A bed of roses(open)

* @[Sif] if you want to join feel free*
A tall, pink and grey figure slowly crept forward on slender legs. In his jaws, he carried the rotting, rancid corpse of a fox, it's tail dragging between the wolf's front paws. Podrem did not know why he liked this place so, but it felt... lived in? No. Died in. Cried in. He clambered up onto a cracked, roughly squarish patch of stone, careful not to step on his findings and damage it.

The pink and grey ubeli's unnaturally long white mane got briefly tangled up around the stiff vixen's back claws, and the old wolf carefully worked it out from under the corpse. A fox was just practice, but the ubeli wanted her to look beautiful all the same. He had gutted her already, when he had found the fox two days prior, and had had to, sadly, flee the area momentarily due to a fight that had broken out between two bears. Shame, it was quickly resolved, and neither participants were badly injured. It would have been an honor to work on a bear.

It had only just become spring, and this day was a special occasion for the mortician. As he worked at bringing sole local greens, herbs, and bark to the stone to patch the corpse up a bit he mused about it. It was the ubeli's ninth birthday. Oh; what a journey it had been to this day. Stiffly, the old wolf, sat and began placing mints and winter herbs in and around the festering fox, flinching back every time he heard even the slightest noise, as if the dead body should reach up and bite him. With a sharp rock, he cleaned off some of the more visible injuries that had done the young vixen in, and carefully sized lichen and rich-colored bark to cover them when he would bury her. He had taken his fill from the corpse already, and it was only fair that he return the favor; in exchange for sustenance, a proper burial.

The large grey lerk was not at all pleased that Spring had finally come, truth be told, for she preferred the colder climate. However, she had gone off again into the stone dwellings, looking for more interesting bits that she might bring back to the pack. Now that they had a few more members, she felt that perhaps if they found more objects with which they could fortify their pack. So, dragging behind her the strange wooden sled thing that she'd made, she forged her way through the stone ruins, headed in any direction that might be an interesting one to find objects in.

She had found this particular area of the stone ruins and had wandered inside, her powerful legs smoothly traversing over rock and grass, the sled making a dull scraping sound as it slid behind her. She'd managed to attach the rope that she'd found to pull it to the cylinder that was already attached to her back that rattled slightly when she stepped. As she stopped, coming inside of the gangly tree line that surrounded this area, she narrowed her eyes curiously, wondering just what this strange grey and pink ubeli was doing. After a moment, she decided it didn't concern her, and went to turn herself and her sled thing around, to go to another location.

Scraping. scratching. A dull itch of a sound, but still painful to the elder's ears. they flicked back. Such a frequency was horrible to him, but it was a sound some made unknowingly. Podrem knew that something or someone would have to be there to make that noise. He nosed a white flower that he had found into the chest cavity of the hollowed-out and well decorated vixen and turned swiftly to face the blur of movement now in front of him. It was roughly wolf-shaped at distance, but what was behind it?

"Hello hello hello," smiled the old ubeli, rotten fluids and flesh still on his muzzle and mane, which reached down all the way to his paws. He slowly approached, head lowered, but more in an eager manner than an aggressive one. That being said, his muzzle was so badly scarred it would be hard to tell if he were snarling or not anyways. His mane covered his eyes completely while he did this, but occasionally a glint of green could be seen peeking through. "And what brings you here on such a lovely little day? A bit cold for your kind, is it?" he asked, stopping less than a foot from the lerk's side and sniffing her from that distance, his own rancid breath and scent being rather stronger and foul.

Ah. Well, it seemed this wolf must have wanted company after all. Sif turned about and faced this male, a bit of surprise showing on her face at the fact that he seemed to be rather covered with gore of a sort. Had he been scavenging? Well, that wasn't entirely a foreign concept to the large grey lerk, many animals scavenged, just not usually wolves in this world, she'd found. He had quite the powerful scent around him, which she had to hold back a sneeze due to. It wouldn't have been polite otherwise, and Sif's default attitude was polite.

<b>"I am actually from the more frozen northern reaches of this world and I tolerate the cold quite well."</b> She offered in response to the query in mild tones, as she was sniffed from a distance. Sif wondered why he wasn't simply moving his great mane out of the way to be able to see her properly. Whatever the case, she found no threat here, and simply nodded in greeting. <b>"I am Sif, and I was merely looking about for supplies to take back to my pack. I do not wish to cause you any bother, however."</b> She still had not discerned just what it was that this wolf had been doing previously but she hadn't really bothered to get too close of a look.

When the giant began to speak, the ubeli flinched back as if he had been struck, but as his ears adjusted to the noise he looked in the general direction of the wolf's face. From this distance he could see that the wolf before him bore no marking, and he could begin even seeing the details of each hair close to him. The elder trotted forward a bit so that his head was ony a few inches from hers, and, mane still in his face, he grinned, and panting he yapped, "Well then, well then, and what pack might that be? Oh- and I wouldn't take that lovely little vixen I was cleaning up over by the rocks; Prepped for burial but ifn' ya try to take a bit of 'er you might end up on th' same rock for th' same reasons,"


His voice was earnest but cheery, although the horrible stench of rot was quite strong. The ubeli did not notice this stench though; it dulled his sense of smell by masking other scents, and that kept him from being distracted or overwhelmed while he was working. It did make greetings rather awkward, however, so he would be sure to wash up first thing when he was done burying his vulpine cadaver. He backed off a bit and sat down, scratching his ear as he though about what he was going to say. Oh; that's right, Podrem hadn't even introduced himself! Heh heh, silly me...

"Sif's a nice name. Never heard it before, that's sure. They call me Podremius, hobbyist undertaker, burier of pelts and of bones, free of pack, responsibility, and any hope of a social life," he chuckled in a friendly tone.

When the pink and grey wolf moved so that he was just a few inches from her, Sif took a large step backwards, not really comfortable with this wolf being so close to her with his rot and carrion scent. <b>"Alfheimr. In the Ice Forest."</b> Swinging her large head back towards the indicated spot where this wolf had been working before, she could not help a small frown coming to her features. Why on earth would he do that, it seemed so unnatural. She shook her head once and then realized he had continued after a pause.

<b>"Podremius."</b> She echoed in her deep tones, as if tasting the name for herself, to solidify it in her mind. The rest of his speech was lost on her, quite honestly, as her mind had gotten stuck on two of the things he had woofed at her. <b>"What do you mean by an . . . undertaker? I have never heard of those duties before. "</b> Sif tilted her head slightly, quizzically looking anew at the wolf in front of her, as if trying to discern his intent by what he was telling her. What sort of wolf messed around with deceased animals?

Podrem seemed a bit puzzled by the question for a few seconds, but seemed to come up with a response in a short time. In this time, he was very likely staring directly at her as if one of them were crazy, but soon the maned ubeli spoke again. "Well, missy, here's how it is... well, how do I explain it? Ah. I bury dead wolves! Yes, that's it exactly! I find a dead wolf, make them look all pretty, and I put 'em in the dirt." he concluded solemnly, voice akin to a little pup being made to recite broken rules to it's mother.

Having done this, he went from solemn and thoughtful right back to the ecstatic and eccentric senior he usually seemed. Suddenly he lept up and spoke quickly. "Yes, yes I just forgot something, didn't I? You've said hello but not a single soul's stopped to wish me happy birthday! Oh, that's right, I never told anyone did I? Oh, silly me. Let's play! Let's all sing! Yes, let's share rhymes! You do like rhymes, don't you? Now don't tell me you don't know what that is either,"

The ubeli began humming a tune and putting words to it only two or three notes after. "Oh, happy birthday to me," he yipped, moving turning to the dead fox, "Third-of-death day to you," he continued, bounding over to it. "That big lerk, she's a beauty and you fox are too..."

She listened to his entire spiel, her brow slightly raising as he explained. It made no sense to her, honestly. Why would a wolf need to look pretty to be put underground? The only reason she could understand that one would put a dead anything under the earth was to protect it from scavengers. So it wouldn't be necessary to make it look nice. The whole thing was just strange, as if this wolf had taken some sort of plant that had made his brain go loopy.

And then, he paused and then continued along, getting even more eccentric than she'd already thought. Sif didn't even have a moment to reply, he simply broke into a tune and started with even further crazy words. As he bounded over to his deceased critter, which now, after looking over there several times, she <i>did</i> see that it was a fox, and that just made her blink even more. So, she did what any logical creature would do, and she nodded after him politely. <b>"Podremius, thank you for explaining that to me, but I do believe I should get going about my task."</b> She barked in her loud, deep tones, after which she turned again, the sled scraping slightly as she moved to head out of the general area.

"Awww, don't go away, don't go," whimpered the old ubeli, suddenly changing his personality around entirely from ecstatic to miserable. He bounded back over to the lerk, tail tucked, ears back as if he had been bitten, whimpering like an ill pup. "We never have any company, and it's oh, so lonely out here with no one to talk to..." he pleaded with seeming desperation. The begging senior even flipped his mane out of his eyes with a paw as he approached in an effort to add to his pitiful act. Bright, green eyes that seemed like they should belong to a younger, healthier wolf stared up at Sif as he trotted alongside her, generally getting in the way. This also revealed that the jagged scar on his muzzle actually extended back almost all the way to his left eye, and continued about an inch above it. Despite his attempts to act cute and helpless, the scar over and under the ubeli's brow combined with the rarity of sunlight peeking through his thick bangs caused him to squint in that eye giving him a lopsided appearance that more squeamish wolves might find a bit painful to look at.

"Oh, please don't go away. It's no fun being out here alone, with no one to talk to, with only a rotting little scrap of tainted meat to keep me company..." begged Podrem.

<i>Right, and of course that wasn't going to work . . . </i> Sif thought with a outward sigh as she heard the whine of a wolf that was acting as if a pup whom did not get the tasty treat it had wanted from a recent kill. The large grey form stopped in her tracks as the stench of the other invaded her personal space, clearly making a solid attempt at being quite in the way, and incredibly irritating at the same time. She had thought that her polite goodbye would have done the trick, but no, apparently here was a creature that needed attention, even though it's own company was quite grating in of itself.

<b>"Enough!"</b> She barked in a rather commanding tone, her own patience wearing a bit thin with the ridiculous amount of whine that was now occurring about her. Sif shook her head slightly and then turned to give the ubeli a rather stern stare with her silvered gaze. Truly, she felt like this entire meeting had been one of the most awkward and confusing ones that she'd ever encountered since coming to this world so long ago. <b>"You have to see that, surely, there are those, like myself, that simply just don't understand why a wolf would take house with dead things, going so far as to dress them up, yes?"</b> Perhaps he did not know. Well, she would be the one to explain that, then.