Alone at the Tracks (Open)

[donner]

Leila walked along one rail of the tracks, trying to see how long she could manage before falling off. So far, four paces.

"Five, six, seven," she counted, putting off each time she put one paw in front of the other.

It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was shining, the wind was whistling and the birds were singing. And here she was, wandering alone on a track. She didn't mind so much, though. She liked being alone. She usually was, since her mother had passed away a year ago. She was looking for a pack now, not so much because she was lonely as she was frightened. In the short time she had been a wanderer, she had been near-taken-advantage-of twice and attacked much more often.

"Fourteen, fift - ow!" she said, slipping off the track. "That was more painful than I thought it would be."

She looked around, alert. She thought she had heard something, but she so often did. Usually it turned out to be a deer or rabbit - and most of the time, nothing at all. But she had high hopes this time.

[Oberon]

Benvolio watched as this most unusual dog tried to balance herself on one of the train tracks. She was actually doing pretty well. Go figure.

Just as that thought had formulated in his head, she slipped up, falling face first into the gravel between the tracks. He chuckled softly when he heard her talking to herself. "I do that all the time," he said out loud. He hadn't meant to, but if none the less proved his point.

When she stopped, so did he. She must have heard me talking, he thought, though he had sworn he hadn't spoken loud enough. I guess these dog-types have better hearing than I was led to believe.

He watched her for a while, looking around her in baffled silence for whatever had made the noise - looking for him. He had never seen a dog like her before. She looked like a blown up sunflower. Actually, now that I think about it, she wasn't too hard on the eyes, he decided. Her golden fur shimmered in the light, the long waves dripping down her pack and puffing off her chest like clouds. Her slender tail curved gently behind her, gold streamers fluttering in the gentle breeze. If only I could get a look at her face, he thought. Not that that would change anything. Even if she was pretty, she was a dog, and thus bellow him - according to his father anyway. He didn't think dogs were bellow anything.

He cleared his throat nervously and said a feeble, "Hi."

[donner]

Leila turned around. Behind her stood a tall dog, white as the driven snow - no, not a dog, a wolf, and he was staring right at her. His eyes were fierce and hard, burning into her like liquid gold. He looked like he wanted to attack her, like he was going to pounce on her at any moment without warning.

She staggered back a few steps, her eyes wide with terror. "You stay away from me!" she said, her voice quivering like jello on a trampoline. "Go - go hunt something else!"

She turned and bolted down the tracks, her padded feet pounding, pushing herself as fast as she could go. The ferocious thudding of her own heart was beating so loud it clogged up her ears - she couldn't hear anything over the roar. Her brain was racing not with thoughts, but with the knowledge of her ancestors. And that knowledge told her to get the heck away from there as fast as possible.

[Oberon]

"Hey...hey wait!" Benvolio called after her as she started pounding away. "Where are you going? Why are you running?"

He don't know why, but he started running as well. He pounded after her, looking more like a hunter going after his lunch than a lonely teenager ready to party with the ladies. 'Why do they always have to be so difficult?' he wondered to himself.

His paws flew furiously over the ground, and the receding form of the golden female started to grow rapidly. She was fast, which he hadn't really expected. She hadn't seemed the running-and-jumping-over-stuff sort. "Slow down will you?!" he snarled through laboured breaths. "I just wanna talk!"

'The way she was running, you'd have thought I was an axe murderer hell bent on chopping off her head and eating her flesh!' he thought. 'Which I'm not. At least I don't think so.'

Finally, his patience spent, he leaped at her, hoping to hold her down long enough to tell her he wasn't going to eat her. Not one of his better ideas, but all right.

[donner]

One moment, Leila was running as fast as she could down the tracks, and the next she lay in a heap on the ground, tangled up in the white wolf. She squirmed and kicked at him, trying to get him off, but he was heavy. Finally, she pulled back her lip and growled - a deep, throaty sound, seemingly filled with anger; if one listened closely enough, one would not hear anger, but fear. She was terrified - of him, of being killed, and of killing. She didn't want to hurt him, but at this point, he didn't give her much of a choice.

"Get off of me," she snarled, trying to sound bold. Instead, her voice came off a little shaky. "Please!" She was desperate now, and that, too, scared her. She wished with all her might that she had never come here, or that it was some bad dream and she was still fast asleep beneath a giant tree in the middle of the valley. "Please don't eat me!"

[Oberon]

Benvolio struggled to keep her down, just barely avoiding her most of her angry kicks. She bared her teeth at him. A desperate but harsh growl filled the air. "Get off of me," she snarled through clamped teeth. "Please!"

She sounded scared now, though she hid it well behind her menacing growls and glaring eyes. Benvolio studied her with his own, only half there now that she had given up kicking and replaced it with growling. She really was quite lovely, with that golden fur he had never seen before. He snapped back to life when she begged him for her life.

"Eat you?!" he gasped. "I'll do nothing of the sort! Is that what all this nonsense is about? Eating you?"

She thought he was going to eat her? How odd indeed. He had always thought of himself as cuddly and friendly looking, not like a cannibalistic fiend.

[[Gallows <3]

"Tick tock, here comes the clock."The voice repeated over and over again, but it was low, almost to a whisper. Yellow eyes shot forward as he walked along. Wandering around, aimlessly. There were few dogs that he had seen lately, that annoyed him. Normally, he liked to see a few now and then, and he wanted to see one now. Frowning, he continued down the rails, staring at the wooden planks between the old steel. Zubayr shifted his eyes to were voices came, great, a dog and a wolf. Yes, he really wanted to see a wolf around here, yeah right. The wolf then tackled the female, just when Zub was going to turn around. With a gruff, low bark, he sprinted down the tracks and jumped at the wolf. "Get the F away from her!" He snarled with his Arabic accent.

The male didn't know that the wolf wasn't going to harm her, it was just a natural reaction. After all, shouldn't you help dogs from wolves? Of course you should. Especially if the female was fairly pretty, it would be wrong if you let the female's coat go stained with blood.

[Oberon]

Benvolio turned to face the new comer, a male dog, impulsive and angry it would seem. He stepped off the female; he hadn't actually realized he was still on top of her.

"Calm down Fido," he said, taking a step back. "I just wanted to play...or talk or something. Why do all you dogs think I'm going to eat you?" The harshness of this new dog's voice had run him through like a knife. He was insulted and hurt, and was beginning to understand his cousin's and his pack's view of dogs - low-lives who had nothing better to do than go around killing and fighting innocent creatures.

Then again, Benvolio had always hated being judged and stereotyped, and his emotions were hurt easily. One out of an infinite amount of traits he had that made him the worst alpha known to canine kind.

[donner]

Leila bolted out from under the wolf as soon as he let her, and went to stand beside the new dog. She didn't really trust either of them, but at least she knew almost for sure that the dog wouldn't eat her. The wold had said he wouldn't, but she had learned to to trust their kind when one had taken her mother's life. That wolf, too, had said he was a friend, unlike the rest of his savage and uncivilized kind.

"Why do all you dogs think I'm going to eat you?" the wolf asked. He sounded kind of angry. Leila took a step back, but said, "Wolves are horrible creatures who never keep their word!" she said, her voice shaking a little with fear. "All they do is kill! And kill for no reason! They're inhumane and disgusting, all of them, and I hope they all die out!"

She clamped her mouth shut. She hadn't meant to say so much, or anything at all. Yes, she hated wolves. They were dangerous beasts that she held no respect for - but she hadn't meant to say it out loud. Now the beast would surely kill them.

[[Gallows <3]

The Arabic male skidded to a stop when he stepped off of her, teeth still shown. "Oh really?" He sneered, "Well, the last wolf I saw, he ate one of my travelers, but that was a few weeks ago." He growled lowly. Zubayr's head snapped to look at the female, "You OK?" He asked gruffly. When she spoke Zub's jaw dropped, "-Ey female, you better watch what you say, things like that might upset that wolf..." He said with caution. Zubayr may have had a bit of a temper, but once he calmed down, his normal sense came back and he could figure out what to do. His eyes darted to the female and the wolf.

"Wolf, don't call me Fido. My name is Zubayr, Destroyer of the city. Now, what is your name?" He said with a slight smug look on his face. "Female, your name?" Zubayr took a step in the middle of them, still staring between them both. His cream tail waved slightly as he stared, still with caution.

{Sorry, I had low muse for him. D:}

[donner]

"My name's not female, it's Leila," she said, keeping her eyes on the silently fuming wolf. She couldn't stand it when men generalized women like that. Usually she was shy and passive, but she wouldn't stand for being thrown into a meaningless group the way she had been. In any other situation, she would be flying of he handle about now, but it wasn't safe with the wolf here. Who knows what he would do if he found them at each others' necks. It would be the perfect time for him to jump at them and tear their throats out.

For the moment, she settled with a less than pleasant, "I don't go around calling youMale, do I? I'm sure you wouldn't like it either, Male. And did your mother never teach you about please and thank you?" She knew this was the wrong time to lecture about manners, but she couldn't help it. It was one of her pet peeves.