It had been a couple days now since Elcid had been unceremoniously transported from some ancient laboratory only to be dumped in the top of raging rapids to then be tossed off of a waterfall. It had been one hell of a day, and now she was feeling the consequences of the situation. Thankfully, she had been found by a considerate and curious fox - Dos - and a nurse to help put her pieces back together - literally. She had been banned from using her injured leg for anything at all. There was to be absolutely no weight placed on the appendage that had been splinted and cared for. She (reluctantly) took the offered herbs and medicine as they were given to her and though she hadn't started to feel better, she was grateful for the compassion and selflessness of those who had stumbled across her.
Dos had set her up in the ruins after helping her navigate there from her original place of healing. It wasn't near enough to cause her family any sort of concern and Elcid still remained oblivious to where Dos might actually live, but it was comforting to know that at least she was somewhere nearby should she need help. She also felt devestated with her injury. She always needed help her whole life. She was the runt and the unfavored daughter of her parent's last litter. She was cursed with a dark affliction that would eventually kill her. She was never well, but had gotten decent at making others believe that she was.
Until she fell off of her medicine. It was hard to pretend then. No matter what sort of food was brought to Elcid, she couldn't stomach it. She made an effort to eat and would sometimes successfully manage until she was left alone. Then, when she was sure she was alone, she'd manage to hobble her way out of her hidey hole and deposit her dinner in a hidden corner to be covered up by dirt and foliage. She didn't want Dos to know the truth of her real condition. The broken leg and fractured shoulder were chump change compared to her real illness.
It was about mid-day as Elcid laid within her makeshift temporary home. She rested as the doctor ordered, and felt miserable about herself. No, not miserable. Elcid was scared. Would she ever see Zane again? Would she be forced to suffer the fate of her illness after hardly living her young life? And what of the evil creature who had put her into this position? Would she ever find any clues about who had done this to her? Her mind swam with the questions as she pouted in her den, her ears perking only because she heard rustling outside. Had Dos come to visit her again?
Dos bounding forward happily, tail waving and paws sweeping in the fashion of someone completely unconcerned with hiding herself. The twin-tail was carrying her latest catch in her mouth - a decent sized rabbit. It had been a hard one to catch for sure with all it’s twisted and the occasional twisting spring but she’d managed to catch it before it could retreat into its burrow. The burrow that she’d of course, carefully sniffed around for the scent of milk - she’d rather not orphan an entire litter of bunnies both because it would make her feel bad and in the practical sense that if they died, there’d be less food around when it got cold.
Her mother had been… well distressed was putting it lightly when she came home and announced that she’d made a wolf-friend who she was moving in-nearby. Her sister had the moved forward to sniff her for any head-injuries that could possibly be interfering with her train of thought. It had taken a lot of convincing for her family to agree to watch her talk to Elcid from a distance and reassure themselves that her friend wasn’t going to snatch her up like the rabbit dangling from her jaws. As it was, though her mother had come to accept that Dos had made a friend (“Why couldn’t you have brought a vixen home,” she’d sighed, licking Dos’ ears fondly); Uno still seemed suspicious.
Well, she’s a big sister and worrying is her job, Dos reasoned to herself, pressing through the brush to see Elcid. Immediately her tail wagged a bit and she danced forward. She dropped the rabbit happily.
”Hiya Elcid! Look what I caught - all by myself too, not shifting,” she boasted immediately. It was nice to be home and it was nice to have a friend to tell all about her catches - Uno was getting tired of listening to Dos rant about her hunting attemps.
Sure enough, it was Dos who arrived through the underbrush and with a present at that. "I was hoping it was you." Elcid welcomed warmly as the fox entered her little hidey-hole. She eyed the rabbit in the fox's jaws and perked her ears up at the sight, straightening up her body a little more in her lay but remaining sure to not put weight on her injured limb. Her tail thumped against the ground with excitement as Dos dropped the rabbit and proclaimed that she had caught it all on her own and without shifting. She nodded her head with an encouraging smile, "Good job!". She sniffed at the rabbit, but couldn't help catching other scents on Dos as well. Dos had told her before that her family lived here, but with the various odors, she wondered just how large her family was. Elcid's own family was large, but she didn't know the majority of her family and siblings. Being the last litter her parents had (and a runt at that) she was largely shunned, then sent away to live with Zane and his mother not long after her birth.
Elcid wiggled forward to reach towards the rabbit, then hesitated in grabbing it to eat. It would be rude to eat before Dos. She was the one who had caught it, and plus it would give her an excuse not to eat immediately in front of Dos only to throw up shortly after. "You should have the best bits since you caught it." she encouraged. Then, to quickly try to encourage Dos from refusing to eat first, she tried to change the subject. "Just how big is your family? Do you think I can meet them one day?"
Dos puffed out her chest a bit at the praise – rabbits were fast and hard to capture for even the swiftest hunters. And that was ignoring their tendency to bite or scratch 11when they were properly trapped. She remembers her mother coming home with a bite from a rabbit once – nasty looking and on ts way to infection. That had been among the vixen’s first injuries they worked with and they’d swiftly decided they would simply not get bitten like that.
”I don’t wanna be rude – and I caught it for you,” the young vixen encouraged. She wanted Elcid to heal quickly and the best way to heal was to make sure the other’s body had all the fuel it needed. Dos tore a hind-leg from the rabbit, settling down and pushing the rest of the carcass towards her friend. Rabbit hinds were heavily muscled and full of meat – her favorite part though she left the other for her friend to enjoy.
She crunched on the rabbit’s foot for a moment, savoring the woody flavor as the wolf inquired on her family.
”Oh we’re pretty average,” Dos said easily. Well, they were average for a family of foxes anyway. She knows wolf-packs were much, much bigger than the little leash she was part of. ”It’s me, mom and my sister Uno. ‘unno what happened to dad but mom’s been great. You can meet ‘em soon! Mom believes me that you’re friendly – Uno doesn’t but she doesn’t believe anyone’s friendly until they prove it so don’t worry about her.”
She rolls her eyes a little in a fond fashion – her older sister’s paranoia exasperated her sometimes but she understands that Uno just wants to keep their little family safe. Dos honestly hopes her sister’s calling stays faint – she wants her to wander and explore the world yes but she wouldn’t deny that the idea of her sister being around to greet her when she comes home is a reassurance.
She looked up with her twin tails wagging, fur rippling faintly with suppressed excitement, ”What’s your family like?”
Dos was polite and refused Elcid's request to eat the best bits first. Inwardly she was frustrated, and mentally whispered to herself drat! but outwardly, Elcid remained with a kind smile on her face and in her expression. Instead, Dos took a leg and the rest was pushed forward towards her. Her eyes shifted down to inspect the carcass, the fresh meat smelling heavenly to her. Her stomach, on the other paw, felt like it was doing flips within. Elcid pulled the rabbit towards her, nosed it to try and rip a piece free, and let it all fall from her muzzle, unable to eat. She needed to tell Dos the truth. If she ate the rabbit and ended up returning her stomach's contents, it would be a full out insult to Dos and her assistance. Downright rude. She couldn't be as such towards her new best friend.
Instead, Elcid listened closely to Dos, her tail wagging as she was told she'd be able to meet her family soon. It gave her something to look forward to, and provided more reason for Elcid to share the truth of her condition with Dos. The healer had disappeared, but Dos - she felt - was here to stay in her life. "Your sister - Uno? Right? - will see that not all wolves are bad. There's good and bad wolves just like there's good and bad everything else." Or maybe there wasn't bad foxes and maybe instead she was just being assumptive. "Is there any sort of tradition for meeting a fox family? I'm afraid I don't know anything about foxes." She wanted to make sure that she was prepared, and if it meant figuring out how to bring a gift or offering, she would do it.
When Dos asked her about her family in return, Elcid shared freely the details of her parents, though left out the sickness. "I have a large family, but it isn't like yours. We don't all stay together - or at least I couldn't. I'm the third litter from my parents and the smallest of my siblings. My oldest siblings had already grown and left and my older siblings were the youth of the pack, mostly hunting and marking territory. When I was old enough, about four months old, I was sent off to live with Zane and his mother Oracle. She raised me mostly, until the evil monster trapped me here."
There was a short pause, then Elcid spoke up again but this time with a frown across her muzzle. "I have to tell ya something Dos. I was sent away because... I'm very sick. Oracle and Zane were the only ones who knew a way to stop the progression. Without it... well I can't eat. My gut twists and anything that goes down comes back up. I appreciate the rabbit but... I can't eat it. I'm sorry you went through the trouble for me." She reached down and nudged the rabbit back towards Dos, encouraging her again to eat the best bits so they didn't go to waste. "That's why I need to find Zane or Oracle. If I don't find them..." She wasn't going to say what would happen to her.
Dos wagged her tails lightly in agreement as she chirped in agreement, ”I know - you wolves are kinda scary sometimes ‘cause you’re so big you’ve been super nice to me!"
Well that and the fact that wolves had been known to chase little foxes like herself down and dig them right out of their dens, but since Elcid hadn’t tried to eat her yet, she deemed the she-wolf to be a Good Wolf.
”No traditions that I know of," Dos remarked, tilting her head as she tried to think. Admittedly, Dos hadn’t met many other creatures - she was still young and spent most of her time playing with Uno or following her mother around. She gave herself a little shake of her fur. "All I can think of is bringing a snack to keep the mood calm. Fed predators don’t hunt little guys after all!"
An important life lesson that her mother had ensured that both Dos and Uno understood very well. Navigating the world of predators and prey became a lot less complicated when you remembered most simply that a predator who has eaten isn't likely to then eat you.
Dos listed with perked ears as Elcid explained how wolf families worked - they were so huge!. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to have so many more siblings - she and her twin sister were the only kits her mother had had, never taking enough of an interest in another todd to make more. And for that Dos was grateful, she liked their little family - the idea of not having to vy with her brothers and sisters for her mother's attentions. And having such a small family, her mother wouldn't mind nearly as much when she came to visit as an adult.
"A monster? Dos gasped. Her new friend was becoming cooler and cooler by the second!
Her joyous excitement drained away only a moment later, the questions she wanted to ask about the monster dying on her tongue. She listened with internal horror at the revelation that her friend was sick. Super sick even... probably sicker than Dos had been when she caught a cold for playing around in the cold rains. The twin tailed fox looked at the somewhat disassembled rabbit laying at their paws feeling a light twinge of guilt. Watching someone else eat and knowing that you couldn't surely wasn't fun - she hadn't meant to put the she-wolf in that kind of situation.
Dos puffed herself up, even as she dragged the rest of the rabbit closer to herself.
"Then we'll find them," Dos declared, as if it was a fact of life itself and the world would bend to fit her statement. Her determination sent more sparks hopping from her pelt, drawn quickly towards her amber-bead. "It's a quest now!"
'Then we'll find them' We? Elcid wasn't necessarily surprised that Dos had offered to help her. Rather, she was surprised that the fox trusted her so much already to go on an adventure with her. Of course, there were other priorities to attend to first, like finding something to bring to Dos' family when she met with them. Elcid hoped she could summon up the strength to chase down something worthy for the foxes. She watched as the sparks jumped across her friend's coat, happy to see her so excited. "A quest it is." Elcid confirmed, pushing herself up into a sit and holding out her paw to bump it into the fox's, solidifying her accepting Dos as her companion with a 'shake'. Her paw came back down to help balance her as she resumed her sit.
"I propose a second quest after we find Zane and Oracle." she started, some energy returning to her as inspiration and motivation struck her. "We should find this monster. This bad guy. Whoever it was who did this to me. We should ask him why, and how. I don't know how yellow smoke made me go to a different world, but I want to learn. I want to find out. Oh, imagine the trinkets I could make with such an enchantment!" Elcid coughed and when she did, a bit of black spittle escaped her and landed on the dirt at her paws. Elcid gasped after she recovered from the cough, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I hope I didn't get any on you." She moved her paws quickly to cover up the spittle. "Hey, do you think maybe you can help me find something for your family? I don't know if I'll be able to catch anything on my own. With your skills helping me, though, maybe I'll have a chance. I was thinking maybe something pleasant like a young hog?" It didn't occur to Elcid that while she may be comfortable hunting such an animal, her fox friend might not be.
Dos didn’t find much weird with her implicit trust of the she-wolf - in her mind, Elcid hadn’t tried to eat her and therefore, they were friends and of course; friends trusted each other. Besides, she’d never heard of a creature willfully turning down a perfectly good rabbit when they’re happy and healthy already. Her tails wagged even harder when Elcid confirmed the status of their quest - great! This would be the best way to see the world! Chipperly, she bumps the she-wolf’s paw with her own with a happy panting.
”Yeah we should! The monster could be chasing someone else,” Dos agreed without hesitation. If the monster was a bad-guy, then they were honor bound to take him down for the good of others! And if he wasn’t, then Dos was reasonably certain they could learn some cool things from them. She opened her mouth, eager to put forth her own ideal before freezing as her friend started coughing.
Fire-amber eyes widened with concern, absently shaking the small bit that landed on her paws to the ground. She ducked her head, sniffing curiously at the black liquid before wrinkling her nose - yuck! It didn’t smell like anything Dos had ever encountered before which she supposes was proof of magic being involved.
”It’s alright,” Dos said easily, mostly unbothered. She was of the adventurous sort, always willing to roll in mud and chase bugs at a moment’s notice. "Yeah! Let’s go on a hunt! But ah…"
Dos considered the idea of hunting a wild hog given how much smaller she was than her friend. After a moment, she flicked her thickly fluffy ear dismissively and the orb around her chest crackled loudly. Within moments, she began rapidly growing in size, her fluffy tails mending together once more until what stood before Elcid was the black and fire wolf-form from before, leggy and still a bit smaller than Elcid still but a proper wolf all the same. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth proudly, wagging her tail harshly.
Elcid's tail wagged as her friend agreed to go on a hunt with her. When the fox's orb around her neck started to spark and crack, she leaned back. She didn't want to get shocked and she wasn't exactly sure just what Dos was doing. Until she was done, that is. Elcid had seen Dos change into a wolf once before, and yet when she did it again, Elcid was still amazed. It was so cool how she was able to shift into something much larger than herself. Elcid's tail resumed wagging happily to match her now-wolf friend. At her prompting, Elcid stood on all fours and after ensuring she wouldn't lose her balance, she stepped forward and lead Dos out of the hole she called her home.
"I heard some pigs squealing last night out thisaway." She paused outside of the den and waited for Dos before pointing towards the north. "I bet we can find some tracks or dig spots if we look out there. I'll lead the way. You watch my back, ok?" Elcid made a fair tracker considering her age, but hunting was another story entirely. She made slow progress as she moved the two of them through the underbrush, her nose constantly working the scents as the winds shifted directions around her. Every few paces, she looked back over her shoulder to check on Dos and make sure she was still behind her.
It didn't take them too terribly long to come across an area thick with mud and roots. Elcid slowed to a pause and whispered to Dos, "Be careful. This looks like a spot they'd like to be. Help me take a look around for some tracks, could you?" Then, carefully, Elcid crept out into the clearing made of mud. She was looking for signs of pigs digging and rutting up the mud and muck. She also looked for their tracks to see if she could identify their approximate sizes, or how many there were.
Special: Elcid is looking for pick tracks/dig marks!
Success: She spots them and motions for Dos to check them out
Failure: She doesn't spot any tracks. Maybe Dos finds some?
