New Heights [Kesle]

[Deleted]

A month had crawled by since Summit left behind the tropical realm Kal’dyne, crossing the narrow land bridge that carried him to the main island of Anikira – the stuff legends were made of. His mother had told him stories of the place, describing a vast variety of territories, from merciless desert, to golden grasslands and to rugged shorelines. His dense off-white coat had been a curse in the desert lands, and he had hurried to leave the Occasus behind him in search of a better climate. Now, he was trying to get to the mountains directly to the north, where the highest elevations were perfect for a wolf with a heavy coat, even as the summer sun beat down on him. The temperature was noticeably cooler here. He had never strayed beyond the Waryck Jungle where he was born – the place had never seemed a good fit, with its muggy humid climate and his thick ivory pelt. His focus was now fixed on the Tia’deli Mountains

Summit was still looking, searching every stretch of land for signs of lupine life. Unknowingly, the ivory male had already strayed, crossing into the invisible border that signified the presence of a pack inhabiting the territory. The scent of others lingered heavy in the air, Summit’s dark nostrils flaring as he took in countless unfamiliar smells – unknown wolves, the aroma of pine trees, and a lot of other furry beasts he had never encountered in his natal lands. He was confident, perhaps foolishly so, that he could talk his way out of conflict, if there was indeed a pack wandering the area. He was a pacifist, and his posture was relaxed as he walked closer to the foothills.

Despite the distances he had traveled to make it this far, Summit felt ready for the climb. He had already convinced himself that it wouldn’t be so bad out there, wherever his paws carried him. The brute imagined what would be waiting for him, high up above where the white clouds gathered around the highest peaks and their impossibly tall summits for which he was named, but had never personally seen. Now he stood at the foothills, amber eyes scanning upwards. Perhaps there would be a pack there – an adventuresome pack, undoubtedly. The mountain range seemed to stretch on endless, as far as his eyes could perceive. There were miles to explore in every direction, more cliffs and canyons than could be counted.

Barely able to contain his excitement at the prospects awaiting him, Summit’s pace accelerated, massive paws hurrying towards the base of the mountains. His bushy tail waved behind him as he began to run full speed into the hills, blissfully unaware of his surroundings. He was obviously lost in thought – until one of his paws caught in a root jutting out from the ground. Never a graceful beast, the brute went tumbling head over tail with a startled yelp, sprawling face-first in a dirty pile of confusion. He came to a stop several feet away from the plant that had interrupted his run. Sitting up in a daze, the pale wolf was now decorated an earthy shade of brown, his head still spinning.

words: 530
tag: @cogs
ooc: thanks again to Zenith
for the amazing table!

[Deleted]

Loose rocks sprayed as Kesle slid down a small slope, her head lifted as high as she could to avoid letting the rabbit swinging from her jaws brush the dirt. Her breath misted the air slightly- it was spring, but spring came late in the Tia'Deli Mountains just as it came late in the rest of northern Anikira. It was still chilly enough to show her breath billowing out through her nose. Kesle watched it puff and fade away in front of her for a moment, before shaking her head to refocus herself and heading on her way.

Beneath the slop was a short meadow, followed by another slope. The foothills were situated in natural terraces that continued irregularly down into the treeline and the rest of Shyia, the territory of the Arila pack. Up here was a nice place to find small game, and small game was what Kesle was mostly eating. It had been a very long time since she had hunted in a group to bring down larger animals like elk or deer, and one thing she did not wish to do was to embarrass herself in front of her new packmates. Not that she had met many of them yet.

That was another thing- Kesle had yet to meet many of the other Arila members. After her meeting with the Arila beta, Huxleyi, and his companion, Isna the Kittiwake, she had scarecely run into another lupine face. That was mostly her own fault, Kesle knew. She had made no move to meet the rest of the Arila pack, instead making her way to the outer parts of the Arila pack's territory and keeping to herself. It was silly- she had joined a pack to find company, and now that she had found as close to a paradise as she would ever find on earth, she had no desire to meet the others she shared it with.

Well, that was not exactly true. She did want to meet the Arila pack. And she knew she needed to at least meet the alpha, Toiro. But every time she decided to head back into the heart of Arila territory, find her packmates and introduce herself, dammit, she always managed to find an excuse to stay out here on her own. She didn't even particularly like being alone- she missed having others to talk to, now that she could talk to someone besides herself- but she was afraid that she'd bungle a conversation if she tried to instigate one. First impressions were a hard thing to overcome- and these wolves had likely been here in the Arila pack a long time- they knew the land, they knew each other. They were family. She was new, an outsider. Of course, that couldn't change unless she got off her rump and talked to someone- but it was hard to beat a fear that had had its grip on you since puphood.

This inner battle was in fact what Kesle was thinking about as she wound her way down various deer trails to the beginning of the treeline, where scrubby pines mingled with the high mountain meadows. The arguement with herself went around in circles she didn't want to talk to the other Arila pack members because she didn't know them- which wouldn't change unless she talked to them. It was maddening.

She wasn't looking where she was going, trusting her paws to find their way down and around the familiarly treacherous boulders by muscle memory, so when she rounded a particularly large and jutting cluster of rocks to find a large white wolf, she nearly jumped out of her fur.

Kesle retreated quickly behind the boulders and peered around the side- just in time to watch the white wolf trip over a protruding pine root with a yelp that was audible even as far away as she was. She fought the urge to laugh. He must be an outsider, then- no Arila wolf would be so entranced with the mountains that he would forget to watch his paws.

As funny as it might have been, the sight of this stranger presented her with a bit of a problem. He was a stranger- she was aware that the border was fairly close here- which meant he was not supposed to be in Arila territory. As an Arila wolf, she should inquire as to what he was doing here, fumbling speech be damned. She gritted her teeth, heaved a small sigh, and set down her rabbit. Then, squaring her shoulders, she strode from behind the boulders, attempting to exude an air of confidence (and most likely failing).

"Ah... What brings you here into the Arila pack's territory, stranger?"

OOC: And now for the 'advertising Zenith's incredible tables thread' doop doop doop
Tags: @summit

[Deleted]

He was still regaining his composure, coughing amidst the swirling dust when Summit finally realized that he was not alone. The scent of another caught his attention split seconds before Kesle appeared, sauntering out from behind a pile of boulders. The female was young, but grown. From where he had landed in the dust, he could see her shining eyes were the color of peridot, bright against the darker gray that masked her eyes and ears, trailing down her spine and around her neck. Her muzzle was pale, nearly white, and void of expression as she questioned his sudden, uninvited presence in her pack’s lands. Summit cringed visibly when the realization of his folly set in.

Uh oh.

Summit moved, very slowly, to his paws, careful not to make the female feel threatened by his presence. He was a bulky animal, tall and muscular beneath his heavy ivory pelt. Everything about Summit suggested that he was not there to cause trouble. His tail hung loosely behind him, his posture was stooped. There was no way for him to guess if the she-wolf standing before him was an alpha or the lowliest member of the pack. He had already made a mistake by trespassing. It was better to err on the side of caution, Summit reasoned, his large snowy head dipping low with respect for the stranger.

”I... I had not realized this territory was claimed. I thought that, maybe...” His floundering words tapered off midsentence, his pale features clouded with embarrassment – for having been caught trespassing, for falling flat on his muzzle, for his sudden inability to form proper, comprehensible statements. Mercifully, the female said nothing about Summit’s tumble. His head remained bowed, courteous as he sat back on his haunches. ”I hope you will forgive me. I have never seen mountains so tall, back where I was born,” he admitted with a sheepish grin and an accompanying shrug to match his fumbling words.

”I’m only a wanderer, I can assure you that I’m as harmless as...” He paused, then, with a laugh, he finished, ”As a wolf who trips over his own paws like a pup learning to walk.” A noticeable wince crossed his features, but was quickly replaced with an embarrassed smile. ”My name is Summit. These lands are beautiful.  Are you... the alpha here?”

words: 387
tag: @cogs
ooc: sorry it's a bit short!

[Deleted]

The male got gingerly to his feet, head and tail lowered and relaxed. Kesle instantly felt bad- he looked almost like he was preparing to be chased out- and felt her stiff posture begin to slide back into a relaxed sort of slump. She immediately stiffened again before he noticed, assuming a serious face that.... probably looked both absurd and scary.

She was able to get a good lok at this stranger now that he was up close. He stood tall, even when he tried to assume a smaller, more nonthreatening pose, and she could see clearly defined muscles, but his eyes were wide, emerald, and very honest. He really didn't seem to be the type to mean any harm, and the guilt of putting him so obviously on the spot twisted a little bit in her stomach.

The male tried to explain what he was doing here, but trailed off abruptly and Kesle suddenly realized that she had found someone in much the same situation she was normally in- but their postitions were reversed. For the first time in a very long time, Kesle was a pack wolf, part of a family, and she was the one coming across an outsider. It was a very weird feeling, and she wasn't sure if she liked it.

When he mentioned the mountains, Kesle cracked a tiny smile (which she tried to hide as quickly as she could- she was still attempting to be proffessional about this). She had been right- he wasn't from around here, or probably even from the north, because the Tia'Delis were quite large and could be seen from a generous distance. She could hardly blame him for being awestruck, though- even though she could see them in the distance from her own puphood home in Caurus, she often spent time just looking at their snowcapped peaks reaching up from the much closer hills. To see them for the first time up close was- well, she could only compare it to her own first time seeing the ocean. Breathtaking.

He- Summit, as he introduced himself, made an embarrassed apology for being clumsy and an assurance that he meant no harm, and she clamped down on her jaws in an effort not to tell him that she was as bad with her too-large paws, if not worse, and it was only because she knew this area that she wasn't falling flat on her muzzle every few paces, and really, he shouldn't have felt the need to apologize-

Kesle nearly choked when he asked if she was the alpha.

"N-no!" she screeched. "No no nononooono- I'm not the- you didn't really think that I-" In her haste to avoid a grievous misunderstanding, she forgot that she was supposed to be putting on a good face for the Arila pack and stumbled over her words at a pace that would have made them nearly incomprihensible if she wasn't screaming. Not at poor Summit, of course- though goodness knows what he might have thought at her abrupt outburst- but out of shock and horror. She could, in fact, imagine about a hundred different ways that this misunderstanding could go horribly wrong if she didn't correct it right away, and the notion of her being the alpha of Arila made her cringe for the future of that nonexistent pack.

After another minute or two of babbling her voice cracked and she ran out of breath. In the space it took to suck in a gasp of air she realized three things- she was probably scaring Summit, what she had just done was incredibly rude, and she had made a complete fool of herself yet again.

Well. It was nice to know that some things never changed.

Kesle gathered her composure for the second time that day, took another deep breath, and forced her voice not to crack, though she couldn't do much about how her eyes were suddenly very interested in the ground between her paws and needed to look downn and avoid Summit's gaze immediately.

"Sorry... I'm, uh, not the alpha, no. In fact I haven't even me- ah, I'm Kesle. Not the alpha, just, ah, just Kesle."

Silence dragged on and after a painful minute she added meekly, "I did just catch a rabbit, if you'd want some."


OOC: In which Kesle is dumb and overreacts a lot
Tags: @summit
Word count: obscenely large, sorry 844

[Deleted]

First impressions were important, and as the large brute shifted awkwardly on his regrettably clumsy, long limbs, he chided himself internally for being so careless – first for being somewhere he wasn’t meant to be, then for the inelegant tumble (something he would replay in his mind for weeks, if not longer). This encounter was certain to be memorable. Embarrassment like this was not easily forgotten. His tense expression relaxed when it became clear that the pack female was not upset by his intrusive presence in her homelands. Alpha or not, as far as Summit knew, she could be anyone in the world, though her uncomfortable energy was hard to miss. It was naïve for Summit to make assumptions, but his experience with outside packs was remarkably limited – he had known his own pack, but no others in his lifetime.

When silence passed between the two, Summit was staring unconsciously, looking perhaps a little too closely for a hint of the fae’s thoughts to appear on her feminine features, but emotions were absent from her visage. He caught the brief hint of a smile here and there when he spoke. Otherwise, she was a tough one to read. After a moment or two, what he was doing registered in his mind, and his gaze fell sharply to the worn dirt path to the high country that he had been attempting to follow. The lands were so vast; it seemed improbable that he would find anyone in these claimed lands, but his graceless tumbling had unintentionally garnered the female’s attention. Maybe this was a particularly large pack, sprawling across the miles that they claimed as their own. He made a mental note to ask later on.

He cleared his throat, attempting to regain some semblance of decency, when his question seemed to strike a chord with the stunned fae. Her reaction was incredulous and loud. Summit’s jaw dropped open with surprise of his own, but he quickly reined in his shocked expression. ”Oh, I’m– I didn’t mean– “ He stuttered. Before he could contain it, the snowy wolf began to laugh under his breath – more at himself than Kesle’s strong response. He stopped almost instantly though, for fear of appearing deranged. If the tables were turned, he knew he would be equally taken aback by such a wild assumption, but it was obvious he had been wandering for a while now, from the innumerable scents left clinging to his coat to his ragged appearance.

Was he making her uncomfortable? He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. He was lost to his paranoia until she spoke again, offering her name and a fresh kill. Summit blinked hard, in disbelief. It wasn’t every day that a relative stranger offered up a free meal to someone who was breaking the rules simply by standing there, in lands by who-even-knows. ”Kesle,” he repeated with a gentle nod, committing the new name and new face to memory.

No female had ever hunted for him before save his own mother, and Summit wouldn’t take food from a hunter’s mouth that he had not earned himself, especially from a fae who was apparently hunting solo. He quickly shook his head to refuse the kind, unwarranted offer. She was staring intently at her forepaws as if discovering them for the first time. Summit followed suit, averting his eye once again. ”No, I couldn’t. You should keep it. I can’t imagine what your alpha would think if he knew you were feeding random drifters – or she, if your alpha is female. Because, you know, that’s just as good as a male alpha,” he added in his typical clumsy manner. He flashed a smile that he hoped didn’t look thoroughly maniacal, ivory canines flashing in the sunlight.

His long muzzle dipped again in a show of respect. ”Do you suppose your alpha would mind if I just went a little closer...? The mountains are calling to me,” he commented, his reverence for the tall peaks that tempted him made clear in the low baritone of his voice. The brute had come all this way, and with nowhere else to be and no one expecting his arrival, he had all the time in the world to explore – except for the issues that came with packs and their unyielding territory claims.

Already, Summit had unwittingly crossed through lands occupied by the Descai pack, who he had not encountered along the way. He didn’t want to get Kesle in trouble with her pack, never guessing that she had not had the opportunity to meet the wolf that she now followed.

words: 765
tag: @cogs
ooc: muse, ahoy!

[Deleted]

Kesle's ears twitched involutarily when Summit gave a short, surprising bark of laughter. He stifled it quickly. That's just wonderful, Kesle thought sourly to herself. First wolf I meet in nearly a month and he most likely thinks I'm a raving lunatic. She could hardly blame him, though, because it was quite what she looked like, hanging out on the very edges of a pack's territory on her own. However, he was being so very polite to her, aknowledging her name with a small dip of his head and repeating it quietly to himself, which was pretty much the opposite of what she had expected after her cringe-worthy outburst.

And, of course, he had carefully said her name so that it didn't sound like a cough, but that was something else entirely.

She was surprised that he also aknowledged her offer to share the rabbit, and even more surprised when he turned it down. So surprised, in fact, that she broke from her intent study of anything but Summit to stare at him.

"Are... are you sure? Because it's quite all right- I'll just catch another, there are loads of rabbits around, you wouldn't believe-" when she was a loner, which was not too long ago, she reflected, she would have jumped at a chance for a free meal. But then again, she wasn't Summit. "Er, I mean, if you don't want to that's fine as well, just fine, perfect really-"

Now it sounded like she had just been offering and not intending to follow through on it. She groaned inwardly. I don't want to make him feel like he can't take it, if he was just refusing out of politeness. "Not like I was just saying that or something, you really could have the rabbit if you wanted, but if you don't that's okay too... I'm, ah, I'm sure the alpha won't mind." That was a risky assumption, but hey, Kesle thought, when she had first joined the beta, Huxleyi, had caught a rabbit with her and they had shared it, so it must be all right for her to do the same. She firmly ignored the prickle of unease in her stomach. Summit was a help in distracting her from that as well. She tried her best to stiffle a laugh at his frantic backpedaling to include female alphas. It was hypocritical of her, she knew, but that didn't stop a muffled snort from escaping the corner of her mouth, although she clenched her jaws as tight as she could to try and stop it.

"Really, he..." she stumbled there a little. Was alpha Toiro a he? She knew almost nothing about him. Toiro was a male name, right? She stuttered but finished the scentence, hoping Summit wouldn't notice. "H-he wouldn't mind. Honest." She returned his smile with one of her own, which was admittedly a little shaky around the edges. "The Tia'Delis are so lovely, I could hardly keep you from crossing into the territory to see them."

Tags: @summit
OOC: It's late late late, but here it is!
Muse: Recovering

[Deleted]

In spite of Kesle’s concerns, Summit’s attitude towards the fae was quite the opposite of her fears. She was the first friendly face he had encountered in a long, long time. When he stopped to think about it during a moment of quiet, this was the first real conversation he had had since he had lost the last of his sisters, now presumed dead, in the jungle. Her pale green eyes stared in every direction, desperately avoiding contact with Summit’s hazel orbs, something that was pretty much impossible not to see. His massive paws shifted in the dust, his mind racing. I’m making her uncomfortable. Maybe I should turn around now. There has to be other ways to the mountains.

Her gaze finally returned to Summit, incredulous that he had refused her offer. It wasn’t his to take, but it wasn’t polite to turn down a gift, either. Most brutes would jump at the offer, and Kesle’s confused expression and stumbling words brought a subtle smile to his maw. It wasn’t every day that he encountered someone so like him, awkward but trying so hard. His mouth opened as if to speak, but he was cut off before the words could form on the tongue when she spoke again, stating in the same breath that it was okay to take the rabbit and that her alpha wouldn’t mind if he passed through the lands.

He immediately regretted his question – it was very presumptuous of him to assume that he could go, and the likelihood of Kesle getting into trouble for it was probably pretty high. Pack wolves were pretty strict, and always territorial. The female’s words were halting, and as he could sense her unease, Summit’s smile began to fade. Maybe he had stepped over a line that was inappropriate – he was just a stranger, and though he wasn’t a murderous madwolf, there was no way for Kesle to know that. His posture remained submissive. Even if she wasn’t the alpha or anything close to it, he would give her the same respect that he would show someone in authority.

When Kesle finished her thought, Summit was surprised, and his smile widened once more. ”Yeah?” Her comment about the beauty of the mountains was enough to convince him that this was a good idea, even if was probably ill advised. The notion gave him an idea, which he instantly blurted out. ”You could come too, if you want. Despite my name, I’ve never actually climbed a whole mountain,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. He was eager to get started on the day’s adventure to the high country, but he kept his excitement contained the best that he could. ”If your alpha sees us, you can tell him that you were telling me to leave, or that you’re chasing me out. I’ll play along.”

”Oh, but – We shouldn’t waste that rabbit, right? I’m not too hungry,” he said, though it wasn’t entirely true. ”I’ll have some if you eat a little, too. And – You know, you don’t have to go to the mountains. It was just a random idea."

words: 519
tag: @cogs