Japalac had a dream once. The details of it were hazy (surely chased away by the morning sun) but he clutched the faint web that remained with the tenacity of a faithless man to fact. For what was he but just that--unable to trust in the idea of a pack, only able to invest any certainty in the silk-spun threads of an evening’s mirage? But it had been so real. Still, as his tongue rolled about in his mouth, he tasted the cinders that had built an inferno in his heart while the ashy sting bit sharply at his maw.
He’d walked for days like a fool, mouth slightly open, rolling the memory of that taste over iand over in his brain. All manner of solutions had been sought for, but the sienna wolf could only swallow so much air. It only served to intensify what could not be separated from his person, this new and persistent taste of burnt embers, grinding in his throat.
At last, there was a change in the air. It held the same smoky scent that’d consumed Japalac’s mind, but was saturated with the freshness of flowing water, and the oddly rich scent of new growth. He lowered his crown in respectful reverie, so enraptured by the smell that he found his jade eyes closing and a low hum on his lips. The force that had drawn him there continued to work on this mild wolf that did not yet know it had come to pack territory, pushing down at his flanks and carving him, this at once peaceful and solitary creature, as if made of stone.
Kick it, as you would a pebble. He would not flinch. This was the power of fate, weighing down the limbs with such certainty that one feels at once invincible and completely raw, naked.
For Japalac knew where he’d arrived now; his heart beat irregularly in his chest, in which a war was pitted between yearning and wariness. The only thing that held him to the border besides a strange, possessive love of the terra itself, was the passing comment he’d heard about this pack. Bright Moon was on its knees.
Unable to leave, but loathe to stay, the male let out a short bark (had it sounded strangled? or high-pitched and weak? It was the smoke in his throat, it would not leave!). There, the damage done, he waited in a silence crafted to the tune of birdsong, tension the new chisel of his bod. He knew solely that he needed to speak to one of the pack members, learn the full situation, before immersing himself in the pack life.
The pack life--just the thought made him shudder. The single shudder; the one you know is borne of fear because of its isolation.
He'd traveled for three nights at this point, slave to the craving of a now-faded dream. The male would never know how Nature played a wicked game once with Her plaything; creeping down while he slept, whipping the wind in his face, and feeding him from a tender hand the remains of an old forest fire. Oh, She giggled and pulled at the slack lips with the crafty intelligence of a fox and the happiness of a small child, certain he’d carry that fading spark to relight others, as She had once relit him.
{ooc}
It's a join post if you can convince him to stay...
challenge proposed.
Do you accept?
Lol/dramatics
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