ardent

Pawprints in the Foreign Soil



Crusade

Loner

age
-
gender
-
gems
20
size
-
build
-
posts
70
player
03-19-2013, 12:09 PM





~*~

"Come along Mahniya," Crusade called gently. "Best we stay together now that we're getting close."

The she wolf that tread so delicately across the fertile spring feilds was not a young, slender creature. It was hard to credit that her voice, a low, calm, almost motherly calling had come from such a figure. Her markings were pretty enough - a creamy underbelly fading into ivory and marbled with copper etchings -but the figure was too muscled to be called feminine, too fluffy to be called sleek, and too scarred to be called lovely. The most prominent of such scars, was the patch of mottled pink skin where her right eye had once been. And yet the balanced, prowling way she moved gave her fighter's elegance, and the remaining eye of gold and emerald made up for the loss of the other.

Crusade wasn't the conventional sort of beauty. But she was strong, she was solid, and she was caring. In former days she might've added that she was a warrior, but her fighting days were mostly past. It was easily enough to see from the silver at her nose and the stiffness in her right fore that she was no longer in her prime. A conservative estimate might've put her at seven or eight, but truth was she was nine.

Nine long years of travel and homemaking, of love and loss, and war and peace. They'd taught her plenty - amongst which the value of goodwill and communication. That was why she, the founder and ex-Alpha of Glaciem Pack was now stepping closer to the borders of Seracia. For company she had another, slightly smaller she-wolf. The red-eyed healer known as Mahniya, whom Gargoyle had told her to take. Crusade would've preferred to go alone, "A lone wolf is less threatening than a pair - and I've no qualms about getting myself into danger - but another packmate? Gargoyle, should worst come to worst, the loss of one old fae isn't going to start a war, but the harming or capture of two?" Crusade had had plenty of life under her belt, and while she was determined to make the most of what she had left - death had no fear for her. She and death had come face or face plenty of times and were old friends now. But putting her with another of her packmates? That meant she had to be careful, be protective.

And yet for as much as Crusade had argued against it, she'd come to be thankful for Mahniya's company, and even taken a liking for the girl herself. An odd duck was Mahniya, but a more willing and respectful soul she'd never met. Crusade could depend on her not to start anything, and frankly, even the two of them together didn't look like much of an invasion force.

Crusade came calmly to the edge of the border. "Here goes," she said quietly to the younger fae, and then back her head went and off went a long, low croon. The sing-song howl wafted over the fertile plains, hopefully to settle on the ears of the high ranking within.

"Remember what I told you," Crusade added softly as the howl went echoing off among the green hills. "We know precious little about this new pack. Be ready to steel your heart against intimation, or open it towards courtesy."



~*~



~Because .G.i.v.i.n.g. U.p. was something I never learned to do~