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For as much time as she spent alone, Poe couldn’t say that she had lived a life of solitude—even while sitting in times of such. Watching the waterfall swallow up snowflakes, Poe sat languidly by the water’s edge, a fading trail of footprints leading to the unsettled circle of her creation. Bundled up in the sheepskin coat that she had taken a liking to, particularly when it came to sitting on the ground, in the cold hours that straddled twilight and dawn, she thumbed the lip of her wine bottle and allowed her mind to drift. Dances around faces that she had loved, once or twice or forever. Ana’s surreal hair and giggling smile, Physe’s lighthearted wisdom and warming smile, Willa’s slender, healing hands. And then there was Hollow with his dark aura and twisting words, and a smile that whispered secrets and hurt, for whom she never did come to know and now never would. Vienna and Silver, her interlocked muses for more than she had been able to comprehend, sinful and insightful. And Luz. Luz, who had simply come too close, been too much. So she too, had been left. Just like every one before her, Poe had left before dawn and not returned. It was the way that she worked, as instinctual as drinking upon thirst now. They had all known her well enough to understand though, hadn’t they?
She knew that her projected question would get no response, from the waterfall, the snow, the hints of morning light that peered at her from behind the horizon. Damp, velvety ears turned back against her head, the D’Angelo girl glanced down at her wine bottle, considered its remaining contents and then poured them down her throat. The alcohol certainly didn’t make her forget them, nor did she wish it to, but it helped the cold night pass. Poe felt around in her pocket for the cork, finding first one of the bird bones that she had come to carry around. The lower half of a beak, delicate and grimy-white, it still managed to look brilliant in the palm of her dark hand. Without much thought, let alone hesitation, she dropped the bone into the bottle, following it with the cork to seal it all closed, and then tossed the green, clinking bottle into the water, just before the waterfall. It disappeared, then popped out and rushed past her, quickly following the pull of the freezing current. And Poe made a silly wish, the way she had been told to on stars.
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There periods where she spent weeks at a time in Clouded Tears, not venturing outside of the packlands, and then there were periods like these, where she just couldn't get enough of the outside world. Sometimes she wondered why places like these hadn't been taken by packs--maybe there wasn't enough wolves to spread out this far, yet. Would there ever be? There had been a few packs over the years that had started, failed, started back up again, and failed again--so maybe someone would come back up here. Maybe the lone wolves would start their own pack, or something.
She was satisfied with living where she was, back there in the lands of mist, and just visiting these places. Clouded Tears, though as empty as it was, had been the first place to feel like a real home to her since she'd left Chimera. She did occasionally visit the lands, to put flowers out in front of Physe's grave, or to pillage the hidden alchohol supply beneath the floorboards of the old, burnt cabin.
It had been a while since she'd seen a familiar face, and when she spotted Poe she almost had to look twice. Most of the time it was hard to recognize a wolf in the darkness, especially a black one, but she could just feel it. That this was Poe. Her cousin did seem to take to the outlands more. Naniko hadn't seen her since the day that they'd gotten into the fight with the coyotes. Her mangled leg was a reminder of that, still aching a bit as she went. She'd gotten used to the ache.
"Cousin?" She said to the darkness. She was sure that Poe was there, right next to the water. But what if her mind really was playing tricks on her? She sometimes thought that she saw her mate Conri places...but he had been gone a long time ago. A lifetime ago, it felt like."Isn't it cold to be sitting by the water?" Even when Naniko had just come all this way in the cold from Clouded Tears. What a hypocrite she was.
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The instant that her wine bottle swam out of sight, a voice broke the early-morning winter stillness.
Cousin? The word snagged on the fur in her ears, uncertain there for an instant. Drops of her bloodline dotted Bleeding Souls and onwards, but the particular title of their connections rarely surpassed the ones she knew in childhood. And in those terms, Roman was the only cousin she knew. But of course, when she turned her head it was his elder daughter, the cheerful girl that had been torn down by the rabid coyotes a while back. "Naniko," the name rolled from thought to tongue, a greeting or a naming depending on the interpreter. In tune with her train of thought, Poe's eyes slid down the pale form to her leg for signs of the damage that had been done, for reasons Poe had still not come to terms with. Elitism amongst species had never been an issue in her past, and she couldn't comprehend it becoming one, so the attack had been named a deadly fluke, and no more. Although she couldn't help but think of Mila when the ferris wheel peeked up from the horizon some afternoons.
"It's not so bad," she responded with a genuine lack of concern, perhaps only due to the thick tan coat that hugged her torso and enclosed her arms. A wolf in sheep's clothing, to be quite literal, with only the barest of brush against the figurative. In just about any scenario but one, Poe was a what you see is what you get kind of gal.
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All of my posts will be short today :o I just got back from Honor Band x33 And I have..what..30+ threads to check? D: <3, though!!
Naniko had so many different relations to people through her adoptive family, that it was odd for her to think that she was actually blood-related to somebody. Just being related by blood didn't automatically make you friends with the person, but it gave the relationship a base.
"I was thinking about investing in some clothes myself...but I wasn't sure. Don't wanna look any more human than I have to. But I suppose some clothes wouldn't matter...and it would only benifit me. Perhaps I could get into the art of sewing, and make some myself. I doubt they have my size in the run-down department stores I've found. XXXL." She smiled at the thought, shaking her head. "Maybe they could be made out of furs." She noticed the bottle, and pointed toward it. "What's that you're drinking? I've had some of Physe's old alchohol that he left behind...but I've never seen that sort." Naturally she would assume that it was alchohol; why else would a werewolf be drinking from a bottle?
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Poe on the other hand, had grown up with an increasing awareness of the far reaches of the D'Angelo blood. Chimera had been a stronghold for them, and they had bloomed through and out of the forest it had once claimed. The moaning woods were stale and empty now, though, and Poe was opting to believe that the D'Angelo population was following the same fate. But there stood a cousin, alive and well, chatting away. It took Poe a moment to drag herself from her sleepless, wine-diluted state and catch up with Naniko's words. "Knowing how to sew just a bit helps a lot," she said with a nod. She had learned how to stitch and hem quite some time ago, and since the mystique of the city had begun to wear off in her, she had been learning how to cut and sew pieces from raw materials. The fabric store in the north end had become a known haunt, now.
Poe glanced down the stream of water after her discarded bottle when Naniko mentioned the alcohol. Perhaps it had gotten stuck in the reeds--a wish snagged just beyond reach, she thought with a small beat of laughter."Ah, that. That was wine. It's about all I drink." She glanced back to Naniko once again. It had been a while since she had heard anyone speak of Physe, and it stirred a short-lived hope that he was still in the area. But she thought she knew better, assuming that he had escaped these parts finally, entirely unaware and unprepared to hear of his true fate. The old orange boy was happy somewhere else, in her imagination. "What are you doing all the way out in these parts?" she asked, social nature slowly ebbing back in.
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"Just wanted a change" She said simply, shrugging. It had been a while since she'd gone out on her own, without someone from the pack there for company. Usually one of the little ones from Clouded Tears, and sometimes young ones from Storm would accompany her to the city. She figured that it was better that they get their taste of the city while with an adult, in case anything bad happened. She had explored it by herself, she could remember...and had gotten into a fair amount of trouble there.
"Are you staying out here? It doesn't really seem like a comfortable place to sleep...but you're doing okay?" Maybe Poe thought that she was talking too much. She pursed her lips before continuing. "I just...don't see you very often. Sorry--I get a little overexcited, I think."
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[html] Me = totally sucking these days
Poe shook her head in response to Naniko's question. "No, I just came up here for the night. I live in the city," she assured her with a general glance at the scenery around them. It was beautiful, serene and full of natural arcs and curves--feminine to the masculine hard lines and tall structures that she normally saw. Poe stretched her arms behind her back, linking fingers and pushing her fists up in a chest-opening stretch, considering the second component of her cousin's question. "Okay is a suitable word, yeah," she said and paused, feeling her words fall with too much weight for the context. Releasing her arms, she swung them back around again and motioned for Naniko to come sit with her next to the stream. With a lightened tone, "I've just been spending too much time thinking about old friends, lately. And maybe my general lack of them these days." Her surreal encounter with Ahren on the Island had pulled her out of the ditch she had been digging in respect to the sexual encounter prior to that, but she knew that solitude awaited her back home.
Nosing the thick half of her bangs from her face, she focused her D'Angelo eyes on other's. "So what kind of change are you looking for?"
[html]  She could tell Poe, and then Poe can get upset and they can be all mmmmm.
She didn't really know what sort of a change she was looking for. Conri hadn't come back yet, and she wasn't expecting to ever see him again, really. So maybe a change in romantic partners. She was tired of the same thing over and over again. Naniko wasnt one for a casual relationship. She and Conri had just...connected. It would be very hard to find something like that again.
"Me too. Sort of, anyway. I mean...I don't have a lot of close friends. Clouded Tears is a weird pack...not everyone there is friends. She shrugged. "But I'm getting used to living by myself. I guess I have a few friends in other packs, like Moon and Lucifer. But I feel weird going over there all the time to see them. I dunno what kind of change. A life change." She took the offered spot next to Poe, watching the water before them. "I've been thinking about my past a lot...about Roman and Physe. I miss them. But at least I know that I'll see Roman again someday, maybe."
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