Fear in the Beyond

[Mist]

Rumors where all over the Beyond, especially the MacSoue clan. Black Tooth was even a little scared! There have been signs-signs of the foaming mouth disease. There have been also rumors that 2 wolves of the MacDover clan have caught it, with 3 dangerous wolves in the Beyond, it was officailly not safe. Weazai was being very cautious, she was looking everywhere for signs of the sick wolves.

Nothing can save a wolf once it has been infected by the foaming mouth disease.

As the pack just rested down, a scent lifted the air. Either a very filthy wolf, or something bad was about to happen.

[Ailill]

The night was terribly cold and ultimately forbidding, and the spatkling white snow lay thickly upon the shadowed roric ground in a frigid white sea that sparkled with ferocity. Everything had become a desparing shade of blue by the thief of midnight, and not even the full moon and the twinkling stars above could lend comfort to the dreary evening; for today, dark clouds gathered like smoke across the sky, dropping their cold burden of snow onto the cold, cold land. All around them, there was not any birdsong or chirp of crickets—unless one counted the morbid hisses and kaws of the eagle-eyed ravens, who perched eagerly on one of the leafless skeletal trees in the barren land as they shook the falling white snow off of their silky ebon feathers. The boldest one stayed in front on the tallest of the sooty branches, looking down from their shaded perch on the sheer black cliffs to the massive wolves gathered in the frosty valley below them. Its darkamber eye slowly looked upon them with undeniable satisfaction, and even though only fiery green slits could be seen through the thickly falling curtains of snow from this distance, the raven knew he had right to be overjoyed. With any luck, he could feast today.

It was rather difficult for Jarek to not notice the cackling ravens landing onto their perch far up above him from the corner of his sparkling eyes. He wanted to howl with mourn and pain. In an ultimate show of lordship, Lord MacBloodback had placed his wide front paws onto his broad shoulders, raking his blunted claws into his delicate skin. All around him was the din of his mother screaming for his mercy, and the chieftain insisting his treachery for killing a fellow clan member. Jarek snarled quietly under his breath as the old chieftain recounted the supposed crimes that had broken an ignoble code. He had already said again and again; he was being judged for a crime he did not commit. Now, he was sure it would break him to have to repeat himself. Jarek watched his chieftain with cold verdant eyes, feeling the weight of his leader's strong forelegs pushing into the thick grizzled gray-and white fur along his shoulders and neck. He kept his head high for now, shaking his head to remove the crystals that were falling all along his whiskers and ears and coating him in a blanket of sheer cold despite his efforts. The chieftain suddenly drew his head up taller, shaking the snow out of his long, luxurious slate-coloured fur.

"Hear me, MacBloodback Clan," he growled, catching all of them in his green gaze as he swung about his head. Jarek's mother stopped her desperate cries, and the young wolf himself barely peeked out as he hung his head so low his whiskers touched the snow-covered ground. "A crime has been commited," Lord Bloodback went on, lowly and so insultingly slow, letting every word sink into Jarek like the sharpest fangs in the world were crushing into his neck. "Judgment is being passed, according to the code set down by generations past. And hear, my folk, my decision is this: Exile!" There was a loud chorus of howls as the chietain hopped off with disgust apparent in every movement of his muscles, back on all four legs on top of the snow with widened paws. Jarek tried to ignore the din, and turned to face his clan once more. From the very corners of his lord's mouth, in a quiet whisper came a raspy, "May good Lupus have mercy on your soul," from the chieftain. Jarek, stepped backwards, confused as cries of "Deception!" and "Disgrace!" rose into the freezing air, all following the wind towards the young wolf. Jarek felt hit heart race, the blood pumping through to every strand of dark hair. He turned and ran away fluidly from the sharp-faced cliff, trying to stop his high-pitched panting. Trying to ignore the howls. Trying to ignore everything. As if on cue, the black-feathered ravens flew out overhead, and Jarek could barely stand to see their jetty bodies against the gray clouds, threading through the sparkling snowflakes.

"I will find nobility, whatever it takes," he cried into the air, echoing among the cliffs and trees of the Beyond on that snowy, snowy night. It was a vow sealed by his sister's blood.

And he would never forget it.

Jarek's fiery green eyes shot open. He was panting heavily, his heart was racing madly... The Dire Wolf uncurled himself in his bed of ashes, barely blocked by the shillouette off an ugly graying tree with snaky tapering branches. He breathed lighter and lighter as he shook off the newest flakes of soot off of his head and back. "It's okay, looks like that fire mountian spewed during the night..." He looked out over the craggy volcano that blocked the horizon. The sky was rusty-red with dawn, and the stars were fading away in pink light! He had overslept for the umpteenth time this moon, and forcing himself to his feet made him cringe. Jarek had a nice sleep, but his joints were creaking from all of his travels. With barely a shake to release the particles of dark soot that had coated his luxiourious grizzled fur like a coat of dust, he was up.

Jarek opened his mouth and sniffed the air. He had been looking for a wolf clan to join for some time. He desperately wanted to go to MacDover, the clan whence his inspirator came from. Yet, the wolf knew it would only spell disaster. The fact remained that he had murdered a MacDover in almost pure cold blood. He had been following MacCreerthy, but just as now, he had overslept and the clan had slipped away from him. But with a tentative sniff of warmed air, he yelped with surprise. The scent of MacSoues, many of them! Jarek carefully went over everything he was going to tell them in his mind. Nothing could stop the cobalt fur on the tip of his tail from swinging as he finally took a bold step from behind the tree and started up a gradual rough and rocky slope. Their pelts were a mix of black, white, ruddy, golden... all shining warmly in the morning's light. Now, the Dire Wolf's fur along the ruff of his neck rose. He was out of any shadow, plain in sight of everyone, and he stopped, looking up at them with green eyes flaming and ears pricked. His fear became mortalised as a reeking scent in the air.

The morning light made Jarek's dark back almost glow like blood, and he felt more than ever that he was still in his haunting old clan. The wolf's tail stopped wagging, and Jarek's heart itself stopped beating as a sliver of red light stole above the horizon.

[Mist]

The Beyond seemed as if the world had just stopped spinning, the wind stopped breezing, the wolves hearts stopped beating. Everything was silent.

There, right before the MacSoue clan's eyes, was one of the wolves with the foaming mouth disease. The wolf was slowly stalking torward them, the alpha male slowly walked in front of the pack, a defense mechinism. The alpha male stood his ground, and is hackles stood up, he bared his teeth, and his claws were extended. He was ready to fight.

Weauzai was terrified, for her pack leader's and clan mate's lives were at stake. Weauzai turned and faced Jarek, but she seemed transfixed in the moment. She seems so...Not herself lately...Why should I care right now!? The wolf with the foaming mouth disease is now charging toward us...Wait...It is charging torward us!?

The infected wolf was charging at the pack leader, just before he made a move, a howl split the air.

[Ailill]

At once the burnishing crimson light exultantly spilled all across the usually drab greyed Beyond, and the pitch black soot looked like a sea of sticky dark scarlet blood. The frothy foam spurting out of the infected wolf’s jaws and drying all across its muzzle with a nauseating wooden look was turning a sickening pale cream as it lunged forth, lumbering on its ugly splayed dirty paws with an absolutely stupefied expression on its swollen pointed face. Jarek felt transfixed by the scene before him: with the land lit up to a blazing shade of carmine; the reeking scent of the sick wolf and its terrible scraping paw-steps against the rock that made up the harsh floor in Beyond the Beyond; the reek of fear spreading among the MacSoues, their glittering green eyes wide with undeniable horror at what came their way. The scraggly Dire Wolf with the awful disease ignored the pack leader’s sharp warning. Jarek could only stare with widened jade eyes at what was unfolding around him: but what could he do? He was a stranger, after all, and he really didn’t want to give himself a death sentence.

Instead, Jarek watched it all through his fiery green sight, feeling hope vanish straight out of his ragged unkempt form. It was a terrible feeling to be helpless, but Jarek found a way to sit down on top of the sheer ledge and watch it all with a racing pace. The sick wolf looked ready to bowl over their chieftain with its ugly forefoot, covered in Lupus knew what. He shut his eyes, and the black dorsal stripe down his back curved into a C as he tried not to think about the powerful leader running wildly through the starry portal of the Spirit Trail to good Lupus. Jarek’s gold-tinted ears rested against the furry stormy grey sides of his head, but a sound still trickled through, like sand blowing across the carmine land that stretched out before them, and the tiniest ochre grains getting stuck in the smallest cracks where the land had eroded away. Through the thick white fur in his ear, he could hear it, a long mournful call that sang the story of life and death.

Jarek could not help it. There was something so powerful, so inspiring in the lovely voice that was threading through all of this terror and hopelessness. He pointed his leathery ebon-sepia nose towards the still dark purple sky and—never once letting a glaucous slit poke through—he opened his mouth hesitantly and howled. His own gruff music was taken up in the chilled air as his sharp yellowed teeth were shown in the rosy light of the rising sun. He let his strongly ringing voice intertwine like the branches of a bare tree, and he felt like his passion was being spread to all wolves who heard his sound, his very soul, in a form that could be heard.