The sun shown down brightly through the forest trees as a mainly black wolf pup sniffed the ground in urgency. He was up for hunting when he turned old enough and he wanted to make sure he was like a pro, in hopes no one would have to train him. Oreo kept his cold nose to the grass and kept moving in a hurried pace. As soon as a rabbit or something was caught, he would show them! He thought to himself. Ears back he continued to do his hunting well above past the time the sun went down and the moon came up. It was then a cold wind swept into him. "okay, just go back the way I came." His voice was barely above a murmur , unless you were human than it was whimpers. He rushed into the direction he thought he came from. Bright lights cascaded a small portion of an area. Clearly Oreo was lost. "Hello??" He howled. The asphalt felt funny on his pads when he walked over it. His black fur coat and gray merle helped him blend in behind a trash can for the night. Only his white half cape ticking could be seen. 

The sound of the trash can being knocked over woke him up. He quickly pounced to his feet and looked around. A man with a pole stood in front of him. Oreo quirked his head at the odd object. Just as the guy moved toward Oreo, the pole was around him. "Thank you. I called you guys the second I saw him. I can't imagine a pup on these streets." A women's voice spoke as Oreo was put in the back of a vehicle. The odd contraption was removed from his neck and he shook his body to get rid of the feeling from having it against his fur. It hadn't hurt but it had felt awkward. "Yeah ma'am, we got the pup. Don't worry we will get him home." With that the guy left for the dog catcher truck and drove off without another word. "C'mon bud. Lets get you settled and see if you have a tag or microchip." The mans voice was soft but he still put the odd thing around his neck again. Oreo shook his head and tried to get it off of his head. His ocean blue eyes looked at the dog catcher with pleading eyes to let him go. He whimpered and yowled asking such and it was like the human couldn't understand him or something. He was put in a back room in a building with a lot of barking dogs. "Sit tight kiddo, I will be back for you." Just like with the women, the man didn't wait for a response and walked off. Oreo was free again or at least free from that thing he didn't like.  A dog across from Oreo started to chuckle and watched Oreo with ease. "You don't smell like a dog." Oreo plopped on the cold floor and watched the dog. "Where am I?" his voice came out stronger than he currently felt. "The dog pound. Seems you been mistaken for a dog." They both looked towards the door that had closed behind the man. "As long as you promise not to hurt anyone, I will help you escape..maybe." 



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OOC: hopefully this is an okay start.

Ember sat in the back of her pen. She had been brought into the dog pound three days prior to Oreo. She has sat in complete silence the entire time since she first entered the pound. Her nose twitched when a familiar, yet unfamiliar, scent passed through her senses. She became instantly confused with memories flooding her mind. The discussion going on around her confirmed what her nose was telling her. She however remained extremely confused.

Her history of her own kind, to say the least, is limited. She is also a wolf, but may not have smelled entirely of wolf at the pound. This could explain why the dog speaking to Oreo may have not noticed her as anything different than the average street dog. She was running with a pack of wild huskies prior to her capture. Hell, her markings alone screamed "husky."

However, Ember is pure wolf but she was separated from her pack early on in her short life. A hunter had taken down her mother and siblings in their den. With a bit of wits and luck, she managed to slip away unscathed. It had been months since she had been around her own kind. She almost forgot what they smelled like. She grew up dog in a wolf's clothing. She was extremely untrusting.

Her pen was to the direct right of Oreo's and she was unable to be seen through the concrete barrier between them. However, there was a small hole in the back of her pen and Oreo's pen. The hole is just large enough for one eye to peak through. Do they dare investigate?

She inhaled the unique scent of Oreo. She let out a low growl as her grey eyes were the only thing to be seen from the back of her pen. It was as if the shadows were speaking. She looked down and studied her oversized cream paws. No canines she had been around recently had paws even remotely the size of hers.

  “A wolf?” she asked out loud without thinking. It was the first sign of life she had had in three days.

Oreo looked around trying to figure out where the voice had come from. He began to feel dizzy while he searched so quickly and stopped to shake his head to get rid of the white spots he was now seeing. "Yes, Wolf." Oreo snarled back, unsure if the female had ill intentions or not. The black wolf crouched down but held his tail up high. " What is it to you ?" He asked  before sniffing the air. Usually that was the first thing he did in new places but his whole morning had thrown him off. He twitched his nose while searching for the voice. He bent down and sniffed around the edges of his pen. "Are you wolf or are you dog?" He plopped down in front of the hole and pressed his eye against it to see inside. " You have eyes like a wolf. You kind of smell like a wolf but you smell of dog. Why must you be so confusing?" His voice lost it's intensity, now it was more amused than anything. 
 
  He turned his furry face towards the dog that looked like a hound who had stopped talking to him. "So what is it going to be ? What do you want in return?" He asked then put his eye back against the hole. If his paws were still the same size as when he was born, he would try to fit it in the hole. "What do we eat in here?" He asked anyone who would answer. " I hadn't had my noms yet." He explained as if that explained everything. 

Ember came slowly out of the shadows, her dravite colored body rigid and tense. Her ears forced back hard against her skull.

“You eat when and what the two legged throw at you. We've already eaten tonight...” she paused. “If you're lucky you'll get the so called food. It slightly softer than rocks but taste stale and bland,” Ember huffed.

She thought for a moment before continuing. Unsure if she should warn the fellow wolf or not. No one warned her until she saw her friends one moment then smelled the scent of death after they were taken behind the blood red door in the back. Her friends never came back.

Silently she wiped a single tear from her eye. To be honest, she wasn't even sure if anyone else in the pound knew she was there. She had arrived tranquilized after going after local chickens and this was the first time she spoke out. She just stayed in the back of her pen waiting to see if she would meet the same fate as her friends. She wasn't sure what happen but the scent of death is unmistakable. One minute they were with her and next only death surrounded her, again.

She sighed and walked over to the hole between their pen, “you have bigger things to worry about than food, wolf.” Her stomach turned. Between the thought of her friends and the fact her system could barely handle the dog food, she got sick on the concrete floor. This has become her normal. It had only been three days but her already slim frame was near emaciation at this point.

Her body quivered from getting sick and then was forced to relax, she laid down on the cold floor. On the brink of exhaustion she continued, "what is your name?" she asked.

She wasn't ready to knowledge the hound dog. He felt useless to her. If he could help the unknown wolf escape, why did he not free himself long before now?

Oreo scrunched his nose up for a moment at the description of the food. His stomach growled and he quietly wished it to shut up in fear the dog catcher would actually feed him. Which was usually the opposite of his problem. He listened to the she wolf continue to speak. He laid down with his tail curled around him as he tried to imagine eating that so called food. 

"Ookay, so no to the fake food then, got it." He almost dry heaved trying to imagine it. "How do you survive on it or do you have someone sneaking you in meat?" He asked, his mind usually tunneled in on things if they were at the forefront of his mind. He glanced over at the dog who had yet to answer him and gave a snarl.

"Wake up old man and answer me, how do we escape this place?" He asked as he also tilted his head to include the she wolf as well without saying as much. He heard the sound of someone getting sick and had to assume it was the she wolf. "You okay?" He appreciated the information she had shared but hadn't said as much as of yet. "Me? I am Oreo.. Pretty sure my ma had a sick imagination. How about you?" He chuckled and watched as drool dripped off of his tongue and hit the concrete in silence. 

The dog barked at Oreo "I am not old, young annoyance. Maybe I was letting you talk with your comrade." He laid down with a huff. "Right, okay old man. Sure, so answer me before you drop dead already." He joked but the dog didn't seem to find it funny as he laid his ears back and snarled at Oreo. "Test me and I will find another wolf. That's all I need to escape this place but again only if no one will be harmed." 

"Ignore him, I think he is senile." Oreo went back to giving the she male his attention and interest. 

Ember forced herself into a standing position. Her body fought the whole time to stand upright. Her legs quivered beneath her as she could hear her mom whispering, within her mind, to never turn your back on an outsider and never let them see you struggle. Stay strong, stay confident and able. You're capable of anything.

“Yeah, I'm okay... Oreo,” she forced herself to sound confident and well off, “my name is Emberizidae, but I go by Ember. No one else is here to bring food but the man who brought you in,” she trailed off, trying to decide if she should continue.

Reluctantly she went on, “there is a door in the back of this room. It's hard to see, but it's there,” she motioned to the far side of the room as she hoped the wolf could see her, “I came in with others. They were taken by the two legged walkers & never came back. It seems like a dead end here, literally.”

Ember fell silent again, remembering the smell of blood and the faint sound of their whines. She continued to stand and shook her body vigorously to remove the visions and audible memories of the last moments of her friends.

Her anger boiled the more Oreo tried to speak to the old hound dog.

She let out an audible growl, teeth bared and rushed the front of her pen. She jumping at the gate and placed large her paws against the chain links, “Speak, Dog! You said nothing while my friends died the night we were brought in. What do you know? Why are you still here if you know where to go?”

Oreo listened silently. His spirits slightly rose as he knew for certain no one would come make him eat the fake food, as he calls it now. He watched as Ember motioned to the door. He squinted to make sure he could see exactly where it was and so he could focus on it incase a time came where he would need to go in the opposite directions. He pressed his paws harder into the concrete at the thought. 

His anger rose for Ember as well as her friends. They never had a chance, he thought to himself. "The one who brought me in lied then." He said through clenched teeth.  "If I were larger, he wouldn't be a problem anymore." He snarled and sat down so he wouldn't accidentally injure his paws. 

The old dog popped up as if offended. "I needed a wolf. a dog people are used too, they know how to react to them. A wolf? They are more so afraid of. Little red riding hood was made exactly to prove that." He spoke softly still and didn't bother looking her way. Oreo Leaped to the cage and instead of putting his paws on the chain links he just gave the old dog a warning stare. The stare his father used on him every time Oreo was in trouble. "Don't test me old dog. These chains I could probably snap if I wanted too. Prove to me your worthy." He had his shoulders haunched. The old dog just looked at Oreo as if he were bored. "When feeding time comes, lunge at the human and snarl. Then leap off of him, before running out  the door. Just open my cage." 

Oreo chuckled and looked at Ember. "What do you think?" He asked as he tried to take in her appearance, noticing she had paws closer to his than she did of the hound. 

Ember wondered what time of day, or night, it was. Occasionally other two legged walked the ward and looked into the kennels long enough to try and call the dogs to the gate. Ember had seen some dogs leave through a different door. When they left there was no scent of death. They actually seemed happy and relieved, but she didn't know what happen behind that door. She guessed to herself that Oreo would find out about those who visited himself. They seemed harmless, for the most part at least, but they were the confusing ones. She just wondered if they'd be in soon or not.

She shrugged at Oreo's threats toward the two legged. Though unsure of what they are called, she knew about the power of their guns. She knew how some caused you to never wake-up, like her mother and siblings, while the others used on her and her friends caused temporary sleep.

“They have these... things... they make huge clash sound, like thunder,” she tried to explain, “they have the power to cause your blood to spell around you, or the power to put you to sleep until you randomly wake. How do you suppose we get around that?”

Oreo stared at Ember like she was a cat speaking to him. "Those sound terrifying. With those, they would probably go after us first and you would get away" He swayed his head back to the old dog. Oreo glanced up then around him as if wheels were turning. "What's the chance of us being able to jump over this kennel???" He asked, waiting for anyone to answer.

The old dog wagged his tail and looked up. "We should wait for them to open them, then one steals the boom stick and runs and lets out the other." "Like food time ?" He suggested more so than asked. "I don't know about you, but I don't want food from here." Oreo said while showing a face meant to show he was grossed out.

 "It sounds like you haven't thought this through old dog."  Sounds from outside the door caught his attention and he stood up. "Are they coming back here?" He tried to sound confident and not afraid. Especially in front of a dog that he deemed senile and a girl dog wolf. He went to the back of his cage and began searching around his kennel as if he could find the answer to their problems.  

"I don't want to chance those so called boom sticks. We have to find a better way." He urged as he sniffed the ground. He went to the hole where he was at before, talking to Ember. It definitely wasn't big enough to escape from. If there was one though, maybe he could find another. "The floor, is there any way to break through it ? or maybe the chained kennel?" . The old dog watched him as if he were wasting his time but didn't offer any input. 

Ember didn't like any of the ideas they were suggesting. She wanted nothing to do with those loud bangs. She sulked back into the corner of her pen where she had been when Oreo was first brought in.

That was when she heard the handle of the main door turn. She was a cautious, but curious wolf. She went to the front of her pen, stood at the gate, and waited silently to see if it was the man or random lurkers entering the ward. She let out a slight sigh of relief when she realized it was the lurkers (potential adopters). It wasn't enough to keep her at the front of the pen, she went back to the rear where she felt safest. The on lookers were enough for her to not feel as if she was at death's doorstep. Nothing too negative seemed to happen while these two legged members were near by.

“Oreo,” she whined, “these aren't like The Man. They're different. Watch how they act and maybe we can make a plan for tomorrow?” she suggested, giving up on the dog. She didn't trust him. She felt like he was setting them up for his success and not all three of them.

Ember wasn't sure why she felt at ease with Oreo. Maybe it is because they were both wolves? The first wolf she had seen in months. He was naive of the world she had witnessed the past few days and that some how gave her a sense of life again. She probably would have been in laying in a pool of her own sickness by now. The ward was an active place and she had seen more dogs go to the backroom while she was there than out the front.

They were surrounded mainly by death at the pound, but for once since entering she felt hope.

The on lurkers walked down the row of kennels and began to peer into the pens...