Hunted ((Tarmalo))

[Sabla]

The wind, a blustery, unwieldy thing that cannot be stopped and is as wild as the spirit of the varg, ripped through the lands and tore great claw marks across the land. Snow from the near mountainous rocks and crags were gripped in the wind's clutches and thrown violently, stinging even the air itself.

A lone figure stood hesitantly away from an outcrop, a dark silhouette against the white, snowy wind, struggling to see through the impossible snow to her lands far down below. Her body shivered slightly as the wind raked cold chills up her spine and snow and ice clung to the soft fur, but she seemed not to notice. Her mind was far away, buried deep into her memories of the summer before. Back before she had disappeared for many moons. Back when there was little to care for beyond the food in her belly and the sun on her back. Back when her and Tarmalo had strolled the moonlit nights together and nipped at each other's ears affectionately. Back when everything was perfect.

A small smile played across her lips, cracking from the cold at the memory of it. Tarmalo. It had been so long. What had torn her away from him? How could they ever be separated? Her thoughts flickered back to the reason and her smile disappeared.

It was her brother. Long and lost from the many years gone by. Sabla had run away from her family as a pup. She was the oldest of five; the only girl and thus dubbed the "responsible one" in a sea of brothers. She was tough and patient, but eventually it wore down on her and she wanted no part of the inconsiderate family she was born to. So she ran away. Far away north to the lands of Transylvania. And she hasn't looked back nor regretted her decision.

Her brother, Kuno, suddenly appeared to the woods of Transylvania, and with madness in his eyes and a warning on his lips, Sabla was forced to leave Transylvania with Kuno to settle it straight. Her parents were killed by a stronger, neighboring pack in a disagreement over boundaries. They had taken over her homeland. Now the dragga was hunting down each of the heirs to the land one by one and killing them. Poor Tate and Steele were already dead. Now all that remained were Sabla, Kuno, and Qivu. And now the mad dragga was hunting them down one by one.

"I could have never seen him again....." she whispered to the wind that howled in her ear. "What would have happened to him? I could have died." Sabla shivered again, but not from the cold, but from a feeling not of the flesh that went much deeper than bone.

She tilted her head to the bleak sky above and opened her maw to let the notes spill out from her soul. The howl of pain, of longing, of love. The wind snatched it up and carried it away so it didn't even reach her own ears, but yet she still howled longer and louder. Until her voice broke off and she shuddered yet again.

The wind howled on....

//Okay, so I totally made this up to try and explain my long absence. I'm thinking of maybe elaborating on what had exactly happened with her fight with the dragga, but I'll have to think more on it. Maybe you could have this wild, crazy story of all the things you did looking for me. Cause I'm thinking I'd slip away in the night so you wouldn't follow and have the chance of getting killed. *shrugs* I'm not sure. //

[Tarmalo]

^{[[*hugs Sabla* mmmm Easy Mac!]]}

The empty winter sun raised and fell as the seasons passed into winter, Tarmalo watched the seasons in Koran change. He looked up into the black starry sky as the cold mid-winter winds beat across his pelt. It had been a whole season since his mate Sabla had disappeared into the Transylvanian mountains. Why did she leave so abruptly? Maybe she found a new mate, or perhaps was sick of Transylvania? Who knew? Certainly he didn’t.

Although Tarmalo’s home was the deep and lush forests of Koran, he had taken to wandering off pack lands to wherever his paws would take him. This time his paws led him across the tree lines skirting the Transylvanian mountains, he had been there for a few days stalking small game and tracking the prints of lone Kerls in an effortless small hope that one of them would be Sabla’s tracks.

Tarmalo’s black and white tipped form slipped through the mountain trees. Passing silently like a phantom from trunk to trunk. He stopped and looked to the night sky, its endless black mass peered back at him and made him feel belittled, which made him think how antlike and insignificant he must seem to the gods. But that only brought his mind back to Sabla. Tarmalo shook his head trying to rid himself of these thoughts and continued his way along the mountain forest.

Tarmalo reached a clearing along the tree line and decided that he would move further up the mountain side. So he turned his brown and steel flawed eyes towards the sky as he climbed up the mountain side. Then he began to think, “Maybe I caused this…I attacked her, and maybe she didn’t want that to happen to her again, maybe that’s why she left.”

He stopped and looked down and saw the Forests of Koran, the trees were swaying like waves in the water as the wind blew through their leaves. Then Tarmalo thought of something, “Why isn’t there any wind in the Mountains?” He knew for a fact that winds were at least twice as strong as they were in Koran. So why couldn’t feel the wind in his fur? Then as if the gods answered his question, a force of wind picked Tarmalo off the ground like a loose leaf in the forest and blew him down the mountain side.

Down and down the mountain side, Tarmalo fell. He bounced down the mountain side, hitting trees as if he were a pinball. Until finally he hit a tree square on and all went black. His head span as he tried to think about what had just happened to him.

“Damnit to hell,” Tarmalo thought. “I should have been more careful.” He laid there wishing he were broken but he knew that in few minutes or so he would recover and be on his way again. Yet he chose not to get up, maybe the land would take him and he would find the answers he sought after.

_{[[Like elaborating in a separate thread? I dont know, I guess you could do that. I'm just glad to have you back! but i dont know it kinda seems like a hassle but what I would do is just make it all past tense saying that resolved most of it or whatever.....yaaaa your back *hugs*]]}

[Sabla]

Her mind wandered on to that lost fall deep into her southern home. Sabla had followed Kuno to her old home, leaving everything she ever knew behind her. I'm doing this to keep them safe. She promised herself. To keep him safe.

She had found the pack that had challenged her family and the crazed dragga that hunted the varg like a scared rabbit. She was scared, and did this out of fear. But not for her own life.

As she entered her faintly familiar packlands, she called out to the dragga, announcing she wish to fight, that she had moved on and didn't care who ruled the packlands. Kuno was slightly upset, but held his tongue. The dragga had scoffed at Sabla. "How dare you?" He asked, "How dare you, femme, believe that I would turn away a fight like a coward. Or are you a coward?" He had spat.

Sabla raised her head high. "I am no coward, she said, I simply have another home in a distant land. And I do not wish to fight you."

This had angered the dragga and he growled at the russet female. "Then the cowardly shall go last and watch the strong fall. You surely have no chance." He nodded and a burly wolf stepped forward to face Kuno. Then without a warning, the varg leapt for his throat.

It was a great battle and Sabla's heart sunk with each blow Kuno had taken. Even though he was almost a stranger to her, she felt the sibling bond to him and she felt his pain. Both bloodied and panting, The vargs were both exhausted. Kuno's eyes went out of focus with pain as he took a sidestep to escape the bulky mann and with a growl and a flash of silver, Kuno fell to the ground, dead, and the dragga stood above him, his jaws red with blood from her brother's throat. He had cheated. Killed him while his head was turned. Stabbed him in the back.

Sabla snarled, outraged, and leapt to the dragga, a burning fire in her eyes. Her jaws flashing, she managed to rip a mouthful of fur from the silver dragga's coat and wiped the smirk from his face. She dodged him easily as he snarled and spun around snapping.

"You murdered him in coldblood, dragga." Sabla spat, seeing red. "He deserved better than that! A fair fight!" She looked pityingly at her brother's lifeless form, and back to the dragga, shaking with rage.

He growled, mad that she had bit him, then raised his tail high. "Fine, you want a fair fight, femme? FIght me. Whoever wins keeps the territory." He smirked. "May the best mann win." And with a roar, he attacked her.

Sabla sat numbly on the mountaintop,numb from the cold as she had been to the pain and fatigue that fall. It was all instinctual then, flowed as dark power through her veins as it had that night in the human village with Tarmalo. She was a murderer then, the first she had ever killed another varg.

The pack had stood, stunned, as Sabla finished the dragga off and he landed with a thud to the ground. She growled, sounding broken through her panting and lifted her tail high. Her coat shimmered with the blood of the battle and blended with her already rusted fur. Then the pack backed away into the forest, loyal to their dragga even in his death, and disappeared. One tan femme held back, pain in her eyes as she viewed the dragga, then she disappeared as well.

A pang of guilt and longing for her own mate shot through Sabla as she saw that look, abut she limped towards Kuno and nuzzled him for the last time. "Goodbye, dear brother." She whispered softly, "I only wish I had gotten to know you." She sat with his body for most of that night, guarding it. Although the next morning she felt no connection to the carcass. Kuno was gone up to Fenris.

Sabla had returned to Transylvannia, to her home. Her journey was hastened by a limp she had gained in that fight and it took her moons to travel back. But now she was so close, she had hesitated on the borders and in the mountains. Will they have forgotten about me? Will he have moved on? Will I not be welcome? she worried to herself. She had pondered these things and built up her courage to face what might be reality.

With a deep breath of cold mountain air that nearly froze her lungs, she lifted herself off the ground and started down, moving one paw in front of the other.

[Tarmalo]

^{[[gah! Sorry about the wait. lol!]]}
Tarmalo lay unbroken, his back against a cedar tree, his eyes facing the stars almost as if spiting them.
“bah,” whispered Tarmalo. Slowly Tarmalo lowered his eyes to the ground, then bracing himself against the cedar tree, he raised himself up.
“I suppose I better get going,” he said. The Ebony and snow tipped wolf promptly turned south and began his long journey down the mountain and back toward Koran, empty handed…again.

The wind whistled in Tarmalo’s fur, the trees shook in its might, and the clouds remained as dull and dreary as ever. Gravity hastened Tarmalo’s trek down, but the wind being as powerful as it is, was bringing Tarmalo to a snails pace as he made his way down the mountain. It made him wish that the wind would throw him down the mountain again so he would be able to speed up his pace. The wind howled after his thought and he braced himself against a tree at the thought of tumbling down again, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

The clouds above stirred as if the gods above were stirring the sky like a pot of soup, which is what the sky looked like…soupy. Then as if things couldn’t get any worse, a small crystalline flake fell upon Tarmalo’s muzzle.
“Oh,” said Tarmalo in a sulking tone. “This will make the trip back fun.” And with that said, the heavens opened up and a white blanket fell upon the mountain. Then the wind picked up the gods' white blanket and turned it into a white crystalline needle storm, forcing Tarmalo to wince in pain as the needle like snow beat against his fur. He stopped somehwere along the line and braced himself against two large trees, one a cedar, and the other a juniper.

“Dammit to hell,” wheezed Tarmalo’s voice against the beating force of the blizzard. “Surely Wolfbane has something to do with this.” Yet nothing answered his accusations against Wolfbane. The storm beat down upon Tarmalo with a force unlike any other, he wasn’t even sure he would make it back to the beautiful Forests of Koran. His mind fell back when he first joined Koran and how awkward he felt, then he watched those same feelings turn to surprise when he found out Sabla was a member of that pack. Sabla, how he missed her so now more than anything, he wished to be with Sabla, to hear her say that everything is going to be ok, to have her warm presence by his side, to wake up and see her next to him.

Finally when he could take no more, Tarmalo raised his muzzle to the heavens and out came a symphony of pain, loneliness, sorrow, and sheer fatigue. A howl that would have echoed throughout the mountains if there had not been a storm as fierce as this one, his howl lasted mere seconds after being removed from his body.
Afterwards he brought his muzzle down, looked around, then curled up as tight as he could between the two winter trees he had designated as his shelter.
“Curses,” growled Tarmalo. “Curse it all!” he barked.

Tarmalo lifted his eyes hoping in vain that maybe something would happen. Then with a start, something moved. His ears flicked forward, and he squinted his eyes. Something definitely was there however, the storm blocked any scent of the intruder. Was he hallucinating again? He would soon find out.

He jumped up and raised his haunches and braced himself for the worst.
“Who goes there?” barked Tarmalo. “Declare yourself,” he barked again. His patience was growing thin, and he had been looking for a reason to recklessly throw himself in hopes that he would get killed.
“SHOW YOUR SELF COWARD,” snarled Tarmalo.

[Sabla]

The snow stung her eyes as the wind pelted her on her way down the mountains. Surely the great Carpthians weren't against her too, were they? That even the gods had turned all of the earth against Sabla?

Feeling like a traitor, yet still moving forward, her auds caught a threat on the wind.

“SHOW YOUR SELF COWARD,” a voice snarled.

Her heart skipped a beat and a lump formed in her throat. Could it be? No, it couldn't. Not on this far, distant mountain. Not this far out. The gods were spurning Sabla, fortune could not be this grand.

As she stepped closer to the voice, struggling to hear more over the roar of the wind, she saw a black lump form between two trees. "Tarmalo?!" she called, excitement growing inside her like Man's red flower that warmed all of her limbs despite the cold, "Tarmalo, is that you?!"

//Sorry for its shortness, but I wanted you to post first.//

[Tarmalo]

^{[[Gah! No fair! ok, but you didnt give me much to work with.]]}
Tarmalo heard a voice in the wind, but the harsh winds muffled any of the dark character’s affinity towards friend or foe. All he could hear were cries. Cries like the heavens themselves were crying. Tarmalo panicked. Who was doing that? He snapped his maw at the character in front of him. The snow flurries were thick , and the foe was still too far out to be fully recognized. He waited with his haunches dropped low, and teeth bearing out in a feral snarl. Then the faint cries became more audible as the figure came closer. He heard his name.

He stopped. His mind raced, who was this and how does it know its name? Had it followed him here? Yes, it must have followed him here. Which means it must have been tracking him! Surely this figure meant to challenge Tarmalo. His heart doubled over as a wave of adrenaline went from his brain to his heart. His reflexes becoming faster for he would have to move fast if he wanted avoid getting attacked.

“Yes,” answered Tarmalo. “I am he, now step forward and be done with it.” His right hind paw twitched. His body ready for reaction, he waited for the figure to enter his field of vision.

[Sabla]

//Heh heh. Sorry. //

“I am he, now step forward and be done with it.” He called out, snarling.

Grinning broadly and lifting her head and tail high and majestically, she stepped forward, close enough to be seen easily even through the blustery snow. "It's been far too long, my mate." Sabla whimpered, relieved to be together with Tarmalo again. She couldn't stop her tail from wagging faster and faster or heartily laughing at his dumbfounded expression to her appearance. Then she couldn't hold herself back any more and she jumped to him, her tongue nearly getting stuck on his frozen fur as she licked him pleasantly.

Sabla acted like a puppy, overwhelmed with joy like she hasn't felt for a long time. She pounced and pawed at him, hardly keeping still, and had even slipped on the icy ground. With a laugh that some what hurt, she fell to the ground and stared at him from between her paws, tail still wagging to stir up snow all around them, and utterly twitterpated.

She growled happily and swiped her paw out to him, then slightly calmed and spoke. "What has happened in the lands of Koran and Transylvannia since my disappearance? How have you been?" she lazily licked off remaining dried blood from her paw as she listened to him, wincing slightly from the searing cold on her wound.