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The Haunted Hills host many things, not all of them human, not all of them living. But right now, they are desolate. Not even a crow to be seen. Clouds brood overhead, and the wind steals away warmth with each soft sigh.
An old pathway weaves along the bases of the hills here and passes beneath the leafless branches of a dead tree. Patchy brown grass scatters across it where the dirt hasn't been tamped down.
What child has not yearned for wolves to be giant? What child has not learned that extinct wolf subspecies weren't actually that big and been heartbroken?
A child of terrible taste, that's who.
"Alright, then. Giant wolf it is."
Crin whistles, and three of her pack lope out of the woods and stand in front of her. These ones are horse-sized, well large enough to fit a person, and two are saddled.
"I'm the most experienced with my wolves' gait, so I'll ride bareback. Ishaza, Alethia, no last business in the town?"
The wolves are here, and they are giant, and also they are fluffy.
She tries not to vibrate with excitement.
She's actually kind of terrified of them, but she also feels- strong. It's the fear of a roller coaster, not something that feels warranted. Probably if she hadn't become a vampire she'd look at those wolves and instinctively feel like prey, but instead- she looks at them and sees what she would have seen back home when looking at a medium sized dog. Something that could be a threat, if it attacked her, but- not one which would overmatch her.
"Give me but a moment to retrieve my pack and I'll be done."
She actually kind of feels like she should have brought it with her, now that she's thinking about it. Keep it close and safe. But she didn't think of it when she headed down from her room, since she was just going downstairs. And then she just didn't think about it.
Crin goes over to her wolf's side and mounts up. "Alright. I'll wait for you here."
It really isn't long. She's off to the currently-empty inn, and then to her room, and then back to Crin. The town really is quite small.
She starts moving, intending to do her best to imitate how Crin mounted her own wolf. She has, uh, not actually ridden a horse before. Wait, no, she should not be an idiot and state this fact. She stops short.
"I've not actually ridden, before. Even something as mundane as a horse. Will this in fact be as simple as getting in the saddle, putting my feet in the stirrups, and then simply utilizing my newly intrinsic gracefulness to decline to be unseated?"
"Newly intrinsic? Oh, yes, I keep forgetting you're newly turned. Yes, that should be sufficient. There's a rhythm to it; we can start at a slow speed and then build to full."
Ishaza mounts up, which clearly displays her cloven feet as if the horns and tentacles weren't strange enough.
"Ready," she reports.
Then up she shall get!
The cloven feet are in fact sort of appealing. Alethia's weird.
She is a reasonable adult who is definitely not revealing that reaction on her face is what she is.
"Alright, let's ride."
Crin steers her giant wolf out of town, and nudges it into what would probably be a canter on a horse.
Ishaza follows, and so does Alethia's mount without her having any say in the matter.
The wolves speed up, and she starts having to focus a little to stay in the saddle.
And Ishaza doesn't benefit from supernatural grace, so she's having to focus as well.
Alethia focuses.
And this is how they got there to help so quickly. She wonders how they learned they had to. Lookout-wolves?
The allure of the giant wolves starts to fade a bit as she falls into focus, doing her very best to imitate Crin and Ishaza.
It's not long before the tower becomes visible in the distance.
It's really quite a proper Ominous Tower.
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