SSWM: 486

He wasn't angry or hurt or even anxious. Yet he was unable to sleep. The sun hadn't set yet, but would soon, and though he felt exhausted and had nothing to do with the rest of the day he couldn't fall asleep. After his meeting with Melee he gone home to the ranch, found no rest there and then traveled out to Raven Beacon. Even his private sanctuary seemed unable to still his restlessness. In a feeble attempt to walk off the unpleasant plaguing feelings he began to wander. No purpose or direction, and now that his world extended out of the pack lands it did not seem strange or wrong to the boy that his feet took him east, out of Phoenx Valley. He moved along their own coast, under the sands turned into neutral territory and he kept walking. The young boy hadn't been out this way but the beaches seemed deserted in the winter darkness and he had no qualms about traveling further.

Until he spotted another being. Pripyat froze in his tracks, nose twitching and ears up and forward. The boy once again traveled on four legs rather than four, and he could see that not only did the stranger prefer their optime form they were adorned with clothing, which wasn't really so strange. At times his mother would don clothing and, he blushed thinking of it, present Jefferson or himself with items to try on. Yet he felt more natural in his more primal form and traveling took less time. He had become apt at shifting though, and if he wished for his two legged form he could quickly obtain it. Still for her to be shifted and him not the memory that came to him was unpleasant. He recalled his meeting with the Inferni female. Another distant family member but one so nasty and distant he didn't really have to think about her. She wasn't bothersome as the others might be. That meeting had gone poorly, but his last two encounters had been more pleasant. Nuri and Melee, both had been kinder and this gave him courage to approach the stranger.

Coming up to her, the lad dipped his head respectfully, stopping his approach when they were close enough to talk but not so close Pripyat was invading on the other's space. His ocean eyes reflected the light off the moon and stars, starting to appear in the sky now that the sun had disappeared, and he tried to make out all the details he could about her. “Ah, hello there. Good evening miss.” Was that what one said to a stranger on neutral lands? He didn’t know. The script for meeting one upon claimed lands seemed well known to all canines. Hello, who are you? What are you doing here? On neutral lands such formalities were unnecessary, and he had no idea if he was interrupting her or not.

SSWM: 302

Now that he was closer he could see the details of the woman, and take in her scent better. The pack she came from was unfamiliar to him, but most were so that did not surprise the boy. Her coat was not too unlike his own, made mostly of gray, but the contrast that the white and black made upon her body was much more drastic than his own, which was nearly a solid grey with flecks and smaller bursts of white. Her eyes too were not dissimilar, though the shades of blue did not quite match exactly. Her’s were softer, a lighter blue, while his own were a deeper and darker color. It was the difference between the ocean on a fine day and the ocean on a slightly less sunny day, yet both sets of eyes were vibrant and unmistakably blue.

Coming only a few more feet closer he paused, taking in the sound of her voice and the way she spoke. It was pleasant and he was pleased that she was not out rightly hostile, for he didn’t know how many poor encountered he could experience before retiring to Phoenix Valley for the rest of his life. Slowly he seated himself, going over her words. Very far for this pleasure? The pleasure of this scene or of her? Pripyat only smiled, for whatever he had come here for, he hadn’t come so very far. “I’m from Phoenix Valley, just a ways west along this coast.” Was she familiar with the land at all, or even less so than he? Well, if ever she should seek it than she would find it easily enough. “My name is Pripyat Soul.” He bowed his head once more, as kindly as he could, before looking up and waiting to hear her own name.

SSWM: 360

The formal greetings wore on and Pripyat grew more comfortable with the lady. As he sat there he allowed both his mind and body to relax, the anxiety that something might go wrong slipping away. The lady with the mottled pelt was polite, returning his bows and gestures with grace, and she did not seem to mind him being there. He could relax and be unguarded, because it seemed that there would be no hostility or unpleasantness between them. “Well Fia, it’s nice to meet you.” He smiled, pleased that she had given him a nick name to call her by. The woman in Inferni, the horrible woman, hadn’t ever introduced herself, only revealed that they were in some way, distantly related.

“Anathema eh? I haven’t been there, though truthfully I haven’t been too many places outside of Phoenix Valley.” Yet he was exploring daily, moving out further and further. Inferni and Cour des Miracles had been charted on his mental map, and he knew of the location of Dahlia de Mai now, almost due north of his own home. Anathema it seemed was the last neighbor, presumably further east than where they were now. The other packs in the west were unthought-of of then, to the youthful boy, who had never had any chance encounters with any of those wolves.

“I was born in there.” He had been there all his life, but then, his life hadn’t been very long so he wasn’t sure how to answer her question. Instead he simply offered facts up about himself, hoping she was somewhat interested, or would turn the conversation to herself or Anathema or anything. Pripyat was just pleased to be talking with someone new, someone fresh, someone who hadn’t been part of his world for as long as he could remember. “My parents are the leaders, Jefferson and Geneva. I suppose my family had been in these lands a long while though.” Just recently he had realized how expansive the Soul line was, and that it overlapped and included other bloodlines and that his roots and ancestry was more deeply linked to the surround area that he had originally known.

SSWM: 607

The boy listened as she spoke, the woman letting her own guard down, and he was amazed to hear that her life was so similar to his own. He nodded when she asked if she knew many others in his pack, it seemed he knew them all, at least by face and name if not on a more personal level. All of Phoenix Valley has taken a small part in shaping him, even if Jefferson and Geneva had left the biggest fingerprints in his malleable clay soul. “I know most of them, yes. It’s hard not to, being the son of the leaders.” His smile was kind of lopsided and his chuckle hesitant, unsure of himself, but he supposed that Fia would understand. From the way she spoke of her own past, it seemed she would understand. At any rate, Pripyat hoped that she understood. It was so rare to come across someone he connected with on such a level, having always been surrounded by those older or younger than himself, and only ever those so immersed in Phoenix Valley. No one else could be the child of Phoenix Valley, and so if he was looking for someone who understood what it was like to be a proverbial prince or princess of a pack he would have to look outside of his own home. And here she was, or so it seemed.

“Everyone knows me, or at least my face and name. They are all really nice though, understanding…” He hadn’t ever encountered an unpleasant being in Phoenix Valley, it was only outside his home that bad things existed. “I think they understand me, mostly. Even my parents seem to understand me. At least they are asking me to be anything I’m not. ” Geneva understood the sensitive boy, and Jefferson too seemed to be in tune with his son to some extent, although their interactions were often awkward and full of strained silence. They had a relationship and it was functional if not perfect and Pripyat didn’t mind that at times his father puzzled him. No one looked at Pripyat as anyone but who he actually was, and no one expected him to be more than that. Perhaps here they differed, for Fia seemed to come from a place where she felt alone and misunderstood, and Pripyat never felt that way. If anything he felt too understood, too taken care of, too dependent upon them all.

A sigh escaped him as he looked over Fia again. Her words had seemed to come so easily and it was perhaps this that allowed him to speak so freely to a stranger. He had told a similar story to Noah, but perhaps Fiachra Gervase would identify more with it. The stuttering man had understood his wanderlust, his need to do good in the world, but had Noah really known the suffocating feel Phoenix Valley sometimes placed upon the boy? “If anything I think it’s the lands. Being born there, I know it’s my home, I feel I can’t go anywhere else. I don’t really want to go anywhere else, but I don’t want to always stay there.” He looked at her with his vibrant eyes, did she know this feeling too, or was he just blathering on as an idiot might? “You left though? Did you want to leave your pack behind? Do you miss it?” Would he really miss it, or perhaps only for a while? If he were to leave, which he wouldn’t, would life become normal after a few days, weeks or months? As if Phoenix Valley had never laid it’s stamp upon his sorry skin?