sharksHe knew he ought to explore the rest of the areas eventually, but he found that he didn't really want to see what the other packs were up to. Dahlia de Mai and Inferni were at war. Part of him still felt guilty that he had not stormed the wolf pack as soon as he discovered that they had taken his niece, but the rest of him knew somehow that it wouldn't have done any good. Even if he did manage to save Talitha somehow without getting the both of them killed, then what? The war would not end like that, but he didn't know how else it might either. So he had wandered away from them both, sort of. For the while, he would trust that Gabriel would take care of things like he'd always done. Even if he had been the one to start the fire, he had gotten the family out safely, hadn't he?



sharksThe last several days had been depressingly aimless, and the rain hadn't helped much either. For a while, he thought he'd stumbled into areas that his father had been in as recently as a week ago, but the water made scents more difficult to pick out. He thought he was glad to know that the man was still alive, but the idea that a monster lurked in him somewhere still scared him. For a while, he had thought that maybe his brother had lied to him about that, but Laruku had admitted it himself, so that couldn't be the case. Dragging a damp, heavy cloak, Arkham gravitated automatically towards the cabin when he saw it. Such shelter was a hard thing to find in the middle of the forest; he wondered who had built it so long ago? And why? The door was open and he stepped inside, shaking his head a bit. His hands had reached halfway up to remove the cloth covering his face, but then he spotted the woman that was already there.



sharksOh, I'm sorry, he said politely, Is this your house?

sharksShe looked eerily familiar, though he was sure he'd never met her before. Clearly a hybrid, he thought he could smell Inferni on her though it was hard to tell with the scent of rain still fresh in his nose. At some point when he was younger, he had wondered about all the siblings he had never met -- the missing numbers of Gabriel's large litter, the missing brother from Samael and Ahemait's litter, the ones that'd come before. He had wondered where they'd gone and whether they'd ever come home; he hadn't understood because wanderlust had never gripped him. Even now, the lack of a permanent place was unnerving at times. He didn't like not having a place to go back to, even there was technically nothing keeping him from Inferni but himself. Though Skoll had claimed that the division was mostly circumstantial, with a name like Lykoi, Arkham did not want to even attempt to join another pack.



sharksAh, he said, nodding, and pulled a chair out from the kitchen table. His cloak was soaked, heavy and cold, but he didn't know if he wanted to take it off, especially if the stranger with him was indeed from Inferni, or better/worse yet, a member of his family. His mask was a separate piece from the cloak, but the markings on his back very much resembled his mother's. Who's this friend of yours? Living in the middle of the forest alone? He fiddled with the tie to his cloak but made no move to take it off, Kharma, by the way, and you are...? He had almost gotten used to the fake name; at least, it didn't taste so much like the lie that it was anymore.

*does that all the time* D;



sharksHe might have been ashamed that he hadn't noticed that his father's scent, while a bit stale, also hung in the air of the house, but any surprise did not register on his half-hidden face and the coyote only flicked an ear forward in response. The woman gave her name as Corona, but he still could not decide whether or not she was a relative. It was moments like these that he wished someone in his family would think to record all of their connections somewhere. If they had some sort of family tree displayed on a tapestry in the living room, then certainly he could have spent his childhood mulling over and memorizing it. As it were, no such thing existed for the Lykois, and Arkham could not remember Gabriel ever really talking about his littermates, except in the case of Baneesh. Still, he felt like the woman's name was as familiar as her face. She seemed to be about Gabriel's age, after all.



sharksThe younger hybrid nodded and smiled apologetically. You're right, he said, But I haven't got another cloak and this isn't my house to rummage through. Mentally, he made a note that finding an extra outfit would probably be a good idea for the future. For a while, he considered Corona's relationship with Laruku. How did they know each other? Could she be trusted? As she said, he really didn't want to catch a cold. If his father had been around, Arkham felt like it would have been all right to shed his disguise in his presence. It was doubtful that the man would run off to tell anyone, anyway. But even if Corona was friends with him, could she keep the secret after knowing what the secret was? Then again, as much as he knew the Aquila cared about family, he doubted very much that Gabriel was actively searching for him, especially if Rachias had gone out alone for that purpose.



sharksIs there a fireplace in here? He glanced around and had his question answered almost immediately. Adjacent to the kitchen was a modest living room with a worn couch, a sofa chair, and a bear-skin carpet lying in front of a stone fireplace. How kitsch.

I didn't know what anything looked like either.



sharksArkham, though his first birthday had passed some weeks though, still retained a lot of his youthful awkwardness as far as appearances went. He still had not grown into his ever-enormous ears and his body remained thin and lanky with limbs that seemed just a little too long for the rest of him. His coat was rather plain, generic of many coyotes, and he had inherited his mother's saddle-like black back. The wolf in him was not so prominent, but considering his father also seemed to have very little of his wolfish side, it was not a very big surprise. For the while, though his ears still stood straight up on his head, his cloak hid his modest build, as well as the assortment of weapons and tools that were strapped to his waist. Maybe he really did look like an assassin after all.



sharksHe stood from the table and made his way to the fire, setting on the floor on the edge of the bear rug with his back to the fresh flame. Ever sentimental it seemed, the first thing he thought of was the rainy summer nights he'd spent back at the old Syemv house, rather than the violent fire that had forced him from his home. Funny how destructive something so useful can be, huh? Arkham looked up at the other, I used to love sitting in front of fireplaces as a kid. In the distance, thunder rumbled again and the skies had continually darkened. It was very nostalgic.

sharksFor him, the warmth of the fire had always been easier to find than the warmth of a body. It almost seemed like his mother had disappeared as soon as they were old enough to venture out of the den. He and Andre had always been at odds, Rachias had run off to live with their father, and his older half-siblings had all seemed intimidating in their own way, even if they hadn't meant to be. He'd had a huge family and a wonderful house to live in, but Arkham had spent a lot of time on the beach alone, watching the ocean. Even now, the loneliness stayed with him and he was starved for any sort of company, any sort of conversation at all.



sharksFrance, huh? That's across the ocean, he noted, What was it like there? Travel had always been something he'd considered half-heartedly. It was something to always think about, but when it came down to it, he had never cared enough to actually go anywhere. Besides, the ocean was vast and infinite. Sometimes he still had a hard time believing that it ever ended. He couldn't imagine the amount of time it must take to cross it, and very frankly, the idea of being adrift so long scared him. If a storm wrecked your boat in the middle of the sea, what could you really do?



sharksA little, he said of reading, Not as much as I probably could have. It had been, once again, because of his prevailant apathy towards everything then. Books were nice, but he hadn't cared. Storybooks and children's tales had sent him off to happier places, but he had been able to get the same dreamer daze by watching the sun set and listening to rain against his window. That was all the escape he had needed.

sharksHe listened with the mild interest of someone who knew he would never see the place being described to him. Vaguely, he remembered someone else having described the world beyond the ocean to him, but the details of it were gone. Still, it wasn't that hard to imagine. Having grown up in a house, he figured much of his family was fairly humanized; all the more reason to think that this woman was a part of it, he supposed. A lot of people around here are getting more like that. I wonder how long it'd take for us to become the same? The coyote himself didn't know whether he meant the same as the European wolves or the same as the humans, but he was not all that interested in the philosophy of it all. Perhaps those sorts of things were just where evolution took them, nevermind the push they'd gotten from the rubble. In the end, it didn't really concern him.



sharksArkham nodded, though perhaps he was a hypocrite. He was lonely, but he was putting himself in a situation that called for it. After all, there he was hiding his face from someone that was likely a sister, so what could he really say about not having family to talk to? I don't know, he said after some consideration, I have a big family. Grew up with a ton of people around, but I always felt pretty isolated from the rest of them. More and more though, he figured that was mostly his fault too. He just hadn't cared enough.

sharksArkham had never really struggled with species alliance, though he was well aware of his hybrid heritage and had seen his sister struggle with it to some extent. At some point, he had wondered if his father had ever struggled with it -- as far as appearances had gone, he had been a coyote leading a pack full of wolves. Then again, despite the obvious relationship with their mother, the man had not seemed particularly fond of Inferni, or at least, had no interest in visiting any more after Kaena vanished. Of course, there was also the matter of his apparent psychosis; it was something he wanted to find out more about eventually, but there are other things he needed to find answers to first. Vaguely, he wondered how much Corona knew about Laruku.



sharksSometimes I think family is the hardest to talk to, he said, They expect something of you. Or something. So he wondered further, if this woman really was Gabriel's sister, and if he had given his real name, how easy would their conversation have been? Would it still have gravitated as much towards family? He shifted a little so expose a different portion of his cloak to the fire and considered an answer. I don't know, he replied decidedly, turning to her and grinning a little. Cop out answer, I know, but I spent so much of my childhood with my head in the clouds that it probably doesn't matter where I actually was. What about you?

sharksBy that point, Arkham was almost certain that Corona was Gabriel's sister, and it was hard not to call her out on it. He was happy to know that they seemed to be getting along all right, and that their conversation felt natural and casual. Perhaps he had just always favored his sisters over his brothers. Ahemait had always doted on them, and Rachias had been his only friend. It was then that he noticed that she had blue eyes, the same as her; he'd never seen anyone else with eyes that color. Inferni was all red and yellow. Corona would know his name eventually though, he didn't plan on lying any more than he had to... just until he figured out why Gabriel had done what he'd done, and just until he decided whether or not he could return to Inferni with the same faith he'd had before.



sharksHe nodded. I've never been much of a wanderer, the coyote said, I don't think I'll ever cross the ocean, anyway, as interesting as France sounds. He laughed, I nearly drowned in the sea as a kid, and I guess I'm still afraid of water. It was a light admittance. He'd since learned to swim and was reasonably confident of his abilities. Still, he avoided it if he could.

lol, your double negatives made me all whaaaaaaaaaaat. Or triple negatives, really, if "doubt" can be considered negative. D;



sharksThough his general apathy towards the world and everything in it had greatly diminished in the time he'd spent away from his family, Arkham still was not all that curious about all the details of the world that lay beyond what he could see. Europe had been described to him several times by now, and it was always an intriguing description, but in the end, he wasn't sure what exactly could be gained from such a journey, especially if the journey itself would be variably unpleasant. The size of the world could stretch on forever, but he felt insignificant enough just watching the sun recede into the ocean every evening. He didn't need to be an isolated speck on a boat with no anchor point at all to realize that.



sharksMaybe, he said, partially to humor her. There was, of course, the chance that his inevitable meeting with Gabriel would go badly. Even as he snuck around in a mask and continued to hear doubtful things about Inferni, there was a part of Arkham that believed that his eldest brother had a reason what he'd done, if only he would explain it. Still, if that wasn't the case, the coyote would have to decide what he was going to do afterwards. Inferni was the only family he'd ever known. He wasn't sure if would ever feel completely comfortable around his father. And where else did he have to go? He was grown now; he had all the world to make a home out of, if he wanted. If he wanted.



sharksSomeone once told me that everyone went on journeys to 'find themselves' when the time came, he said thoughtfully. I'm still not sure I understand what that means.

sharksIt had started raining again outside, heavy droplets pounding against the dirt and leaves outside. The wind rattled against the windows, and thunder rumbled threateningly in the distance. Identity was a peculiar thing, more internal than external, and more complicated than most people realized. More and more, Arkham was beginning to dissociate "coyote" with "Inferni." As such, he did not have to grapple much with species-identity -- he knew he was a hybrid, and there seemed to be plenty of other hybrids, so whatever -- as he did with family-identity and personal loyalties. It was still a conflict of heritage though, still something about the blood. He fought with the idea that the name "Lykoi" was a dirty word.



sharksMaybe, he said again, quietly thinking the same. It seemed to be such an elusive goal, finding oneself. No one ever seemed able to do it, so perhaps those that finally succeeded were met with instantaneous death. That's a little depressing though. If you couldn't find yourself, what could you really find?