Curse of the Fold

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 Night had finally fallen and the woman retrieved herself from the calm of the Pupil - that which she called the network of optic nerves at the center of the Eye. She strode out into the Eye, still-warm sand a reminder of the heat that would come as day passed. She breathed in the dry air, turning her gaze towards the stars.

 While the humid air of other lands might mean night was as warm as day, this land was stripped of any such joy. Here, the air was light, thin - no moisture remained to hold in the heat of the day and so it escaped into the sky.

 She walked to the inner lid of the Eye, sniffing at the curving stone wall that rose far, far over her head. The witch turned and rubbed her head and neck against it, scratching the skin there. After their travels through the sand, which had forced them to walk during the day when @Exalted and she had hoped to travel only at night, they had needed to recover before moving on.

 This place... it was a miracle that they had made it here without perishing.

 No, it was no miracle, it was fate. This was a hidden oasis. She had watched the trailing herds of camel, the gazelles even, who used this place as a resting spot before moving on their migrations. There were marks along the stone that indicated that somehow, the beasts had decided to travel into the cave in search of the water. Not all had survived, as told by the skeletons tucked into crevices along the underground rivers' edges.

 This was a place worthy of note. Worthy of claiming?

 Only with extensive planning. They would need to search for places between here and the moister territories of the Plains, outposts where they could pause their nightly wanderings to rest and wait until the light of day left once more.

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+2 Discovery Points

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 It was as if a blanket had fallen over the land. A blanket of cold. 

 It felt truly like home. 

 The albino woman exited the caverns into the true Eye of Osiris. The chill fell over her like a welcome cloak. Her bicolored eyes closed as she breathed in deep. 

 And then exhaled. 

 Eyes opened and she saw movement on the other side of the area. She crossed the warm sands and for once, she did not look like a soul in a landscape that was too warm. She was young but looked in her prime, sure of herself, ad practically luminous under the bright moon above. "How does this night find you?" The white wolf asked to her kin, gaze trailing along their shared features almost affectionately. 

 Andraste. The one who'd found her. The one who'd helped her find her purpose again.

 The only other one who was truly royal in her eyes. Who was truly worth following.

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 Movement.

 Her eyes flashed to the other shape moving in the shadow, half expecting it to be Scarecrow coming for round two. Instead, it was her kinsman, her first true follower. The witch pressed into the stone for a moment before stepping back and lifting up, claws scraping into it. “It finds me well!” she responded as her paws hit sandy earth once more. “And you?”

 The woman turned towards the other pale wolf, approaching with confident steps and swinging her head around to press her throat into the back of Exalted's neck. It was an action of dominance but also affection, a scent-sharing. She was confident the other would understand this, as ingrained in their instinct as it was.

 “There's much to do,” she said thoughtfully, eyeing the walls that circled them, eclipsing any hills or shifts in the distant horizon. “This place, especially its intestines, would be a safe haven for us.” By intestines, she of course meant to refer to the deep-earth temple they had discovered, lit well by day and slowly being marked by their scent to follow at night. The water was life-bringing and she had already seen indication that non-canine prey things came here.

 Her blackened tongue flicked out of her maw and about her lips, anticipating the future they would bring.

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+1 Discovery Points

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As though the mere thought had brought him back, the Scarecrow stirred atop his propped perch. He opted to sleep outside the rim of the eye, everything tucked under him as tucked could get. His body tried to preserve as much warmth as possible, and though he had initially gone to sleep splayed out fully, his body had curled him together like a smacked spider. Yet the sounds of voices dragged him from the thoughtless temporary coma, and dead blues were brought to the scene as auds latched to the conversations below. Eyes never leaving the sight, everything uncurled in pairs, first forelimb hatching the back while the other mimicked the last into play. While he was a stiff rag, he would move himself off the rock, and manage the few steps it took to appear off to the nearest side of the buff femalias who did their touchings to each other. He was jealous. Yet he could breathe, now. Or so he told himself. Seemingly only one nostril worked at the moment, as the other was clogged. He paid no mind to it, as he appeared to the women.

"A night for fun and food.." the Coy swung the greeting words low over the sands they stood, head low as he watched the pair enjoy themselves on this deceitful night. He could hear the stars laughing above, and he smiled with their glee.

Perfect night indeed.
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 The albino girl smiled, "It finds me excellent. Hell's night truly feels like home. I am one with the cold." She said, almost in a purr as the older woman approached her. The affectionate gesture was not lost on her, not in the least, it was a reaffirming of positions as well as bonding. Her shorter tail would give a singular wag before the topic of conversation would shift. "Agreed. We would do goo to explore it in its entirety." She was curious what all secrets the place held. Already she'd found a spot to bed down in, where she kept her two possessions... Hopefully she would be able to acquire more things in the future. 

 A new voice spoke to them and she swung her head around to see the strange blue eyes of the ugly stilt-wolf. He was familiar at this point but his company was not unwelcome. "For 'fun and food'?" The pale yearling echoed as she looked over at him. "Pray, shall you be providing both, Nosebleed?" She made a show of looking over his far-too-skinny form and saying wryly, "What a scant offering." Her joke delivery could use work but she was sure that the humor would not be lost on her interesting company.

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 Andraste could have purred at that - yes, the cold was delightful after the heat of the day. “We shall thank our ancestors for being nocturnal, far too often wolves nowadays will waste energy keeping cool.” How silly of them - to be awake at night was to be alive, fresh air filling their lungs as it drew from the west. Far too far for the sea salt to accompany it, but nevertheless it held a taste of something true.

 Another voice joined them and she looked towards him, his body a shadow in the night while theirs stood as beacons, ghostly apparitions atop the sand.

 “Ah, Nosebleed!” Andraste said pleasantly, eyes glistening as she beheld the tattered man, his ghostly blue eyes perhaps the prettiest part of him. “Join us, hm?” Her teeth gleamed in greeting. She listened to Exalted's joke and huffed a soft laugh. She so enjoyed toying with the man who had decided upon their meeting to attack her. He had done it to himself, truly, but that was besides the point.

 He was hers now and she rather enjoyed his pitiful presence.

 “What do you think of the Eye of Osiris now that you've been here a time?” she asked them both, leaning back on her haunches in the crisp sand and feeling it smush up between her parted toes. “Have you both found rooms within the catacombs to call your own? You are allowed them,” she would say, nodding even to the pitiful man, “So long as you know any claims must be backed if they are ever desired by another.”

 The tunnels beneath the Eye were wondrous and wide, leading into many different rooms with artifacts from the previous inhabitants. There were far more rooms than their numbers so no wolf should ever truly want what belonged to another, but if they did she did not feel the need to pick and choose who got what.

 Let teeth and claws make the choice.

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+2 Discovery Points

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"Perhaps offer me your waist as food so that I may grow to be more appealing to the hunger, Pale One." his hissing reply was brined with a salty smile that could have either been a harmless joke, or a gentle asking. Who would know? His mannerisms couldn't give anything away. He skirted his rear towards the albino woman, playful nips her way as a tail swept grains below, about. Yet the drool betrayed him a bit, two drops clearing the folds of his chops and landing off to his other side.

His face swung to meet the one he was fatally bound to, the woman who's name he'd never learned. She was merely The Red One to him, and there wasn't much more he had to offer her than a dipped skull and flayed ears. He would have offered to piss in front of her, but her question had cut off his squat.

"I remain outside. Catacombs are for the dead," he replied bluntly, not even aware that he had called the two women corpses. But then again, he had just also called Exalted 'fat' so really he was asking to be put there. "We need eyes outside of the Eye, and I will use mine." The women seemed to be vampires of sorts, only rising in the night times. The only reason he had entertained being up during such a cold time was to greet them and see if they required anything of him. Should he be dismissed, he would sleep.
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 Yes, Exalted grunted her assent to the matriarch's words. Why waste energy doing something when the night afforded it to you in spades? Exalted was not a wolf of the daylight but one of the night and of the cold, wild north. While she could not live in the tundra now, she would revel in what little taste of crisp, blustery winds that the desert gave them in the moon's embrace. 

 Oh, Nosebleed, his strange mannerisms and tone. He was as disgusting as he was amusing. The albino girl grinned, exposing her large fangs even more as she turned her head to him. "Come. Take a bite." She called back, tone equally as ambiguous. Threat or harmless joke? She too would snap at him, the sound of clicking lit the air as she would return his playfulness in kind. They were family of sorts here. Strange to the outside eye but Exalted enjoyed their hellscape and bonding. 

 Her eyes would track him then, as he made his way closer to Andraste. "It is a good home. Appropriate for those of our ilk." Outside? Hmph, she would bake if she took after the brown-coated man. "Or allies of the dead." The woman added to the stilt-man's words with a dismissive flick of her tail. His reasoning for staying outside made sense though, allow him to be the greeter. The watcher for those that would intrude upon their solitude. "I have found a den within. Strange pictures mark the walls. It is damp and cool." Just how she liked it. It was as close as she would get to the cold and snow here.

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 “Oh, children, My Children, how you quarrel so~” Andraste crooned, lips tweaking in laughter at the insults spat to and fro. As long as they did not kill or even grievously injure one another - what wrong did a little bit of, ha, Sibling Rivalry do? She did not stop them, only watched with amusement as her kinsman gave a joking offer - a threat? She was curious to see if her kin would hold up in a fight against the leggy beast.

 Catacombs for the dead.

 She laughed, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “Haven't you heard? We have all died.” She chuckled, “and come back, defied Death - given the chance to work for It.” Her lips covered her teeth again and she watched them merrily, eyes gleaming. “It is wise to watch above the Eye but do not let the heat sap your strength from you. There will be times I will need you during the night.” Not to keep her bed warm, no, but to come with for the mischief she planned.

 Her eyes turned to her kin, Exalted. Ah how fond of the girl she was. She was good, dutiful, savage as can be - just perfect. She spoke of a den of pictures, of marks on walls that denoted, what, the past? The future? How she wished she could read so she could know what the said. Perhaps she could come to the girl's room to see for herself this beautiful array of hieroglyphics in the cool and damp. “That is good. We should make use of all we can within the Pupil of the Eye, otherwise we waste it.”

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+1 Discovery Points

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He had heard Exalted's lofty response to his denial to claim the underworld's caverns, and he almost agreed with her. What was he now, but a thrall to the Alphess of the undead? But the adjacent woman had cleared it up, claiming they had all perished, and come back to haunt this realm. His corpse blues turned away from the women as he glared into the sands that glared back at him, his haunting whisper a scythe against stone floor. "Kelina..." His body shiver a few times in the blaring heat, but the Red One had corralled his attention back without even -

He brought those dead eyes back against her face, mortified she would want him for such heinous acts. What needs would she have of him?! During night?! "For- a hunt? Or a run? Or-" His lungs threatened to clog his only other working nare, as his panic reached fear. "Surely not do the sex, correct?" If there was a god out there that he hadn't slain and inhaled, he prayed they would ignore his murders and get him out of this one. "I left a meal near the other side of the stone- I wouldn't want another to take it-" He began to hastily see himself out of this whole rest of the conversation that was completely not right in the Coy's mind. Perception off, and everything, poor fellow.
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 The albino's eyes gleamed as Andraste repeated their mission aloud for the benefit of Nosebleed. Yes. It filled her with great pride and purpose... although it seemed as if briefly, the stilt's attention had waned. When it was brought back, he seemed... panicked? Had she ever seen him look so worried? The man always seemed to have some sort of air of control about him, even when threatened with death but now when Andraste promised missions to him... he was scared? Exalted frowned, unable to decipher why he would be so--

 "Surely not do the sex, correct?" Oh... The white yearling snorted and then burst out into laughter at his misconception. How hilarious he was! To think that such a thing would ever happen. He? Who was not even of pure wolf blood or even with an ounce of white upon his pelt? He? Would think that Andraste would want to bed him?. What a hilarious miscommunication.

 "You are quite amusing, Nosebleed." The yearling grinned at him and then glanced at Andraste with amusement in her eyes. Ah, how happy she was that they had kept him around. She watched him scamper off, not going to call him back if Andraste didn't. Perhaps he would want to die of embarrassment instead.

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 She let him simmer in the implication, eyes set on his as he squirmed and fled, retreating. As he went, though, she laughed. “Missions, my dear boy! Not the sex.” Despite him being, well, warm and on four legs - she felt no desire to breed with him for procreation or pleasure. Though, she thought with an amused sniff, he might be interesting to tease.

 Her eyes returned to Exalted and she grinned.

 How funny, their little pet.

 “There's much to do, much to see, before the sun rises and ruins our fun. I'm off, you may accompany me if you wish.” With a flick of her nubby tail (which had to be emphasized because of how short it was), she turned and trotted off into the shadows.

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Clearing up some of her older threads, exit!

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