Exploring the North > Caves of the past
Observing snowstorm

By evening, the skies had darkened considerably, clouds like so much suede curtain over a phosphorescent sky glowing of oranges and pinks, but there was little color to be had in the monochrome coffee-pot brewing the coming storm. The sun hadn't been visible but for a few moments all day, and even then, it hadn't been enough vitamin D to break the ominous air that smelled of moisture, the bitter cold, and oncoming rain. There was no bird-song, no prey, and it was too quiet.

Marleen lay just inside the mouth of a cave she'd found. Behind her, deeper in its bowels, the walls were plastered with figures and unnatural colors. She hadn't seen them, didn't care much more than obeying the screaming instinct to find shelter. The light trickled in from the cave's opening, enough for the largest of wolves standing to easily stride in, but it was enough to cut down on the wind-shear. The cold rock beneath her sucked away at her body heat as insatiably hungry as the grave. Her breath hung in the air as white plumes, too warm to intermingle with the frigid atmosphere without freezing.

Her keen eyes watched all of this motionlessly, noting the air, the temperature, the smells. It was quiet bookish things like this that occupied her, and only when she threw all of her intellect at it, lest otherwise she grow bored.

Alfrun did not often wander far from home. Wanderlust was not in her nature, for her whole being was focused upon the gods and her family and her community, not necessarily the world at large. She was still young, and the world still divided into black and white. There was Yfir, and then there were enemies. It was only as she'd begun to delve more deeply into the stories of the gods in her newly begun training as a priestess that she had begun to learn the shades of gray that ran between, and a curiosity of sorts had awakened within her. The gods dwelled within their world as well as without, and there were she knew many places within their world that could bring one closer to the gods. In her habitual distraction and inexperience as she'd wandered past Yfir's boundaries, she had not taken note of those small signs warning of gathering bad weather. She'd thought only to seek silent communion with her gods outside of Yfir's lands. It wasn't until a particularly sharp gust of wind cut through her sleek coat that the weather finally penetrated her meditations and she'd risen from her unsheltered seat blinking. Even then the youth was unconcerned by the danger. She'd followed a subtle prompting within her that led her here without any hint of frantic need or apparent worry at all, her ethereal form taking delicate meandering steps as she made her way towards the mouth of a cave. Like the caves that pocked the sides of her pack's denning area, a cave would mean not only shelter from a storm, but familiarity, comfort, and a renewed sense of community knowing that her family too, would be finding their way beneath this same earth farther north. Knowing the intellectual reasons did not diminish the effect, and it filled her with silent laughter. She smiled her crook-toothed smile at the shadow-wolves that followed beside her, sharing the secret amusement with the creatures that flickered in and out leaping around her like dark flames, and the tiny hummingbirds that shone like flashes of green sunlight as they flitted around her and disappeared. This time it was easy to recognize the presence of the Otherworldly, for no mortal hummingbirds would be about in the winter like this, and it was just as comforting as the caves themselves. But the caves were not empty of mortal life, as Alfrun was quick to see when her ambling path brought her nose to nose with another creature. She came to a halt slowly with eyes blinking at the stranger.

@Tealah : Your well-written literary style is refreshing.

Soon, Marleen's view was blocked by a figure standing in it. The creature blinked and stood, as if content in that standing to do it forever. No hello or apology, no discussion or goodbye, no nervous energy or wasted words. Just what the body did and physics to keep her upright.

Marleen rose, echoing the posture of this one, and walked closer, not stopping upon reaching conversational distance. If she reached licking distance, she stretched out her neck and tried to lick the wolf's nose tip, and if she hadn't moved still, Marleen tried to allow her body to connect her nose to the stranger's and utter a high-pitched single word of "Boop", upon which she would stop at last, nose to nose and their eyes only inches away.

Marleen gazed at such a one, taking in the young age, studied eyes, and perhaps a vacant expression. "One black gene, one white, as one feeds the black wolf, the white -", she started to say, but paused. "One paw in this realm and one in the next, you possess a talent few others have. But it will cost you in this one. ", she then paused again, allowing her nose to tell her things. "And you'll keep your tail for as long as the tales you tell, unlike another male of yours I met some time ago and very far away."

Unassuming, she continued to stand, her tail without posture, her face without expression, her eyes just as empty as the pup's, and her soul akin to the night of the pup's pelt.