It had been four days since Finn joined Anathema, and already she was out a’roaming once more. Chalk it up as an old habit. Though Finn felt the slight kindlings of happiness at having found a more permanent home than all her previous attempts, she had spent all her life wandering. It was hard to deny her feet what they were so accustomed to. And thus here she was, edging along the ice-locked coast of Aelcrest, eyeing the seals as they moved in their peculiar caterpillar gait across the beach. Such strange animals. Incredibly ungainly on land, yet graceful as ravens in flight underwater. Finn had seen them, long, long ago when she lived in British Columbia. From the cliffs, during the one summer she experienced there, she stared out into the clear, blue water with her brothers, and watched the seals dance.
Brom’s smiling face swam before her eyes, and Finn cringed at the sight of her sibling. He had been laughing then, and even Aegnus had smiled. This was before the latter killed the former, before Finn was chased from her father’s territory like a mangy coyote. At the time she never would have thought it possible for so much heartache to be waiting just around the bend. She was older now, and wiser. Perhaps more jaded too, though somehow the cruelties of the world had managed to also whet her appetite for kindness.
Finn shrugged her thin shoulders, feeling the absence of her almost constant companion quite keenly. Alastair had vanished from the woods outside of the caves of Anathema, and Finn had spent no great amount of time looking for him. Secretly, he hoped he had run into a pretty doe and they were spending their time in whatever strange form of courtship deer undertook. Though to most wolves her companion would be prey, to Finn he was perhaps the closest thing to a friend she had. She smiled bitterly, wondering if Alastair felt that she herself needed to get it over with and find a nice young wolf to settle down with.
Abandoning her morbid musings, Finn broke into a steady run that took her down towards the scrubby grass bordering the beach. Hunger coiled through her belly, and she hoped to dispel it with a quick meal of rabbit, or perhaps gull. The seals would be far too hard to catch, and Finn felt strangely ashamed at the thought of all those expressive eyes turned upon her as she feasted on one of their own. She moved with ease, even in the snapping cold, even in hunger, even after her journey from Anathema. In fact, these days, Finn had never felt so alive.
For once she was accepted, for once she was actually speaking with other wolves, instead of being attacked or driven away, and it was nice. She had not realized how much she missed a friendly tone of voice, or casual conversation about the weather. And though the sight of so many luperci sent her heart racing in trepidation, it seemed that familiarity bred contempt, and her fear for the mutations was lessening each day. She still didn’t exactly like them, but she had realized, speaking with Naniko, that they were all still wolves. Wolves in strange, unnatural, two-legged bodies, but wolves all the same.
Reaching the grass, Finn dipped fluidly into a crouch and fell still, standing like a particularly battered statue amongst the turf. The dune grass reached past her shoulders, and with the gloom of the weather she became just another shadow, rippling across the ground with the movement of the wind. It was so easy to fall into this state, this zen-like concentration. Her pale blue eyes, like chips of ice, focused on a nesting gull. The pupils widened, till her eyes were all but dark. Her breath stilled, becoming no more than a whisper, her muscles tensed, tensed, tensed. And then she sprang, falling upon the gull in a sudden burst of feathers and a spatter of blood across the earth.
The bay stretched before him, its waters chilly with the bite of winter. He knew that there were seals along the shore, here; This was why the king scouted. They would be a valuable source of food to Salsola, when other food sources dwindled. The herds of deer that milled about would head further south to warmer plains, where his pack could not follow. They had given up a nomadic way of life when they had been blessed with the virus - Bipedal innovations meant that food could be stored and hunted more proficiently, ensuring that the pack would have a sufficiently supply in one territory all year around, providing they were vigilant and knew which sources to rely on.
It was rare that the monarch was seen in his four-legged form, but he had decided this day to employ it, nonetheless. His horse had been favoring one leg, and Salvia had found a stone lodged in her hoof. The area was sore and swollen, although not terribly wounded, and the girl had warned him not to exert his steed until it had healed. Taking her advice, the king had had to use his own four legs for scouting.
Although he wouldn't admit it, it was somewhat of a relief to be back in this primal form, even if only for a little while. Sirius had hunted on his own large four paws his entire life, and was thoroughly comfortable with momentarily abandoning his post back in the center of Salsola and sneaking off under the pretense of checking to see the whereabouts, and number, of the seal colony.
His long legs, lean from mixed ancestry of wolf and coyote blood, held the tireless lope as the dark male bounded along the thin beach-grasses. Rolling hills and bends held hidden treasures from view, revealing an old seal skeleton. Pausing to sniff at it a moment, Sirius caught the scent of the masses of blubber and headed onward, nose and haunches low to the ground. His tail, taken by a mother bear at the beginning of his reign, was little more than a tuft now, but it held low along his haunches instinctively. The male was a prime hunter, far better at this practical trait than he was at fighting. Sirius had never learned the art of combat - He had never needed to, for his skills in manipulation and intimidation were far greater than any brawn he might have mustered. It was these, and the aura of power and danger that rippled from him, that allowed the Thistle King to hold his thorny crown.
He did not at first notice the stranger. She was hidden from view by a mount of earth and sand, but as he rounded the bend, he heard the startled shrieks of disgruntled gulls, and saw the flock hovering nervously about in the air. The scent of blood reached his eager nose next, and this was what had the tall, somewhat lanky male approaching in his long lope. He was a strange creature to behold - Almost doglike, in that his legs were long, paws large, and body lean and compact, with the bow of his ribcage notable. But that was where those similarities ended, for although he had not the weight of a full-grown male wolf, he was surely as tall as one, and his mottled pelt of deep ocher, caramel and grey held the thick winter plushness that only wolves had. But there was more to his heritage than that; The man's blood ran thick with coyote genes, and this showed in his large, erect ears, his skinniness. His muzzle was wolfish, long and broad, with sharp teeth yellowed from many hunts.
His eyes were perhaps the most interesting aspect of his dark, brooding countenance - They were a sharp venomous green, portals to the dominant power within him. Sirius was the progeny of a line of ancient Kings on his mother's side, and a twisted bloodthirsty prince had been his sire. Perhaps that was why his very being emanated with the dangerous scent of a true predator.
What his eyes fixed upon was a strange, alarming sight. A wolf of many monochrome shades, it's pelt marred with innumerable scars, had caught one of the nesting gulls. The bird's blood dripped liberally from its dead corpse, staining the scene. Although her scent marked the stranger as female, Sirius wouldn't have known by looking at her in such a way; She was far to beaten up to resemble any humble beauty he had ever seen. Stopping a short distance away, the male held his body tall and stiff, ears high to show his interest and proclaim some sort of dominance. If she challenged him, he would retaliate - Aggressiveness was a part of his nature, chained only by a strong and rigid willpower. "Who goes there?" His tenor tones, inherently charming as they rolled off his silver tongue, were buffeted by a sea breeze as they sought to reach the stranger. Again, her scent was carried across to him, marking her this time as an Anatheman. The thistle king's pupils dilated warily.
As she chewed at the gull, Finn came aware of another presence. The breezy air wafted back and forth, but two quick snuffs brought the scent of a male wolf to her nose. Feigning ignorance, Finn continued her meal, waiting for him to call out. When he did, a small smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. Finn did like company, and she liked talking even more. Maybe she could even convince this newcomer to help her hunt down a seal, if he proved mannerly.
"Finn Fidh goes here." She replied, glancing at the other wolf unconcernedly through the corner of one eye, "And who does the asking?" She marked his dominant stance, his proud mien, and his rather lacking tail held straight and bushy as a wee rabbit’s. Ah, so she was expected to play this game, was she? Indifferent to such politics of the loner lands, Finn kept her posture neutral, tail neither high nor low, ears cocked in a roguish manner that spoke only of polite curiosity and attention, not of violence. All the while she continued her meal, the feathers of the gull drifting about her head like a bizarre, bloody halo.
As she chewed, she took the chance to measure up the wolf, from toes to lanky legs to dappled pelt, to shortened tail to green, green, green eyes. The latter were rather hostile, though Finn guessed by the general body language that this might be par for the course. "Should be interesting." Finn Fidh approached slowly, dropping the gull between them as an offer of goodwill. "What brings you to the shore today?” She asked, presenting her good ear towards the wolf and simultaneously exposing the scars that bared her teeth. He looked young, but proud. Perhaps he was important. His pack scent was that of Salsola, she knew that fact like the back of her paw.
Finn had already begun expanding her repertoire of knowledge when she had joined Anathema. The caves held a library, a library! And Finn couldn’t imagine living without one now. She had carefully taken book by book away to her cave to peruse, returning them dutifully in due time. She couldn’t read the words, but the pictures she could remember. She had always thought of Canada as a place bursting with fauna, but some of the encyclopedias she had nosed through held images of such fantastical creatures!
It saddened the she-wolf that all their names and places were (pun horribly intended) a closed book to her. She could no more read than those seals on the beach But something had started to change in Finn, and her views towards luperci and their ways was beginning to gradually shift, like the ice of a glacier carving the stone across eons. She felt a new desire within her, the desire for knowledge. Her life had been so dark until now, full of brutal instinct and ancient traditions. She wanted to know more about everything. The sun, the sky, the clouds, the birds, the fish, the wolves, the ocean, the mountains, the world.
How could a wolf go through life ignorant of these things? It made Finn ashamed to come from that places in the mountains to the west, where paper and pen was a thing unheard of, let alone books. Her father had made proclamations about the world and they were expected to be learned, unchallenged, lapped up like milk. And already Finn had found several things wrong with what he had said. It was frustrating, to say the least. It meant the great and endless library in her head had to be *shudder* edited.
What was even further distressing was that even the new knowledge she might eke out could be wrong. It was silly to believe everything you read. So what did you believe? Finn had heard that the silly creatures that used to crawl all over this land, the ones that built that city of stone to the southeast, couldn’t smell most things five feet from their nose. Yet wolves, and dogs and coyotes excelled at this, and knew far more smells than any human could name! Therefore the human’s world was defined by their limitations, and thus it stood to reason so did wolves’.
Trying to keep her mind from spiraling further into that philosophical morass, Finn gave a little mental shake, her eyes snapping into intense focus from the cloudy, far-off state of a space cadet. She returned to regarding the wolf. Perhaps he could read. Perhaps he knew things. Well, she’d just have to be her nice little self and see if he could prove helpful.
There was usually a nervous energy in anyone that Sirius approached. He prided himself on some form of intimidation - While not outwardly bloodthirsty, or infected with the lust for death that some creatures had, there was undoubtedly a deep danger within his veins. It stemmed from his very blood, for his father had been a mad prince, and his mother came from a line of ancient kings. Wickedness was in his very nature, his very composition. It was all he knew.
But this woman, this shadowed grey wolf, seemed content enough to act as though he were a mere pup, or a random pilgrim. The short stub of his tail twitched, and had it been long and luxurious, it would no doubt have flicked irritably behind his lean form. However, the stranger seemed calm enough, and in spite of her grizzly appearance and blood-smattered maw, she didn't present him with any aggressive front. Sirius' dominant posture relaxed slightly, instinctively accepting that any immediate challenge had been foregone, replaced instead with some form of polite conversation.
Her name was unfamiliar to him, but as with all things, it was immediately stored away within the wiry man's mind for later investigation. "A pleasure, Finn. I go by Sirius Revlis," He smiled sharply, but there was no warmth in the yellowed daggers presented. No more information about his own self was revealed - Constant paranoia, on the verge of a morbid fascination with keeping his own secrets safe, often guided the King's interactions. He was a Hunter, not a Warrior, and the upper hand depended entirely on surprise.
Narrowed pupils graced the ridges where a scar split her maw to reveal some sharp, pearly fangs. I wonder how she got such scars? It was no easy feat to catch a nesting gull, to be sure, but nor was that act of hunting dangerous enough to suggest the scars were gained by similar actions. She must be some sort of warrior… Poisonous gaze grew shady, suspicious. If he scent hadn't proclaimed her as an Anatheman, he might have assumed her to be a spy sent from some neighboring territory. Naniko's pack, and thus her name, was just barely enough to keep the monarch's suspicions at bay.
"I came to see the seals," His voice was honest enough, as there was no point in hiding such information from her. His head dipped to sniff at the gull she had dropped before him, black nose twitching until it deemed the specimen edible. By way of politeness, rather than hunger, he took a crunch of the corpse and felt the mixture of warm blood and feathers slide down his throat. To refuse the meal would have, in his eyes, been reason enough for offense. After fastidiously licking clean his chops, the male continued. "And you, lady?"
