It seemed there were traces of a bygone age everywhere. The ruins in the east, the rusted ship, and now a cavern of paintings. She had found the cave while exploring, and decided it would be a good place to hunker down when it got colder. She was surprised at first by the strange glyphs painted onto the walls, but soon began to make out figures. Horses with sleek, fat bodies, bison, creatures on two legs that she guessed were humans, along with felines sporting enormous fangs and huge creatures with curving tusks, all of them cavorting on a background of swooping mountains and wide plains. An initial examination of the cave showed that it was uninhabited (although she could have missed something), and she had dragged into a few bushels of dry and an old dry pelt scavenged from something else's kill to serve as bedding on the cold floor. But she didn't intend to rest at the moment. She was more interested in the paintings, and walked back and forth along the walls, studying them. How had humans managed to leave such images? Curious, she shifted onto her hind legs and rested one paw against a stencil-like imprint that reminded her of Zabu's clever hands. Huh. Fours toes and dewclaw on her paw, and four fingers and a thumb on the painting. If humans could make images like this, why couldn't wolves?"Speech"

He moved along the mountain, no place in mind, just wandering around. Sal still couldn't find his family, looking under every rock, around every bend in the earth, and still nothing. He would give a shrug as he neared a clump of trees, swinging his tail around and bobbing his head. It just gave him more time to play in these lands, to meet more wolves or other creatures that seemed like fun to mess with. "Spooky cave, gotta take a look!" He would yip happily, his body turning, paws carrying him through the entrance.

It took him a few minutes for his eyes to readjust, his nose sniffing the air, finding the fresh scent of another and stale ones of animals that had come and gone. A few more minutes and he could see fine, his violet orbs running over the strange images on the walls. "Do you dance little pictures? Or have powers?" His voice was playful as he stood up on his back limbs, pressing his nose to the images with a low chuckle, tail wagging behind him.


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The clicking of claws drew her attention from the glyphs, and she removed her paw from the wall and turned to see a purplish male staring at another wall, speaking excitedly to the paintings. Arayne tilted her head, somewhat confused. The pictures couldn't actually talk, could they? No, it seemed they couldn't. Even when he stood on his hind legs and pressed his nose to the paintings, they remain still. "Um..." she began, "Are you okay?" Her brief meeting with the skull-adorned Cattina came to mind. She had been pretty nuts, not to mention vicious. This wolf, while certainly loopy, have a friendly voice, although she wasn't about to totally let her guard down. Being trapped in a cave with a crazy wolf that talked to paintings didn't rank high on the list of things she wanted to do today. "Speech"

He would hum to himself as he waited for the images to speak, ears perking up and turning to the side, waiting for any of the other ones to answer him. That's when he heard something, his ears turned in the direction a voice came from, eyes going wide with excitement but when he pulled his nose away to look he grew disappointed to find a wolf standing there. "Are you okay?" Her question would cause his head to tilt to the side, tail still wagging behind him as he stared at her like he didn't understand what she was asking.

"I am better than okay, what about you wolfy? Are you okay?" He would question her, dropping down to all four, taking a step forward, then another. He would not go near the woman, nope, he would keep his distance, not wanting to get hot and sweaty in a place like this. No, it was quite interesting, and only liked messing around outside in the grass and open fields, getting the full feel of the wind in his fur.


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"Talking to pictures isn't really my definition of 'okay'," she said quietly under breath, then immediately wished she hadn't. Damn it Arayne, learn to keep your mouth shut. Her legs tensed as the wolf took a few steps forward, but luckily, he didn't seem to want to get any closer than that. "I'm fine, I suppose," she said, then looked over him briefly as the wind howled coldly outside. "If you consider being pretty much lost in the coldest part of the continent right before winter to be okay," she amended lamely. She turned her attention back to the male. "I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Arayne." She lowered her head slightly. "You have a name, I'm assuming?" More importantly, she wondered, was he going to be setting up residence in the cave? She had already fought over territory once, she wasn't sure if she wanted to do it again."Speech"

?Well I'm not you girly.? He would answer with a raise of his head, tail wagging behind him. What, was this girl stupid? Did Sal look like her, did that mean he had to think like her. Nopity nope nope. Sal was Sal, he thought like Sal. He would just stand there and watch her with a cold violet gaze, though his body language would say he was just being friendly or at least didn't see her as a threat. His head tiled when she answered his question, telling him she was fine then made a comment about being lost in the coldest part of the continent before winter, It made him chuckle in a creepy kind of way.

Ears perked up when she said she'd introduce herself, Arayne, then brought up how he should have a name. Clearing his throat the boy would shake his head quickly then lift a paw and press it to his chest. ?Salamander Saxe is my name, and don't ware it out.? He would tell her in a light tone, a stupid grin plastered on his face. ?Is miss Arayne staying here for the night? If so we should explore these caves, find something cool.? He would give a few nods of his head. ?What do ya say??


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In spite of her caution, she giggled at his counter. "You've got a point there." she admitted. He was right, he wasn't her. She committed his name to memory, finding the title as quirky as he was. She nodded at his question, gesturing with her head at her makeshift nest. "For the night, and possibly for the winter, provided I don't get kicked out by a hibernating bear or find my way south again." She nodded as he suggested they see what the caverns held. "Sounds good to me. Less chanced of getting surprised in the night by some animal that was here first." She turned and began walking down the tunnel, setting an easy pace. She looked up at another series of paintings and paused. "Hey look, I think these are wolves." The glyphs had pointy ears and long snouts and tails, remind her of her own species. Standing next to the wolves were more twolegged figures. Wolves and humans together? "I used to live in some human ruins," she said to Salamander, "and in one old hall there was something like this hanging on the wall, only it was softer and tattered. My mother called it a 'tapestry'.""Speech"

Head would tilt when the woman motioned towards something, telling Sal that she would be here for the night and possibly the winter if she didn't get kicked out by a hibernating bear or found her way south again. ?Oh, nope, bears bad, don't wanna get cornered by one of those.? He'd say with a shake of his head. His face would light up when she agreed to his suggestion of exploration in the caves, saying how it would give them a lower chance of running into something that was here first. ?Yes yes, of course.? He would give a few nods of his head.

The male would have moved to head down a tunnel, but Arayne saying something about wolves made hi head turn quickly, violet orbs falling upon the images she was looking at. His tail would wag faster than it had moments ago, jaws parted and tongue lolling out the side as he examined the images. The girl was right, these looked just like them! Pointy ears, long snout, short body and long legs. Yes, yes, it looked just like their kind. His head would turn towards the shewolf when she brought up having to live I human ruins before, that something like this was hanging on the all there but was soft and tattered, her mother called it tapestry. ?Tapestry.? He would repeat, listening carefully to how she had pronounced it. ?Were there lots of those in your old home?? He would ask curiously.


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"A couple," she said, "but they were all nearly rotted away, from weather and exposure I think." A wet temperate forest wasn't the best place for ancient artifacts. Even the stones of the ruins themselves had been weathered and covered with moss and lichen. She continued to walk down the tunnel, lupine eyes adjusting easily to the low light. More pictures loomed on the walls, depicting earth-toned creatures. Some she recognized, some she didn't. There was a deer with spreading antlers, a hare, a huge-looking animal with a tail on it's face and curves tusks like a boar. "You think wolves could ever do this?" she asked Salamander. "Make these images, I mean. I think it would be kind of fun." The trick would be finding out what the pigments were made of. She stretched her head forward, sniffing an image. It smelled earthy, but also like animal fat, or maybe plants. A mixture of some sort, maybe. "Speech"

Ears would go down at the girl's answer, a soft whine coming from Sal as he stuck his bottom lip out in a slight pout. The tapestry's with pretty images had nearly rotted away in her home due to the weather and expose. That stunk, one should be careful with such delicate items, make sure they didn't get nasty from the elements. The boy would continue down the tunnel, walking just a foot or two behind Arayne, violet orbs trailing over the images on the wall of various shapes. Ears would shoot up when her voice raised, asking if wolves could make images like the ones on the wall, and that she thought it would be fun. "Pfft, of course we can. We just need to figure out how they will stay up there." He's grin, walking up to the wall and sniffing at one of them like she had. "Some are colorful, maybe they were made with flowers, they come in all kinds of colors from the rainbows in the sky." He would suggest, looking over at the woman. "The brownish ones look like it could be from mud, and the darker ones from clay." Oh yes, Sal would definitely want to learn how to make these, maybe if he figured out the right combination he could decorate his fur with colors.


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She nodded, mulling over his words. "Yeah. I can smell something like animal fat, maybe they used that to give it a little more stick." Her eyes roamed over the paintings, trying to recognize certain colors. "That reddish-brown is clay, definitely, that black could be soot or ash. There's red, that could be berries, and white. Maybe bone ash?" As cryptic as the pictures' origin seemed, she saw it as a challenge, something to occupy her time during the long winter season that she would be holed up here. Yeah, she could drag in some materials, and then play around with the proportions of each ingredient to pass time during a blizzard. She looked down at her paws. "That still leaves the issue of getting the paint onto the wall." She lifted her right front paw, examining the toes. "We don't have flexible digits like that lemur I met once." She looked back up at the wall. "But maybe if we made the paintings bigger, or used our claws instead of our toes, we wouldn't need that kind of finesse." "Speech"

Tail wagged like mad as Sal listened, more and more information on the images. Animal fat might have been used to make them stick, oh yes, very interesting. He would step back from the wall, moving over to Arayne and standing beside her, moving as she did. Violet eyes would run over the images she looked at, giving small nods as she named off substances that could have been used. Reddish-brown was clay, black could be soot or ash, red could be from berries, and white from bone ash... a questioning tone she would give. Within moments she would look away from the images, bringing up how they would get such things on the wall, staring at her paw. Head would tilt, she spoke of flexible digits and a lemur... what was that? "We could make big ones, that way everyone will see them when they enter the cave!" He'd bark happily, bounding down the tunnel a few feet then stopping to look at a different image. "We should tr finding stuff so we can experiment!"


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She watched briefly out of the corner of her eye as he stood next to her, but it no longer made her nervous. Salamander was an odd little wolf to be sure, but he was harmless. "Yeah!" she said, feeling as excited as a yearling on her first hunt. She looked over at Salamander. "Plants, especially berries, will be hard to find at this time of year, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get clay. The only question is how to transport it here..." While thinking, her eyes roamed over to her nest. Inspiration came in a flash. "I got it!" She walked over, pulling out a deer pelt. "We can put the chunks on this and drag it here." She could always replace the pelt. (Since the Caves just got taken over, how do you want to continue this? Do we make a thread set before the claim, or just finish this one somehow?)"Speech"

ooc: we can just continue from this one. lol

Sal would nod his head quickly as the woman spoke, taking in everything she said. Plants and berries would be hard to find this time of year, but perhaps they could go a bit south to try and find some then brig them here for when they experimented? Yes, that was good. Clay, she said shouldn't be too difficult, but then Arayne brought up a good question, how would they transport the stuff? Sal would stand there, head cocked in thought. Maybe big leaves? Or those twigs that wrapped around trees... vines! The shewolf's voice would break his thoughts, his gaze watching her pull something out of the darkness then saying they could transport stuff on it. Was that the pelt of an animal? "You smart lady, very smart!" His tail wagged behind him as he nodded his head, but he would quickly turn in a circle. "I go look for fast stuff, not hard to transport. Be back girly!" And with that the boy would turn and bound down the tunnel and out the cave, he would try finding easy things to start with.


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