welcome to the machine [ j u s t i n ]

[s p e l l]

What a mystery...  the entire place, a mystery to her.  All these relics of a time gone by, wasted metal and rusting parts.  The scraps of humanity that still remained in this forsaken dust bowl may as well have been dinosaur bones to Abele.  Except that she would know a dinosaur bone for a bone, and might even be able to chew it.  These decrepit machines had no name to her, nor could she guess at their function--and she certainly could not eat them.  Her lip wrinkled in an expression that was half grin and half snarl of disgust; How very like a signature move.  And it was.  To truck herself out to the edge of the town, away from much shade and any reliable source of food or water, just to catch a glimpse of yet another thing that she didn't understand.  If she didn't know what the humans had been like (or even, to be quite frank, what they were) she could at least spend some time examining what remained.

She yawned.

It was not an enthralling legacy.

Earlier in the day, before the sun had risen (giving off no heat in the cold winter sky), Abele had amused herself by picking through the plethora of metallic junk and imagining functions for each piece.  Being a very food-minded young dog, most pieces had been hunting equipment in her imagination (a far cry from their actual function as varying gears in machines whose main function was transportation), and the game had kept her happy for a good few hours.  Crawling in and among the abandoned vehicles, sinking her teeth into a leather seat or chewing through a half-attached seat belt at her leisure, Abele was happy to forget that she'd ever had any real interest in discovering the true nature of these human inventions.

Now she was equally happy to forget.  Despite being a puppy at heart, however, Abele's focus had become at least a little more reasonable.  Instead of ravaging an already-ravaged piece of long forgotten upholstery, she was now actively digging through the waste and attempting to find a reasonable source of shelter from the cool wind.  It made her uncomfortable to think of crawling underneath one of the abandoned vehicles because--for all that the material they were made of seemed sturdy and unbreakable--when she was shoved between them and the hard ground, she had the unshakeable feeling that it would collapse on her. Instead, Abele began to kick parts out from the inside of a mostly-gutted hood, worn clean by blowing sand.  Her plan was to remove all that remained there and then hang about under the half-open hood, where she wouldn't have to worry about being crushed, until the wind had died down enough--or it had warmed up a little--so that she wouldn't freeze on the walk back into town.

Of course, she was making an unholy racket in her work--fit to wake the dead, or at least draw the attention of any of the living who might be in the area.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

tag:  tundra with justin <3
words:  493
muse:  fit but not flourishing!

[Tundra ?]

Justin was out on another one of his little missions again. The weather was below and dropping the thirties. Justin was worried that his mother and sisters would not make it. What if they didn't make it through the harsh winter? What would happen to him? Would he be out alone, forever, with only the mystery of his father looming around to keep him safe in his mind? Would Justin have to try and peruse out the Mafia by himself all alone, without the support from his beloved mother? All these whirling and troubling questions flew around in his mind, he was scared, not of the season, but what might happen. All those ifs, ands, and buts were making him go crazy. And after a while of wandering, shivering while looking for food for his little 'pack', he hadn't quite paid attention to where he was going and what he was exactly doing..it was a mystery at that, even if he too was able to survive this harsh winter. He could possibly move his mother and sisters into a more stable environment, perhaps Mafia house of headquarters. then hopefully it would be better than the old rickety about to fall down building that they were calling home now.

As Justin was blinded by his swirling snow storm mind, he remembered what his mother had warned him of before he left. He always seemed to have something to do, he was very hyper active as a puppy, so his mom put that to good use. He was supposed to find some food, as stated earlier, without being caught in a snow storm. He really hoped that he wouldn't be caught in it, because he'd never seen snow before.. and what if it was big and he couldn't see anything?! What would happen then?? Justin would be lost forever in the huge snow storm and wouldn't be able to go home and even know if his mum and sisters were still alive. The deadly thought gave Justin bad shivers along his spine. He didn't want to die. Not yet; he was too young!

And at the end of that thought in his imaginative mind, Justin heard a very loud and obnoxious noise to his right, farther down. He stopped in his tracks, head alert and body tense. Even though he was still a baby, he had learned much information and already knew most of what there was to learn about fear and dominance. He was just born that way. His tail started to wag slowly, intense on finding whatever it was that made that racket. Maybe it was a rabbit that he could take home to prize for his mum? Other than that, Justin was not interested. He shook his coat, padded over and lifted his head up, proud of his regal stature. He tilted his head, sniffed and wondered what this funny looking dog was doing. It was a female, he could smell that, but what on earth was she doing? "Um, excuse me, miss- but what exactly are you doing?"


OOC: Sorry for the wait. c: Hope it's okay~


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[s p e l l]

Abele paused a split second before a small voice called out to her. She was unsure whether she had managed to hear his soft foot falls (unlikely considering the offensive amount of noise she had been responsible for) or if she'd just picked up a strange scent on the wind. Regardless, she had just begun to face him as this pint-sized stranger spoke. She cocked her head laughingly and climbed down off the rubbish, thankful for a distraction from the cold.

"What exactly are you doing, fella?" She chuckled. "Nah, I don't mind. I'm trying to find a little warmth for a bit." Abele shivered, seemingly for emphasis. In the pause between her rapid-fire speech and her next opportunity to give voice, she assessed him.  Young.  And not young the way that Abele herself was young, but a true-to-the-word puppy.  A little, patchy, blue-eyed puppy.  He was at least as unusual in appearance as she was, albeit a bit more symmetrical with his identical eyes and tan-pointed face.  It wasn't really the look of him that had her attention, anyway; it was his bossy stance.  That was a pack dog right there, if she knew her canines.  And she did.  That was the posing of a dog born into security--he'd probably never had to grovel a day in his life.  Where Abele... well, she'd spent her fair share of time belly-up in front of a bigger dog when she was his age.  Submit or die used to be the motto.  She was a little bigger and a little wiser herself now.  She could afford to mouth off.

"I assume, by your confusion, that you're doing something much more useful out here."  Not quite a sneer, just a little curl of her lip to indicate how funny she thought it would be for him to have an important job.  After all, he was hardly the typical age or size for a position of significance.  "This wouldn't even be my chosen location for a hole-up if I hadn't been here anyway."

It was pretty apparent that neither of them was a danger to the other.  She wasn't going to hang around by the junk pile when she had a few inches and several pounds on him.  It was stupid.  She trotted forward, her tail held straight out behind and wagging (no higher than the slope of her back, she wasn't trying to show off) and paused a few inches from him, sniffing.  At least being able to get a scent off him confirmed her suspicions--he had the smell of more dogs than himself.  Not a pack, though, more like a family.  Too similar.  Huh.  Well, he still seemed like an arrogant little guy.

"How can I serve you in your quest?"

Alright, that one was a little sardonic.

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tag:  tundra with justin <3
words:  466
muse:  present
commentary:  a-okay! seasons changed immediately after I posted, so I've gone back and done some editing. haha Now it is winter!