WhiteWolf

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007

 

"Today I am going to help you become more astute at using the enhanced senses you have been blessed with." Owen saw the reaction to him calling what they had all gone through a blessing, but as one who had to rely on those senses to keep him from danger; he knew how wonderful they could be.

 

"I want you to take a handkerchief from the pile and put it on like a blindfold. Take a moment after you do to sit quietly. I will come over to you, and I want you to tell me everything you can smell and hear."

 

Aleeza did as she was told and soon was sitting on the floor, her head occasionally turning to one side or the other.

 

Owen listened as Aleeza described what she could see in the room, Owen pointed out just as many items that Aleeza had missed. Owen told Aleeza to try and sense those things that she had missed. When she had finished, Owen told her to remove her blindfold.

 

"You have done well today, but as I have pointed out to you, there were many things that you missed." Owen now let go of the mask he was holding and worked to change his scent. It was a trick he had been taught a long time ago, and over many months of practice and in an effort to throw Wolf lover off a few times, though he still could only fool her rarely. Owen let irritation and rage slip through, but held all of his other emotions back, "There are many dangers that others will never be able to sense, but that we as Wolfkin have been given the ability to. If you cannot learn now how to sense them, you will suffer the fate of many of those two-leg fools walking in the outside world." It wasn't hard for Owen to put on an act like this...after all it was his job to not only gain peoples trust...and at times the only way to get information was to fool them.

 

Right now he needed to show Aleeza that while she might have a rudimentary knowledge of her senses, she was far from having them mastered. As he continued on with his speech, he let his voice rise to near angered proportions, and purposefully pushed through more anger in his scent. He could see the Aleeza’s eye growing bigger, wondering just what it was she had done to incur Owen’s anger.

 

Just as she started to sit up straighter, Owen spoke. “Tell me Aleeza, what do you sense from me?” Owen’s voice had changed again, now he spoke much quieter, but the lack of emotion in his voice seemed to carry much more menace than when he raised his voice.

 

"Anger Owen...anger and irritation, though I'm not sure what I have all done to deserve it.”

 

Just then Owen let the anger and irritation go and a very big smile spread across his face, "Nothing, you see, you sensed exactly what I wanted you to. In time my little stunt here today would not have fooled you ...but I want you to be aware that things are not always as they seem." He chuckled a bit at the surprised look on Aleeza’s face; he had never shown that side to her before. "Just remember that there will be times when those around you will not want you to sense their true feelings and for those of us who have been with the Kin long enough it is but a simple matter to hide them....and those of us who work hard enough find it a simple matter to see through that. When we have finished with this class, though you may not always be able to tell exactly what another of the Kin is feeling, should you come into contact with a two-legs, you will have no doubt if they are trying to hide something from you."

 

Owen looked at Aleeza, giving her a small smile to let her know that this had all been just a part of their lesson and nothing more. "Now, I want you to put your blindfold back on stand over by the wall. The next part of this lesson will require you to listen and feel around you very carefully. I have several pebbles here that I have collected and will be tossing them to you as you stand. I want you to feel the change in the air around you, listen for the tell tale sound of the pebble swishing through the air to sense when one is coming near you. You only need catch one to be excused for the day...but I will not make it easy to catch that one. Also, Ice is feeling a bit left out today, so she will be doing things to try and throw you all off balance as we do this. Once you catch a pebble, you may leave for the day and we will reconvene tomorrow.

 

Owen began throwing the pebbles towards Aleeza, making sure they were random and came from several directions. Owen chuckled as several of them bounced off Aleeza.

 

 

Estel

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007

 

Aleeza was completely baffled by Owen’s request for her to wear a blindfold.  When he explained, she was a little leery about the assignment, afraid to slip up and disappoint him.  After a moment though, she did her best to do what he had said.  With her eyesight gone, the sense she predominantly used, gone, it took her some time to get used to “seeing” with her ears, nose and sense of touch.

 

The first thing she noticed as she began the exercise was that one of the windows must have been open.  A light breeze played with her gold locks and confused her nose with a conglomeration of scents that she now had to discern.  This she described for her mentor before going on to pulling apart the different smells.

 

“I can smell the leaves decaying outside- that’s what I smell most.  I also smell us; our sweat, hair, all the things about our bodies.  Underneath that, there’s the smell of an open bottle of ink and a candle burning.  Since they’re quite pungent, the desk must be directly below the window.

 

“That’s about all I smell, but in connection to the candle and ink, I can hear the faint rustling of papers on the desk.  I can hear the floorboards creak every time you shift your weight and the soft thump of your sword bouncing lightly off of you.  The wind carries the sound of blown leaves and the clang of metal on metal- someone must be sparring somewhere nearby.

 

“The wind’s moving funnily around where the desk must be, so I guess there’s a high-backed chair there, blocking it.  It’s not coming directly in the window either, so the wind can’t be our usually westerly, it’s a north-westerly.  That’s about all I can tell Owen.”

 

He told her a multitude of things she had missed.  Aleeza felt ashamed for not having done as well as she had expected and her confidence was further shattered by the overwhelming waves of anger emanated from Owen.  When he asked her what she felt off him, she nearly burst into tears trying to answer.  The fact that he had only been pretending and she hadn’t caught it did little to lift her out of her misery.  Since being rejected by the Tuatha’an, her self-confidence was terribly fragile and very easily shattered.

 

She was still in such a state of depression that she completely failed at her next task.  Only half her heart was in it, which resulted in pebble after pebble after pebble bouncing off of her.  Aleeza became more and more frustrated and hated herself for it more and more.  By the time Wind joined, nudging the backs of her knees with her nose and causing her to stumble, which had the side-effect of making a pebble bounce of her close eyelid, she broke down into pitiful sobs.

 

Owen let her cry herself out before Aleeza became so ashamed of her own weakness, that she eventually stood back up on her own, absolutely determined to finish this lesson.  As a result, an hour later, after what she was sure would be multiple bruises tomorrow, she walked out of the office holding a tiny pebble in her hand with a proud grin on her face.

 

 

WhiteWolf

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007

 

The cold, wet nose pressed on his cheek brought Owen out of his slumber, he knew full well that Ice had yet again found her way into his bedroom and did no doubt want Owen to wake and pay her attention. Strange thing was that she never tried to wake Owen this when Iris had been here.

 

"Go away Ice." He muttered.

 

We play with the cubs more today White Fang?

 

”Yes Ice, we will play with the cubs, but not yet”

 

Obviously this answer did not satisfy Ice as she wasted no time in repeating her actions with her nose.

 

We hunt then?

 

Owen groaned and rolled out of bed, last lingering look at the bed he would rather have stayed in. “Yes Ice, we will hunt before we meet up with the wanderers." Owen still had the habit of speaking out loud to Ice, although it sounded ridiculous, Owen almost thought she could understand his every word. After dressing and tying his long silvery hair back Owen picked up his bow and quiver and followed Ice out on to the ledge surrounding their tree house. At first Owen had thought Ice would not want to be with him in the treehouse, but after the second night of continuous howling Owen had rigged up a sling attached to a rope and threaded that through a pulley. This way Ice could be hauled up to his house and would not then keep him awake at night. Well that had been the plan.

 

The hunt had gone well, and Owen carried a fully grown boar back to the Stedding. He left this at the Infirmary; the Sages always had more people staying there than they had food to feed. Owen then went to the meadow where he had arranged to meet Aleeza; slowly Owen walked over to greet the young woman, and placed his bow next to a tree and started to speak about today’s lesson.

 

"Glad to see you are punctual Aleeza. So far you have done well in this training, but there is still much to learn. Not only from this class, but from experience. The more you practice these skills, the better you will be at them. I know you are wondering about my demonstration about masking and changing your scent. You may be wondering why it would be a necessary skill to learn."

 

Owen sat down in front of Aleeza and gestured for her to do likewise. "Some of the Wolfkin will spend most of their time here in the Stedding, here a skill like masking your scent is not necessary. We are family and it is the Kin's way to have no secrets. But there will be some of the Wolfkin that will be called on from time to time to leave the Stedding and interact with the two-legs. While it is not necessary to mask your scent around many of the two-legs, it is still a useful skill. To truly be able to "read" them, you need to understand yourself what the emotions are...how they affect the way one acts, the way one talks, the way one smells. Once you have learned these things about yourself, it is much easier to pick them out on someone else. That is where our training will start today. I want you to describe to me what you sense from the different emotions. How they smell, how they look on someone else. You may begin.”

 

 

Estel

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2007

 

Following Owen’s instructions, Aleeza spent the day in the Stedding observing the Kin.  She watched everything from friends, to enemies, to new acquaintances, studying the emotions she smelt from them.  There were so many emotions, most only a tad different than the others.  By the end of the day, Aleeza had quite a report.

 

“Happiness has a sort of light, almost bouncy feel.  It’s warm and is pleasant to the nose.  A happy person’s muscles are completely relaxed and their cheekbones are lifted.  Their step is light.  Peacefulness is much the same but underneath the light timbre there is a deepness, sort of akin to looking into a clear, still lake where you cannot tell the depth.

 

“In complete contrast, anger is hot to the point of searing and it makes one feels as if all the hairs in their nose have been burned off.  All the muscles are tensed and the person’s face is usually flushed.  Their steps are closer to stomps.  Fury is the same except for an added recklessness.

 

“Love, too, is hot but not searing and painful like anger and fury.  It is one of the most confusing emotions: light and heavy at the same time in differing senses of the words.  Like fury, there is a certain recklessness to it, though more tempered than with fury.

 

“Sadness is the heaviest emotion.  Generally the person’s shoulders are slumped and their face and muscles are slack, rather than relaxed.  Associated with it is grief which is all these things with an added sharp pain besides.  Often hopelessness is associated with it and there is a deep sense of emptiness.  People with these emotions’ faces are usually tinged pallid.”

 

 

WhiteWolf

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007

 

The last day, or rather night, of Aleeza’s senses training had come. Owen always looked to these with a mixture of pride and sadness. He always loved to watch how his students grew and became more confident in their abilities as time passed, but he regretted he would no longer see many of them as much as he did while training them. “Before we start this lesson I want to congratulate you on the progress you have made so far. You may not believe it, yet, but you have come along way since our first lesson, and have able demonstrated a growing ability with your new found skills. Continue in that fashion tonight, and you will make me very proud.”

 

Owen made his way to the Stables, where he had arranged to meet Aleeza for tonight’s lesson, "Tonight will be the last part of your training in how to deal with your new senses, Aleeza. It is no more nor no less important than any of the other lesson you have been taught here, but you may find it slightly more difficult." Owen’s lips curled up in a small smile as he started to walk towards the forest, Aleeza by his side.

 

"In that forest are four members of the Wolfkin, four of the most skilled members, or so they claim. They are hiding in there waiting for you, some of them are hidden well enough that you will have to call on all of your senses to find them, some of them simply have an ability to blend in plain sight so to speak. Your task is to enter the forest with me and tell me where they are."

 

Owen pointed to the trail leading into the forest, "Shall we?"

 

 

Nynaeve

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007

 

Lorelai climbed up a tree and sat on a thick branch, her back against its stomp. Owen has asked her to conceal herself in the forest. "Be the forest", he told her. Whatever that means, Lorelai thought to herself and smiled.

 

It was one of those standard senses lesson given to wolfcubs. It was the first time Lorelai was requested to participate. Her role in the whole lesson was quite specific. Pretending she wasn't there and doing a good job at it. After all the purpose was for the wolfcub to learn detection. The harder it was, the better the lesson.

 

Closing her eyes, Lorelai released all the tension in her body. Being invisible didn't just mean to be unseen, but also to hide her emotions. She needed to be at peace and mask her inner turmoil. To truly not be there, in every sense of the word.

 

Meditating, Lorelai released all her fears, anger and doubts until there was nothing but void in her. Holding on to it, she sat quietly, never breaking concentration, waiting for the arrival of Owen's student.

 

 

Estel

Posted: Tues Jun 19, 2007

 

Aleeza had done a little tracking on her own during her three-year solitude, therefore she wasn’t too bad off for this little excursion.  Mind you, Aleeza had always tracked deer and rabbits, whose sole intention was to get as far away from her as possible; never giving thought to escaping via evasion.  Now she was attempting to track human being and skilled at woodcraft at that.

 

This however, really didn’t pass through her mind until after she started out.  The young woman had little trouble for the first ten minutes or so while her quarry simply put distance between themselves and the tiny village.  Aleeza could easily point out paths of leaves, disturbed by her quarry’s boots.  Scrapes in the mud, fortified by obvious broken branches, pointed her trail as clearly as any marker and she was able to jog as if there was a time difference to close.

 

Unfortunately, Aleeza’s lack of experience showed as she jogged right off the path and had to spend an extra five minutes to relocate the last obvious marker.  At this point, her quarry began making things difficult for her.  With enough space put between it and the village, it was time to start making pursuit next to impossible.

 

The former Tuatha’an spent an entire extra ten minutes combing the surrounding woods for signs.  Finally, a boot print sunk into the mud of a depression caused by wind eroding soil loosened by the multitudes of now bared tree roots, pointed her in an almost U-turn; back in the direction she had come.  She smelled amusement emanating from Owen as his keen ears picked up her muttered curses.  Child-like she stuck her tongue out at him.

 

From here on in, progress was slowed to a barely forwards, and often backwards, crawl.  Aleeza spent over an hour looking at overturned stones, broken branches and inconclusive smears in the mud and scraped off bark that could have been the result of human or animal contact.

 

So, it took her and hour and a half to reach the tree- still unknown to her; Lorelai had climbed.  Of course, stupid her was looking for a wash of emotions to reach her nose.  Instead, she only caught a faint whiff of human scent.  Thinking she wasn’t close enough to smell emotions, Aleeza kept walking.  When the human smell disappeared, she doubled back and paid it closer attention instead of anticipating a wash of emotions.

 

After a passing in and out of the scent’s range a few times, she was able to locate its epicentre.  At first she was unable to figure out why she couldn’t see the person and began searching through the brush.  When this proved infertile, she looked up in exasperation only to see an unfamiliar woman sitting in the branches of a tree.  “I feel stupid.”

 

At this statement, Owen released the mirth he had obviously been masking.

 

 

WhiteWolf

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007

 

It was not Aleeza’s efforts that made Owen smile, she had performed quite well. In this case his mirth was caused by the expression on her face and the smell of her scent that caused him to smile. However, he did think that this had showed up an important flaw in her ability. Quickly the smile disappeared and was replaced by Owen’s usual neutral expression that people always found hard to fathom what he was feeling.

 

“You showed good promise Aleeza, but you do need to realise that the world is not flat. Our senses will only carry us so far, those of us who are really the master of our abilities know that and make allowances for that. This is what you need to do and what you have to demonstrate before we can say this lesson is finished.” Owen saw the beginnings of realisation in Aleeza’s face. “So, you need to go back to the start and do this all over again. The course will be reset, and the Wolfkin you are searching for will not be in the same place as before.”

 

Aleeza stood there not knowing whether to argue with Owen or not. She knew he had always treated her fairly and had never made her repeat any lesson unless he really thought it necessary. Shaking her head in resigned determination Aleeza started to make her way to the beginning of the course and prepared herself to do it all over again.

Surprise was what Anton had felt when Owen had asked him to assist in this particular exercise, had it been some peace offering on Owen's part?  Anton couldn't have said for sure, but he didn't mind assisting in the exercise.  Just because he disliked Owen for the psychotic episode that had occured due to his flute was no reason not to help with a student.  So, he had found himself in the course with other Wolfkin, tasked with hiding himself as best he could.  The first round he had spent inside the hollow of a long dead tree.  A good deal of time had passed, but it wasn't long until the image of a pup finding a she wolf's den came to him.  It seemed that Lorelai had been found out, but then the image of a migrating herd came.  Move?  A couple of further images clarified, they would be taking new positions and then the student would be released into the course once more.

 

Where to go...  It occured to Anton after a brief moment of consideration that he knew exactly where to go.  Another thought followed that made Anton smile, though with the chill in the air he wasn't sure whether it was one of his best ideas.  Still, it would provide some amusement and baffle the student somewhat.  Of course, now he had to decide on where he was going to make the magic of it all occur.  Smiling to himself, and climbed clear of the tree.  He had a trail to set, a trail to follow...

 

This was definitely not one of his best ideas.  Shivering slightly, Anton put an end to it by force of will as he got to his hands and knees and crawled.  He'd seen the wild rosebushes sometime ago, its particularly strong scent had caught his attention the very first time he'd seen it.  Of course, the problem with rosebushes was that they had thorns, but that was something he had solved with a tidbit that Sohvi had given him from her wanderings.  There was this one place that one could get in, and at the centre of the bushes was a hollow where the original bushes had been strangled by the next generation.  If the smell of the rose scent couldn't hide him, the rot at the centre of it definitely would.

 

Wincing, Anton retracted his arm before reaching up and wiping the thorn clean.  He was well inside now, but having only his cloak for for protection was not a good thing.  After he'd left the tree, he'd gone and set a new trail that ended with a sizeable pond that was filled with reeds.  Stripping down to his smallclothes and his cloak, he'd left them 'hidden' there to lead the student to the logical conclusion that he was hiding underwater amongst the reeds and using one of them to breathe.  She wouldn't be able to discount the possibility and would be forced to search, with any luck her lack of luck would discourage her and set her on a new path.  Doubling all the way back, he'd then come to the rosebush and shown a care not to leave a track and to minimise the spoor he left in his wake.  His clothes were of cloth, they would have ripped and left marks of his passage.  His cloak on the other hand was leather, it shielded him from the worst of it.

 

Reaching the hollow, Anton pulled himself through and proceeded to take himself to the far end of the hollw before seating himself comfortably, wrapping his cloak about himself to keep warm even as the bushes shielded him from the wind.  With very little light to see by at this point, Anton wasn't tempted to try and explore the hollow himself.  Instead, he focused on unfocusing, emptying his mind and himself even as he allowed the bushes and rot to take care of the rest.  It wouldn't be impossible for the student to find him, but he'd certainly made it quite a challenge.  Perhaps after she doubled back on the trail, the possibility would occur.  If she combined her humanity with her wolvish side that was.

 

 

Anton Averdal

Farpaw

Aleeza sighed, disappointment evident even had Owen not had the added insight of scent.  With slumped shoulders, she returned to the beginning of the course.  Now her task was even more difficult as she would now not only have to follow them to their new hiding spots, but to pick up the trail to their new locations, she would have to find where they had been and pick up the trail from there.

 

Returning to where Lorelai had been was easy enough and she made good time, allowing herself to jog through the easier parts of her trail.  She returned to the tree and managed to pick up the next trail fairly easily.  After that, of course, it got harder. 

 

There were a few backtracks and lost the trail numerous times, but all in all, Aleeza moved steadily towards her go and an hour later found Lorelai stowed away in a clump of dense undergrowth whose thick brambles raked long gashes in her arms when she had to crawl in after the woman.  Owen’s pride at her relatively easy find bolstered her confidence and she jogged for a good portion of the way back to the beginning to pick up the next trail.

 

Arriving back at the beginning and beginning to follow the next trail, it was much similar to Lorelai’s for the first few hundred paces- at which point all similarities vanished.  Progress slowed down to a stand-still and it seemed she spent more time retracing her steps than moving forward.  Her quarry seemingly loved laying her false trails.  At one point, there was a fork in the trail where she had to decide which was the false trail and which the true.  The man she followed, she was sure it was a man because surely no woman was so cruel, walked along streambeds, walked on rocks and avoided heavy bramble that would snag his clothing.  By the time she got to his first hiding spot, like Lorelai he had climbed a tree, two hours had passed since she had begun following him and the sun was well in the sky.

 

Impossibly, this second time he made the track even harder to follow.  In the first half hour of following him, she had gone maybe fifty paces from the tree.  By now, her self-esteem had fallen so low, she toyed with the idea of fleeing the Stedding like she had three years previous.  Aleeza chastised herself for a coward which only served to further depreciate her self-worth.

 

Finally she arrived at a pond.  Her spirits were immediately boosted by the pile of clothes poorly hidden in a bunch of rushes and the bootprints she found in the mud on the banks.  Shyly glancing at Owen, he turned his back as she stripped down to her smallclothes, leaving the garments beside his and then slipping into the water.  This high in the Mountains of Mist, every body of water was fed by the snow and ice on the rocky crowns of the mountains and the murky pond water she swam through was frigid, setting her teeth to chattering.

 

She spent an entire utterly fruitless hour searing through the reeds on muck of that pond.  By the end, few of the reeds were left unbroken, her skin was pruned, her lips blue with cold, her teeth chattered hard enough to nearly crack her teeth and her tongue stung from where it had gotten caught between her teeth.  The only warm part of her that was warm was the stinging, salt tears of frustration that mingled with the fresh, icy mountain water covering her face.

 

Crawling on the bank in such utter misery, all her modesty was forgotten as she sobbed half-naked on the bank.  Owen left her to it for a good fifteen minutes before she regained a semblance of composure and set back after her quarry with the intention of strangling him when she got ahold of him- and possibly castrating him in the bargain.

 

By the time she arrived at a clearing filled with wild roses, she was such a wreck again that tears were never far from her eyes.  Once again she had come to another dead end and the sun was already a goodly ways into its decent from above her head while her stomach reminded her that she had had naught but a few wild berries she had found on her way since waking before dawn and it was only an hour until dinner.

 

Completely frustrated with herself and insanely furious with the man she was tracking, she picked up the nearest stone and chucked it into the rose bushes.  The rock broke a few of the sweet smelling rose hips, releasing a powerful scent into the air that itched her nose with its pungency.  In desperation, she sat cross-legged in the dirt, absently munching the sweet rose hips and she wondered what to try next.  The strength of the odour emitted by the wild roses reached a level of near tangibility with its strength and as her sharp eyes searched the glade for some hint of what to do next, she saw a tunnel-like opening into the roses.

 

Things began to click.  Like with Lorelai, she was trying to catch his scent which would be completely overpowered by the powerfully scented roses.  However, she eyed the tunnel askance, wondering at the man’s sanity if he was in there.  He would have to be awfully small to crawl through that tunnel and even then his body would be gouged by thorns as he made his way deeper into the dark tangle of vines, leaves and weapon-like thorns.  ‘If he’s in there, I swear I’ll stab him with some of those thorns.’

 

Aleeza winced as she dropped to her belly and began pulling herself into the tunnel with her arms.  She let out a cry as a particularly sharp thorn gauged her forehead and she winced at both the smell of blood and the fine, red trickle running down her forehead into her eyes.  However, she forged on leaving a wake of broken, bloody thorns and whimpers which hung in the air as she left them behind.

 

Doubts filled her.  Surely he was not insane enough to brave this hell?  Surely he would have left a trail of blood similar to her own?  Surely he would not have crawled in this far?  ‘Oh Light, how am I supposed to get out?  I can’t very well turn without sacrificing my limbs and there’s no way on earth I’ll be able to back myself out of these brambles.’  Tears once more ran their way down worn tracks on her cheeks, mingling with blood and leaving the foul concoction for her tongue to lips from her licks before spitting it back out on the ground- which she then had to crawl through.  If Aleeza had thought she was miserable before, her wretchedness had reached previously unheard of levels.

 

Thoughts of her quarry were far from her mind by the time she heard the faint hissing.  By that time she was just praying the tunnel would go all the way through the rose thicket so she could escape this hell and throw herself off the nearest cliff.  The young woman immediately panicked, despite her depression and thoughts of suicide, at the thought of an adder and her stuck here with no possible escape route.  She threw her adrenaline rush into pushing herself back through the thorns, heedless of the deep gouges she earned for her troubles.

 

Her panic fled like deer before a wildfire when she caught sight of a few dark hairs caught in the tangled vines and, like a wildfire, her fury blazed with uncontrolled abandon.  Aleeza’s hair was blonde as straw and the half-concealed snicker confirmed that she was been right in her first assumptions outside the brambles, when she had been free of the hell he had put her through.

 

If it were possible to stalk while crawling, Aleeza would have managed it as she finally entered a tiny cave-like opening in the roses.  In the gloom created by the little greenish light the thick leaves let in she could see little of the man except her snickering, shadowy form.  Pushing herself on exhausted arms to her feet, she couched over and rushed him, throwing herself on her behind and the pummelling his groin with her boots.

 

Ignoring his whines, she revelled in that satisfaction of that violent outburst as she crawled back out of the roses.

Speed lived up to his nickname as he flew across the stedding. When Owen had approached him to help with someone’s training, he had been very happy to help. Now all he had to do was hide.

 

He had thought it out very carefully, and he wanted to make it as challenging as possible. So while Owen was getting everything ready with Aleeza, Speed raced around the stedding not once, but twice. Then once more for good measure.

 

He made sure to run through the creek on each circuit, not only to temporarily break up his scent trail but also to strengthen his scent when he returned to dry land. Water had a funny way of doing that. Now that he had made three full circles, following the same path each time, he carefully returned to the creek and half ran, half swam for a couple hundred paces until he came to a tree limb he had spied earlier that hung out over the water and had passed on each of his tours.

 

Grabbing it with a leap, he dangled for a moment, then crossed the creek using only his hands as he dangled from the limb.

 

When he reached the bank, he swung into the tree without ever touching the ground, then climbed up it until he nestled comfortably in the crook of several large branches where an eagle had made its nest some years past. Not only was it a comfortable, almost invisible perch to rest, from his vantage point nearly 40 paces off the ground and poised on the creek bank, he had a great view of the proceedings.

 

He hoped today would turn out nicely, and he set back to enjoy the show.

By the time Aleeza set out, dripping wet, sneezing, aching from a thousand scratches and in more angry than she had been since the beginning of her Howling, the sun was halfway through its decent over the canopy of the forest and all Aleeza wanted to do was go home.  Blood and bloody ashes, she, a woman who wasn’t one to wish harm on others, hoped that man was whimpering back in that rosebush still.

 

Luckily for her, the next track was easier to follow.  Easier to follow but no less grating on her fragile nerves.  Who in their right minds would run around the entire Stedding three bloody flaming times?  If this was another man, there would be a definite drop in the fertility of male Wolfkin in the Stedding.

 

An hour later, Aleeza was grinding her teeth audibly, even had Owen not had such an acute sense of hearing he would have heard her.  Another bloody body of water!  She was already shivering, her nose was running fit to drain her of all bodily fluid and her clothes were damp and beginning to rub her skin raw.  She was going to kill whoever this was.

 

Not bothering to strip or even roll up her breeches, they were soaked through from the pond already so it wouldn’t have made any difference, the young woman used this as an excuse to pull off her boots.  Damnit, but boots that made squishing noises whenever you stepped in them were quite possible the most uncomfortable footwear ever to be worn- with the exception of bare feet in a rosebush which she had also had the pleasure of experiencing this evening.  And so Aleeza began to wade through the creek, searching both banks for any prints in the soft mud.  Finding nothing except a few raccoon tracks, she was cursing under her breath by the time she managed to catch a faint scent of something on the wind.

 

Finally.

 

It was already twilight and the light was beginning to fade.  Not that it mattered to her eyes, which now glowed dimly, reflecting the red rays of the setting sun.  There was no tracks on either bank, but luckily for her, this Kin made no attempt to cover his or her scent and so after another ten minutes of scanning the treetops, the former Tuatha’an spotted Speed up in the trees.

 

“Damnit boy, get your butt down here, it’s about to becoming intimately familiar with my foot!”

Korrena Stricks Again!

 

Either someone had a dislike for this girl, or Anton was utterly and completely insane. "Make a trail, and get Aleeza to find you." She muttered, imitating Anton's voice. Sloughing from where the starting point was with a yawn, Korrena was grumpy and tired. "And what did he mean, 'stay away from rosebushes'?" Her words out loud imitated her annoyance. As the story went, she was to hide for a training session as requested by Owen - who she had yet to meet. Looking into the woods and she could feel Windy nearby tugging at her curiously to play.

 

"I can't play." She sighed. "I have to hide somewhere for Owen."

 

Then it dawned on her... "Hide..... and Seek."

 

A slow, mischievious grin grew on her face as the day started to grow brighter even though the hour was still well before dawn. The gears started to turn as she dropped the handkerchief that Anton had given her to hold her scent. She took great glee knowing that no one had given her any perimeters nor limits to how she would be followed. If it were to be easy or hard, she couldn't say. But if they asked her because she might make it easy, than Owen and Anton were sadly mistaken. The first trip was to Anton's. But of course in an completely different route.

 

Picking her trail carefully, stepping in places where nto to leave footprints, Korrena found herself deeper into the woods -but still inside the stedding - passing over a stream. Climbing a tree that had suportively low branches, she skipped over the stream and up a few years before settling back on the ground. Looking up and back to her path, she smiled and took her finger to the dirt below.

 

"Good Morning! Can you catch me? I think not. But good luck!"

 

Pulling out a stone that had been sitting in her pocket for the last week, she put it on tom of the message so that way the note would be found and continued on her way, up the stream, walking a little in the water bed. She knew that this was an easy path to follow, but Korrenna had no intentions of stopping any time soon. Up ahead was a rosebush that circled around a tree and up quite a few paces of the River. Remembering Antons words she did the exact opposite, getting down on her knees and crawling carefully underneath about a foot in. There was a small creavice in the bottom, an area where she could smell Anton. It was faint and nearly washed awy, but it was of the few scents Korrena could not mistaken and more than her sisters. Pulling off her wet leather shoes, she pulled off the sodden socks and made a small pile. In the sand she wrote, "I wastold not to hide here. Said it was bad... So I'm not here. Try again!"

 

Drawing a heart underneath, she made her way back through the enterance, ignoring the occasional scratches on her skin, covering up as much as her tracts as she could. Hoping that the girl follows the skin left behind, Korrena walked away carefull, covering up her tracks enough lo leave barely a minor scent. Maybe the girl will be smart and not go in. Although, she did want her socks back.

 

Once she felt she was a safe distance, Korrena sprinted back to Anton's hut, into her room and then grabbed a full days pair of clothes and a belt. Korrena spent little time at the hut, wondering if the girl would find a random path that Korrena had left behind merely a day ago, She paused for a moment in thought. The thought did not last very long as a sudden grrrrrrrrrrr could be heard from her stomach.

 

"Time to eat." She announced to no one in particular. Running out the door, Korrena paused only long enough to pull a few strands of her hair and knot them onto the belt and then tossing it on a high clothes line away from the house on her way back into the woods.

 

She took her small detour through a series of oddly picked trees in a glen. Moving to a tree she knew so very well, she smiled thoughtfully. After getting caught in here once when confronted by Mr. Piggy, Korrena took great care to memorize exactly where all her traps were. Uncovering only one in warning to Aleeze, Korrena delightfully skipped right through, missing each trap easily. Heading into town.

 

Korrena took barely a moment to jump into the Kitchens. Smiling, she requested for something sweet on her journey. She was meeting someone and thought it would be a nice treat. Korrena was careful to not give away any indication of her thought as she thought of only the apple pie that smelled absolutely near divinity. She was handed two rolled up pies and a small sweet roll as even as she stood, her stomach was letting everyone know exactly how she felt.

 

Munching on her roll, she coninuously skipped over streets, taking her time as she enjoyed her roll and pie. Stopping by the Infirmary, she bent down and wrote in the sand. "Did you smell the Pie?! It was very good! I saved a peice for you." Drawing anouther heart, much bigger this time, she set the pie in the heart and then skipped off back into the woods. This time, Korrena took it all very seriously, and dodged under bushes, through the tree's, over the stream, double backing part of her path and continueing on her quest as she left various peices of clothing articles. It was now well past the last meal and the sun was getting very low.

 

"Maybe I should actually hide... " she thought outloud in a soft whisper. Doubling back towards the Inn that had the wonderful kitchen, Korrena climbed a tree only a foot  away from her starting point and waited on a high branch. Falling asleep as she waited with a smile of satisfaction on her face.

 

Today was a good day.

 

 

 

Korrena

 

As if she needed further taunting, the sun’s last rays, which had been clinging to the forest canopy casting Aleeza’s world in long, depressing shadows, released their last grip on the earth and plunged the two Wolfkin into the blackness of night just as they arrived back at the place where all four of her quarries had left from.  Not that the darkness had any impact on her vision of course, if anything they could see better now without the glare of the sun to blind their eyes.  But all the same, the descending darkness corresponded with the young woman’s mood.  Where before she had been livid, her mood was now so black, any of Owen’s attempts to lift it were met by savage snarls.

 

By now, the last trail, began early this morning and now night had fallen, was quite old, making it even more difficult for poor Aleeza.  Her nerves at the breaking point, she cursed under her breath as she set out at a jog, following the trail which was still clear so close to the beginning.  Having spent the entire day jogging, crawling, swimming and walking, her limbs screamed for relief.  It took every ounce of her self-discipline to strike a rhythm and ignore exhaustion.

 

Breathe in… two… three… out… two… three… Breathe in… two… three… out… two… three... Breathe in… two… thr-  “OH FOR LIGHT’S SAKE!”

 

The trail, which had already been a challenge to follow as her quarry was succeeding in leaving as few footprints behind as possible, stopped in front of yet another stream.  This one, like the last, had far too many conveniently placed low-hanging branches for Aleeza’s taste and though she knew what her target had done, it did nothing to help her relocate the trail.  “This is getting old.”

 

After a good hour of scouting the circumference of the area for possible landing places, she found a lovely note left for her.

 

"Good Morning! Can you catch me? I think not. But good luck!"

 

“Insolent wretch!” she smelled Owen’s amusement before she saw his smirk.  Glaring as if it were his fault, which it most certainly was- if he hadn’t sent her out on the Light-forsaken goose chase…  Forcing tortured limbs to do her bidding, she set off again.

 

Breathe in… two… three… out… two… three… Breathe in… two… three… out… two… three... Breathe in… two… three…out… two… three… whimper… whimper… groan... grind teeth… snarl…   “I am going to kill whoever this is.”

 

The trail led quite obviously straight into the very same rosebush she had visited earlier, only this tunnel was in a different spot.  A lone tear leaked its way down her cheek, cutting a trail through the layer of grime and blood.  The only up-side to whoever it was hiding in this rosebush: that this was over and she could go to sleep.

 

But alas, it was not to be.  Another irritating letter.  Even better!  Accompanied by the reek of old socks.

 

"Anton told me not to hide here. Said it was bad... So I'm not here. Try again!"

 

“Remind me to add this Anton to my list of people to kill.” she told the rosebushes, though it was Owen who laughed in the background rather than the inanimate plants.

 

Grrr…  The worst part was that if she had been paying more attention and had been less single-track minded to the point of excluding everything else, she would have noticed the set of track, faint as they were, heading back out of the bushes.  Her string of screamed curses sent a number of nocturnal bird-life and bats into the moonlit sky.  Even a number of wolves heard her howling and lifted their own mournful cries to the stars.

 

For the second time that night, she found herself led back to an unfamiliar house in the Stedding.  It took another circumference check to figure out which was the next trail to follow before she was led to a curious grove a little ways out of the Stedding proper.

 

Breathe in… two… three… out… two… three… Breathe in… tw- “BLAAARGHHH!”

 

One moment Aleeza was jogging not-so-happily through the trees and the next she was hanging painfully upside-down by her left ankle.  Another second for the day: she began bawling with wild abandon.

 

Having finally calmed down enough to return to her task, the moon had already left its zenith and was beginning its own descent.  The trail led back into the Stedding where it was criss-crossed by a hundred other trails, nearly burying it completely in some places.  Finally arriving at the kitchens, it once again led into the deep woods.  This wasn’t the hardest trail of the four, though it was by no means the easiest, but it certainly took the cake for longest and most irritating.

 

The leftover pie, long gone cold, did nothing for her nerves though her stomach certainly didn’t complain.  Now that every muscle in her body was furiously clenched, she was ready to resume powered only by her burning desire to strangle whoever-it-was’ neck.

 

Whoever-it-was happened to be found another hour later.  The sun was just peeking over the Mountains of Mist, casting the chill morning in an eerie, shadowy glow from which Aleeza’s wolfname was derived: Dark Sun Rising.  This touching sight and its enchanting beauty was completely lost on her as she found something decidedly more enticing- a simple, grey rock which she proceeded to chuck up at the sleeping form in the tree.

 

“WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU!”

Thunk

 

A rock hit the trunk of the tree, close enough to Korrena's head to see exactly  what had awoken her. Standing on the branch, Korrena grinned down at her. She was seething with pure contempt. Korrena was loving it.

 

"I see you found my notes and made it back here alright." Anouther rock whizzed by, missing. "You know, if you calm down a little you might be able to properly aim that stone. Seems to me you have the arm of a girl."

 

The next one even wider. "See? I hope you liked my path. It wasnt' too terribly difficult.. Ah, you got caught in one of my rope traps. Should pay more attention. See your anger is making it worse."

 

This time the rocks stopped missing, the first hitting her in the leg.

 

"AH!! WOLF WOLF!!! I'M BEING ATTACKED BY A WOLF!!"

 

 

 

 

Korrena

Is 'howling' with laughter. ..

 

:D Puns are great..!

Owen had been joined by Ice and they had spent a long time observing Aleeza’s efforts to complete this stage of her training. Ice was all for leaving and twice had caught the an interesting scent that she wanted to pursue further, but she had also wanted Owen to accompany her, something that he could not do until this cub had finished her lesson. Watching the antics of Aleeza, Ice had several times suggested to Owen that she needed a to learn patience more than anything. Owen was starting to believe that Ice was correct but had decided on a policy of non-interference and wanted to see just how far Aleeza was prepared to go with this.

 

Eventually, after much frustration and growling, Aleeza had only one more person to find, and this person was proving to be such a distraction that Owen had started to doubt that she would find her. Not because she was particularly adept at hiding, but more that she was very good at making Aleeza forget the fundamentals of the lesson and causing her frustrations to cloud her judgement.

 

Korrena had obviously taken Owen’s request a step further than was necessary, but at the same time she was showing up a flaw in Aleeza’s character that the young Wolfcub would need to address. In the Stedding flaws were something to learn from, but outside the Stedding flaws were something that two-legs would take advantage of and it was best to bury them deep or over come them before venturing out into the world. Today, Aleeza was allowing her impatience to rule her and that was not good.

 

Owen was on the verge of speaking to Aleeza when she did something that amazed him, she picked up a stone, more a small rock actually, and threw it at the trunk of a tree, it ricocheted off into the under growth. Owen thought this was going to far, but before he could intervene, Aleeza had picked up another small rock and threw that at the same tree. Owen glanced over to where Ice was watching this new development with interest and the two quickly exchanged thoughts. Standing up, with deliberate nonchalance, Ice turned away from the rock throwing Aleeza feigning indifference, then turned back and slowly walked over to her, before finally sniffing at the girl as if to get her attention. Aleeza, however was too engrossed in her rock throwing and so Ice jumped up and placed her front paws on Aleeza’s chest knocking her to the ground before pouncing on her and with long swipes of her tongue, started to cover Aleeza’s face in sticky wolf saliva. Owen moved over next to Ice and then called out to Korrena. “I think it is safe for you to come out now Korrena, Ice has saved you from any further target practice.”

 

Owen

 

The WhiteWolf

 

Ranger Leader

 

 

 

She was laughing as she was calling for help, but as this wolf pounced onto the girl.. Aleeza?.. Korrena squealed in delight. It was quite amusing to see such a large wolf take down the younger one to save her. Looking down she saw a man calling to her. Waving from her perch, she shimmied effortlessly down the tree and walked over to the man, looking down at Aleeza.

 

"For someone so young, she sure does curse a lot. I wonder way.. Her mom should have taught her some manners." She smiled brightly at the man, who she could only assume was Owen. "Thank you for saving me. And for the game. It was fun!" Unexpectantly she smiled, bounced up and kissed his cheek and then started to turn away. But before she got too far, she took a moment to walk over to the wolf, "Thanks to you too." Kissing his furry head while avoiding the flailing arms of his captive.

 

 

Korrena

A ball of sunshine...