~*Prairie Stalkers*~ | Lore Thread & Legacy Log | OK to Post

“They are not the largest, or the strongest, or even the smartest. But they know that there is value in friendship and family and, above all, in having just enough to get by.” I read this in a movie trailer voice and the writing did not disappoint. Really nice stuff! I love the little anecdote-scenes, they really bring the pack to life :>

Hmm, from the description of Vittorio’s leg I’m wondering if he was either born with it or was injured young 🤔 Either way, he sounds like fun—wholesome guy, mysterious backstory, what else could ya want?

Y.2, Spring

"Have you always looked like that?" 

Vittorio squinted, peering closely at Ghost. 

"Like what?" 

"Like..." he floundered for a word. 'Pretty' was what came immediately to mind, but he stopped himself just in time, because saying it out loud like that, in the skeptical and confused tone he had started, was bound to be taken the wrong way. "Like, your fur seems paler than normal." 

That was one way to put it. Although, for a young pack leader with the scent of wildflowers in his nose and a head full of romance, what he really wanted to say was: It looks like sun gleaming off of pure morning snow. 

Ghost shook herself, stretching and making a big show of slooooooowly leaning into the creaking of her well-used muscles and joints, strengthened from daily hunts and Storm's admittedly insane training regimen. "I don't know. Maybe my spring coat came in." 

"No...I knew you last spring...you definitely look different...." 

She rolled her eyes, straightening and giving a quick flick of the tail. "Anyway. Don't you have something else you should be paying attention to right now....grandpa?" 

Wolves cannot flush, but if they could, Vittorio would have gone noticeably pale. His ears flopped back, a grimace creeping up one side of his muzzle. "You take that right back."

Grandpa. Jeez. He couldn't even start wrapping his head around that notion. How did you even begin to think about your own pup being grown and having pups of her own with...whatever stranger she'd had pups with. He hadn't talked to her about it. It didn't really seem like any of his business, even though it did kind of hurt his feelings that she'd hidden it from him the whole time. 

...it was pretty cool though, having four whole grandkids. Maybe he'd have a family legacy of his own someday after all. 

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I got a Random Marking Applicator for rollover streak today and thought it'd be fun to chuck it on Ghost, since she was such a boring NBW. It did not disappoint. 

Y.3, Spring

A warrior has fallen in the pack. 

Storm had joined as one of Vittorio's earliest companions, and one of the few females he grew close to without ever siring a litter. Their friendship was a strange one, given their differing personalities: Vitto, outgoing and cheerful to a fault, stood as sharp contrast to Storm's surly, aggressive demeanor. But despite her combative nature, Storm had a good heart and a fierce dedication to her pack's survival. They surely would never have survived their first winter without her expert guidance in the pack's hunting team, her surefooted leadership through the prairie's frozen grass and the desert's sharp, stony crags. 

She left behind just two heirs, twin daughters fathered by the silver-tongued ally of the forest: innocent, gentle Frost, and sly, scheming Soot. 

She had been slowing down for some time now, signs of age and wear beginning to show. But she weathered it with stoicism, working the job she loved until the bitter end. 

Her fellow hunters would worry and wonder, in the days that followed, whether they could have done anything differently. Whether she might have been able to avoid the sharp horns of the pronghorn who tore the gash in her flesh, taking her down even as she shook the last of its life out between her teeth. 

But in the end, they knew that she died doing what she was born to do. She would have had it no other way. 

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Retired my first wolf today. She just turned 7, and I had hoped to let her die of natural causes, but I'm in desperate need of lair space, lol. When she got an open wound in the last hunt, I thought that was a poetic enough end for the old girl.

A fun bit of Storm trivia: She was one of the very first wolves I found in explore, and I kept her because she was almost identical to a wolf OC I used to have on an RP site. Even the personality fit. Here's a photo of her real-world doppleganger, that I used as a reference for the original character, and here's an adoptable I colored for her on the old site.