`b i t t e r .s w e e t. ___OPEN

[Sivoncé™]

The night was crisp and unforgiving, the snow falling from the sky in thick clumps that fell with almost tangible jubilance -- winter was relishing in its release. Darkness had settled in thick, and the only lights in this night were that of the rebel diamond stars and the luminous drifts of ornate white dust. Darkness was foreboding to those who lacked the night sight. It was not something that could deter the lupine residents of the valley.
A female figure wove in and out through the snow-cloaked forest, her slender, sprinting-attuned form was sharp and precise in its movements. Whatever it was she hunted hadn't a prayer even with the thick precipitation. In seconds, the snowshoe was down and dangling from the mouth of the victor -- a well-learned and seasoned warrior and hunter for the Sheeran pack.
Luma, her name was. She was colored a sterling silver with long streaks of rich midnight marking her new, thick winter pelt. She was unmistakably muscular, but then again, so are the majority of wolves. She had the body of a long-distance runner, small, sleek, streamlined. Her sent held the trademark of the Sheeran pack, but her strong, slender limbs gave away a piece of what may very well be a mountain heritage.
The female buried her prey and continued forth with her pursuits. Huh, she gasped, softly but audible. her front left paw burned with white-fire, but as she lifted it up, it was clear that black was the color that swathed it. She studied it with mild surprise - it was something she'd seen on other wolves, but had never encountered before on herself. Frostbite.
She carried on with a three-legged limp and gait, awkward, but determined and certain. Now and then she was forced to put down the paw and take a few needle-sharp steps, but she travelled efficiently after getting the hang of it. Her destiniation was not far.
The hot springs were bubbling and frothing with steamy welcome when she reached their snow-lined pools of heated water. She dipped in the paw with hesitence, wincing. Her sleek body slipped into the springs, and she closed her eyes tight against the pain.
"Dear somebody, I can't lose my paw....it didn't look too severe...."

[Njack]

(Well, it did say open. *looks around suspiciously* Am I going to get beat up?)

Knot sniffed curiously at the snow around him, picking up a variety of scents. "Rabbit," he muttered. He glanced around, noticing paw prints in the snow, slowly filling up as the white powder settled on the ground.

Shrugging, Knot settled down towards the ground, stalking the tracks, and the scent of rabbit. The scent got stronger and stronger, until he came to a little patch of snow. Knot looked around, but all he saw was a plume of steam rising into the air not too far away.

"I think those might be those hot springs I've heard about. Never actually tried going there, though," he muttered, then probed the apparently freshly dug snow, partly unearthing a rabbit. He covered it up again. "No doubt someone's catch- probably that wolf who made the tracks earlier."

"Why am I talking to myself anyway?" He stopped muttering, then dropped down to the ground again, examining the tracks that led away from the buried rabbit. Almost like a snake - a thick and furry snake - he slinked off, following the tracks. "Interesting... They seem to be going on... three legs?" Great, he was talking to himself again.

The plume of steam was growing larger as he approached the hot springs, following the tracks. Knot reached the edge of the springs, and shook the snow off his pelt.

He blinked. There was a wolf in the hot springs. "Well, duh!" he muttered to himself. "Weren't you stalking the tracks?"

Knot didn't think the other wolf, who seemed to be a female, had noticed him yet.

"Uhm... hello!"

So much for being unnoticed.

[Sivoncé™]

Then, the frightening thought that maybe running it in hot water was bad for it infected her mind. She considered getting out, but then remembered she would freeze in seconds. She was probably stuck here at least until the snow stopped falling --- Then she could find a deep den and curl up in the back of it until she was considerably dry. The rabbit would be her only meal -- she frowned sadly thinking about how she'd meant it for the pack. She turned her fretful gaze back to the paw, the exhaled to see that it was slightly less wretched than it had been previously. The swelling was going down a bit. She let it plop back into the water and soak.

Her ears twitched, suddenly aware that there seemed to be another being close by. She sniffed the air cautiously. If any enemy caught her now..... Typically, she would've challenged them. If the intruder was bigger and towered over her, she was a fabulous runner and could reach the camp and get help. With three paws? What the heck could she do with three paws? The one was still too tender to really even consider usuing agan so soon...
"Uh, Hello," the stranger barked.
She calmed immediately; no need to worry, the scent was clearly Sheeran. She narrowed her eyes, but the steam waftering from the springs made it hard to see her pack mate. With crickets chirruping loudly in her ear, she realized she was being rude by not returning a greeting.
"Hello! I was out for a hunt, but it looks like I got frostbite," came her explanatory bark. She sloshed a few feet closer to the stranger, aiding her vision. "You're Knot, right?" she woofed, remembering the wolf around camp and at Moonless Meetings. Sadness flickered in her for a moment. She wished she knew the members of her pack better than this.

[Njack]

He nodded, seeming a little distracted, though by what was uncertain. "Yes. Yes, that's my name."

Knot dipped a paw into the water, but drew it back quickly. "Wow, hot!" he muttered to himself. "They don't call these hot springs for nothing, I guess..." He settled down near the edge of the hot springs.

Something struck him as odd, but he couldn't quite figure it out. "Uh..." He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Wait... wait. You said you had frostbite?"

He paused, thinking. "Can you show me your paw? I'm not a healer or anything, but... eh."

[Sivoncé™]

Luma eyed not curiously. The thing that was apparent from then about Knot seemed to be his light-heartedness. They were being slightly serious, she supposed, but his strange way of using words seemed to almost brighten things. Apparently he was feeling a tad scatterbrained at the moment, but nevertheless, she was grateful for the company. Gingerly, she held out her paw, still dappled with a small splotch of cold black. She winced at the pounding pain that started to echo throughout her leg. "It hurts just a bit, and it's definitly better than it was just a little bit ago. I dunno, I'm no healer, either."

[Njack]

Knot raised his eyebrows as the other wolf showed him her paw. "That... doesn't look so good." He thought about it for a moment, then said, "I don't think hot water is the best treatment, because it might damage the stuff in the paw..."

"Hmm..." Knot began to move, but hesitated. "Er... tell me if this hurts." He reached out with his paws, and covered her paw with both his paws. "If you don't mind, of course. I mean, I think warm things are better than hot for frostbite, but I couldn't think of anything else warm... This is probably going to hurt."

He managed a grin. "Sorry if I'm worrying you. Wolves say that I'm extraordinarily blunt. What's your name?"

[Sivoncé™]

Luma winced as Knot took her paw to warm it. She frowned deeply, nodding at what he said. She'd freaked when she'd saw the frostbite, and hadn't stopped to think things through, especially because she'd never dealt with frostbite or heard much of it before. She chided herself internally. This was not the typical way she went about things -- she was never this foolish or rashed. "Thanks," she woofed. "I don't know what I was thinking -- I don't usually act on whims, or anything...it's just not in my nature, really. I don't know what got into me." She offered him an apologetic smile. Her smile turned kind as he talked of his bluntness. "Eh, it's refreshing to meet a supremely honest wolf now and then."

[Njack]

Knot grinned. "Well, you never know what you'll do in a crisis. I'm pretty sure that if I was the one with frostbite, I'd be running all the way back to camp and probably killing myself in the process."

"And supremely honest? That's an interesting way to put it, I guess. Almost got my head bitten off once for being supremely honest, then." He bit his lip for a moment, thinking. "Hmm. How are we going to get back to camp with that paw of yours?"

[Sivoncé™]

Luma winced as she leaned out of the heated waters, shivering terribly. Oh, what a mess I've gotten myself in! She wondered if she could even make it back to camp with Knot's help -- as soon as she stepped fully away from the hot spring, she would start freezing.... Is there some place I could go that would be dry and warm, just for the time being?
Then it clicked, and she woofed, "I think, if I can get back to camp, it would be best if I stayed in the seniors' dens for a bit. There are smaller versions of the hot springs in their caves, and if I rest near them, I'll be able to keep warm, but dry and not too hot for the frostbite to worsen." She thought upon what he'd said about his own bluntness. "Well, the truth is not always what we want to hear...but it is always true. It all depends on your capacity for things that are real."

[Njack]

Knot watched the other wolf as she leaned out of the springs. "Yes, that seems like a good idea..." he started, brow creasing in a frown, "...but I think it's best, now that the paw's gotten warmed up, to prevent it from being exposed to more cold..."

He glanced around. "But we can't stay here forever... how far to camp, do you think? If we hurry, it shouldn't damage the paw all that much, I'm hoping."

"And about bluntness... Well, everyone interprets things differently, so really, sometimes being blunt is just saying your opinion without watering it down. It isn't always true, but it's honest as to your opinion, or what you think is true."

Knot looked at the other wolf's frostbitten paw, trying to figure out whether it would support her enough to get them back to camp.

[Sivoncé™]

Sidetracked by their second conversation, and disregarding the first for a moment, she tilted her head in question at Knot. She laughed softly. "Well, then, what is bluntness, what is honesty, what is truth? No definitions....we make what we wish of the words!" She smiled widely at him, then laughed once more. "I think we have an epiphany in the premesis!"

She shook her head, focusing once more on the true issue of her mildly frostbitten paw. "Well, I'm pretty darn quick....even with three paws most of the way, I think we can make it there swiftly. And it can't be too far...okay, maybe ten minutes away...." she winced. That was an awful lot of three-legged walking.

[Njack]

He nodded, listening to the other wolf's comments about bluntness and honesty, then laughed. "Good point! I'm... out of ideas about bluntness for the moment."

"And ten minutes away?" The smile fading from his face, Knot looked up at the sky, watching the snow still fall from above. "Well, we better get going, then."

He set off in the direction of the Sheeran camp, stopped, turned around, and said, "Do you think that rabbit is still warm?"

[Sivoncé™]

Reluctantly, Luma shifter her body from the heated, lapping waters of the hot springs and shook her pelt roughly, ridding herself of as much of the water as possible. Her teeth clamped down together as the cold overtook her. "Ur...yeah, it should be fine," she murmured through jittering, gritted teeth. She loped uneasily after him, tripping as she picked up the rabbit. She grunted and regained her balance momentarily, then began the long trek homeward once again.

[Njack]

Knot slowed down, trotting beside the other wolf. He watched the her paw carefully.

"This is going to be a long ten minutes," he muttered to himself.

Knot took the rabbit, muttered something else to himself, then ripped a few shreds of warm meat out of it. "I'll make up the lost food to the pack later. Right now, I'll say this is a good cause."

"Here, wrap these around your paw. Anything helps, right?"

[Sivoncé™]

Luma paused when she caught up with him, and caught his worried gaze. She sighed softly. Yes, it's gonna hurt like hell and I'll probably lose my paw if I keep on like this. She eyed the meat thoughtfully, then noddes. Knot had strips of the meat, but Luma winced skeptically. How would she be able to keep the strips in place? With an enourmous feeling of revulsion, but a screaming instinct of survival, Luma bit the side of the creature and embedded her paw into the carcass. She wrinkled her nose with intense disgust, and tore her eyes away from it as she resumed walking. The sound was sickening, but she jarred her thoughts, determined not to retch. I will not vomit, I will not vomit, I will not vomit....This is totally, utterly, morally wrong. Everything about this is vile and vulgar. Seriously, I'm never doing this again, even if it does mean losing a paw. Totally wrong.....but necessary. Just keep moving, just keep moving, just keep moving...