Word Count :: 300+ All welcome, Tlanti maybe? Whoever wants to snag!
Her mother was a… a slave.
Liliya couldn’t stop dwelling. She had come to the river with rudimentary tools in tow, hoping to catch a couple fish for the pack, but once she arrived at the river bank all she could think of was the day she had crossed this place with Eris. The Russian woman set out her gear, laying out a shabby net, a crooked bamboo pole, and a ball of knotted twine. Her supplies weren’t in the best of shape, and she didn’t even have any bait. This served to down the woman’s spirits even more.
She sat on the rocks with a sigh and collected the string. Her hands began to work at the filament, trying to unknot it, but for all her trouble the thing seemed to be getting worse. “Tchyo za ga`lima!” she cursed in her native tongue, and threw the twine away - then gasped when she saw where it landed. The breeze carried the ball away from her, farther than she’d meant to throw it, and it landed half in the river. “Ah! No!” She yelped and leapt up, lunging into the waters to catch her fishing twine, but it was too late. The string was swept up in the current and carried away.
Liliya watched it go, her eyes sad and ears drooping, and she stood there up to her knees in the river long after the material had vanished. It was all too much. Everything was going fine until Liliya insisted on returning to Nova Scotia to find her estranged family. Now she was a member of the very pack that had enslaved her own mother. A willing member at that. She tried to tell herself that she was doing it for her mother, that she was here to keep Verusha safe and perhaps one day earn the woman’s way out of bondage, but her conscience told her different. She was terrible, no one could count on her. And now, how was she going to impress the leaders of Salsoa if she couldn’t even take care of her fishing supplies?
She dropped her head into her hands, her chestnut hair falling over her face. It would destroy her pride to be found like this, but she couldn’t hold back the tears.
+3 :: KIKI WAS TOO SLOW. I have been dying for a thread with her. << Rowan, Larkspur's slave, is with him. She's the one speaking now while he creeps in the forest.
There were many days where Larkspur traveled alone. Today was not one of them. Rowan had accompanied her master on his expedition, joining him once she had finished her chores. This worked well for the dark wolf, who had spent his morning tending to the sheep and horses. Once finished, he had rounded his patrol off to the north. The russet woman met him halfway, toting along a woven basket. Fish were good food for puppies, especially now that Eris had finally begun behaving as a proper mother. Instinctively, Larkspur desired to care for the children—even though he found disdain for them in his heart. Time would have to heal that wound, carved by a bitter woman who cared about no one save herself.
It took them almost half an hour to find the river, and it was here the pair was met with a peculiar site. A she-wolf, new and unfamiliar, bent over in the water. Curious, but unwilling to approach her himself, Larkspur spoke in a hushed tone to his slave. She seemed surprised by his request, but left his side with quiet, fast steps. Half-hidden by the treeline, the Arbiter watched the stranger with growing suspicion.
“Bonjour?” The heavily accented voice called, light and feathery. Rowan was ultimately feminine, a striking offset to the majority of the women here. Her red pelt gleamed in the sunlight, a further sign of her superiority amongst the slaves. Larkspur ensured she was always healthy, always well-groomed. This, too, she enjoyed doing. Fish were helpful in such a case, even if her brutish master did not understand that, and this was part of the reason for her suggesting they gather them today. “Are you…well?” She struggled with the English, desperately obvious in this. Only French and German were easy; English and Spanish had been a severe learning curve.
Word Count :: 300+Yaaay!! Bad reaction Liliy is bad. Sorry for the few-day lapse in reply, I was gone on a camping trip over the weekend.
Water splashed as Liliya jerked her head up, startled by the abrupt voice. She didn’t think anyone was around and hadn’t expected to be found like this. Her eyes met the slave’s visage, and immediately she identified the woman for what she was. Her surprise melted away and an angry look crossed her countenance as a hatred set in. Her gray eyes narrowed and she scowled, turning her anger onto the woman. Who the hell did she think she was, this slave, sneaking up on her like that? Surprising her instead of announcing her approach… surely there was a protocol that she clearly wasn’t following. She hated the woman… hated her for surprising her, hated her for not speaking Russian, hated her for seeing her while she was so vulnerable, and hated her for being a slave.
“You!” She pointed at the woman, the embodiment of everything that was wrong with her life right now. “Vhat do you think you’re doingk?” She spoke in her thick, Russian patois. She waded out of the river and stalked over to the woman, her eyes glaring at that tell-tale ring in her nose. It looked exactly like the one they forced through her mother's septum; how desperately she wanted to tear it out. She knew she shouldn’t, she knew it was wrong to hate the woman for something she couldn’t change. She should have taken pity on her, to be owned by other wolves, should have understood her plight, but instead the sight of her just sickened Liliya.
She spat something at the woman that sounded very much like an insult, and waited with her arms crossed, almost tapping her foot-paw with impatience. “Well? I said, do you speak Russian? How about English?” She repeated, this time in English. She spoke loudly as though the woman couldn’t hear her. “I guess not. You stoopit woman. Vhat are you doingk here, why are you sneaking up on me like this? Don’t you have someplace to be?” She was beside herself with irrational rage, it looked like she was just a few seconds away from giving her a nice shove.
Larkspur = forever a creeper. He came to fish so maybe once they get over being all angry he can talk to her about getting new supplies. :>
To say that she was surprised was putting it mildly. No one had screamed at her in such a manner since she had arrived; certainly, there had been low threats and dangerous tones, but she had not experienced the fury radiating from the woman. Rowan gasped and pulled her basket towards her breast, taking several steps back in terror. Frightened as she was, Rowan could only shake her head furiously, not understanding the jumbled English that she barely understood.
It was then that the Arbiter’s rumbling growl cut through the forest, announcing his appearance. Larkspur’s body radiated fury, his eyes burning sunset orange and his tall legs taking stiff-legged steps towards the woman. With a growling command in German to Rowan, who swiftly retreated behind him, the black and white wolf rumbled down at the girl: “I do not know who you think you are,” the Arbiter’s voice was controlled fury, something he had only recently learned from Sirius. “But she is my property. You best ease yerself down.” The threat was silent, ever-present. While she would have gotten away with such behavior around one of the others, Rowan was special; she was his.
Word Count :: 400+ Oh crap Liliya is like... oh crap.
Horror shook her the moment she heard the growl. One minute she was threatening some bitch of a slave, the next a duotone man was stomping from the underbrush towards her. Her ears flattened and her light eyes bulged with fear. Her jaw dropped and struggled to find English again as the man came towards her and her offense began to dawn on her. This wasn’t just some nosy slave out for an afternoon jaunt; not just a wandering community servant. This one’s protective owner shadowed her, lurking just beyond the Russian’s distracted attention, and by the way she almost crapped herself she knew that this was one lesson forever learned.
“I… I…” she stammered and backpedaled, looking just as cowed as Rowan had been, except she had no basket of fish to put between herself and Larkspur. Her ears dropped and the only time her eyes met Larkspur’s they were pregnant with fright, there was no challenge in them. She almost stumbled over her own tail as it stuck to her leg like polyester pants that just came out of the dryer. Now it was her turn to completely forget her English, and all that she could do was mutter muffled Russian syllables as she tried to make up for the insult.
“I… I’m s-sorry!” she finally blurted, about as eloquent as a rhino. “I did not know she is yours… Sir? I just saw slave and thought she was in wrong place, tryink to ruin my feeshing… it make me mad.”
She cringed. She knew little about Salsoa’s rank structure, but any idiot would know that she was beneath this wolf. For a moment she had seen someone below her who she could take her anger out on, but now she didn’t even have that release. She would have whimpered had it not been for her pride. This man… how high above her did he stand? And what did this mean for her future? Things already looked bleak, now she may have just made them ten times worse.
She dropped her eyes from the man’s face, flashing a glance at the slave as she did so. Why did she cause so much trouble? She didn’t want it to happen, but a small ball of resentment towards Rowan settled in the back of her conscious. She was only a slave. Liliya may have been new to Salsoa, but at least she wasn’t as low as a slave. It seemed she didn’t even have that consolation anymore.
