WC:400+ Wow, that sounds really quite nasty :[
Maybe some old traditions had been lost here, but there were new ones springing up as was tradition's wont - and in a melting pot of a peninsula like this, plenty of old lore and habits were being preserved too, mingling with others in a crazy mesh of unpredictable both primitive and futuristic mess. Caprica was not a philosopher, or a historian, and didn't give these things much thought. She was spontaneous, taking life as she found it, unable to keep from her magnetic attraction to making things she thought of as beautiful. There was a fluid and limber quality to her decidedly off-centre brain, though, which found his words to be not challenging, but fascinating. She had been an Ortus, luperci from birth and to her the idea of being 'merely' a wolf held a childish aura of mystique, of days before shifting, spent running and hunting on all fours without any complicated human remnants to distract one from the pure business of living. Not that Anathema was a mundane bed of domesticity. The canines there were as wild as canines had ever been, despite their talents with fires and tools, and wolves had always been ruled by social laws.
She flapped a hand, not insulted, wafting away his apology. "You're right. I wouldn't wanna be uppity about this stuff. It's not gonna put food in our mouths, being able to weave sticks together." Now didn't seem the time to remember how much her trap-building had helped her when she was a loner. He asked about her family, and she nestled into a cross-legged position facing the frost-furred wolf, so that she was below his level for the first time as she ticked them off on her hands. "My mother, and aunt... three, four brothers, and a sister." Cour des Miracles wasn't a name she'd heard much about, but now she was rather more interested. War, huh? It couldn't have been too comfortable where he'd come from, if a war-torn pack seemed pleasant by comparison. "Uh huh. Born and bred a shifter," she admitted, wondering if he really disapproved of this or just found it difficult to get used to. She bet he made a pretty impressive looking optime. Her imagination was already working on a good mind-picture of that. "How come you left those guys for us crazy folk, then? Doesn't sound like you were one of those itchy-paw wanderers, desperate for a change of scene." To her conjecture-happy mind, Shandom seemed more of a steadfast type with all his talk of traditions, and his thoughtful words: not the kind to do something for no good reason.
Image courtesy of Ant Jackson@Flickr; Table by the Mentors!
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