The Dark Queens Reign - Into The Future

[Asphyxia]

[bg=25252f][atrb=width,518,true][atrb=border,0,true] Three empires, three deities. War, blood, destruction. The need to unite. God's before them, long ago grew envious, grew angry with each other. Destroyed each others lands. And now, a millennium later, the present, and an ancient prophecy dictating what would happen for the future of Requiem stood before them. Cthonia, Tuatha de Denann, and Torqueo Somnium, the empires. Vergilius Patroklos, Nuada Setante, and Tehya Savaetta, the present rulers. The monk had brought upon them a prophecy, ancient and of folklore told. Five months since the storm, since Dhani had come to them and told Tehya of the prophecies the monks had kept hidden for centuries. Five months and nothing had happened. Tehya wasn't sure whether or not she believed him. Amethyst spheres gazed from the hills that hugged either side of the valley, staring out at the walls of snow drifts. The snow had drifted to form walls of up to ten feet in some places, curbing the lands and packing tight. Blankets of snow covered the valley, no greenery seen beyond the massive pine trees flanking the forests. Many trees had fallen and died upon the earth bed because of that hideous storm and her rage taken out upon Torqueo. But its ruthlessness didn't end there. Famine came with it. Carcasses littered Torqueo and for a while, lasted them their hunger. But those prey that had survived had left Torqueo and now with winter upon them, had yet to return. Fishing was possible, but only to an extent and only in the forests where the moving waters had not frozen. Furry chest heaved and lowered on a sigh, the breath escaping and misting into a light fog in the air upon leave of her lips and disappearing into the air. Fog hung low over the trees and even when the sun was highest in the sky and making the snow sparkle upon the lands, it was still cold and still the fog remained. Hindlegs pushed up from the ground as Tehya's hindquarters rose. She didn't know what to think about the prophecies Dhani had told her of and her pack was ragged and hungry from the cold winter months and the famine. She had to find food for them. Dry bones and fish were not enough to sustain themselves on. Acoustics shifted upon her skull as the wind whistled past her ears, shifting her fur back and forth as it changed direction. Although her muscle mass was maintained, it was clear she had suffered from the famine just as much as her pack had, her body leaner than normal, making her appear malnourished, where she would have otherwise looked health and sleek. When she stressed most about it, Machivelli, ever her adviser and friend, was there to point out the fact that famine was a natural part of life, especially in winter and while he didn't seem to stress, she wondered if it secretly weighed on him too. Tehya had noticed Machiavelli's quick gravitation towards Dhani and wasn't surprised the two had become friends and frequently spoke and hung around one another and at the moment, she wondered where the two had gotten off to. For the past moon, Tehya had kept to herself, although she still instructed her pack and sought them out for hunting sessions and to keep updates on the goings-on. They had all likely noticed, but she had a lot on her mind. She felt neglectful of them. For the last moon, she had not slept in her den or returned to the caves much unless it was to find one of her pack members and even then, she avoided it as much as possible. She had a royal war going on in her head. Thoughts striking up and attacking rational, logical thinking, the logical side taking war upon its opposes. And Dante.. what of him? She felt a pull towards him whenever he was around, and yet, she had avoided him just as much as the rest as of late. Tehya felt the need to get closer to him, to get to know him as a whole and she truly began to care for the other wolf, but her thoughts confused her and returning to the past in her mind only befuddled her more and made her avoid him even more. What if her relationship with Belial repeated with someone else she tried to be with? The thought scared the hell out of her. Her weight shifted as she picked up her paws and began loping down the valley towards the forests to where there was less wind, broken up by the tall, old trees and less snow to send shivers down her spine. The cougars were few, but remained even in the winter and they were hungrier, because as the famine effected the wolves, the famine also effected the hungry cats. She had found one dead the other day and her shock wasn't easy to keep at bay. The long, thin form of a rotting cat carcass lay upon the earth close to the forest borders, the cats mouth lolled open, its tongue hanging loosely. Its ears had been pecked at and torn apart by scavengers, crows most likely, and its tail lay limp behind its frame. Although its fur had held up, it was dusted in snow, its skin beginning to get eaten away by decay. Her lips had curled at the sight of it, but there was no meat on the thing for her wolves. Nothing of any value in that cat for the wolves at all and so she had left it. As she came upon the forest, she paused, taking a look about the lands, snow beginning to fall once more. It ended, but only ever in short intervals. No storms yet though, and they were lucky for it. Slipping her lithe body between trees and into the forest, she felt the immediate calm of pure silence. Liquid and beautiful. A movement several hundred yards away, however, caught her attention and she glanced up to catch the multi-colored fur of another wolf. She was upwind to it and so, caught no recognizable scent. But the fur was all too familiar. Machiavelli. Tehya stopped, still as ice in the midst of winter, gazing at him for a moment, contemplating avoiding her pack further, but it had been too long and she had avoided them for too long. She was a sorry excuse for an alpha at the moment and needed to stand up and take back her position as ruler. Giving out a quick bark of the wolf's name, Tehya began sauntering in the male's direction. Her adviser, her friend. As she came upon him, she lifted her eyes to gaze into his own, and for the first time in a long time, struck up conversation, and with nothing really to talk about. Yet. “The famine continues and I can't see the herds returning anytime soon. How have you been these last few nights? You look hungry.” Her tongue slipped past her lips to wipe across her own. “Those fish don't do much for any of us.” Tehya gazed about, reclining upon her haunches slowly to sit. Although she didn't want to admit it, she needed some company. wordcount;; one thousand, one hundred, ninety. notes;; we have started new threads and the packs are five months past where they originally were in time. Time has passed, things have moved on.

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[Sighani]

[bg=777777][atrb=width,527,true][atrb=border,0,true] As the first pale gleams of sunlight pierced through the morning fog, Machiavelli Alighieri baptized the new dawn in blood. Fangs ripped through the gloom as surely as sunlight, slicing cleanly through a wriggling rainbow of scales and sending hot crimson droplets skittering across the virgin snow. For a fleeting instant he recalled a similar instance in a past he’d tried so desperately to escape, but the acrid taste of the trout overwhelmed his senses and dragged his ever-wandering mind fully back to the present. His stomach clenched horribly as the warm flesh melted on his tongue. He’d never get used to the taste of fish–nor the bones, pricking the roof of his mouth like needles–but it eased the aching knot in his belly and for that he was grateful. He had foreseen only disaster when the floods had driven away the herds, when Tehya, staunch and stubborn as ever, had refused to move her pack from her newly-christened kingdom in search of more fertile territories, when the frosts fell like a death shroud and killed what little prey remained... But Torqueo Somnium, the wanton whore that she was, never missed an opportunity to offer herself up to her devotees, if only for a price. And the wolves had paid. Dearly. In more sweat, blood, and tears than could be measured. But when hunger drove them from the cold comfort of the forests and onto the frozen wastes of the river, they had discovered a whole new bounty hidden just beneath the ice. While the herds would come and go, the pack came to realize, the fish were here to stay. The absence of the hunt, however, meant that the wolves quite quickly drifted apart and away. With no activity to bind them together, they dispersed themselves throughout the territory, and Machiavelli suspected that the only thing keeping them inside Torqueo Somnium at all was an overdeveloped sense of loyalty to the dark queen, or perhaps the fear that conditions might just be worse beyond these borders. Indeed, the looming white mountains presented such a chilling threat that even the most winter-hardened among the wolves, the monk Dhani who made his home high within those frigid monoliths, dared not risk his life. Desertion, for those who had considered it, was hardly an option. In that age-old struggle between fight and flight, fight, in this instance, had surely prevailed. But when the adversary was starvation, the united front crumbled. It was every wolf for himself now. Not that he didn’t long for the company of his packmates, of course. He missed them terribly, more than he would care to admit even to himself, but survival–not living, but survival at its most basic–was easiest when the civilized mind gave way to animal instinct. Even Machiavelli, renowned philosopher and royal advisor to the queen, who prized logic and reason above all else, had refrained from thinking too much. Besides, to think with such a dull, constant pain in his gut would ensure a fast trip down the road of insanity. It was a path he’d wandered once before, lost in the darkness of his own twisted mind, and he had no intention of ever returning. Licking the last scraps of his breakfast from the snow, iridescent sparks of light pricking off the blood and scales flecked on his muzzle, Machiavelli took a moment to consider the whereabouts of his alphess. When had he last set eyes on the obsidian huntress? He fancied he’d seen her sleek form weaving through the forest several nights ago, but the wind had been particularly fierce as of late, blowing up the snow into all manners of chimeric shapes, so he could hardly trust that sighting. Perhaps a better question was when had he last talked with his queen? Spectral eyes glazed over for an instant in concentration, a task that wouldn’t have consumed him so entirely if he’d had a stomach full of warm doe meat. After a while he shook his head to clear the cobwebs, realized that although it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks since he’d last received word from her, he could hardly remember the sound of her voice. Another side effect of the hunger, he supposed. And what of her eyes, did he at least remember those? Of course he did. Such a particular shade of purple, a starlit amethyst beyond compare. A wistful smile curved across his lips when he realized he’d probably never forget. Pushing aside his thoughts, he willed life back into his numb paws and limped wearily away from the riverside. Never before had he been more aware of his age, his own mortality. All it takes is a cruel winter to bring out the weakness in a man’s bones. Would he ever recover from the cold or were the creaking aches in his joints the first wicked hints of arthritis? He hated to worry after his own health. Breath stood at his lips like a phantom sunning itself on the threshold of a tomb, slipping every now and then to freeze in the lusterless fur of his ruff. Thoughts of Tehya had invaded his mind, for better or worse, and he now intended to keep his tracking skills finely-honed and nose the femme out, wherever she happened to be hiding. Fortunately, that didn’t take as long as he had anticipated. And as fate would have it, she found him first. “Hail, mistress,” he called with a playful hint of mockery, tail teased into a wag at the sound of his queen’s voice. His own lyrics were harsh and crude, almost ruined from lack of use, and he knew that if Tehya beguiled him into conversing as she once did, he’d lose his voice by the end of the day. He tried not to dwell on the visible shift of bones beneath the queen’s bedraggled coat as she came his way. From alpha to omega, winter’s harsh claws spared no wolf. Efficient and succinct as ever, she wasted no time in striking up conversation, though Machiavelli couldn’t help but feel she’d wasted her breath. She’d only vocalized what had been on every wolf’s mind for the last several months. He hated to be reminded of their sorry state–of his own growling belly. He settled down on his haunches shortly after Tehya, plume curling tightly around his paws, for what little good it did. “Thought I’d go for a new look,” Machiavelli replied with a bitter laugh, uncertain how the queen would react to such biting sarcasm, knowing a healthier Tehya would join him in the self-deprecation. How had hardship changed her, he wondered, and plowed on. “Starvation is all the rage this season, it seems. I’d be embarrassed if you couldn’t count my ribs. But enough about me.” He dropped the sarcasm as quickly as he picked it up, offered his alphess, his friend, a genuine smile to melt the ice, his first in... far too long. “You’ll be pleased to hear that I thought of you last night, old friend. So far we’ve been fortunate that the clouds have yet to clear–if that happened, if the sky opened right up, some of us might die of cold shortly after nightfall. Never have I been more thankful for all this damnable fog. Nonetheless, I miss the stars. And just before I slipped off to sleep, I thought of that night we emerged from the den after the storm. Water everywhere, a veritable ocean in the middle of Torqueo Somnium, but the night was so still and the wind was so calm that the water became a looking glass and all the heavens were reflected on its surface. Two skies, above and below, and there we were, in the middle of infinity. I remember how I could find constellations in the floodwaters, how I pointed them out and you could find them in the sky above, how I shared with you beautiful star stories from civilizations long dead, how you told me the myths of your own people. Do you remember?” He paused for a moment, drowning in nostalgia, wondering if she held the memory in such high regard, if she remembered at all. “Such beauty from such destruction. Have hope, Tehya. You’ll tell me I’ve been spending too much time with the monk, but this too shall past, as all things must, and we’ll be all the stronger in the end for having experienced it.” Is it better to be loved or feared?

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[Asphyxia]

[bg=25252f][atrb=width,518,true][atrb=border,0,true] “So what are the plans, Jacome? Where do we go from here?” Jacome stared hard at the ground for a moment, before a smirk slipped onto his lips, his gaze lifting to meet the male before him. His little pawn in a game of war. “First, we take out the lead families. The lead Scout, the lead Hunter, the Lead Guardian. Then, we go after the Heirs. When the pack is at its most weakest, your group will attack, taking out anybody and everybody. They'll be frantic and with their leader unable to tell them what to do or guide them properly with the help of his leads, they'll take him down themselves. They'll take him down and he'll lose his position as King. Or better yet, they'll do away with him themselves. And when your group is done, I'll come in a clean up the pieces, so to speak. Koel Herfst was always meant for a stronger, more intelligent leader, after all.” The slate gray wolf tipped his head to the side slightly. He was smaller than Jacome, but what he lacked in strength and size, he made up for in speed. “They'll never see it coming.” Jacome's lips ripped apart, causing the smaller wolf to flinch, before he realized Jacome lifted his muzzle and let his laughter pierce the air. It was cruel, hard and sharply pitched. A sound that would strike one as annoying had it not made them nervous. And the reason for the nervous part? Jacome enjoyed laughing at and toying with his opponents while he killed them. “Of course they won't! What wolf, that was ever in their pack, would DARE to turn on them, and use the very knowledge they trained him for, the very physical training they put him through, to do it? It's genius!” His acoustics pricked forward, his jaws abruptly snapping shut as he gazed at the wolf, as if contemplating him. “Copernicus!” he gave out a quick bark. The wolf stood tall at attention and dipped his mug. “Yessir?” The young, impressionable lad gazed up under his lashes at Jacome. “Don't let me down.” His lips curled in a snarl of warning at the younger wolf. Tehya glared through the bushes at the two wolves. She'd just found out his plans to totally annihilate her father's pack. Her own brother. And she had to warn her father, quick. She was upwind, so it was less likely they would scent her, but she held as absolutely still as possible. She was not yet a match for Jacome. He'd had more training than her and had was larger. The she-wolf knew it would be useless to attack him and she would never get the information to her father in time if she did that. Turning around, she slipped down through the bushes and went back the way she had came, loping quickly and silently away. But it was as Copernicus must have been going to tell their 'group' of the plans, that she ran right into him, t-boning the other wolf as he came swerving from out of no where. They rolled for a moment, then jumped to their paws, his lips peeling back to snarl at her. He had been one of the yearlings of one of the leads, and it had always been obvious he disagreed with his fathers upper paw, but to this extent... Tehya smirked at him. “Tsk tsk. I find it amusing, Coper.” His lips sheathed his canines, his plume lifting to wag slightly as curiosity overcame him. “You hate the authority your father has over you, yet you'll listen to an idiot like Jacome. It's too bad, really. You had a lot of potential.” He blinked several times at her, taking a moment to process the words she'd just thrown his way. “Had-?” His question was cut off as her body collided with his. Copernicus was a wolf she could take on and she would. He crashed to the earth beneath her chest and her jaws snapped down around his throat. His father, Beau would be angry with her and his mother would hate her, but she had to protect the pack... Had to. Snapping down hard, she tore into his throat, silencing his yelp just as it was about to leave his jowls. He choked and sputtered on his own blood, before his head fell limp from her canines. She released his body and watched his breathing stop and the blood pour from his neck. She needed to buy some time... If Jacome found him, he would be suspiscious. Grabbing the body, she dragged Copernicus to a bush and hid him beneath it. Although some blood smeared the ground where his throat had fallen, there wasn't enough to raise much suspicion that it was a wolf. Loping off into the trees, she took off to inform her father. When she reached his dens, she made to call out to him, but gagged on the words, as he emerged from the caves. “Tehya... Did you go on a hunt?” She shook her head and took a breath before the words all came out in a jumbled mess. She couldn't believe what was happening, but at the same time... She could.. She just didn't want to. “Jacome is assembling some troops to annihilate the pack and take over.” Her fathers dark, hard glare and nod confirmed that he believed her and he would inform his own troops. Tehya finally breathed. She had done her job the best she could. Spheres shifted over the light falling snow, or at least what made it past the canvas of tree tops, painting the ground beneath it. The she-wolf contemplated Torqueo Somnium briefly, before her gaze drifted back to Machiavelli. His ever-mocking, sarcastic and teasing tone eased her slightly, her muscles relaxing beneath her thick coat. If it weren't for her cloak, you'd clearly see her ribs, but for what little it did, it did mask that much. She watched in silence, as he sat and listened quietly as he spoke. Her skull nodded slowly, gaze moving from him to the forest around them. Judging from the smell, he'd just had fish for breakfast and she was thanking the lands that at least those had stayed, because if nothing else, they could keep up their health with nutrients, even if no fat maintained their bodies. She chuckled at his sarcasm about starvation. “Aye, it seems all of us are getting thin. The fish are full of nutrients, but let's face it, we need some good fat to keep us sustained through the cold winter. We're lucky with how light it has been on us so far.” As he smiled, she smiled back. Genuinely. She'd had too many frowns as of recent months, but she would try to lighten her mood and return to her pack as the leader she originally was and knew she could be. Acoustics shifted in Machiavelli's direction, gaze meeting his eyes as she listened to what he had to say and in all her heart and mind, she hadn't expected him to turn to memories. Her smile broadened, and she nodded at the fond memory. It was one of those calms after the storms that she loved so much. They always say it's the calm before the storm that you know means one is coming, but it's that calm after the storm that is so beautiful and makes you want to curl up and sleep under its beauty, even after its cruel destruction. But for as much as Torqueo had been destroyed, trees fallen and dying, the lands flooded anywhere from inches to feet depending on the dip and rise of the lands, animal carcasses littering the grounds, fish flopping through the flood, it was when she'd sat under the stars and pointed out constellations with Machiavelli that she was so fond of. Those moments where she finally relaxed and thought things could only get better. But even as the floods washed away, the prey had migrated to different lands and left them in a famine, but for the fish and the carcasses they could temporarily survive off of. Five months later, and no prey had returned. Rabbits, rodents, and fish... And the occasional cougar if it wasn't skin and bones. Her tongue swiped across her lips, left aud pulling back against her skull. “It was beautiful. I really do love the stories you have to tell, Mach. They're wonderful and so entertaining, whether they're bittersweet or full of war and blood. I remember, my friend.” Tilting her crown slightly to the side, she gazed upon Machiavelli some more and wondered where the rest of her pack were. “I know it will pass eventually, and I know that we will only be all the stronger for it. I'm not sure if it's my selfish affection for these lands that made me keep the pack here, or if it was my knowledge that it would make us all the stronger for it.” She chuckled slightly, and nodded in his direction, “Please tell me it was knowledge and not entirely selfish, whelpish behavior.” Letting out a long sigh, the she-wolf gazed up at the tree tops and stared there for a moment, before looking to her friend once more and coiling her plume about her hindlegs. “Have you seen any of the others as of late? I may have spotted some of them a few times, but haven't spoken to anyone in a while. I fear I have neglected my pack, Machiavelli. It's time I grow up and stand up, though and I'm here to do it.” Her smile left her mug, her mind leaving the moment to her thoughts. wordcount;; one thousand, six hundred, thirty-nine. lyrics;; already gone - crossfade notes;; omg.... soooo long. hope you enjoy Siggy!

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[Sighani]

Dhani...
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens

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Darkness at the break of noon, swirling in frigid torrents in the sky above Torqueo Somnium, stealing silently into the mind of a wandering monk. Dhani had ventured forth from his mountain sanctuary nigh on five months ago to deliver a prophecy. It had been delivered, and yet Dhani remained, unfulfilled. In the beginning he had simply told himself, and the queen, that making the long trek back to the monastery would be most unwise while the summer was wrapping itself in its treacherous autumn shroud–the nights were cooling, lengthening, preparing for the merciless darkness of winter, at which point the mountain pass would be impenetrable. But as autumn took on a paler shade, ceding swiftly to winter, the monk had begun to wonder if safety was the only reason he had remained in this foreign kingdom. His superiors had sent him out with the sole purpose of relaying a message of dire importance, or so he had thought. Now, as the flame-cloaked hessian sat in troubled meditation, his mind wandered into corridors of recollection, searching for deeper meaning in what had initially seemed so trivial a task.

“When someone is seeking,” Govinda said, “it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking, that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of what he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal.” Dhani, hardly more than a child, sat before the wiseman in rapt silence. Govinda was something of a legend within the granite confines of the monastery, seldom seen, but often mentioned. Even Father Kama revered Govinda with such an intensity that it was dangerously close to worship, for it was said that Govinda had transcended his ego and the chains of this mortal plane, that he had broken from the karmic routine of existence and passed into nirvana. And so when Govinda had first professed an interest in Dhani’s education, even the youngest brothers knew Dhani was to play a part in events yet to pass.

“Seeking means to have a goal,” the wizened old brute continued after a moment, tending to a smouldering pile of coals with a soot-blackened paw, the sickly-sweet scents of poppy and saffron filling the cavern. Govinda was the keeper of the sacred flame, wisest of all the elders in that he could not only read and decipher the ancient runes, but write them as well. Today was to be Dhani’s first lesson in scripture. “But finding means to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, Dhani, along with your brothers, are perhaps seekers, for in striving towards the goal of nirvana, you do not see many things that are under your nose. It is my intention, young one, to open your mind’s eye so that you might see the things that others often overlook.”

“How?” Dhani had blurted out the question before he had realized it, but when Govinda saw the horrified expression that had claimed his youthful features, the old man’s eyes crinkled in an expression of amusement.

“Wisdom is not communicable, Dhani. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish. Knowledge, such as the formation of runes, can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but cannot communicate and teach it. There will come a day when you realize this for yourself. That will be your first step down the path of enlightenment. Now come, breathe deep the incense, dab your paw in the soot, and free your mind...”

Obsidian eyes snapped open as the memory flashed by, when he finally scratched the itch that had been plaguing him all these months. It was so simple a thing that Dhani couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle, the first sound he’d uttered in weeks. There was nothing more elusive, it seemed, than an obvious fact. He had delivered his prophecy, true enough, and yet he had never felt as though his business in Torqueo Somnium was finished. Perhaps it was because he was meant to learn something from these lands and her strange inhabitants.

Strange inhabitants indeed... For a group of wolves that called itself a pack, he had not seen them together for over a month. He was not so sheltered in his monastery that he couldn’t recognize the strain of societal collapse. The wolf was a gregarious creature by nature, craving, even thriving, off of social interaction and the need for stable echelons. Even the monks had developed a hierarchy of sorts, and it could be said that the fathers Farid and Ahsan assumed the roles of co-alphas. But right now, Torqueo Somnium seemed little more than a refuge for rogues. The famine had hit the pack at a vulnerable time, it was true, but why had Tehya so readily shirked her responsiblities as a leader? And why had her subjects abandoned their queen with such haste and in such dire circumstances? Even Dhani himself shared the blame. Though the cold and the hunger hardly phased the monk–he had lived his life in the nastiest of conditions, enduring alpine blizzards to make even the most battle-hardened warrior flee for cover, and he had often partaken in spiritual fasts that could last for weeks at a time–he was beginning to feel the ache of loneliness. It was about time he located the queen, this nomadic existence could not continue.

Dhani, mind finally resolved, stood up, stiff joints creaking with the sudden motion as he shook a fine layer of fresh snow from his pelt. He had been nestled between the roots of a felled tree that had provided his shelter for the majority of his stay in this kingdom. Earlier in the day, he had been practicing his runes in the snow, scattering intricate imprints all throughout the clearing that spelled out the words of a short mantra, but the falling snow had filled them in, leaving them indecipherable, leaving his natural canvas clear for the next time he felt the need to hone this sacred art. Tehya had once mentioned that she would like to learn this language, but since her pack had dissolved so suddenly at the onset of winter, he hadn’t had an opportunity to teach her a thing.

Keen ears flicked atop a lithe skull, catching the ghost of a voice in the wind. Machiavelli, perhaps? Thrusting his muzzle skyward, a few quick sniffs confirmed this suspicion, and the advisor was not far off. Nor was he alone. A smile hitched up the corners of Dhani’s lips when he realized Machiavelli had done the hard work of finding the queen himself. Perhaps good things truly does come to those who wait, the monk thought to himself as he started off in the direction of his packmates.

“Greetings Tehya, Machiavelli,” he said softly as he came within sight of the two larger wolves, forgoing formal titles, as was his wont. The burden of solitude was lifted from his shoulders almost instantly as he beheld the private smiles of the two companions, smiles that were not meant for him, but smiles that warmed his heart nonetheless. It was good to be among his own kind again. “Forgive me if I’ve made myself scarce as of late. Pack life is not something to which I’ve become entirely accustomed yet.” It was not entirely true, but what other excuse could he offer? What else was there to be said? Better to forgive and forget. “I hope my absence hasn’t been too much of a bother.”

Peace has no boundaries;
Serenity knows no religion;
When the eyes close,
The mind shall see

[Sighani]

[bg=777777][atrb=width,527,true][atrb=border,0,true] Obsidian and amethyst. They were the colors of his queen’s royal garb, colors he had grown to cherish, but they were not as he knew them. What he saw now were not so much colors perceived, but rather colors remembered; they had dulled and tarnished in the passing months, winter leaching the life from them as surely as it leached the life from Torqueo Somnium, leaving behind only faded traces of what had been. Tehya seemed older now, worn, enveloped in a ghostly cloak that obscured her darkest shadows and most brilliant highlights. These last months had not been easy, least of all for the alphess, and as the kingdom had languished, so too had its queen. Or perhaps Machiavelli’s sight had simply grown dim with age. Tehya, he begrudgingly acknowledged, was not the only one growing older. The arrival of spring would bring with it the dawning of his seventh year. He wondered fleetingly if he would ever shed his pallid winter colors. In his youth he had overheard a soldier mock the king Adelphus with the name Old Graymane. Had the time come at last for Machiavelli to inherit his father’s nickname? His musings fled on a swift wing, however, when Tehya smiled, the light of mirth stealing across her face. It seemed there was an ember of life left in her yet, one he hoped she could rekindle in the coming days. But for as beautiful as their shared past had been, it would not do to dwell on memories when they so desperately needed to focus their attention on the present. And whatever remained of their future. Machiavelli’s smile slipped, the advisor shaking off his nostalgic ramblings and stepping resolutely into more formal duties. Tehya had not appointed him as her advisor so he could regale her with tales of happenings long since past. There had been, and would come again, times when he could doff his responsibilities and simply speak to her as a friend. But right now he needed to serve her as a counselor. As Tehya spoke of her own selfishness, Machiavelli fixed her with a hard stare–hard, but not unkind. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss your actions as folly, my lady,” he replied, softening his gaze, but not quite smiling. “You did what you judged to be right and you owe no apologies. You held your ground in the face of disaster. Foolhardy? Some might deem you thus. But noble nonetheless. Your fortitude is admirable–it inspires hope and confidence in your subjects. A confident queen could lead her pack to the ends of the earth and back if she got it in her head to do so. And if ever you do, rest assured that I will follow.” There was no lie in his eyes as he spoke the words. He had followed her into the unknown wilds of Torqueo Somnium, after all. And was this strange kingdom not the end of the earth? Nestled in the emerald space between titanic mountains–the roof of the world, as the monks called them–and the endless stretch of a steel-gray sea, it certainly seemed so. Tehya asked him if he’d seen any of the other pack members, and he paused for a moment to consider the inquiry, spectral eyes narrowing slightly as he searched his recollection. Constant hunger had blurred his memory, he was sure, and he could remember remarkably little since the first snows had come to blight the territory. However, he was quite certain that if he had seen another wolf, he would have remembered it. He parted his lips to reply when suddenly a familiar scent assaulted his senses–the sickly-sweet perfume of saffron and poppies mingled with the distinctly masculine musk of a wolf. He swung his muzzle around, peering through the skeletal underbrush for the familiar flame-kissed coat, and sure enough, there was Dhani, making his way towards them on nimble paws. “Maybe you haven’t been as neglectful as you thought, my lady,” Machiavelli said with an airy chuckle. “It seems your pack is returning.” Dhani trotted up to them on a tide of heady incense, a serene smile creeping across his features as he greeted them, black eyes as unsettling and indecipherable as ever. The monk truly was a master of his own mind–his expressions betrayed nothing. Machiavelli dipped his muzzle in perfunctory greeting, and the fact that the monk seemed as lean and sprightly as ever–glowing with health, in fact–did not escape his notice. He knew that Dhani was conditioned to thrive in harsh environments, but that knowledge did nothing to soothe the sting of resentment, that Dhani had succeeded where all others had failed. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Dhani,” Machiavelli said at length, banishing the bitterness from his thoughts. All that truly mattered was that Dhani had not only remained in Torqueo Somnium, but had returned to the queen. “It’s good to know that loyalty endures still in Torqueo.” He did not address the matter of the monk’s absence, however. Such things were better left to Tehya. Is it better to be loved or feared?

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[Emmy]

[bg=white][atrb=width,WIDTH,true][atrb=border,0,true] Kalkina In another life, in another dream, by another name.

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She has dreams about it. Dreams about taking wolves apart. Because that's what she is, right? A limb splitter. A heart starter. Not a woman, but a breath of life on the lips of the half-dead and already-gone. She isn't whole. (Has she ever been?) All she is, is pieces. Stretches of sinew and gallons of blood fused together to resemble fur and skin that stretch over bones that move and a heart that doesn't (but used to, oh, how it used to) feel.

Kalkina is a creation, a creature; a monster born of good intentions, but left out in the cold to fend for itself. They've always loved her (when she is there, whispering into their deepest darkness to raise them from the dead, the angel of resurrection), but when they look at her, they only see patches of purpose, patches that don't quite fit, and they can't understand.

Perhaps there is no repulsion, no hatred that this self-made monster has faced, but the lack of translation sculpts and shapes a chasm between Healer and victim that no amount of compassion could ever conquer. She can never be like them. She is different from them. While all these dying strays compare purpose like scars, the ghosts of her wounds encompass not the surface, but pry deep, deep into the arcs of suffering, ones that could bathe the world in martyrdom if she unraveled each scar for everyone to see.

Her patients fit into their function: (teeth bared and claws outstretched and shouts for her that feel like shards of ice twisting, sinking deeper into raw wounds that taste of maggots and rot). And she fits into her own: (herb-scents and herb-tastes and soft eyes and stark-cold assurances that feel warm against dying flesh).

Separation bleeds hopelessness. Without each other, hope is lost. The world would turn to ash.

Perhaps they weren't meant to feel whole. Maybe it's why there's faith and soul mates and destinies and all of the poetry and songs meant to inspire -- drawing together what is incomplete. It's why minstrels take to hiding in black holes (muses flee their half-finished songs) and lovers take to waiting in front of their dens (for their lost halves that wandered too far). It's how children lose their innocence (because it's not just a big blue sky anymore, but a big blue cage that keeps them locked in shackles of bone).

Wolves are only whole when they are together. By herself ... she is just a missing thrum in a thriving heartbeat.

Her eyes are open. They search for places in the dark that don't hold those images. The ones that conjure up the question of her sanity. But there is no edge to the night. It stretches on forever. It holds the morning hostage, at fangpoint perhaps (because life is death and all she can think about is fangs and the result of them: holes and scarlet streams that dig deep into the mouth of winter). There's an explosion of stars, the recoil resonating in streaks of brilliant color across the paling heavens. She imagines dawn sinking to its knees. Dying. Beseeching her, perhaps, a simple Healer (wolf, wolf, not made of stars) frozen into the mold of her sleeping hole, for her breath of life. So that it can have just one more taste of what living could have been like ... in the event of the end being found.

But she can't reach from where she is. Her bloodstained paws can't wade through mortality to find the consoling light. She is only a wolf, after all. A piece, a creature, a monster of martyrdom. Not the whole, just a stain of color on the bigger picture. Like the body of three-day rot, a corpse of light, and she watches as the enemy night takes his place. A blood moon rises. Not because it is red, but because of what it has done, or rather, not done; it can never wash the stain of regret from its existence.

She looks down at paws that read like words carved into stone (like the priests used once-upon-a-time, throwing them out with the bones and calling to the gods of her homeland, before the wars, before she was placed into her station as savior). Engraved into the cracks of her pads are the stories of lives that are left half-finished or never written at all. Written in scarlet ink, once as alive as the wolves who lived these tales, made them true (something larger than myth and wolf).

But just as the legacy of the dead withers, the color fades to rust.

Most of them think she's some kind of angel.

She's always liked to think they were wrong.

If she were an angel, then she has surely fallen. This could only be Hell, what she has chosen to do. Nothing beautiful can come of this (of blood and bone and tears and screams and death). Hell is where the pain lives. Where it breathes her in as she holds them to her breast (she is exhaled from the lungs of suffering). She bleeds into them; an angel of death. She seeps into their veins, into their bodies, and she turns their lips blue; stains the bright warmth in their eyes milky-white.

Sometimes, she saves them. But only if someone manages to find her first; she doesn't go looking for death's victims. Her movements calm, her words soothing, she exhumes their fear and swallows it whole. The fear belongs to her now. She never lets it go. When fear enters the border of her being, it wipes it's victim's bloodstained paws on her conscience, leaving their prints engraved into her soul for eternity. And she lets it remain, because she cannot let it free.

Thinking. It's more like a necessity now. To curb the inevitable. To preserve the tearing edges of her sanity.

A transient need for water ghosts through her; she does not obey, despite, or perhaps in spite, to her being surrounded by snow. Slowly it fades, and the yearning desire sinks back into its grave. Forgetful. Wistful. Her paws still twitch, warnings of atrophy, of frostbite, of anything that might lift her from the slow suffocation of breathing in shallow thoughts. There is no oxygen there. Only chokes of blood and cries for "Healer!" on the air.

Night is a lasting torment for Kalkina. It only brings sleep. Sleep, in turn, offers only dreams. Her mind doesn't know what to offer her anymore in the stead of reverie (it no longer knows the face of home, the comfort of faith, the scent of pack and family, the yielding flesh of love). She never sleeps without dreams anymore, her mind an ever-spinning wheel. It spawns. It creates. It weaves the dreams that drip with blood and fear, all of it the same, intermixing because it doesn't know itself from the abstract reflection of the inner woman that it used to be (but no, not anymore).

She closes her eyes, head pillowed on her paws (they cradle her into fur and flesh that is scarred with winter, snow and frost biting at her nose), and she watches as the dream unfurls again.

Paws and muzzle dipping into open bodies. The bodies, they don't scream anymore. They're shells now, except for the fragments of the wolf that used to live in there, who used to laugh and cry and breathe and love. She extracts the love, keeps it for later, stores it in her heart and hopes that she can bind it into the words she must tell their families (I'm so sorry, so sorry, so sorry for your loss), because she cannot bind it to these shells of flesh. The laughter echoes as it escapes, thrusting vibrant souls towards the sun to warm its rot-infested bones. Before it escapes, the opaque mists that lay heavy (like a sore) upon the trees, it suffocates on a cloud-riddled sky. The forest breathes in the dead carcasses like oxygen. The forest feeds on foreign beauty, on contentment that is not its own, on strength itself. It is a parasite, she knows, and she is feeding its desire; she is only delivering them into the clutches of the green-painted monster.

Her eyes open. Wide and groping through omnipresent darkness. The dead-cold white air feeds on them and the sensation stings. It isn't a nightmare. It isn't sleep that brings her these painted swan songs of dying night.

Waking. Living. Wandering through the phases of surviving, bleeding, gasping, dying. Imagination has nothing to do with it. It can't be blamed.

It is why. Why she is only a piece. A separate being from the rest of the wolves. Why she sacrificed soul mates and fate that hangs itself, a glittering noose, on the pearl-white edges of the stars. Because the dream is real. The nightmare is no longer a specter that chases her through the chasms her his deepest, darkest fears. It is flesh and blood.

Perhaps this is why she dreams of angels and demons and the blur of wolvenkind in between. Because the love she stores, in the corridors of her heart, it is all for them, and they could restore it to life (no longer a mind-made memoir, an intangible brush of beauty), if only she were more like them.

All around her, the gloom begins to fade as night finally releases its prey. Dawn breaks across the horizon, golden streams of light thrown across the territory; there was no need of her breath of life this time.

Kalkina stares out at the wide expanse of the frozen land that she'd stumbled her way into. Her dark eyes taking in the black trees of the hill-surrounded valley; branches frozen, ice-shattered limbs hanging limply at their sides, some of them fallen and leaning against the base of dead trunks. She'd been caught in the snow, and once caught it'd been too late to leave until winter was over. She'd tried finding the alpha of this territory, but despite the evidence she'd seen of a pack, she hadn't found a soul, hadn't heard a sound.

Her ice-steeped paws twitched once more, the marred reflections of once-beautiful claws sculpted from marble stone (the ones she left back home). The seduction of water also returned with a vengeance, but she ignores it still; she's gotten very good and neglecting her needs and desires.

With a sigh that ghosts on the air, Kalkina pushes herself up to stand, forcing herself to also ignore the burning sensation in her limbs as the blood rushes in a return through her veins. Taking a moment to shake the accumulated snow away from her fur, she set off at a slow trot along the treeline in hopes of finding something to eat. The food was sparse here, and she'd begun to suspect that anything that managed to survive the last storm -- fled (wise, perhaps, but unfortunate). Her meals lately had consisted of voles nestled in their holes beneath the snow, and the random bird who was stupid enough to remain behind only to freeze to death.

Nose to the ground, Kalkina freezes mid-step as she catches the scent of wolves. Lifting her head to test the air, she inhales deeply and catches the scents of more than one (two? three?), and they were together. Perhaps she'd found the pack she'd been looking for. She moved slowly to follow those faint trails until she caught the low murmur of voices, and then her speed increased outside of her control as she made to find them. How long had it been since she'd seen another wolf? An uninjured, unbloodied, healthy, alive wolf? She couldn't remember. And here there were three. She slows to nearly a crawl when she finally sets her eyes on them, cautious of strangers, but not wary enough to continue hiding. When she reaches a safe enough distance to be heard she stops.

"Lady," she calls out, adding: "sirs," with a dip of her muzzle in deference to them all.

I gave it all away for a memory and a quiet lie.

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Word Count;; 1980. -- 2010 (I'm editing too much).
Comments;; Ick. I've written a hundred different posts, with a hundred different pasts and personalities and lives and bleh. This was just ... the last one I landed on. Lol. Like her being a healer? I was going to be making her an assassin. XD! --- Since I don't have a profile up yet, her coloring is golden-brown: her eyes, her fur. She also stands at thirty-three inches at the shoulder, weighing one-hundred and twenty-five pounds. And she's five. Just so you know, since I totally didn't describe anything about her in the post. ^^; Just .. rambled. A lot. A whole lot.[/blockquote]

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[Asphyxia]

[bg=020623][atrb=width,518,true][atrb=border,0,true] “Eragon, I want you to go to Valorah. Take their King a message – tell him that we have information regarding the troops seeking war against him. We offer our alliance to him and the information: the troops have gathered in the swamps, they are waiting for the Faction to attack while the hunters are gone and cannot provide assistance in the battle.” Landon stared hard at his youngest child. Never before had he given Eragon such a task of such importance, and the youngest of his children was still due for plenty more training. Being youngest, he was far from getting the crown, but he still held his responsibilities to the pack. Eragon nodded, his acoustics standing tall as he processed every word, word for word that his father had spoken, determined to please him. “Take Tehya with you. I believe she needs to get out for a while.” Secretly, he sent Tehya along because he knew she would look after her younger sibling, knew that she would make sure nothing happened to him, for the pack they hoped to align with could potentially turn on them instead once given such information. Eragon nodded, lopping off to find his sibling. He found her, staring off into the distance at the edge of a cliff face. He slowed his pace, wondering what she was observing, his eyes on her back. He could feel the smile before he could see it. “Brother… I could hear you a mile away.” She was teasing him, of course, as she always did with her kid brother. He was younger and smaller than she, but he was the type to take everything seriously. The smaller black wolf gazed at her momentarily, wondering if she really had noticed him before he had come. But of course she had, she had the training that he did not. He stepped up alongside his sister, reclining his haunches next to hers, plume coiling about his hind legs as he too, gazed in the direction she watched. Below, wolf pups played in the field with their pupsitters, whacking the pupsitter females with their big paws and yipping playfully. Tehya didn’t move. Eragon glanced to her, then back to the pups. “Tehya..” Turning, back towards him, she began to walk in the opposite direction towards the forests. Deciding it wasn’t a good topic to divulge in, Eragon quickly changed it to his task his father had given him. “Father asked me to bring you along to Valorah to seek alliance and give them information on their enemy troops..” Pausing, she glanced over her shoulder at the smaller wolf, her spheres narrowing slightly. The look in her eyes suggested she pondered why their father would send the youngest, least suitable of his children for such a task. He shrugged his shoulders at her, dismissing the question with the only way he knew how. To pretend not even he had a clue. But he did. His father was testing him. Seeing if he could hold responsibilities yet. Nodding, Tehya turned once more. “Then we must be on our way.” Silence was all that had become of the alpha, losing herself in her thoughts. Had her pack abandoned and left, or would they return? Did they view her as cruel and incapable for keeping them here in this winter, with little source for food? Many wolves of their alliance would easily scoff at the idea of even remotely caring what their pack members thought, but she built her pack on trust. If they couldn’t trust one another, what were they building the pack on? Nothing. Trust was the biggest thing required to have a successful pack. She needed to trust in them and them in her. Plain and simple. Tilting her crown slightly, she glanced back at Machiavelli. That stare of his was always good at getting through to her, because it made her realize when she needed to think more logically. “You’re right. I do believe I judged correctly. I fully believe we will all come out stronger for it and if we couldn’t weather this, how could we with anything else?” She watched him for a moment, observed his own gaze, studied it even, before she nodded and let a small smile tip the corners of her blackened lips. “I am confident in my pack’s ability to endure and succeed. And I appreciate your loyalty and honesty Machiavelli, both as my advisor and my friend.” The scent of another came wafting to Tehya’s nares and for a brief moment, she hoped it was Dante, but shut down the thought quick. Closing her spheres for but a second, she opened them with the thought gone, waiting to see who would show up. Machiavelli spoke again and she glanced at him, taking in the words, holding onto them in hopes he was correct. As Dhani approached, she nodded to the wolf, listened to his meager explanation, but accepted it, for she had made herself scarce as well. She had made herself available enough to those who needed to seek her during the winter storm, but she hadn’t sought them out. Perhaps she should have. She was sure now, that the company of others would have kept her mood up. “If you’ll be staying here any length of time, Dhani, you had best get used to pack life. If I hadn’t been so scarce as well, your excuse would have felt almost… Unacceptable.” Her crown tipped to the right side for a moment, acoustic tipping back as she wondered if he would argue with her or accept that she had accepted his excuse and simply wanted him to know that as he grew accustomed, such things would not be so acceptable. Loyalty… As Machiavelli spoke of it, she gazed at him. How many would remain loyal? How many cherished loyalty? How many would return, loyally, to their pack during the calm after the storm? Another scent had come to her then and she shut her muzzle to allow the silence to take over so she might listen for them as well. Her crown straightened and her acoustics tipped forward, her senses aware and waiting. A golden-brown wolf appeared, unfamiliar entirely to Tehya, female and wary of coming too close from the looks of her. Remaining sitting where she was as she had noted the distance the wolf kept, she respected the other wolf’s space as she was called to in greeting. She nodded to the wolf’s dip of the muzzle, the wolf’s words and waited, even for a moment or so after the silence had broken out again. She did not given explanation to why she was on Tehya’s lands, whether she was passing through or wanted to seek pack life or even temporary sustenance – although, sustenance here, in this season, was slightly more unlikely. Choosing her words carefully, she decided to introduce the three, then ask for introductions from the female. “I am the alpha, here, Tehya Savaetta. Next to me are Machiavelli Alighieri and Dhani. May I ask upon your calling? I also ask your reasoning for being here before me. Are you merely passing through Torqueo, or do you seek stay here?” be the serpent beneath the innocent flower;;

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wordcount;; one thousand, two hundred
lyrics;; where is my mind - yaov
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[Starrlight]

[bg=black][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=border,0,true] A stone. So small, seemingly insignifigant. Yet, when Tehya had asked him to retrieve it for her, he felt it meant the world to her that she have it. Therefore, he couldn't refuse. And now he had succeeded, finally. He could return, and while he knew he had not been gone too long, it felt like a lifetime since he had seen the forests of Torqueo. He missed them. His mission had not come free. Winter was here and some of his former power had wasted away. He was still a large bru, but the scarce prey and strain of hunting alone had left their mark. So too had the guardians of the stone which he now carried. His eyes narrowed as he remembered them. What had they called themselves? Ah, yes, that was it. 'Valorah'. They had reminded him of his own family, and that reminder alone was enough to make him enjoy the ensuing fight. It had only been two of them, and he had been forced to run in the end, but he had left his mark just as had they. A long shallow tear along his side had closed a while ago, but he still moved with a slight limp. He had gotten the better end of it, however. If only there hadn't been two. Dante's eyes lit up as the forest rose up before him, thicker than the sparse trees through which he had been travelling. A smile pulled up his maw and he chuckled. Never before coming here had he felt such a connection to the land. Coming home to the Caligae was like returning to a cage. Sure, it was a place you slept, but it would never be home. Here, though... here it was different. He took a deep breath, taking in the familiar scents of his packmates as he passed over the border. It seemed everything remained as he had left it, and he was glad for it. He had been nervous to leave. As a guardian of these lands, it was his duty to be sure that all within were safe from harm. That involved actually being here. Call him paranoid, but he knew that threats could come at any moment and from all sides. He did not like testing fate, and he liked less doing so during such a hard season. Any surrounding packs could very well be desperate, and he was not willing to take that chance. They were all weakened when winter hit, and he didn't fancy the idea of playing who's stronger with an invading pack. Especially when he wasn't around to up the numbers. It had gone by uneventfully, however, and he sent up his silent thanks. Adjusting his hold on the stone within his jaws, he passed through the trees at a swift walk. The forest floor was cold beneath his paws, but felt nice after the harsh ground of the outlands. The springy leaves weren't quite frozen solid. With a careful leap he cleared a large tangle of roots, landing softly on the other side. Tehya and Machiavelli were close. He could scent them now, not just their traces. Another was with them, though he did not recognize them. He shouldn't be surprised to find that the pack had grown, but still his hackles rose a bit. It was a natural reaction. He forced it down, however, for he did not want to seem hostile. It wasn't a hard thing to do, for he could sense no aggression from either side. As they came into view he slowed to a patient walk, for he saw right away that Tehya was addressing the stranger. He heard her words and paused, not wanting to interrupt. He was within sight, however, and would come forward when invited. He was just happy to see both she and Machiavelli, as well as Dahni, looking well. They too, however, looked too thin. It seemed winter was hard here as well. He noted the absence, however, of two packmates. Where were Taboo and Phantom? He hadn't known the latter well, but the former he did. Hopefully nothing had befallen them. ++++++++ Word Count: 690 OoC: I'm baaaack! And I figured it appropriate I post Dante first =]. Others will come soon! I'm just ready for bed at the moment. Sorry if the post kinda sucks, I'm very out of practice! I need to get back into the swing of things.

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[Emmy]

[bg=white][atrb=width,WIDTH,true][atrb=border,0,true] Kalkina In another life, in another dream, by another name.

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There are some things that begin with Once Upon a Time because they rise one day from nothing and grow and flower and, eventually, die out, as do most things. But there are some stories that begin before you are aware of them, like the angel-oak tree growing old and gnarling away at itself in the center of the abandoned forests of her homeland (do you remember this tree? you tried to climb it before your grandmother came crying into this world, before your ancestors dug their dens against the hip of a rose-cliff, before you knew the color of heat and what it stood for): for it did not come into existence the day it bore its first leaf, nor did it spring into being when it was a mere seedling lying on the ground; but long before then, when it was but a dream that traveled through the night.

These are the things that are thought up and begin to turn before the world was made hollow.

Kalkina unearthed her inadequacies at an early age (once upon a time) and laid them out before the sun, miming the Priests who skinned their sacrifices and laid out the bones to dry. Counting and storing them away methodically, this is what she did; what she later became. She hid those ponderous faults behind the trunks of trees, behind the sweep of long grass, inside corners of dens forgotten and moldy with disuse. And parts of her are unfurnished still -- holes to be filled and overfilled in a thrust of years still to come. Yet others she has fed, dragging out the timber and fueling their need until she feels the tips of her nose and toes burn, biting and bitten. Only after the burning and scourging of her mind was the vague sense of history being abandoned.

If ever there was an empty hole, pure and reared and seared through the day, she was that need. If ever a woman was forged through fire, she was the stone still warm with the work.

Kalkina isn't an easy woman to understand, anyone who has ever met her will agree (anyone who wasn't half-dead or already-dead at the time of their meeting, that is). In fact, there are wolves strewn across the world who have tried and failed. Kalkina is a bit like water, a bit like smoke. She flits through, touching fur and lives -- staying just long enough to get herself covered in blood -- and then she disappears again, leaving nothing behind but a trace of herb-scent, a stain on someone's soul, and usually a dead body (if she was too late, if she didn't get there in time).

In order to understand who Kalkina is, you first have to know who she isn't, and that's were the problem lies. Because the thing Kalkina is not, is Kalkina. Anything that someone thinks of when they think of Kalkina is either borrowed or stolen; lies she's picked up over the years flitting from one body to the next on the front lines of battle, on her travels from one distant land from another, she hears something interesting that she wants for herself, and she takes it, because she wants desperately to be anyone other than who she is.

Even her name, which she adopted from an old legend passed down from generation to generation in the lands of her birth.

There's her smile, which she took from her mother. The more her father plotted against their King, the more her mother would smile, hiding her fear and her panic, her tears; all behind that bright, beautiful smile that no one ever appreciated. People used to call her mother crazy, Kalkina remembers, for always smiling when she knew everyone was aware of the devilment her mate was planning, and what fate that would bring upon their heads. So when her mother was slaughtered to punish her father, and her father was slaughtered as a lesson to Kalkina, she took that beautiful, beautiful fake smile from her mother; stole it away even as the corpse lay cooling on the forest floor -- and painted it on her own muzzle.

Now she smiles all the time, even when she doesn't want to (but not the real one, for that one was lain to rest beside her mother).

There are her bows, which she borrowed from the Neighbor-King who made regular visits to her homeland for discussions on treaties (one front paw tucked behind the other, chin tucked into his chest, looking up demurely through his lashes). Those treaties were all they had to maintain the peace between the two territories, but everyone knew the Neighbor-King didn't want them. She was very young when first he made his visits, barely weaned of mother's-milk, and she learned to love that Neighbor-King's bow. It was beautiful to Kalkina, an action foreign from that of her homeland (he used his whole body, not just his head like her people did because they viewed excess movement -- excess words, excess thoughts, excess anything -- as a waste of time). So when her father began taking the Neighbor-King aside for council (plotting, plotting, plotting), she began to mimick his bow; it made her mother stop smiling like glass and laugh quietly, calling her daughter her "little princess". That laugh was real and Kalkina misses it, all these years later.

She would bow like that for her mother whenever she could before she died, just to hear that laugh.

And that bow wasn't the only thing she stole from the Neighbor-King, but she doesn't talk about that, doesn't allow herself to even think about it, because the guilt still weighs heavily on her mind (for she gave him death when she promised him life, stealing away his soul, leaving behind only a shell, going against her very nature in an act of vengeance she never had the heart for -- it just gave her nightmares).

There are her dance steps, the ones she does sometimes because they draw attention and befuddle the mind (no one ever expects the pretty, little, bloody, sexless healer to know anything beyond what herbs clot the blood and how to close a gaping wound and when to remove maggots from dying flesh). But those steps catch the eye, and sometimes she'll slide through moonlight on silver-quick steps with her mother's smile on her lips just to make someone look. She learned how to dance from a coywolf called Sarie who, for the second war (she still can't remember the first one ending, only the death of the Neighbor-King, and then more death and more death and more death), was her best (and most naive) assistant; spent her free time insisting she had the moon in her veins and nothing but. Kalkina never managed to prove her wrong and for the three months she spent working with the woman, they danced like the world consisted of nothing but the stars and their bodies.

Kalkina left Sarie in the ditch where she'd been disembowled by enemy insurgents (and lived for another three hours afterwards until death finally found her), and she took those steps with her into the world.

She learned how to be a killer from Roach, who was the youngest general of the King's army (but age didn't matter because everyone know he was the sharpest edge of the fang and nothing less). She never wanted to take a life (she was tired of blood and bodies and rot, and she'd already killed one wolf before and that was enough), but after Sarie's death Kalkina understood why Roach insisted she learn how to defend herself. Whenever he managed to drag her away from her patients, he took her on scouting missions, teaching her how to slip in between the shadows, how to loose trackers following her in the water, to leap for the throat of trespassers: aim to kill, nothing else (because you can't take prisoners in a war that's happened twice). Roach was, despite his hideous name, smooth as ice and just as transparent. No one ever noticed him and no one remembered him when he was gone (because only corpses were left behind). He eventually got caught up in a violent battle near the border and bled to death on the forest floor.

Kalkina closed his eyes, brushed her nose down his throat, and smoothed the matted, bloody fur on his chest with a steady paw, taking all of Roach's lessons and skills with her as she ran to check the next body.

Everyone does that. Everyone takes pieces of others and makes them their own. But, you have to understand, Kalkina never makes these things her own. When she uses what she stole, she becomes those things. When she smiles, she is her mother, hiding everything she felt and the terror that froze her veins, the fear for her life, her daughter, their future. When she bows, she becomes her mother's little princess, mocking and full of secrets. She dances and becomes Sarie, feminine and graceful, the one all eyes are drawn to. She becomes Roach in the shadows, smoothe as glass and untouchable. But she likes the dancing best. She took Sarie's love of the moon for her own because it was nice, too look at something and see beauty. Kalkina hasn't seen beauty since her mother's laugh.

The point is, Kalkina is all those things and she wears them like old pelts. They fit her well, but they are still only costumes, only habits. They create the soul-coat called Kalkina, stitched up and worn to a perfect fit. What Kalkina really is, at the very core of herself, isn't any of those things. What Kalkina is, is a girl that had so little, she stole her mother's smile.

Memory has become more of an afterthought, less of a gift.

Kalkina is watching the sun, watching the shadows grow and shrink in turns so swift and sorrowful against the flanks of those surrounding her (the light, it holds to their paws, like blood after a fight) that it reminds her of nothing she has ever seen, nothing she has ever known, except for maybe in a passing slumber. In the (short) silent spell that fell upon the valley after she spoke, she takes a moment to gather the coldness embedded within her, recalling past winters and winds, lonely days of watching a bejeweled spiders weave their webs of fate (catching the stars and making them shine). She stares beyond them, counting scratches of sunlight, pinpricks of grace, and only returns her gaze to the other woman when she speaks.

"I must apologize, Alpha, for that was terribly rude of me." She acknowledged her mistake with another bow, this one deeper than the first (the Neighbour-King's bow), before she took a couple more cautious steps towards the small group. "It has been a long, very long, time since introductions were important." (Names were unnecessary attachments that wasted too many precious seconds, too many breaths, to recall on the battlefield -- there was just blood and tears and screams for "Healer!"; after a while, she'd started to believe that was her name.)

She rolled her shoulders in a small, casual shrug, careful not to appear disrespectful in the presence of ranked wolves, but still wanting to appear harmless. "My name is Kalkina; just ... Kalkina," she responded plainly. "As for intentions, I had none, have none. I got caught in the storm trying to make my way through, so I took refuge. If I had any intentions, they were merely to survive another winter and move on."

She cast her gaze around the snow drifts for a moment, eyes passing over the appearance of another male warily as he approached, searching for the words she felt would be appropriate and appreciated. "I have," she started and stopped to lick her lips, refocusing her gaze upon the alphess. "I have talents," she began again, "that you may find useful. I am a Healer, and for the allowing my lingering residence, I am willing offer my services, whatever you might make of them ... for as long as you may require them."

I gave it all away for a memory and a quiet lie.

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Word Count;; 2006. This is the last of the stupidly-long posts that ramble on and on and on. 834. Yeah, I so totally just cut the whole thing by over eleven-hundred.
Comments;; Suck. Some backstory. Still suck. Still super suck.

Word Count;; 2038 .... So I re-posted the old stuff. XD
Comments;; I still think it sucks. Lol.

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[Sighani]

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[atrb=background,http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx141/sighani_album/dhanitablemiddlecopy.png] Dhani had been away from home for far too long. Torqueo, he was certain, had planted something foul in the deepest crevice of his mind, something that had sent out tangled snares and taken root, something that was poisoning everything else. He felt... restless, he supposed the word was, and it was strange and unfamiliar, like nothing he’d ever experienced before, an itch that both tempted and tortured him. He often told himself that he still had unfinished business here in this forsaken kingdom, and that this was the cause of this intriguing new feeling that had been the focus of so many meditations of late. I can teach these wolves, he had told himself, and he had. He had shared many a carefully guarded secret with Tehya and Machiavelli, secrets of his faith and his studies and his ways of life. And yet he got the impression that they, in their own turn, were unwittingly teaching him. He had seen so much since first he had stepped foot into Tehya’s kingdom. Things that hardly warranted the attention of his fellow pack members often arrested his intrigue for hours on end, and continued to haunt him into his sleep. It was a curse, he supposed, that his mind should be so small while the world was so big–infinite, perhaps, and largely unexplored. And though the physical world fascinated him, so different here than the muted grays and whites he had known in the monastery, what truly consumed him was the delicate inner workings of the minds of his packmates. They were wild, feral to their very cores, untamed by the structures of a greater construct, their emotions running unchecked as they passed from moment to moment on little more than basic instinct. Not to say that they were unintelligent–far from it, in fact. They were simply... savage. Unbroken. Free. And they had taught him violence. It had existed to him before only in theory. It seemed a myth, back in his monastic days. Even in hunts he had not encountered the concept; prey was taken with the utmost respect, carefully selected so that the strong would survive to replenish their numbers, bodies blessed as they fell, never left to suffer in pain. But several months ago he had witnessed his first fight–just a minor conflict at the borders of Torque Somnium. Dhani and Machiavelli had been on patrol together when they had come across a stranger stealing prey from the queen’s forests, and when the advisor had demanded an explanation for the crime, the stranger had responded with uncouth threats that had driven Machiavelli to attack. It passed without bloodshed, and the stranger was chased from Torqueo and never seen again, but Dhani could remember every second with alarming clarity. The deadly flash of fangs and claws, the acrid stench of adrenaline on the air, the savage thunder of snarls and the piercing keen of pained whimpers. But most of all the glazed look in the eyes of the wolves as they succumbed to what Machiavelli later described to him as bloodlust. That image, he was certain, would plague him to the end of his days. And although the tussle had frightened and confused him, he had not been able to suppress an instinctual surge of... excitement. Even as he thought back on it now, he felt his whole body thrilling in response. The desire for more, to bite and tear, prove his deceptive strength, assert his dominance, to hold the life of another between his slavering jaws. Poison in his veins. A fever he could not sweat out. So it was that, as the queen berated him for his scarcity, he discovered, somewhere beneath his humility and his willingness to repent and submit, the untested edge of resentment, gleaming like a knife in the dark. How he longed to draw it forth, see just how deeply it could cut... but now was not the time. Now was a time for celebration. Tehya’s pack was regrouping in the midst of winter’s decay, and she needed his support. He had not become so lost in himself yet that he couldn’t recognize desperation when he heard it, and his training, it seemed, ran deeper than his newfound animal instinct, for his need to help and nurture flared to life with a white-hot intensity and chased away the shadows in his heart. He was a monk, after all. “Forgive me, Tehya,”. he breathed as the queen passed her judgement on him, his mask of placid serenity slipping for a split second as genuine shame stole across his features. The longer he spent in Torqueo, he noticed, the harder it became to conceal his emotions. What was this place doing to him? He did not fail to notice Machiavelli’s spectral eyes on him, greedily drinking him in, storing every detail away as surely as Dhani himself would have done. The bastard missed nothing. Drawing in a deep breath, the monk reined in his emotions with an iron grip before he lost control of them altogether, and the familiar yet unreadable expression settled comfortably on his face once more. “Your words have not gone unheeded. As you have been so gracious as to allow my continued existence within your kingdom, I will do my best not to cause you further disappointment.” And just like that, the moment passed without serious incident and the alphess turned her attention upon a newcomer who, after a tense and awkward exchange, declared herself a healer of no little talent. Obsidian spheres stole discretely across her form, swiftly cataloging scars and markings, taking her in as he sized her up. Dhani was something of a healer himself, utilizing his extensive knowledge of flora to heal the sick and the wounded who sought treatment within the monastery. He wondered briefly if Tehya would cast him out, replace him with one more experienced, someone who had seen battle, who cared less for plants and more for bodies, someone who had scars of her own. If Kalkina had more to offer, what would Dhani be in the eyes of the queen? A burden, perhaps? Nothing more than a waste of space? Once again, the sharp knife-point of resentment pricked his heart, drawing first blood, and this time he made no effort to conceal it. He had been away from home for far too long. count xx 1083 words. tunes xx ocean waves. comments xx none.

[Sighani]

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[atrb=background,http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx141/sighani_album/machtablemiddlegray.png] My friend. It was no secret that Tehya considered him such, and that he himself called her thus as often as propriety would allow. But perhaps Torqueo’s winter had been crueler to him than he supposed, and perhaps his hunger had warped his splendid mind into a more animal thing, for the word stirred something deep within him, and the deep fondness he had come to feel for his queen suddenly felt somehow strange. Almost murky, as though he were viewing it through a thick film of fog. He could recall a fair spring morning many years long gone, a precious, though cracked, jewel shining amidst the writhing shadows in the pits of his memory. He had been little more than a boy then, already hardened in heart but not so in face, the shattered reflection of his youngest brother Durante (sweet little Dante, in the eyes of their mother), who had always had the bleeding soul of a lover, an artist, a poet. Though Machiavelli professed to loath his brother’s more emotional failings, viewing his tender heart as a weakness in desperate need of fortification or, better yet, eradication, he nonetheless valued Durante’s keen insight. The two–sometimes three, if Ciardi could tear himself away from his studies long enough to join his siblings–spent countless hours discussing all matters of heart, mind, and soul, for between them, they missed nothing. Remarkable powers of perception were the blessing, and oftentimes the curse, of the Alighieris, a trait that had been in the family for untold generations. But none could turn that sharp-edged tool inwardly so well as Durante–the wolf wandered through the minds of his comrades as if they were his own. “You’re not like the others, Machiavelli,” Durante had said that particular morning, a cryptic smile ghosting across features that were entirely too ancient for a youth only just passing into his first full year. “Mother laments that she did not see your face amongst those assembled in mourning for her brother’s passing. Ciardi spoke on behalf of his soul, may it find salvation. It moved many men, our father among them. An entire kingdom united for a moment in its grief over the loss of a fine warrior, and yet its crown prince was nowhere to be seen. The other wolves all care so much, whilst you do not seem to care at all.” Machiavelli had held his brother’s gaze for a long while, his expression as cold and resolute as if carved from granite. It felt as though a stranger’s shadow had passed over the opening of the labyrinth of his mind, peering over the walls of that carefully-guarded maze to stare at the deepest, darkest thoughts at its heart, and Machiavelli could not help wanting to invite Durante in. Was something broken inside him, that he was unable to feel what so naturally came to others? Could Durante fix him? For a moment he could see himself through another’s eyes, and something like a desperate tendril of desire shot out and clutched at him and then fluttered away apologetically–his brother never took by force. The reminder of Durante’s weakness was enough to spoil the moment. The gate to the labyrinth slammed furiously shut and the fires of Machiavelli’s ire sent his brother’s shadow skittering out of his mind for good. “All lives end. All hearts are inevitably broken. Caring is not an advantage, brother. Love will not bring back the dead.” “Some may think you heartless.” “Then let them think so,” Machiavelli had snarled. His gentle brother shied away and he felt nothing. “I am to be your king. And if you ever hope to amount to anything of a prince yourself, learn this: fear rules nations far surer than love.” But where had that sentiment gone now? Ever had he guided his queen with a velvet paw, knowing all the while that it was armed with iron claws, but never once turning them against her. It was true that he was no longer the wolf he had been in his blood-soaked youth, that, through careful guidance and understanding, he had come to recognize that love was not always the weakness he had believed it to be. For the first time in his life he had made a friend–not merely an ally, but a friend–and it had come to him so naturally that he had hardly afforded it any thought. Until now. And now that he turned his gaze upon this thing previously unseen, like a wicked frost upon a delicate bloom, he puzzled at its purpose. It had felt good, surely; the times he had spent in Teyha’s company were undoubtedly the happiest times of his life. And perhaps it had made him wiser, or more experienced at the very least. But how could it serve him? The answer to that question would have to come later. For now, his attention was demanded once more by the jarring chaos of the present. Through the haze of his thoughts, he remembered a brief conversation between Dhani and Tehya. It had seemed so ritual, so boring, that Machiavelli had not bothered to give it his undivided consideration, finding his contemplations far more worthwhile, but something in Dhani’s face made him regret that decision. Like a bolt of lightning on a black night, it harshly illuminated a world entire in a single flash, disappearing almost as soon as it was glimpsed. Had it been... humiliation? Up until this point, Machiavelli had assumed that the monk’s armor was impenetrable: nothing got in and nothing ever came out. But here was a chink at last. Dhani rapidly tried to conceal it, but Machiavelli, enraptured by this unexpected upheaval, slipped his hooks inside and drove them in deep. Being a creature of observation, of perception, of investigation, there were few things Machiavelli detested as much as the unfamiliar chaos of a mystery. Dhani’s innerworkings had eluded him since the beginning. He would not let this go. But, like so many other issues, it would have to wait, for the present sought to claim him once again. Dragging his fascinated stare away from Dhani, he turned instead towards Kalkina. Another warrior trying to outrun her bloody history, no doubt–she spoke in a way that acknowledged the moment while clumsily avoiding the past. The trips in her speech were as good as a confession, and if he had been younger he would have advised Tehya to turn her away immediately, for the harboring of such a burdened individual was likely not worth the risk. Who could say what ghosts still plagued her footsteps? But Torqueo, it seemed, was a haven for the haunted. Whether or not the others recognized it, this pack was bonded together by a mortar of old blood and rattling bones. Kalkina would soon find herself in oppressively familiar company. “You are alone, I trust?” Machiavelli put forth at length, silver eyes passing lazily over the battle-hewn fatale for a moment before latching once more onto Dhani. “Might we expect any other visitors within our lands these next few days? Anyone you might have inadvertently led to our borders? Or... deliberately, perhaps?” The interrogation might have been intimidating had Machiavelli put any real force behind it–he had once called himself High Inquisitor, after all–but as it was, it merely sounded bored. He hoped Tehya had the mind to follow that line of questioning, as it happened that there had been signs of other wolves about recently, but Machiavelli could spare it no more thought. Dhani was proving to be a remarkable distraction, a slip that had first manifested itself as a flash of shame now reemerging as a slow creep of malice. Machiavelli could see the change in his eyes, those unsettling pools of black that were normally as arcane as the night sky gaining a sudden clarity, the fog clearing to reveal the startling rancor that festered within. And it was a foul thing, indeed. Machiavelli felt a shiver crawl down the length of his spine–not out of any unease, but at the sheer thrill of seeing this unexpected secret unfold before his very eyes, all his to behold, all his to deconstruct. Dhani had always been something of an untouchable entity until now, offering his services and his kindness to all who asked and even some who did not, but wholly unmarred by the harshness of reality, a wraith floating just beyond the grasp of his packmates. But Machiavelli had him now. Gazing upon Dhani, he could almost feel the monk twisting in his claws, and Machiavelli wanted to drag him down to earth for no other reason than the fact that he could. He cleared his throat to speak, but instead of addressing the monk, Machiavelli aimed his silken voice off into the skeletal tangle of the surrounding forest. He saw no harm in drawing the shadow hidden within out into the light of day. “Don’t be a stranger, Dante. Torqueo Somnium welcomes you home with open arms. Come, old friend, and greet your queen with the respect she deserves.” count xx 1,540 words. tunes xx "Cello Concerto in E minor" - Gustav Mahler. comments xx Ick ick ick, this is not a very good post but I don't care, I'm just happy to be done with it.

[Asphyxia]

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[atrb=background,http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q292/SummerDelirium/tehyamiddle.png] “Be logical… But from the heart, my love.” The one sentence that Tehya’s mother used to always say to her father. The one sentence that Tehya always tried to keep in mind. Of course, her father stared at the she-wolf, curiously, wondering what in the world that was supposed to mean. After all, how could one be logical from the heart? “Don’t allow either your heart, nor your mind rule your actions and judgments, but rather, a combination of the two. Be logical from your heart, use your head, as well as your heart and you will be successful. Ruling from just your head can make you a King too cold for the comfort of one’s subjects, but ruling only from your heart would make you too soft. Rule from both and you will find the loyalty of many.” It was simple, really. And put in such terms, was easy to understand and follow, but were there not times where one would overrule the other? And what were the consequences of that happening? Tehya had allowed her heart to rule her actions during the storm, not her head. And she felt ashamed of herself for it. The memory of her mother dying and her father using the moonstone he had gifted her as a reminder to always be logical from his heart had left her nostalgic, perhaps. When she had sent Dante off to fetch the stone, she had stressed over whether or not he would be successful and whether or not he would return safely. Had hoped, had trusted in his ability to do so, but had worried for him all the same. But that was Tehya, constantly worrying after her own and wishing she could protect them all from hardships. The irony in that was that hardships, experiences, past, life; it had all brought them here to Torqueo Somnium. She could not protect them, only prepare them and guide them and be there for them as need be. And she would be. And she would from now on, hold true to her mother’s advice. The stone was so small in size it could potentially be considered insignificant. If you didn’t know what it was or the meaning it held. Although to most, even the meaning could be considered miniscule. The small stone was silver-gray in color, and although it’s surface was covered in grooves and rises and it’s shape was unique, it was smooth to the touch. It looked like the dark, glassy surface of a stilled lake. It was believed to be a moonstone – a stone believed to have floated from the moon’s surface, through space and into Earth’s atmosphere, likely as a giant rock. Naturally, moving through the atmosphere, it broke down into many pieces, falling to Earth’s floor as small rocks too insignificant to cause any damage to the crust. This particular stone had been found by Landon Savaetta, Tehya’s father, and gifted to his mate, Fiona Savaetta. Of course, the she-wolf had found it to be beautiful and naturally, Landon did too, for it was the color of her eyes and brought a smile to her lips. After his mate passed, Landon safe-guarded the stone, always keeping it by him for it always reminded him of his sweet mate. And most of all, of her once-daily reminder that he should always be “Be logical… But from the heart, my love.” When Landon passed, the stone was taken and guarded by their aligned pack, the Valorah, whose leader had always believed that the stone held a prophecy telling of the end of the world. To Tehya, this was paranoia and foolishness and if the end of the world were to come, they would be doomed anyway. She had sent Dante to fetch this stone for her, and she intended to keep it well hidden within her den – a keepsake, a reminder, a piece of a memory, something to hold sacred. She was angry that it had ever left the hold of the Savaetta family and was relieved to see Dante return with it. Tehya had hoped silently that he wouldn’t return with it in front of a group, and she hoped that he would hold onto it and keep it hidden until she managed to get away and pull him aside to relieve him of the small object. But she did not have any intentions of anyone knowing of this little stone that she held with such cherish, even Machiavelli. That she had sent Dante at all and even one wolf knew of it made her anxious as it was. Although he knew not of the why’s behind it, it was a weakness, a piece of memory lodged in her heart that she was fond of and could have been a weakness found and used against her had one decided such. She gave him a gentle nod and a stare that she hoped suggested for him to wait until she called upon him. “Someday, I hope you find everything I have gotten from this life, my dearling.” Tehya gazed upon her mother as they sat together next to the stream, her mother staring out at the vast lands before them, an expression upon her face that Tehya didn’t recognize. Perhaps it was hope, a deep hope from a mother to a daughter. But she wasn’t sure. Her mother’s acoustics stood tall, forward, her plume still, her eyes unwavering. What Tehya hoped for, was not that she got everything her mother had gotten, it was not that she got a loving mate, many children, and a wonderful pack, but that she had a strength that could match her mother’s, to help her through the hardships that life threw at you. Even being a child of seven months old, Tehya recognized that strength in her mother that many did not have. An unbreakable strength that kept her moving forward, kept her smiling, kept her looking after everyone except herself. A scream tore through her time with her mother, a time that she got very rarely. At first, she was irritated, thinking it was just more pups playing and squealing. But this was not a playful scream. It was one that had her mother spinning around and taking off in the direction of the dens. Tehya, realizing the sudden urgency with which her mother had run off, was hit by a fear she’d felt like no other. The pack was under attack. Following as quick as a clumsy puppy could, she tried to keep up with her dam, keeping as close on her tracks as she could. It was a flash like lightning, it sounded like thunder. The white light that sprang before her eyes, whiting out everything, the breath that was knocked from her lungs, the impact of the collision, left her slamming into a tree. Another body had collided with hers, and the impact of both the body, then the tree, left her out of breath, yelping in pain and blinking rapidly as she tried to shake it off. But she didn’t have time. The wolf came at her with a ferocity like none she had ever seen before. As Tehya fought with all her might to dodge the incoming tank of a wolf, she barely managed to do so. The first thing she could think of to do, was to fight back, so as she leapt to the side, she latched onto his shoulder, her canines sinking through the flesh and leaving him snarling as he came at her with a set of canines so large, she was sure she would be swallowed whole. Releasing him and trying to scramble away did little for her to escape, as another wolf appeared behind her. Two of them, and one seven month old puppy. She froze. It was mere moments before she watched in horror as her mother took out the one wolf, both of them tumbling away in an array of fangs and claws and fur. But the one wolf continued to advance upon her, before he leapt. Pain. Searing, hot pain. It raced across her neck and chest, but she swore she could feel the heat crawl through the blood in her veins, tear at all of her muscles, suck the breath from her lungs and squeeze her entire body so tight, she would later be surprised she didn’t die. No… Not death. Not for her. She wasn’t the one this time. But her mother was, at the paws of the wolf that tore open Tehya’s neck and chest, her mother died. Her mother fought until the male’s last breath, and then she too, collapsed from her injuries. Barely able to move, Tehya tried to get up and walk to her mother, but all she could do was crawl her body forward, barely. Her mother’s brows were furrowed in her pain, her closing. But Tehya, barely able to see a thing through her own pain, let her nose lead her there and collapsed against her mother, pressing her small chassis against that of her mother’s still warm carcass, her tears falling not from the pain, but from the loss. As Dhani asked forgiveness, Tehya gave him a slight nod, pondering quietly how genuine his apologies were. And she was willing to deal with him later should anything require it, but for now, her attention drew back to Kalkina as the seemingly timid female spoke. The newcomer, for the moment, was priority – a stranger in Tehya’s lands, Tehya had to discern the safety of allowing refuge. Attention was something Tehya was good at giving, she was a good listener, a quiet thinker and she was typically very upfront about her opinions of things, including newcomers. This she-wolf, however, offered her skills in exchange for residency and Tehya couldn’t help but respect that this wolf was willing to essentially pay her way. As Machiavelli spoke up, Tehya’s acoustics tipped towards him, then fall back in line with Kalkina’s direction. “Apologies accepted, Kalkina. I’m afraid I will have to urge you to answer Machiavelli’s question, however.” Tehya had caught the quick correction Kalkina had made of her own words, had caught the slip of having had no intentions, then correcting it to having none. And she would feel the need to keep an eye on the female, but she saw no real reason to deny her entry and residency if she was willing to be of use. At the same time, her amethysian spheres flickered to Dhani and she couldn’t help but wonder what his thoughts were on another healer appearing. But then, would either of them remain here? And for how long? Would one go before the other? Thinking along the lines of long term help, Tehya figured it couldn’t hurt. “We have a Healer, but I see no reason to deny you residency if you’re able to be of use.” She hadn’t meant for it to sound like they would be out merely to use the female, but rather, that she respected that the female was willing to put her skills to use in exchange for the home, whether it was temporary or permanent. But besides herself, Dante and Machiavelli, how many would remain here permanently? Tehya let her gaze drag lazily over to Machiavelli as he interrogated Kalkina and she couldn’t help but wonder if he had noticed something she had not, perhaps a simple movement, or expression. But it was Dhani he was watching. Was Dhani hiding more than they had initially figured? Was the question directed at both of them? Machiavelli was certainly quite distracted with the male. She let her haunches slide slowly to the earth, giving the impression that she would sit and wait quietly for either of them to answer. Her patience was unlike that of most, particularly of most leaders in packs, but she had once been a sibling, had pondered being a mother while pupsitting and had lead before – and learned from prior mistakes. Patience was something she had plenty of and she could wait out the best of them. The question was whether or not she was willing to. Loud enough for each of her packmates to hear, she spoke up, cutting into the silence that dragged on before Dhani’s answer. “There have been traces of others inside Torqueo’s borders, but none have approached us besides Kalkina. Their intentions are unknown and I want each of you to be aware and to watch your backs. Be prepared, and do not let your guard down. Should any be seen, I want to be informed immediately. If they cannot bring us their intentions, we will go to them and find out what, exactly, they are doing within Torqueo. Those passing through are welcome to do so, but I want to know about it.” Her spheres narrowed upon Dhani as she thought long and hard upon Machiavelli’s watch and questions, wondering upon the basis behind it, but she trusted his judgement and so, she waited. She slowly let her gaze drift back to Kalkina, waiting patiently. It wasn’t long before Mach spoke up again and a slight smirk of ‘figures’ crossed Tehya’s features. She wasn’t surprised at all that he called Dante out in front of anyone, even if she had hoped Dante would stay under the radar until she approached him. But alas, it was not to be so. Instead, Machiavelli called on him to come forward. A brow rising, her eyes flickered to Machiavelli, then to Dante, waiting, silent, unmoving save for a small flick of the tail. Her spheres flashed fire, a warning at Dante not to speak of the stone or bring it out from hiding if he so could hide it, but how things would play out would be up to whether or not he actually caught the warning flash in her pretty eyes. wordcount;; two thousand, three hundred and nine lyrics;; where is my mind - yaov notes;; OMMMMGGG... took me a bit, but it's done! and so is her pretty table!

[Taboo]

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[atrb=background,http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q292/SummerDelirium/taboomid.png] An impossibility. Yet, here she stood. Glacial monoliths that gleamed with icy death circled around her. Their serrated crystals jutted forward and seared the sky. Clouds thick with wrath and protest hung like a grey cloak upon her shoulders. The moisture bleeding from the fog only serving to thieve any remaining amount of body warmth. Serpentine frame trembled with the cadaverous chill settling deep and coursing through the marrow of her bones. Paws raked through the snow, each step sapping at her vitality. The wolf perched at the crest of a forgotten passageway amongst the wintry peaks. She had been guided by strangers to find her salvation. What was her salvation, she mused. The most obvious and hastiest response would be Torqeuo Somnium. Though her residence only lasted a few months, she adopted an admiration for the Alphess, a fondness for most, and a toleration for one. A mirthless laugh swelled within her chest. Why did she ever consider Dhani a threat? The wolf often skirted off alone to meditate and linger amongst the plants. He rambled nothing but biblical passages and attempted to guide the hearts of the pack to something more filled with light. The monk somehow missed the fact that Torqeuo chose darkness as a lover. They were not outcasts merely fleeing from judgment, but their love to forever remember their bitter pain echoing inside their hearts is what formed the alliance in the first place. None of his words or actions ever involved violence. He never displayed a thread of aggression, even in the face of her torment. Without uttering the words aloud, Taboo admitted that she missed him. Most of all, she missed serving her respectable Alphess. Each jarring of her back limbs against the rock, even with it being padded with snow, surged a terrible ache through her body. Having both pillars broken more than once had left them healing slightly wrong and perturbed her entire skeleton. Fur hung loosely around her frame and displayed strong evidence of emaciation. Each rib stood sharply against her skin and the curvature between the chest and stomach too pronounced. It was obvious to any wandering eye that she would not live even a few days longer without nourishment. Half-healed lacerations with infected ooze crusting around the openings tore slashed her lovely, charcoal pelt. The only two trademarks that remained distinguishable to the proud warrior was a scarred symbol of a snake winding along her left leg and ending open-jawed upon the flank and her eyes the color of lightning and fire. She was too terribly aware of each and every injury sustained upon her body. They made sure she internalized all of them. They… Memories lashed out like the resurrected dead seeking solace and feast for their weary souls. Even with the fae’s extraordinary self-control, they spilled over her consciousness. Flamed jewels fixated on the portentous weather brewing above. Winter decided not to deal a good hand, after all. It seemed that every year sank deeper into misfortune. Pack members anxiously approached Tehya, begging her advise while believing she would shepherd them away from the onslaught. When she refused, they sulked and muttered traitorous comments, something that left Taboo wary. There were the few Phantom, Dante, Dhani and Mach willing to listen without complaint. The protective fatale approved of their compliance. Not that she would follow each and every command without careful analysis, but she believed they would last the storm. Once Torqeuo prospered again, it would be more rewarding and lush than whatever retreat they latched onto. Several days passed as the storm started to unwind to release its true ferocity. They had grown so accustomed to the foreshadowing, that all of them were caught unguarded when it unleashed. Taboo had left the main dens that morning to go scouting. For several weeks, she felt preying eyes upon her back and the glimmers of evasive shadows. Finally, her instincts guided her through the barren trees until she neared the very borders of the packlands. Trained vision allowed her to capture only a few glimpses of receding wolves. Heart strained against her chest as the overflowing blood in her veins clouded her vision. After a few moments, she shook her crania to dispel the cancerous fear. Why was she worried? It was impossible for them to find her here. The sky roared. A curtain of shadow domed over the sky as an impenetrable cover of clouds blotted the earth. Still a youth, Taboo had never encountered such hatred from nature. Powerful torrents blasted at all the inhabitants below. Body coiled to spring towards the pack and seek cover, but could not overcome the force. Within minutes, downpour of snow and hail flung from the heavens down below. Having no real shelter to escape to, claws tore into the white powders until Taboo could bury her body into the depths. She waited. Hours passed, and the storm only grew more vengeful. Trees snapped and rained added terror to those still fleeing. After laying curled up and freezing for so long, dreams danced along to secure sleep. Auds twitched, swiveling backwards to some indistinct sound. Muzzle disengaged from her warm body to the scene outside. The storm still cursed the lands of Requiem. But, she heard something different from the sounds of crackling trees and whirring gales. Thorns angled further towards the entrance. After a period of several seconds, the volume increased. Then, Taboo understood what it was. Mitts breaking the hard level of snow. Someone was drawing near. She nearly peered out in belief of a pack member had found her and wished to help her find real security. Something raged within and told her to ready herself. Spine arched as hackles raised to dagger tips. “Who are you?” she called out. “Your retribution,” came the soft response. She tensed for the intruder to emerge when the snow above her collapsed. A snarl ripped from her vocals as Taboo attempted to roll on her back towards the attack. It wasn’t long before the speaker joined the first and choked her to unconsciousness with the collapsed den. Whenever the fatale awakened, whoever guarded her promptly returned her back to forced sleep. It was only after a long, restless time did they allow her to fully regain herself. Fangs dug into her own tongue as she refused to ask the cliché questions of ‘where she was.’ Either they would explain it or they wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t be because she asked. It was only after glancing around at her surroundings did she realization sink her fangs. Terror beaded along every nerve wired through her body. Four, burly mascus surrounded her, knowing exactly her fighting capability. “I think she understands now,” the one on the right whispered to the closest and obvious general. A cruel smirk twisted along his charred rims as he gestured with the tip of his skull to the left. The guard beside him cast a baleful glare towards Taboo before exiting. Silence clouded the stoned dungeon as the general continued to peer into those disturbing eyes with some satisfaction, the others tense for any retaliation. Gold spheres cast around the dimly familiar cave. Once a bluish-grey, the yawning mouth developed a rusty film from the numerous coatings of blood. Another canine stooped in the corner, if you could even call it that. The creature was nearly a corpse with sunken eyes and skeleton frame. It’s front, right leg was only a stump with the bone still protruding from the healed injury. It didn’t stir even with new company or the surprising amount of elite guards surrounding her. The only sound of acknowledgement was a whistling moan and a breath that wreaked of decay. Claws pattered along the hard floor as two wolves entered the cavern. Taboo’s mother and father. Her father only seated himself at an angel, his creamy fur with ash speckles reflecting in the waning sunlight sweeping through the entrance. The captive rested her eyes upon her mother. A welling of fetid hatred gushed through her like bile. The Queen of the Daest wolves paced around her daughter. “So glad you returned,” she admonished, though no detection of emotion harbored such sentiments. The prowling form resembled Taboo, although her coat was a little lighter with a black-tipped face. Although she was tempted to direct a speech, the loathing dripping from her gaze only assured her she was not repentant. Not yet. She stopped and turned to the general. “She will receive no food or water for three days. Torture will commence twice a day for a span of three hours.” Vaux dug her greedy, cobalt eyes into her sunfire ones. “You will recant abandoning the Daest. You will praise our religion and curse all those who would stand against it. The longer you wait, the worse and more drawn-out the agony will be.” Once she finished, she exited with the King padding emotionlessly behind her. Weeks passed…perhaps months? Time lost all definition quickly when living in the damp crib of black. It took almost a week for her to even cry out, to start questioning her existence. When they had sufficient placed her on the brink of starvation, she was left nothing but rotted meat and piss. From time to time, they gave her real water to make sure she stayed alive. Two weeks before she contemplated renouncing her hatred of the cult and allow them to just end the misery. Something stubbornly ingrained inside her mind refused to allow her. It was a seed that grew and overtook her logic and senses when everything mortal collapsed. The survival instinct combined with integrity branched out and interwove inside all thoughts until nothing but sheer will allowed her to awaken to a new day. She had concluded, though, that escape was an impossibility. Her tormentor strode through the entrance. Though they traded off amongst a few, he was new. Her vision only surveyed outlines and basic features, but his stature and color differed from the other wolves. Kissers peeled apart to reveal the feral ivories buried underneath, but this held no effect for Taboo. She simply waited in a collapsed form for him to commence. Lids slid over her eyes in an attempt to drown the scenario with that tree…that beautiful tree. Until she heard spouted gurgles. Head perked up weakly as she saw both guards twitched with eviscerated jugulars pooling out crimson. She glanced around and saw her supposed ‘tormentor’ leaning over her. “You must hurry, Taboo.” That’s funny, how did he know her adopted name? Muscles strained to uplift herself and stopped immediately at the paralyzing blaze of pain. “I can’t,” she muttered. “I just can’t.” Sounds of hurrying bodies thundered above them. Panicked, He threw the wolf over his shoulder. It was depressing how light she was. He hurried through the cave and paused behind a stone lip while the wolves rushing above moved away behind them. The hessian carried her into the depths of Daest’s notorious forest. Even with Taboo’s only half-hearted focus, she noticed he expertly moved amongst the tangled web of trees and thickets. Most wolves lost themselves and starved to death before finding the way out. After some brief breaks and a drawn out journey, trees parted to show a large group of wolves. Her savior laid her down gently. She groaned even at the small impact. “Water, food!” he demanded quickly. Two females snapped to attention. One lugged over a cleaned skull filled with spring water while the other dragged a fawn. Instincts flooded Taboo as she growled at them and ripped voraciously into her meal, limiting her position to lessen the pain. After she was sated and hydrated, eyes grew heavy as she drifted off. Heavy strokes of sunlight berated Taboo into stirring. The warrior propped onto her stomach with legs outstretched to scour the scenery. Most everyone from before her sleep had disappeared save for a random female and the bru who saved her. Peripheral glance caught Taboo observing him. He pulled away from the other fae to approach her. “Feeling better?” he asked. Her vision had cleared substantially. He was absolutely stunning. Robed in silver and ivory, he stood at about thirty-four inches and honed with muscle. Despite her immediate infatuation, she responded curtly, “Who are you, and what is this?” The hessian chuckled. “My name is Rei. You are currently in the rebel encampment.” A blank expression hollowed her countenance at the unfamiliar term. “I used to be the King’s advisor. Secretly, I hated the Daest religion, but never summoned any courage to fight against it. When I heard of the Queen’s daughter leaving to forge a new life, I knew I had to create a sanctuary for those who no longer wanting to live in tyranny. I’ve always wanted to meet you,” he responded kindly. “We’ll heal you up and let you be on your way.” Several weeks passed, and Taboo started to recover. Every night, scouts reported more movement searching for the escaped captive. Dismay rattled her soul. If she returned to Torqeuo now, the Queen knew where she lived. She couldn’t knowingly return without sealing all of their deaths, if they had survived so far. Days passed as the atmosphere grew tense as Daest soldiers explored more of the Labyrinth, as they called it. An idea weaved inside her mind. It started with the dreams of glistening blood with its tantalizing, incardinine hues. “Rei!” she called out when the vision dispersed. “Have your best hunters find several rabbits. Within several hours, Taboo’s body was placed on the outskirts of the forest, with blood streaming underneath her cooled flesh. The rebel leader’s howl split the air with punctured sounds of defeat and horror before retreating listlessly to the dens. After a period, Vaux casually strolled up to the carcass. The skin had taken bluish tone, and a gash slashed across her throat. Disappointed with failing at having her daughter confess her sins, she faced away. “Leave the corpse and allow the vile carrion feast upon it.” The Queen and her escorts left. Hours passed. The body twitched. Taboo glanced around nervously, although no wolf could be seen. She stood up quickly and darted off towards the rebels. “Thank you for everything,” she stated graciously and nuzzled the handsome sire. “I hope that eventually you grow large enough to destroy that empire. If not, perhaps I will come in one day and finish the job.” Several wolves approached her. “We know of a passage that leads to Requiem through the mountains. We will show you the way.” With a sweeping bow, Taboo padded alongside her temporary companions into the winding course. Miles stretched on with perceived infinity. They toured through rocks, trees, swamps, and lakes until the barricade of mountains rested before them. Gesturing to the passageway, the three exchanged civil goodbyes before Taboo continued her journey. With all her cunning and calculation, the warrior overestimated her healing time. Her exhausted body struggled with even a minute step. Each movement slowed and spaced further between until Taboo sank into the frozen blanket. Even her strong, iron tree receded as the branches wilted, and it crumbled away. She expected mortification to drown her sense of pride. Instead, a resounded hollowness cratered within as the vulpess waited for death to claim her. Nerves shut down and all sensation ceased. Eyes creased to close when she spotted a lone figure staring at her. Taboo immediately struggled, believing it to be a Daest soldier. No more torture, she screamed in her thoughts. His scent spoke to her and whispered him to be a traveling rogue. Beady eyes feasted with a sadistic glaze before angling to pass her. “Wait!” her voice cried out in desperation. “Help me get to Torqeuo Somnium! Or at least off the mountains…” Taboo had never resorted to pleading before, but the impregnable need to return to her homeland choked her. He appeared healthy enough to at least carry her that far. The rogue stopped immediately. “Torqeuo? Tehya?” he confirmed. Perplexity and awe wove into her visage. “You know Tehya?” she asked as curiosity and suspicion interlaced. “I’m her brother,” vocals fringed with dull edges. The dark grey wolf simmered on his words. Her cautious and probing gaze caused him to add, “I’m looking for her.” Thorns flattened against her skull. “What for?” the hint of growling encompassing her words. “I want to join the pack,” he replied. “I have an apology to make, and I wish to earn his forgiveness.” Before Taboo could doubt his words any more, he straddled her along his back. A sharp grunt rose from her lips in protest before she relaxed. She could make it home. The two traveled in silence. Or rather, one traveled while the other rested uncomfortably upon his back. When they crossed the treacherous cliffs and any remarkable hill-climbing, Taboo slid from his pack onto her own pads. A few questions quipped from her to glean any more information, but Jacome [as she discovered his name], often cut short his answers or made no reply at all. If she wasn’t overwhelmingly grateful, she might have lashed out at him for showing such disrespect. Finally, the familiar forest that fanned out into the main dens crossed her vision. Oh, she wanted to run and greet all the others, but the terrible agony prevented anything more than limping. Landscape flowed out into a field where she spotted a small gathering. Tehya shone like a beacon with her sable fur. Once closer, she spotted the gray-dusted form of Machiavelli standing with the usual disposition of unrelenting hawk. Dante’s distinguished form of ash and chestnut threaded next to them. Orbs dwelled on the brassy form of a stranger, though ethereal with her fiery mane. Before her presence could be completely noted, she paused. What would they think of such a long absence? Would they allow her to explain or dismiss her? With blistering worry, she jaggedly sauntered to them. “My Queen!” her voice transformed into a strangled cry as emotion overwhelmed her. It had been so long since she allowed herself to feel anything that tears rained over her filthy cheeks. All the degradation, the hatred eating her soul and now ecstasy at coming home. Frame shuddered as sobs racked the now-fragile fae. “I did not abandon you,” she sputtered between convulses. Taboo entirely forgot about Jacome and explaining his presence. Her neck curved into a bow as humiliation and the overriding sense of unworthiness continued to assault her joy. word count: 3,092 comments: sorry for the novel, just thought some story could be entertaining to read

[Starrlight]

[bg=black][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=border,0,true] Dante could tell immediately that his appearance made the new fem nervous and was therefore glad that he had chosen to stand a ways back. She seemed rather jumpy, but then again, were not they all? Torqueo was fast becoming a haven for the broken, those marred by pasts that could never be redeemed. It did not make them weak, though. Put together enough broken pieces and you can still make a whole. Perhaps a different whole than there was before, but just as sturdy. All you needed were the bonds of the pack to hold them together, bonds that Tehya had forged and even now kept firm. It took a special sort to claim the respect of so many independent, powerful individuals. Perhaps this Kalkina would become another part of their whole. She did seem the type. He liked what he saw. She stepped with a grace that denied her cautious greetings. Perhaps it was just a born skill, but he had doubts. She walked like a warrior and held herself proudly, though not disrespectfully so. Obviously she did not mean harm, but he saw that if she did, she should not be taken lightly, trained or no. A lifetime of harsh experience had ingrained into Dante a predilection towards body language over spoken. Words were fine, but they spoke untruths far more easily than the flesh. Muscles reacted instinctually and with intentions of their own. Only those highly trained could force the body to leave it's natural pattern. Thus he hardly listened to what was spoken between Dhani and Tehya. Instead he watched, only gleaning the basics by normal, auditory means. Dhani seemed strained. For the most part he was the same wolf, but time seemed to have cracked his composure a bit. It was bound to happen. He had lived a life of non-violence, if Dante remembered correctly from their brief meeting. It was like casting a rabbit into a pit of vipers. Perhaps the snakes had no fangs with which to bite, but it was still a naturally terrifying experience all the same. Rabbits and vipers were not meant to coexist. With the terrible things he himself had done, he knew nothing of the peace Dhani must have had. It was not a concept that he could grasp, and he knew he would never understand it. Why did the monk stay? It wasn't that Dante disliked his presence. It was the opposite. He felt somewhat drawn to the bru, curious of him. He found himself wanting to sit down with him, figure out how a wolf could go through his life without fighting or killing for any cause. He thought it was completely insane, of course, but it was a lifestyle all the same. There had to be some logic to it for wolves to choose the path and he would like to hear about it. He had always enjoyed a good discussion. His father had scorned such open ideas, but his mother was a diplomat when it came to such ideals. Any wolf could challenge whomever disagreed with him, but a true leader needed followers. For that, discussion was naturally a requirement. For all that he despised the Caligae ways, he had to respect their loyalty. He himself had felt that blinding bond, and leaving had been one of the hardest decisions of his life. However glad he was to be rid of those ties, he knew he would hold traces to the end of his days. It seemed that Machiavelli and Tehya, however, remained unchanged since he had left. Especially the former, if his manner was anything to go by. Dante had been waiting for the Alphaess to acknowledge him, so when Machiavelli took the task upon himself, Dante felt a prickle of annoyance. It was minor, however, and passed quickly. Old habits died hard, and Dante was not used to being outranked by any but the reigning themselves. It would take some getting used to. Tehya seemed amused by the summons, so he let it roll off his shoulders. As he watched, though, his trained eyes saw the significant look that she passed him and formulated a general meaning. He assumed it had to do with his mission, and the only message he could suppose she would be trying to pass him nonchalantly would be not to mention it. Why else would she not say what she wished rather than pass silent glances? For a brief moment he hesitated, wondering how exactly he would go about accomplishing that feat. Machiavelli was like he himself, adept at reading into any situation. Silently he cursed his desire to hurry back. His eagerness had put him in this situation. He should have tried harder to catch the Queen alone. The stone was small, but if he continued to hold it, it would surely impede his speech. Therefore, while still in the shadows, he stood, letting his head drop a bit as he did so. The stone slipped from his jaws, invisible in the shadows. As he stepped forward, he caught the stone between the toes of his forefoot, gripping it in between his pads as best he could. It made his limp a bit more pronounced, but it was best he could manage. It definitely made him thankful for the excuse, for the closed injury was still pretty apparent. He took a place beside Dhani and gave a small bow to Tehya. "My apologies for my absence and any troubles I may have caused you, milady," by showing up now, he added silently, hoping she might infer the deeper meaning he was trying to communicate. He didn't go on... lengthy statements weren't really his style, and he had no excuse for his actions that she did not already know. It was just as well, for a distraction seemed to have arrived in the form of another familiar arrival. At Taboo's arrival Dante smiled, relief that she was alright putting some ease on his mind. He had wondered where she and Phantom were. She more so, as he had enjoyed her company when they had spoken before the storm hit. It was good to see her again. All of them, really. It was hard to believe that this relationship he had formed with these wolves deserved the same name as his old family had claimed. Pack. They were as different a concept as night and day. ++++++++ Word Count: 1073 OoC:

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[Asphyxia]

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[atrb=background,http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q292/SummerDelirium/jacomemid.png] The wind shifted, leaving a moment of question upon the air, a moment of silence, a moment of wonder. Still, he approached the den cautiously, his shoulders hunched slightly as his crown remained lowered. Here, it was said, remained a male that was so fearsome, so dark, those who sought him out never returned alive. But Jacome was determined to find out for himself if the rumours were true. Acoustics tipped back on his skull, as a voice left the den. “Speak up, wolf. What do you want?” Tipping his crown slightly to the side, he waited, silent. “Well, wolf? Do you come, as well, to see the monster that lives here?” Brows furrowed slightly as a shadow moved out of the cave. Its movements were graceful, every movement deliberate, and yet, he moved with caution. Jacome watched as the massive beast loomed from the den, its black fur shadowing it in the night, glitters of moonlight shining on bits of his fur, making his fearsome, milky-white spheres shine bright in the darkness. The wolf’s lips curled upward, showing off large canines. One, his left one, appeared to be chipped. Before the wolf could be angered further by his silence, Jacome spoke up. “I did not come to look on, to see the monster that lives here, but came to meet him myself and see if it was true that he was, indeed, a monster.” The large stranger shifted his weight, and although his eyes were unseeing, they were fixed perfectly upon Jacome as soon as he spoke. The wolf had easily pinpointed where the young male was, and could likely feel Jacome’s movements through his paws upon the earth’s surface. The wolf’s jaws split apart in a barking laughter that rose to the stars, a booming bass through Jacome’s chest. “Oh yeah. The rumours are true. I am a monster. Can you not see either, wolf, or are you scared to admit fear?” “I am not scared of you.” As if to prove his point, even to a blind wolf, he lifted his crania high, acoustics tipping forward, tall on his skull, shoulders spreading from their hunched position, eyes narrowing, fixating upon the other wolf. “You are a liar. I do not like liars, but I shall let it pass for now. Your name, wolf?” “Jacome.” “Ah, Jacome, son of Landon.” The wolfs smirk was cold, tipped slightly at the corners and crooked. “You know my father.” It was not a question. “Of course I know your father, you fool. I am his brother!” Shock clawed its way, like black blood, through Jacome’s veins, his gaze looking upon the wolf who stared back at him and realization hit… His sister, Tehya, looked exactly like this man, their uncle, save for his sheer size and unseeing eyes. “What color were your eyes once, brother of my father?” “Amethysian… But alas, I am blinded and cannot know what color they have been left. I assume they are white, as most blind wolves.” “Aye, they are. My sister, she looks nothing like my father, nor my mother, but she looks… Exactly like you.” His uncle glared at him, spheres narrowing, brow furrowing, his muscles tensing slightly. “What is your name, brother of my father?” “Lassiter.” The large dark bru tipped his crania slightly to the right, his unseeing eyes appearing to reach into Jacome’s soul and see right through him, the wolf clearly digging deep into Jacome’s fear and keeping himself planted there. “You stand, much like a shy boy about to ask a girl out for the first time, unable to speak, to ask the questions you so want answered.” Well… What could Jacome say to that? “Speak, boy!” Lassiter’s snarl was deep, reverberating, making Jacome shiver and his hackles raise, and he was thankful that the larger male could not see him, for his body had automatically taken a submissive stance, dropping lower ever so slightly with his acoustics automatically falling back against his skull before raising again. “Why does she look like you?” Jacome’s spheres narrowed as anger gripped him – she, who was SO loved by his mother and father, who looked nothing like any of them, may not be his real sister after all. “Would you believe me if I told you?” Lassiter stared at him, then gave a small chuckle. “Sit, boy, for this is a story like no other you’ve heard before.” Jacome sat obediently. Was he going to miss out on the scandal of a lifetime? NO WAY. And if he didn’t listen to this clearly deranged male for the duration of the story, well, he may very well miss out on all of it, so he sat and shut up. “Do you know who Cyredaltin is, youngster? Well, all the same… He was like a father to your father, Landon looked up to him, practically worshipped him – but then, your father always was the fool back then wasn’t he?” At the sound of a growl, Lassiter smirked. “Be at ease, boy; he learned from his mistakes. As I was saying… Cyred had a daughter, a beautiful female, she was as black as the night, with eyes like the moon, and as a soldier under Cyred, your father and I saw her frequently. Your father loved her, but she did not love him, she loved me and I eventually fell in love with her.” As Jacome sighed in exasperation at receiving what essentially, seemed to be a love story, Lassiter growled, “Quiet, boy. You either want to know or you don’t and this isn’t a happily ever after. At least not for her and I. You see, her father forbade her and I to be together, while Landon continued to pine after her. When she became pregnant, her father, Cyred, decided he’d had enough of letting us have our peace. He discovered the pregnancy and he ordered me to be tortured and kept hidden away in some caves in the mountains. Rhynyr, my love, did not know where they had taken me, and after two months, when she gave birth, she believed me to be dead. But it was not so. You see, Landon rescued me. He got me out of there and he suffered dearly for it. We narrowly escaped. I soon discovered that Rhy had had only one pup survive through the trauma of the torture her father had dealt her, and that Landon had fallen in love with Fiona. We went to Rhynyr in the night, hoping for me to see my daughter, but once. But we found Rhynyr, killed, her throat torn from her body.” Jacome watched as the wolfs eyes narrowed upon him, and he couldn’t say he was surprised that the wolf was feeling rage over what had happened, rather than crying. And as Jacome assumed he was done, he continued, “My daughter, my tiny little girl, was hidden, and we heard a whimper. When we discovered where she was, we immediately took her and sought out Fiona to escape the lands, but she was very pregnant and Cyred sent his men after us. We were slowed by this tiny little girl of only two weeks and the pregnant female, and so we had no choice but to fight and protect her. And others joined us. But I lost my sight in the battle. Landon took the crown. I decided it was safest, best, for Fiona to take care of my baby, to take her and protect her and nurture her, for I am a soldier, I was a blind soldier with nothing left for me to provide her with and she was still but a nursing babe. They granted me one thing, that I name my daughter. But on the condition that I leave her alone and let her have as normal a life as possible as Fiona and Landon’s child.” Jacome couldn’t stop staring at this point. And then all he felt was anger. Jealousy. Rage. He couldn’t believe his luck. He’d never been the type to get lucky, ever, but in such a brief moment of a she-wolf’s desperation, he got soooo lucky. It was sickening how lucky he’d gotten. He’d been spying, hoping for a way in, for months and he had finally found his chance. At first, he’d been staring at the female, wondering just how long it would take her out here alone to die, wondering why she was alone – she’d smelled of Torqueo, and at first, he’d assumed that was where she had come from, but alas, that’s only where she was headed. It took everything, everything he had not to smile. But when he’d spotted the weakness, when she’d handed it to him, he’d dug his claws into the wound, spread it open, nestled himself in and he refused to leave now. Much like a parasite, wasn’t it? But he was more deadly… At first, she’d clearly thought he was a threat – and what an insult when she desperately asked him for help, rather than continuing to fear him. But he’d take it. At first, he’d been about to leave her there – but then she’d begged for help to Torqueo. And the female, the silly female, had tried to interrogate him on why he would want to be looking for Tehya, but she was the fool to ask him to help her there, so instead of continuously allowing her the chance to question him, he threw her atop his back. She felt like nothing. She was so light… He hadn’t expected that and he’d only ever known the warmth of a female briefly a few times, so this sudden assault of contact made him feel strange, it was like a bad high that he was coming down from. When they had finally passed the mountains and gotten into Torqueo itself, the female seemed to be able to get back to her own feet for long enough to reach what was clearly, her pack. So this was one of Tehya’s wolves – what weakness… He was annoyed by this woman, who had clearly nothing better to do that continue to pry him for information, and he was tired of her perseverance, but managed to keep his temper under control. And lucky for him, as the scent of other wolves wafted through his nares. Acoustics lifted, his pads stopped dragging, his plume lifted higher and his acoustics tipped in the direction of the smell. As Taboo cried out and practically threw herself at his sisters feet, Jacome recoiled. Women and their emotions. Did not abandon her? Clearly not with the embarrassing display she was playing before her pack. So, while Taboo graciously drew all attention her way, Jacome decided to take in the scene. All of them strangers, save for his sister… His… What was she now that he couldn’t even call her his sibling? A stranger too? One that he knew. Too weird. He observed Tehya first, looking over her tense frame as she addressed her pack, watching as she awaited answers from others. She’d become lithe from the winter, but her frame was still leaner than his, still she had muscle, and still, he wondered what a fight betwixt one another would result in. His gaze drifted – a newcomer female, a… was that a coyote or a red wolf? He could never tell the difference… A male addressing his Queen – a look that suggested immediately that he and Jacome would not get along, and lastly, a male who stood with some kind of authority. This male, it was this wolf, that he would have to impress if he had hopes of Tehya allowing him residence, for he knew her immediate response would be a no. Deciding he should probably follow Taboo’s and the gray male’s examples, he moved forward, presented himself, and bowed, his right paw sweeping out as he lowered his crown and spoke, right after the other two, letting his words fill the silence that had been offered for his words, “Sister mine, it has been… too long. I come to you, because my ways have changed and I wish to rescind my old ways, my terrible mistakes, and my horrible judgment- I have taken these last few years to find myself, and I wish to mend things between us.” His brows furrowed slightly as if he were concerned she would say no, his eyes becoming glassy as if they may tear up, his plume tucked slightly to show respect that he did not truly have, and although all of his stance showed naught but submission and apology, his heart defied all of it. wordcount;; two thousand, one hundred and five lyrics;; none notes;; Jacome! Prepare for DRAMA.