Guiding Light

It was late in the morning on a bright, summer day in a small and slightly isolated farming and trading community. This town was only a short distance by car from a highway bridging the distance between two larger cities. Because of its location, the town served as a stop over for travelers and as a farming community, it always had a surplus of fresh food available for them. This made it popular with the people traveling from the nearby cities, even though the town wasn't really capable of accommodating a large number of visitors at once.

Only a short distance from the town, a pickup truck was making its way into town from one of the outlying farms surrounding it. It was carrying in a load of produce from the farm. The driver of the truck, a black furred squirrel, was also transporting a silver furred wolf into town as well.

The squirrel looks over to the wolf briefly as he drives.

"So Wolf, where are you going to be heading to after we get in to town?" he asks.

Wolf looks back over towards him.

"I wasn't really sure. I'll have to take some time and figure that out." he replies, "Get reoriented and then decide where I want to go."

He turns and looks back out through the windshield.

"I'd like to say that I'm truly grateful for your generousity too." Wolf adds.

The squirrel smiles slightly.

"Think nothing of it." he replies, "You clearly weren't well. Taking you in so you could recover wasn't a hard choice to make."

He glances over towards Wolf.

"Besides, you stayed after you got better and then helped out where you could in return." he adds.

Wolf nods slightly to him.

"I figured that it was the least I could do." Wolf replies.

"You could stay longer if you'd like." the squirrel suggests, "It never hurts to have an extra pair of paws available to help."

Wolf seems to mull this over for a little while.

"It's tempting... I did enjoy being of use. But I think I need to move along." he replies.

The squirrel nods in reply.

"Well, you have time to reconsider and change your mind." he says.

Wolf doesn't offer a reply to that. In all honesty, he wasn't going to change his mind. It was only a couple of days ago that he realized that something had changed.

For the last decade, he'd always carried a rough chunk of gemstone with him. For him, it served as a momento of his family. As such he always kept it on him or close by. A couple of days ago, he noticed that the gemstone had begun to glow ever so slightly. He didn't know how or why or what it might signify. It wasn't glowing enough to draw any attention, so he decided to leave it be for the time being.

Yesterday, he'd felt an urge to leave the farm he'd been staying at for the last two weeks or so while he recovered from illness and then did what he could to repay his perceived debt to the ones who'd looked after him. Last night, he'd had trouble sleeping and while pacing around his room with the stone in his paws, he noticed that it brightened slightly when he held it in a certain direction away from himself. It took him a little while to determine that the direction it seemed to be reacting to was almost due north.

By morning, he'd decided that he was going to leave. He had a feeling that his sudden urge to leave, and his glowing stone were related and that he had somewhere to go. It had been some time since he had a specific direction in his life. He saw no harm in finding out where this led.

Within a few more minutes, they'd be at their destination near the center of town and its most prominent businesses. From there, he could begin this journey.



( OOC: Well, if you managed to read all of that above, congratulations, have a cookie. If you did so without falling asleep, have a second cookie.

My standard rules will be in effect for this rp. There are some revisions based on my experiences here thus far.

First, there will be a couple of days to allow people to join up before I'll post again. The order that people join up in will determine the post order obviously. Please adhere to the post order.

Second, avoid double posting. You can put out of character comments before or after the relevant portions of your post. Try to avoid making posts that are strictly out of character unless it is something relevant and everyone needs to be aware of it. Otherwise, consider using PM's.

Third, once your turn to post comes up you will have 24 hours to post. This rule is in place to keep the roleplay from being held up unnecessarily. Your turn begins the moment the person before you in the post order has taken their turn, chosen to skip, or has been skipped. If the 24 hour period has passed, I will post an OOC message indicating who has been skipped and whose turn it is, and the 24 hours for that person to post will begin once my post is up. Once I post, your turn is skipped and that decision will stand unless there is a really good reason to change my mind. You have been warned.

Please do not skip someone without my say so, even if the 24 hour deadline has passed. There are situations where I will give additional time for people to post if I believe it is warranted. For example, if I feel a character is important to a given scene or event I'll give their handler 48 hours to reply before skipping them.

Fourth, if you are skipped, you aren't kicked out of the roleplay. You'll have to wait until your turn comes around again to post though. If you are skipped frequently though, I may decide to drop you from the roleplay. You can rejoin later on if you decide you'd like to. If you are going away and cannot post or can post but less frequently but you still want to be part of the roleplay, please let me know through PM so that I can decide on how to address that issue.

Finally, if you are rejoining or joining in after things have already begun, please read up on what has been happening in the roleplay before you post. I will generally ignore requests to bring people up to date on what is going on and no one is obliged to do so either. If everyone else taking part has had to read through all the posts, why should you be any different?

Well, if you made it through all of that, have another cookie. This is an absurd amount of reading for an opening post, but I figure an explanation now will help when issues come up later on.

With that out of the way, feel free to post and try to have fun. )

Small towns had never been Flame's style. She'd grown up in a big city and most of the excitement in her life happened in cities. Which wasn't to say she didn't have a good time exploring nature and whatnot or checking out smaller towns along the way on her trips.

In fact, she was in a small town on this very day. The navy-blue hedgehog had found herself in the area while on a run and it seemed a good enough time to stop and have a little snack. Ooh, and some coffee. While disappointed they didn't have her favorite chain of coffee shops, the singer did find a pleasant little cafe to stop in to and grab a bite to eat. Their coffee was apparently made from locally grown coffee beans as well. Nice.

One sandwich and a cup of coffee later, Flame had paid her bill and thanked the employee there who'd helped her. While waiting for a cookie and coffee to take with her, she inquired about anything interesting in the area to go and check out. Things had been a little dull recently. She needed to go find something interesting to do. Spice things up a little already.
The response she received wasn't all that encouraging. It seemed the majority of the surrounding area was used mostly for farming...

Either way, Flame was soon stepping outside of the cafe.  Her eyes squinted at the bright sunlight that greeted her. She had a cold coffee drink now to try and combat the summer heat starting to set in. In her free paw, there was a chocolate cookie in a napkin. She'd already brushed the crumbs from her cropped sleeveless shirt and the blue jean shorts she had on. A quick glance at her seemingly new, but already dusty, tennis shoes let her see that her shoelaces were still securely tied.

With all that looked over, the hedgehog began to make her way down along the street, glancing around the rest of the town and the people going about minding their own business while she munched contentedly on her cookie and sipped from the coffee cup she had.
It was a nice day out and the ambience of the town was pleasant. Enough to make her wonder if she could ever settle into a small town one day instead of a sprawling city.

...Nah.

The truck carrying Wolf and the squirrel made its way onto the main road running through the town. It headed along past some of the smaller stores and eventually came to a stop near the town's largest grocery store. This store also served as a shipping hub for sending out produce to other cities.

Wolf and the squirrel climb out of the truck. Wolf was dressing in jean shorts, a t-shirt and a jean vest. He removes a couple of bag from the back of the truck and turns to look over at the squirrel. The squirrel walked over to the grocery store and made his way inside.

A minute later the squirrel makes his way back outside. A pair of grocery workers exit the store and start unloading the truck and taking the produce inside. Wolf walks around to join the squirrel.

"Well, this is where we part ways." Wolf says.

He holds out one paw to the squirrel. The squirrel takes hold of his paw and shakes it.

"Take care of yourself during your travels." he says, "If you ever need a place to return to, you'll be welcome back on the farm."

Wolf smiles and nods in return.

"Thank you for the offer. Perhaps if I return this way I'll be sure to stop in." Wolf says, "Until then."

Releasing each other's paw, the Wolf steps back and the squirrel then turns his attention to unloading his truck along with the two workers. Wolf turns away and starts walking along the main street. He took a look at the stores along the way looking for another place to get some food that would be preserved for the next leg of his trip.

Flame idly took note of a truck that drove past her and into a grocery store parking lot a good ways up ahead of her. However, she didn't pay too much attention.

While in the middle of chewing on a bite of her cookie, the hedgehog's ears perked up as her backside started to blare out some form of loud music. She grumbled, tucking her coffee awkwardly into the crook of her left arm and then using her now-free paw to take out a cell phone from her back pocket. A glance to the screen showed what appeared to a be a surprise candid of a dark-furred hedgehog.

Flame rolled her eyes and sighed as she tapped the screen and lifted the phone up to her ear.

"Yeah?"

There was a pause. Flame smirked a little before replying.

"Well yeah, I would have called you, but I got completely wasted last night and got into a bar fight and then banged, like, five or six people in a row and woke up in jail this morning."

The hedgehog grinned at the response this seemed to elicit from the person on the other end of the phone.

"Please, Mom, I can't really call you every night."

An exaggerated sigh followed.

"It's not like anyone can really catch up to me or anything. And even if they can, they're in for a big mess once my fuse runs out."

Several moments passed as Flame continued on down the sidewalk. She wasn't particularly looking ahead, her eyes stuck halfway through an eyeroll and disinterestedly staring skyward.

"Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. I'll try. Or at least I'll text Strike or Sparks and they can update you. ...Yeah, okay. ...Uh huh. ...Bye."

Flame huffed out a little breath as she tucked her phone into her back pocket again and shifted her coffee back properly into her grasp.

Mothers. So paranoid.

Wolf makes his way down the street, glancing in through the windows of the buildings he's passing along the way, looking to see what each of the shops were. It wasn't turning out to be an easy process of finding what he was looking for. First because he wasn't exactly sure what kind of place he was looking for, and then he didn't know what it might be called here either.

He pauses after walking a short time and looks around. The main street wasn't too busy at the moment. There were only a couple of vehicles traveling along the two lane paved road, and a few more parked a various distances from him. There were only a few people out and walking along too, giving him few choices for asking directions from anyone.

At this point, Wolf realizes he should have asked the squirrel for such information. He glances back the way he'd come from. He realized it would take longer to get back to the squirrel than to just ask someone nearby.

Looking around again, Wolf spots a navy blue hedgehog heading in his general direction. She seemed to be on her own from what he saw. Thinking it would be easier to talk with one person rather than try to do so with a group, he approaches her.

Once he was close enough, he tries to get her attention.

"Excuse me miss." he says, "Might I trouble you for a while with a few questions?"

Flame was back to enjoying her cookie. She was almost done with it when she noticed a wolf up ahead eyeballing her. Granted, by this point it didn't faze the hedgehog anymore. She looked good in a crop top and she knew it. That or he was trying to figure out if she was really 'that one singer related to Sparky'.
For now, she didn't focus her gaze on him for more than a moment or so, if only so he wouldn't know she was aware of him looking her way.
Instead, he started walking up to her.

'Here we go,' she thought as she turned her attention on him.

She swallowed the bite of chocolatey goodness in her mouth as the wolf spoke to her. Her head tilted to one side slightly.

"Yeah?" she replied, "What do you wanna know?"

Wolf looks back at her and smiles slightly.

"I'm trying to find something here in town and I'm hoping you might be able to help." he says, "Would you happen to know if there is a store around here that sells... ummm... I guess they'd be considering traveling supplies?"

Flame gave a couple of casual blinks as the wolf somewhat explained what he wanted. For the moment, it appeared she was wrong. There was no look of familiarity in his eyes nor a wandering gaze.
She looked a tad puzzled as he finished, though.

"Well, uh.. What do you consider traveling supplies, exactly?" she asked, "Like, camping equipment? Or snacks? Or somethin' else?"

Wolf takes note of her initial reaction. She'd seemed a bit surprised by his question.

"Well... I was looking for for food." he replies, "Things that would keep and not just be eaten immediately."

He glances around at the nearby buildings.

"I'm just not sure what most of these places are... or what the place I'm looking for might be called." he adds.

"Gee, have you considered the local grocery store?" Flame suggested to the wolf, "I'm pretty sure even out here, a grocery's gotta have some non-perishables."

The hedgehog took the last piece of her cookie and then proceeded to pop it into her mouth as well, then crumple up the napkin in her paw. She turned just slightly and tucked the napkin into a pocket on the side of the backpack she had on. It had almost been concealed under her quills, but then it wasn't too large either.

"Well... I had considered that, but I wanted to try and find a place that specialized in that sort of thing first." he replies, glancing back towards the hedgehog, "I'll certainly go to the grocer if that is what is available."

He adjusts the strap of his pack that he has slung over one shoulder, moving it to a bit more comfortable position since he was standing still. He then glances down and tugs down on the jean vest he was wearing.

"Hm..." Flame murmurred, "A place that specializes in non-perishable food...?"
She glanced around the street they were on. A faint smirk played out across her muzzle and her shoulders shrugged a bit.

"This might be easier if I were a local, maybe," she suggested, "But I'm just passin' through, myself. Best I can probably do is search on my phone." One of her paws moved around to her back pocket, resting on the cell phone there, but not yet withdrawing it.

"Oh, I see..." Wolf says, "It probably would be easier to ask someone else then. I know that searches on those little devices can potentially take a lot of time... and I don't want to distract you from your own business here."

"Nah, I'm killin' time really," Flame admitted with a dismissive shrug. "I can help you find what you're lookin' for while my food settles at least. Maybe try and give me more deets on what you're searchin' for?"

"Oh... well, um... thank you for that." Wolf replies, obviously surprised by the offer.

He glances around again.

"Like I said, I'm looking for a place that sells food that'll keep for a while. Like... food that has been dried out so it won't spoil." he explains, "But I'd like to avoid things that are kept in... um... metal containers. The ones that you have to cut open. I'm just assuming that there would be a store that sells those types of food, but I'm at a loss for what they might be called."

The hedgehog furrowed her brow a little bit. "Well... that sounds like, uh... trail mix. And jerky and dried fruit," she admitted, "That kinda stuff, right? So long as it's not in a can?"

Wolf nods slightly in reply.

"Yeah, that sounds like the kind of things I'm looking for." he says, "It's just a question of where."

"Shooot, any ol' grocery store oughta have stuff like that," the hedgehog said. She gestured to the sign for the store up ahead that she'd earlier seen a truck pull in to.

"You try that place yet?" the hedgehog asked.

Wolf looks over towards the grocer's store, which happened to be the one he'd started out by. The squirrel was still there off loading his produce.

"Well... no. I thought they were dealing with fresh foods." he replies.

"Well, maybe," she agreed, shrugging her shoulders, "But a lot of stores will have, like, a dried food section or somethin' like it. Right?"

The hedgehog looked back to the wolf again expectantly.

Wolf looks back at her.

"I... wouldn't really know. I don't buy food that often." he replies.

"Wwwwell, why not check, then?" she suggested as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, "If they don't have anything like that, at least they can tell you where to look."
The navy blue hedgehog started off down the sidewalk. "C'mon, it won't hurt to check."

"Hmmm... I suppose so." he replies.

Wolf moves to follow the hedgehog along.

"Thank you for your help with this too." he says.

"Sure, a little good deed can give my karma a boost." Flame grinned a little. She glanced over to the wolf. "So are you goin' camping or somethin'?" the hedgehog asked.

Wolf shakes his head slightly in response.

"Not specifically." he replies, "I'm traveling... but I'm sure that sleeping outside will be done at some point."