Hideous Lands of Fatigue Continued (Tocho, Black)

[Bila]

A moaning wind carried by the cold and cruelty of the world born itself across a jagged land of never dying despair. It grabbed up snow and dropped it in a swirl, once again upon the ground. It swooped around the rocks like a great, black crow filled with dark intensions and a soundless caw to settle in the trees with its brethren, before greed drove them out with a bursting gale. Tor shone despondently down upon the failure of her creation, and the snow glistened back up at her, mirroring her silver sadness. Dead trees stuck up here and there, the ravens and other scavengers arguing and cawing, suddenly swooping down to fight over a carcass that had died in this despondent land; afraid; hungry; and most of all alone.

A tall figure made itself known as it quietly leapt through the snow, paws trained for tough times. It expertly wove its way around the pointed rocks, keeping its head down as one brown yellow eye peered through the unsettling blackness. Icy breath rose like mist above its head, together a white fog, but when they left each other to find there own place in life, they disappeared unnoticed, gone. The pelt of the lone Varg was a dark grey and white in Tor’s dismal light, and the brown that etched her back and ruff could not be seen. It was shaggy and clung to her fatigued body, catching on tree branches and pulling its owners skin. A furry tassel swayed in the coming darkness as clouds began to cover up Tor and all went dark.

The faemme had no purpose in life but to serve her pack and ensure there safety. Her one goal was to make sure they all survived before her own end when she could pass away, a shadow, into Fenris’s Forest. Battle marks etched her body were invisible under her pelt, not speaking of the harsh, fighting life she lead. But when all seemed lost, she still had her family, even if, in a way, she was their slave. The Drappa had come to hunt for her pack and finding nothing in the harsh mountains she called home, she had left the boundaries of List to battle through this dead land in search of something to eat.
The fae stopped, listening carefully for the nervous half jump of a rabbit, the almost inaudible scamper of a small rodent, the fidgety stomp of a Herla, or the cawing of a crow. The sound she had been waiting for reached her ears like a sudden avalanche on a mountain, and her one eye glinted in an invisible smile before she slunk forward in a fast trot, her body low to the ground and a scavenger’s eye running along the terrain. Soon blood reached her sensitive nostrils, born to her by the howling wind. She stopped, her head coming up as she sniffed delicately. The blood masked the animal scent, and she did not know what it was, but crows were still cawing, so that must mean it was plentiful. Starting to drool, hoping there was enough for the pack, she jumped onward, muscles still intact even when her stomach wasn’t.

A grotesque sight, one that brought hope and triumph into the faemme, met her eyes. A dead doe was lying on her side, crows scampering up her body as they poked her eyes, unable to open the desirable meat. She licked her chops, and with a battle cry that was lost to the wind and the cold, she charge forward, tail horizontal to the ground, eye narrowed as she had the pleasure of chasing something. The crows scattered with furious calls to settle in the overhanging tree. A large, reluctant crow remained, and he hopped away, not wanting to leave his meal. But he could not open it with his dull beak, and Bila snapped close to his head and he fled with shedding feathers. When she was sure they had gone, she trotted back to her find, her tail high as she examined it with a cocked head. It had once been a doe, and it seemed as if it had died days ago, but the cold weather had kept her from rotting. She leaned in, her dribble falling onto the doe as she kept herself from tearing into it. She caught no scent of sickness, but the blood was in powering, and she found herself nosing at its side, trying to turn it over. But it was too much for her, and she stood up with a sneeze, looking at the land while her mind whirred. It must have been cut by something or someone and died of famine and infection. Bila longed to bite into it, but instead began to pant, thinking reluctantly of her cold journey home. It would take her good three or four suns to get home with her find. She sighed heavily, bending down and sinking her razor sharp canines into the neck of the doe as sweet blood poured into her mouth. Encouraged, she sunk her teeth in deeper and gave it a shake for her own satisfaction as the birds enraged cry filled the air with protest. Amused and longing to feed her family, she started to tug at the doe.

It was slow process, and her muscles screamed with each tug, when finally she stopped, her energy spent. The land around her was the same, cold, cruel place, and she felt a loneliness tug at her heart as she longed to be home. But there was a long journey, and she wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight. Panting heavily, her ribs showing, she licked up the snow in great laps, never getting enough of the moist substance. When finally satisfied, she lay down beside her find and curled her hind legs up to protect her belly from the still raging wind, settling her muzzle on her long, narrow paws. Time passed, and she was almost asleep, when whimpering met her ears. Led away from restless dreams, her head snapped up, auds listening. It was a pup sound, the kind Kraz had once made. She jumped up, already sniffing the air for the source. She found the cub, a small little thing, and her heart melted. It looked to be about the age of one who was just being weaned, or had just started to be fed regurgitated meat by its Mother. But it seemed alone. Bila stepped forward, whimpering as she lowered her body in a friendly stance. “Hello,” she growled, wagging her tail, looking like an overgrown pup fresh from her mother’s side.

[Liberté]

//imma just going to use one of my posts as bermuda and modify it to fit tocho because i can *lazy*//

His lone silhouette danced across the blanket of snow, the crown of its existence reaching towards the western horizon just as his paws groped. Around the rocky peaks were reaching for the disc of the silver moon with a rhythm. Beside that the unfruitful boughs of the firs scrabbled at the bruised heavens, all deep swabs of plum and indigo, in percussion with the footfall. They rocked together in manipulated unison by the stale mood. Its gales did blow against the bitter tree trunks as they held their breath in anticipation of the storm; the storm that whispered its coming to both the living and the dead.

The tempo of the young wolf syncopated with that of his heart, building with each pulse as his feet carved the snow with one eager stroke, as explicit and silver as the blade of a guillotine falling. It was a flawless, clean sound, the crunching of fresh white powder under chapped pads. It would only be interrupted when the whelp would pause in his sinuous gait to lifting a leg into the air. His tongue would run cut from his long toes to his skeletal ankles, as it was wet and matted with hoarfrost and his own blood frozen. It caused the male’s honeyed eyes to stream with saltwater disbelief and the spark of personality, once dazzling as bright as the gaze of a midday sun, give one last glimmer.

So many embers smoldered down to nothing that night. And so, as the moon reflected off of the ivory landscape, the whelp evoked his memories with a smarting remorse.

It had been his first autumn, the autumn this year to be accurate, and the sun swelled above in a throne sewn of clouds and silver thread. The cobalt sky, only do be depressed with the hazy wisps of clouds, hung above as an endless ocean. Brooding waters of those angry clouds had thrust its hazy waves down and the seashore of griege mountains became waves with it. On those breaking rock surfs there rode a battered mahogany hull, a cruising ship of a rouge wolf. The figure itself seemed to be sad, its listless yellow eyes vacant and searching, suddenly blackened and more empty than -

“Tocho!” the bay devastated the instant of concentration that held the cub rapt. The russet pelted whelp swung his maw around again, casting his gaze back into the depths of the forest. It was nothing like the mountain coastline that had coaxed the very pup from his den, away from the crowded shelter of lacing pines and into the cosmic strip of sky beaches.

The clouds where taking a pass over the sun again and the first breeze of the morning whistled through. Clicks of Tocho’s arced talons upon river stone where like the clack of a partridge as pursued the length of the River. His coal ears perked intently to the sound of his Mama’s voice which was becoming more frantic by the breath, and his paws became suddenly fervent to seek the one who had birthed him. Tocho was soon snaking beneath the riot of nootka roses, dodging the ripening maroon berries and jagged-edged leaves.

Before he realized that his paws had stopped shooting out, he accurately analyzed the prints that lay before him. They where thick and wide set with a series of slides and smudges, not far apart at all. “They musta been big, having trouble making it through the raspberry patch,” trailed off the cub, with a now suspicious glare. The sound of sobs had now got him going full speed. But they had all gone downstream, while him up with his mother. A wretched bittersweet scent was spiraling in the air like the spray of a polecat or skunk, yet this was a much more familiar one. It was thick and coppery, saccharine yet tart, triggering the saliva in the puppy’s mouth to water and dribble. Tocho had gone off dancing in his own dreamily state until he nearly tripped over a disheveled clump of wet grass.

At that second the tiny cub’s jaw slacked, heart dropping into the pit of a churning abdomen. Flexing toes soon found out that what he had thought was but uprooted turf, was the a chunk of flesh torn from some beast. Raising his parted muzzle he found himself standing stock-still before a twisted and tree stump, roots twisting beneath him and upon it the scattered innards of something… something large that closely resembled that stag or large doe. The chrysalis of many moths or butterflies, what ever they where, where easily recognized as some began to wriggle amongst the pine needles that lay scattered atop the guts. “Mama?” dared the piping accent of a timid yet inquisitive creature. The pressure on his shoulders just seemed to increase, sinking him down with an unbearable pillar or invisible weight. There was no use denying who the blood belonged to. “You niggling little scum!” he barked into the crisp fall silence. “Why couldn’t you save her? Why in all that is good, did you leave the den?” growled the curling snout that soon reduced from screaming to wailing, finally sobbing. It was the first time he was alone, and he never realized it would last so long.

Tocho whined again, shrivled and so tiny in the vast forest and in the shadow of the great alpha wolf. Despite her innocent looks he could still not forget. He didn't yet know that she would be the ones to relight the embers of his life...