“W-wha--!” Colourless began to growl, her eyes pulling into thin lines as she prepared to try and escape this mad little woman.
Victoria pushed the huge head further down, and panic began to appear in the eyes of the wolf as it started to scramble at the ground trying to pull away. “No movements. None. No words. Silence and stay. Or I will kill you. Blink if you understand.”
The wolf stopped scrambling at the ground, and after a moment Victoria stopped crushing the wolf’s head against the ground. Colourless blinked rapidly.
“I admit,” Victoria said, conversationally even, as everyone looked on with awe, “I lost my temper. In front of my friend Amelia and others. I’m not especially proud of it, but there it is. You certainly didn’t help. Look at you! Snarling at the people who most likely killed the Grendel that was saving your pups for late-night snacks. Blink if you understand. Talking privileges are still revoked.”
Colourless began to blink rapidly again. From the trees several other wolves were slowly slinking out of the tree line, all of them looking wary and tense but not willing to do anything as of yet. They had come to watch this exchange and jump in if necessary. From the posture of their bodies and the reluctant manner in which they moved forward, Amelia figured they knew they would die if that happened.
“Despite the fact that I lost my temper, I am not incorrect. You were rude. When you meet new people, you hail them and learn from whence they came and who they are, that you might find if you are friend or foe. It is important that you too, identify yourself.” Victoria still had a death grip on the fur, and her voice was cold steel. Colourless for her part had all four of her legs pointing straight up, unconsciously showing her belly even as she was held down. “Blink if you understand.”
“So...cool…” Larkin whispered even as Colourless blinked rapidly.
“Now. You are a daughter of Skrilla, which means your rudeness and your affront to my honor must be dealt with. You, however, are several hundred years too early to be defending your claim. Therefore, you will call your mother to come and apologize to me, or to fight me to the death. Whichever she decides. Blink if you understand,” Victoria’s eyes were still wild, and Amelia guessed that even though she admitted to losing her temper -- she was still losing it. This, she thought, was the Hero, the Queen, Victoria. Proud, loyal, merciless to her enemies.
Colourless narrowed her eyes and did not blink. Low snarls at the idea of calling Skrilla began near the treeline. Victoria began pressing the wolf’s head against the ground, and after a long stand-off, Colourless began blinking, the liquid rapidly falling from her eyes as they began to water.
“Good. I am going to remove my hand, and you will lay there just as you are until she gets here. If you move, I will kill you.” Victoria smiled brightly as her tone lost some of its frost. “Blink if you understand.”
Colourless blinked rapidly, eyes looking around frantically as if seeking something or someone to help her escape her large blunder. Victoria removed her hand and a long moment passed as Colourless struggled to open and close her mouth a few times. It was possible that Victoria might have done some sort of silence effect to her that no one knew about.
Moments later the wolf seemed to recover, and with a great deal of difficulty, she began to howl low in her throat. It must have been hard to howl while she was on her back, and after a moment she managed to get enough air in her lungs and the howl really began. It was long, mournful, and carried through the trees.
“Very good. Now we shall wait. You will not speak Colourless, though I would have polite words with your companions if they desire?” Victoria turned with a chilling smile to the other wolves that had begun to approach and circle them. Most of them ducked their eyes away from her powerful gaze, some even put their tail between their legs. They remained carefully and politely aloof but made no move to engage her in conversation.
“So...soft…” Raven was practically drooling. When no one was looking Raven had wandered over to Colourless and lay flat against her stomach, grabbing huge clumps of white fur and pulling them through her fingers. “Elisha… c’mere…”
“Uhh…” Elisha eyed the wolf.
Colourless looked to be in some serious distress and even cast a look toward Victoria. Victoria looked like she either didn’t care or was purposefully allowing it to happen. Colourless lay still, she could do nothing about this dark-haired girl who was stroking her like a large life-size snow wolf doll. She couldn’t even speak to tell her to get off. The other wolves watched this with mixed reactions. Some of them trampled the snow from side to side in agitation, while others opened their huge mouths in anxious wolf grins.
“Well, okay!” Elisha seemed to gather her courage and before long the two girls were laying on Colourless, playing with her incredibly soft fur. Elisha was waving her arms up and down lazily like she was making a snow fur angel.
Amelia was smirking, wondering why she had ever worried. There was so much crazy in her party that nothing short of Wolves carrying sub-machine guns and piloting the old-style extra-dimensional fortress mecha with laser swords from the old anime era Gundam could have thrown her party enough to actually be a true threat.
War, emphasizing more of the crazy, had approached the downed wolf and was scratching her behind her ears stoically from a half-crouched position. He wasn’t looking at Colourless as he did so. It made it look like he sympathized with her plight but there wasn’t much he could do for her other than offer moral support.
“Do you eat Grendel?” Forsythe had approached a wolf near the tree line. “Can you describe their taste? Do you cook them?”
The wolves quickly backed away, shock on their faces.
“...Do you speak common?” Forsythe finally asked, not understanding their reactions to his fearlessness. It must have been a communication problem, he decided.
“All my children and their mates speak common, man-pup.” A voice answered.
All the wolves stilled and turned with an odd look in their eyes. Reverence and fear, Amelia decided. The wolf that entered the clearing then seemed to almost materialize like white smoke from the white and powdery trees. She towered larger than the other wolves by a meter or more, and like Colourless had a beautiful white coat.
Forsythe brightened, turning back to the wolf to begin his interrogation again after Skrilla confirmed communication was possible. The wolf in question turned his head slightly, eyes opened incredulously as it cast a side-glance at Skrilla. It was like the wolf was asking her why she had to do him like that.
Victoria turned away from the newcomer and walked across the clearing. Amelia didn’t know what she was doing, turning her back on Skrilla, until she reached her sword, pulling it from the ground. She then turned and began approaching Skrilla with the sword bare, dragging on the ground, purposefully scraping it through the snow within a meter or two of the cowering and prone Colourless.
“I am the Half Queen Victoria,” she said, giving a short nod and curtsy with the sword.
“I am Skrilla, daughter of nameless, Wolf Mother of the Skrilla Wolves.” Skrilla watched Colourless from the corner of her eye as she introduced herself. She took in the small pups that had wandered happily over to Raven and Elisha, trying to get the attention of the girls as they napped and played on her daughter’s exposed belly. “You are known to me. How may I help you today, Queen Victoria?”
“I wish for you to kneel before me,” Victoria said simply, a grim smile playing on her face. “We were twice-accused wrongly and then audaciously provoked.”
Amelia saw Aidan shaking his head.
She half-agreed. She didn’t remember the wolves being the ones that had provoked things really. Most of the wolves were looking at each other with shielded glances, as if they, too, remembered it differently. WAR was mostly stoic and the members of Shadow Fall were doing their best imitation of unreadable bad guys.
Idolia, of course, glanced around with utter confusion on her face. She probably sucked at bluffing games.
“I see. Perhaps you would come closer to me and say something as ridiculous as that to my face.” Skrilla, amazingly, opened her mouth and allowed her tongue to hang, as if this whole ordeal was hilarious and not any threat whatsoever. Her body even eased up slightly and untensed, a sort of casual disregard crossing her wolfish countenance. “You are so small I am having trouble seeing and hearing you from over there.”
“Good idea!” Victoria plunged her sword in the ground again and moved forward, standing directly under the jaws and gaze of Skrilla.
Skrilla slowly lowered her head, and opened her jaws. With a great deal of care, she grabbed Victoria around the middle. Startled gasps and the sounds of weapons being drawn filled the clearing. The wolves had all laid their ears down and began snarling, equally surprised that the Half Queen had simply allowed this.
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“MOTHER!” Colourless finally leapt to her feet, spilling Elisha and a disgruntled Raven. “Such confidence! She will kill you for sure! You must release her as it is a trick!” The wolf frantically ran forward, but before anyone could do anything Skrilla simply tossed Victoria high into the air, staring upward and waiting as if she were tossing herself a treat.
“HAHAHA.” Skrilla’s laughter filled the clearing. “I SEE YOU VICTORIA, YOU PUP! KNEEL BEFORE YOU INDEED. I BET I CAN TOSS YOU IN UNDER A MINUTE.”
Victoria arrowed straight down at her and caught her fur, quickly scrambling to the top of Skrilla’s back and getting a firm purchase at the nape of her neck in classic bucking bronco fashion.
“No way!” She proclaimed, looking like she couldn’t believe Skrilla at all.
Skrilla, the giant wolf, lowered her head and began shaking vigorously from side to side with such force that snow and dirt and even trees she hit with her side-stepping began snapping and flying. When that proved fruitless she hopped around the clearing, high through the air in great leaps and bounds with a speed that people were having a hard time watching. With a great leap, she and Victoria were gone, crashing off in the trees somewhere nearby. The sound of dull thuds and splintering wood echoed in the otherwise silent forest.
Colourless sat hard on her haunches as if watching this unsightly display had drained her of the ability to stand as well as speak. War appeared beside her and she didn’t even move as he began scritching her ears in sympathy. Nor did she move when Raven was in front of her hugging the huge wolf around the middle and nearly disappearing into all the fur with happy sighs and sounds.
“YOU WILL FALL THIS TIME!” Skrilla’s happy cry came from somewhere in the distance.
“No waaaaaaaaaaaay!” Came the shrill answering Half cry.
Silence carried on for a few minutes as everyone watched carefully for the return of the insane wolf and queen. When no further sounds came and neither appeared, Amelia was finally the one to speak.
“Well.” She started. “That was pretty cool.”
“Awesome.” Larkin and Fate said together, smirking at each other moments later and going into a round of jinxing. “You owe me a coke!”
“Mmm… So...soft…” Raven was still hugging Colourless with Elisha, neither one of them appeared willing to give up their spots so Aidan could feel her fur too. War stood watching the trees where Colourless stared dumbly, one hand of solidarity placed high on the wolf’s shoulders, patting them gently and reassuringly.
“Do you eat them or what?” Forsythe had finally cornered a smaller wolf.
“Huh.” Aidan finally said, appearing by Amelia. “That’s so weird.”
“What is?” Amelia asked.
“There’s no one here to watch us and tell us we’re all crazy.” Aidan finally said. “Everyone here is immune to our brand of crazy.” He didn’t sound at all pleased with that. Like he enjoyed it when people were awed and terrified of them.
“...that is kind of weird.” Amelia was forced to reply, though she was saved from any further conversation when Skrilla burst back into the clearing, panting heavily. Victoria hung tenaciously on her back, and Skrilla checked before grinning back at her.
“No,” Victoria warned, shaking her head vigorously.
“YES!” Skrilla immediately dropped on her side and began rolling in the snow on her back, really digging her shoulders and back into the earth in apparent wolf rolling bliss.
Muffled sounds of protest came from under the wolf but Victoria never shouted for help or let go. Finally, Skrilla stood upright and shook one more time, freeing the snow and dirt from her coarse fur before looking back with admiration at Victoria. “You have grown large, pup. Queen even! I am pleased to see you. I have missed you.”
Victoria, with a great deal of dignity even with her clothing mussed and her hair frayed in every direction possible, slid down the side of the wolf and hugged Skrilla’s leg. “...and I, you. I take it you were amused by my joke?”
Victoria stepped away, pulling twigs from her mussed hair. As she stepped she almost fell over, obviously still dizzy from her ride. She straightened with quiet dignity, nonchalantly reaching up and smearing more mud on her face as she pushed the hair out of her eyes.
Aidan started to speak, almost like he was going to point it out. Amelia elbowed him.
“Oh, is that what that was?” Skrilla’s hard look passed over Colourless, causing the she-wolf to literally freeze in place with sudden fear. “I had wondered why my daughter was holding a submission pose for you. Did she really insult you?”
“She did!” Victoria looked teasing now instead of angry.
“She didn’t know who I was! I used to carry her around when she was the size of my fist! My feelings were truly hurt. Then she was threatening my companions and myself. I decided that sometimes puppies need to know the world is a big place!”
Colourless was still frozen, watching this exchange with horror and dawning realization that she’d just been had fun with for a little under an hour. Everyone else was smirking though. Even the wolves were casting even more frequent side-ways glances at each other. Tongues started appearing out the sides of mouths. The wolf began trembling with visible rage.
“Oh stop. You should just sit quietly and be grateful it was a joke.” Skrilla turned a massive eye toward Colourless, suddenly menacing as her kind demeanor vanished. “If I had really been summoned here because of your idiocy you’d have to deal with me!” The back of her lips ridged in a hideous snarl without sound, and her eyes narrowed to slits.
Humming interrupted the stand-off. Colourless seemed to have forgotten about her fans.
Raven and Elisha still clung tenaciously to her side, looking like they were the pets. Elisha actually looked like she might be sleeping. Raven, however, was simply humming happily, parsing words together as if she were working on another song. The hackles on the big wolf rose slowly as she peered down at Raven. She slowly moved forward toward her daughter and peered down her muzzle.
“Are you not afraid of me small-thing?” Skrilla asked with some surprise when there was no reaction to her teeth inches away from Raven's head.
Raven looked up, surprise on her face. Her surprised face slowly melted into a grin, indicating that she was just kidding about the look of shock. Then she began to sing. Just a few opening notes to a song that she must have been working on, or maybe even just daydreaming about.
“We are Invincible. We don’t bend, we don’t break at all…” She closed her eyes and fell deeper into Colourless’ fur, much to the startled expression of the wolf. She almost seemed to disappear into that fur once more. A ripple of force, a shimmer of the air like a heat mirage had suddenly swept through the small area.
Skrilla startled badly and took a step back.
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Local Announcement - Grandmaster Bard Song “Invincible”
The power of this verse charges wolves and people with excitement. Not a complete song.
5% to Morale for 10 minutes
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Before anyone could really react to the announcement, a shout caught everyone off-guard. Especially considering the source. Even Raven paused, startled that such a protest had arisen.
“Are you kidding me?” Forsythe glared upward, and after a long moment stalked off into the woods, surprising everyone.
Hunter even stared wide-eyed after his back.
“What was that about?” Amelia murmured within earshot of Aidan. She couldn’t use party chat to ask about Forsythe’s behavior because, well, Forsythe was a part of party chat.
“Mad at Raven for something?” Aidan asked, his eyes held a hint of confusion but he didn’t look worried. Raven hadn’t bothered to keep looking, but Amelia saw that her eyes were turned to the right toward the woods as if she were still aware of his dramatic exit.
“Forsythe, what’s wrong?” Hunter asked over party chat. Amelia and Aidan shared a look and grinned. It somehow seemed fine that Hunter could ask over party chat. Like she had special permission.
“They don’t eat the Grendel!” Forsythe exclaimed. “No one can tell me what they taste like. I’m going to go find one, no, fifteen. We’ll start with basic filets, then stewing. I’ll tenderize the meat with a rock or something. This place is awful.” He sounded genuinely upset or disgusted.
Aidan just started laughing, gathering strange looks from the wolves. They mostly had started avoiding him, though miraculously the Transients and the wolves were circling each other and engaging in small conversation. The wolves, obviously never had permission to engage the Half or any Resident in conversation, were almost as curious as everyone was about them.
Lidless eyes followed Forsythe into the trees. “He is going in a dangerous direction,” Skrilla announced.
Victoria nodded in agreement but neither moved to go after him.
“He’ll be fine.” Hunter was grinning dreamily after him again. Apparently she was still not over being amused at his outburst once she discovered it was simply about food.
“Will friend Forsythe really eat the Grendel?” Victoria wanted to know, suddenly looking concerned. “Is it customary, yes, to eat your enemy for strength?”
“Oh no.” Amelia pulled her hood up and started to turn away as she answered. “Forsythe just wants to know if they taste good.” There didn’t seem to be any real way to explain it without making it seem less weird, so she didn’t bother.
Skrilla and Victoria both cast startled glances at the trees where he had disappeared.
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Local Announcement - Grendel Hunt Level 1 Complete
The Grendel have been thinned and culled in a ritual designed to bring friends and allies closer together. In addition to the obvious benefits of the Grendel being thinned, strong bonds have been formed and the Wolves of Elysium have joined the allied forces under the command of the Hero, Queen Victoria.
Reward: Skrilla renews old alliance and pledges fealty to Queen Victoria -- the Wolves of Elysium(Skrilla) are now non-hostile/friendly to Transients and Residents.
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Local Announcement (Amelia) Old Level 395/New Level 405
Level up x10:
Changes: Counters and Reflects will consume 15% less mana when successful. Wisdom/Intellect/Stamina increased by 2%
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Amelia was pleased that she had put in so little effort and yet been rewarded with huge gains. She was so distracted she almost missed Skrilla and Victoria speaking together once more.
“Should not someone go and get him?” Victoria whispered. “He must not continue in that direction.”
“It is as you say, yet he is already gone from my sight,” Skrilla replied. Her eyes were dangerous.
“It will all work out, I am sure. Friend Forsythe is formidable.” Victoria said. Her voice betrayed her thoughts though, and she didn’t sound so sure.