"Are you angry? Be angry!"
Jun. 24th, 2014 03:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
renferretGhost finds a lost cub.
Posted today to the area's Craigslist:
DOG: FREE TO GOOD HOME
(three low-rez JPGs of a white canine -- to keen eyes, a wolf not a dog -- with a black collar: sitting and staring away from the camera, chewing on a large rawhide, asleep on her back, all of them with her chained to a post near a good-sized dog shelter)
I have to move and can't take my girl with me! Her name is KRYPTO and she's a husky/German Shepherd mix and VERY sweet, but also a handful! She needs a big backyard and a home with NO other pets and NO small children and LOTS AND LOTS of chew toys! She's about 2 1/2 years old, has had shots & is neutered. Will include all her stuff!
(phone number and email address included)
----
The listed number is called around the early evening, about when most people with 9 to 5 jobs have either made it home or are on their way. Traffic is starting to lighten on the busier streets, people are settling down for dinner. Ring, ring.
"Hello?" The voice at the other end is female. There's music in the background, a saxophone, no vocals. Kenny G?
"Uh, hi!" The caller is also female. She sounds young, but not a teenager. Early twenties? "I saw your Craigslist ad, the one for Krypto? My husband and I've been looking for a big dog, and I think we might be just who you're looking for. Big yard, I'm home all day. No other pets and I'm eternally kidless."
"Oh! Great! You're the first person to call. When can you come to meet her?"
"Oh..." there's a sound of movement, as if she moved her mouth away from the phone for a moment. "...right away, actually. Say, twenty minutes, is that good for you?"
"Um..." There's a bit of hesitation, soon cast aside. "Oh, sure, why not. I've just fed her, so she'll be her most calm." The woman rattles off an address in a suburb west of the city proper.
"Great," says the woman on the other end. "I'll see you soon." Click.
----
In truth, she's there in fifteen, but that extra five minutes she spends out of sight of the listed home, taking deep breaths and trying to look a little less disheveled. She finally settles on tying her overshirt around her waist, pulling her jacket on, and stuffing the baseball cap unceremoniously into one of the jacket's pockets. Then she walks toward the house she was told about with a put on air of casual confidence. Just going to look at a dog. Yes.
The house is small but well cared-for, and there's one of those POD things out front. Definite signs of someone packing things up and preparing to move. The woman who meets Ghost at the door is white and middle-aged, a thin stick of a woman with her long, greying hair in a braid and wearing a t-shirt with an ankle-length, brightly colored skirt. She smiles warmly, though seems a bit frazzled. "Hi, I'm Mary. Is your husband not coming?"
"He's picking some things up at the store," Ghost explains. The lie doesn't even come with a blink or hesitation, and she attempts a warm smile in return, albeit one that's a little uncertain around the edges. "My name's Vee. Or, you know, Veronica if you don't want to call me something silly."
Mary smiles. "I'm good with Vee. I'd /always/ rather call people by the name they choose. Well, come on! Krypto's 'round the back." She closes the front door and leads Ghost around the house and through a gate into a big backyard. And there, not far from the house and, as the pictures showed, chained to a post near a very nice dog house, up off the ground and everything, food and water bowls close at hand, is Krypto, an overfed but very pretty white wolf sprawled out and chewing on a huge bone.
"She's gorgeous," 'Vee' comments, as she gets a good non-photo look at the wolf. "Very energetic?"
Mary chuckles. "Lately, very much. Mostly she likes to chew and dig." There are a lot of holes in the yard within reach of the wolf, certainly. "I have to warn you, though, that even though she knows her name, she's... well, we never /could/ train her. Krypto!" The wolf pauses and looks up, and Mary actually flinches a little, then tries to cover it up with a laugh. "S-she won't come when called or heel or anything like that, I mean." And Krypto's already gone back to chewing on the bone.
Ghost's eyes go from Krypto to Mary, and though she doesn't outwardly show it, it's safe to say she noticed that reaction. "Lately, huh?" she asks, her voice easy. "That's alright, I grew up around big energetic dogs." She lifts her chin a little, stands a bit straighter, and calls, "Krypto!"
Krypto doesn't even look up this time, though her ears twitch and, to those who can read lupine body language, she chews on the bone with increasing and sullen irritation. And then she gets up and drags it into her dog house and lies down, her tail-end still outside.
"I'm interrupting," Ghost says with a brief flash of a smile toward Mary. "Do you think it's the move, maybe? She knows something's changing?"
Mary sighs. "Probably. She's... you know how some animals just seem smart, which is why they don't respond to training? Willful. Like cats." She looks torn, then lowers her voice as though her pet could hear and understand her. "My mother's ill, and I'm having to move /very/ quickly all the way cross country, and I just..." She grimaces helplessly. "/Can/ you take her? You don't have to answer today, but..."
Ghost turns toward Mary, and says with quiet confidence, "Yes, I can. We can. To be honest, my husband fell in love with her photos, I'm the one that needed a little convincing, that's why I'm the one who came. My answer is absolutely. Whenever you're ready."
"Oh thank goodness!" And with that, Mary is a flurry of motion. There's a dog crate, properly sized for a wolf-sized dog (or, well, a wolf). A large bag of food, still half-full. A tote of other supplies, including a brush, bags of treats, an old bottle of shampoo, an old towel, etc. All of which Mary is eager to help get loaded into Ghost's car or van or truck.
The good news is that Ghost did think to bring one. The bad news, of course, is that the van she picked isn't hers, but it is nice and clean-ish and roomy enough for all of Krypto's accouterments, which the metis regards with some well hidden bemusement. She has no problem with all the loading either, and seems quite content to get it all loaded up right away.
And then there's Krypto herself. Who comes out of her dog house but doesn't come when called, and when Mary hesitantly puts a leash on her and unhooks the yard-chain, doesn't heel and lies down rather than walk. Not until Mary gets out a bag of Beggin' Strips does the wolf show any interest, and even then she seems grumpy and sullen. Getting her out to Ghost's van and into the crate takes a good amount of patience and bribery, hindered by the fact that every time Krypto makes a surly noise or looks her way, Mary flinches.
Ghost is patient, though she's keeping track of those flinches and Krypto's surliness. When they're finally finished, she offers Mary a reassuring nod. "I bet it's the changes. Animals can sense that sort of thing, and uh, your mother and all, you've got to be worried and stressed, so she's worried and stressed. She'll be fine after a night or two, though I'm sure she'll miss you quite a bit. It looks like you've loved her very much."
Mary looks like she wishes she could take it back, now that Krypto's safe in the dog crate, and she gives a bit of a shuddery sigh and a weak smile. "My baby." She looks imploringly at Ghost. "Will you send me pictures of her? You have my email from the ad."
Ghost gives Mary another nod, an understanding one. "Definitely. Best of luck to your mom, and to you."
And that is pretty much that (apart from Mary making bye-bye babytalk at Krypto through the door of the crate). The woman is soon in retreat to her house, then watches from the window.
Ghost gets into the driver's seat. Buckles up. She takes a few breaths, and a careful glance back at Krypto's crate, before making a show of turning the key in the ignition. The key she doesn't have. Instead, she turns the screwdriver she used to hijack the car in the first place, gets everything set, and then slowly pulls away.
"Baroooooooooo..." Krypto starts howling before they're a mile away, and moves restlessly in her crate, rattling the metal cage door. "Rrrooooooooooo..."
"Oh, goodie," Ghost says low, but out loud. "Krypto, I know you can't understand a word I'm saying, but if you're a cub, and you First back there in this van, I am going to be very cranky." She says it in a terribly reasonable, almost doting tone, but her fingers do tighten around the wheel. "Just...settle down and eat your bone."
"BaroooooOOOOooooooooo..." Rattle, rattle, rattle.
Ghost drives east and south. She takes a chance and goes along the fastest, more public roads, but she's forced to keep to the speed limit. Her direction? The bridge and out of the city. From there to the woods, but ones decidedly further north than those near Kent's Crossing. She doesn't know the roads well, and this requires a significant amount of getting turned around on backroads and random dead ends.
Krypto howls and rattles at the door of her crate the whole damn way, too. Every so often, she goes quiet, almost long enough for Ghost to think that the wolf's gone to sleep or settled down. Then up she starts again. Rattle rattle rattle. "BarooooooooOooOOOoooo..."
It is most certainly a test of patience, and by the time Ghost gets anywhere near where she wants to be--a country road so forgotten and out of the way that it's practically an incidentally wide path rather than a road--it isn't just her fingers that have clenched but her jaw as well, and there's a crease in her forehead. "Okay, okay!" she says as she finally backs off of the road as deep as she dares, and brings the van to a stop. "We're here, we made it." She can't get the seatbelt off fast enough, or the van's back up soon enough. She straight up unlatches the crate to let Krypto out. "Just, hush, be quiet, okay? You're going to get us both into deep shit."
Krypto practically barrels out of the crate and out of the van, then stops and stands still, looking about with a confused expression, like her brain just bluescreened.
"Yeah, I know," Ghost says, with just a smidgeon of sympathy. She looks up the barely-a-road, then shuts the back of the van and moves slowly, obviously, closer to Krypto.
Krypto sniffs at the ground, looks at Ghost, then looks away. Confused.
Ghost makes a face. She again glances up the road, then moves around to the other side of the van until she's within Krypto's line of sight. "Okay. I'll uh. I'll give this a try." She breathes deeply, and then slowly, rather reluctantly, shifts down into a wolf form of her own. The patagia and just slightly battish ears aren't likely to inspire confidence. Nor are the metallic claws and teeth. But she stands tall and flags her tail up, making it clear who she thinks is top wolf in this situation. You understand me?
Krypto continues to look confused, though not alarmed. Agitated, but she's ignorant of the meaning of bat ears or patagia and metal bits, well, she knows what metal smells like. Her nose works. She walks a bit toward Ghost, then stops and looks toward the van instead. Yes?
Ghost pushes forward, with her tail still raised, to get a good, decent sniff of Krypto. I am Ghost. She's going with the shorter name for now. Are you afraid of me?
Krypto lays her ears back and lies down under the sniffing, half-rolling onto her side. She smells healthy, well-fed on processed dog food and some human food and treats and of course the leather of her collar and the traces of Mary's skin on her fur. She is definitely not afraid. Even if she does seem to be a bit of a pushover now that Ghost isn't wearing a human shape.
Ghost's reaction once she's finished sniffing Krypto over is strangely mixed between satisfaction and worry. She shakes herself out--there's a suggestion of something.../else/ beneath her fur coat, muscles that are a little too perfectly shaped, but it's quite hard to pin down. Are you upset?
Krypto rolls herself back upright and then to her feet. Restless. I want. I don't know. I want.
Ghost pads around Krypto and sniffs a few more times. I think you are like me. Maybe. Her ears twist back and she looks toward the forest this time, before returning her attention to Krypto. You will be quiet. No howling.
Krypto whines softly, then sniffs at the ground. She starts pawing at it, then digging.
Digging is okay, Ghost announces. She moves away from Krypto and appears to turn her nose's attention to their surroundings, sniffing carefully at every stone and bush.
It's a good thing that digging is acceptable, because Krypto goes at it with a will, dirt flying. When her paws strike a thick root, she pauses to sniff at it, then bite it and tug, fruitlessly.
Ghost turns her head at this change in activity, then trots back over to Krypto to nip lightly at one ear. No.
Krypto stops immediately and lies down, ears flat and back.
Ghost stares at her for a few moments, thinking. Then she moves back. Come. Run with me this way. She turns and darts into the trees.
Krypto gets up and stares for a bit, looking blank. Then she trots, slowly, off in the direction she saw Ghost go.
Ghost only goes a few feet before she stops and looks back at the slowly following wolf. No, she says again. Faster!
Krypto increases her pace from a trot to a somewhat faster lope. Still not very fast.
Faster, Ghost insists, as she scoots further ahead. /Run/!
Krypto breaks into a run! For a little while, anyway. As soon as Ghost's attention moves away, the white wolf's pace slows back to a jog.
Ghost appears to consider this moderately acceptable. She too slows to that pace, and takes Krypto in a large wide circle around the area until they've returned to the van. Here she stops, turns, and gives Krypto a questioning quirk of her ears.
Krypto immediately lies down, panting, tongue lolling out. Thirsty.
Ghost turns and hops up into the van. She roughly pushes aside various accessories until she locates the water dish, but just as she's about to take it out, she seems to think better of it. The strange wolf hops back to the ground and makes a show of snuffling. We find water, she announces. This way. So mean.
Krypto whines like a sulky put-out teenager in wolf shape, but gets up and follows.
The Scarred Forest (North of I-90)(#2354RA)
The forest is thinner here than it is south of the highway, though it is still difficult to see for very far. Signs of human habitation break the stretch of woods every few miles; roads, paths, farms, and the occasional out-of-the-way home remind you that civilization is encroaching, though in this area, the battle is not yet decided. Hardwoods mix with towering firs and smaller trees, still concealing some of nature's hidden places from the nearby humans. Streams and small pools are scattered throughout the forest, some large enough to swim in, some small enough to freeze solid for most of the winter.
Fresh stumps dot the woods, and almost all of the trees still standing are disease-scarred around the bases of the trunk, some only superficially marked, some deeply wounded; not a few are dead.
Once hauntingly quiet and sparsely populated with wildlife, these woods have fully come alive again. The scents and sounds and glimpses of animals, birds, insects are now as rich here, among the scarred trees, as they are anywhere.
This region stretches almost 50 miles north from I-90 into the Sun Lakes area, where the disease that scarred the trees appears to have been at its worst.
Obvious exits:
Modest Cabin Tiny Cabin Great Oak Grove 23 Hawk's End Foothills Interstate 90 Grotto South
The entire day has likely been a trying one for Krypto. After very thorough instructions NOT TO CHEW ON ANYTHING but her bones and toys, Ghost took homid and they again got into the van, though this time Krypto isn't crated. She takes them back up the barely-a-road and several more miles north until she's found another spot that seems thoroughly remote. There, she packed up Krypto's toys and leash, but left just about everything else, and they went into the woods again. And in, and in. She seems satisfied once they've located a nice quiet spot near a small stream, but that doesn't stop the furtive looks and careful checks whenever the wind changes. She's back in lupus now, and back to sniffing at trees for any new sign that anyone but them is about.
Krypto has to be re-warned several times about the not-chewing thing and often has to be chided to move, since she has a habit of just stopping to sniff at something that distracts her. Or lying down. As the day wears on, the chubby white wolf gets more and more irritable and short-tempered, but doesn't quite have the backbone to challenge Ghost's authority for more than a second or two.
Ghost walks all around the tree she's currently inspecting, her demeanor careful and suspicious. Bad things might find us, she tells the chubby wolf, for the umpteenth time today. You have to run away if they do. She finishes with the tree and pads a few feet away before shaking her coat out.
Krypto looks grumpily at Ghost-wolf. Tired. /Tired/.
Ghost looks back at Krypto, and agrees that she looks tired. Okay, back to water. And she turns, and starts back toward the stream where they left what little things Ghost took from the van. For her part, the strange metal wolf doesn't seem tired at all. The jerk.
Krypto's little whines and grumbles are a litany of bodily complaints. She's tired. She's thirsty. She's hungry. She wants to stop. She wants to sleep. She wants to sniff that tree. She wants to dig. She wants to chew that thing there. Et cetera.
Ghost weathers them for the most part, but she eventually turns and snaps her teeth at the poor cub. Shush! Stop whining so much.
Krypto doesn't cringe this time, but snaps her teeth right back, temper flaring. No! Don't like you!
Ghost marches up to Krypto, stiff-legged, hackles bristling, those metal teeth bared. Are you angry? Be angry! I'll bite you if you keep whining!
Krypto lays her ears back and lowers her body but keeps showing her fangs, all keyed-up fear and anger. No! No! Bite YOU!
Ghost stares at Krypto for a moment, studying her. Then a growl builds up in her chest. Then bite me! Try!
Krypto makes a few little aborted jerks forward, digging her nails into the ground, agitated to the extreme. Then she suddenly charges forward at Ghost. Bite!
Ghost dances back and turns her shoulder into Krypto's attempt, so that it pushes up against the side of her jaw and her teeth get nothing but air. The shoulder feels very hard, the fur providing little padding from augmented muscle and metal bone. Not good enough! she announces. You are /bad/ at biting! Fat puppy. Slow.
Krypto comes after Ghost again, snapping, eyes wide and round. Her former owner would be terrified to see her baby girl in such a state. No! Bite you! Bite you lots!
Ghost keeps moving just out of reach, just when she thinks she's about to connect, again and again. Maddeningly, the most Krypto gets is a few strands of loose fur for all of her trouble. Bad at biting! she taunts, before she suddenly snaps forward with a burst of speed unlike anything the pampered wolf has seen, and barrels her right off her feet.
And that's when, as she tumbles, she explodes into Crinos form. Too big, body not quite right, out of her mind with all that rage that's been building for weeks and has now burst forth, she scrambles and flails in getting back upright and on all fours and stomping all over her nice leather collar which has of course snapped off.
Krypto: Grr I am scary warform!
Nine feet or so of overweight, slouching werewolf is here, covered in thick white fur. Her torso and arms are generally human in shape, though covered in fur and armed with a vicious black claw at the end of each thick finger. Everything else is more or less lupine, though of course much bigger than any wolf.
As monsters go, this one seems pretty tame. Her manner is often distracted, black-lined hazel eyes often wandering. The usual savage bloodlust just isn't there. She seems soft and lethargic, slow-moving, hardly a threat. Except for those claws. And those teeth.
Ghost springs back. She might have anticipated this, but it still doesn't stop her from nearly being disembowelled by the sudden thrashing crinos. She retreats at least ten feet and shifts up to crinos herself, but instead of engaging the cub she merely waits, with an air of, if such a thing can exist, resigned satisfaction.
Krypto runs out of anger steam pretty darn quickly, and after a bit of clumsy flailing about, she suddenly notices her collar lying there in the dirt and just stops to sniff at it in confusion.
Ghost drops to all fours again, though she remains in crinos, and pads closer. Better? In this form the body language is far cruder, but still somewhat understandable.
Krypto shrinks back down to her birth form as she snuffles at the fallen and broken collar. She paws at it, then picks it up in her mouth. Strange. Feel strange.
Ghost joins her in lupus, but she takes extra long this time to shift through the forms to get there. You are like me. Garou.
Krypto sits down and looks at Ghost, the collar hanging out of her mouth. Her head tilts to one side, questioningly. Garou?
Garou, Ghost repeats. Garou, Garou. She does it several times so that Krypto can get a good look at this strange new 'word'. Wolf-changer. You can be a wolf, and a human, and a big monster wolf.
Krypto looks blank as she mentally digests this. Be wolf. Be big wolf-not-wolf. Be human. She mulls on this, then lies down, collar still in mouth. Tired. Hungry.
Ghost appears to be considering Krypto. She even approaches and sniffs the other wolf over before backing up a step. Other Garou wolf-changers. I need to take you to them now. She flicks an ear backward; the prospect is apparently not one she relishes. There's even a tinge of regret hiding in there.
Krypto lets out a little, strengthless whine, her ears back. More running?
Walking, Ghost offers, with the sense that she's offering a treat rather than something only slightly less odious than running. This way. We will bring your toys. And there she goes, starting off at a firm pace again.
Krypto whines again but gets up and follows, the broken collar still hanging out of her mouth.
Cub, Ghost tells her as they go. You are a cub. This time it doesn't sound like she's insulting, just stating an important fact. You will have to tell them what you are, because they won't like me.
Krypto doesn't question why this is, just notes a little sulkily that she doesn't like Ghost either.
Ghost huffs. Good. You will be good friends with them then. She swipes her jaw, a little irritation following the movements of her shoulders and back. Tell them you are a Lost wolf cub.
Krypto dutifully repeats all these things. Garou. Lost wolf cub. Yes, lost. Lost, tired, hungry.
Ghost makes her repeat it several more times on their long, long walk, always in groups. At some point she also picks up the grocery sack of toys and the bone Krypto was chewing on yesterday and carts it along. Tell them a good lady raised you but had to leave and now you are a lost wolf cub of the Garou.
----
Krypto looks up from nosing around in the bag at the package of treats, ears swiveling and nose working. She howls again, with less enthusiasm. Wolf Garou cub.
Impatience. Ghost moves out of the underbrush she'd dove into and sniffs the air. She's definitely agitated now; it's like she can't hold still. Stupid Garou. Are they deaf?
Mysterious Howler howls long and loud.
From Bawn: Northern Forest, Mysterious Howler can be heard to howl, ~HEY! There's a Lost Cub here, come get her before the Dancers do, assholes.~
Krypto lays her ears back and lies down, abandoning the bag of toys and treats in favor of mouthing her broken collar.
Little Silvertip has arrived.
You paged Krypto with 'She'll have been super frustrated and annoyed and starting to suggest maybe they should just try again tomorrow. At the absolute first sound of someone coming, she vanishes into the underbrush again with all haste.'.
Krypto lies on the ground looking tired and vaguely out of sorts while chewing lightly on a broken leather dog collar. Nearby, a plastic bag contains dog chewtoys and other treats.
Krypto appears to be entirely alone, despite the second voice.
Little Silvertip's on the north bawn heading east, heading back from her chat with the pair of Fenrir. The unfamiliar howl, and what the unfamiliar voice howls, puts her hackles on end. Immediately, she becomes cautious, sniffing at the winds, and all but looking over her shoulder. She finds some place good and dark, nice and hidden, before she calls on her gift of remaining unseen and unheard, and begins to head in towards the source of the commotion.
Krypto remains completely oblivious, and isn't even keeping a watch out for these supposed other wolf changers that she was told about. By the time Little Silvertip arrives, the chubby white wolf has flopped over onto her side, the broken collar still in her jaws.
There's no scent of Wyrm, and no bodies hung up in grotesque positions; given everything else, that's a good sign. Krypto has been left downwind; either that's a coincidence, or someone was being tricksy.
Little Silvertip's wary. Oh so very, very wary. The Uktena notes the lack of upside down crucified bodies, and so forth, but doesn't seem any more at ease. She casts about with her other senses, looking for the source of the howl, using her ability to sense magic, and look on the other side of the Umbra, to pinpoint something.
No magic. No horrors lurking in the umbra. No traps hidden in the brush. What she does find when she gets close enough is that there are faint scuff marks around Krypto that are a somewhat different size and depth than other marks, but they still look like they were made by wolf paws. And there's a scent of another wolf too, female, choked with city smells apart from the last twenty-four hours (not unlike Krypto really). It's on the toy bag and leads swiftly back the way they seem to have arrived...but only goes a very short ways before abruptly stopping entirely.
Krypto doesn't have any special magic about her, unless one counts the whole being a wolfwere thing as magic. And she remains oblivious to Silvertip's presence.
Little Silvertip sniffs, and sniffs as deeply as she can, without dropping her cloak of invisibility. Then, after a few moments of sniffing, she begins to back off oh-so-slowly, scentless, soundless, and unseen, back to some bushes. It's over there she drops the invisibility, and starts over towards the cub cautiously.
Fortunately, even when she comes into view, nothing springs an ambush on Silvertip. Weird.
Krypto continues to lay there on her side like the tiredest saddest wolf in the world.
Little Silvertip's eyes dart around the forest, only periodically looking at the over-fed wolf and her toys, before looking about again. Once she's close enough, the arctic wolf takes on a slightly more dominant posture, and huffs over. Who is pup? she asks.
Krypto lifts her head to look at Silvertip, then flops back down and rolls over onto her back. Wolf Garou cub lost.
Little Silvertip starts circling the other, eyes narrowing slightly. Who brought Fat-As-Tree her toys? she asks, brusquely. Where did they go?
Krypto slowly rolls herself back upright and watches Silvertip with her ears back and the broken collar between her front paws. The answer comes slowly, partly out of weariness, partly because she's new to complex thought and tale-telling. Garou brought. Bad Garou took from good human, long ride in box. Stupid ugly mean. Brought here, told to howl. Stupid mean ugly Garou left.
Little Silvertip wrinkles her nose a bit, sniffing a few more times at the scent of the mysterious stranger. Her eyes narrow, and tail raises slightly, betraying the anxiety and tension - like she's half convinced this is a trap. Grab your favourite toy, she tells the other in a 'I'm alpha, do what I say' sort of way. Little Silvertip can take Fat-as-Tree to another place for two leggers, with lots of food if Fat-as-Tree does that. But Fat-as-Tree has to carry it herself.
Krypto whines softly in a 'nooo don't waaaant tooo' way but gets up anyway, looking as unhappy as unhappy can be. She looks at the bag of treats, then at the broken dog collar with the 'KRYPTO' nametag. She takes the collar.
Little Silvertip pokes her nose one more time at the bag, grabbing the most interesting looking chew thing, before lifting her head with a paranoid glance. She starts to slip back, and motions for Krypto to follow her. Two legs place this way. Great food.
Krypto follows dutifully but not happily.
Mysterious Howler notes that the toy bag will be gone should Stip come back. Oh ho ho (but she'd also find a scent trail)
Posted today to the area's Craigslist:
DOG: FREE TO GOOD HOME
(three low-rez JPGs of a white canine -- to keen eyes, a wolf not a dog -- with a black collar: sitting and staring away from the camera, chewing on a large rawhide, asleep on her back, all of them with her chained to a post near a good-sized dog shelter)
I have to move and can't take my girl with me! Her name is KRYPTO and she's a husky/German Shepherd mix and VERY sweet, but also a handful! She needs a big backyard and a home with NO other pets and NO small children and LOTS AND LOTS of chew toys! She's about 2 1/2 years old, has had shots & is neutered. Will include all her stuff!
(phone number and email address included)
----
The listed number is called around the early evening, about when most people with 9 to 5 jobs have either made it home or are on their way. Traffic is starting to lighten on the busier streets, people are settling down for dinner. Ring, ring.
"Hello?" The voice at the other end is female. There's music in the background, a saxophone, no vocals. Kenny G?
"Uh, hi!" The caller is also female. She sounds young, but not a teenager. Early twenties? "I saw your Craigslist ad, the one for Krypto? My husband and I've been looking for a big dog, and I think we might be just who you're looking for. Big yard, I'm home all day. No other pets and I'm eternally kidless."
"Oh! Great! You're the first person to call. When can you come to meet her?"
"Oh..." there's a sound of movement, as if she moved her mouth away from the phone for a moment. "...right away, actually. Say, twenty minutes, is that good for you?"
"Um..." There's a bit of hesitation, soon cast aside. "Oh, sure, why not. I've just fed her, so she'll be her most calm." The woman rattles off an address in a suburb west of the city proper.
"Great," says the woman on the other end. "I'll see you soon." Click.
----
In truth, she's there in fifteen, but that extra five minutes she spends out of sight of the listed home, taking deep breaths and trying to look a little less disheveled. She finally settles on tying her overshirt around her waist, pulling her jacket on, and stuffing the baseball cap unceremoniously into one of the jacket's pockets. Then she walks toward the house she was told about with a put on air of casual confidence. Just going to look at a dog. Yes.
The house is small but well cared-for, and there's one of those POD things out front. Definite signs of someone packing things up and preparing to move. The woman who meets Ghost at the door is white and middle-aged, a thin stick of a woman with her long, greying hair in a braid and wearing a t-shirt with an ankle-length, brightly colored skirt. She smiles warmly, though seems a bit frazzled. "Hi, I'm Mary. Is your husband not coming?"
"He's picking some things up at the store," Ghost explains. The lie doesn't even come with a blink or hesitation, and she attempts a warm smile in return, albeit one that's a little uncertain around the edges. "My name's Vee. Or, you know, Veronica if you don't want to call me something silly."
Mary smiles. "I'm good with Vee. I'd /always/ rather call people by the name they choose. Well, come on! Krypto's 'round the back." She closes the front door and leads Ghost around the house and through a gate into a big backyard. And there, not far from the house and, as the pictures showed, chained to a post near a very nice dog house, up off the ground and everything, food and water bowls close at hand, is Krypto, an overfed but very pretty white wolf sprawled out and chewing on a huge bone.
"She's gorgeous," 'Vee' comments, as she gets a good non-photo look at the wolf. "Very energetic?"
Mary chuckles. "Lately, very much. Mostly she likes to chew and dig." There are a lot of holes in the yard within reach of the wolf, certainly. "I have to warn you, though, that even though she knows her name, she's... well, we never /could/ train her. Krypto!" The wolf pauses and looks up, and Mary actually flinches a little, then tries to cover it up with a laugh. "S-she won't come when called or heel or anything like that, I mean." And Krypto's already gone back to chewing on the bone.
Ghost's eyes go from Krypto to Mary, and though she doesn't outwardly show it, it's safe to say she noticed that reaction. "Lately, huh?" she asks, her voice easy. "That's alright, I grew up around big energetic dogs." She lifts her chin a little, stands a bit straighter, and calls, "Krypto!"
Krypto doesn't even look up this time, though her ears twitch and, to those who can read lupine body language, she chews on the bone with increasing and sullen irritation. And then she gets up and drags it into her dog house and lies down, her tail-end still outside.
"I'm interrupting," Ghost says with a brief flash of a smile toward Mary. "Do you think it's the move, maybe? She knows something's changing?"
Mary sighs. "Probably. She's... you know how some animals just seem smart, which is why they don't respond to training? Willful. Like cats." She looks torn, then lowers her voice as though her pet could hear and understand her. "My mother's ill, and I'm having to move /very/ quickly all the way cross country, and I just..." She grimaces helplessly. "/Can/ you take her? You don't have to answer today, but..."
Ghost turns toward Mary, and says with quiet confidence, "Yes, I can. We can. To be honest, my husband fell in love with her photos, I'm the one that needed a little convincing, that's why I'm the one who came. My answer is absolutely. Whenever you're ready."
"Oh thank goodness!" And with that, Mary is a flurry of motion. There's a dog crate, properly sized for a wolf-sized dog (or, well, a wolf). A large bag of food, still half-full. A tote of other supplies, including a brush, bags of treats, an old bottle of shampoo, an old towel, etc. All of which Mary is eager to help get loaded into Ghost's car or van or truck.
The good news is that Ghost did think to bring one. The bad news, of course, is that the van she picked isn't hers, but it is nice and clean-ish and roomy enough for all of Krypto's accouterments, which the metis regards with some well hidden bemusement. She has no problem with all the loading either, and seems quite content to get it all loaded up right away.
And then there's Krypto herself. Who comes out of her dog house but doesn't come when called, and when Mary hesitantly puts a leash on her and unhooks the yard-chain, doesn't heel and lies down rather than walk. Not until Mary gets out a bag of Beggin' Strips does the wolf show any interest, and even then she seems grumpy and sullen. Getting her out to Ghost's van and into the crate takes a good amount of patience and bribery, hindered by the fact that every time Krypto makes a surly noise or looks her way, Mary flinches.
Ghost is patient, though she's keeping track of those flinches and Krypto's surliness. When they're finally finished, she offers Mary a reassuring nod. "I bet it's the changes. Animals can sense that sort of thing, and uh, your mother and all, you've got to be worried and stressed, so she's worried and stressed. She'll be fine after a night or two, though I'm sure she'll miss you quite a bit. It looks like you've loved her very much."
Mary looks like she wishes she could take it back, now that Krypto's safe in the dog crate, and she gives a bit of a shuddery sigh and a weak smile. "My baby." She looks imploringly at Ghost. "Will you send me pictures of her? You have my email from the ad."
Ghost gives Mary another nod, an understanding one. "Definitely. Best of luck to your mom, and to you."
And that is pretty much that (apart from Mary making bye-bye babytalk at Krypto through the door of the crate). The woman is soon in retreat to her house, then watches from the window.
Ghost gets into the driver's seat. Buckles up. She takes a few breaths, and a careful glance back at Krypto's crate, before making a show of turning the key in the ignition. The key she doesn't have. Instead, she turns the screwdriver she used to hijack the car in the first place, gets everything set, and then slowly pulls away.
"Baroooooooooo..." Krypto starts howling before they're a mile away, and moves restlessly in her crate, rattling the metal cage door. "Rrrooooooooooo..."
"Oh, goodie," Ghost says low, but out loud. "Krypto, I know you can't understand a word I'm saying, but if you're a cub, and you First back there in this van, I am going to be very cranky." She says it in a terribly reasonable, almost doting tone, but her fingers do tighten around the wheel. "Just...settle down and eat your bone."
"BaroooooOOOOooooooooo..." Rattle, rattle, rattle.
Ghost drives east and south. She takes a chance and goes along the fastest, more public roads, but she's forced to keep to the speed limit. Her direction? The bridge and out of the city. From there to the woods, but ones decidedly further north than those near Kent's Crossing. She doesn't know the roads well, and this requires a significant amount of getting turned around on backroads and random dead ends.
Krypto howls and rattles at the door of her crate the whole damn way, too. Every so often, she goes quiet, almost long enough for Ghost to think that the wolf's gone to sleep or settled down. Then up she starts again. Rattle rattle rattle. "BarooooooooOooOOOoooo..."
It is most certainly a test of patience, and by the time Ghost gets anywhere near where she wants to be--a country road so forgotten and out of the way that it's practically an incidentally wide path rather than a road--it isn't just her fingers that have clenched but her jaw as well, and there's a crease in her forehead. "Okay, okay!" she says as she finally backs off of the road as deep as she dares, and brings the van to a stop. "We're here, we made it." She can't get the seatbelt off fast enough, or the van's back up soon enough. She straight up unlatches the crate to let Krypto out. "Just, hush, be quiet, okay? You're going to get us both into deep shit."
Krypto practically barrels out of the crate and out of the van, then stops and stands still, looking about with a confused expression, like her brain just bluescreened.
"Yeah, I know," Ghost says, with just a smidgeon of sympathy. She looks up the barely-a-road, then shuts the back of the van and moves slowly, obviously, closer to Krypto.
Krypto sniffs at the ground, looks at Ghost, then looks away. Confused.
Ghost makes a face. She again glances up the road, then moves around to the other side of the van until she's within Krypto's line of sight. "Okay. I'll uh. I'll give this a try." She breathes deeply, and then slowly, rather reluctantly, shifts down into a wolf form of her own. The patagia and just slightly battish ears aren't likely to inspire confidence. Nor are the metallic claws and teeth. But she stands tall and flags her tail up, making it clear who she thinks is top wolf in this situation. You understand me?
Krypto continues to look confused, though not alarmed. Agitated, but she's ignorant of the meaning of bat ears or patagia and metal bits, well, she knows what metal smells like. Her nose works. She walks a bit toward Ghost, then stops and looks toward the van instead. Yes?
Ghost pushes forward, with her tail still raised, to get a good, decent sniff of Krypto. I am Ghost. She's going with the shorter name for now. Are you afraid of me?
Krypto lays her ears back and lies down under the sniffing, half-rolling onto her side. She smells healthy, well-fed on processed dog food and some human food and treats and of course the leather of her collar and the traces of Mary's skin on her fur. She is definitely not afraid. Even if she does seem to be a bit of a pushover now that Ghost isn't wearing a human shape.
Ghost's reaction once she's finished sniffing Krypto over is strangely mixed between satisfaction and worry. She shakes herself out--there's a suggestion of something.../else/ beneath her fur coat, muscles that are a little too perfectly shaped, but it's quite hard to pin down. Are you upset?
Krypto rolls herself back upright and then to her feet. Restless. I want. I don't know. I want.
Ghost pads around Krypto and sniffs a few more times. I think you are like me. Maybe. Her ears twist back and she looks toward the forest this time, before returning her attention to Krypto. You will be quiet. No howling.
Krypto whines softly, then sniffs at the ground. She starts pawing at it, then digging.
Digging is okay, Ghost announces. She moves away from Krypto and appears to turn her nose's attention to their surroundings, sniffing carefully at every stone and bush.
It's a good thing that digging is acceptable, because Krypto goes at it with a will, dirt flying. When her paws strike a thick root, she pauses to sniff at it, then bite it and tug, fruitlessly.
Ghost turns her head at this change in activity, then trots back over to Krypto to nip lightly at one ear. No.
Krypto stops immediately and lies down, ears flat and back.
Ghost stares at her for a few moments, thinking. Then she moves back. Come. Run with me this way. She turns and darts into the trees.
Krypto gets up and stares for a bit, looking blank. Then she trots, slowly, off in the direction she saw Ghost go.
Ghost only goes a few feet before she stops and looks back at the slowly following wolf. No, she says again. Faster!
Krypto increases her pace from a trot to a somewhat faster lope. Still not very fast.
Faster, Ghost insists, as she scoots further ahead. /Run/!
Krypto breaks into a run! For a little while, anyway. As soon as Ghost's attention moves away, the white wolf's pace slows back to a jog.
Ghost appears to consider this moderately acceptable. She too slows to that pace, and takes Krypto in a large wide circle around the area until they've returned to the van. Here she stops, turns, and gives Krypto a questioning quirk of her ears.
Krypto immediately lies down, panting, tongue lolling out. Thirsty.
Ghost turns and hops up into the van. She roughly pushes aside various accessories until she locates the water dish, but just as she's about to take it out, she seems to think better of it. The strange wolf hops back to the ground and makes a show of snuffling. We find water, she announces. This way. So mean.
Krypto whines like a sulky put-out teenager in wolf shape, but gets up and follows.
The Scarred Forest (North of I-90)(#2354RA)
The forest is thinner here than it is south of the highway, though it is still difficult to see for very far. Signs of human habitation break the stretch of woods every few miles; roads, paths, farms, and the occasional out-of-the-way home remind you that civilization is encroaching, though in this area, the battle is not yet decided. Hardwoods mix with towering firs and smaller trees, still concealing some of nature's hidden places from the nearby humans. Streams and small pools are scattered throughout the forest, some large enough to swim in, some small enough to freeze solid for most of the winter.
Fresh stumps dot the woods, and almost all of the trees still standing are disease-scarred around the bases of the trunk, some only superficially marked, some deeply wounded; not a few are dead.
Once hauntingly quiet and sparsely populated with wildlife, these woods have fully come alive again. The scents and sounds and glimpses of animals, birds, insects are now as rich here, among the scarred trees, as they are anywhere.
This region stretches almost 50 miles north from I-90 into the Sun Lakes area, where the disease that scarred the trees appears to have been at its worst.
Obvious exits:
Modest Cabin Tiny Cabin Great Oak Grove 23 Hawk's End Foothills Interstate 90 Grotto South
The entire day has likely been a trying one for Krypto. After very thorough instructions NOT TO CHEW ON ANYTHING but her bones and toys, Ghost took homid and they again got into the van, though this time Krypto isn't crated. She takes them back up the barely-a-road and several more miles north until she's found another spot that seems thoroughly remote. There, she packed up Krypto's toys and leash, but left just about everything else, and they went into the woods again. And in, and in. She seems satisfied once they've located a nice quiet spot near a small stream, but that doesn't stop the furtive looks and careful checks whenever the wind changes. She's back in lupus now, and back to sniffing at trees for any new sign that anyone but them is about.
Krypto has to be re-warned several times about the not-chewing thing and often has to be chided to move, since she has a habit of just stopping to sniff at something that distracts her. Or lying down. As the day wears on, the chubby white wolf gets more and more irritable and short-tempered, but doesn't quite have the backbone to challenge Ghost's authority for more than a second or two.
Ghost walks all around the tree she's currently inspecting, her demeanor careful and suspicious. Bad things might find us, she tells the chubby wolf, for the umpteenth time today. You have to run away if they do. She finishes with the tree and pads a few feet away before shaking her coat out.
Krypto looks grumpily at Ghost-wolf. Tired. /Tired/.
Ghost looks back at Krypto, and agrees that she looks tired. Okay, back to water. And she turns, and starts back toward the stream where they left what little things Ghost took from the van. For her part, the strange metal wolf doesn't seem tired at all. The jerk.
Krypto's little whines and grumbles are a litany of bodily complaints. She's tired. She's thirsty. She's hungry. She wants to stop. She wants to sleep. She wants to sniff that tree. She wants to dig. She wants to chew that thing there. Et cetera.
Ghost weathers them for the most part, but she eventually turns and snaps her teeth at the poor cub. Shush! Stop whining so much.
Krypto doesn't cringe this time, but snaps her teeth right back, temper flaring. No! Don't like you!
Ghost marches up to Krypto, stiff-legged, hackles bristling, those metal teeth bared. Are you angry? Be angry! I'll bite you if you keep whining!
Krypto lays her ears back and lowers her body but keeps showing her fangs, all keyed-up fear and anger. No! No! Bite YOU!
Ghost stares at Krypto for a moment, studying her. Then a growl builds up in her chest. Then bite me! Try!
Krypto makes a few little aborted jerks forward, digging her nails into the ground, agitated to the extreme. Then she suddenly charges forward at Ghost. Bite!
Ghost dances back and turns her shoulder into Krypto's attempt, so that it pushes up against the side of her jaw and her teeth get nothing but air. The shoulder feels very hard, the fur providing little padding from augmented muscle and metal bone. Not good enough! she announces. You are /bad/ at biting! Fat puppy. Slow.
Krypto comes after Ghost again, snapping, eyes wide and round. Her former owner would be terrified to see her baby girl in such a state. No! Bite you! Bite you lots!
Ghost keeps moving just out of reach, just when she thinks she's about to connect, again and again. Maddeningly, the most Krypto gets is a few strands of loose fur for all of her trouble. Bad at biting! she taunts, before she suddenly snaps forward with a burst of speed unlike anything the pampered wolf has seen, and barrels her right off her feet.
And that's when, as she tumbles, she explodes into Crinos form. Too big, body not quite right, out of her mind with all that rage that's been building for weeks and has now burst forth, she scrambles and flails in getting back upright and on all fours and stomping all over her nice leather collar which has of course snapped off.
Nine feet or so of overweight, slouching werewolf is here, covered in thick white fur. Her torso and arms are generally human in shape, though covered in fur and armed with a vicious black claw at the end of each thick finger. Everything else is more or less lupine, though of course much bigger than any wolf.
As monsters go, this one seems pretty tame. Her manner is often distracted, black-lined hazel eyes often wandering. The usual savage bloodlust just isn't there. She seems soft and lethargic, slow-moving, hardly a threat. Except for those claws. And those teeth.
Ghost springs back. She might have anticipated this, but it still doesn't stop her from nearly being disembowelled by the sudden thrashing crinos. She retreats at least ten feet and shifts up to crinos herself, but instead of engaging the cub she merely waits, with an air of, if such a thing can exist, resigned satisfaction.
Krypto runs out of anger steam pretty darn quickly, and after a bit of clumsy flailing about, she suddenly notices her collar lying there in the dirt and just stops to sniff at it in confusion.
Ghost drops to all fours again, though she remains in crinos, and pads closer. Better? In this form the body language is far cruder, but still somewhat understandable.
Krypto shrinks back down to her birth form as she snuffles at the fallen and broken collar. She paws at it, then picks it up in her mouth. Strange. Feel strange.
Ghost joins her in lupus, but she takes extra long this time to shift through the forms to get there. You are like me. Garou.
Krypto sits down and looks at Ghost, the collar hanging out of her mouth. Her head tilts to one side, questioningly. Garou?
Garou, Ghost repeats. Garou, Garou. She does it several times so that Krypto can get a good look at this strange new 'word'. Wolf-changer. You can be a wolf, and a human, and a big monster wolf.
Krypto looks blank as she mentally digests this. Be wolf. Be big wolf-not-wolf. Be human. She mulls on this, then lies down, collar still in mouth. Tired. Hungry.
Ghost appears to be considering Krypto. She even approaches and sniffs the other wolf over before backing up a step. Other Garou wolf-changers. I need to take you to them now. She flicks an ear backward; the prospect is apparently not one she relishes. There's even a tinge of regret hiding in there.
Krypto lets out a little, strengthless whine, her ears back. More running?
Walking, Ghost offers, with the sense that she's offering a treat rather than something only slightly less odious than running. This way. We will bring your toys. And there she goes, starting off at a firm pace again.
Krypto whines again but gets up and follows, the broken collar still hanging out of her mouth.
Cub, Ghost tells her as they go. You are a cub. This time it doesn't sound like she's insulting, just stating an important fact. You will have to tell them what you are, because they won't like me.
Krypto doesn't question why this is, just notes a little sulkily that she doesn't like Ghost either.
Ghost huffs. Good. You will be good friends with them then. She swipes her jaw, a little irritation following the movements of her shoulders and back. Tell them you are a Lost wolf cub.
Krypto dutifully repeats all these things. Garou. Lost wolf cub. Yes, lost. Lost, tired, hungry.
Ghost makes her repeat it several more times on their long, long walk, always in groups. At some point she also picks up the grocery sack of toys and the bone Krypto was chewing on yesterday and carts it along. Tell them a good lady raised you but had to leave and now you are a lost wolf cub of the Garou.
----
Krypto looks up from nosing around in the bag at the package of treats, ears swiveling and nose working. She howls again, with less enthusiasm. Wolf Garou cub.
Impatience. Ghost moves out of the underbrush she'd dove into and sniffs the air. She's definitely agitated now; it's like she can't hold still. Stupid Garou. Are they deaf?
Mysterious Howler howls long and loud.
From Bawn: Northern Forest, Mysterious Howler can be heard to howl, ~HEY! There's a Lost Cub here, come get her before the Dancers do, assholes.~
Krypto lays her ears back and lies down, abandoning the bag of toys and treats in favor of mouthing her broken collar.
Little Silvertip has arrived.
You paged Krypto with 'She'll have been super frustrated and annoyed and starting to suggest maybe they should just try again tomorrow. At the absolute first sound of someone coming, she vanishes into the underbrush again with all haste.'.
Krypto lies on the ground looking tired and vaguely out of sorts while chewing lightly on a broken leather dog collar. Nearby, a plastic bag contains dog chewtoys and other treats.
Krypto appears to be entirely alone, despite the second voice.
Little Silvertip's on the north bawn heading east, heading back from her chat with the pair of Fenrir. The unfamiliar howl, and what the unfamiliar voice howls, puts her hackles on end. Immediately, she becomes cautious, sniffing at the winds, and all but looking over her shoulder. She finds some place good and dark, nice and hidden, before she calls on her gift of remaining unseen and unheard, and begins to head in towards the source of the commotion.
Krypto remains completely oblivious, and isn't even keeping a watch out for these supposed other wolf changers that she was told about. By the time Little Silvertip arrives, the chubby white wolf has flopped over onto her side, the broken collar still in her jaws.
There's no scent of Wyrm, and no bodies hung up in grotesque positions; given everything else, that's a good sign. Krypto has been left downwind; either that's a coincidence, or someone was being tricksy.
Little Silvertip's wary. Oh so very, very wary. The Uktena notes the lack of upside down crucified bodies, and so forth, but doesn't seem any more at ease. She casts about with her other senses, looking for the source of the howl, using her ability to sense magic, and look on the other side of the Umbra, to pinpoint something.
No magic. No horrors lurking in the umbra. No traps hidden in the brush. What she does find when she gets close enough is that there are faint scuff marks around Krypto that are a somewhat different size and depth than other marks, but they still look like they were made by wolf paws. And there's a scent of another wolf too, female, choked with city smells apart from the last twenty-four hours (not unlike Krypto really). It's on the toy bag and leads swiftly back the way they seem to have arrived...but only goes a very short ways before abruptly stopping entirely.
Krypto doesn't have any special magic about her, unless one counts the whole being a wolfwere thing as magic. And she remains oblivious to Silvertip's presence.
Little Silvertip sniffs, and sniffs as deeply as she can, without dropping her cloak of invisibility. Then, after a few moments of sniffing, she begins to back off oh-so-slowly, scentless, soundless, and unseen, back to some bushes. It's over there she drops the invisibility, and starts over towards the cub cautiously.
Fortunately, even when she comes into view, nothing springs an ambush on Silvertip. Weird.
Krypto continues to lay there on her side like the tiredest saddest wolf in the world.
Little Silvertip's eyes dart around the forest, only periodically looking at the over-fed wolf and her toys, before looking about again. Once she's close enough, the arctic wolf takes on a slightly more dominant posture, and huffs over. Who is pup? she asks.
Krypto lifts her head to look at Silvertip, then flops back down and rolls over onto her back. Wolf Garou cub lost.
Little Silvertip starts circling the other, eyes narrowing slightly. Who brought Fat-As-Tree her toys? she asks, brusquely. Where did they go?
Krypto slowly rolls herself back upright and watches Silvertip with her ears back and the broken collar between her front paws. The answer comes slowly, partly out of weariness, partly because she's new to complex thought and tale-telling. Garou brought. Bad Garou took from good human, long ride in box. Stupid ugly mean. Brought here, told to howl. Stupid mean ugly Garou left.
Little Silvertip wrinkles her nose a bit, sniffing a few more times at the scent of the mysterious stranger. Her eyes narrow, and tail raises slightly, betraying the anxiety and tension - like she's half convinced this is a trap. Grab your favourite toy, she tells the other in a 'I'm alpha, do what I say' sort of way. Little Silvertip can take Fat-as-Tree to another place for two leggers, with lots of food if Fat-as-Tree does that. But Fat-as-Tree has to carry it herself.
Krypto whines softly in a 'nooo don't waaaant tooo' way but gets up anyway, looking as unhappy as unhappy can be. She looks at the bag of treats, then at the broken dog collar with the 'KRYPTO' nametag. She takes the collar.
Little Silvertip pokes her nose one more time at the bag, grabbing the most interesting looking chew thing, before lifting her head with a paranoid glance. She starts to slip back, and motions for Krypto to follow her. Two legs place this way. Great food.
Krypto follows dutifully but not happily.
