Blossom's Story

"I just..." Blossom watched the small thread-like vine move slowly, "need... to..." She stared at it intently, trying hard not to let her compulsion over the vine slip. "Got it!" She exhaled loudly, as the small vine slid through a hole in the end of a leather rope.... three yards away from her. "Yes!"

Blossom jumped up and began to prance around like she just won the best game ever. "I did it! Who did it?!" She went into a play bow, "I DID!" She laughed manically. "That's right! Blossom the deformed weirdo has mastered her powers at a three yard radius! With focus!" Blossom jumped up, bolting for the vine as it tied itself to the leather rope. Maybe three yards wasn't a big deal to some wolves, but to Blossom, that was a very, very big deal... as you can tell from her dancing, light and playful attitude.

Tiberius

Lazily laying in the afternoon sun and chewing on a piece of bark, Tiberius rolled his head over to see what Blossom had done now. She had bit at that trick for forever now, did she finally do it? Looks like she did. She didn't get THAT excited over any small thing. Only the medium and big things. It takes a lot of energy to prance about, after all. She better untie the vine from the leather strap soon, otherwise that dinner trap he was making would stay unstrung.

Spitting out the soggy bark, he congratulated his friend. "Good job, Feathers! You should try tying the vine around the tree branch again! Remember that time you made that swing over the river? That was neato. Too bad it didn't hold Drais all that well. Had to string up a whole new one after he broke it. Those darn things are hard to make too. Well, it looks like it at least. Your the one who does it" he told her, though he doubted she heard much of what he said over her own yipping. He decided to roll over onto his belly and sit up. Where did he spit out that bark to? The grass was too tall here.

Dey was yet again confused by the terms Nova and Durandel were throwing around. Alvan? Borak? Summanus? She wanted to ask more questions right away, but then Durandel suggested they talk about later, when they were safe that is. Glumly, she agreed by nodding her head slowly. They think I look a lot like her. She looked down at her paw, trying to hunt down the characteristics these brutes seem to think she shares with this... BattleDemon. The name sounded terrible, not even really a wolf's name but a word you would use to describe a killing machine. Or monster, the fear in her head whispered softly, What if they're describing a monster. Are you a monster? The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

"I'll hurry and eat then," Dey walked over to the pile of frozen fish to, grabbed one and set it down by the fire. She lay down to stare at the fire, her nose twitching at the heat, or maybe, silenced fear. Her behavior now more downcast as she tried to exorcise her newly found phantoms that lurked inside.


Blossom ignored Tiberius, knowing that the talkative wolf would go on and on if she encouraged his current behavior. She stuck her tongue at him, and finding herself still filled with joy from her claws to her ears, continued to prance about. That is until a white rabbit came into view, falling for Tiberius's trap rather easily. Blossom froze mid prance, standing only on her right front leg and left back leg. She looked nearly comical if it weren't for her sudden fear that the... trap... wouldn't work...

She hoped Tiberius wouldn't be mad when the trap didn't work due to her vine trick earlier. That is... Oh!!!! IT's a white bunny!!!! Her heart melted at it's pink eyes and pink nose. Normally, she wouldn't be the one hunting as her current thoughts were the reason she rarely ever caught any prey.... It was... "I can't take it!" She jumped up, and shouted at the rabbit, "Run away! Don't come this way!" The rabbited spooked and took off.

"Ah," relieved that the poor bunny wouldn't be her dinner today, Blossom fell over, afraid that her body couldn't take much of her erratic feelings that always seemed to burst out without her knowledge.

Tiberius

"Ah, come on Feathers, that was your dinner ya'know! I'm fine with fish, you're the one who complains about eatin them all the time!" Tiberius grumbled, watching the hare shoot off into the woods. What would it be like to move that fast? Wouldn't it be hard to turn? Speeding along the land wouldn't be that fun if you were crashing into trees all the time. Now cruising through water was an entirely different matter. No trees there. Only those rotten rocks. What would it be like in that great big water called the sea? They say there is no rocks, no bank, no nothing out there. That would be bliss.

Going to fish out a dried piece of catfish in the food cache that they had near their little camp, Tiberius trotted back over to his spot in the sun to munch on it, his teeth crunching through the tiny bones. "Whaddya say we go 'splorin around that old dam again? I am sure there is a way inside it. Maybe they have something cool inside. Like maybe a couple of cute white bunnies that you could cuddle with. We both know you'd never eat'm" Tiberius suggested, longing for something to do. It was fine laying around in the sun watching Blossom practice her element, but there was so much world they still needed to see!

"Ah, come on Feathers, that was your dinner ya'know! I'm fine with fish, you're the one who complains about eatin them all the time!" Tiberius grumbled.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to..." Ashamed at her inability to kill a helpless animal, she covered her face with her wing as a few tulips blushing pink grew out of the ground near her paws. Oh dear, she tried not to let Tiberius's grumblings get to her but she couldn't help but feel like a lump of useless fur. I'm such a pup! Just glad Drais wasn't here - No! Don't think that! She jumped up to undo the vine tied to Tiberius's trap.

"Whaddya say we go 'splorin around that old dam again? I am sure there is a way inside it. Maybe they have something cool inside. Like maybe a couple of cute white bunnies that you could cuddle with. We both know you'd never eat'm" Tiberius suggested, longing for something to do.

Blossom perked ears at that, already having forgotten her failure at being a predator. "Mmmm," she looked in the direction of the dam as if wondering what treasure it held inside. "Sure."

"Cool, lets go" Tiberius responded with a smile, in what had to be his shortest sentence all that afternoon. He made an effort to try and cheer her up, as he didn't like seeing her down and missing the trap wasn't the biggest deal in the world. Strolling alongside her, it didn't take long for them to get to the head of the stream where the old dam was, as they had chosen to camp nearby it some time ago.

It was an impressive wooden structure, constructed by a tribe of Arlyne that had until only recently been working on it. Tiberius' parents were among that group, but their whereabouts along with the rest of the group was completely unknown. It was as if Tiberius' entire home village had gone up and left, leaving not a tent or fire-pit in sight. It was a disturbing mystery that the young wolf tried to keep out of his mind, but he felt that perhaps this dam may hold a few answers.

The dam was as tall as any tree, created by laying stout wooden timbers on their sides and piling up rocks and mud along the sides to create a cobbled watertight wall. Underneath the dam was a large wooden water wheel, that looked like a cog placed on its side and set in motion by the current, spitting out an uneven trickle of water. The stream that emerged from beneath it was pitiful compared to the river that once roared past, and the remaining trickle followed the carved out channel through the land until it reached Maxim Lake. All the rest of the water was pent up in a valley behind the dam, waiting its turn to be filtered under the wall's water wheel. From the best Tiberius could figure, the purpose of the dam was to power that wheel that was placed under it. What that wheel did, he had no clue. Today they were going to get inside and find out.

"Now how do we get on top? I bet there is a door up there" Tiberius guessed, peering upwards. The valley walls on the sides of the dam were rugged enough to make climbing them impossible, and there weren't any stairs or anything to get up. "You could use your new vine trick to pull us up there, maybe? If ya could like, started it from up there, maybe" he wondered, thinking aloud. Too bad she didn't have two wings, otherwise this would be a load easier.

Blossomed nodded, following Tiberius to the dam, feeling that his obsession with this dam to be a little peculiar.

"Now how do we get on top? I bet there is a door up there" Tiberius guessed, peering upwards. The valley walls on the sides of the dam were rugged enough to make climbing them impossible, and there weren't any stairs or anything to get up. "You could use your new vine trick to pull us up there, maybe? If ya could like, started it from up there, maybe" he wondered, thinking aloud.

"Hmm, I don't think I can do.. that." She was sat down and made it so that she had her paws held up, sort of like she was begging, which she really wasn't. She appeared to be trying to gauge the actual size of the wooden structure. "There has to be plants already growing on it in order for me to be able to do that."


"...why did you bring the war to us...flee you three...while you still control your fate...!" Dey looked at the injured Arlyne, not yet fully understanding that this place she knew nothing about was at war. "Wha-" A series of howls filled the air splitting the heavy silence that had made them so on edge.

Despite hearing the howls, Dey didn't run... that is until she saw Nova bolt and surprised by his actions, she moved to follow him wondering why they were running. And of course, as she's not used to running in water, she tripped, rolled and slid on the water surface... right into Nova.

Stumped, the young Arlyne briefly considered what would happen if he tried swimming under the dam where the wheel was, before quickly dismissing that plan as utterly stupid. How did he know what would happen to him. He could be crushed! Then Blossom would probably be crushed. Not physically, that is. She already seemed broken up about the others not being around anymore.

"Well, could we just look around some more then? There's gotta be something about where my parent's tribe went 'round here." Tiberius sighed, figuring instead that they should just try and find an Avira to fly them to the top of the dam one of these days. Sniffing around in mostly the same places, Tiberius jumped in the river to see if there was any clues there. Anything that had been in the water had probably washed away, he figured, and he quickly poked his head back out of the water.

Dey felt teeth dig into her scruff and lift her to her paws. She would have snapped at both Nova and Durandel if it hadn't been for that rising water in the back of them. "I think the Arlyne are counterattacking...Lets go!" She quickly shook our her fur and then began to follow after Nova. "WHAT DID YOU TWO DO?!" She snarled.

She had no qualms about following strangers - she actually did, but wouldn't say so - but it seemed that since she met Durandel, bad things have been happening, even more so now that Nova was with them. "The both of YOU!" She screeched at them both while running, finding it hard not to lose her footing again. "Trouble the both of you!"


"Well, could we just look around some more then? There's gotta be something about where my parent's tribe went 'round here." Blossom didn't like the disappointed look on her friend's face, but what she had said was true and her powers seemed quite useless in this situation. "Maybe we could make a slingshot with my vines and we could test it out with a few animals and if it works I can send you right to the top!" She grinned at Tiberius at the idea, the look on her face suggesting that really believed such and idea would work.

"Well, you better go find your rabbit friends then, 'cuz no way am I going up there first!" Tiberius laughed, pulling himself out of the water. Shaking out his coat, he glanced over to another one of his nearby traps that had stood empty for days. He bounded over to the trap to unhook the rope from it so that it could be used to help with the slingshot if they needed it. Her plan seemed crazy kinds of ridiculous, but she sounded so sure that it could work he thought it would be funny to at least try and see what happened. And well...if that poor rabbit didn't make it, at least Blossom would have her dinner again.

Blossomed didn't hear what Tiberius had said as she was busy trying not to fall asleep. Perhaps, it was the compulsion from earlier that was just getting to her. Need to remember that... She yawned, Remember to not use... to much plant compulsion. She caught herself nearly drifting off into a nap, "Cauliflower!" She fell over, so startled from nearly falling asleep that she forgot where she was or even what she was doing. "Sorry... What were we doing?"

Catching a bit of Blossom's contagious yawn, Tiberius squinted his eyes and took a deep breath before turning his attention back to his partner in crime. "I thought we were going to go shoot bunnies at the side of the dam with your vines. Maybe you were thinking of something else when you said vine slingshot. I guess it could go either way" Tiberius responded, a tad concerned. In truth, he had no idea how something as simple as a vine slingshot could be interpreted in more than one way, but he was confused when she drifted off and come back shouting vegetables. Maybe they had been out too long in the sun.

Blossom looked over at Tiberius and shrugged, "sorry, I guess I used too much energy earlier with that compulsion trick." She got to her paws to inspect the dam at a closer range. Maybe we could come back later... After we eat some berries. She flapped her wing trying to hide the growl of her stomach by the fluttering of her feathers. "Perhaps we can go forage some berries and then come back with full stomachs?"

Not the hungriest for food but ravenous for something to do, Tiberius was happy to go along with Blossom, even if he preferred the taste of a scaly trout to a forest berry most days. "Sure, you lead the way! You always know where they are, anyway..." Tiberius responded, dismissing the dam for later.

"You ever wonder why all those wolves keep fightin'? Even if you win a fight, you always hurt afterwards. Except for when I win against you, your so easy to beat that you never even scratch me!" Tiberius chuckled at his own half true story, scanning the lower shrubs for anything that had not been already picked over by the deer.

Blossom huffed at Tiberius's half truth, "Why do you have to exaggerate so much?" She led him into the forest, part of their mini-territory that they visited very little since they've been hunting rabbits lately and not in need of of having to eat so much berries. Oh I'm so starving. I hope there will be some blueberries, or better yet, raspberries... Yum.

Perhaps it was because her thoughts were centered on food so much, she didn't know that they had just walked out of their mini-territory. Perhaps it was because of her unfocused and already exhausted aura that she didn't notice when the plants around them were different, strange and she could not feel the presence of a small group of wolves ahead. It was when she heard an unusual loud sound of words that she realized that she was hearing the words of a stranger, and not Tiberius's usual chatter. Uh oh, I guess... I may not have been...

Fear struck her and she came to a sudden halt and walk backwards into Tiberius, "Omph!" Frightened and having already forgotten that Tiberius was following her, she howled, "Ah! Help! Tiberius! An Enemy! Run!" She shot into the trees, fearing that that mass she had walked backwards into would follow her.

"Only 'cause you take it so seriously, Feathers. You know I only beat you most of the time" Tiberius chuckled, watching her as she scanned the area for fruit. He had to admit that it was much easier catching berries than rabbits or fish, because the berries didn't run away. They just sat there in full view of their fate, waiting to be gobbled up by any creature looking for a treat. No wonder the disappeared so soon after they ripened.

Suddenly whacked on the side of the head by Blossom's tail, Tiberius had his pleasant thoughts swatted out of him as he heard Blossom yell out. It was then he heard the exclamations of several male wolves over the din of his ringing ears, and he stumbled backwards over his own paws as Blossom ran past.

"Wait! No wait! Don't wait! Keep running!" Tiberius called after her. Not waiting to find out who or what they were, Tiberius picked himself up and bolted after his friend and seemingly only ally in this hostile world.

Frightened, Blossom sprinted and as she doesn't have the equilibrium of a she-wolf with both wings, tripped when she tried to jump over a moss covered boulder. She spat out dirt, moss and other leafy greens that shouldn't have been in her mouth, already forgetting that she was running for her life not a few a seconds before. "Gross."

Great, I just had to trip... She picked herself off the ground, her wing already aching from the tumble. She stretched it gingerly and tried not to whine when she she flexed it. She sat and began to sniff it from where it was attached to the tip of her shoulders and all the way to the tip of her wingspan.... Oh, what a relief it's not broken. Her wing had always been her Achilles' heel so it was perfectly natural that she was more attentive to it than the rest of her limbs.

Frantic and somewhat paranoid that his legs would never take him fast enough to escape, Tiberius bounded over the sticks, rocks, and brambles that covered the forest floor. Dashing through they rays of sunlight that broke through the leaves overhead and checkered the leafy ground, the young wolf never thought to look behind him to see if they were actually being chased. All he knew was that Blossom had bolted, and that she never did that without a good reason. Well...usually.

Leaping upon a particularly large boulder, he stopped to catch his breath, and was relieved to see that he had Blossom had chosen precisely the same area to rest. Feeling the moisture on the shaded boulder, his quick inspection rewarded him with the discovery of a crevice were a small trickle of water had collected from the morning dew, and he lapped in up greedily between breaths. The crevice only really holding two or three good gulps, Tiberius looked up to his friend and did what he did best. "Who are those wolves? Did they attack you? Are they still coming after us? I think we went in the opposite direction of our camp...are you okay?" Tiberius fired off, his stress being relieved more from simply talking than actually getting answers to his questions.

When Tiberius reappeared, Blossom seems to have remembered why she had been running in the first place. Oh yeah... She tuned out Tiberius's frantic chatter, knowing that if she had actually interrupted him, he'd be disappointed over not being able to talk. Wait!

As her brain caught on to what Tiberius had said last, she fell to the ground and covered her nose with her paws. "Oh no!" She didn't need to look up to see that strange and unfamiliar trees and plants surrounded them now. "We're lost!" She tried not to panic, which was a total failure as she appeared to be breathing way too fast for a she-wolf at rest. "Tiberius! How are we supposed to get back!? How is Drais going to find us now!?" That last bit was a part of her fantasy world where Drais, their former caretaker would come back to find them... It was also a lie since reality was telling her that that was an unlikely-to-happen- event.

As the filter between his brain and mouth had long since been worn out from overuse, Tiberius freely voiced his thoughts. "Well...we don't have all that much to go back to...just a couple of pieces of dried fish and some bed mats...we could go find Drais! He's a dark wolf, where do all the dark wolves live? He probably just went to find a home for us, we could surprise him by turning up!" Tiberius responded optimistically, as if the fact that he had no idea where the Kamarian pack was was irrelevant.

They had learned much from Drais when they had been around, he was probably the reason why they were all still alive. The wolf had never said why he did what he did, which made his disappearance all the more mysterious. Where could he have gone, Tiberius wondered. Could he have been taken by those nasty warring wolves? From run ins they had had with other wolves while Drais had been around, Tiberius knew that other wolves had a particular dislike for Kamarians, as if they blamed the dark pack for starting the war! But such a claim was absurd, how could a wolf as generous as Drais be responsible for so much pain?

A chill was rippling through the new night, and Tiberius nervously looked around the dark woods. He was sure of it, there were eyes in the trees watching them. He longed to be back at their little camp, despite how easily he dismissed it earlier. At least there, things had been familiar. Now every turn they made seemed foreign, and threatening.

Digging his claws tensely into the loam, Tiberius spoke in hushed tones to sooth himself, and Blossom his friend. "Ya-know, Drais would be at home in this dark. He always loved the night. You think we'll find him with his pack when they come out at night? That's what shadow wolves do at night, right? Scurry along in the shadows? And when night comes there is a lot of them? Doing their night things? Attacking lone young wolves? Dragging them back as slaves..." Tiberius droned on, his attempt at comfort slipping into repeating a rumor they had heard some months ago. Frightened him to pieces.

Stumbling through the brush, it was a lucky chance that he spotted a cluster of roots growing out of a ridge that met all his criteria as a safe place to sleep: Not wet, and one entrance. "What do you say we turn in over there, Blossom? I'm sure we can pick our way back to home in the morning."

Blossom had nodded and dragged herself into the appointed sleeping space courtesy of Tiberius, and simply fell over. She was too tired to bother about what they had been running from before to really check out their new environment. All she knew was that she was tired, her wing hurt, and they were lost. Also that she still had Tiberius and she needed to sleep. As it was, she quickly fell into the warmth and coziness of her dreams to escape her physical discomforts not noticing if Tiberius had joined her or not.

Into the morning, she slept even, using her wing as a blanket of sort whilst curled into a ball. She mumbled something in her sleep and dug her head into her tail, as if trying to get more comfy. Such a position, if anyone saw from the outside world, would think that she was nothing but an overgrown white and green fluffy hedgehog that had perfected the art of curling into a ball.

"Hey yo, wolf, ya going to sleep all day? Lets go find some food!" Tiberius spoke with a gentle tap to Blossom's shoulder. The young Arlyne was covered from belly to paws in a grey brown mud. Tiberius had discovered that they had wandered to the edge of a small marshy wetland the previous night, and having decided to look around after waking up, sunk in a little deeper than he imagined. No swimming in there, there was more filth than water.

Still trying to shake her from sleep, he watched absently as his muddy paws stained her light fur. "We lived near the creek, maybe this swamp is where it all flows into? But I don't remember my parents tellin' me 'bout this place" Tiberius remembered, standing on his tippipaws to look over the roots they had been sleeping under.

Blossom unfolded herself gingerly, revealing her serious case of bedhead. Her fur was scuffed and flattened in certain areas, and the not-so-happy look on her face showed her true feelings toward mornings. "Hmmm, Tiberius, go back to sleep" was what she tried to say but what came out was more along the lines of "mmmuhh muhhh Tiberius sleepy.." She let her head fall back under her wing blanket and just was she was about to cover herself again, a drop of water fell from above and landed on her nose. THAT woke up! She yelped at the feeling of sudden coldness on her noise and groaned whilst getting to her paws to shake out her fur.

"Mmmmm," Blossom's stomach growled, "Mornings are never good..." She looked at Tiberius, "Were you saying something?"

"Oh Feathers, I'm always saying something, haven't you figured that out?" Tiberius smiled with a toothy grin, looking down at his friend. Still on his hind legs, he watched a chance leaf all off a branch, wistfully floating until it softly joined its sisters on the ground. Not a care in the world.

"I was just saying we should go find some food! This swamp rots, we should get out of here, lazy pup. Gonna stay here until the Alva come eat 'ya? I think I smell them coming already..." Tiberius prodded, pushing himself off and landing with a thump near her. There was nothing worth fishing in the marsh, so he was hoping that she would figure out how to grow them some berries or something useful like that.