Searching and finding(tagged)

[Argus]

Chhaya had left Kiran further back with the instructions to wait until she came back to move. She trusted that he would do as she said and now she was just looking. She didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but it didn't really matter. She had found a place that seemed interesting enough, all death and decay. She wasn't the type to particularly enjoy death but that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy it. Maybe it was just her. She is evil but she has no strong feelings in the matter. She just found being evil was much more entertaining than being good or neutral and having to play nice.

She glanced around and noticed how strangely quiet it was. There weren't any birds or other animals making nest or homes here and that struck her as odd. I wonder what happened here. Anything with this much desolation must have had a horrible accident. She knew that even in death there was life but that didn't seem to be the case here. It was still and the air was tense, as if waiting for something. She shifted, uncomfortable with the feeling. I wonder if I'm the only one here. It would be kinda nice if I was the only one alive. Then she realized that it would be extremely boring with no one around to mock or listen to.
Aquaria

[Aquaria]

Finch found himself in a very desolate part of the valley. The trees here were dying, decaying, as if the life in them had just vanished. Their bark lacked the proper color making everything seem so gray and dreary here. He had never stumbled across this place before and he almost wished he hadn't. It was almost saddening seeing the land like this. He wasn't sure what would have happened here for it to look so bad but he had no desire to find out. It was probably something just as depressing as the area looked.

His pace quickened as he weave through the dying trees. He had been on the hunt for prey but as soon as he hit this place, the scent of any other animals just disappeared. It was as if the other wildlife knew this place wasn't safe. It was very unnerving being here, honestly. So he continued on his way, hoping to get away from here as quickly as possible. That's when a new smell hit his nose, making it twitch ever so slighty. There was someone else here. He stopped dead in his tracks, crouching down as he looked around himself. It was then that he spotted another figure in the distance. He imagined it was another wolf that had wandered upon this forsaken place. But he did not move to approach them, instead he inched the other direction. Slow. Careful. Maybe they wouldn't see him.

[Argus]

Chhaya's nose twitched and she sneezed, the sound made louder in the quiet of the deadness around her. It was when the sound quieted that she realized there was another wolf's scent around here. It wasn't one of the old scents she had occasionally smelled on her way in. No. This was recent, made seconds ago. She turned towards it and saw the shape of a wolf crouched low, inching away from her. Well that just won't do. Chhaya walked slowly towards the wolf trying not to scare it any more than it already was if fright was the cause of its posture. As she got closer she saw that it was a male whose coat was made up of varying shades of grey. "And pray tell, what might you be doing?"

By the time she voiced her question she was almost on top of him and she stopped abruptly once the fact that she was about to run over him registered. Her words were, of sorts, a continuation of her thoughts. Maybe she should have asked a different question but that was the one in her mind and it surely would have come up at some point. There wasn't a breeze to be heard or felt in this forest of bleakness and she frowned. Breezes were one of the few attributes of nature that she almost always enjoyed and the fact that none stirred the lifeless limbs around her was displeasing. It wasn't as if she could change that though and she had to admit that it added to the tone of the place. No breeze meant it was more humid, the heat made it feel as though the air itself was holding its breath. In short, besides her and the yet unknown wolf, nothing was stirring. "Lovely Scenery, is it not?"

[Aquaria]

Finch's ears flattened against his head as he was caught. Dang. He was hoping to get away unseen so he could just leave this place with little problems. With a defeated sigh, he stands straight again and just then realizes that the wolf was literally right up on him already. He jumps back a bit in surprise at her speed. She had caught up with him even while he was trying to swiftly get away like some sort of ninja. He blinks. "Well aren't you quick...." He mutters eyeing the she-wolf. He hadn't heard the sound of running paws so the fact that she just walked right on up still had him quite shocked.

"O-oh. Uh. I was trying to find my way away from here honestly. This place is.....very grim. Just the lack of life here makes me nervous" He replies looking around them. It was just so still here that it was almost as though time was frozen. As if life had chosen to just stop what was going on here and move onto other places. The whole feel here came him this overwhelming sense that they just shouldn't be here. He didn't understand it but things just weren't right.

[Argus]

Chhaya sits and wraps her tail around her haunches. Anger flashed in her eyes at a thought she had been having but it was quickly smoothed into neutral indifference. "Quick? Only in certain cases." What to say? What to say? This was the question she asked herself about this conversation in particular. Thankfully she was saved from having to come up with anything by his next words. Praise be. When she had walked up to him he was crouched and inching rather slowly away from her more resembling more a turtle than a wolf. So it was no surprise that she was able to sneak up on him. Then she smiled one of her cool but not cruel smiles.

"Is it? I hadn't noticed. However, I get the feeling that it's not just the grimness of the atmosphere that made you want to scuttle away like some hermit. I think you were more intimidated by me than the deadness. I can't imagine why though. I haven't done anything to you." She didn't voice the yet she was thinking but the way she spoke made the unspoken word hang in the air. It wasn't as if she was a mind reader, far from it, but his posture seemed as though he had been threatened by something, and this forest was not threatening. She had to admit it was eerie but certainly not a threat. So she came to the logical conclusion that it was her which frightened him and she wished to know why.

[Aquaria]

Finch raised a brow at her. When he was trying to inch away, his movements might have been slower than normal, yes. However, he was not moving slow enough that a wolf just walking at a normal pace could catch up to him within seconds and not be detected beforehand. She literally approched him like something out of the shadows. "Well in this case you were. Most wolves would not be able to just walk up on me as quickly as you did. At least, not without me picking up on them first. If I had been moving even slower, anyone could have got me." He states simply, still keeping a somewhat guarded stance.

"By you? One wolf does not intimidate me, contrary to what you believe. It's groups that bother me and quite frankly, you don't fit that bill." He replies quickly after she suggests he's threatened by her. He wasn't threatened by her or he would have stated he was trying to get away from her. He would have been blunt about it. It's just the fact that he wanted away from here as quickly as possible and knew that meeting a strange wolf would force him to be here even longer. Which, unfortunately, was now the case despite his efforts to get away.

"No. What bothers me is this place. It's dead. Decaying. Silent. Not even a trace of prey lingers here. When even the rodents won't step foot here, we shouldn't be here either. Something just isn't right." He states prudently as he motions to the lifeless trees nearby. Any wolf with a good head on their shoulders would realize that this place was unnatural and should be avoided. But who knows who he was talking to. She could be some raving maniac and he wouldn't know. She was still nothing but a stranger to him.

[Argus]

This wolf. She didn't have anything more to say on the subject that wouldn't insult the creature. "Most wolves? You must not interact with many of them to categorize them so effortlessly." She wasn't much of a social butterfly herself but she knew better to assume that most wolves were similar. It wasn't even a major grouping but wolves certainly had different builds and different strengths. She didn't mention that under circumstances she could be invisible to him. It wouldn't do anything to make her point and she knew enough to keep her mouth shut on that subject.

"Maybe you aren't intimidated by me but there are times where one wolf can do more than a whole score of them. You don't know anything about me, don't know what I'm capable of and it's possible I could hurt you without a second thought. But you're right about me not being dangerous to you. My point is anyone given reason can be dangerous. You might want to keep that in mind for next time." He didn't seem to like the idea that he might be afraid of one measly wolf. His sudden confidence annoyed her but she decided to end her lecture there.

"Hmmm. Is it just here that something isn't right? Or is it the entire valley? The population is made up almost entirely of unnaturally bright wolves. I also know for a fact that there are some that are gifted with strange powers. If you ask me there's definitely something wrong with that. Unnatural. This place seems relatively normal compared to others." She closed her eyes for a second and thumped her tail on the ground. Unlike him, she was completely relaxed, confident that he wasn't dangerous. He was still in a defensive position as if he were expecting her to attack him. As if. Even the concept of attacking him was ridiculous to her.

[Aquaria]

Finch shook his head. This female was doing everything she could to contradict every little word he said. Or twist it in a way that had nothing to do with what he meant. It was a little irritating and made his eye twitch. "I don't socialize much at all. No. I choose not to thanks to conversation such as this. Must you contravene every little thing I say?" He grumbles, this meeting turning into more of an argument than anything.

"We were discussing being intimidated by you. I said nothing about your abilities or that I doubt them. I'm very aware of the damage one wolf can do on their own. I'm simply stating that me trying to get away from this awful place is not because of your presence here. Avoiding this conversation to get away from here was more of the point." He states eyeing her again. Why did she feel the need to squabble over everything. Did he have to describe every little detail about his feelings so she would stop? Because that was how she was acting. Questioning everything or making it seem as though he means something entirely different than what is stated. Were all she-wolves this way? Sheesh.

She then continued on to rant about the whole valley. Perhaps it was just her. Most wolves born in this valley would be use to it and not question the ways of the land. It was that or her brain was running a lot faster than it should, thinking about so many things that were peculiar. "Perhaps to you it seems that way." He mumbles. "Have you not caught sight of your reflection when catching a drink of water lately? You're not exactly a normal coloring of wolf." Pointing out the fact that her body was covered in three unnatural colors herself. "I would imagine you were born in the valley or very close to it, so why do you question what you've always known?" In order to be this colorful, she had to be born fairly close to the mountains so this had to be what she knew. Not many wandered very far out of the valleys of the mountain. So he wasn't so sure she even knew what a "normal" wolf would look like. Heck, he wasn't sure himself anymore. There were so many colors and patterns here that his brain found it hard to even separate the "normal" from the "abnormal" anymore.

[Argus]

She gave the wolf a mock hurt look but it didn't last long. She sighed and flicked an ear sideways. "You just make it so easy. But I'll try not to." Chhaya was merely reacting to the wolf and the more agitated he got the more annoyed she became. But she knew when to play nice and for the moment it was more beneficial for her to be civil to this stranger than it was for her to make him dislike her. But the bottom line was that she wasn't a good conversationalist and it showed on her face as she attempted to restrain her remark at his next words.

"Yes, we were. What's your name?" He was getting agitated and she thought it prudent to change the subject. She had a bad habit of offending wolves or somehow insulting them without ever knowing their name. Not that she thought this wolf was highly offended but he seemed to believe that she was argumentive when a great deal of her time was spent in her thoughts and not in the present. Maybe that was part of the problem here. She wasn't all that invested in the conversation itself and when she replied she said the first remark she could come up with. It certainly wasn't the smartest thing to do on her part and she resolved to at least give her answers a token thought for today.

"I grew up not far from the valley, yes, but there were enough wandering loners that came from far away that I know wolves here are not normal colors, myself included. I have no answer to your question because I don't know myself. What about you? I can not help but notice you have an interesting coat too." She spoke the words softly, hoping that he wouldn't take them as an insult.

[Aquaria]

Finch watched her quietly, waiting for some smart remark about what he had said. That seemed to be what she waited for every time he opened his mouth. This was like some sort of game to her or at least it sure came across that way. But what did he know? He had only met this wolf a few moments ago. He didn't even know her name let alone a single thing about her. Perhaps this was just how she was all the time. Like it was something she couldn't help because of her personality. He tilted his head a bit as she answered that he made it too easy. So perhaps simple answers weren't enough for her if she found it to be so easy.

Much to his surprise, she doesn't make any comments to what he said. She instead asks his name. This probably should have been how the conversation between them started in the first place rather than the constant back and forth bickering. They probably would have gotten off on a better foot that way. But instead he was annoyed, she was irritated, and this talk was going to be hard to turn back around now. "Finch."

"I see." He says thoughtfully. "So then how do you know that it's not the loners that are abnormal colors? Do any of us really know what colors would be deemed normal? Perhaps everyone is a strange coloring. Even the loners you have seen." He did have a point. How did they know what coloring wolves truly were suppose to be? Maybe every wolf they've both met is considered odd. For that matter, who even decided what was "normal?" Now she got him thinking about it.

[Argus]

Chhaya's face cleared of all annoyance and she looked around. She felt under her paws trying to see if there were any rocks underneath her feet. There weren't so she had to postpone her quest to find one for now but she made a vow that she'd look again later. She turned back to him as she heard the first syllable come out of the male's mouth. Finch. "Nice name. It somehow suits you." She paused for a second, glanced around once more, and decided to tell him her name. It was what might have been considered polite, although she normally didn't care about being polite. "Chhaya." She could almost see the gears in his brain began to turn as he thought up a reply to her answer. Chhaya's thought process didn't work that way, jumping from one random subject to another, without ever seeming to notice or care about the previous one.


"I must admit that I don't know for sure that we are the abnormal ones but I highly suspect. When I was younger I would pester the few loners brave enough to stop and speak a few words to my pack. They all claimed that the land surrounding the mountain was the only one they had seen which were populated with such colored wolves. But as to who decides what is and isn't normal I believe that is defined by the society one lives in." It just so happened that the valley she lived in classified normal as wolves of every color under the sun. She didn't mind that much and in fact, she found herself increasingly grateful for it.


She could see that with the change of topic he was not quite as tense and she congratulated herself for making the right choice. It wasn't too often she did that when not in the company of other evil wolves. Most of them weren't quite so easy to offend, not counting the occasional touchy one who would look for any excuse to be offended.

[Aquaria]

Finch blinked as she didn't seem surprised by his name. Was it that obvious? Or did he really resemble one of the tiny birds? It wasn't often he stopped to just watch the birds so he truly didn't know if he could even identify one. All that he knew was they were a smaller bird and he imagined they were either a grayish color or brown like a lot of birds. Other than that the male found that he knew almost nothing. He was named after the birds and he knew nothing about them. That was almost sad to him. His mother specifically chose that name for him and he couldn't even understand why. That's when he suddenly went still when she said her name. He had been so lost in thought he almost missed her saying her name. "Chhaya? Almost as unique as it's keeper." He said with the hint of a friendly smirk.

It was almost as though she read his mind as she makes a comment about who decides what is normal. "I truly don't know what normal is anymore. But I do know one thing, it's overrated. Why would anyone want to be normal? Life would be no fun if you were constantly trying to adhere to someone else's standards." He says, stretching out his back legs a bit. Just standing here, as tense as he was, was making all of his muscles cramp from lack of movement. So he had to shake it off somehow before he ending up with that weird tingling sensation that made it hard to move.

[Argus]

He seemed startled when she said the name suited him. He wasn't what one could call large and he was a grayish color so of course his name suited him. It wasn't like she was saying that to a huge red wolf. But then he commented on her name and she cocked her head in puzzlement. "Was that an insult?" She wasn't asking to start an argument, she was asking because she truly could not tell from his tone whether it was or wasn't an insult. Even if it was an insult she wouldn't have minded. She liked to pretend to be affronted but most of the time she was just amused. Then she noticed the smirk on his face and she uttered an oh. "You were joking, weren't you?" Now she felt slightly embarrassed for misunderstanding him and a faint blush colored her cheeks. Soon that embarrassment was gone and her face was back to normal. She did smile sheepishly back at him though.

The wolf then commented on how tiring it would be if one was always trying to be like everyone else. She nodded her head in agreement with him and stopped to gather her thoughts. "I agree. Life's just so much more interesting if you're too busy being yourself to notice anyone else's disapproval." The wolf was relaxing, even more, stretching out in a languid manner, which she took as a good sign. She knew it was uncomfortable to stay like he had for any amount of time, so she could understand him stretching first instead of just changing his position.

[Aquaria]

Finch blinked as she asked if he was trying to insult her. He raised a brow. "I was trying to give you a compliment." He said eyeing her. "I was trying to be friendly, not insult you or joke around." His little smirk should have at least hinted that he was being nice. She would know if he was trying to be rude just by the tone of his voice alone.

"Yeah. I could careless what others think, truly. Their opinions aren't going to change the type of wolf I am. I'm a little strange but I wouldn't be me if I was normal." He says with a nod. That and he probably wouldn't listen even if another wolf tried to get him to change. He was stubborn in that sense but he had been alone most of his life so he didn't need another wolf telling him how to be. He had adapted in ways that he felt necessary to survive so he didn't feel it best to change anything anyway.

The conversation seemed as though it were slowing down at this point, meaning something new needed to be brought up before there was an awkward silence. While he liked the quiet, it was abit useless here. "So....why are you here in this place? Surely you didn't come here on purpose did you?" He asked curiously. Unless she had hidden intentions that he knew nothing about. But either way, they needed to keep this going or part ways. For once, he didn't want the conversation to end just yet now that things had chilled out between them.

[Argus]

Chhaya was almost tone deaf, so it wouldn't have mattered much even if Finch had spoken in the rudest voice possible. "Sorry then, for misunderstanding you." She said this with a completely straight face, not really exhibiting any of the remorse she claimed to feel. Rather she looked defensive but it soon dissipated back into neutral interest. While she had no strong feelings of dislike towards Finch, she also had no strong feelings of stong like toward him, and for that reason, she was willing to stay and chat with him.

"It is nice to know that your character is so deeply ingrained in you that you can't be bothered by what others surmise of it. Isn't everyone a little strange?." Chhaya didn't have such a definite sense of character and generally just said what she thought. There was nothing so different about herself that she even classified herself as an original. Sure she recognized the fact that she was odd compared to others for a few reasons, but that fact didn't seem to register to her sense of being. Maybe all wolves thought that way though, and she really was quite strange. She shrugged and admitted that it was unlikely she would ever know.

"No, I didn't come here on purpose. I go where my feet take me and it happens that they took me here. And you? I don't see anywhere else, so I assume that you are a loner. Correct me if I'm mistaken." She cocked her head in quiet puzzlement as another thought entered her mind. He didn't look like one who would mind silence and she knew she wasn't minded by it. Perhaps he just disliked silence when other wolves were around. She could understand that and in fact, she sometimes felt that same awkward nervousness when surrounded by others and no sound to be heard.