Sergei sat down on the ground, back to the wall and facing the wolves before him. For dream characters, they seemed rather convincingly lifelike.

“I am Sergei. I request that you use male gendered language when referring to me. I come from the town of Morrowmoon, on the mountain of Mount Lycaon, in the land of Icerun.”

He turned to face the Zerda. “You seem nervous. This is understandable. I want to… reassure you. All of you. I will not harm you unless you attempt to harm me first. If you do not intend to harm me, you have nothing to fear. At least not from me.”

He then looked at the Jocol wearing a blindfold. “Based on your behavior and body language, I am assuming you are blind. Apologies if this is incorrect. Would you like me to describe the situation and/or what I look like? I am not familiar with the needs of those who are visually impaired, so please let me know what you may need.”

“As for how I got here, I went hunting in a blizzard. This was a foolish mistake. I got separated from the wolves I was with and took shelter in a cave. I remember feeling suddenly very tired, and I must have fallen asleep. I am certain that this is a dream. Our Lady is known to communicate to Her worshippers in dreams. Do you messengers know the information She intends to share with me? Or do you have a task I must complete in order to prove myself worthy of hearing it?”

Moonwatch recognizes none of these places. These wolves are all from very far away; from beyond the borders of Goldsea, even. It's exciting to be a part of a project with such a broad reach... but what is the project? Sergei's assumption that his goddess has arranged this for him, specifically, doesn't feel entirely satisfying. Is the situation really more about him than the rest of them? But a goddess who deals in dreams would be capable of gathering them here. Moon feels a twinge of unease at the idea that a higher power they have never heard of has taken notice of them and chosen them to carry out a purpose.

"I'm from Goldsea," they say thoughtfully. "Near the capital. "One of my pack leaders was invited to do research there." Modestly, "I think I might try to study there, myself."

Moon spent a lot of their childhood wandering the plains with another cub, until Russet's pack took in both of them. Life on the road was a lot of fun, and rich in life lessons of a certain kind. But it did leave them with a lot of catching up to do in their schooling. Which is doable, a little hitch in a promising and exciting career! Or maybe intimidating and scary and kind of impossible.

But that's neither here nor there.

"Sergei, I've never heard of your... of Our Lady," Moonwatch continues. "I'm certain that nobody gave me a message to give to you. I think I... fell asleep in a cave, too, though," they add, turning to Aislin, who had wondered how they all got here. "I was hunting with my pack, and we went in looking for mushrooms."

Is Sergei really in danger of straying into unworthiness, without constant lessons from above? He looks pretty fierce and capable from where Moonwatch is standing... but maybe Moon would appear just as capable of catching up with their studies, to Sergei, despite their own doubts.

"This is a dream, right?" they continue. "We're all experiencing this as a dream? But together. Has anyone heard of that happening before? Maybe a god or goddess did put us here. We follow gods in Goldsea, but sometimes we're more interested in what we can study. My friend Murk would know more about our mythology, but they're not here."

She listened to the other wolves, before turning her face towards the direction of Sergei’s voice. “You are assuming correct, I am blind. I would appreciate it, if you could do this and if someone could inform me, if any obstacles are in my way would be good too.”, she said. They all seemed to have come to this strange place in a very similar way. “I was in search of some ingredients, when I found a cave. I think, I have fallen asleep in there too.” Until the Jocol mentioned it, that this is a dream, the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but now that she thought about it, it made sense. The question was now, why were they experiencing this dream together. She never heard of something like this before. “No, I haven’t.”, she answered the Jocol’s question. That it was a god, would probably be the best explanation, after all it would need quite an amount of power to let several wolf experience the same. She was sure it wasn’t their ancestors from the beyond, thy didn’t communicate like this.

Ooc- may I join? This looks so fun! If I can, this is my wolf:

https://www.lorwolf.com/Play/WolfDetails?id=55532 and her info: Amaluna is unsure how she came to Loria. One day she just woke up near the Goldsea lands, and so she joined Goldsea. She is different than most kit wolves, as she has long teeth. She had a long adventure already, tasked with researching all the different packs and lands, finding out everything she can to find her missing teacher. Until one day, she finds a mysterious cave, and of course, she goes inside, and falls asleep.

-storyline- The sound of rain, a downpour, even...and she's wet? Amaluna wakes fully to this...wait. Wasn't there a cave? Standing up, she shakes, only to instantly get soaked again. She pins her ears and pads softly, stealthily, as she learned breifly during her explorations of other territories. Voices ahead, calm at the moment, and at least four? She continues forward, coming upon an interesting sight. Two Jocols, one of which is blind? A Zerda? A Lupin? All talking together about a dream? Oh...that might explain the blue everything...so it is not a new land, then? "Oh...of course...another crazy dream. I've had four other dreams already, but none like this...you all are real, then?", She says in a voice barely above a whisper. "I'm Amaluna, of Goldsea."

OOC: Welcome aboard! Nice to meet you! :D I'll give the other two some more time to post before replying. Looks like there's one spot left now, and still plenty of time to get in on things at the start, to anyone who might also be interested in joining.

It was at that moment that Sergei realized he had no idea how to describe himself.

”I am… brown? Yes. I am many much brown. Multiple browns.” Wait, if the wolf was blind from birth, would she even know what the color brown looked like??? Moving on: “We are in a strange blue forest. Mostly pine trees so far. We are currently under a rocky overhang at the edge of a cliff. The forest seems to continue above the cliff, but I do not currently see a way to get up there. As you may have noticed, it is raining quite hard.” Sergei paused for a moment. “I do not know how long I have been in this dream, but I need to wake up soon. My shift as acting guard starts early tomorrow. I need to be awake and back in Morrowmoon in time for that.”

He really, really did not want to disappoint Fenrir. The pride in his boss and mentor’s eye when Sergei did well meant everything to him. He was something of a father, a brother, and a friend as well. They worked together, ate together, drank together, and if necessary, would die together in defense of their town. Goddess, may Fenrir be proud of him when he brought back the message The Dreamkeeper would bestow upon him.

The snap of a twig startled Sergei from his thoughts as his head snapped up to look at another strange wolf. He had let his guard down. Foolish, foolish, foolish! Before he could demand an identification, the kit spoke so quietly that he almost didn’t hear her. He considered her statement.

“Yes, I am very real. Are you? Or are you a messenger from The Dreamkeeper? Either way, greetings, Amaluna. I hope you do not mean ill. My name is Sergei. I request that you use male gendered language when referring to me. I come from the town of Morrowmoon, on the mountain of Mount Lycaon, in the land of Icerun.”

————

OOC: Fun news! I’ve figured out what Sergei’s challenge is. It’s going to require some help from other wolves, and it could happen at literally any time. Can’t wait to see the ideas you guys come up with! And welcome to the rp, Violetta!

More OOC: Just to clarify- The Dreamkeeper, Sergei’s goddess, is not the cause of this event. Sergei just believes She is. She might show up as an NPC and/or illusion, but She strangely has no power here…

Third OOC: I want to mention this ahead of time. Wolves of Morrowmoon believe that every single Bracchus is a descendent of The Dreamkeeper, even though most Bracchus actually are not. No one will ever be able to convince them otherwise. Because of this, they address every single Bracchus they meet with the epithet “Tall-Walker” in reference to their long legs. Example: Sergei meets a Bracchus NPC named Sam. To show respect to the supposed demigod, he always calls him “Tall-Walker Sam”.

OOC: Is this still going on? I’ve been having a lot of fun :(

@CactusChowder @DemonicFox27 @ViolettaMoon @Nynh

(@WolfByte Ooc- I'm waiting for the others...until then Amaluna is standing there thinking about what Sergei said. She's an observer, mostly, and doesn't act or talk until she's thought things through. You could say thinking is her strength...)

She nodded towards Sergei. “Thank you.” A blue forest?, she thought. That is indeed strange. She never heard of a blue forest, but then it was a dream and strange things can happen in dreams. There must be a reason, why they experience the dream together. She wondered why they were chosen. Maybe she was because of her connection with the beyond. Then she noticed that an other wolf arrived and sniffed the air. The stranger was a kit from Goldsea. She turned her head towards her. “Greetings, I am Aislin Moonfall.”

OOC: Sorry for the late reply.

OOC: Hey everyone, thanks for being patient! I've been waiting for folks to reply, and work/real life can get busy too. I absolutely want to continue the rp :)

This is a good time to talk about shared expectations for things like posting etiquette to make sure everyone gets a fair chance to respond, and what happens if someone 'goes missing.' Everybody has busy lives for sure and wolf roleplay shouldn't be an added stress. But one or two people also shouldn't have the power to derail or stop the story for everybody else.

This feels fair to me:

- The roleplay proceeds in rounds. For each round, every person replies once. Once everyone has replied, the next round starts. We shouldn't post twice per round, but if someone forgets they can leave up the reply.

- Post order does not matter. You might post first in one round, and post last in the next round, and post in the middle in the round after that.

- If five days go by and not everybody has posted for the current round, we skip anyone who hasn't posted and the next round starts anyway.

- If you miss 3 rounds in a row, you're out! We can't judge why someone might have stopped posting, but it's best to communicate about it before it comes to that.

Does all of that sound like a good way to organize things?