OOC Daddy's worst nightmare!! Do you mind if we forward-date this to tomorrow November 8? Just to ensure Titania had enough travel time to get back to CdA. 300+ Somewhere in the Treetop Terrace, noon, Titania in Optime.

"Ahh…" A long sigh escaped the girl as she bathed in the patchwork sunlight that filtered through the canopy of the Treetop Terrace. The light poured through the verdant leaves from the cloudless noonday sky, and here beneath the trees the bite of the pending winter was not as sharp as on the plains. A soft half moon smile hung on the girl’s face as she stared with unfocused eyes at what she could see of the sky. She watched as little blue and red birds chirped and leaped from branch to branch in their eternally excited way. She felt like one of them at heart, ready for something big and ready to do it with all the zest she had.

Ready for something more… Her thoughts turned to Zalen, the dark wolf she’d met on the northern ridge of Halcyon, and the day they’d spent together in that heaven amongst the rock. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced living in Cercatori d’Arte. Out there she was wild and free, free to do what she wanted and make her own choices. The longing for her own independence had blossomed within the girl quickly, and was only strengthened by the foolishness brought on by her adolescence. But it was a driving force within her, and somewhere in her heart she knew that she would answer the call…

Her reverie broke when her golden eyes focused on an abandoned nest. It was not far out but its crafters had probably abandoned it because of the nests’s proximity to the homes in the Terrace. Curious, Titania slipped off of the platform and onto the thick branch. Utilizing the natural dexterity she inherited from her mother, she moved out to the nest. There within the straw were a few black feathers. They were long and slender and Titania could picture the bird they had come from. Her fingers retrieved the feathers quickly and then she returned to the safety of the platform.

She leaned against a railing and twisted the feathers between her fingers and her thoughts were once again filled with the memory of Zalen and the feathers he donned…

An ear twitched and tilted in her father’s direction as the man approached, his only reception for a moment as the girl continued to stare dreamily at the feathers. She acted like they commanded her interest, but now her mind was full of anxiety at his approach. What would her father say about her sudden infatuation? She already thought he wouldn’t accept it, and he really wouldn’t like what she knew in her heart to be true. What with her worry wart mother and her overtly protective father she was in for a world of trouble if she told her father the full truth.

“Nothing…” she said absently, but a moment later her eyes turned to her father and she could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t going to accept that answer. Even if she could keep him from pressing the issue right now he would still go around thinking something was up, and a suspicious father was worse than a knowing one.

In a perfectly normal teen fashion she sighed while rolling her eyes away from him. It wasn’t as rude as some teenage girls could be, but it was certainly a show of that streak of adolescent defiance. But she wasn’t trying to be mean and her demeanor softened. “I took a trip.” There was a slight pause as though she was waiting for him to say something about it, and then she continued. “To Halcyon. We never went there even with Juliet and Momma and I were traveling. I wanted to get Momma one of those… things… those whatcha-ma-call-it she wanted, she said they lived in the mountains there. I didn’t find one,” she paused again, her tone disappointed. “Instead I… met someone.”

She watched her father out of the corner of her eyes. She was apprehensive, scared to tell him the truth but finding now way around it. No, wait, not scared. In fact, why shouldn’t she tell him the truth? According to the pack she was an adult now, and she could meet people if she wanted to. And after all, it was Zalen, and she refused to hide anything about him! She would sing it to the stars, to the moon, and anyone who had anything bad to say about it could just go to hell.

Her posture straightened as thoughts poured through her head, shoulders squaring out. She was ready for what he had to say, wherever this conversation would lead.

OOC Bad reaction Titania has bad reaction. x.x[/i] 400+

That someone certainly hadn’t hurt Shawchert’s daughter, but changed her he had. It was clear in her dreamy countenance, in the far away look in her eyes that she had left her heart with him there in that valley in the Halcyon Mountains. The look in his face, the disapproving tone of his voice, it infuriated her. Her eyes, still focused on the feathers, narrowed as he spoke, and the corners of her mouth flexed down into a frown.

“His name is Zalen,” she spoke defiantly, her voice challenging Shawchert to say something more. “The moon brought us together. I heard him singing to her one night when he didn’t even know I was around, singing like a real wolf, singing like everybody here has forgotten how to do. Here it’s all worded verse and limerick. Out there it was wild, free, natural.”

She hated the humanistic songs her pack had adopted as part of their “art.” At least, she decided she hated them just then – they’d never really bothered her before. She gave her father a sidelong glance and remembered the lyricist he had been in love with, Sky, and suddenly a lump of adolescent angst settled in against him.

He disapproved. He disapproved of her decisions and she could tell by his voice and his stance that he was going to condemn Zalen no matter what she said. The thought infuriated her, so she turned it around on him.

“Oh, you’re one to talk!” She said, turning her furious expression on him. “All you people ever do is run away. What about Mom, huh? What, you think I didn’t notice when I was spending my first few months moving from place to place with nowhere to call home? No family? No pack? And what about you? I might be young but I’m not stupid, I pick up on things! You ran away from Cercatori too, didn’t you? Left without a trace. That’s why you’re not the Captain anymore, you lost your rank because you deserted. That’s why you have to be with mom, too, because Sky wouldn’t put up with you leaving and coming back at your whim. Mom will.”

Not one word of that was planned, not once did she stop to think just how ruthless and hurtful all of it was. The thought of his disapproval of Zalen cut deep – before she even knew how he felt – and she lashed out wanting to make him feel the same way.

OOC Bwahahaha Titania thinks she’s all grown up, but now she’s grounded! DERP. 400+

The fires within both of them were fanned by each other’s words. She wanted to win this fight but she was no match for her wiser and higher-ranking father. She didn’t understand why her words sounded so stupid to the elders, she only knew that they had no reason to think anything bad about them. And what was his argument anyway? That they had all come back? Well, she came back too, and she didn’t desert the pack, she just took a short trip. And to try to do something nice for someone at that!

“I’m not stupid, Dad, I know there’s a reason for Mom running away. I know there’s a reason why she freaks out if we’re ever more than six feet away from her. I mean, come on, Juliet and I can’t even move around Cercatori out of her sight without her panicking and sending out the alarms. It has something to do with the story about monsters that she told Juliet, doesn’t it? With why we never moved back into the book store. I’ve come to realize that it’s not normal for a wolf to have two names and three faces. I know that. You think I don’t know anything? Maybe you should look in the mirror, I know more than you, DAD. Things happened, but at some point she’s got to stop punishing us for that.”

She crossed her arms and turned her nose up, looking away from him until his low, angry words rang clear. The eyes that mirrored Orin’s flew open and nearly bugged out of her head. She gaped, staring at him in disbelief as he made his decree. Then her face mutated from surprise to pure rage. Her ears laid back and her mouth took on a bratty curl. She shook her head, her feral crimson curls dancing wildly about her shoulders.

“No, you can’t do that.” There was a thud beneath them as she stomped her foot on the platform. Her hands balled up into fists tight at her side, but somehow still careful of the feathers she had harvested from the nest. She shut her eyes tightly and shook her head more fervently, resistant to her sentence. “You can’t do that! I have the Venditore rank now, I’m not a Cucciola anymore! I’m not your puppy who has to do whatever you say. If you try to make me, I’ll go to Skye. We’ll see what she has to say about that.”

Too bad Skye would probably agree with Shawchert on this one.

OOC Ok to call it? End. 300+

“Forget it! You’d never understand. I don’t know why I thought you would.” She harrumphed again, her childish words were daggers aimed for his heart. Luckily for Shawchert he was steady in his ways and didn’t seem to be vulnerable to her sharp words and double meanings. The fact that she wasn’t getting the reaction she wanted out of him frustrated her more and only fueled the fire that burned within her.

And the angrier she grew at her father, the more she found herself silently wishing she was with Zalen. The two had only just parted but she was dying to be with him again. It felt like her very soul was going to tear itself from her body any moment so it could be with him, just like the ancestral ghost that accompanied the dark man. This was real! How could she possibly make her father understand real, true love?

Her eyes went to his face, searching his visage and in her anger meeting his gaze. Of course there was more leniency for family but in this situation she should have quickly submitted. She was the loser – by age, rank, seniority and size Shawchert was above her, let alone the fact that he was her father. She scrunched her nose, glaring into his gaze for a long moment before turning away from him completely.

“It is a punishment. It is all a punishment. And I’ve already done my time but you want me to do more. Well, fine!” She started forward, stomping away from him. “I’m no just going to roll over and let this happen, father. I’m too old to just sit by anymore. I will fight! I wasn’t lying, I’m going to Skye.” She was at the edge of the platform and her foot on the first ladder rung now. He would be within his rights if he wanted to follow her, but if he stopped her completely from going to their alpha it would be a denial of Skye’s command, which Titania knew he would not dare.

“We’ll see what she has to say about this,” and with that Titania disappeared down the ladder and took off through the forest toward Thornbury.