3+ Table by Lou!

Talitha didn't think she would return to Ethereal Eclipse so soon as now. There was something about the place that was secluded, tucked away from the rest of the world to offer peace of mind, solitude. As much as her heart and essence burned and bled for Inferni, the last severals weeks had been rough with adjusting. Night terrors constantly plagued her, as well as bouts of insomnia, and also the fear of getting acquainted with the locals once more. For her disappearance, there were most that were convinced she wasn't loyal to the tribe. In some ways, their assumptions were correct. She indeed hadn't been loyal the several times that she left, but either they were reasons for getting exiled by her father, or there was too much physical or mental anguish to endure.

Deciding to dig out an old friend who was collecting dust over the past year, her acoustic guitar was carried by the neck as if she held a prized fowl by its throat as she sauntered into an area of the woodland that had a little space of a clearing beside the protective barrier of tress that stood tall. With her was also a faded shoulder bag, and within the contents of a silvery flask filled half-way with whiskey, and her prized possession of her personal journal with a pencil or two. The hybrid spent the majority of her time writing and sketching away to her heart's content upon her return, and quickly developing writer's block from such (even though Talitha was capable of writing elaborately for days on end), she needed a new muse of escape to do.

It was early morning, with the air feeling cooled down and calm (for the hybrid had been too hyped up by her own conditions to fall asleep), so she strolled to a tree that looked like it offered stable back support, and she sat against it with her legs crossed indian style. Her shoulder bag was placed beside her, the flask settled out against it. She took a simple sip or two of the whiskey within the flask, and then began to tinker about with the strings. The guitar was getting older and older like a person did in the development of their life, and these strings needed to be adjusted, however for the most part, they seemed to still carry out a strong tune. Her fingers crawled over the strings, belting out several random notes of an unnamed melody. Even after all this time, she remembered the basics of the notes, and all it took now was to flow into a beautifully placed symphony of melodies.

Sounds good. And, she'll be nicer later on. 5+ Table by Lou!

The hybrid let her fingers do what they wished to do with manipulating the strings. Her fingers took on a whole new meaning of life that wasn't guided by her thoughts (well, it was, but there were some strokes of her fingers that were random). Some notes here, progressing into a structured tune there, and then dropping back to random notes plucked along the worn, thin strings of the acoustic. Some notes came out wobbly sounding, and it was a permanent reminder in the back of her mind that she needed to venture to Halifax in order to scavenge some new strings for her guitar. Halifax was littered with music shops, although most of the contents within them were either rusted out from time or simply broken. There had to have been some good strings somewhere (and perhaps some music books she would be able to grab onto to learn some songs), so it was in her prerogative that on the way back, a quick stop in Halifax to look for some items would be on her agenda.

The effects of her whiskey began to mildly play in, as her tolerance was slipping and making the mood more enjoyable for herself. Drinking and strumming away on the acoustic was a favored past time of hers, perhaps one that had been missed for too long while she was out on the road on her own. With the sounds of her wobbly sounding tunes and her whiskey by her side, it was going to make for a relaxing day in her solitude. She missed how much time she used to have sitting around doing nothing but making up tunes to play, and for a moment was quite content with finding her ways back home again, and having the free time once again to sit around, play, and drink. Talitha feared coming back home for the fact her father might be angry with her, but things were actually working out well so far (despite the couple nights of nightmares that plagued her).

Her unusually large coyote and shepherd ears were so focused upon her notes and perfecting their sound that she didn't hear the drop of branches of another creature that was actually high up in the trees. She didn't have any clue to such until there was something very heavy sounding to drop down on a branch, and she heard the slight creak in the branch's wood to support the weight of the mass that came down upon it. Her fingers went astray, belting out a horrible sounding note as her blood red eyes blinked as something of a stark white figure dropped down not too far away from her.

It was wolf, pure wolf. There was a huge fang or claw artifact around her neck in a custom made necklace, and upon her forehead there was something like a tribal tattoo of a crescent moon with points protruding from it from four different angles. The woman looked quite tall of herself, with long legs and a long tail, and Talitha was baffled how this tall woman (or rather the branch itself) was able to stabilize upon the limb which looked like it could break at any moment. There was a couple more blinks to come from Talitha before she sat up straight and leaned forward slightly. "What the hell are you doing up there?" Talitha asked, as it was her own little greeting in return. Really, though, what the hell was a wolf of all things doing hanging around in a tree? Talitha began to figure the whole race of wolves were beginning to lose their sanity (which could be a good thing for the coyotes and the hybrids who didn't like wolves, since they could finally become extinct from their stupidity).

Sorry for the wait! 3+ Table by Lou!

In all honesty, the hybrid didn't necessarily appreciate how the woman chuckled in return to her rather serious question for her antics up in the tree. If anything, she seemed rather delighted to be proud of her tree climbing skills, and explained in jest and pointed nature it would be easier for her to escape in the height of the trees to avoid contact with other creatures. Rolling her cherry red eyes, her eyes also then widened when she thought she seen the woman began falling backwards, but was agile enough to catch herself upon the branch and hang upside down with a stupid smile that Talitha instantly wanted to wipe off her face right there. Talitha stared at her for a few moments longer, before shaking her head. "Oh great, so now we've got wolves who think they're monkeys in trees. What are you wolves planning to do next, breathe under water too?" Talitha said, obviously mocking the entirety of the species. Wolves thought they were the greatest creatures to walk the entire planet, thought they could do anything and everything without question. Talitha knew the woman was in a rather playful mood, and didn't think her statement would be able to break the tree climbing she-wolf.

Her name was Ralla, from AniWaya. Talitha had no idea what or where AniWaya was, and the name sounded rather odd. What was even more odd, was how she pointed to her acoustic guitar and said she saw it in a vision. Vision? Talitha tilted her head to the side, looking down at her wooden guitar that was in desperate need to be tuned and fixed up, and then looked back at the woman with blinks and a scowl. "Vision? Are you telling me you're psychic too?" This was ridiculous, obnoxious. Tree climbing wolves who had visions, sent by the moon? Talitha wasn't a big fan or really aware of all the spiritual and voodoo garbage, so when asking upon her sign, Talitha shrugged. "My sign? Buzzing." Apparently Talitha knew what Ralla was indicating, but decided to be a smart ass about it anyway. Ralla probably didn't know what Talitha meant by buzzing specifically, but she was under the influence a little from her drink, and probably was one of the reasons that helped bring out her more aggravated, annoyed side.

This woman, Ralla, was strange. Were all creatures from AniWaya like her? If so, maybe that would be a place Talitha really didn't want to go see so soon. Then again, maybe Talitha just needed to lighten up and become more sober. Asking what Talitha was exactly, she paused before explaining. "Hybrid. Coyote, German Shepherd, some other dog stuff, and even wolf, but I tend to leave out the wolf part." Talitha explained, making it clear that she really didn't consider herself any part of wolf no matter how small the percentage. Upon asking what was the bitter taste of alcohol in her possession, Talitha lifted it up in a gesture of offering to Ralla, a smirk playing across her muzzle. "Oh, this? Here, how about you try some? It's called whiskey. It'll cure you from hanging upside down in trees and give you even more visions that are unimaginable." All of that was said in pure jest of sarcasm, but she was also serious to see if Ralla would actually take a sip (or better yet a gulp) of some.

All the more fun! 5+Table by Lou!

Noting that the woman was able to smell wolf within her, the hybrid scrunched her nose in disgust. More than anything, she abhorred being compared to any wolf aspects. True, it was within her, but much more preferred to not reflect or acknowledge any part of it. She rolled her crimson eyes once more as the story was told about a gypsy luperci claiming to have the ability to read minds and move things with it. Yeah, sure, when felines can shift into luperci too. However, Ralla mentioned something that caught Talitha's interest: a form of future glancing. Ralla spoke with such confidence that it made Talitha raise a brow, as she indicated she was right about half of the time. The hybrid blew a snort from her nostrils. "Divine my future, huh? So what's in mine, all knowing wolf?" Talitha challenged, as she wanted to know what the possibilities were for her own. Ralla could have the choice to not tell Talitha based on pure fact of Talitha acting rather disrespectful to her, but then again, Talitha wanted proof of this, and deep down, wanted to know if her future was destined to be as big as a screw up like her past was.

Her buzzing threw her off for a minute, to which Talitha smirked. Falling down from her limb, she began to go into detail about the zodiac signs associated with the time of birth. Talitha wasn't savvy with reading the stars and correlating such to a zodiac, but always had the general gist of such. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Horoscopes, right? I was born in February. My sign is the water bearing one, something like that." She replied with a mild shrug. It was either the water bearing sign (to which she was positive it was), or it was Pisces, the fishes. Another thing she noticed was how focused Ralla became with the topic, as if it was a proclaimed passion of hers. Maybe she also had attention deficit disorder, for it seemed like her thoughts were fleeting on their own accord as well. This Ralla woman, she was interesting, as Talitha would come to find out later in the conversation. For now, the sheer aspect of Ralla related to wolves was her biggest annoyance and prejudice.

It was supposedly an honor to be part wolf, to which Talitha then set her guitar down beside her and crossed her arms. "Are you expecting me to believe that it's an honor to be part wolf when I hear wolves were assigned duties from the moon? That sounds absolutely ridiculous." Talitha said, shaking her head. Seriously, what was this woman on? If she was under the influence of anything, it sounded like one hell of a trip. Talitha was uneducated and unexposed to any ancient stories and lore there might have been, and considered all of that fairy tale and stories made up for fun. Despite how serious Ralla was about saying the honorary wolf part, Talitha still didn't believe it. "Where do you come up with these stories, anyhow? Is your pack, AniWaya, a lot like yourself as well? Readers of the future and tellers of tall-tales?" If AniWaya was a lot like her, then there would be more of the same ridiculousness, right?

Tempted by her whiskey, Talitha watched on with an amused gleam as Ralla was optimistic enough to take a swig. Chuckling and curling her lips into a smirk, she laughed as the woman choked on her first gulp. It seemed though as if she took an initial curiosity to the alcohol, studying it and its effects in silence. "Might taste like poison, but the effects you'll feel later on the more you drink are euphoric. Do you enjoy it?" She then proceeded to ask, highly amused by how Ralla was seemingly deep in contemplation of how she felt by the whiskey. Watching first timers was always an unforgettable moment.