Ever since Nova Mountain her stumach had been rumbling like crazy; it felt as if all was air and something needed to be done about that simple fact. However, on that same moment she had already planned a trip towards White Rose Lake. Last time she had visited the place, she had been stunned by the breathtaking view, however, company had interrupted any chance to enjoy it with sheer pleasure. Hence her reason for coming her alone, knowing that she had every chance and minute to portray the lake in silence while, most likely, getting lost in thoughts along the way.

Arriving there had been the easiest part of the journey, now as for ignoring that rumbling stumach of hers, it got worse with every step upon the road. Soon she would have to obey like and fuel her energy, or face another thing, collapsing through the ground as her body would resist to go any further. Then again, her luck could have just grown - or so it did. Seeing a dead rabbit upon the ground, fresh and not so old either. Any other wolf would have wondered why it would lay there dead the first place, however she craved for it like a dying man's last breath.

Faster, faster ..until she finally arrived, her first thought that sprung to her mind was to feast upon the dead creature lying so close to the water. It could have drowned inside the lake, but as such, it was strange seeing as rabbits never swam the first place. Besides that, it didn't have one wet hair upon its body and he was a few metres away from the shorelines of the lake. Upon closer inspection, Nymphe suddenly realized that something suspicious was going on. After all, that smell was something to chase away anything. Anything but a hungry wolf, ey?

Yaaay :D

they keep tellin' me jesus walked on water
well he shoulda surfed

Another day, another stroll at White Rose Lake. What could she say, Jubilee absolutely adored the place! It was hard for her to keep away for so long, which was exactly why she was there on such a fine day. There was no real reason aside from some exercise and random wandering. Maybe she would see something interesting or meet a new wolf - random things always happened to her while she was here. Yes, this place held only happy memories for the cinnamon youth.

Charcoal nose twitched as she picked up two scents: one was definately another wolf, female - the other was something that made her want to wretch. What the hell was that god-awful smell! Black-rimmed ears perked as she directed her body toward the scents. Something was definately amiss today and Jubilee would be damned if she didn't discover what it was!

As she neared the shoreline she saw two things: a wolf (as expected) and a dead rabbit. Okay, so this wolf must have just killed the rabbit - yes, that seemed plausible. But the horrendous stench coming from the dead creature - what in the world could explain that? Jubilee came to a stop near the wolf and dead rabbit, her head tilting to the side as a questioning look appared on her face. Fortunately this wolf smelled like others from Nova Mountain, so she would probably be friendly and whatnot. The Zeta hoped to god that the rabbit didn't come from her home - that would definately spell trouble.

"Uh, what the hell happened to your kill?" she asked in a completely honest and slightly lame way. Jubilation still had a ways to go with her words, apparently.

Nymphe's soft glares changed from puzzle and confusement into something disgusting. The smell coming out of the creature was horrible, enough to kill the vegetation around where it was and leave nothing left, save for some more dead vegetation. That is, if any smell could kill. By her simple guesses the creature would have died probably a week or so ago, it always produced such a nice smelly cause but this wasn't just the scent of death alone. There was certainly a secret coiling and unfolding underneath the cause of death, making the ebony wolf even more curious, that is, if she could survive her any longer without suffocating.

Upon closer inspection (..but not too close!) Nymphe began to notice how little flies were surrounding the death corpse, probably also eating everything on the inside, or what was left of it. The strange thing; that she noticed now, was that there were also a lot of dead flies surrounding the corpse of the rabbit. How odd, she thought as she knew that it was a bug magnet but not a bug killer. Moreso these creatures caused a lot of mess but cleaned the leftovers too, not drop dead right along with it.

As another wolf appeared, Nymphe smiled at the comment and then quickly looked at the rabbit again while taking a steps back and increasing the distance between her and the stench. 'My kill? I'm not picky but that ....err, thanks but no thanks.' She drew back a disgusted taste. The stench would also influence the flavor, hence the taste would be bad, if not that - a killer, even. 'The rabbit is still attached with all its limbs on the right place. Do you have any suggestion as to how it died?'

Oh man. Sorry for the wait. Life has been totally crazy this past week.. x_x

we might be laughing a bit too loud
but that never hurt no one

Charcoal nose scrunched up in disgust as Jubilee studied the mysterious rabbit before her. Gray eyes darted to the wolf next to her and then back to the smelly dead creature. Okay, so this wasn't her kill. That answered one question but roused so many more! The little black flies all around the corpse didn't help to answer any quesions or ease the cinnamon female's mind at all. In fact, for some reason, she began to grow increasingly worried. None of this added up to anything she had ever seen before.

"I honestly have no idea," she answered in a quiet voice. The Zeta had seen wolves and other creatures kill small animals and she had seen them die of old age, but this? The rabbit's smell was offensive and it had a swarm of flies eating it's corpse. This was definately not normal in any way at all. Should the two wolves even be hovering around it like this? The horrid stench was making her stomach churn and the thought that this couldn't be good for anyone's health fluttered through her mind. A worried expression crossed her features.

She took a few steps back. The smell was just unbearable. "I'm Jubilee, by the way. Zeta over at Nova Mountain," she said in a momentary change of subject. Slate eyes studied the other wolf for a bit - yes, she was sure that this female belonged to Nova Mountain, too. She offered a friendly smile and nodded her head in a proper greeting.

*feels special!*

everyone i know
is in the fight of their life

Nymphe, hmn? "Nice to meet you," she said in a cheery voice. Jubilee offered a bob of her head in return to the one she had recieved. Despite the pleasant introductions and whatnot, there was still something very odd going on here. Slate eyes focused on the curious dead thing the two females were standing before.

Her companion spoke again, and the peacekeeper listened intently. Cinnamon points flicked as Nymphe asked if she would like to investigate. Jubilee let out a small laugh as the other Novain joked about the smell. True, her small charcoal nose was recieving a beating from the horrid stench. And an adventure might possibly take them away from here in seach of whatever the hell had caused that rabbit it's apparently untimely death. The Zeta grinned and looked at Nymphe, "Investigation sounds fun," she began. "Where - or how - should we start?" the youth inquired.

Jubilee wondered quietly to herself how such an unfortunate death would come upon the small creature. Obviously it wasn't a predator - could it have been some diseased food? No, that didn't make much sense - didn't rabbits only eat plants and stuff like that? But what else could it possibly be? Oh. The tawny female frowned for a moment. The only logical answer was the one thing that all creatures needed to survive: water. An expression of disbelief crossed the Zeta's features as she turned to look at Nymphe. ".. the water," she said simply, in a hollow voice. If her suspisions were correct, all wolves in the Salvaje Valley were in serious danger.

Ah delays.. sorry. I'm trying as best I can to keep up with everything xD Hopefully I'm not doing TOO bad a job.. ha.

and dogs go mad
in packs on the west side

Head tilted, the youth watched as her counterpart took a step forward and sniffed at the water. Though she seriously doubted that Nymphe would smell anything amiss, it was always good to check. Jubilee thought that maybe she should do the same thing, but it seemed kind of pointless. One wolf sniffing the water would be enough for now. Besides, how did they even know that it was White Rose Lake that was infected with some mysterious animal-killing disease? Surely the rabbit didn't drink from the lake and then drop dead five seconds later. Still, it didn't seem likely that it would live anywhere too far from the lake. The Zeta frowned - she was at a momentary loss.

When Nymphe spoke up again, Jubilee's face was set in a grim expression. Other dead creatures. Of course there would be other dead things around - but the thought alone was enough to make chills run down her spine. When she thought of White Rose Lake, she certainly did not think of dead bodies littered around the shore. Nodding, she said, "Yes, I think that would be a good idea. We should probably walk along the shore line first and then check farther back into surrounding forest." So they were on a hunt for carcasses. How lovely.

Jubilee blinked a few times when her fellow Novain asked her to promise that she wouldn't drink out of the lake. "I promise if you promise the same - there's no way in hell I'm drinking out of this lake for a very long time," she said with a sad smile. Hell, the youth seriously doubted if she would ever drink out of White Rose Lake again! That would be difficult, seeing as this was her favorite place in the entire Valley. Well, so much for that.

Not knowing what was going on was one thing. All she knew however, is that it didn't look very promising to begin with. The worrysome thoughts were outspoken present upon her facial features as she looked back towards the water and the dead creature. A part of that was simple frustration; there was a large need-to-know but the answers weren't lying there up for grabs. Instead, and she was fearful to admit it, they were bound to search for others if they had wanted to know what was going on. The water - this entire situation had probably made her entire view upon the life liquid entirely different. Almost morbid.

"Aye." Like faithful soldier, Nymphe stood there as Jubilee wanted them to not drink from the river anymore. It was a difficult thing, most of the water base came from here. Also at the same time it was difficult finding other places to drink. Before a sip of water could be taken, again the wolf in question had to be thoughtful and be certain that the water was not distracted from white rose lake through small creeks and nooks. You see, white rose lake was some kind of tree with one large main stream but beyond that, small branches everywhere.

"We're doing the dirty job but somebody's got to do it. I bet we'd be hero's afterwards. Sounds good, though?" Nymphe smiled, also partly horrified by the thought of going even deeper into the lands of stench. Although her own disgust was hidden behind a layer of 'let us do this', if any chance was to pass this opportunity, she'd stand in the first line. But it wasn't so easy with something so strange going on. And thus, almost cursing that wolves didn't invent breathing masks, she continued along the shorelines as Jubs had told her to do so.

"To go where no other living sane creature has gone before inside the land of the smellies. Oh puh."

Yes, but THIS is a delay! Oh, life will be so much easier when I get back to school - I'll have a lot more time and energy to reply to posts. *waits impatiently for the end of August*

don't say we're healing
when it's just not what we do

Jubilee almost let out a laugh at the "hero" comment. Though she realized how severe the situation was (or could become), she doubted that anyone would regard the two females as heroes. Sure, the idea was fun to think about, but in all honesty she wasn't sure if she'd want that kind of regognition. If their research and adventure ended up actually helping with this whole water mess, then that would be reward enough for the Zeta. Still, she grinned at Nymphe and nodded her head.

A smirk crossed her tawny maw as she listened to the other Novain's comment about "the land of the smellies." Heaving a small sigh, she put her nose to the ground and let her stormy eyes sweep back and forth as she stalked along the shore line. The stench was horrible, but the promise that they might find something interesting was too great - Jubilee sucked it up and went right on sniffing. For a few minutes she found nothing as she simply seemed to patroll around the perimeter of White Rose Lake. The stench was stronger in some places than others, but it was always there lingering in the background. It was a curious thing, but the youth honestly had no idea about any of it. She wished that she'd known more about diseases and such, but she was no Healer. Peacekeeping was what she was (supposedly) good at, so she'd stick to it.

Just then her gray eyes spotted something not too far off. It was laying just a few feet from the edge of the water and was obviously another small creature. Brow quirked, Jubes let out a quick bark to alert Nymphe that she had discovered something - hopefully. As she trotted closer, she could tell that it was a duck. Stopping as she hovered over the creature, the Zeta noticed that it was still alive, but barely. It was sort of plopped over on it's side, it's breathing shallow and erratic. Surely these were the poor duck's last few moments of life. Jubilee frowned and turned to look at her companion. No words were needed. If creatures afflicted by the mysterious disease would suffer like this, the wolves of the Valley were in for a seriously bad time. Who would be affected? Would anyone die? How the hell were they going to find a cure for this?

Like a videogame, the ebony female would already view them as superhero's who were entitled to carry big weapons to safe the entire species and planet from those that needed to be rescued. In this case before the world could be saved from such a doom-like disaster, they needed to go through a series of levels that she would declared as 'smelly world'; no doubt about it, it could be either really beautiful or something you wouldn't dare to dream about in your wildest nightmares. Nymphe imagined it to the be last, knowing that the deeper they got into this great mess, the worst they would come out of it, all covered up in mud and bad things.

The adventrous pawsteps into a deeper-covered mess, Nymphe felt a sort of strange electric feeling coursing through her veins. Rekindling an old flame but one that even drove back the line of adreline and made her want more and more of it. All the sudden the Eta became brave and like a daredevil, crushing down the lines that kept her back. At the same time she was more likely to fall for traps as she saw no danger and the risks into taking big steps that could be crossing a gap too far or too wide.

All the sudden side-tracked by the duck, hesistant paws forcefully moved after Jubilee with a strange but disgusted look upon her face. Her eyes grew wide as she saw another dead creature, namely a bird, covered by the crazy ickyness. Questioning her eyes looked to Jubilee and back to the duck that had too much water. Oh, how it could be deadly. Now she was certain that these were the preminitions of something big to happen inside the valley - one rabbit could be a coincidence but finding a bird closeby with the same sort of signs at the duck. Things were outstretched and not brimming with brightness.

"Shall we tell Sinistra? This is just too much of a coincidence."

i am the razor
in the hand of your heart

Taking a few cautionary steps back, the cinnamon female's mood remained somber. Hopefully this disease was not airborne - if it was both she and Nymphe would be in serious danger from all their investigating. Nothing pointed to that in particular, so Jubilee wasn't overly worried. The simple fact that such a large water supply was tainted was a reason to distress in itself. Gray eyes watched as her companion studied the duck, then turned to give a questioning look her way. She almost shrugged, but figured the gesture pointless. Obviously she had no idea what was going on - well, about as much idea as the other female had - so leaving it unspoken was best at the moment.

A small movement caught her eye. Jubes looked back to the duck, whose shallow breaths were becoming few and far between. A frown settled over her maw as she literally watched the poor thing draw it's last breath. All movement ceased and the shoreline became quiet once again. Exhaling deeply, the youth turned her head away in one last show of respect for the duck. It seemed odd, giving such things to what she once considered such an insignificant creature. But at the moment this seemed right.

Black-rimmed ears twiched as Nymphe spoke. Tell Sinistra? Yes, that would be wise. The Zeta nodded and said, "Yeah - we should probably do it as soon as possible." Her head turned back in the direction of Nova Mountain as she finished speaking. Yes, Sinistra would want to know.