Moros and Reed

[hazlogs]

21 May 2014

Moon phase: Half

Bawn: Western Forest

Tall Sitka and Engelmann spruce crowd with Douglas firs and western hemlocks to form a fairy-tale forest. Many of the trees are ancient, their branches twisted into seemingly impossible shapes. Broad trunks are draped with lichen and creepers, cloaked with climbing ivy and bright green vines, and decorated with drapes of cat-tail moss. Pacific yews and shrubs tangle with pine saplings in the understory of the woods, making it difficult at best to traverse. Bracken fills the forest floor, while even more vines strangle the remnants of already dead and fallen giants. Thorns catch and snare at anything foolish enough to get too close, while just out of sight, animals scurry and sound off in the otherwise muted forest. There is a sense that, all around, something watches.

The forest spreads out in all directions except west, where the sounds of Kent's Crossing, Sunrise Road, and Highway 22 betray the encroachment of civilization.

Obvious exits:

Narrow Path Game Trail Highway 22 Overgrown Path Sunrise Road Verdant Path Creek Central Bawn Southern Bawn Northern Bawn

Evening finds Abandons None walking through the foresty growth. He looks, for a wolf, deep in thought and almost troubled, as though he were staring at a puzzle piece and can't determine how it fits into the bigger picture. It keeps his footfalls from being totally silent, but he isn't crashing blindly either, in spite of following a nearly meandering path.

Wall of Fire isn't crashing around blindly, either, but the fact of the matter is that the Fury Metis is freakishly huge and the forest undergrowth is horrendously thick. Fortunately, Fire-Wall is also freakishly strong, so when necessary he just methodically shoves his way through and past obstacles. He's in no real hurry, but he's not to be stopped, either.

Abandons None is nearly underfoot by the time he realizes the fostern is in a path to collide with him. He doesn't panic, but it does take a couple of quick steps to narrowly avoid being stepped on. The modi follows it with some equally quick posturing, apologies and not challenge. He should have been paying better attention to where he walks.

This is a rangy beast, muscular but with a thinness that speaks of harder times. He's covered in thick, reddish brown fur. From his nose, across his muzzle, over his head, and down his back nearly to the tip of his tail the coloring is darkest, more brown than red. It lightens some as it goes down his legs and from his cheeks to his chest, showing a bit more of the redness in his fur. His belly is nearly white, highlights casting a nearly tan colored hue. Out from the darker colors covering his face are set one burnished yellow eye and one eye lacking any pigment in the iris.

Scars cause small breaks in his fur across his neck and chest, along one shoulder, and down one side of his ribs and back.

Wall of Fire stops and stares down at the young Get. The monster is never difficult to read, and in wolf form his desire to do murder is all the more obvious. His jaw drops open slightly, not in a 'smile' but in an expression of hunger. Hunger for pain. Hunger for screams. This is not a beast that kills quickly.

This animal looks too big and savage to be a normal wolf, even if he's generally shaped like one. The beast is about four feet tall at the shoulder and weighs almost two hundred pounds. Like others of his kind, he's long-legged and athletic in build, a creature made for the long run and the enduring hunt; he's just almost too big to be real. Blood-red eyes and oily, greasy black fur give him an unhealthy, nightmarish appearance. The vicious scar running diagonally across his chest and the general air of savagery isn't likely to make one at ease around him, either. He is, in short, what people who are afraid of wolves imagine them to be like.

Abandons None straightens slowly, edging into something akin to neutral and then, a second or so later, curiosity. He keeps his distance, not out of fear but rather not wanting to become the target of wanton murder. Last-Song has given word that Fire-Wall-rhya will be joining Excelsior.

Wall of Fire shuts jaws, swipes a long red tongue over his chops, then sits down. The hungry, baleful stare hardly changes. It is very likely.

Abandons None's tail gives a single, low sweep before he sits as well. Curiosity remains as he regards the metis, ears flicking back then tipping forward again as a sound elsewhere beckons fleetingly. Good, he settles on, as well as a small hope to learn a thing or two about Fire-Wall.

Wall of Fire shifts his weight a little, licks his chops again, and keeps staring. His rage seems well in hand, and yet the threat of sudden violence seems no less.

Abandons None still shows no fear of the elder ahroun, if anything the continued staring with malicious intent makes him all the more curious. He stands but doesn't approach. Instead and inspired by a wild thought, he asks if Fire-Wall-rhya would be interested in battle-practice.

Like the crack of a whip, the monster's on his feet, red eyes wide and round, greasy hackles bristling and fangs bared. He growls, the sound deep and throbbing like the rumble of a possessed '58 Plymouth Fury. Red tongue whipping out to lick at his fangs again.

Oh, and that rage? It's there now. At the front. Barely restrained.

Abandons None's lips pull back from his teeth as he growls in reply. There's excitement in his posture, rage and recklessness in his eye. From him, the posturing lasts only a handful of seconds before he leaps in to drive the Fury down and back.

It's like running oneself into a brick wall, a brick wall made of brutish muscle and oily fur, a brick wall that lunges forward to meet the much smaller mass. Imagine a Hummer crashing into a normal 4-door sedan -- a Hummer driven by a psychotic murderer with a lust for violence. The breath is knocked out of the Get and his paws lose their grip with the earth as he's knocked off his feet and onto his side. And the monster Fury keeps coming, jaws gaping wide to bite.

Abandons None's paws scratch at the ground as he hastens to get out of the way of those teeth by a combination of rolling and throwing himself aside. Practice! is a strangled reminder as he moves to put some distance between him and the larger wolf.

Wall of Fire turns more slowly -- not much more slowly, but enough that the smaller wolf is able to get out of the way before those hateful jaws close on his flesh. He stops briefly, staring death at Abandons None, jaws gaping again and slather on his lips. He growls again, a single word in crude Mother's Tongue escaping the lupine throat. ~/Run/.~

Abandons None eases backward just one step, ears folding back. He recognizes that look, though the face is different than the one he's accustomed to seeing it on, the look itself is burned into memory. He takes another step backward, then turns and breaks into a sprint away from Fire-Wall.

Wall of Fire does what one expects a rabid canine to do when face with fleeing prey -- he chases. But the huge Metis is held up by the undergrowth which the Homid's smaller form more easily navigates. In short, Reed quickly puts distance between himself and Moros and leaves the Fury far behind.

At some point before he stops running, a deep, baleful howl rises up from somewhere behind him. Far away, fortunately.

Abandons None, as he must have countless other times, keeps right on running regardless of the sounds that chase him. He doesn't look back, looks only far enough ahead to avoid the next obstacle. And it's pretty safe to assume he won't be coming back soon.