Capricious Caprine

[Sheep n Goats]

___Flosya snorted in frustration, ears back as she struck the frozen ground with her sharp black hooves in a vain effort to free up some of the dry, dead grass trapped below. The wind howled along the rocky peaks of the mountain, no trees to rustle at this elevation. Only the faint trickle of a mountain creek below the ice and the constant rush of frigid air between the craggy peaks was ever audible here, at least in winter. It seemed even the fierce golden eagles who nested on the highest ledges had left for kinder territory, for their cries, too, were absent. And why exactly did we have to come here? she thought bitterly, casting a glance uphill where Judas, the dominant goat who had elected to move their rag tag band to this desolate place utterly on a whim, perched atop an overhanging rock with a very satisfied look on his bearded face. She scowled; he may have felt at home here, but she and her compatriots yielded from more domesticated lines better suited for rocky hills that jagged mountains.
___"Judas," she called out through a throat that felt raw due to the gelid mountain air. "What with the lack of grazing up here, don't you think it's about time we returned to the grasslands, at least for the winter?" Judas just grinned.
___"There are no grasslands." All of the sheep - Flosya, Rhueb, Veyre, and Ulee - looked up with equal shock in unison. No grasslands? Absurd! Veyre took a step forward, bracing his foreleg and lowering his horns to the goat threateningly. He may not have been dominant enough to make much of a herd leader himself, but he would not stand for his ewes being lied to like this!
___"Nonsense, Judas! It is bad enough that you led us to this miserable place - how dare you insult our intelligence on top of it." He looked to the ewes. "Perhaps our group would be better a flock than a herd - I may not be the best leader, but at least I won't condemn you all to starvation." Judas snorted, tossing his head but not overly impressed by the male's big words.
___"No, I mean, there are no grasslands. There's a giant lifeless expanse of ash, vulture-picked carcasses, and frozen soil, but if you think you'll have better luck grazing there, you're daft." The sheep only stared at him, incredulous. "It burned to the ground," he added emphatically and all too impatiently, ears back. Four wordless, shocked woolen faces answered him. "Have you guys even once looked to the horizon instead of at the ground the whole time we've been up here? It was pretty hard to miss."

((Crappy post, but it's basically an invitation to anyone playing feral goats/sheep, mountain goats, bighorns, etc. to join back up so we can maybe eventually form a goat herd and a sheep flock))

[Guenhwyvar and Goats]

This was the environment he thrived in. He was not a sheep made for rolling slopes and hot temperatures; he was made for the sharp mountain ranges, with ice and snow coating the ground he walked upon. Oh, it was not without its problems -- a blind yet perfectly capable puma had tried to eat him upon his first arrival -- but overall he had gained weight and activity now that his thick coat was not overheating him.

Unfortunately his new companion was not doing so well. Guenhwyvar vaguely remembered the two Angora goat siblings who had arrived ages ago. He did not know where the sister had gone, but he had discovered the one-eared one, grotesquely injured by the fires of the grasslands. Almost all of her perfect white coat was gone, replaced by ugly wounds, and she appeared to have lost her other ear.

Yet she had somehow made it to the mountains despite her condition and, a social creature at heart, Guenhwyvar had put in all he could to help her survive. Hence why he had a goat plastered against him to keep warm in the harsh wind. Careful places to sleep and movement had kept her from developing hypothermia, but if her fur didn't grow back soon, Guenhwyvar feared that all of her determination and his help would be in vain.

Nasim was all too aware of her vulnerability, hence forgoing her shy behavior to stay near Guenhwyvar. He had saved her life, after all, and as long as he was around, he may be the only thing that kept her alive in this climate. Little did she know that her goat companions were quite nearby, including her flustered sister. The three goats had caught a vague familiar scent and were moving towards it... Oddly enough, the same place Guenhwyvar was inadvertently heading.

Then, with a simple change of the wind, nearly all of them became aware of it at once. Hala perked and nearly cried out with delight when she smelled her sister, burnt but alive, in the distance. Afaf was more delighted to smell Judas not so burnt and alive. Alya simply sat back to see what her companions did, too cold and hungry to really care what happened. Nasim scented Judas for an instant as the wind changed and looked hopefully up at Guenhwyvar; the ram nodded and they moved forward.

Afaf arrived upon the rag-tag bunch first, followed by Alya and Hala. All she could see was Judas standing like a king atop one of the rocks; however, he kept looking down, so perhaps he had some other companions nearby. Afaf didn't especially care that point; she was just pleased to have discovered the male still alive and not burnt to a crisp.

"Judas! What on earth are you doing up here for?"

Alya grumbled the same question, this time directed at Afaf. Hala grinned, perfectly content in her thick angora coat. Afaf ignored Alya's grumbling altogether; if she didn't like it so much, she could have stayed in the grasslands and risked the fire.

Guenhwyvar, meanwhile, could see the shadow of a goat standing atop a crevice in the distance as he and Nasim approached. He bellowed loudly to let the unknown group know of their approaching, and to inform them that they shouldn't move anywhere until he and Nasim had caught up. Nasim, meanwhile, just hugged close to the sheep and hoped she didn't freeze to death before they arrived.

[Goats n Sheep Shoats]

((I'm obscenely rusty on these characters, so forgive any gaffes. Your guys, except for Guen, are all goats, right?))

___Veyre stiffened at Judas's words, once more condescending. His ears flicked back in irritation and he resented the fact that the male was pretty much correct; he and his ewes had been so focused on obtaining food where they had come that they had paid little attention to what they had left behind. He did not want to look over his shoulder and down the slopes to the distant grasslands, for it would only confirm his ignorance, but he saw Flosya jerk her head back and the immediate deflation of her posture that followed. Ok, so there were no grasslands. Brilliant; they were apt to be stuck here all winter at this rate.
___Flosya, disheartened by the barren expanse of charred earth veneered with a frosting of snow where she had expected to see the grasslands, was relieved when she caught familiar scents on the breeze. She wasn't sure why really; they were all goats with the exception of the feral musk of Dall's, though another sheep - even if a wild one - was comforting. After some medidation, she realized that the familiarity, which was comforting, held twinges of something more ominous. One of the group was badly injured, and the smell the char and reek of burnt hair sent a shivver coursing down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold. For the first time, she was feeling somewhat greatful that Judas had dragged them to the mountains after all, for it could have been any of them - particularly little Ulee.
___Around the hulking mass of a large stony ledge, a small brown and black goat with a bright splash of white on her forehead came into view. Behind her came a piebald animal of the same variety, then a shaggy white beast that looked well suited for the snowy peaks. Distantly, the scape of hooves and the low bellow of a large male indicated that two more were on their way, the Dall's and the burned animal. It seemed the former was watching over the latter, a trait Rhueb - the sheep closest to the new arrivals - found a charming even if unpragmatic gesture. She fancied Guenhwyvar would make a better role model and protector of Ulee than Veyre and Judas combined.
___Judas was elated to see the does, alive and intact, though scent told him "intact" did not fully apply to Nasim (nor had it ever, really, being sans an ear from the start). He let out a cheerful little bleat and leapt down from his rock, surefooted even on the ice. He reared up in a playful, joyous gesture before trotting over, tail twitching excitedly. With his large ears perched forwards, he leaned close to Afaf's snout, exhaling quickly and forcefully in a friendly greeting.
___"I could ask the same of you!" he replied cheerfully, great beard bobbing with every word and smile upturning the corners of his maw. He looked beyond the group then with a more somber glance that erased the mirth from his features.
___"I smell Nasim - is it bad?" He asked quietly, an open question to anyone but gaze on her sibling, Hala, more than the others.

___Maquan, meanwhile, could sense that she was moving in the direction of something peculiar. The bighorn sheep ewe had been seperated from her herd over a week ago when a mountain lion leapt between her and the group. She'd been fortunate enough to slip away unscathed, the great cat making its pounce with deadly precision on an old, run-down ram with a broken horn. But she had not been able to safely pass, or perhaps had been reluctant to given the gory scene, and fresh snowfall confused the scents of her brethren. Since then she'd been hoping to find another group to no avail; it was likely, based on how over-grazed and predator-infested the east slopes were, that many of the sheep had crossed over the apex to the west, where milder weather and fewer dangers prevailed. She dare not make the journey on her own, however, and was thus pleased upon scenting other hoofstock.
___But was this truly cause for celebration? unless her nose decieved her, there was not a single conspecific among them. Some were goats, others sheep, all of a foreign and thus likely domesticated flavor; she knew the scent of Bighorn, Dall, and Mountain Goat, and these matched none of those scents. Correction - one Dall's Sheep was among the group, and this piqued her interest. They may have been different species, but his kind was not unlike her own. Granted he probably would wander off on his own, mating season very recently over, but she could at least hope he might know where other herds were. Thus, she continued in the direction of the group, doubtless an iminent contributor to the peculiarly eclectic mix of caprine and ovine.

- Judas + Veyre + Rhueb + Ulee + Flosya + Maquan -

[Goats and Guenhwyvar]

Afaf grinned at Judas' blatant delight at seeing them. It was good to know he remembered, and furthermore, that he cared. She wouldn't expect anyone to remember them, since the meeting had been so brief. Tail twitching, she returned his greeting with a puff of breath of her own, Alya sighing and trotting up to join the group. Hala, after a pause, also followed, though her head kept turning in the direction she had smelled her sister.

The mood rapidly turned somber, though, and Afaf's ears drooped at his question. Hala frowned, turning her head towards where she had smelled Nasim. Then she blinked, walking a few steps forward, peering. Another loud bleat confirmed what she swore she saw: Guenhwyvar and Nasim were on their way. With a cry Hala took off, bounding over the ice. Alya blinked -- there went her one source of warmth -- then turned to Judas.

"I suppose we will find out."

Guenhwyvar, knowing he was heading in the right direction, didn't focus too much on what was ahead of him. He was more concerned with not having Nasim fall. Some slopes were somewhat narrow, but the goat was reluctant to leave his side, and so they had to try and balance on shaky ground. He spent more time looking down at his hooves than ahead of him, but at least it got them somewhere.

Thus, he completely missed that they were nearby until Nasim let out a loud bleat and left his side. The ram's head snapped up, entire body stiff. Then he realized that it was no predator coming after them, but rather the other Angora, charging up to her sister and greeting her jubilantly. The two goats danced around each other, before Nasim squeezed herself against Hala's thick coat. The intact doe looked up and at Guenhwyvar, ears perked, and nodded.

"Thank you."

Guenhwyvar smiled. "It was no problem."

The three then walked back. ((Lame sentence for the win! Fast-forwarding to when they walk all the way back...))

Afaf and Alya both charged the Angora goats when they returned, greeting them and squeezing against Nasim until the goat finally called them away, feeling like she was going to suffocate. Afaf bobbed her head at the group, then turned back to Judas.

"It's bad, but she is back with us now. I think she will make it."

The doe apparently had little issue with talking about a fellow goat's mortality in front of them. Nasim glanced over at the doe with wide eyes, then snorted and pressed against her sister, ears back. It seemed that she, at the very least, wasn't about to be tossed away.

Guenhwyvar, meanwhile, had come upon the sheep, and also scented another one on the way. Though she was disappointingly not of his species, she was a wild sheep, and he had not encountered one in quite some time. He bellowed a greeting, hoping perhaps it would encourage her their way, not realizing it was already her destination. He then turned to the group of sheep -- vaguely familiar, but not enough for him to remember their names.

"I'm sure I've seen you around, but just in case, I'm Guenhwyvar. It's good to see you escaped the fire unscathed."

He smiled, ears perked, not realizing that he may be opening up a can of worms...