This large, grizzled old male was a lone wolf that wandered around our area last winter. He had a distinctive limp due to some likely older injury on his right foot/leg.
We do not know much about this wolf, other than a few years ago, we observed him and 3 other wolves wander through the southern edge of the Windsong Pack territory.
However, these wolves were not an established pack in our study area but it is possible they occupied a territory just outside our area, and just briefly trespassed on the another pack's territory (not that uncommon of an occurrence).
Last winter, we know this old male had an encounter with the Bug Creek Pack on February 5 as we had one observation where this old male goes by a camera and a minute later two Bug Creek Pack members go trotting by.
And then ten minutes later, we observed all 6 Bug Creek wolves traveling from the direction the old male was headed. They had to have encountered the male, who clearly was not in a position to outrun an entire pack.
But obviously, this encounter ended amicably for the old wolf lived and was uninjured. We observed him numerous times after that.
A few days before that encounter with the Bug Creek Pack, we observed the old male chasing a deer but do not know how that ended. This wolf didn’t seem like it could run that quickly, given its injury.
And then in mid-February, we captured this old male scavenging some bones from a deer that the Thuja Pack killed. We suspect this wolf largely subsisted by scavenging.
By the end of the winter (April), this wolf was still wandering by himself. Given how old he looks, we suspect he doesn’t likely have many years left but will be interesting to see if he is still alive and around this winter.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Izola is Vira's adoptive mother, while Solveig is their birth mother. The two are professionally acquainted as captains within their own Grand Companies, the Adders and the Maelstrom respectively.
Salim and Haru are Burakh's adoptive fathers, who run a bonsai nursery in Yanxia while taking odd jobs from the Sekiseigumi. They are both adept martial artists as well, keeping their family practices from the far southeast.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
originally written for FFXIVWrite 2024
content warning: gun violence
Rumbling across the skies.
Breaths sharp and staggered, in time with heavy armored steps hard and fast against undergrowth. Soon the Garlean soldier will break out of the forest and reach the shore— but she looks up, as static sets the short hairs of her dark nose to standing. A droplet falls from the grey sky onto her forehead, nearly splashing her in her green-and-blue eyes.
Quickly, before the storm sets in. Despite the burning in her lungs, the bodily ache of a dead sprint, she wills her knees to pick up faster. If she is lucky, she will find the targets before the rest of the squadron catches up.
And find them, she does. Freed from the treeline, her boots hit smoother footing, until they begin to sink into sand. All along the beach, rowboats filled to bursting, setting off towards nothing but flat, wide, open sea. One of the scouts yells at her approach.
She draws the gunblade from her back, never slowing her desperate stumbling. A line of notched bows greets her at the shore. She throws the gunblade towards the beach.
“Hold!”
The armored Hrothgar woman gasps far too heavily for words, once she nearly meets them. She stops short, plants her feet into the sand. One Lady Yugiri is called for, and way is made for a small, pearl-scaled woman to meet her from the head of the departing fleet. Before she can question the soldier, the Hrothgar extends one hand. In it, so small and tightly-bundled as to nearly disappear in the cloth, was a crying Hrothgar infant.
Yugiri’s eyes meet the soldier’s. Rumbling across the horizon.
They share hardly a heartbeat before another scout calls urgently. Behind the soldier, breaking from the treeline, a squadron of Hrothgar gunbreakers helmed by a smaller Garlean officer. Bows raise again.
“Captain!?”
The Hrothgar woman straightens, raises her left arm slowly in surrender. She turns, agonizingly slow, until she and the infant face the squadron. Despite the higher-ranking officer present, she meets the eyes of her second-in-command: a Helion just like the baby, whose golden mane now stood on end as his gunblade and jaw begin to lower.
“Don’t just stand there!” screams the officer. “Defectors get the death penalty!”
The line of Hrothgar eyes stare at the soldier on the shore. She holds their gazes, and passes their impossible future to the fleet behind her. The baby’s father watches, and understands as sure as his Captain does: there is no peace in this conquest.
The officer puts his gun to the Helion’s head. “Shoot, or I will.”
He drops his gunblade. Shows his teeth.
Two shots. The lion falls. A chaos of roars break on the shore, and so breaks the clouds.
Solveig catches the first bullet in the shoulder. No time to feel. She turns, scooping both Lady Yugiri and the baby into a boat, blood gushing into the water. Three more shots, two hit her in the back, and she pushes, and pushes, and pushes the boat into sea, blood gushing into the water. The storm breaks behind them, more shots, mewling cries, a maelstrom of black, no breath in salt water, and a large hand grabs her wrist. She is dying now on a boat, and the baby is safe.
The baby is safe.
Heavy rain bears down onto the tiles of the living quarters. The paper walls do nothing to stymie the noise, especially not the mighty cracks of lightning across the sky, illuminating the outlines of the properly-large compound trees.
“Sorry!” Burakh winces, as a particularly-loud strike tears at the sky. “I know it’s pretty bad here when it storms!”
He speaks to a shivering lump underneath a heavy winter blanket. Hayato leans patiently against the lump’s side, dark tail wagging slowly. “It’s fine,” Vira’s muffled voice comes from underneath. “Thanks for the dog.”
“Don’t mention it.” Burakh lets out a small, contemplative sigh. “Hey, let’s do a little practice, alright?”
He doesn’t quite wait for a response, instead reaching out for the unpainted lion head sitting atop his armoire. Attached to it is a plain black fabric (“old curtains father Haru thought were depressing”), and he reaches inside for his special socks. Behind the armoire is a long mirror, and he retrieves it to place in front of Vira. Sitting down by them and Hayato, he pulls the paw socks on.
The commotion is enough that Vira raises up the winter blanket, just enough to see the mirror. “I’m gonna stay here.”
“Yeah, that’s alright.” Burakh throws the black fabric over his lion’s tail, and sits down in front of them; just enough that Vira can see the mirror reflecting both of them, if they peeked.
A crash of thunder, wailing wind. The lion’s paws shoot out in surprise, its unpainted paper head shaking, ears pulled all the way up. Burakh makes a show of snapping at the weather outside. Another crash, and the lion recoils a little, shaking and covering its eyes.
A little chuckle comes from the bundle. Burakh smiles under the lion head, where no one can see.
