Hazy Shade of Winter

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Right on the edge of the desert is what I'm playing at here.

Uuuuggghhh... Why was her head throbbing? The tiny she-wolf opened her golden eyes groggily. The mid-afternoon sun shone down on her brightly, it was the only thing that she recognized. The smell in her nose, the scarce trees around her, the grass underfoot. Where was the sand? The palm trees? The... the..? She frowned as she tried to remember anything else about her home but all she was doing was drawing blanks! The harder she tried the more her head began to hurt until she had to close her eyes again and bury her head with her paws. Uuff... This was no good. 

Water. She was thirsty, maybe after a drink she'd feel better. She didn't know much about forests except that there was more water than in the desert. Okay, she just had to get up and find some water. 

The woman rose to her trembling paws, feeling like she was balancing on stilts rather than her own legs. Her head with its elongated ears was held low, as was her tail which nearly dragged the ground with its length. She could smell water not far from here, all she had to do was navigate to it. 

Her first few steps were unsteady but then she grew into a rhythm as she followed her nose to --what she hoped-- was salvation. Would her family be nearby? Did she have family? It was unsettling that she couldn't remember these things... 

The water soon came into sight in the form of a large lake. Her pace picked up slightly as she stumbled forward to the lake's edge and fell in front of it. While lying on her stomach she took several large gulps and then held her breath while she dunked her head under. It was cool and felt nice on her aching temples... but it didn't help her remember anything. With a loud splash she lifted her head back up with eyes still closed. Water dripped from her fur and from her sagging ears. 

This was going to be a day, wasn't it? 

@Feather
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"ANGEL! ANGEL, GODDAMNIT!" Kincaid yowled as he stalked through the trees of the place where they had first met. It had only been a couple hours, but Kincaid was beginning to feel rather frantic. That coyote was his, and it needed to stop running off all the time or he was going to lose his ever-loving mind.

What if he never saw it again?

"ANGEL, YOU RAT BASTARD! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!" he wailed, breaking through the trees and coming to face the sparkling lake. His tail began to wag as he caught sight of a tiny, big-eared creature lying there beside the water, waiting for him like the angel he was. And then he blinked, and the creature was a little too small, and a little too blonde, and very much not who he was looking for. Kincaid stared at it, decided it was a wolf, and began trotting closer.

"This is my lake," he said, but could not quite bring himself to sound combative when the other wolf was in such a sorry state.

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"ANGEL! ANGEL, GODDAMNIT!"

 Her very large ears twitched at the intruding noise. It was off a fair distance away. The woman knew that she didn't usually mind company but right now, with a pounding headache, his screaming was not making her feel any better. With an annoyed grumble she lowered her head and tucked her ears against her skull to try and dampen the atrocious noise he was making. Maybe if she just laid here, eyes closed, he would keep stomping around elsewhere to find this "Angel" of his. That would be the best case scenario. 

 Although, with her luck so far of ending up in this strange place she wouldn't bank on that luck. 

 For a moment there was blessed silence and she believed for just one moment, that she was okay... but then he spoke again and he was much closer. He wasn't screaming this time which was nice but his words in this moment were almost more annoying. 

 Oryx's eyes popped open and she let out a sigh. She really didn't feel like dealing with this shit today. The woman forced herself to her paws and turned to look at the squinty-eyed, sandy coated fellow. He almost looked like he was ready for the desert himself but that wouldn't earn him any brownie points here. Not with his words. 

 The blonde woman gave a sickly sweet smile, even raising her ears as if she wasn't prepared to tear him a new one for being so possessive of the goddamn water. "Oh? This is yours?" She looked back at the lake, her words held an almost genuine note of confusion. "That's weird. I didn't smell any markers here." She looked back at him, head tilted to the side oh-so-innocently before she added, "You must be doing a shit job of scent marking then, huh?" She lowered her voice to a cooing note as if she were being sympathetic and not condescending. "With all this water that's yours, one would think you'd be better at doing it." And then she left it off with a smile. 

 That's it, just smile through the pain. Even with a terrible headache and a dripping head, she still had time to snark. Especially when the first person she met here was already splitting hairs about who's water was who's.
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Oh, boy — all the wolf had to do was smile, and Kincaid already knew he was in for it. Bring it on, he thought, eyeing up the smaller creature with a sort of nervous anticipation. He was usually up for a fight, but especially now, when his coyote was missing and this stranger was sullying the waters where they'd met! Kincaid didn't even care about the lake, but he was willing to throw down over it, today!

But instead of the fangs, he got the tongue, and Kincaid's ears splayed flat on either side of his head as her tone grew less and less palatable and her tone more inflammatory.

"Well — I was out!" he argued, happy to split hairs all day long. "Hunting." Capering around the desert, really. It could sort of be called hunting, if you squinted real hard and tilted your head. "Anyway. Now you know. It's mine." But what, was he supposed to make her leave or something? The other wolf looked pretty bad off, and it was also much smaller than him, which appealed to Kincaid's better nature — or at least his desire to possess things that were small and cute, which meant he had to be at least halfway decent to have a halfway chance.

He waved an irritable paw at the water, because he would really have liked to argue some more. "You have my blessing," he said, quite begrudgingly. "Drink at your leisure."

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 After her verbal assault, she saw the lowering of the other fellow's ears. Splayed to the side, and in her eyes, properly admonished. Although he came out with a weak excuse. She sniffed and rolled her eyes, that was no excuse for weak borders! You had to own it! Walk around and pee on everything and show everyone else that it was yours. "And..?" She said in response to his reaffirming that it was his. He hadn't told her to get lost --yet-- and so she wasn't going anywhere. Although even if he did tell her to leave, she probably wouldn't have left... or she would have left and come right back when his back was turned just to piss him off. The woman knew that she was fast without even having the memories to go along with it. 

 She was expecting him to try to push her off the land, which wouldn't have been a difficult task physically. The blond she-wolf was as willowy as a twig but she was stubborn as a mule and wouldn't have stayed gone for long. In any case, that was the only ending she saw to this confrontation. Him growing angry and telling her to get. So, when he spoke next to give his blessing she was completely caught off guard.

 She stared at him for a moment, golden eyes blinking in disbelief at his acquiescence. Disarmed, she looked dumbly back at the lake before turning back to him. "I'd already drank... I was just trying to use the water to cool my head. I've got a pretty nasty headache, if I'm being honest." He'd taken all the wind out of her sails by not arguing back! Lame!

 The lanky she-wolf walked back over to the lake, dropping down to lie at its edge again with her paws dipped in this time. Maybe she could so her paws and then put them to her head? Maybe that would do something. "Hunting still isn't an excuse to let your markers go to crap, by the way." Said to get the last word in and hopefully get him just a tiny bit riled up.

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Headache seemed to match the look she had on her face. Kincaid peered at her, wondering if he was supposed to do something about this headache to charm the stranger into becoming the latest addition to his chattel. He didn't know how to cure headaches, however, so the best he could do was offer to hold her head underwater for her.

Fortunately, she decided to snark him before he could go through with that genius plan.

"What are you gonna do? Tell on me?" he asked her, coming a little closer. "I'm my own boss. I do what I want." This water wasn't his, really. Only when it was convenient for him, and apparently it wasn't right at that moment, since someone was arguing with him about it, but, well, he'd already kicked up a fuss. Couldn't just drop the matter, now.

"Besides," he said, "There's water everywhere. I can just go find more water and piss on that if this place is occupied." It was poor manners, he knew, to pee on strangers. Even if it was with the noblest intentions. He kindly refrained. "Hey, you haven't seen a little coyote around, have you? About this big," he held a paw a chest height, "with big, rusty ears and pretty blue eyes and a cute brown nose?"

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 The man edged a bit closer to her and asked if she would "tell on him". Her nose wrinkled, not out of anger or a snarl, but because she was holding in a laugh. "Maybe I will!" And tell who exactly? The god of the lake? Pfft, it didn't matter. As long as she was contrarian and barky. "Don't we all?" Unless they were beholden to a bossy alpha. Had she been before? The woman couldn't imagine herself as being someone's errand runner. That seemed like a sucky life to live. Blegh...

 Isn't that unsanitary? To piss on the water? Shouldn't you piss around the water. You know, don't piss where you drink and all that." She didn't know where she knew that expression but she did.

 After a moment of soaking her paws, she pressed them to her temples. The coolness of the water seeping in and making her feel a little bit better. The little blonde she-wolf sighed with relief as her throbbing headache ebbed just a bit. She felt slightly less crabby now.

 Her golden eyes had briefly closed while she reveled in the relief of her ebbing pain but when he asked about the coyote, the woman opened them so she could look up at the man. "Nope!" She closed her eyes again. "I haven't seen anyone but you... I just kinda woke up here with no rhyme or reason. Kinda weird really." And scary but she wouldn't mention that fact. One could probably get upset about missing relatives but she didn't know if she had relatives to miss so no harm no foul, right? "Is that the 'Angel' you were screaming about earlier?" Wait... coyote? Was it normal for wolves to hang around coyotes? She looked back at him, lowering her paws back into the water as the cold had seeped out. One of her brows was cocked curiously and with some amusement. "Do you often hang out with coyotes?" That was... pretty funny. Were they good companion? Better than stuffy wolf alphas?

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Kincaid found that he liked it rather less when someone else was playing the devil's advocate instead of himself. Would that change the way he did things in the future? Hell no!

“I'm sure there's already plenty of piss in any given body of water,” he disagreed. “Might as well be mine.” That way he was part of the setup instead of the punchline, which was always his preference.

He had finished sidling closer and was going through his best pick-up lines, but his enthusiasm was quickly waning on that front. She seemed awfully put upon, and like him, had been brought here seemingly from ether. And, most importantly, she had not seen any signs of Shiloh.

“Oh,” said Kincaid, heart falling. “Me, too. I was on my way to visit the kids, and suddenly I was here. And then, I was with the coyote. A couple of them, actually.” In his mind, he was already accusing little Lark of spiriting his coyote away. “I'm a quarter 'yote, anyway,” he told her, sloe eyes challenging her to say something smart about this. He was bigger than her, after all.

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 She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again to say, "Touché." She couldn't really argue that point. "I bet the fish piss in it all the time." It was just a one-off comment, a lovely observation if you will, to contribute to their piss-laden conversation.

 With her eyes mostly closed, she hadn't completely noticed just how close he was getting till she would periodically open her eyes during their conversation. Whatever. He didn't seem to be the attacking type and contrary to what her mouth would entail, his company was not-at-all making her want to go elsewhere. It amused her to have someone smart off right back and it was making her feel a bit better as well. He seemed just fine giving back exactly what he got and not resorting to fangs to solve his problems. Prickly as a cactus, that's what she liked.

 "Oh," She glanced at him. He seemed so crestfallen at that, the sandy woman felt a bit bad for him. If he was left alone in this world then that was likely his only friend that he had. Granted, it wasn't her problem but it was still a rough spot to be. Hell, she was in a rough spot... After he left wouldn't she just be all alone? Wolves weren't supposed to be that way, coyotes weren't either, from what she knew about them.

  Which really wasn't a lot.

 The way he looked at her after admitting that he was part coyote, she wondered if he expected her to spout off something about it.

 Hmm... Nah.

 "You want help finding your friend?" She asked after putting her paws against her temples again. He seemed to be a coyote magnet, after all. "I've never met a coyote before." Even though she was in the same size range as them and shared quite a few similarities with them. "And it'd be the least I can do for you sharing," Ahem. "Your poorly marked water." She gave a cheeky grin, pleased that her headache was really starting to abate.

 It wasn't as if she had anything else to do anyway. Maybe helping him would get her moving and help her explore a bit more of this place.

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Did fish piss? Kincaid had to stop and think about that a moment, so that he almost wasn't listening when the woman made her offer. His ear pressed toward her, and he eyed her up in clear suspicion for a moment before deciding that, if she had bad intentions, he would certainly be able to handle her.

"Maybe it's really well marked," he countered, coming over to sniff at the gently lapping waves, "and the fish piss taste is just covering up the wolf piss taste." Ha! Think on that, why don't you! But In the next breath he was agreeing, "Sure, you can come along." He hated to be alone, even if it was only for a few hours. "Hell, you'd fit right in. Ain't much bigger than a 'yote, are you?" And then,

"I'm Kin, by the way."

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 The woman narrowed her eyes at the water, considering this for a moment before she said, "Much be some pretty weak piss if fish can cover it up." She cast a glance over at him, at that. Ha! Checkmate. Of course, their piss debate didn't deter him from saying yes to the help that she offered and she was glad of it. Something to do and someone to keep her entertained. The woman began to slowly rise up onto her paws so that she didn't accidentally aggravate her headache which had blessedly become only a dull ache that was ignorable. She stepped away from the water and then at his comment licked her tongue out at him. "I'm big enough!" It was true, she would fit right in with a group of coyotes and no one would give her a second glance. Was that a good thing? A bad thing? Oryx didn't particularly care. It was just a thing. A thing that had always been.

 "Kin." She said repeating the name and committing it to memory. "I'm Oryx." At least she hadn't forgotten that much. Named for the stripe on her side, the same ones that her namesake had. She wondered if there was a desert around here and if any oryxes lived there. "Let's go then, eh? We're burnin' daylight." Not that it mattered if they had to hunt at night but it was a bit easier to find things when everything was illuminated.

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Kincaid looked aghast. There was nothing weak about his urine! It was just that it was in water and

He remembered that he had not peed in the lake at all, and had only been trying to rile the woman up. Instead, he'd riled himself up, and that was just no good. Kincaid cut a smile at the woman and agreed, "'Course you are," to her assessment of her size. Big enough was all relative, after all. Big enough to eat frogs and crickets? Sure.

Whatever headache she'd complained about, Oryx seemed ready to take on the world. Kincaid's tail wagged in relief as she set off, happily trailing along after her. As they walked, he told her a bit about Shiloh and his shiny stick, and how she'd know his scent because he smelled just like Kincaid did right then.

Hopefully, he'd be able to introduce them soon.

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