A True King (Open)

[attr="class","pltxt"]There was turbulence upon his entry. In an exhausted, mostly unconscious heap, Ohm had flopped ashore, and almost immediately began coughing up the contents of his stomach. It was mostly salt water, but the bile stung at his throat and made him whimper. Brushing against rocks and being pelted with debris and rushing water, he felt bruised and worn down, so he only slept at first. After some time, the growling of his stomach woke him. The rocky shores weren’t much for prey, but he managed to find a few scuttling crabs in the pooled water. But when he finally regained enough strength to lift his head and appreciate the world around him, the male’s jaw dropped in awe.

The only home he knew was in the arid, sandy desert, relatively void of life or foliage. What trees he had seen were usually sparse, and the world seemed to be washed with a dull yellowish glow. But here, where the sky met the massive mountains on either side of him, he could see clearly. No sand blew through the air to shield his vision, nor a single scent that was human in nature. The land before him seemed soft, the grass lush and smelling of the mineralized soil below. As he walked forward, he did so slowly, his short legs brushing through the grass and disturbing cicadas that flew in flocks from the long reeds with a steady thrum. The trees above him on the mountain were green, a color that he rarely saw so vibrantly in the desert. The mountains were a soothing grey, and the lakes mirrored the perfect blue of the sky. Ohm peered down into a pool at his own reflection. The male had never seen himself so clearly, and the sight made him smile.

He was alive. He was here, wherever here was.

He managed to catch a few tadpoles in the tiny pools, crunching down on their adolescent bodies with a grimace, wishing for an instant that he was home, where others could hunt for him. His meager stature made chasing nearly impossible. As Ohm walked, soaking in the summer sun and taking in the new world around him, he thought briefly of Sig and Omarion, and even more briefly of Mirah. His heart felt wounded and heavy, but he shook it from his consciousness the best he could, working hard to assure that nothing dimmed the brightness he felt in his soul. This giant expanse felt cozy to a wolf who had hardly seen anything but the vastness of a sandy desert, and the new sights and smells were astounding to him.

It did occur to him, though, that there were no scent markers in this place. The jackals, like the wolves he met in the scrublands, always marked where they’d been with urine. While there were weak scents here and there, Ohm wondered when the last time a wolf had been here, and with a pang of nervousness, wondered what had happened to them. He was happy travelling alone, of course, but the social creature yearned silently for the sight of another.

As he walked, and as day turned to night and turned back into day again, the male moved from the soggy marsh to beautiful geysers, hurdling giant billows of smoke into the air. The ground felt warm, and the steam even warmer. Ohm didn’t dare to touch it, but instead, took in the marvel of the earth with open eyes, before resting on the warm stone before resuming his pace during the day. In the desert, they had always travelled at night because of the scorching heat, but here, he noticed, his body felt much more comfortable during the warmth of the sun, lean muscle soaking in the fiery heat like a plant feeding from the looming giant above them.

The rocky terrain turned darker before it turned black. The smell of brimstone burned in his nose, and the fresh stone seemed to crack in places. The ground was covered in a thin layer of ash, and as the sun rose high in the sky, Ohm squinted to see a small figure in the distance. Despite himself, his tail wagged behind him as he continued his approach. The creature was taller than he, but he knew this species. While it was not his own, these were the wolves that his family lived alongside for much time. How had this male gotten here? Was he born here? And more importantly, was he friendly?

The male waddled towards the Ethiopian, licking his lips and yawning in a friendly, unthreatening greeting. He seemed to soak in the arid climate as Ohm did, and had a rather calm demeanor radiating off of him that the male couldn’t help but notice. His coat shone in the sun like a radiant human object, almost a reflection of the sun itself. He was beautiful.

“Your coat is exquisite,” the dwarf spoke in an inadvertently flirtatious greeting, only noticing the male’s unique eye markings as he got close enough. Ohm didn’t mean to seem that way, though he did not notice. He only spoke the truth on his mind, but after his experience with Mirah, he always ended observations with compliments. It softened the blow, he thought. He, if anyone, knew the importance of differences. Uniqueness wasn’t a bad thing, in this male’s case. In his, though… his mind’s jury was still out. He felt like a freak after the way Mirah had denied him. Not a jackal and only half a wolf. He wanted to scrape the memory and insecurity from his mind, but it was to no avail. It creeped back like a poisonous vine.

Outwardly, though, Ohm would never allow his internal battle to show through, especially not upon meeting a stranger. With his ears forward and tail low, he looked up at the other male, hoping with every sleek hair of his coat and every inch of his stubby legs that his intuition had not failed him in that this male was friendly.

[attr="class","pltxt"]Ohm wasn’t wrong. As the golden wolf opened his eyes slowly, like a tiny monolith, they shone with an electric blue that was equally as riveting as the markings beneath them. He met the stranger’s acknowledgement of thankfulness and friendship with a gentle nod, a mutual showing of respect for the acceptance and strange essence of light that radiated from the Ethiopian. He hadn’t even taken a second look at his legs, it seemed to the Arabian male, and he was thankful for it. Perhaps he had dismissed the deformity as quickly as he was to welcome him as if they had known one another for years. Ohm silently thanked the stranger.

The next words from his white and gold maw struck him as odd, though. May Ra bless you, the male said, the words flowing from his maw as naturally as water through a river. While he hadn’t heard of this Ra, his overwhelming curiosity preceded him, and he cocked an ear at the Ethiopian. “Ra?” Ohm questioned innocently, sitting down rather ungracefully, folding two too-short legs beneath him to crumple into the stance that the stranger exhibited in a show of solidarity. His back held a relatively straight angle, his lower legs, despite being splayed out to the side, not offering much relief in his height. He did not mean his inquiry in a malicious way, though he was sure that his expression would make that clear. He only wanted to learn, to process the most information that he could about the new land in which he had landed. “I don’t mean to offend,” he said, clarifying his own utterance for good measure. “I have never heard of Ra.”

Ohm was always cautious to not appear judgemental or assign possession to individuals that he could only assume were deities. He had often heard of other wolves saying ‘your Fenris,’ the religion of the Ethiopians he had encountered in Africa, or ‘your Anubis’ when others addressed the religion of the jackals he called family. Personally, Ohm had never connected with any of the religions that others adhered to. He had always felt like an outsider in that way; whether it was the god of wolves or the god of the jackals. He’d never truly felt like one or the other, never knowing who it was that he was representing.

Ohm did feel spiritual though, that was for sure. In the sun that shined down radiantly to warm his happy soul, or the rain that wept with him, or in the moments when tiny locusts would land just in front of his paws, seemingly staring at him with some otherworldly confidence in times of anxiety or insecurity.

Before he answered, the stranger offered his assistance, and introduced himself. “Ramses,” the Arabian repeated, dipping his head in greeting. “It’s good to meet you. I’m called Ohm.” In response to his offering of help, Ohm chuckled as he spoke. “I just got here yesterday, in fact. Is it so obvious?” he jested, gesturing to his sandy coat with a giggle.

So this place was called Anikira. He’d never heard of it in his travels, though he did remember a wandering giant wolf and his mate once speak of a continent miles from shore that they had come from, and would return to one day. He remembered their size, and the female’s unique marking, her snow white coat that did not exist naturally in their part of the world. They had been friendly. But he swam into the waves just a few nights ago, the memory of the couple had felt like it was a thousand years old, perhaps forgotten amongst his toiling emotion. Maybe this was their home. Maybe he would meet them again sometime. Then again, they would probably never remember him. Perhaps he was forgotten easily.

“What is this land like?” Ohm asked, glassy periwinkle eyes glistening with hope. “And how many are here? The scents were scarce from where I came.” He added a brief description of the area for Ramses’ benefit. “Big valley, plains, marshy lake- just... west of here. I came up on the beach,” he noted, checking the position of the sun in the sky to affirm his sense of direction.

Ohm had so many more questions. Were there many packs? Was he the Pharaoh of the entire continent? Who was friendly? Who wasn’t? Was he going to be welcomed, or shunned? Would they consider him as half a wolf as well? His inquiries were left unspoken, though, and only wonder and curiosity shone through his expression. How lucky he was, he felt, to have met Ramses, who despite his markings, was a familiar species. Perhaps he could call this place home after all.

[attr="class","pltxt"]Ramses spoke with kindness, and the way he informed Ohm of his deity was touching. He had dedicated his life to this Ra, that was obvious in his demeanor and wholesome attitude if not in his speech. How noble, Ohm thought, not a shred of sarcasm in his inner dialogue. The estranged male had something otherworldly to live for, and his posture suggested that the trials and tribulations of this earth could not touch his spirit. He radiated a positive, joyous energy in the way he spoke, and the Arabian thought it a productive way to live. It wasn’t that he wanted to serve a god himself, but he appreciated Ramses for his commitment.

“That is a fulfilling way to live your life, I would think,” the dwarven male spoke honestly, voice smooth as a dusty flower petal. “It’s very honorable.”

As Ramses continued to speak of the continent, Ohm’s ears pricked forward in listening, and his brain reeled to process the influx of information. Giants and dwarves. He felt an inward leap of hope at the second revelation, though he cocked his head at the comment about the giants. He thought back to his life on the Endless Land, and the two giants he’d met there, who said they’d been from a place far across the sea. He’d never forget the face of the kind white female, red marking streaked like inverted tears, but he wondered for a moment if this was, in fact, the place they came from.

But as Ramses spoke of Nitocris, Ohm watched the radiant male’s face fall slightly, his sadness shadowing over his features like a cloud over a budding cactus rose. Putting two-and-two together, the ruddy male found four in that this Apep was the antithesis of Ra, like the Vidarr to Fenris that the wolves of his homeland believed in. Ramses expression almost looked as if his sister had passed away, like that of a brother who missed his sibling and thought back to memories of old. Ohm’s heart went out to him, not in complete understanding, but in his own experience of leaving Sig in the night. Perhaps his adopted-brother spoke of him in the same way. It broke his heart for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said solemnly, meeting the eyes of the other for a brief moment before they moved their conversation forward. While he didn’t fully understand their religion, it was wholly obvious that serving the dark god was a terrible thing to do.

As if some divine light shone back through his eyes, Ramses asked him about himself. Ohm smiled with a nod, almost shy for a moment, but didn’t feel any hostility about opening up to the gold male. “I came from the Endless Land to the east, but I was born in Yemen, the human land.” He spoke with an ounce of pride in his own heritage, though he didn’t expecting wolf on this continent, so far from his homeland, to have heard of the territory. “I am sorry for your sister, truly. I have an almost-brother myself, named Sig.” He smiled, wholesome and kind, but he knew a twinge of sadness would peek through his pupils. “I left them behind because I knew it would be better for them.” Ohm quickly added to it though, not wanting to seem sorry for himself, “and me. I hope to find more happiness here.”