The Wild Adventures Untold

At the shove, Najmah's eyes flew open. "What the-!" she growled when she realized it was only Jury. "Really?! I was in the middle of a good dream!" she groaned, rubbing her eye a paw groggily. She then glared at Vic after she spoke.

"Ya! Come on Naji! We don't got all day!" Rose added with a giggle, already standing by Vic.

"How many times do I have to tell you," Najmah growled with a glare at Rose as she got up, "Don't call me Naji." To her annoyance, the reply she got was another giggle and a shrug of the shoulders.

Jury rolled her eyes. "You can dream later. Now we need to find the camp, so get up." she barked, sniffing the air for any clue about where the rest of the pack might be.

Najmah sighed heavily and heaved herself to her paws, grumbling as she did so.

Meanwhile, Rose turned to her sister. "So which way do we go, Jury?" she asked, trusting her to be able to find camp.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Najmah immediately cut in, "Who says Jury gets to lead?"

Rose looked at her friend in surprise. "Well...We all nominated her to lead. And you were the last one awake..." she said slowly.

Silence just stayed silent, not wanting to interfere and have someone get mad at him again. He seemed to have a knack for angering wolves. Hmm. Something he would have to work on.

Jury grinned at Najmahs annoyance. "Should have woken up sooner, Naji." she teased, smirking as she started walking off a few feet. "Well, I say we should continue in the direction we were headed. Obviously it's not here, and we haven't passed it, so it must be this way."

Najmah glared at Jury and glared when the black used the nickname she despised, but with a quick look at everyone around her, she didn't push the matter. Instead, she just grumbled a few choice words under her breath and resentfully accepted Jury's leadership.

After giving Najmah an apologetic smile, Rose nodded in agreement with Jury. "Alright!" she said energetically, "Sounds good to me!"

Jury grinned at her reaction, turning and starting to walk, sniffing the air. She'd find them. They had much more daylight now, so they could cover quite a build of land if they really couldn't find it. "Let's go then," she said as she nodded to Rose, already enjoying being the leader for once.

She scented the ground, picking up a very faint scent of wolf, at least what she thought was wolf, when in reality was a stray domestic dog, as she'd never had the chance to know what a stray dog was. "Hey, smell that?" she barked as she faced them. "Wolf! See, Najmah? I've already found them," she said confidently.

Silence sniffed the area as well. "Yes, this does seem to be wolf scent," He agreed. "Though it is faint an unfamiliar, at least it is a trail of some sort to follow. Good job, Juryoku." Silence said in his low, growl-y voice.

Normally she wouldn't accept anything the larger wolf said, but right now she was just being her prideful self and enjoying the time as leader, accepting the compliment with a wag of her tail.

"Maybe the wolf knows where the camp is. I never bothered to get to know all the pack members, so I probably just don't know this wolf." Jury replied, for once not spitting out an angry remark at him, following the scent for a few moments to see where it went.

(Point 1 for Silence xD)

Rose and Najmah sniffed the scent as well. Najmah snorted and looked away, refusing to agree due to her stinging pride. But otherwise, she had no objection.

Something about the scent seemed...strange to Rose, but it was too faint to make out any specific details. So instead of dwelling on it, she smiled proudly at her sister. "Good work, Jury! Now we'll find the pack in no time!" she barked excitedly, ignoring the dark splinter of doubt piercing her heart.

Silence just nodded and Followed after Jury, hoping to be as helpful as possible whenever he could, but otherwise sinking into the background.

Jury trotted after the scent, the trail being easy enough to follow despite being faint. It was old, but not old enough following it would yield no results. She walked up to another stone path, calmly walking across as though it held no dangers.

"Hey," she barked, looking back at the wolves, "It seems to be a bit stronger over here. Like they crossed here a lot or recently. Maybe it's the edge of our territory, since over there wasn't. Don't remember the path here though."

Silence spoke up. "This path is strange indeed," he pointed out, sniffing at it and withdrawing with his lips curled back at the hot, acrid stench. "Jury, are you sure this is the right way?" he asked, uneasy with the sudden appearance of the strange path.

[And, there goes Silence back down the Jury totem pole XD or maybe not?]

Jury looked at him, irritated. "Yes, I'm sure. I've lived here longer than you, you know, and there's no other wolf packs around. So yes, I'm sure." she growled at him, annoyed by his doubt.

(Sorry, my phone suddenly deactivated :/)

Najmah cringed inwardly at seeing the strange path, but at seeing Jury cross it without falter, she held her head up high and padded after her, determined to show no weakness. She stopped beside the black wolf and raised an eyebrow at both her and Silence as they spoke to each other.

Rose had crossed the path with Jury, walking a little ways ahead as her sister chose to snap at the Yukon. The youngest of the group sniffed around as she waited for the others to catch up when she suddenly stopped.
"...Guys?" Rose suddenly called out a moment later. She was staring down in confusion at something she had never seen before with the scent of a creature she did not recognize.
"...I think you might want to have a look at this...?"
At her paws was a pair of badly, worn out somethings only humans would call "Boots".

Jury growled at Silence before padding over to where Rose had wandered to. She frowned as she saw the objects, leaning in to sniff them. She reared her head back up, stepping away. "What is that smell? What are those?" She stared at them once more, shoving one with a forepaw cautiously.

Najmah quickly joined Jury and Rose at where the strange items were. After crouching down and eying them for a moment, she leaned forward and sniffed the opening of one of the things before snorting and jerking her head away.
"Ugh! What an awful stench!" she gagged.

Meanwhile, after examining the boots for a moment and sniffing them one last time, something clicked in Rose's mind, causing her eyes to widen.
Wait...that's...
Her eyes widened even more as an image flashed in her mind, a memory that was not her own.
But...t-that's...not possible!

"It must be something from rhose creatures on the path." Jury stepped away from the things, hating its awful smell. "They both smell terrible. I doubt any of you know what these are?"

Najmah snorted. "Heck if I knew," she said with a shrug.

But Rose just remained frozen where she stood, not seeming to hear Jury. "...It can't be..." she whispered, her prickling and her voice laced with disbelief.

Jury twitched her ears as Rose spoke, looking over at her. "What'd you say, Rose?"

Silence shrugged as Jury seemed so confident in herself. He followed across the path as well and bent down to nose at the strange objects. "Strange indeed..." he said, looking at Rose and her zoned out stare. The young wolf knew something, something important, and she wasn't telling anyone. Silence guessed that she probably didn't even know that she knew, which would make sense, because nobody seemed to know anything about anything at the moment, and will all these odd things seemingly appearing out of nowhere, any hint of knowledge would be extremely helpful. "Rose, did you figure something out?" He asked.

Najmah turned and raised an eyebrow at Rose. "...What's up with you?" she asked.

Rose, too dazed to answer anyone, stumbled backwards away from the boots.
"T-That's..." she stuttered in a whisper, "T-That's...i-impossible! ...It can't be..."
Without warning, she turned tail and ran uphill, off course, panic in her eyes.
"It's too fresh! The scent is too fresh! It can't be!" she yelled as she ran.
She had to get to higher ground. She had to see. Her nose...it had to be lying. It had to! If she could just get a clear view of the area... Her eyes would tell the honest truth. Something her nose couldn't...

"Wha-Rose, what-?! The scent is stale! Get back here!!" Najmah yelled after her friend.
Oh great, here we go.
"Jury, you're the leader! Go get her before she does something stupid!"

Jury growled in frustration as Rose took off yelling. "Yeah, I'm on it." she muttered to Najmah as she ran after Rose. "Rose, what are you doing?!"

Silence looked from wolf to wolf, unsure of what to do, as this seemed to be a family problem at the moment.

Najmah watched Jury take off after Rose, staying put. She trusted that the black wolf wouldn't need any help getting Rose back.

Rose didn't even look back at the others. The top of the mountain they were on would take a while to get to, even madly scrambling up the way she was. But she only needed to get high enough to see. She had to know...
She yelped as one of her front paws slipped, sending loose dirt downhill. Her claws dug into the side of the hill to keep from slipping further. She looked over her shoulder instinctively and there, in the distance over the top of a nearby, smaller mountain, was the tip of a-

Skyscraper.

She tore up the mountainside, panic the only thing moving her. Skyscraper. ...What was that word? And why did it fill her with so much despair?

"Rose!" Jury yelled, racing after her. That wolf is way too energetic! she growled in her head, scrambling to keep up as she watched her scale the rocks with her small and nimble paws. "Rose, just stop for a moment!"

Rose did stop; several minutes after Jury had told her to. She pulled herself on top of an outcropping of rock, her legs shaky from the climb. She stood there panting, facing the direction she had seen the skyscraper. She was not at the top of the mountain, but she was high enough. She could see a city. But, not just the typical city that had lain in ruins for thousands of years. Even from this distance, she could see this city was...
Not possible... This is not possible...
As she continually stared off into the distance, the dread in her eyes reflecting what she felt inside.

Jury panted as she stopped behind the younger wolf. "Rose!" she growled in frustration. "Why did you run off like that?" she snapped, glaring at her as she caught her breath. "What was so important th-" Jury stopped, looking out over the city, trailing off. "...Wow. Never seen one so...intact before." she murmured, momentarily forgetting she was mad.

"Intact..." Rose repeated dazedly, still staring at the tall, undamaged building and their shining, unbroken windows, "Jury...it's not supposed to look this way. Not now. Not...not ever. ...This...isn't supposed to..."

Silence looked at Najmah. "Should we follow them?" He asked. "Staying here feels...exposed."