A Rough-and-Tumble Kind of Life (Norther)

[Aylenni]

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[atrb=background,http://i55.tinypic.com/30w71ae.jpg] Kayden wandered along the edge of the Everfall Field, listening in vain for an easy meal. You’d think with ears the size of mine I’d be able to hear dinner, she thought grouchily. Kayden was a nocturnal wolf by nature, but unfortunately, most of the island’s prey was not. Kayden gnashed her fangs as she stalked through the grass. Nothing makes any sense on this island, she thought. And it certainly seemed that way. The wolves here didn’t behave as she was used to. They were wilder, fiercer. Most of them had something to prove- they had to have some big purpose in the world. All Kayden wanted with her life at the moment was a fat, juicy rabbit. In the desert, life was simple. Politics, espionage, betrayals… all rarities in a land where survival against nature took priority. On the bountiful island of Traum, Kayden supposed the wolves got bored with just staying alive. Politics had only been one thing Kayden had been having difficulty adjusting to. In her home, most creatures only awoke at night where the sun’s heat couldn’t find them but warmed the sand enough to keep them alive. They hid in the day, fleeing the wrath of an angry and merciless sun. On the island, the sun barely warmed the surface in winter. Patches of sunlight held warmth, but they were rare enough in the forests that covered the island. The field had been one of few places Kayden had found recently where sunlight hit the earth. But now that the sun wasn’t an issue, her hunting patterns were all off. Her stomach rumbled. Kayden rolled her eyes. She’d gone hungry before, and most likely it wouldn’t kill her to go hungry again. She trotted back the way she had come, olive eyes peeled for a large beech she’d seen earlier. The branches were low enough to the ground that even Kayden could climb into them, and she was small enough and dark enough to camouflage herself well enough so that the faint light given off by the moon wasn’t enough to spot her. She clambered up, claws scraping on the smooth bark. Kayden chose a large branch, close enough to the ground to let her see anyone who might pass by, and curled into a ball for the night. The only sign of her presence were two olive-colored eyes, glowing so faintly in a spot of reflected moonlight that barely anyone would notice…

[Thirteenth]

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[atrb=background,http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x30/Silehnce/Valley%20Howls/walkingonaircenter.png] Ahead of her the forest began to thin, giving way to the open white field and sprawling snow banks glistening beneath the moonlight; as she drew nearer, Norther scanned the area, searching for any sign of threat as she approached. By the time she reached the outer edges of the forest the slender white female was fairly certain that there was nothing to worry about, and she padded lightly out into the open with her steaming prize clenched gently between her fangs. The she wolf was of a dainty, pristine figure; a beautiful she wolf, tall but slender, her curvaceous form graced with immaculate white fur. Not a feature about her suggested that she was a capable fighter, nor anything other than a serene, compassionate female. A sense of innocence seemed to hover about her; she held an air that-were she a dog-would have enticed small children to toddle close to stroke her velvety white coat; enticed them to what might well have been death. Her muzzle, usually kept perfectly white, was smeared with red and stained pink where the blood had been licked away;. While it felt almost like a soothing aloe to the vixenly she wolf, to the observer it seemed almost perverse in nature. Something so macabre in nature on something so outwardly pure seemed an abhorrent and obscene breach of taboo; and her delicate mannerisms only served to increase this feeling. She sauntered along the tree line for a few minutes before picking a comfortable spot well shielded from the breeze, then let the hare fall to the ground at her paws. As the steamy creature landed with a muffled thump, her muzzle parted elegantly to allow passage of a gentle sigh; and her graceful form bowed momentarily, dipping low to the ground as she stretched with almost cat-like thoroughness, and then straightened into an elegant pose. She took one last moment to glance about, emerald gaze scanning her surroundings one last time before. Once she was satisfied that there was no one about, and completely unaware of the female curled among the branches of a nearby tree, she folded her haunches beneath herself and settled to set into her meal. .

[Aylenni]

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[atrb=background,http://i53.tinypic.com/j97kg8.jpg] It was almost unbearable. Kayden swallowed the saliva in her mouth, staring hungrily down at the rabbit at the base of the tree. The wolf below was female also, her fur the cleanest white Kayden had ever seen, excluding the fine snow that blanketed the field. Kayden looked her over, tearing her eyes away from the still-steaming hare. The wolf was curvy and innocent-looking enough for Kayden to pity her; she knew males couldn’t resist curvy females. Kayden’s skinny, all-angle frame made her invisible to males in that way most of the time, but this female would have difficulty blending in. Her nose, a delicate shade of pink, and her muzzle were both smeared with blood, tinting the light fur red and pink. She seemed to relish the taste of the blood, and Kayden recognized the feeling. The joy of the hunt was even better when you were successful, and there was nothing so satisfying as the taste of the blood on your tongue. Kayden had tasted the blood of every one of her kills, except for one. The one that haunted her when she slept, the one that had kept her awake from fear until the wolfess had settled at the bottom of her tree to eat. Now the scent of meat was keeping her awake, and the kill was the farthest thing from her mind. She thought only of rabbit now. Her mouth watered. She stared greedily at the hare. There was plenty for two if one of them barely broke thirty pounds and the other was barely twice as large. Kayden bit her lip. She could announce herself, but there was no telling how the female might react. Or she could just stay silent, saying nothing and not moving until the light wolf left. The second option was probably safer. Then her stomach rumbled loudly, and Kayden knew she was committed. ”Mind sharing, friend?” she asked as amiably as possible. ”My hunting this night didn’t go well. I’m surprised anyone could catch a meal in this cold- my hat is off to you.” Kayden wasn’t quite sure what a “hat” was, or why she would take it off, but she knew it was a way of saying “congratulations” that her mother used to say. ”I’m Kayden al Howaitat, daughter of Serra al Abbadi of the eastern desert.” It was the traditional way of introducing oneself in the desert, to give the name of one’s parent. Kayden, instead of using the traditional father’s name, introduced herself by her mother’s instead. She had loathed her father. Kayden sprang down from her branch, landing lightly on her feet, some five yards from the female. She didn’t come much closer, trying to stay respectful of her kill. OOC: Sorry about the wait! I'm usually not this late with posting, don't know what got into me!

[Thirteenth]

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[atrb=background,http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x30/Silehnce/Valley%20Howls/walkingonaircenter.png] Flesh was torn away in strips from the limp carcass, then swallowed voraciously with little time spent chewing or savoring the flavor; Norther wasn’t particularly fond of rabbit flesh. Nasty little vermin, rabbits were. Giant, long eared rats that scurried about beneath the earth; but they were easy enough to catch, and she wasn’t currently in the position to be particularly picky about what she ate now that she was on her own. Unfortunately there were no fawns, her favorite prey, roaming the forest in the winter months, and Norther was hardly large enough to pull a healthy deer down on her own without being injured. Even if she was, it would have, more likely than not, been a waste of good meat. When the flesh of the torn and bloodied creature’s stomach had been hewn away to reveal the glistening bone beneath, Norther bit down, cracking open the creatures chest cavity and baring the steamy entrails to the elements. With a delicate nip she pulled forth the intestines, uncoiling them slowly and discarding them into the snow beside herself. Once the last lengths had been cast aside she leaned over, nosing up a pile of snow to cover the unappealing site. With the unwanted bits disposed of, she plucked out the creatures tiny heart, one of the few parts of the rabbit that she found to have an appealing flavor, and chewed carefully, feeling the blood that had been trapped with in upon death gushing over her tongue like a bitter-sweet candy filling. She had just swallowed the last of the tiny organ when a noise overhead caught her attention, and the female glanced up to see a small wolf gazing down at her from the branches of the beech tree. About the time Norther’s cold emerald gaze settled on the unwelcome company, the small she wolf spoke, Mind sharing, friend? My hunting this night didn’t go well. I’m surprised anyone could catch a meal in this cold- my hat is off to you. I’m Kayden al Howaitat, daughter of Serra al Abbadi of the eastern desert. The stranger leapt down from her perch, landing lightly in the snow several feet away, and Norther arched her brow disdainfully, “I do mind,” the white she wolf spoke haughtily. Charity was not in her nature, nor was compassion, unless she found them to be beneficial; and she could not see how sharing her hard earned meal with this scrawny stranger would result in anything but a personal loss. The corpse pinned between her paws, meager though it was, would sustain her for at least a week. If, that was, she consumed it all. .

[Aylenni]

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[atrb=background,http://i55.tinypic.com/30w71ae.jpg] The white female stood over her prey, defending the tasty morsel against the scrappy stranger. ”I do mind.” There was ice in that voice, ice that Kayden recognized from her own conversations with unwelcome strangers. ”Fine,” she said, sitting down. For some reason, she’d made up her mind to stay put and force some kind of talk out of the female. Kayden didn’t quite understand her impulse to make this white femme a friend, but she decided to go with it anyway. ”I’m Kayden,” she said. ”Kayden al Howitat, daughter of Serra al Abbadi, shaman of the Dhi’ib tribe of the western desert.” Kayden didn’t usually use the full-on introduction, but in this case she deemed it necessary. Whether it was to impress the snowy female or whether she just felt like using it Kayden wasn’t sure, but it seemed appropriate. ”I don’t plan on stealing that rabbit, you know,” she said dryly. ”We may not have had much civility in the desert, but we have enough honor not to steal.” Her voice was colored by her desert accent, which reminded her so strongly of her past that she made up her mind to get rid of it at the first possible opportunity. The words were a challenge, a question. Kayden dared the female to suspect her, to mistrust her. The Arabian wolfess didn’t look big enough to pose much of a problem in a fight, but she was a scrapper, and the tone of her voice made it clear she could handle herself. Kayden didn’t want to fight the female, but if she had to, she’d prove that she wasn’t to be trifled with. ”I was looking for directions, actually,” said Kayden, her voice still with the suspended, “don’t mess with me” tone. ”I’m looking for the Warriors,” she said. Every word echoed with a veiled threat, one Kayden was quite prepared to follow through with if the female decided to attack, but hoped she wouldn’t have to use. Instinct told her that if they could manage to get onto friendly ground, she might have a new ally on her paws.

[Thirteenth]

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[atrb=background,http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x30/Silehnce/Valley%20Howls/walkingonaircenter.png] Norther remained on her belly, settled comfortably in the snow with the remains of her meal resting between her paws, making no attempt what-so-ever to rise; her gaze lingered on the other wolf for only a matter of moments before she began to eat again. Norther was unmoved by the presence of the stranger, and aside from pricking her ears forward in order to hear Kayden’s movements, she paid the intruding stranger no mind, even when the wolf spoke her name for the second time. “I heard you the first time,” Norther snorted dismissively after having swallowed her mouthful; she seemed thoroughly unimpressed by the title, as well as the following spiel about stealing. She wasn’t at all worried about losing the bloody prize lying at her paws. As it was, she had already consumed a significant amount of the carcass; and even if Kayden attacked, Norther knew that she could have snatched the rabbit up and set out across the snowy field before the other female reached her. The stranger had already given away that she was very much unaccustomed to the snowy terrain, information that Norther could easily wield to her own advantage. Why bother to fight when one’s fleetness of foot could carry them to safety without injury, and leaver their attacker floundering in a snow drift because they lacked knowledge of the lands? I was looking for directions, actually, I’m looking for the Warriors, Norther shrugged, flipping her ear back casually as she nosed the carcass onto its side and began to tear away the creature’s hide to get at what little meat remained on its back and sides, “Never heard of them,” she commented serenely between bites, flicking her tongue out and scraping it against her teeth to peel away the fluff now sticking to it. Though the way Kayden’s tone held a subtle threat grated against her nerves-Norther had not done a single thing to make herself seem threatening-the white female held her poise. She simply wanted to consume her dinner in peace; and she wanted this testy desert wolf to take her subtly veiled threats elsewhere. .