from the midnight sun - wolfbane, any

[Chemdog]

He’s dirty and tired. Since his return he’s hiked all over, but with no real plan or results. Things come to him when he walks for days just wandering, chattering, observing. When you become a shadow the world opens in just a slightly different way than when you’re lit like the mid-day sun. Mud cakes his ankles, wads in the slight feathering over his hard hooves. His heavy tail, thick and dreaded, holds all sorts of surprises; sticks, dried leaves, dead grass, even a few feathers some girl gave him. His mane is much the same, small white clematis blooms limpy in the chunks of inky black.

He knows Loess has shallow hot pools, fresh and delightful. It is close enough to the path he travels and so he veers into the direction of Wolfbane’s kingdom. A leader he’s never met, only heard that it was his now and the details he did not remember if he heard them. It’s as good a place as any, really, and a soaking seems necessary.

He finds a pool rather deep toward the heart of Loess. He came from the coast, over hill and rock, the frost gripping it tight tonight. A half-moon lingers overhead, every few minutes a cloud partially covering it and letting the speckled stallion disappear and then come back when the moonlight is bright again. He slips into a copse of pines that circle a pile of stones with a smoothed pebble path leading to a large empty pool. Steam rises from its waters and mingles with the lavender shrubs nestled in the surrounding rock. 

“Perfect.” he whispers to himself and lets the black water swallow him to his broad chest. He draws in a deep breath and sinks the rest of the way until he’s submerged in the wet heat. 

CHEMDOG
to the window, to the wall

∞

so totally feel free to do a small "power-play" situation if you'd like to, as far as him popping his big fat head back up out of the water  upon approach(:

i'm tagging @[Wolfbane] because this is his house lol but anyone at all feel free to run into him

[Dayé]

when i run through the deep dark forest long after this has begun,

The wolf prowls through the darkness, the light chill in the air unable to seep into the delicate swathe of her skin between the many folds of storm-grey fur. Pieces of her are caked in what once was wet mud - it has long since dried and even hardened as the night fell over Loess, freezing droplets of dew onto the tips of her whiskers or the darker grey of her legs. The night has awakened her, allowing the once blue-golden young mare to fluidly shift into the wolf she had come to know as well as her first skin, primal urges allowing her to trek through the rocky landscape, slinking between large moss-covered boulders and frost-laden shrubbery. Her paws are soundless against the crisp undergrowth and though the smell of lavender and clear, mountain air has replaced the tinge of sulfur that once soured her nostrils, she doesn't mind the change.

Wistful and hungry, the teenage predator swiftly finds herself trotting through Loess. She is still learning the twists and turns of the rock outcroppings and the abundance of streams, though tonight it is not exploration that is her purpose. Without an alpha running point (her half-brother Wolfbane is the alpha to her in many other ways, though not in her wolf-skin), Dayé had quickly learned solitary hunting from her mother the lioness, though the younger female is still learning when it came to the agility and skill that accompanies a successful hunt.

A hare catches the wolf’s attention, her coffee brown eyes flickering as she locks her gaze on the quickly moving prey. She lowers herself into the shadow of rock and tree, trying to smooth herself into the darkness and to become unseen. Dayé tracks the hare as far as she can, trying to get within range to where a few precise leaps would allow her to pounce onto the dark brown rabbit. She is young and unpracticed (but also very lucky) when her leap from the darkness is a surprise to the hare, the force of her jaws quickly wrapping around its neck before its cries echo into the night, where other hunters might be attracted to its wails. Its screams are silenced with a single snap of its neck, the only sound besides the soft chorus of crickets and nightwind being the sound of flesh tearing from tendons and grinding bones against shining teeth.

Finished, the wolf stands. Blood frames her slender snout and face, nearly up to the dark brown eyes that peer through the blackness of night curiously. With a lick of her lips, the wolf trots forward in search of water, content to leave the broken down corpse for a vulture or some other night creature. Dayé flickers through the brush and bramble, shifting easily as she points herself into the direction of the spring she knew was close by. The young mare shines an iridescent blue across her golden body, pale tresses falling into the same wild and primal nutmeg eyes that had once been that of a predator.

Exposing herself to a being she did not know was currently beneath the surface, the mare snorts softly as she sees the steam coming from the pool. She comes to its edge, the blood from her meal now drying on her pale lips as she lowers her head, sniffing at the warm water. She chides herself for not remembering which spring is which and is not keen on sipping on the warm water that is black and still before her reflection.

Something then emerges from the placidity of the pool, startling the girl with a sharp whinny. Her ears fall into her mane as she shuffles backwards, lowering her head and baring her teeth with a champing mouth, a single foreleg digging into the pebbles that riddle the wet bank beneath her hooves. Realizing that it is only a stallion (one that smells unfamiliar, though with the water saturating his scent, it is hard to tell), she squarely freezes before him with a still lowered head, dark brown eyes staring wildly at him from beneath a furrowed brow, the instinct of her wolf trilling inside her as it begs to protect her from whatever danger this stranger might harbor for her.

Dayé

where the sun would set, trees are dead, and the rivers were none.

@[Chemdog]
i couldn't resist :|

[Wolfbane]

- Are you thinking of me when you love him? -

Above them all he drifts, a yellow-gold pegasus with stripes and splashes of errant blue, both white wings spread out alongside him to coast over perfect drafts of air. There was no better place for a winged horse than Loess, he thinks. Red spires are the only thing stretching up towards the heavens, here and there along the border mountains impede the view, but the expanse of rolling land opens wide skies above for those who can harness them.

Out here, Wolfbane can breath in the crisp night air and shed his colors for invisibility. Once a speck of shadow against the brief smattering of clouds, now he becomes nothing - an optical illusion of sorts.

Everything seems quiet enough, until a strange cry pulls him off course to backtread West again. Careening around, Bane dips one wing earthward and the other towards the heavens to make a wide u-turn, levelling out to zip ahead with silent, unseen speed. Hooves that had once touched land now gallop over moonlit breezes, bringing him to where Dayé has frozen poolside, eyeing down a very unfamiliar-looking stallion.

Across the pool from where she stands, Wolfbane touches down in a gust of wind and clatter of hooves, having shed his cloak of secrecy long before the descent. The downy white appendages, stroked every so often by the smatter of pale light from above, curl inward toward his belly and he snorts, shaking an equally white, upright mane with a half-amused smile to match. For the briefest of moments, his eyes flicker towards his half-sister, the wolf disguised in sheep’s clothing.

“I consider myself a patient guy.” Bane shrugs, turning his gaze again to the submerged brute between them. “So I’ll give you about a minute of my time to convince me you’re harmless.”

WOLFBANE

@[Chemdog] @[Dayé]

[Chemdog]

The warm water cleanses him in more ways than one.

Before he submerges beneath the surface the sounds of rodent death-screeching can be heard, it alerts him but honestly he was rather too tired to give a shit who was hunting about. He was almost sure this particular predator was probably occupied enough for now, anyway, and hopefully he was too big to be a convenient pick for snack times. He hears the fun, delicious crunch of bone – whatever it was it was a rather loud eater – or just pretty close. If the horse body could shrug, he would have. When the ripples close overtop it seals his flattened ears for a few drawn out seconds. He waits under the surface until he’s desperate for breath, bubbles leading the way upward. He makes his slow ascent to the open, biting air. His hearing is unclogged by water just in time to hear the mare’s approaching footfall and his teal eyes find her blue iridescence in the moonlight. She smells of canine, blood and meat. It’s not hard to decipher that she’s the wolf, the wolf is she; she is a shifter. His eyes blink simultaneously with a spreading grin, rising to stand all the way with the water resting calmly chest deep and steaming on and around his speckled black fur.

A whirl of cold wind and drifting white feathers joins the clatter of hoof to pebbles and solid wet stone. The approaches lack of subtly lets him no real reaction time but still he’s able to spin his head calmly, knowing he’d certainly find a pegasus behind him. Well I am trespassing..

Chem chuckles a little, delighted at the well-formed ice breaker fit for a trespasser. “Well I do hope I am not harmless.” He mocks a scoff, turning to half face the stallion but not turn his back to the wolf-girl. “But in this particular instance, no, I do not mean any harm.” He glances behind him and then back to the stallion, “I’m only trespassing.” His grin widens, knowing he’s probably walking a fine line of ‘get the fuck out of here’ or ‘are you useful?’. “I’m Chemdog. And I can be of use, I like this pool.”

Tradesies, maybe?

chemdog

astra inclinant, sed non obligant.