of puppies. The she-wolf quickens her pace as the last of the day's light hides behind the forest. It doesn't even concern her the obnoxious, worried rant she knows she'll receive when she finally finds Jackdaw. The day's news has her feeling lighter than a feather and as flight-worthy as her namesake!

Returning to Cedarwood Forest, as she has heard it called, Falcon slows with the realization that she isn't altogether sure where Jackdaw is currently. The pair have yet to settle in a single place yet and move every day to a different place within the forest; nothing has stuck.

But now they have a chance! A chance to be home. To belong. Falcon tries not to let her hopes up; her brother may not agree at all. The pack may not be a match. But Alpha Maksim was very kind considering the danger he had felt his daughter was in at the time. He could have bitten first and asked questions later, but he'd refrained. Perhaps to spare his daughter any violence, but refrained nonetheless!

Jackdaw's sharp howl has Falcon stopping to listen. He isn't too far off. The tawny female tosses her head up to give a barking howl of a response. Her front paws lift a bit off the ground with the excitement of her call, tail wagging happily. She lets the emotion bleed into her song before racing to where her brother waits.

When she comes upon him, Falcon practically barrels through him before doubling back. "Jackdaw, guess what, guess what!" She doesn't give him time to guess. "I met a little pup in the woods who was lost and called for her pack. Her Dad came - the Cut Rock River Pack's Alpha! His name is Maksim. I like him, he was nice! But he said he wanted to meet you and maybe invite us into his pack! Isn't that amazing?" she demands, obviously expecting him to agree and take her absence all day in stride. "We can have a family again!"

Where the fuck is she, holy shit, did she not hear his howl? Is she now deaf as well as stupid? He can't deal with this. He needs to rend something to pieces before his own fragile mind splinters apart for good!

He's just starting to pace again when he hears the returning howl, obviously Falcons'. He goes stock still, ears rotating to figure out which direction it came from. Damn her, she sounds so fucking happy about docking three years from his life due to stress!

But at least she isn't bleeding out in some nondescript ditch somewhere. There is that.

The relief he feels is so strong it threatens to floor him. He lets out a shaky exhale and tries to regain himself before his blundering, idiot sister stumbles upon him.

Right on cue, a streak of tawny barges right into him. Jackdaw yelps before he can stop himself and is sent arse over snout to the ground. He jumps right back up again, snarling and snapping his teeth in wrath.

"You damned ignoramus, stop fucking running into me! One day you'll run at some giant, frothing bushel of dicks and get your whore throat ripped out! And with your last, wheezing breath you'll ask it if it wants to play with you, you pitiful lump of dripping feaces! Would you please, for fucking once in your pathetically short life, try to use that slowly festering tumor lodged in your skull that you so laughably label a brain!"

Falcon, ever the willfully ignorant, simply talks right over his shouted words of rage. Fenrirs' ancient God dick, what the fuck is she going on about? Doesn't she understand that he's imparting wisdom unto her thick skull? That he's trying to stop her from fucking expiring within days of them just entering this huge cradle of horrorterrors? Is she-

"WHAT."

He barks out suddenly, his own slowly failing brain finally having sifted through his sisters bullshit and got back to him with the report of 'Your shits wrecked, sir.'.

"You fucking went into someone's territory?! Are you brain rotted?! What if they had attacked you, you dumb shit! Or accused you of accosting their yipper?! The ALPHAS yipper no less! Tor damn your vision and Fenrir damn your movement, fuck damn it! Did they do anything to you? Not that you wouldn't fucking deserve it, fuckwit! Did they threaten you? Fuck, shit, did they follow you?"

Jackdaw, who had been snuffling and nudging vigorously at Falcons' entire body to check for any hurts, jerks his head up to snarl at the gathering shadows around them with suspicion. Fuck, they could be under surveillance right now. Fuck damn it Falcon!

He sneers at the rest of Falcons' statement. Ha, 'invite'. What a funny joke. More like 'ordered'. Of course this strange Alpha wants to meet Jackdaw! He wants to kill him so there would be no one to threaten his position or harm his pack! And then he'd take Falcon into his ranks, fresh female means fresh blood means no incest. Happy 'families' all around!

Fucking right.

"I'm sure we could Falcon."

He then growls out because he's a fucking idiot and Falcon is a fucking idiot who wont understand any of this political shit! They should've left this place the moment they were rested enough.

He's so proud of his life choices.

(This post was last modified: Jul 11, 2014, 02:26 AM by Jackdaw.)

Falcon
the ghosts of cedarwood forest know my name

OOC here!

She cannot help it. Happiness has infected the she-wolf so deep down into her very bones that even her brother's snarling and carrying on cannot dim it. Her eyes dance with delight, unaffected by Jackdaw's harsh, unfriendly words and her tail swings quickly. Falcon is absolutely certain that he will understand given the chance!

Well used to her brother's ill temper, she is easily prepared when he goes off the rails and rages at her for her supposed stupidity. He's the silly wolf! She's the one who knows how to behave correctly while he shows his teeth and refuses to show respect simply due to title. Sometimes, Falcon understands his point. 'Respect should be earned,' he's always telling her. The tawny female figures if a wolf is great enough to become an Alpha, they already have earned it!

Patiently, Falcon corrects her misunderstanding brother with more patience than any mother has for her teething pups. "I didn't go into anyone's territory. That's why she was lost. I simply called one of them to me!" She states it proudly. Isn't it genius of her? She avoids directly disobeying every plea her brother constantly throws her way and politely asks another to approach her where she has a fairly decent chance of running away should things go poorly.

Falcon has always been the fleet-footed one of the pair and has no qualms about running if she has no chance of a fight. At least if she is the only one in danger. When it comes to those she loves being endangered...well, Falcon will stay and fight to whatever bitter end comes.

While she isn't sure if anyone followed her, the she-wolf feels strongly that she hadn't been. Alpha Maksim had to see to his darling little Karina, after all! He wouldn't waste precious time chasing after her when he had his daughter to care for. The male struck Falcon as very attentive to those under his care.

"Relax! You worry more than anyone I've ever met!" she tells him with the first signs of exasperation. Why doesn't he see how great this is? A potential family!

She takes his 'I'm sure we could Falcon,' as reluctant acceptance and leaps into the air for joy. "Really? So you'll come meet him? Oh, please, oh please, Jackdaw!" Falcon begs, wriggling to lick at his chin with adoration.

He wants to beat the stupid out of her but he really doesn't think there's any force in the blazing husk of any of The Creators pawprints to do that. He keens in distress and clamps his teeth around one of her tawny sound-sensors, shaking roughly in a vain attempt to rattle the think-flesh inside the confines of her skull. Why does she not understand?!

What if she had howled and a Guard Patrol had found her first! They would have just seen her as a threat to be eliminated, unlike the Alpha which had been emotionally compromised by the presence of his yipper. She would have been dead before she hit the ground. Or what if they had captured her and kept her as a prisoner? She seemed to think she could outrun any of his 'imagined' dangers with no problems!

None of that matters when she rolls over to display her soft, weak belly and throat the moment someone even twitches in hostility! Fucking inept, naive, stupid yipper that she is!

And then she fucking tells him to relax!

He releases her and begins to pace with rough, agitated steps. He snarls and snaps at her the whole time.

"You're going to fucking kill yourself, you're going to bound right into the gapping jaws of the Bone-Hoarder with a fucking disgusting amount of glee. And then what's left of your bloody and torn remains will never be found because, oh fuck yes! You never fucking told me where you were going or when you were going to be back!"

Jackdaw feels his wrath pulse through his think-flesh, white hot and painful as it pulses up from the tight fires in his digestive fluids. He's fucking entitled to worry over her fuck-dumb hide because she obviously wont!

And then she's prattling on and excited because she took his earlier huffed statement as agreement to her ridiculous notion of having a 'family' again!

He stares at her jumping form, feeling as though some horrorterror has decided to chew on his skull.

"Shut the fuck up and stop springing around like you've been rolling in meowbeast-grass! I don't think I could eat enough prey in my entire pitiful life-span to compensate for the amount of vomit I want to spew onto you right now."

Without further ado, he turns and digs his fangs into his own foreleg. Holy shit, he just can't deal with any of this and it's all his own retarded fault! Fucking idiot, why does he ever open his noise-maker? It's like an infected wound that puss erupts out of at every opportunity. Useless and disgusting! It leaks out and makes everyone around the wound think 'oh, at least the poison is coming out! It can get better now'. Wrong! The foul puss is just misleading and as everyone thinks the wound is going to close up and get better it just festers and stinks worse than ever. What a great fucking way to describe his life!

He releases his flesh in disgust and begins to pace once more. He can deal with his stupid fucking self at a later date. Right now, he has a dumb littermate to deal with instead.

Alright, he knows Falcon is a social creature. He knows she needs contact. Constantly. But why is she so insisting on this 'family' thing? Does she not understand that there is no 'family', there is only Pack. And why must she search for this 'family' amongst wolves. Jackdaw is so sick of the breed. Can't she go and adopt a horn-beast or something. Horn-beasts don't have claws or fangs or, worst of all, pride.

But no, it's always wolves.

Shifting that aside for a latter puzzle, really it's just complaining about his littermates weirdness and isn't helping right now, he embraces the chucklevoodoo that has been rattling against his spine ever since Falcon had mentioned the Alpha wanting to meet them.

Join this, Maksims' Pack.

Wolves don't work like that. They don't invite in strangers, Trespassers. The Pack is territory and that territory belongs to the Alpha. Wolves, Alphas' especially, hoard their territory jealously and don't let anyone get close to it.

To invite someone in, the individual must be trusted absolutely. Most Packs are formed by blood-ties and blood calls to blood, helping the wolves to be more tolerant of each other. Jackdaw is entirely sure at this point that wolves are supposed to be solitary animals. All they ever do is scream and bite and kill each other when they're in close quarters.

Jackdaw shakes his head, growling softly as he continues to pace.

He doubts simply stumbling across a lost yipper, even if it is the Alphas' yipper, will grant them that much trust. So, another reason then. His original theory seems the most concrete. If a wolf ever needs to intrude its' presence upon others for prolonged periods of time then it has to prove its' worth for the duration it spends with the others. Perhaps by providing food. Perhaps through. . .other means.

Jackdaw pries himself from his own mind and blinks at Falcon intently. If they go to this Pack, the will either be slaughtered for being Trespassers or will be expected to make themselves useful. Neither prospect endears Jackdaw to the idea.

But he gazes around the unfamiliar territory, feeling caged by the trees that stretch above him, blotting out the now dark sky and concealing the flocks of Stars that have begun their journey across The Creators back. He feels a bitter loathing towards The Forest of Disembowelment. Without rocks under his pads and open skies above his head, he feels more uneasy than ever.

He feels his own hunger, twisting within him like a live thing. If The Plenty exists in this place, he has yet to taste it. Even Flacon, the better hunter out of them, struggles to capture anything big enough to sate their hunger completely.

The Plenty always exists within Pack. Wether it's shared or not is another thing.

His lack of sleep was also weakening him, both in mind and body. Perhaps if he was just one Trespasser, he would be able to live better. But he isn't, he has Falcon to think of. He wont be enough to protect her if the horrorterrors come.

The Pack will kill him. But Falcon, they'll probably keep. A submissive bitch is always more welcomed than an ambitious brute.

And it'll make Falcon happy, at least. He can't bring her happiness like being surrounded once more by yippers will. He feels chucklevoodoos rattle his spine, why is his littermate so very fucking weird.

"Alright."

He barks out, spinning to face the tawny female after long moment. He snaps his teeth at her to keep her noisemaker firmly fucking shut.

"We'll go to this Fenrir damned Pack. A quick pass through. And when I mean quick I mean as fleet as a hop-beast fleeing from your blood-seeking fangs, got it? We are scouting. To make sure this fucking horrible mistake I am making is good enough to bury me after it rips me the fuck apart. And next fucking time you get the grand idea to wander off into the distance, look into your tiny memory-stone and fucking tell me where you are going, shitbreath!"

Jackdaw fucking gives up. Let the horrorterrors come. At least he wont die in this awful fucking Forest of Disembowelment.

(This post was last modified: Jul 26, 2014, 06:23 PM by Jackdaw.)

Falcon
the ghosts of cedarwood forest know my name

@Maksim New thread or continue here? I sent you a PM.

While Jackdaw curses and snarls, anxious with worry for her over events already past, Falcon sighs heavily. She does settle down, plopping her bum on the ground as he asks; she can tell this whole idea is taxing for him. While the she-wolf has always been quite happy to be around other wolves, her brother has preferred to keep his distance. Trust doesn't come as easily to him. Not by a long shot. So Falcon sits quietly and lets him work it out on his own, her eyes smiling as he does so.

He only acts so crass because he's already made up his mind to go meet Maksim and Falcon knows he must work through his feelings of aggression first before he can relent and give in. Though Jackdaw may seem hateful to any outsiders, the tawny female knows far different. The darker male has a vast amount of love to give, but has a hard time showing it in the same way that other wolves do. It hurts to think it, but Falcon blames their birth pack. The harsh environment in which they were forced to endure during their youth - younger youth - didn't breed healthy mindsets. It had forced Falcon fully into submission and caressed her brother into aggression with secret whispers that it would make everything okay. She knows otherwise. Fighting causes more pain. She'd much rather smile and laugh and wag her tail happily; much rather entice others to do the same.

As Jackdaw stresses over his hunger, over being murdered by the pack, and his sister stolen away for breeding purposes, Falcon thinks of how to make it better for him. Perhaps she can grab small prey for him to chew on as they walk? Gnawing hunger makes for gnawing teeth; that is the last thing the duo needs.

'Alright,' he finally relents and Falcon could leap for joy with happiness! But Jackdaw anticipates her and snaps near her muzzle to keep her quiet. She holds her tongue, but her tail speaks a thousand words for how fast it swishes over the ground.

Hoping to appease the dark wolf, Falcon stands to brush her shoulder against his in comfort. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was leaving. Sorry I worried you." She licks his muzzle in apology. "Just promise me you'll try and behave? Please?"

The she-wolf is incapable of expressing just how much she wants this to happen. A new home. A new family. The comfort of collapsing together in a heap at the end of a long day of scouting and hunting, pup-sitting and territory marking. It is the puppies Falcon is excited for most. Their tiny little wiggly tails, sharp teeth, and puppy breath bring out every mothering instinct in her, though she's never whelped a litter of her own before. To be able to help raise pups, to teach them to hunt and run and even how to fish! It's all just so...amazing.

The possibility of that future lies in the outcome of this meeting to come. Falcon cannot help but worry it won't go well.

Just as Jackdaw anticipated, Falcon could sprout wings and fly like her namesake from sheer joy after his snapped agreement. He scowls at her with less heat than he'd like, watching as her mismatched eyes glaze over with delight. He heaves a long-suffering sigh and shakes himself roughly, crooked sound-sensor flapping against his skull as he does so.

At her nudge of comfort, he bumps her back and nips at her with teeth that have no sharpness. Stupid sister. He snorts when she draws her tongue over his muzzle, rolling his eyes at her apology. He will not be appeased so easily, damn it.

"I will be on my best fucking behaviour. I will even call the Alpha 'Sir' and will refrain from ripping the throats out of anyone that approaches us too closely before leaving them to choke to death on their own blood and other bodily excrements. Would you like me to bow to them as well? Perhaps I'll display my delicate undercarriage in a show of good will. They will appreciate my unending kindness when they split me open to see if my insides function the same as theirs."

He growls in sarcastic exasperation. He does, in fact, know how to behave within a Pack setting. Wether he chooses to act on those forcibly learnt manners is another thing altogether. He does know his place, somewhat.

His rant however doesn't hold as much fire as it usually would. He can only guess how much Falcon wants everything to go well so she can get her 'family' and he takes no pleasure in killing her tentative hope. He instead butts her shoulder with his head in a show of irritation and stomps passed her, away from the Invisible Border.

He tilts his head back, squinting at the patches of ebony dark sky he can make out through the trees grasping branches. It's dark now and he wonders if Falcon wants to make the journey to meet this Pack right now. He can't tell if he would rather leave now or later.

He feels somewhat safer in the darkness, his black coat makes the shadows his domain. It's a cold comfort that he'd rather keep. But will the Pack take their coming at night as an insult and just kill both of them? It seems like a challenge to come when he'll have the advantage.

It matters not. He knows he wont sleep this night and might not even sleep the next night, if he lives that long. He falls back and lets Falcon take point, lets her make the decisions for now. He falls into his own mind once more and doesn't like what he sees.

Chucklevoodoos have opened a pit in his stomach and have stretched all of his muscles taught. While he chases his tail in his mind he hopes the discrete trembling of his limbs go unnoticed by Falcon.

Jackdaw has his own worries about their approaching meeting with a full Pack for the first time in sun-cycles. For once he doesn't want to think and switches off the voices in his think-flesh just as he would do in his youth. He pretends, the only thing he's consistently good at, that tomorrow will be another normal day of getting stressed by his littermate and just silently enjoys her company, committing every moment to his memory-stone.