Just Need a Place to Start
06-02-2013, 04:47 PM
The night was dark and stormy. It was early winter, and the changing winds told him that his "birthday" was near. Five years ago, he had been born. But, what had he done with his life since then? He'd had a short stay in Valhalla, but after the volcano eruption, he couldn't bring himself to stay with them. While fleeing the lava, he witnessed a small, mute, and deaf -- he assumed -- wolf burned, no . . . melted to death in the lava flow. Since then, he'd been roaming on his own, taking in the land and doing what he loved to do most: work out. During his time alone, he taught himself increasingly difficult athletic skills, from running up into and jumping off of the side of trees, to high jumping, to balancing on wobbly logs and narrow tree bridges. But he didn't ignore his basics skills so, despite the tempestuous weather, he was off on a marathon run, headed east into lands he had not yet explored. Soon, he found himself near the edge of the Lover's Mangrove, and he slowed to a stop, breathing heavily from his run. Dirk had never seen a mangrove swamp in his life. He paused tentatively as he came upon the first tangle of roots in the mangrove, gingerly taking a forepaw out of the ankle-deep water to place it on the twisted platform. Discovering it was able to hold his weight, he stepped up onto it and traveled on, flexing his agility by jumping over, onto, and around trees. Still, he stepped carefully, trying to avoid catching a paw in the sloping roots and breaking an ankle. He paused as the smell of scent markers wafted into his nose, then continued on, slowing his pace as he crossed over into the borders of the packland. Lifting his head, he let his low, smooth howl ring out through the trees. But his howl was cut short as he over-estimated the strength of a root and tripped head first into the faintly glowing river. He gasped for air as he broke the surface of the river, paddling back to dry land and climbing back unto the roots. His eyes widened with wonder as he turned and saw his path through the water illuminated in a bright blue light. "What in the world . . ?" he murmured, disturbing the water with a paw and watching, intrigued, as the light bloomed beneath his paw. |