Claiming Post

[BLAIDD]

Pack Name: Krieger
Alpha's Name: Jerusalem
Word Count: 593

The day was brisk, cold even, and his breath steamed out in clouds that vanished as quickly as they appeared. The ground was hard under his feet, frozen solid, but devoid of snow. The days previous had been warm, and any snow that had been on the ground had melted away, leaving mud and slush in its wake. Here on the Battle Field, where Salem and his kin had fought honorably, the mud was plentiful, but already hardened in the fresh wave of cold. The grass was coarse and brown-yellow, rusty in some places. Piles of bones littered the field everywhere one looked, mostly human, with some dogs and horses scattered here and there as well. The ground, even after five long years, was still marked with blood in places, dark smears and patches of rusty red, perhaps preserved by the mild weather in this area and the fact that few living creatures came around here.

He didn't understand that; this place was a place of victory, a place where dogs had won their freedom. Well, perhaps not really. In fact it was a place where humans who had loved them had died, for what reason, he didn't know, and didn't care. It didn't matter either way, the war was fought, the war was lost and won, and dogs were now free. The town had been left to rot, and the part of town closest to this field was well on its way. Many building had been felled in the fighting, and lay broken and collapsed across the ground, some charred black and still smelling vaguely of smoke, others simply splintered, and all beginning to peel and decay.

He yawned lazily as his eyes scanned the place, and slowly, deliberately, he walked deeper into the field. He had come by a few times in the time between the war and right now, but mostly he had avoided it, as had all the others, and it had stung him to think he was as cowardly as they. For years he had followed their example, leaving the Battle Field to go to rot, and bickering with the other dogs for other territories. He was good at fighting, and usually won, but constant was the challenging, and it was becoming rather tedious. There had to be some intervals between fights or there was nothing to look forward too. Besides, he was losing sleep. And damn it all, why shouldn't a dog come here? It was perfectly fine land, wide and open, although admittedly, not much in the way of shelter. Well, dens could be dug underneath the sturdier wreckages, and that would fix that problem.

He wanted this land, he missed this land, the place where he had gone from puphood to doghood, the place where his mother fell. He found her remains easily enough, he remembered everything about that day as if it was only hours ago. His beautiful, clever mother, so strong and fierce that every male in Jefferson's pack had wanted her to whelp their offspring. She had fought like a queen, until an enemy human had shot her right in the face. Her skull sat sideways in the mud, sunk down an inch or two; there was a jagged, gaping hole in the middle of it, the shards scattered around her, mostly sunken down. He stared down at her for a moment, before wandering away, finding Jefferson's skeleton nearby, musket still clasped in his bony fingers. This was his home, damn it, like Hell anyone was going to take it from him.