[B] What's That Smell? (Must x Musk)

[Zuki]

Most of the time, Must didn't mind living in a cramped and soggy swamp rather than a great and wide-open vista. There was a great abundance of prey and forage, a wonderful mate by her side...and, of course, the muskwolves. Most of the time, they were wonderful familiars: clever, fastidious, pack-hunters...with a few peculiar habits.

One of those habits has pulled her from a late afternoon doze, hackles upright with alert, relaxing to realize the scope of the threat, and then snout curling as they tried to process--

"Ugh, Musk. What is that smell? It's....so....fetid." It wasn't just an odor of rotting vegetation. It wasn't just well-putrefied scavenger food. There was...something else about it that made Must, who prided herself on a tolerant nose, want to stuff it up with clay. She nudged her mate again.

"Come on. We need to figure out which one of them brought....whatever it is...back before they've all decided to roll in it."

[Anhelisk]

Musk rumbled idly as he took the time to wake up, rolling to put his hooves beneath him. He was quite used to being woken up for something or another, and while it would take some time for him to be able to process whatever it was he was needed for, he was always quick to respond. So up he stood, blinking blearily, and turned to his mate with a sigh.

"What is it this time?" he asked wearily. Since the sun had come back, pale and translucent in its light, things had been different, and his sleep had been plagued with visions of impossible worlds, ones that he scantly remembered. Even the one he'd just been in, where his hooves had been dexterous paws... he couldn't remember almost anything about that, except the feeling of pulling them gently through a loved one's hair, and even that was fading.

He sputtered a little as he inhaled, catching the smell of something... special. "Ah."

[Zuki]

For her own part, Must was coping with the loss of the sun and the uncanny, eerie, light that had replaced it, by trying to ignore those things as hard as possible. There were still animals to feed, plants to gather, and, Motherfather help her, engaging herself as deeply and thoroughly as possible in the minutiae of everyday life, was her distraction of choice.

Such as: the affectionate headbump and nuzzle she gave the side of her mate's neck, just above his shoulder scales.

"Mmhm~" Must rumbled affirmatively. "Time to call up the pack." She wound her way past Musk, and out to the speaking log.

Must liked this particular sleeping spot best because it has one of those rare Swamp treasures: a dried-out, hollowed, fallen tree. Most of them were claimed by this tribe or that, and creating your own was out of the question without the assistance of a well-trained salamander and their handler.

She propped her front hooves against the speaking log and rapidly drummed against its resonant body, a signal to any dispersed muskwolves or pack-members that might be resting or wandering nearby. After the short staccato burst, Must followed it with a low wail that slowly increased in pitch, ending with a few short yips. This was a sound similar to the calls adult muskies would use to signal to their pups.

"Now. Let's see if the stinker shows."

She hoped they would. It really was an incredible odor. Increasingly acrid, alarmingly like...burnt fur?

[Anhelisk]

Musk's job, when Must was calling up the muskies, was to help get the pack in formation. He and Mist walked around the assembling group, helping keep them from getting too tightly-packed together, while making sure no stragglers hung out too far away from the edges. If someone was hanging out too far away, it was often a sign of illness, injury, or something like guilt or dread... and if they clustered too excitedly together, it was generally because someone had brought home a particularly interesting scent.

Unfortunately, as they began to gather and rub against each other, it became clear that identifying the culprit would be no easy task, as whatever the smell-- or smells, perhaps-- was, that more than one of the girls here was responsible for the reek.

"Bad news," he called out, as Must approached with an almost pained expression. "I think we need to bathe them."

[Zuki]

Must's tail flicked back and forth in irritation.

"Bathe them? In Midw- In late aut-" The disappearance of the sun had thoroughly spoiled Must's sense of seasonal progress. "In the cold times. Well. We'd better get them in the water." The muskies would surely protest being driven into icy late-autumn-early-winter waters...but they didn't have a choice in the matter. She whistled to Mustn't, her familiar muskie. Time to hunt the call meant.

Must left the dry clearing at an easy trot, tail raised high to flag her direction. She headed in the direction of the nearest clear-water pond, trusting Mustn't and Mist to help 'herd' the muskwolf pack in the right direction.

"Musk," she turned her head to ask, breath steaming in the chilly air despite the sharp-edged shadows that flickered over their passage. "Think it's worth taking them to a warm spring?" It would be MUCH easier to convince the wolves to linger in warmer waters....but there would almost certainly be unfamiliar kin they'd alienate with their fetid pack of fluffy canines.

[Anhelisk]

Musk sighed. One beautiful thing about living somewhere with such active cave systems was that there were hot seeps and sometimes even bubbling springs to warm things up... and the hot water helped wash off the stink far better than cold would.

"We're just going to have to get them in warm water to get them to stay in long enough to clean up. If anyone complains, I think we'll just have to tell them to come back later."

[Zuki]

"Hrrrr...change of trails, then!" Must jumped up, kicked off a large stone, and abruptly changed direction. The hot seep was further away, nearer the headwaters of the little pond she had originally been navigated them all towards.

The new trail plunged them into a region of deepest shadow, and Must cannot help but remember something that-has-never-happened: the sensation of not running, but wind under wings, strong scaled limbs curled close under her ribs, dodging between stony pillars rather than trees. Must's heart lurched in her throat and she hammered her limbs faster, hoping to outrun the shadowed zone and the false memories.

The intensity of darkness faded once they burst through into the clearing with the steaming puddle. Above, the sky was darkened, but the clouds were lit eerily yellow by the unnatural lights coming from the swamp below.

Unperturbed by the sudden darkness, Mustn't whined and plunged into the steaming water. "G'wan you all, get!" Must circled around to make sure the rest of the pack arrived safely. "Hot water. Stinky dogs. Go!"

[Anhelisk]

Musk followed his mate as she led the charge, keeping an eye on the muskies as they continued their march. One strayed here, and Mist was quick to correct her. Another one-- a male in the process of starting to grow out his mane-- was penned in by his own gentle check. When it was clear they were headed for the spring, the chorus of yips turned into layered, uluating howls.

"Good girls!" he called out in encouragement, watching as he counted. "...eighteen, nineteen... twenty... you too, Mist!" He nudged her towards the group with his nose, then came to settle next to his mate as he watched them splash through the pools together.

[Zuki]

"Ahhhh....that's the stuff" Must sighed in delight as she padded further into the hot spring. She made one circuit of the springs to encourage the female muskwolves and yearlings to fully immerse themselves. Most of them didn't need urging, but ensuring that whatever was matted and soaked into the growing mane of the yearling male did take a little extra attention.

"The false-rotten-egg spring smell...it's almost strong enough to cover up everything else. But it's a good thing the pack can't take it back with them, eh?"

She took a moment to lean against Musk and just breathe.

[Anhelisk]

The stallion huffed gently at his mate's joke. "Could you imagine? Small blessings that they choose to eat rotten eggs instead of rolling in them." He watched as the dogs frolicked, hopping into and out of the hotter pools, and chasing each other around. After they were all properly wet, it would be time to start identifying the ones that needed especial scrub-downs, and then it would be time to use the clay

"There is going to be so much fur to clean...."

[Zuki]

"Small blessings." The doe agreed.

"...Really, is there ever not? What's the alternative, a cloud of blown-out fluff floating away on a summer breeze?" Shedding season in the warm months was...a sight to behold. But much more sweetly scented than this.

"I think the little brown male has a mat. We should also carefully check Notched-Ear and Streaks." Must cast her gaze around the spring, checking to see if any previous kin had left a supply of the cleansing clay.

[Anhelisk]

"If only the breeze would carry it all away. We wouldn't need the combs," Musk responded. He trotted dutifully into the spring, making a small whistling noise as he approached the first dog who needed extra attention, and leading her over to a spot where she'd be easier to handle.

"Where are the combs, love? We stashed some around here, didn't we?"

[Zuki]

Must was already out of the water, shaking it away before it could chill her fur further. A muskwolf sneezed when the droplets splattered her in the face instead. Pfah, that's what you get!

Must nosed around the ring of rocks that kin would lay objects on to dry--or that cool-blooded familiars would sun themselves on in warmer months. Yes...there! The two wooden combs, and the precious bone one, still there. The bone comb wasn't theirs--it looked like something a totoma would make, if anything--but it had been left at the hot springs for seasons. To be caught walking off with what was widely recognized as private property would be a major faux pas. Really, the impressive thing was that no corvid, rox, or fairy dragon, had carried off the little trinket.

"O'er 're!" She splashed over with one of the wooden combs gripped in her teeth. She leaned down to set to work on the muskwolf girl, and gestured with her tail to the rocky spot where the other comb was stashed.

[Anhelisk]

Musk nodded, plodding over to grab one of the wooden combs after giving the pup a stern "Stay." Every once in a while, another tine would break off from the thing, but there wasn't that much they could do about that, not without help from a kin with a very talented pet, or one of the few that could change their form into that of an animal. He walked back to the dog and began working his comb through the snarled fur around the male's neck-- Must had correctly assessed the state of his mane, and the mat would take some time to work through.

[Zuki]

Must, meanwhile, took the other comb to the yellow-streaked female muskwolf's back and hind limbs. Mustn't, her familiar, stood on the other side of her packmate. Hm. What did you find to roll in? It was something that wasn't dissolving in water, something dark and greasy, even tarlike. Some of it had loosened and floated away with the warm water, but the smell, up close, was....eye watering. The comb was helping loosen and separate the chunks of it from Streaks' hindflanks, at least, and the heat of the hot spring seemed to be making...whatever it was...more flexible.

She nudged the female back into the water for more soaking time. "She found something sticky. Like if pine resin was rot. I'm going to have to bite it off and spit it out if the comb doesn't help. But no mats, at least, for Streaks. Do you want help with him?"

She picked the comb back up, ready to move over and help or choose a different dog to finish grooming.