when one was desolate

[Helios D'Angelo]

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FYI: The first part of this thread takes place in the unplayable area of 'Souls where Helios has been wandering, and happens to find some remnant of Kaelyn's scent amid the ashes and black of the fire that swept through there. He ends up approaching the borders closest east to the area where unplayable 'Souls is. No need to match length either! Shoot me a PM if you need clarification on anything.

          Twilight hour had already past, giving way to the darkened skies and the veil of obsidian with the distant flicker of galaxies overhead. Earlier in the day a warmed breeze prevailed; now turning cold and whisking in the same direction as the lanky male migrated, as if offering an invisible hand to guide him forth. Tossing his head and flinging aside the choppy layers of his bang fringe that often masked one jade eye, he had been like a marching soldier carrying on relentlessly through the days, weeks, months. There was no real destination to be met, or really no destination had in mind to travel to. He didn't even suspect he would have happened to end up this far South on this continent, and travel so far West like he had. Helios expected he wasn't hot on the trail for Selene anymore; losing what scent he could reminisce about his sister miles back. The scent of Roman, his father, was just as indescribable at this point; Helios never truly known his father, so it was literally impossible to even attempt to find grounds to search. Helios was going to turn around, and meander Northward. It didn't seem like there was much to stumble upon when heading westbound.

          But then, Kaelyn's scent was a cold, cold hit of reality. His mother, of all scents to know, was suddenly… here?

          Her scent had long since faded for years now, and the stoic looking D'Angelo stopped dead in his tracks, pressing his nose into a deadened bark of tree that held potential to splinter through his snout, and taking a deep inhale of the scent only his subconscious could remember from years prior. Helios thought his mind was tricking him, perhaps it was fatigue settling in and making him delusional. However, the scent was not as strong, but it was there. It was her, the light feminine scent amid deadened lands of ash and black. Closing his eyes and lingering on sniffing the scent on the dead bark for a little longer, Kaelyn was once here. Had Selene passed through here as well? What was his mother's scent doing all the way out here? Helios confirmed his sanity wasn't all lost, for he knew and remembered what his mother smelled like. This… this couldn't be. Impossible.

          Most importantly, what happened to everyone that was here before some great fire engulfed the area in flames?

          The alligatoring along the trees that still stood in their skeletons told of some great fire that happened to sweep here before, and Helios began searching hastily in the area for any significant scent of his mothers that was still left. Appearing as a dark cloaked poltergeist weaving through the trees like a lost soul, there was suddenly a spark of jade fire that ignited in his eye. Helios came to life all of a sudden: perplexed, in a state of greater awareness, in a state of frantic. From slouching he raised to his full height's potential, he was not merely a wandering lost soul, but one suddenly turned with a prerogative. There was nothing more to find in these ruins; nothing the ash could reveal as useful. There was only one option, and that was to head west of these burned lands. If there were any survivors of these lands, they had to have headed west. It was the only option.

          Marching along with hurried strides, the taut muscles of his own quivered with anxiousness. It wasn't long before Helios ran smack into the pungent scent of a pack territory along the mountainside, and once again was struck dead in his tracks. His olfactory senses were attempting to solidify the memory of Kaelyn's scent, thus not paying attention to the current scent that lingered on these borders. It had been many moons since Helios last encountered a pack, and while he would have been on the slightly cautious side to be approaching a pack border so boldly, his slender muzzle lifted to the darkened skies and called out a howl of urgency.

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