c'est la vie

Krystalle Horzana · 03-12-2011, 02:45 PM

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AW, in Thornbury.
WC→377

She'd been thinking. Every day, for two weeks, she'd been thinking. Bartholomew had made a mistake in telling the Latin dog about his alternate's feelings toward another female; insecurity welled up in the cinnamon-and-cream woman, brought on by the fact that she was unwelcome. Perhaps Bartholomew didn't see it, but Krystalle Horzana was not ignorant. Reading the feelings of others was so easy to do, and it pained her to see the frustration in Mars each time she appeared in the home. He didn't want her there. It was clear that the Russo wolfdog wanted nothing to do with his Californian friend.

Finally, she'd made her decision to go. It was just easier to leave before things started to hurt worse than they already did. Her personal belongings had been gathered little by little, to ensure that her lover and friend didn't catch on about her plans. She couldn't take a confrontation. Talking to Bartholomew about the decision was out of the question; he wouldn't understand, she was sure. He seemed to think that Orin made Mars think of the mutt, after all. She knew differently.

A chilled breeze passed by as she stepped out into the snow-covered world. It hadn't occurred to her that she should have searched for a home prior to moving day. It was just more work, something to keep her busy while she avoided the multi-personality male. With Senorita in tow, she moved through Thornbury, pink eyes scanning houses as she passed. None caught her interest. They were all too close to the place she was just leaving. The mare seemed to sympathize, butting her keeper with her flared nose. Krystalle smiled, faintly. "Better this way, huh, mija? I don' wanna burden him," she whispered, trekking down the small alley that lead to a larger portion of the town.

It seemed that plenty of the homes were absent of life, leaving the Horzana woman with more opportunities to make a place for herself. Rosy gaze passed over stone homes and wooden ones, evaluating and wondering which would be best. Wood seemed too flimsy for her tastes, and it was quickly excluded in her search. "Dios mio, Senorita. I don' know where to stay," she huffed out, hugging her bag against her chest.

Slade Auctor · 03-12-2011, 08:55 PM

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OOC: Assuming Optime form, yus? And sorry for the long-ish post.

Slade had not exactly defined the term of 'active' in his pack. The pack hunt had been his most recent real interaction with his packmates, and even that had been about a week ago. Just a few days ago he had managed to come out of his shell and strike up a conversation, but that had been with a loner outside of the pack's borders. He was yearning to interact with something that wasn't prey.

His opportunity came on yet another snowy day, which he found much less cold than a few others he could name. The sunlight on his fur made him crave getting out, so after a quick morning hunt the young coyote started to make his way to Thornbury. This was the place where he found himself meeting the most packmates, as no loner would dare venture this deep into Cercatori d'Arte's territory. He hadn't met anyone here who he didn't like... so far.

Maybe that was the cause for his lack of mingling: the fact that not everyone he met was friendly. He knew a prejudiced wolf within these very borders, and just outside there was that arrogant loner Jaden. Slade didn't want to meet anyone else like that, especially if they planned on hurting him. At first it hadn't been too bad, as a certain Luperci had stepped on his tail, but then it got violent when Jaden gave him a scar on his shoulder. It was still somewhat sore when he ran for a long time, but he could cope well enough to hunt and walk.

Regardless of his reason, Slade wanted to get out and meet someone, and soon enough he found himself approaching the quiet little town of Thornbury. He didn't quite expect to see someone the moment he left the surrounding bushes, but that was exactly what he got, and in fact he noticed more than one being also wandering the metropolis. He couldn't help but stare for a moments, trying to process exactly what he was seeing.

The Luperci looked different to begin with, wearing cloth which Slade thought he remembered from a long time ago as clothing. While he couldn't make out the exact shapes thanks to his myopia, Slade also saw strange shiny specks that seemed to be scattered on her face. She also adorned a strange uncomfortable-looking black thing around her neck and another strange thing around her forehead. Another thing that really stood out was her hair; Slade couldn't help but wonder how long it took to make it stand like it did, and especially wondered why anyone would want it to look that strange. In short, he fought back the urge to label her as a weirdo.

Apart from the girl herself, Slade happened to notice the huge thing following her. He recalled meeting Adonia a couple of months back, when he caught her looking at a notebook. She had drawn an animal that looked more or less like the one following the Luperci now; what had it been called? Now was a bad time to forget, as he would definitely end up asking. What he also wondered was why, exactly, anyone would want a creature of such massive structure following them. Its smooth black paws could trample a coyote like himself into dust in seconds.

Slade stood there for a good long while, in which he was more than likely to be noticed. If the female had said anything he hadn't caught it. Shaking his head quickly to clear his thoughts, he cleared his throat awkwardly. "S-Sorry for.. staring...." he mumbled, shuffling his paws. He was doing a great job at meeting someone new.

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Krystalle Horzana · 03-15-2011, 04:27 PM

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Sorry for the wait. Been sick.

WC→342

She hadn't realized the presence of anyone else until the four-legged male spoke to her. A sharp turn, a nervous whuffle from Senorita, and her pink eyes caught sight of a bipedal creature shuffling awkward a distance away. The sight of a natural-form creature was surprising to the Latin woman; all others that she'd met within Cercatori had been alvitos. Though without bias to different shapes, she couldn't help but hear the words of her father in regards to those who walked on four legs. Lesser. Filthy. They were the ones not blessed by the Mother. But she embraced their presence.

"Staring, mi querido? I didn' notice," she offered. It was truth. She'd been far too busy searching the frames of the homes for something worthwhile to notice a simple stare. After all, she had been known to gaze absently at interesting beings in her time; if she was anything, she was interesting. Her unique appearance had never been mirrored as far as she knew. It wouldn't have been accepted within Nakzhi, after all, so she could only assume that she was the only Luperci to appear as she did. Senorita didn't seem as relaxed as her humanoid caretaker; she scuffed the ground with a dainty hoof and Krystalle raised one white-tipped hand to give her friend a pat at the neck.

Her attention was draw back to the stone homes all in a row. "Which one, mija? Which one?" She spoke to the horse, rather than the male, to ask which home her mare felt was the best. It didn't occur to the woman that she was procrastinating, not willing to really leave her place with Mars Russo for some cold and unfamiliar home on the other side of the town. A sigh escaped her cream-painted maw. She didn't want to leave him.

Casually, she glanced back toward the stranger, flopped ears tucking forward in a subtle display fo curiosity. "So...who are you? 'm Krystalle." The introduction was yet another procrastination, turning her thoughts from finding a place to live.

Slade Auctor · 03-21-2011, 08:03 AM

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OOC: I fail. I've had this in my notebook for days but went and lost the notebook. Tongue

Fortunately for Slade, the stranger hadn't noticed him standing there, which wasn't necessarily a good thing because now he looked like a complete fool for standing there and saying absolutely nothing. She hadn't acted offended at all, but he wasn't the best at reading emotions so he couldn't jump to the conclusion that she wasn't hiding anything. He also noticed the foreign word in her sentence; either he had really terrible hearing or she was speaking some other language. He wondered if that was some sort of insult; for all he knew, she could have said "Staring, idiot? I didn't notice."

Part of him wanted to turn and run as soon as her gaze returned to the animal she had with her, but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind the stranger turned back to him. Trying to force his head from being quite as high as it had been when he saw her, Slade returned the introduction with a small nod. "I'm Slade," he replied, trying to sound as casual as he could manage without looking at the lumbering beast and feeling extremely intimidated. It would just be too easy for it to go on a wild rampage and turn him into a coyote pelt.

Eventually he gave in to his curiosity. Snapping his head back up and raising his tail, he said, "If you don't mind me asking... who do you have with you? I've never seen anything like it - or him or her - in Thornbury." Again, he didn't mean to be offensive in any way, but really did wonder about some of this Luperci's tastes. The thought had never occurred to him that some canines actually owned such monstrosities.

Still, as Slade thought about it, she could have been equally surprised to see him, being asmall coyote in a huge forest. He had met a few Luperci who apparently didn't understand that he either couldn't shift or that there was nothing wrong with being a plain Lupus; nothing told him that Krystalle didn't think the same.

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Krystalle Horzana · 03-25-2011, 12:52 AM

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Short and crappy. Sorry for the wait.

He offered up his name easily, which brought a vague smile to somber features. Slade. Her own name seemed more glamorous, but she often preferred the simple. Mars was simple, and it suited her tastes just fine. Slade was similar. A brush of her hand and she pushed blonde bangs from her eyes, watching him and then looking to the houses, speaking to her horse and then returning her gaze to the Lupus male. His question surprised her; she had expected most other people to know what a horse was, but it seemed she was wrong.

"Senorita is a horse. I know other people have horses here; Mars has Vox." A queer expression entered her eyes as she wondered what rock he had crawled out from under. It wasn't offensive so much as confusing, though the thought settled in that she couldn't blame a non-Luperci for not knowing such things. Pink eyes turned back to the stone homes, and she heaved a sigh as she thought of sleeping alone at night. To douse the distress, she turned her body away from the constructs. "So what brings you here, mi querido?" she asked, rubbing at pink eyes with bicolored fingers.

Slade Auctor · 03-28-2011, 07:28 AM

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A horse. Duh. It was one of those words that had been at the top of his mind - as far as he was concerned - but he just couldn't figure it out. Now he couldn't help but lower his tail a little; the animal "Senorita" was a horse. Slade couldn't help but wonder how long ago Mars had acquired a horse; the last time he had seen the bicolored male was during the snowstorm, and there had been no talk of any huge animal to keep sheltered. That thin fur didn't seem like it offered very good protection in the cold.

Slade noticed how Krystalle's gaze shifted to the houses for a moment. He looked in the same direction but didn't see anything in particular - just the stone and wooden houses that had probably been there for an eternity - and he wondered if she was tired or homeless or something of the like. At this point he would have offered to let her stay in his house, but being a lupus he didn't have one. Well, it was the thought that counted, right?

Her question bought his attention back to their conversation, which he answered casually. "Just a quick stroll around the town. Meeting new faces. Seeing old faces. The like." Here he ended his side of the talk, as he had nothing else to say, as usual. No one said that he had to find talking easy on a daily basis; maybe his exchange with Deirdre had just been out of luck. Somehow he was drawing a blank. He briefly considered asking what Krystalle was doing here as well, but for all he knew she probably lived right here in Thornbury. Still, he wondered; Why did she feel the need to bring out the horse...? She doesn't really seem like the type who goes out and tramples coyotes....

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Krystalle Horzana · 04-09-2011, 02:25 AM

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Short. ;~; Sry.

She felt defeated; leaving Mars was clearly more difficult than she had originally expected it to be. Senorita didn't seem too awful fond of the idea herself. She stepped backward and sniggered in annoyance. The Latin woman hefted a sigh from her chest before returning pale pink eyes to the strange thing before her. She wasn't used to anything that preferred four legs over two. His mind was clearly different. Still, he was amiable enough. He answered her question without any complaint. She even smiled to show she appreciated his interaction. "Sounds fun. 'm lookin' for a new home, myself. Don' really like my old one," she explained, trailing off toward the end of her words.

Athletic body slid to the ground in the hopes that it might ease her distress. She wasn't going to find a new home. She knew she wasn't, it was so obvious to her now. Mars was just going to pull her back with whatever strange psychological charm he possessed. It distressed her more than she had thought it might. "I think I failed in my new home search, though." With that, she exhaled, shaking her mohawked head in frustration.

Slade Auctor · 04-09-2011, 03:39 PM

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He had been right to think that she didn't have a home. Krystalle's answer was a little cryptic; Slade was fairly certain that one might put a little more thought into a home before officially moving in. Unless something terrible had come up, he wasn't sure why anyone would just go in and move out. It wasn't any of his business, however, so he didn't ask.

After that, she surprised him again, this time with what she said. The subject had been turned back to housing. Slade glanced around at the houses quickly. Cercatori d'Arte was a fairly big pack, but surely not every single house was occupied? Unless she planned to bring Senorita inside with her, he didn't understand what she thought was so wrong with any of these houses. He knew that there may have been some damages during the snowstorm, but doubted that there was anything major wrong.

He wasn't quite sure what to say for a moment, given his complete confusion on the topic. He might have offered to let her stay with him, since she didn't seem shady at all, but he had no shelter to offer her aside from a small den in the middle of the forest, and even then it was small and cramped with only him inside. Besides, he doubted that a lot of these Luperci used their lupus form much based on what he had seen, and had a good feeling she wouldn't be comfortable staying with a stranger; he hadn't been exactly cozy when he had taken shelter during the snowstorm.

Slade eventually decided that he was going to try to change the subject, hoping that he wasn't making her late for anything; her smile seemed to say that she was willing to talk, so he would have to go on that. He asked the question he used on most canines he met who were part of the pack: "So, what's your... career?" He had to search briefly for a word to end it with; he had tried "talent" before and realized it sounded somewhat offensive, but words like "occupation" sounded a bit too formal.

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Krystalle Horzana · 04-10-2011, 03:30 PM

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She'd made a mistake in leaving Mars' home. That was clear enough, and as she realized it, she felt a pang of depression. Maybe she wasn't able to live without him. Maybe that was why she left California. Maybe she didn't love him at all. It was certainly a plausible possibility; in Nakzhi, she'd been living with others. What if it meant she could no longer live by herself? Did she lack the skills necessary to live alone?

A shake of her head told her no.

Trying to turn her attention away from the whole concept of moving or inability to move, she focused on the four-legged male. It was strange, to her at least, that someone would still live on four legs if they were capable of living on two. She felt a bit strange on the matter. Her father felt they were lesser beings, those who lived naturally, but she had less close-minded attitudes. Was it rude to ask if he could walk upright? Her head tilted to the side thoughtfully as she pondered that option.

His question jolted her out of her own thoughts. Career? She frowned ever so slightly at the word. "Ya mean...what do I do here? 'm a writer, ch'know?" With that, she reached into one of the makeshift saddlebags across Senorita's flanks and pulled out a hand-stitched book covered in leather. One of her many projects. Across the face, 'Sleeping Beauty' was scribbled out in curved black letters. "'s all I really spend time doin'." She put the book back carefully, glancing his way once more. "What 'bout you? I mean...without thumbs, don' it make doin' stuff kinda hard?"

Slade Auctor · 04-10-2011, 04:04 PM

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OOC: Bah, short post is short.

He had succeeded on turning the topic away from the matter of houses and homes and so forth, and also managed to find a fellow storyteller. Slade's eyes widened when he heard that Krystalle was also a writer of the pack; the only other writer he had ever met was Adonia, and she lived in another pack. Krystalle was local. A smile spread across his face and his tail started to wag as she kept talking. She was completely right about the last part, but at this point it didn't bother him at all.

"I'm also a writer! Well... somewhat. You're right, I don't have fingers so that would make writing impossible, but I'm a storyteller; that's enough for me." It had been enough for Shawchert as well; Slade had managed to be accepted into the pack as a writer despite his lack of thumbs. At this rate he was going to be an Incidente di Parola for life, but it didn't bother him for the most part.

Slade paused for a moment, squinting briefly at Krystalle's book, and he remembered something that really did bother him: he didn't know how to read. Some writer he was. He was definitely going to be an Incidente di Parola for eternity, but he at least wanted to be able to read. Maybe he could figure out how to use a pen with his mouth; once he mastered reading he would try anything to write. He looked back up at Krystalle and an idea occurred to him. "I don't know how to read, but I've been wanting to learn. Do you think that you could teach me?"

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Krystalle Horzana · 04-11-2011, 11:18 AM

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Kinda short myself. @.@

Their conversation had become much more pleasant without the addition of her failures. Reading, writing, such things were passions that the Latin woman could never get over. Back in Nakzhi, they had been frivolous; why didn't she like to weave or throw pottery like the rest of them? Why should she want to limit herself? What was wrong in her love of the written language? Anchjo hadn't cared. He was the one to fill her with stories.

What was truly surprising to the woman was that this four-legged male was in the same 'line of work', though his was far different from her own. He told stories, and she marveled in the treasure she'd found hidden in the pack. Pale pink eyes became more focused, curiosity spilling onto her features. It didn't matter if he couldn't write or read, because he had the gift of creative embellishment. Where she relied on Anchjo's stories from her past, this thing could make his own. Or so she assumed. Perhaps he simply relayed what he heard.

He squinted at her book before it disappeared into the bag once more and admitted to his illiteracy. Still, he wanted to change. He wanted to learn. A tilt of her head drew more inquiry onto her expression. "You wanna learn...but you can't flip pages? I can teach you, yeah I can, and I want to, I do. I guess I just don' understand how it'll work? I mean," she had to pause as she entered territory she deemed 'rude'. "...can you transform at all?" It wasn't meant to sound condescending. She simply wasn't familiar with those who didn't have a bipedal body.

Slade Auctor · 04-11-2011, 01:22 PM

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Krystalle's response was promising enough when she started. She was willing to teach him. So what if he couldn't flip pages? He thought that this would be the last comment about pages, but then she went on to say that, basically, if he couldn't shift he couldn't do anything.

If Slade had possessed hands he would have wanted to slap one to his face--or maybe hers. It was nice that they both had similar interests, and it was nice that she was willing to teach him, but why did he absolutely need hands? Why did he have to be a Luperci to read? Couldn't he just take the book in his mouth, put it on the ground, and carefully flip the pages with teeth or some method? He would shove a stick in every page in order to turn it if he had to.

He replied in a somewhat flat tone. "No. It doesn't matter. I can make it work without hands." Despite the fact that he was managing to keep his frustration out of his voice, he was making it clear with the way he stood, showing signs of both interest and anger: his head was raised, eyes wide, and he stood rigidly, tail straight and stiff. This was all too familiar. His memories drifted back to his encounters with Bao and Jaden. They had been prejudiced. Krystalle hadn't made it obvious at first, but now she was making it apparent that she didn't understand his form, either.

At this point, Slade was half exploding with eagerness to sit down and just start a reading lesson, but he was also not in the best mood and would likely have trouble focusing. They would certainly have to meet again... when he was in a better mood, of course, and when she was willing to let him figure out a way to turn pages.

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