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[/html] ooc: This is not technically a joining post — Valkyrie has always been in Inferni — but for the sake of technicality…
Character Name: Valkyrie de le Poer.
Character Birthdate (including year): January 19, 2009.
Whether s/he is a regular wolf or a Luperci: Luperci.
Species: Coyote/Wolf hybrid.
Gender: Female.
A secondary form of contact: paracoconut@live.com (MSN).
Tranquility had always been a feature of their home. Perhaps not as intention saw fit, but observation gave way to the fact that Inferni, and The Waste, had their own touches and splashes of beauty to them. Valkyrie's particular haunting — the windswept shore where water pounded the coast in some places and gently caressed the sand in others, alluring and inviting and teasing all at once — had been a place she had visited mostly since her birth, and even yet, the youngster was drawn inexplicably to it. It was her favourite place in the entire world, as far as she was concerned.
She was there today, too. The sun was high in the sky, beginning to sink toward the west as evening drew nigh, bringing with it the promise of night demons and evil. Valkyrie delighted in stories, and the idea that they were merely that — stories with no truth to them — failed to cross her mind. She was always home before dark in case the bad guys of the night found her.
But now was not night. Now was the cusp of evening, with clouds periodically blotting out the sun that staggered under their fluffy white masses, and she was sitting quietly on the beach with her fluffy tail curled around her. Her bright yellow-orange gaze was fixed on the gentle waves that crawled up the beach, hesitated, then retreated before the sand could capture them forever as if it were a movie, and she was absolutely captivated.
Her large, dark ears flickered once in response to the sound of the wind picking up in the grassy plains beyond the beach, but all else was still.
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mall-caps;">Out of Character
Haaay, this looked lonely. :3
mall-caps;">In Character
The coyote had always been drawn to the coast. She was born not far from it—once upon a time, Andre had taken her to the remnants of those fishing docks. There were long cement piers and the destroyed remnants of boats, slowly taking on water as they sank a little more with each passing day, steadily descending downward until they hit the depth of the port. They were long gone now, perhaps even those piers were gone, swallowed by the rising tide. She remembered that fondly; perhaps that was the very reason she'd been on the coast that night when she'd encountered Zarah again after a long time of apart. Maybe her affinity for the sea was the very reason this clan had even risen from the dust so long ago.
As twilight fell, the Lykoi matron was just waking up. She'd been up most of the night and a good portion of the day, speaking with length to Jael regarding his father. Thinking of Vitium had put her in darker spirits, and the coyote had fallen into a restless sleep aroung one in the afternoon. It was going on six thirty now, and the sun was dying in the sky, its blood staining the clouds brilliant shades of fire. She still had yet to pick a place for her home. She preferred the caves just for their proximity to the sea, though she thought living in a house would allow for a much-needed change of pace. The coyote had been sleeping in the wilderness for what seemed like forever now.
As night began to fall, the coyote stirred, awakened by the sounds of the tide coming in. She was in Optime form, and she stiffly climbed to her legs and stretched, rising from the grasses of the plains and looking out over the ocean, watching the sun falling over the bay. It was the opposite of Inferni's old territory—the sun rose on their former seas. They were a long way away now, though, and Kaena was more fond of the sunset anyway. Movement caught her eye, and she spied a young coyote, not far from her. She was down some on the beach, and Kaena moved forward, curious.
She crossed over the threshold of sand, and shook the sleep from her head, the tail ends of nightmares swirling through her brain and leaving her at last. As she approached the youth, Kaena did not recognize her. She was young, no more than six months of age, and her ears were enormous even for a coyote. She had brilliant golden eyes, though they were shades darker than her own. Kaena did not think this was a Lykoi; though she was clearly a hybrid, there was no trace of Kaena mirrored within her, though there was that same tingle of familiarity about her. Kaena simply wasn't sure, and the mystery deserved investigation. It was potential family, after all—and even if that wasn't true, it was still a clan member she had yet to meet, one of her comrades she ought to be friendly with regardless. The Lykoi's approach slowed as she grew closer, though she did not stop until she was within ten feet of the youth, her tail arced in a friendly gesture. "Hey," she greeted the other female.
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mall-caps;">don't let me stop you from doing what you wanna do you don't wanna stick, trust me, it's cool
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As the waves crested on the horizon and rushed toward shore, slowing only enough that they didn't pound thick trenches into the ground, Valkyrie became acutely aware of another presence behind her. It was said a woman could detect eyes on them far more easily than men, and it seemed this was true. She turned her head quickly enough to watch the shifted coyote — their founder, though she did not yet know it — approach, and took in as much as she could in as short a time as possible.
The most obvious features were the scares marring her face, and the eye. While one glowed bright and yellow in the setting sun, while the other was simply not there. A patch of scar tissue, dark like the socket, instead stitched over the other's prior place in the woman's face. Over both eyes, missing and present alike, were thin slices — scars — that made Valkyrie almost wince to see them. They weren't all, however. Two cuts worked jaggedly over her muzzle, and a long scar traced the feminine line of Kaena's face on the left side. Others, less noticeable, were also present nearer the missing eye. Her ears gave away the fact that she was coyote, being long and slim, though one was missing a sizable chunk from it, despite her slightly wolfish appearance.
And on her shoulder — again the left — fur was shredded away from four near-identical lines. This woman commanded respect with all her markings of battle, and Val could not help but give it as she lowered her head just a little. The wolf blood in her gave her wolfish instinct, and the coyote in her could not stand the show of wolf submission. Something about it disliked that part of her. On the left side of her breast was a mark she had seen before, one that was all-too familiar with the clan: the Chaos Star, a circlet studded with eight outward arrows. She would never get one of those, but it was noteable, and attractive, in its own right. A sign of power.
This intriguing creature was related to the clan leader and, by extension, to Val herself. That much was evident in that single tattooed mark upon her chest. Hello, she said pleasantly, despite the slight fear of this tall and striking beast her grey body and the red, like the blood of her past, etched up the bridge of her snout. Are you enjoying the water too?
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mall-caps;">In Character
The ashen hybrid was all too familiar with the struggle between opposing sides; such a conflict was inescapable for hybrids such as herself and Valkyrie. The wolf was the devil on her left shoulder, and the coyote was... well, the coyote was no angel, either. They screamed two contrasting impulses into each of her ears, and it was all Kaena could do to keep her head from splitting in half sometimes. Her head hadn't gotten any quieter as she'd aged, but at least she was worldly enough to know when the wolf was speaking, and when to listen. There was dog, too—but her voice was quiet, barely a childish whisper at the back of Kaena's head. It was not often that playful creature shone through, and Kaena was glad for that.
The hybrid before her was very young, and she had yet to grow into her ears, which sat prominently atop her skull. Her fur was caramel brown with hints of gold and black scattered throughout, and she had brilliant gold eyes, shades darker than her own. They were the color of the setting sun, the same one painted across the open skies and the ocean at that moment. As Kaena took in her appearance, she did not rule out the possibility of another lost relative. The coyote was familiar, albeit distantly and in a different way than her confirmed grandchildren. She spoke, friendly and in the high pitched tones of youth. Kaena smiled, trying her very best not to appear like the monster she was, though her face was certainly hindered in expression by the knobby scar tissue criss-crossing it.
Kaena crouched down a few feet away from the other coyote, peering over at her with that brilliant eye. "It's pretty today," she agreed, her gaze returning to the open water. The sun's dying light danced off of the waves in brilliant shades of red, gold, and yellow; the ocean beneath looked almost black. "I'm Kaena," she said after a moment. Her name had inspired recognition in her grandchildren; perhaps it would work here, too.
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The comment was too akin her own for her to respond, so she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the woman's crouched figure. Something about her seemed to sing to the land, though Valkyrie couldn't pinpoint what. For all intents and purposes she was a naïve, careless child on the verge of a discovery, one that may — or may not — change her life entirely. Perhaps it was the plunge she lacked, the inability to set out for some purpose. Maybe it was what kept her in a world where she felt more or less useless and pointless, what with a father who she never saw and didn't even know who she was, even though she knew him, and a clan that had little but sand and grass.
They were inviting but Valkyrie refused to believe they were all there was.
The other's name was given, and immediately, she was able to draw lines back to that feeling she got from the matron. This was Inferni's own mother. Somewhere in a different world, this same hybrid that was speaking to her now had created the roots of something that would last far beyond that place. They had relocated, she had been told, long after Kaena had departed for seemingly no reason, but she had found them once more.
Inexplicable, the way blood drew one back to places they had never been before. You're Gabriel's mother, she stated pointedly, as if she could even begin to understand their own tie. She was related to Kaena through her mother, that much was true, but the tie was only light, and perhaps only existed through de le Poers. Perhaps she was not, in fact, at all a part of Kaena's bloodline, but only of Gabriel's. It did not matter; this was the clan founder before her. You also founded Inferni. Welcome back! And she gave a bright, winning grin, as if Kaena needed to know she was welcome in the clan she herself had dug out of the sand with a heart of fire.
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mall-caps;">In Character
Badpost is bad, because I need to sleep. D:
mall-caps;">In Character
The coyote had never understood children until she had her own. Her experiences with children were limited prior to her own ventures into child-rearing—and more often than not, she found them more annoying than anything else. She recalled that stupid, silly puppy who had walked on Inferni's land, declaring himself above and beyond their clearly proclaimed border. He'd seemed to shocked when she'd bit his ear—he was lucky she'd stopped there. Having her own children had not made Kaena any more sympathetic toward them—her own were smart enough to know not to walk over wolf borders and parade around on their land. At least, not until they were old and large enough to fight their own battles, anyway.
Just a few feet outside of Inferni's land was enough for Ikatha to die, and Baneesh had been inside of their borders when he was killed. She had just gotten lucky that of her next two litters, seven children in all, only one had perished before his first year. The hybrid thought of him, that sore spot hurting in her chest again. Loss never grew less painful or got any easier, and it was particularly difficult for a mother to outlive her child. She would never know Andrezej as she should have, and she wondered if he would have done the same terrible things if she had been present. Yet if he had betrayed the rest of his family, she was no exception.
The youth did seem to recognize her, and Kaena nodded in response to her statement. Indeed, she was mother of the Aquila, though it didn't grant her any rights—nor should it have. Upon Gabriel's return, when she had been Aquila and he was a familiar, unexpected scent at the borders, she had not given him special treatment, aside from skipping the perfunctory interrogations that always went with loners at the door. Kaena cracked half of a smile, the other half mangled by the scars sketched across her features. "Thank you," she said first, her smile showing appreciation.
"I did, but not without some help," she answered, quick to show respect to the ghost of Yasu Zarah, should she be watching. Yes, it had been her idea—but Zarah had been the first leader, and she had known the other coyotes to hail to their cause. Without her, Kaena was just one troublesome wanderer, and Inferni never happened. Though she was an arrogant thing, she would show deference to her respected dead, and Zarah was nearly the pinnacle of that crowd. "What's your name?" she asked, eager to discern the girl's identity.
She was too familiar; there was that strange feeling that they had met somewhere before, but Kaena knew that was impossible—the girl was clearly younger than the time she'd been gone. Her eyes were a deeper shade of gold, and her definite mixed heritage made her interesting to Kaena. There was always the possibility of more family, and though even Kaena wouldn't be able to put an actual term to their relation, it existed through the link she'd created with the de le Poer family by having Ahren's children. Once again, the scarred hybrid offered an akward smile, crooked, her single eye studying the black-and-gold canine, noting her perfectly coyote posture, her paws perfectly aligned and her legs tucked close to her body, the exemplar of coyote curiosity.
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No part of her hesitated between this ghost-come-alive — had she known any of this woman's history, she might've been a little more fearful and much more respectful — but she could forgive herself a lapse in knowledge. Anyway, Valkyrie was doomed to be an optimist with an eye for good, even though she lived on the shoreline of Hell itself. In recent years, Inferni's hot attitude had calmed down, but she was not alive when it had been at its peak. In fact, she cared little for the past when iconic creatures — such as Kaena — were not standing before her. Valkyrie de le Poer, she answered with little conviction that it meant anything. Instead, she allowed those giant ears of hers to pan to the sides, lingered there but a moment before flipping back to listen to the grasslands behind them, then forward again as a wave smashed the shore. Her whiskers trembled as wind sloshed over them, and her golden eyes remained upon the horizon only briefly as she considered what to say. How did you find this clan? she finally settled with, her eyes turning back to Kaena curiously. Like stated: Val cared little for the past when the past was not staring right at her, but when it was, she was inclined to believe it meant a lot, and to ask of it.
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Much of Kaena still lived in the past. There was not a day that went by where thoughts of old friends, lovers, and long lost souls did not come creeping into her head. She did not think too distantly in the future—rather, she realized her time on this earth was likely not going to last terribly long. She had never had much of any sense of the future—she was very much a retrospective creature. The girl mentioned her name, and Kaena gave her a strange look, her head cocking to the side. The youth did not appear to be the spawn of Gabriel—her name hadn't inspired anything other than a connection to Inferni.
"A de le Poer?" she inquired, too curious to resist prying at the girl. The silver hybrid considered that Valkyrie could be Ahren's child for a moment, perhaps by a coyote—she did not realize the vastness of the de le Poer family beyond the small clique of them that had settled in 'Souls. Even so, just the surname made them a strange sort of relative—she was blood relative to Ahren's children, which were her children. She was happy—even if they weren't exactly relatives, it was close enough. It was a form of family. The hybrid grinned again at the child.
"I went to the old territory, the burned one where we lived before, and I found nothing, so I waited," she said, thinking fondly of the last few days spent on the old Inferni coast. The pickings were sparser than when the forest was green and everything living hadn't been burned to ash, but still—it was Inferni's old beach, the old home—and for just a few days, it was hers again. "After a while, I smelled a very distant smell of canine, and I followed it here." Her scarred face turned back to the gold and black youth, and she nodded at her. "And you? You were born here?"
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Valkyrie, ever ignorant to the world outside their own, was unsure about what to make of Kaena's repetition of her last name. Eager to please the older woman, she nodded her head so that her large ears flopped about and quickly interjected with, Ryan de le Poer is my mama, before the conversation was swept away into another direction. What she had meant in her question had been the creation of the clan, but Kaena's answer did not at all match what she had intended to inquire about.
This left the youngster a little confused for a brief moment, and she watched the woman with a guarded curiosity. Was she crazy? Perhaps. No legacy of Kaena beyond being the founder of the clan had ever been passed down to her; had she known that the woman was, indeed, insane in her own ways, Val would've understood things only slightly better. The old beach? she repeated uncertainly, interrupting before anything was asked of her, eyes flickering into narrowness. She had no idea there was another one at all. You mean we haven't been here forever? And when the Inferni matron went on to suggest she was born here, Valkyrie again bobbed her head comically, though offered no further words in the matter.
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Oh, crap. I totally misread your last post. D: I suck. But you saved it! Excellent. xD And I apologize in advance for spamming you (and Shannon) with quick replies. Plz take your time in replying. :o
The coyote hadn't yet Ryan, but she ought to have known the second-in-command. The response had given her little information about the youth's relation to anyone she knew, so she left the subject alone—but she committed the name to memory, and she would be certain to ask Gabriel about it later. "I haven't met your ma yet," she confessed, disappointment showing on her face. She would have to—maybe she was directly related to Ahren in some way. That would tie Ryan and Valkyrie directly to the Lykoi woman and her second eldest litter of children, though the relationship between Kaena herself was little more than a broken mateship that had ended some time ago. Still, Valkyrie and Ryan were Inferni clan members, and it was good that they were still in a way relatives to Kaena's family.
The young canine appeared confused, and it dawned on Kaena that the fire might have happened long before she was even conceived. Certainly she was too young to have actually witnessed the rampant flame devouring their former lands. "Nope," she answered the second question, shaking her head. "When Zarah and me made Inferni, we lived north of here on a beach. A fire burned everything, though, and Gabriel brought Inferni here," she said, pride creeping into her words. Her son had taken what she and Zarah had scratched from nothing and cared for it, perhaps establishing a dynasty of Lykoi to govern Inferni. "We had the ocean at our back and the mountains in front of us," the hybrid said, glamorizing the territory somewhat—sure, it wasn't much more than a patch of sand and a thin bit of forest, but it was Inferni's.
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OOC: Ahhh, finally off absence. Mmm hopefully I have way more time to post now. Sorry for the crazy wait, we can fade this out and have a newer thread sometime.
She listened attentively to their seeming history — a played-down, dumbed-down version of events that surely went into much more detail, though Val wasn't really one to question — for a moment, as it only took that long, before determining that this clan was much more than it appeared. They lived on a beach with mountains bordering their backside and the ocean yawning in front of them, and it seemed the old beach had been very similar, from Kaena's perspective. It was, truly, the only perspective the young hybrid had of things. Cool, she said thoughtfully, tracing a nail through the sand absently. So Inferni's been around for a long time? Why'd you leave? Given the woman's manner of addressing their home and their clan, well, Valkyrie would've expected her to be impossible to draw away from it. This, evidently, was not the case, as Kaena was soon-returned from a journey, and she was now curious as to what would've made her root herself from her home.
More background details would've been beneficial to the girl, such as the fact that Kaena had left her newest litter when they were but pups, but potentially such macabre disregard would've also frightened her. The matron was already a sight to behold, let alone being known for a personality that was less-than-sunshine-esque.
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No worries, we can plot a more updated one soon. You can post again after this if you'd like, but I left it at a good ending point, if you want. :3 Or we could post a few more times of them heading home, whatever you'd like.
Though the younger coyote was surely not nearing adulthood, she had that quiet reservedness of a canine beyond her years. The grizzled woman appreciated that, though it was puppyish excitement and sweet innocence which Kaena truly adored in children. Still, Valkyrie was not so young that she should still be trapped in such a phase; certainly, she had at least four months to her life, and that was time enough to experience severe difficulty in life. Kaena knew that better than anyone, having experienced it herself. The scarred woman nodded. "In the fall, we will be seven years old," she responded, nodding again as if to confirm the fact to herself. Seven summers had passed since Inferni had been created, and the coyote hybrid had already experienced two summers before that.
The golden canine before Kaena asked another question, one that resonated within her and gave her momentary pause, her golden eye searching the fast-darkening sky for a moment before she answered. "I guess you could say it was family business." The coyote did not know how well-versed Valkyrie was in the hard world, but it would do her no good to soften the eventual blow. She might as well know the world as it really was. "One of my former mates returned to me, only to take my daughter. I followed," she said. Astaroth had hardly been her mate—more like a lover, if anything. Still, it didn't do to use phrases like "one night stand" around the young. The situation sounded very simple, all laid out like that—but in truth, it had not been.
The hybrid smiled, climbing to her feet. "It's getting late. Do you live in the caves, too? We could walk together," she offered. Valkyrie wasn't quite old enough to take care of herself yet, though there was little danger from wandering around in Inferni's territory, even at night. If the youngster preferred to remain here, Kaena would likely move on—a trek around the border sounded good before she retired for the remainder of the evening.
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OOC: I'll have it archived here. And for sure! I need to get Val more involved in Inferni itself soon so Kaena is probably a good influence on her in that manner, so pretty much any interaction they have is beneficial.
Her feet shifted in the sand as her attention drifted to sea, momentarily, a place she someday wanted to go. Common knowledge, even for a child, was that a world could not be built on water without years of toil and back-and-forth bickering about how it could happen, but someday… Someday she would make that happen. That was probably years beyond her, and the project would be years beyond her lifetime, surely, but it was an idle dream of hers. Right now, just a seedling, lingering her brain and toying with her. Wow, she breathed, not entirely sure whether it was an agreement with Kaena — seven years was quite old — or just an expression, an absent sound made to fill a gap left for her. Perhaps it was neither of those. She didn't know how old Kaena must be, if she was to draw a timeline back to Inferni's tentative beginning, but maybe she didn't necessarily want to know. Something about being that old scared her a little.
And, of course, Kaena would fill in the gaps for her given time. The silence was only brief — to a child a long time, but mere seconds had passed — before the harsh reality washed over her. Valkyrie, of course, could not fathom what it would be like for her father (a member of the clan) to come and take her away, an assumption she had drawn from the words "mate" and "daughter" (perhaps Astaroth was not the father), and so she remained eerily silent on the matter.
But her lips, pursed in thought, and the heavy cast of her eyes, gave her away.
When the offer to go home was extended, pushed into place by the woman who probably knew she had shed some light onto a world that Valkyrie was, at the moment, not entirely interested in, she looked up and her innocence shone there in her like a beacon. Yeah, with my mom, she said quietly, getting to her feet hesitantly. She followed Kaena, though it could not be said she wasn't still lost in thought.
What if Hybrid did try to take her from Ryan someday? Would Ryan follow him to save her, too?
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And for sure! I need to get Val more involved in Inferni itself soon so Kaena is probably a good influence on her in that manner, so pretty much any interaction they have is beneficial.