Jaeger stood atop the beta den as he had since he'd spotted the first tendrils of mist sneaking down from the distant mountain tops. His eyes shined, his ears perked forward, and he keenly watch the mass of fog lighten as the sun peeked over the currently invisible horizon. His tail swished through the mist behind him and he grinned, breathing in the wetness that clung to the air. He loved fog. Loved the way it crept over the land and dampered the song of the birds that rose from their warm nests to greet the hazy, white filled dawn. It made things hard to see, smell or otherwise detect but that was half the fun of it. Finding and taking down prey in this type of weather seemed folly to most wolves but to him it was an testament to skill and to the ability to understand and predict the wilderness. It was days like this that were the reason he occasionally ran the more common hunting trails with his eyes closed, so that his paws memorized the placement of every root and bramble; so that he knew the position of every low hanging branch and could guess the instant that he needed to duck.
Clouds rolled around him, the fog almost thick enough to feel like water against his pelt. He resisted the urge to shake the moisture off, letting it settle until droplets slicked down the long strands of fur on his back. Not even the cold bothered him now, he felt it, but it was diminished like the barely audible sounds that filled the morning. Compared to some of the winters he'd experienced the chill of the fog felt like a pleasantly cool breeze, only a little bracing.
He focused on the sounds of the birds whistling, wondering which ones were desperately lost and which ones were, like him, enjoying the echo of their voice through the mist. He peered into the thick curtain of fog, almost able to see them flitting among the darker shapes of the trees. Then the fog rolled over and he was left staring into the endless whiteness. He stared at the swirls and tendrils of mist, trying to pick out shapes and imagining them to be spirits visiting the earth one last time before they went beyond. Silly fanciful thoughts, but embarrassment couldn't cling to him while he stood unseen in the fog with all the pack unaware of his morning daydream.
His head turned towards the alphas' den as he heard the muted sound of Ny's howl, he responded with an excited bark, leaping from the top of his den towards the ground that was somewhere in the white below. For one brief instant he was hit with the fear that the earth had dissolved into the fog, but then he landed nimbly and sighing with relief, made his way unswervingly towards where he knew her den to be. The grass beneath his paws was as soaked by the dew as his fur. He shivered with pent up energy, eager to be out running in the cold and the wet.
(( I write long? what? and hey Ny, Jaeger was originally meant as a beta/hunter, not a warrior. But I'm fine with him acting as leader for the warriors until we have an alpha male to take over that job))
