[Mkguild] A Pack of Secrets (4/13)

[Hallan Mirayas]

   Xavier might have been in a better mood the next morning if he hadn't awakened with a wolf muzzle two inches from his own.  The mischievous Cloud Walker, apparently deciding that Xavier's tent would be much more comfortable than the forest floor, had crept in during the night and burrowed under Xavier's blanket while the leopard slept.  (Since Xavier's was the only tent in camp, there was some logic to this decision.)  Drift looked up from cooking breakfast just in time to see Cloud Walker bolt from the tent, his tail tucked tight and his fur sticking out in all directions.  He took out one tent pole and two tent pegs in his haste to leave and Padraic whistled in admiration at the chaos that erupted.  "For a dandified rich boy, he sure has quite a mouth."

   "I think Wolfram and I have rubbed off on him.  Watch the fire, would you?" Drift asked.  He got to his feet and went to help Xavier sort himself from the tent.

   The rest of the morning passed relatively uneventfully, with most of it spent unpacking the wagon and caching any food and gear they didn't plan to use until the trip home.  The three yearlings enjoyed the activity, gleefully joining in whenever there was digging to be done, whether their help was wanted or not.  Most of the older dire wolves looked on in amusement but the pack leader, Crooked Jaw, seemed to find it boring and paced at the edge of the encampment with his eyes toward the mountains.  Drift watched the pretty collie Arla walk over and talk with him, but both eventually parted with visible frustration.

   She passed close enough for Drift to reach out and stop her, and he beckoned her close so he could speak privately.  "Are you actually able to understand them?" he asked.  When she nodded, he continued, "How?  I know it's not a canine thing, or I'd be able to do it, too."

   Arla sat down on a fallen log, and brushed some moss off a spot next to her for the samoyed.  For a while, she didn't speak, instead listening to the pack while she figured out how to phrase her reply.  "To be honest, I'm not really sure how.  I just do.  Raven thinks I might have some aedra blood somewhere in my family history, perhaps some servant of Artela's.  That's not as simple as it sounds, either.  They understand some of what we say, and I understand some of what they say, but the more abstract the concept, the harder it is to translate.  They aren't humans in furry bodies:  they're entirely different creatures with very different ways of perceiving things."

   "How so?"

   "When the Curse changed you, what was the first difference you noticed?"

   "You mean aside from being broiling hot?  The smells."

   Arla wagged a laugh at the slack-jawed, tongue-lolling face he made while saying 'broiling hot', and then continued.  "Now imagine you've been born that way, and so have your parents, and theirs, all the way back to the beginning of time.  For a human, scent is usually a secondary sense at best.  For them, though, that's just the start of it.  Memory and recall, rank and hierarchy, even their senses of place and time are different from ours.  Top that with generations on generations of instinct instead of culture, and I'm amazed that we understand each other at all, even with whatever talent I have."

   Drift's ears flicked, his expression nonplussed.  "Culture?  What do you mean?"

   "Think about it."  Arla started counting off on her fingers.  "We can write things down, so we don't have to remember everything we learn.  We mingle between groups, between nations, and we share what we learn.  We invent things when what we want doesn't exist.  We create music and art.  We -change- things, Drift.  Not just the world around us, but ourselves as well.  We adapt to changing situations, and we do it rapidly."  Arla looked over at Crooked Jaw, who was still pacing, and her voice turned sad.  "They… don't.  And I think it might kill them."

   "You can speak to them, though.  Can't we teach them?" the samoyed asked.  "Can't we help… somehow?"

   "I've been trying since I first met them.  You might have noticed that the older wolves tend to have names that are physically descriptive- Crooked Jaw, Ragged Ear, Little Tail, while the younger ones have more artistic names.  I've done what I can to broaden their knowledge, but there's so much they don't seem able to grasp, or that we just haven't had time to talk about.  Metamor is too confining for them, too ordered and restrictive.  They want… they need to roam.  They want to live as their ancestors have lived.  Even if it means they might die."

   Drift shifted his seat on the log and folded his hands, resting his arms on his knees.  "So they're really not that different from us, are they?  We live in a war zone.  If it wasn't for the Curse, it would be easy to move off and let somebody else deal with the Northlands.  Well, not necessarily -easy-, but...."

   "I know what you mean," Arla replied.  

   "It's home.  It's where we grew up, and where our families grew up.  It's not something that's easy to walk away from.  They want what we do: a safe place to raise their children, in the way that they themselves were raised."

   One of the dire wolves, a black-furred older female just starting to gray, rose from her spot in the shade, and walked over to Crooked Jaw.  Arla watched her go, and chuckled softly to herself as the she-wolf's glance passed across them.  Drift's puzzled look only made the collie laugh harder, and she put a hand to her mouth until she got it under control.

   "I'm sorry," she apologized, and then burst out laughing again as Drift's puzzled look turned into a suspicious one once he put the clues together.  "That's Evening Storm, the pack's lead female and Crooked Jaw's mate."

   "What did she say?" he asked, drawing the last syllable out in an 'I'm-not-sure-I-want-to-know-the-answer' lilt, one ear half laying back to complete the image.  "I know she said something, Arla, or you wouldn't be laughing."

   The collie-morph took a moment to compose herself, and even Drift could recognize the amusement among the wolves nearby when she spoke.  "She said 'smart puppy'."  When Drift didn't appear to understand, she explained.  "Our names don't translate well into their language, so they tend to give us new names in theirs.  Most of the time, it's just a basic description: Padraic, for example, is 'Tough Rabbit'-"

   "They got that right!" Padraic called from across the clearing.

   "Be careful, 'Tough Rabbit'," Arla yelled back.  "I'm still not quite sure whether their 'tough' means 'strong'… or 'chewy'."

   The rabbit paused in lifting a wrapped bundle off the wagon to thump his chest in raw bravado.  "Let 'em try," he replied cheerfully.

   His ears quirked in bemusement, Drift drew the collie's attention back to their conversation.  "So she decided to call me 'Smart Puppy'?"

   "No, she said that you were smart."  Arla's tail started to wag.  "The whole pack has been calling you Puppy ever since Swift Shadow found you sleeping curled up in a ball this morning."

   "Wonderful."  Drift rolled his eyes, but he couldn't stop his tail from thumping against the log in shared amusement.  "So what were they calling me before that?"

   "White."

   "How very appropriate," Xavier interjected, approaching from behind.  Rounding the end of the log upon which Drift and Arla sat, he handed each an apple, keeping a stick of jerky for himself.  Pausing to stroke his chin in lightly exaggerated thoughtfulness and resting his foot on a lower portion of the log, Xavier continued, "Now, if they called Snow here 'White', that would most likely make me either 'Black', 'Cat', or…"  He paused and tilted his head slightly, one corner of his mouth twitching up in a hint of an apologetic smile.  "'Grumpy'." 

   Drift looked up from digging through his pack for a knife to carve his apple with, and laughed.  "You?  Xavier Marcus?  Grumpy?  Never!"

   Xavier rolled his eyes in bemusement.  "The wagon's unloaded of all we'll need, by the way," he added as an aside to Arla.  

   "Actually," the collie replied, with only a slight wag of her tactful tail, "they call you 'Skyfire'.  Loosely translated, it means-"

   The leopard man held up a hand to interrupt.  "No, wait, let me guess.  Lightning?"

   "Among other things."

   One eyebrow rising slightly, Xavier tipped his ears forward, intrigued.  "An interesting response.  Perhaps I'll ask you later what 'other things' are included.  From the tone of your voice, I would guess that there are many."  Turning his attention to the samoyed, who had found his knife and was now chewing a wedge of apple, the leopard said, "Once you're done, Padraic has asked to see you."  He smirked.  "I believe his exact words were he wanted to 'see if Gimmick Boy could actually fight'."

   "And what did you tell him?" Drift asked in reply.

   "I told him he'd made a wise choice."  The leopard calmly flexed out the claws on his left hand and examined them, buffed them once on his shirt, and then let them retract.  "It will be a good opportunity for him to work on his arboreal skills, climbing down from the treetops into which you've kicked him for underestimating his opponent."

   Several dozen thumps and bruises later, Drift and Padraic faced each other again in the center of the clearing, cheered on by the Longs and watched curiously by the wolves.  Padraic had disabused Drift of a habit for straight-line fighting with lightning-fast sidesteps and swats with the flat of his longsword, and Drift had bewildered Padraic with the ease and rapidity with which he changed forms and combat styles.  One moment the rabbit would be blocking a staff swing and a forepaw kick from a 'taur, in the next he'd be swinging over a dog's head as it bolted past his knees, and then narrowly dodging a spear strike at his back from a morph-form samoyed a moment after that.

   "You're quick," the rabbit said, panting from the exertion.  "I've never seen anybody shapeshift that fluently, not even Misha."

   "Lots of practice… with padded floors," the dog replied, shaking out his stinging hands and favoring his left side where Padraic had swatted him most recently.  His smile acknowledged the combat veteran's superior experience.  "It's a good thing, too.  Ow.  If I don't keep you guessing, you'll mop the floor with me."

   "I'll bet you're glad for shapechanging armor."

   "You have no idea.  Clothing, too."

   "Can't have you fighting naked," Padraic joked.  "You'll catch a cold."

   Drift laughed.  "Do I look like someone who gets cold?" he asked, collapsing his battlestaff into a club and ruffling it through the thick fur of his forearm.

   "Why am I not surprised that you've got a weapon that changes shape?" asked an unfamiliar voice from behind Drift, and the startled samoyed's collapsed staff clanged off the flat of a steel dagger as he whirled.  "Nice reflexes… for a deaf person," Finbar said with a smirk, holding Drift's weapon high and wide.  Behind the ferret, the rest of his Long Scout team was just arriving, flanked by Swift Shadow and Silent Stone, who had found them and led them in.

   "How…  Where did...  what?"  Drift stammered, pulling back his weapon as he took in the new arrivals.  He had completely missed the bird call and reply about a minute earlier that had signaled the newcomers' approach.

   "Ah…  Shock and confusion," Padraic said with a chuckle.  "The hallmarks of a proper Long Scout arrival.  Well done.  Hey, Danielle."  The rabbit waved to a pine marten Keeper bringing up the rear of the group before returning his attention to Finbar.  "Have a good trip?" he asked.

   The ferret spun his dagger down into its belt sheath just as Laura walked up to talk with her fellow team leader.  "Good," he said.  "You're here.  I don't have to tell the story twice.  You've got a slog ahead of you.  The stairs are blocked by a rock fall, probably from sometime this summer, and the high path is going to be outright dangerous.  We got tagged by the edge of that big storm in the mountains just as we were getting down, and I could hear thunder rumbling back in the mountains all night.  I don't envy you going into the aftermath if you decide not to turn back.  On the other hand…"  He smirked and thumped Drift on the shoulder, making the still mentally off-balance samoyed flinch.  "At least one of you will have great camouflage along the way."

   "Um.  Excuse me… 'the stairs are blocked'?" Drift asked.  "Who would build a set of stairs out here?"

   Laura, Finbar, and Padraic shared a glance, and then Laura said, "Padraic, why don't you explain the lay of the land while Finbar and I talk over this new development with Arla and Crooked Jaw?"  The two departed, heading toward Arla and the gathering wolf pack.  Xavier, who had been watching Drift and Padraic spar, rose to follow them but Laura gestured him toward Padraic instead.  "You should know this, too, Xavier, just in case we get separated."  The leopard agreed that made sense and angled toward Padraic and Drift while the two team leaders continued on.

   Padraic and Drift crouched down, the hare using a stick to draw a map in a patch of dirt that he scraped clear of fallen leaves with a few sweeps of his footclaws:

(Image at: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4034519/)

   "This is where we're going.  Ice Lake," he said as he drew, tapping the kidney-shaped lake on the left of the drawing.  "We Longs discovered it during a scouting mission several years ago.  It is surrounded by mountains on nearly every side except one.  From the lake, a broad, U-shaped canyon leads down through the mountains, eventually ending in a cliff face on the other side of that hill to our west.  The river we stopped at this morning starts at that lake, follows the canyon, and then drops in a waterfall down the cliff face before continuing on to join with the Metamor River not far north of Euper.  If something goes badly wrong, all you have to do to get home is walk downhill."  He held up a finger to forestall questions.  "I don't expect anything will, but you'd be amazed at how fast things can go bad out here.  I don't believe in waiting until the plan goes to pieces to start thinking about what to do next."

   "That sounds like a smart attitude to have," Drift commented.

   Padraic rocked his long ears in agreement and then drew an X on the east side of his map in the middle of several teardrop-shaped marks.  "We are here, in what we call the Teardrop Hills."  The hare gestured to one of the nearby hills, and then another.  "Three sides steep, one side shallow," he said, and both Drift and Xavier nodded.  Even draped in tree cover, the shape was distinctive and clearly visible.  The hare then scratched in two sets of dotted lines, both ending at another X near the lake.

   "Now, normally we would have two choices for getting to where we've scouted as the pack's new home: the Low Path along the canyon, and the High Path around Scarred Mountain."  He paused again, pointing to a mountain rising a few hours' hike away beyond the Teardrop Hills.  Its north and east sides rose nearly vertically from the forest, its upper slopes sparsely scattered with trees amid numerous avalanche runs leading all the way up to its snow-capped peak.

   Drift whistled through his teeth at the forbidding sight, running his fingers through his thick ruff.  "Yikes."

   "Scarred Mountain isn't the one I'm worried about," Padraic replied.  "All Scarred Mountain generally throws at us is a long hike up."  Tapping his stick against the northern line of dashes, he continued, "It's these two after it that I'm concerned about.  We'll have to be very careful.  Still, the path itself is fairly straightforward: once we get around Scarred Mountain, the path follows the cliff face almost all the way to Ice Lake."

   "And the Low Path?" Xavier asked.  "The… stairs?"

   Padraic flicked his ears and a smile displaced the concern in his expression.  "That's right.  I was going to explain what that was, wasn't I?"  He tapped the southern route, next to the cliff with the waterfall.  "Right around here, there's a narrow crack in the cliff, leading into a cave system which winds upward to an opening in the canyon wall above the waterfall.  We call it the Stairs.  Unfortunately, Finbar says it's been blocked, and we don't have the proper gear with us for digging or mining.  It really is a shame, too… the canyon's relatively sheltered and an easier route, and the cave itself is beautiful."

   The hare returned his attention to the northern route, absently snapping a twig off his drawing stick and gnawing on it while he pondered.  "If Laura, Finbar, and Arla can't talk Crooked Jaw out of wanting to go, though, it's the High Path we'll be taking."

 		 	   		  
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