are you kidding me?!

triumph

The concrete stairs and walls led down to a concrete hall that cut short and sharp from view thanks to the slope of the ceiling. Rafael could shine his bulb, but it wouldn't give him much extra foresight. He grumbled and started down the stairs anyways, and behind him the little girl laughed with glee. The sound was open and boisterous, if Rafael was hoping to sneak up that corridor his chances would be dashed with this girl in tow.

"Look, you're gettin' it!"

And they were off.

The walk took them up perhaps a block and a half of this slowly downward-sloping tunnel beneath buildings, where the walls were concrete and the floors were too and the lighting was industrial but bright-- bare and caged in with wire. At least it was not cold down here, nor was it wet. But at some point Rafael's memory seems to kind of blur. It's not a heavy or slowing or sleepy sensation, but rather a sudden coming to attention where perhaps he was too deep in thought and perhaps he'd missed something. He'd walked further or longer than he'd realized (with a tingle-and-drip sensation of passing through the Gauntlet in some weakened path that had been held open or built in), and the scenery had changed.

Where it was once concrete, gray-and-tan stone pebbled and mashed and mortared together was to be found instead. The ceiling was high but the walls had narrowed, and there was a faded old olive runner of carpet on the floor beneath their feet that appeared to have been trodden upon by any number and variety of muddy boots, feet, paws and hooves.

Behind, the girl still walked but appeared different. The same face and body, the same girl overall, but a dress of tanned hide fashioned carefully (not crudely at all, but seamed with needle and leather). The dust on her seemed thicker, her hair somehow wilder, her eyes brighter and standing out whiter on her dirt-brown face. She walked calmly with hands tucked away under pelts that were wrapped about her waist-- of course she wasn't phased by any of this.

"Just ahead," she said, and gestured ahead where the hallway stopped abruptly with a heavy wooden door and iron handle.

Rafael

"Shit."

Wolf stops. Stands where he is, gives his head a firm shake as if it'll jar him out of this. Wake him up. Girl-who's-not-a-girl probably doesn't know -- or maybe she does -- but this isn't his first unexpected jaunt into a different world. Last one didn't end so well. This one... well.

He's not even sure it will end. He's not sure this isn't just the shape his madness -- for they are all mad, the sons and daughters of Falcon --will take. Fugues into another world. Quests he thinks are real, but in fact are nothing but extended flights of fancy.

--

He's shown to a heavy wooden door. He glowers at it mistrustfully, then at the girl.

"Where am I? Where is this?"

triumph

The Wild Girl stopped walking when Wolf did, so that at no point did she pass his bulky frame in the narrow hallway (which seemed to fit her slender child-body far better than it fit him-- as though the passage was made especially for her and he was just piggybacking in).

Her arms crossed over her chest and she wrinkled up her nose and mouth at him.

"I'm gonna take you this far on a mystery and adventure and you're gonna stop with the door right in front of you--" this said with a jab of one hand toward the door, slicing air in the shape of a spade. "--and ask me to tell you what you're gonna find on the other side?

"What the hell are you, an old man? Wanna go home and watch NCIS instead?"

Rafael

In spite of himself, wolf grunts something like a laugh. Just a single staccato burst of it.

"Just been taken for one of these poof-you're-somewhere-else rides before. Hell. All I know, it was you that did it that time too."

He brushes past her. Grips the doorhandle, pulls.

triumph

The door was heavy, but no task for the Ahroun, and it swung open on gliding hinges. Immediately bright light flooded the corridor, natural and warm. Before him, Rafael found a landscape nothing like the city he'd gone from. The door opened out into a meadow of rich green wild grass and bloom, with bright blue sky and the occasional white cloud stamped here and there. The air was thick with the hum of insects and smell of bloom-- it was late spring, perhaps early summer here.

Beyond the meadow, perhaps several hundred yards from where he stepped out from, rose a line of tall trees that were dense and deep. They rose all around and stretched far on the rolling landscape-- there was no telling how large the forest was from this point of view, for hills blocked the far horizon, but he could feel somewhere deep in his animal soul that he was very far gone from man.

Outside the wooden door sat in a small wall of stone that was set into the dirt of a knoll. Once Rafael had stepped out, The Wild Girl followed along after him. Once her bare dirty toes touched the grass she sprang forward with a sudden quickness-- throwing herself to the ground and rolling about in the grass like a dog that found something interesting to smell. Or a bird dusting itself clean in a dry bath.

He was born of man, but he was a wolf too. The wolf knew this was a practice to scrub the smell of the city off her skin and clothes.

After a dozen seconds or so the girl sprang back up onto two feet and scratched at her scalp with both hands. She seemed less sullen with a lungful of this fresh air and grinned at Wolf with her bony elbows out in the air.

"Pretty, 'eh? Kuilis says you Wolves used to all live out here with us. But now a lot of you are in those stinkholes instead. How come you stay there?"

Rafael

Door swings open more easily than he would've thought. Expected it to be stuck. Expected to have to pound on it, loosen the hinges. Yet all he feels is weight, momentum: that oaken slab swinging inward to reveal --

"...what?"

Sound he makes is wonder and disbelief. Suddenly, in the dead of winter, he stands amidst almost-summer. Warmth he's almost forgotten touches his skin, seeps into his bones. Open-mouthed, the wolf stares while the girl darts past. Rolls in the grass.

By the time she springs back to her feet, he's taken a few steps into the meadow. Almost predictably, he turns around to look at the door. Expects to see -- well, he doesn't know what he expects. A door in a hut. A door in a mountainside. A door freestanding. No door at all.

Turns back, quickly, when she speaks. There's a clue there, but he doesn't know enough about spirit matters to decipher it. Still has little idea where he is.

"Was born there," he says for lack of a better reason to give. "Besides, I got a house up in the mountains."

triumph

t"Oh," said the girl blandly. She didn't seem to quite know what to do with that answer. Contemplating things like heritage and habit and the evolution and adaptation of Werewolves between when her Kuilis may be remembering them and what they are now-- well, all of that was much too deep for a twelve year old to spend too much time on. Especially when there are other things to be doing.

She blinked a couple of times, then put her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun and peered around through the treeline. Stretched up on her toes as though leaning farther and standing taller would help her see farther as well.

"Well, we should be seeing the signal soon-- ah, there it is!"

There indeed, about a mile deep into the forest to Rafael's left, was a flicker of motion to catch the attention up in the air. It seemed to be raining black in a small patch of trees there, but the rain was falling in reverse-- up instead of down. Certainly, the rain would yield to gravity and fall back to the earth, but it fell toward the sky first instead of from it. If he squinted hard and thought about it, he may be able to figure out what he was seeing.

"Heh, that's his favorite." The girl chuckled and gestured, much as she'd done before back on the streets, and started walking toward the brief spell of black rain, which by now had ceased its rise-then-fall. "Likes yellin' 'Draw, Fire!' and then makin' the new kids scamper to clean 'em all up. Never waste an arrow and you'll never need an arrow, he says."

More following, it seemed. At least this time he could see where they were going, though.

Rafael

It's not until she says arrow that he understands what he's seeing. Frowns, when he does. Doesn't follow immediately.

"Big on all things war, this Kuilis of yours, huh?"

triumph

Wolf didn't follow, so Girl stopped. She turned and looked back at him, a little surprised by what he'd said. This time she sounded genuine and curious when she spoke as opposed to sulky and sarcastic.

"Well, yeah. Aren't you?"

Rafael

"Not to the point where I shoot arrows at the sky for fun."

He starts walking. City-shod feet treading soft grass, fragrant wildflowers. A few steps into it he drops forward, lands on four paws. Withers up to girl's waist, he brushes past her, whuffing for her to take the lead.

triumph

"Oh don't worry, the arrows aren't for you." The Girl shook her head and put her hands on her skinny hips and twisted at the waist to look back in the direction that they would be walking. "They're for Worms," she explained, "but the Worms don't come 'round too close to Kuilis's camps. They haven't for a long time."

When she turned back to him again it was at the moment that his paws were finding dirt and grass between them first. He came up to her and she lifted her arms and hands reflexively, but all he did was brush past instead of attack.

With a grin, she brought her hands down onto his back and sides and rub-rub-patted his pelt like a giant shaggy dog.

"Wanna race?"

-------------

Of course, he would be able to win the race if he tried, but it may occur to him that charging into a camp full of arrows and war ahead of his liason may not be the best tactical decision. Still, the Wild Girl was fast and did not tire or lag behind far. She ran on her bare feet over springy earth and used hands and feet both to grab branches or push bushes or scramble over rocks to keep moving. She seemed to appreciate the wind in her wild hair as much as a Wolf would enjoy it combing their mane.

When they were close to the mile mark Girl slowed down, coming back up to two feet from an all-fours scramble she'd been making up the hillside through a shallow and barely trickling creekbed. It was cooler in the shadows of the trees, moreso here deeper in the forest. She went from running to a strolling walk instead, one arm out and hand raised to show to the Wolf that they were stopping, that they should slow.

When she perceived that he caught the gesture she brought her hand back to her mouth and leaned her head back a little. She looked like she was getting ready for a call sign-- that would make sense, out here in a setting like this. Rather than mimicking the call of a bird or chirp of a fat insect, though, the noise that Girl made was more of a grunty gutteral scream. Had Wolf ever heard what a squealing pig sounded like before?

It would echo back once after a few moments, then Girl would say "Come on, we're clear", and begin walking again.

Rafael

Doesn't know what fit of fancy came over him to make him shift, but once there wolf seems to figure he might as well commit. Gives a short, affirmative bark: yes, he does want to race. And he's not just humoring her. He does want to run. Wants to feel the wind in his fur, dirt beneath his paws. Wants to breathe clean, fresh air, cleaner and fresher than any on earth.

So they run. And soon enough wolf finds himself running in big exaggerated bounds, zigzagging, looping back, almost frolicking. Girl's quicker than he expected, has more staying power. He lets her win. And when she slows, he does too, going to a loping trot, then a walk.

Tongue's lolling. There are grass seeds in his white fur. He shakes them out, licks his tongue over his chops, blinks those yellow eyes. His ears pin back when she grunts. He looks at her askance. She leads on, and he tails her, mouth closed again, back to his wary self as they leave the sunlit meadow.

triumph

While they walked, Wolf would be aware of things in the trees above them. He could look up and peer but he wouldn't see much beneath the trees. A foot here, a wing of dusty brown or glossy black feathers, a furry bottlebrush tail all tucking away out of sight whenever glimpsed at. He'd hear a chatter, a giggle from a young boy, and an older woman's scolding shush.

All watching. The audience in the trees.

Soon a small clearing came into sight ahead. It was no meadow like they'd started in, for it wasn't large enough for the sky to peek through the dense foliage overhead. It was the size of a small horse paddock at best, and the dirt was stamped down here as though many assemblies had occurred here over who knows how many years.

The Girl stopped and stood near the edge of the clearing-- out past the trees so that her toes were pressed on the bare dirt instead of the spongey moss and grass. She stared quietly out into the trees for a few seconds, then lifted a hand and jutted out her chin to scratch at her jaw and neck while she spoke.

"Alright, so here we are. Kuilis, he likes a challenge. Likes the boilin' blood and the good sport. You Wolves have circles like this in your camps, right?"

It did look an awful lot like a challenge circle, now that she mentioned it.

"He wants to know-- do you accept a sport challenge?"

Rafael

As they near the clearing, the wolf begins to shift again. Step by step, shape by shape, at last emerging into the small glade in man-shape again. He looks about, up and all around, trying to catch sight of the mischief-makers in the trees.

Pulls his eyes back to the girl. The frown is back, as though the joyous romp through the meadow never happened. "Guess I do," he says.

triumph

It was a wolf body that appraoched the circle, but a man body that walked into it. He was cautious and suspicious, but here in a world not entirely his own he didn't have much choice. The mischevious things in the trees didn't show themselves, but the didn't attack either. At no point did he find himself with a sharp black arrow piercing his back. The hospitality that he could perceive out here under the trees was being upheld.

Would he accept the challenge? He supposed so.

The girl grinned wider and clapped a hand on Rafael's forearm (it would be a shoulder if she were a full sized person, from what the gesture seemed to be trying to get across).

"You're gonna have fun," she told him, and backed away out of the circle.

If he watched her go, he'd find that she went a couple trees back before finding a low hanging branch to climb up and perch upon, legs swinging and eyes wide and watchful. His attention would soon have a sudden crashing to grab hold of it.

Across the small stamped-down clearing came a crunching and crashing and rumbling from the trees, the sound of something large approaching fast. A creature appeared all at once-- a wall of brown shaggy fur and a flash of yellowed tusks before a creature roughly the size of a grizzly bear came bowling into the circle. It could be mistaken initially for a bear, but upon focus Rafael would find a flat snout, a stringy tail, heavy black hooves, and an almost absurd number of tusks sprouting from mouth and jaw and the ridge of the spine between the shoulders.

The Beast-- Kuilis-- Boar-- snorted and stamped before tossing his head and bellowing.

A Challenge it was.

Rafael

Wolf has no idea that this is Kuilis.

Wolf has no idea what the fuck is going on, really. Has just enough time to shout up at the girl: "Are you kidding me?!"

Then he bursts into his warform -- charges the boar as the boar charges him.

triumph

beast
Init +7

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

Rafael

+9!

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Rafael

[actually +10, sorry. he'd be in hispo cuz he didn't have time to Razor Claw up!]

triumph

beast: 10
Rafael: 16

beast
[Grapple!]

Rafael

1. Tackle!

R1. Jaw lock!

Rafael

[tackle -- attack roll!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 5 )

Rafael

[dex+ath roll to keep footing. -2 diff for Perfect Balance. dex spec = precise, prob not applicable.]

Dice: 9 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6) ( success x 4 )

Rafael

[sorry, that's 2 succ on the initial attack -- it's a diff 7 attack]

triumph

beast
[remain footing!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Rafael

[str+1 dam on the tackle! bashing.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

triumph

beast
Soak!

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

triumph

beast
Grapple!

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Rafael

[R1: try to reverse! str+brawl! i don't think Crushing or Vicious apply here.]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

triumph

[Failure to reverse! However, that IS enough successes to break free so I'll allow that much!

Keeping same Inits for next round

beast
Action: Grapple again! There might become a pattern here

Rafael

[SECOND VERSE! SAME AS THE FIRST!

1. tackle!

R1. jaw lock! :D]

Rafael

atk!

Dice: 10 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6) ( botch x 1 )

Rafael

[FUCK YOU KAHSEENO!]

Rafael

[THERE I SAID IT]

Rafael

[*RIPS PAPER CROWN OFF HEAD, STOMPS ON*]

Rafael

[OW]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

triumph

beast
Hahahaha Wolf fell down. Grapple! -2 diff for prone-ass Wolf

Dice: 7 d10 TN4 (2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Rafael

[HEADBUTT. Because Ahroun. +1diff for stuck.]

Dice: 10 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 2

Rafael

[double-edged damage! str+4]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Rafael

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

triumph

beast
ow. Soak!

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Rafael

soak!

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

triumph

[Rafael, your opponent has an "almost absurd amount of tusks" -- soak 5 agg]

triumph

The many-tusked boar-beast came charging and skidding into the circle, tossing its head and snorting. Rafael shouted at the girl in the tree behind him (who giggled, amused by his exasperation), then burst from his Man skin into his Wolf-Beast skin instead. As a Hispo, he was roughly the same size as the Boar-Beast, but far more regal looking for certain. The Boar had tiny black eyes and huffed steam from his nostrils even though it was a perfectly warm day.

The fight was a tussle-- two massive monsters slamming into one another, trying to get each other onto the ground so they could pin them. Rafael wisely did not go in with claws or teeth, for it appeared that the Boar-Beast in turn was making no effort to gore him with any of those sharp ivory tusks sprouting from its mouth and brow and shoulders.

At first it seemed clear that Rafael was bound to win. He was faster, better on his feet and perhaps even more accustomed to throwing his weight around than his opponent. He'd gotten the Boar into the dirt but he was soon upright and charging once more.

Rafael charged as well, trying once more to knock the beast down so he could get a good wrap of jaws about his throat, but had twisted about too quickly and caught one paw against the other. He literally tripped over his own feet and crashed into the ground right at the Boar-Beast's feet. All but presenting himself to the spirit on a platter. The Boar gleefully dropped his head and worked to lock the Wolf's head against the earth in between the two longest tusks.

That was when the Wolf did the unthinkable, and headbutted the Many Tusked Beast.

No matter how he may have tried, there was no avoiding injury from the tusks in front of his face. The angle was all wrong for appropriate leverage, and while the Boar felt unshaken and unbruised from the effort Rafael found himself with several deep gashes on his face, including a puncture completely through his right cheek. The Boar was still, staring down at him, and even seemed to be holding its breath with some shocked response to what just happened. Rafael was pretty sure he could see shock in those black eyes.

Then the Boar huffed his hot breath at Rafael. Waited for the Wolf to pull his own head back and slide his own cheek-meat from the tusk upon which it was skewered. Only once that had happened, a rough rumble of a voice grumbled its way from the boar's only vaguely moving lips.

"Did you expect that to work better?"

The words on their own were taunting, but that grumble was flavored jovial.

Rafael

"No," snarls the wolf -- a blast of hot breath, fine mist of blood spraying.

"Expected you to know I won't give up."

triumph

The Boar-Beast's answer came in a form that was probably unexpected for the Ahroun.

Laughter. Deep, rumbling laughter like stones rolling down a mountainside filled the challenge circle. The Boar-Beast unburied the ends of its longest tusks from the dirt on either side of Rafael's head, then lifted its giant head and stepped back, giving Rafael the space he'd need to get back up to his feet.

Still laughing, shaking his head from side to side, the Boar stepped backward until its rear was near to the edge of the challenge circle again. Elsewhere, in the trees, leaves rattled with laughter and delight as well-- a bird-like chorus to back up its boss.

"I'm glad I sent for you, Wolf of Falcon. I'm not disappointed."

Rafael

Hackles are still up as the great boar backs off. Wolf gets to his feet swiftly and warily, twisting up to four paws. Licks at that grotesque wound on his cheek.

"You?"

Takes a moment. Processes it.

"You're Kuilis?" Another beat. "What do you want from me?"

triumph

this is me closing tags

Rafael

[fak.]

Rafael

[oh wait that was your fault! LOL]

triumph

[*sheepish*]

triumph

"Oh for crying out loud, Falcon Wolf!"

Penny, as she'd called herself, shouted out to the big white wolf with the red-stained cheek and face. She was still up in the trees, still sitting on a low branch, but had transferred herself to a tree right on the edge of the clearing instead since he'd last noticed her. She was holding onto the branch with one hand while the other gesticulated frustration at him. It made her look very much like a sports fan in the stands when her team's player missed a clear shot.

The Boar-Beast snorted and flicked a wire-haired ear with a notch missing from it. His head swung so he could look back at the girl, who fell into a frustrated quiet in turn. He then looked back to Rafael and stared bluntly.

"A fight. A contest of strength. To see what you're made of."

The way he dipped his head and fluttered thick black eyelashes somehow translated into the same sentiment that a shrug would have-- dismissive, rephrasing, concluding.

"I do this with the Wolves from time to time. They often come to me to guide them in their purposes, and I often accept, but I like to test their People as a whole. To make sure you're all still up to snuff and not wilting away out there with your Weaver-Gifts of Complacency."

Rafael

Still wary. Curiosity starting to kindle, though. He extends his neck, sniffs delicately at the air.

"Are you Boar? The Boar?"

triumph

Boars couldn't really smile-- their mouths weren't equipped for it. This was a spirit, and for that reason he was able to form language that the Wolf would understand. Still, there was a sense of warm knowing in how the Beast closed its eyes and dipped its head a little to answer.

It wasn't necessary, but Penny couldn't help herself on the sidelines:

"Duh."

Of course it's Boar.

"He has many names. There are many languages with his name in it-- Kuilis is one of the oldest, you know. From where some of the first Wolves began to ask for his help, and--"

"Child, still yourself."

Penny stilled, and Boar spoke to his summoned guest again.

"I like your mettle. I've lived many years and had many fights and cannot say that I've had many warriors impale their faces upon my tusks just trying to crack my skull." He adds in a lower rumble with good humor-- "My arse has seen more claws, though..." The rumble bled into a rough chuckle, and he tossed his head. "You have done well. If you are ready, you can leave when you like."

Rafael

"Oh."

Wolf's not sure how to take that. Or what to do with himself. Thinks a while. Shifts, eventually. Returns, form by form, to the shape he was born in.

Stands there now, a young man with a stormy brow, a big ugly hole on his face. Other gashes ripping through an eyebrow, nearly taking out an eye. Consider Boar a moment.

"Honored," he mutters. Doesn't mean it to be backhanded; just doesn't know how to say that straight. "Thanks." A small pause. "Just one question. What's the kid's deal? Some spirit in your camp?"

triumph

Words like 'honor' weren't often associated with things like passive-aggressiveness in Boar's world. Backhandedness that may have been picked up on by another was completely lost upon him. He seemed content to watch the Wolf, while he bled back from Wolf-Beast into Man-Skin.

"Not quite sure what to make of a fight that doesn't end with a kill, 'eh?"

There was some hesitation in the man after giving his thanks and seeming to be preparing himself to leave (however that may happen-- perhaps back the way he came somehow?), a question lingering on his tongue. When the question was loosed like an arrow to taste air, the Boar looked back to Penny and snorted, which apparently signaled her to start climbing back down the tree again. As she did, he explained simply:

"I am a spirit of War. War has many children, for it leaves many Orphans. This child was lost in one of the Great Wars of the Men, and happened upon me in the echo of the battlefield."

The rest was history, apparently. Penny was down from the tree and stood at the circle's edge, clearly waiting for Rafael to say when he was ready so she could piggyback him through the Umbra and back out to the Physical Realm again. If he was looking at her as though to confirm the Boar's story, she'd shrug and stick out her lower lip and nod a little like yeah I suppose that's pretty much it.

Rafael

Wolf shakes his head. Slow at first, then with greater certainty.

"No. It's not that. Just not sure what to make of meeting an Incarna avatar."

Well look at him with the big words. Even hearing them coming out of his own mouth makes him uncertain. Topic changes, though. Eyes go to Penny, considering.

"Sad," he comments. And it is. Not much more to say about it. He looks at Boar: "You gonna have me back here someday?"

triumph

"It depends," came Boar's answer. He watched Rafael without blinking now, considering whether he'd be seeing this same white-furred tusk-headbutting Wolf in the future. "Would you find yourself following me someday?"

Then, another snort from the snout mingled with a chuckle. "Or maybe even if you did not. I'd like to see what more you could come up with after another decade or two of War under your belt." Sharp black hooves pawed the ground, then the great lurking Boar-Beast looked up to the sky as it began to lumber its way back across the challenge circle and out through the way it had come charging in previously.

"I have other guests to greet. Live and die well, Young Falcon Wolf."

With that the great many-tusked beast crunched and rumbled its way back through the trees and underbrush through the dense primordial forest once more.

Penny, on the other hand, looked at Rafael and made a sympathetic hissing sound by sucking air through her teeth. "That looks rough. You're lucky you didn't poke your eye out, got close there, huh? Hey, you ready to get out of here? C'mon." She waved her hand for him to follow and started walking through the trees-- not the way they'd come from, curiously enough, or even following after her boss, but another direction entirely.

Rafael

Wolf doesn't answer; an answer doesn't seem necessary. Wants to give his farewell somehow, though. Raises his fist, in the end. Presses it briefly to his heart.

Kuilis lumbers away. Sense of excitement, anticipation begins to dissipate. All those watching eyes: they start turning away, looking for the next fight, the next match, the next challenge.

"Had worse," wolf says, which could be bravado but isn't. Falls in behind her again. Starting to feel familiar, that.

"Glad he took you in," he adds as they leave the clearing. "He wasn't ... what I expected. From what I'd heard about Boar."

triumph

"Me too," Penny agreed with Rafael's sentiment. It was good thing that the spirit of War took her in, and she was glad for it. The last time they'd raced in toward the challenge circle, but now Penny walked on those bare feet across the forest floor. She was looking around, searching for something and walking as the same slow pace that a searcher would. This time she didn't know the way directly, but she did know what she was seeking at least.

"All of those Big Spirits appear however they want. Folk like to paint Kuilis as some big screamin' sack of nonsense-- all spittle and Rage and nothin' else. He ain't so simple. Told me that folks like to paint you Full Moons just the same way; y'all's supposed to be a mask of Rage and not much else going on beneath. We all know better than that."

They'd walk for some quarter of a mile or so before coming upon a large fallen tree, whose trunk was broad enough that a modest single-story hut could be carved from it. The roots that had ripped from the earth were dangling dry a foot above Rafael's head. When they found it, Penny made a small 'aha!' sound and picked up the pace, trotting up to the old hollowed piece of wood.

"Here," she said, and came around to the end of the fallen tree opposite the roots. The trunk had snapped in half at some point, so the other end offered a space within which he could walk at a stoop (or he'd fit through easily and comfortably in Lupus). "It's on through a rabbit hole for you, and back out on the other side of that there lookin' glass, Alice."

Rafael

Wolf's heavy eyebrows lift for a moment; that clouded brow clears. Likes it that she gets it without him having to explain. Appreciates that she gets it, even if he didn't put it into words. Not some big screaming sack of nonsense. Not just spittle and Rage and nothing else.

"Yeah. Guess you're right."

Goes quiet, then, most of the way back. She leads. He follows. Looks around. Looks up. Looks at the unspoiled forest, smells the sap and the foliage, the wildness and cleanness of the place. Not many places like this left on earth. Maybe none at all, quite like this. He enjoys it while he can.

Soon enough they've stopped by the tree. She wants him to walk in. He quirks an eyebrow at her.

"Couldn't even show me the door this time." It's a mock-grouse. He puts his hand on the rim of the hollowed tree-trunk, ducks to peer in. Pauses, one foot already inside, to look at the girl-spirit.

"Thanks for the detour, Penny," he says. "Maybe I'll see you again, huh?"

triumph

"Wolf, you don't wanna go backwards through that hall. Then everything is backwards when you come out the other end and you gotta get all unscrambled again. You ever got caught in the way between Realms? It's like that. Kind of." She grinned. He was mock grousing, but she couldn't pass up an opportunity to share spiritual insight with the Wolves that were Half Physical Half Spiritual. Wouldn't that be fun, imagining what it was like to be scrambled backwards and caught between Realms at the same time?

He was partway inside the log but paused to bid the wild-haired girl farewell. Maybe he'd see her again?

Her eyebrows went up and she shrugged. "Oh maybe. Probably. If time doesn't blow too hard and make us all fly away."

She raised a hand, all pink-palmed with dirt under the fingernails and scuffed scraped scars on her knuckles. "Happy Hunting, Wolf! Don't hit yer head on the way out."

It was a good warning, Rafael would find. This path was much shorter than the hallway they'd walked through to reach the forest to begin with. He only just got the whole of his body inside the trunk when it felt like the floor suddenly shifted down under his feet and tossed him forward, like a shovel full of coal down a chute. One moment he was falling downward, then the next thing he knew the slide curved under him like a scoop. His ass and feet found surface again just long enough for him to perhaps consider grabbing for purchase before he was dumped onto damp frost-coated grass and out into the open of the night.

Back in Denver. Back in the Physical Realm. When he oriented himself, he'd figure out that he was in Washington Park, having apparently just fallen from nothing and landed behind a park bench. The sun was just barely beginning to lighten the horizon to the east. He should probably go home and clean his face before people start asking what he fell on.