Team Free Will

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It was a misty morning in the East. Cross had come quite a ways out from his usual haunt, but then, he was a perfectly capable traveler. Toddling along at his mother's hocks, he'd gone all the way from Glaciem in the north to Seracia in the far south. Before he was a year old he'd swum through the ocean channel between Alacritis and Nephilium Island. All that traveling only toned his already forming muscles. At 34 inches, Cross was taller than plenty of adults, and certainly taller any yearling had any right to be. His muscles still had alot of filling out to do of course, and if it weren't for his thick fur he would've looked more like a freakish white coyote than a real flesh and blood wolf. Cross wasn't the sort to put too much stock in build alone however; lately he'd done nothing but focus on his fight training.

But not today. Today he merely wanted to relax and think. The silent creature had tread on hushed black paws all the way from Soul Sand Cove, through woods and over feilds - out into what appeared to be moorlands. For a time he'd sat among the heather, waiting for the sun to rise and the shreds of mist to clear, but even as the morning dawned and the world grew more visible, the mist remained, trailing along the tops of the hills. The boy might've left then and sought some other spot of solitude, when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something out of the mist.

But just as quickly it was gone. He rose to his paws. What had that been? It looked huge - like a cliff face but strangely curved and with holes in it. Cross's curiosity was usually something he kept well reined in, but today...

Today he was going exploring.

Into the mist he delved, moving along at a swaybacked trot, with his head low and tail relaxed. He nosed his way through briars and past heather patches, and up over moss encrusted rocks, until at last he'd gained the nearness to see. And what he saw was unlike anything he ever knew. The usually rather broodish face, uncreased and his cream colored jaw unhinged ever so slightly. Emerald eyes were allowed to stretch wide as he lifted his head and took in the surroundings. Due to the slowly wafting fog, he could only see parts of it at a time, but it was... it was like... Well the only thing he could aliken it to was an old hornets nest he'd found once. The nest had all sorts of little chambers and passageways. This place was like that - only HUGE. In the back of his mind he remembered his old mother's tales of two-legs. Cruel fleshy creatures with the power of gods. Perhaps this was once their work, made long ago, before weather had worn smooth edges and moss and vines had been allowed to take hold. Cross stepped under a stone arch way and into the mist clouded castle.






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