spend all my time amongst the animals - Printable Version +- 'Souls IPB Archive (November 2007–October 2012) (https://soulsrpg.com/ipb) +-- Forum: Dead IC (https://soulsrpg.com/ipb/forumdisplay.php?fid=110) +--- Forum: Dead Topics (https://soulsrpg.com/ipb/forumdisplay.php?fid=21) +--- Thread: spend all my time amongst the animals (/showthread.php?tid=7665) |
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- Hezekiah Finch - 09-01-2009 [html] Out in the thick bulk of the tall grasses that made up part of Inferni, Hezekiah stood out. The paling summer grass provided a nice contrast to his woodsy, earthy makeup, though from a far enough distance it was possible that he could have blended in. He didn’t think himself particularly visible when he had wandered out there to think and since he had gotten there, he had taken a seat in the tall-grassed prairie. As the almost only stationary point in a sea of light green, he lazily watched the grounds from there to the distant mountains wave. He had no idea where he was in relation to where home was. Home had no northern mountains. North had been the coast, just like the east and south. The west had been the vast, unexplored world. Raw and untamed, probably prime ground that wolves and coyotes disputed over.
And even as unpleasant as it was, he felt a little bit homesick.
But it wasn’t so bad that he wanted to go back. He had been in Inferni a little bit over a week and most of that had been spent healing. He wasn’t really so apt to get up and run out and meet the others that were there just yet; some combination of shyness and social awkwardness had already shone through when he had hoped it would have gone away. But he had acquainted himself with Kaena and Gabriel, then Mason, and Anselm. He liked the first three well enough even though he didn’t know them all that way and the latter he wasn’t so sure he was liked by. But all in all, he was feeling better. He had a firmer grip on reality and for once experienced what it was like to have strength come back to him.
Though not healed entirely, the gash at his side no longer felt as tender as it had days ago, his head and ribs along the left side no longer ached. Eleven days he had been in Inferni and he had seen neither hide nor hair of anyone he had ever known all of his life — something which made him wonder if any of them had cared about him at all. Were they looking for him? There was no way for him to tell, though he was inclined to believe that none of them would simply because he didn’t believe his father cared. If he didn’t care, then the others had probably only acted to care simply because someone else didn’t.
They had a word for that. Obligation. Well now he wasn’t anyone’s obligation.
That was nice. - Kaena Lykoi - 09-29-2009 [html]
- Hezekiah Finch - 10-05-2009 I presumed that Kaena bandaged him up, so I hope that's okay. XD If not, kick me! [html] For all his worth (which may not have been very much at all), Hezekiah tended to stay out of the way. It was a conditioned response for him not to be underfoot, not to persist in asking too many questions but rather figure things out for himself, and although perhaps his seeming lack of social behaviour seemed like a conditioned response, it was only partially that way. He was unknowingly more true to his species than those around him; he was very much a solitary creature. Being apart of pack or clan was somewhat out of his element, although he had belonged to what probably seemed like the scant makings of one. Before Inferni, he had spent the majority of his time in the company of his father and if not him, then generally anyone nearby he was familiar enough with and who didn’t think that he was esurient for attention, food, or otherwise. What time wasn’t spent in the company of others, he naturally spent alone and in turn, had become self-sufficient.
Which had surprisingly come in handy, when he ended up having to fend for himself and teach himself to be clever where the shortcomings of a parent came in. Maybe that was partially way he had lasted as long as he had, having been at it far longer than he should have been at that age. While being nearly a year old may have classified him as something like an adult, Hezekiah was far from being beyond the guidance and attention of an elder. He still had a lot to learn and much more to prove in order to be any real contribution anywhere. But despite his solitary nature, it didn’t bother him when he picked up on the sounds of someone else approaching, nor did it make him wary because the steps were far too gentle to have been someone unfamiliar with where they were. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes scanning over the tall tips of the grass for a moment until he had found Kaena’s silvery form parting through the grass with ease.
It was with a faint smile and a steady wave of his bushy tail that he greeted her, not deterred in the slightest by her appearance now that he could clearly see it and just as she studied him, he studied her and was innately curious of her story, though he abandoned the thought in favour to answer her question. “Better… much better.” Her help he was more than grateful for, this he could not deny from his tone. “My head doesn’t hurt any more and my side still does, but at least it’s healing. Doesn’t hurt too much to move about now.” And once it did heal, he would be happy to do away with the bandaging, considering how well it stood out from the woodsy colour of his coat. But at least this far into Inferni’s territory, he didn’t have to worry about feeling like a walking target. - Kaena Lykoi - 10-06-2009 [html]
- Hezekiah Finch - 10-07-2009 Awesome, thanks! [html] Up until he had come to in the region near to Inferni, Hezekiah had never really had bad injures. Scrape here, a cut there, a patch of fur gone from a rough-housing game gone a little too long; all of those things had been the worst of anything to begin with. It wasn’t to say he hadn’t taken a few hits out of aggression, but they had never been anything like the healing gash at his side and they had never ached like his head had to the point where the ringing did anything but stopped. Where he hadn’t been blessed with strength, Hezekiah made up for it by being a burgeoning shoot in a frost covered field. He had his endurance and it seemed like he had a stronger will and reason to survive than he realised. Surely there had been plenty of unfortunate souls out there.
But it was the topic that Kaena breached next that gave him mixed feelings. He was surprised by the question and her following comment and yet a moment later he understood where she was drawing that from. In a clan that made it clear that wolves were unfavourable, there were plenty of hybrids and he was not ignorant to the mixed heritage found behind Inferni’s pike-lined borders. Mason had been the only other coyote he had met so far and Anselm had looked incredibly wolfish, if not mostly. Gabriel, what he remembered of him through that haze was that he was like Kaena, where their heritage was muddied enough that they leaned in multiple directions; some features distinctly drawn from one background and builds from another.
“Yeah, I am,” Hezekiah said, much more decisively than the safety of memory he did cling to. “It’s better than where I was. I stay out of the way, so I’m not in anyone’s hair or anything like that… and everyone I’ve met so far seems all right.” He had made a friend out Mason and although he was still a little wary of Anselm, he understood that the crimson-eyed hybrid was trust-worthy. He had been kind enough to impart knowledge to Hezekiah that had not been forgotten. Other than that and excluding Inferni’s leader and his present company, he found that there were not much differences between where he had come from. It was homely and quiet and the real difference in the two was who made them up.
And to put a numerical value on things, Inferni was a lot smaller than anything Hezekiah was used to and it was much more compact, but despite that, he didn’t feel claustrophobic or a need to hide away because they were still spread out enough. It didn’t impede or otherwise both what had long been ingrained into him. “I mean, I still don’t know what happened to me or how I ended up… here—” at which point he gestured vaguely, not really sure what to make of the peninsula where he was “—but I don’t think anyone is missing me that much. I was kind of an… afterthought, I guess. I didn’t want to be there any more anyway,” and it only seemed right to divulge that kind of information to Kaena. He felt more comfortable in her presence than any other; he felt no fear of an adverse response or action in doing so. She had been nothing but kind to him so far. - Kaena Lykoi - 10-09-2009 [html]
- Hezekiah Finch - 10-09-2009 Lame post is lame. D: [html] Inferni had seemed to be for the most part a convivial place, if only in unconventional ways. When common activities fell along the lines of finding skulls and putting them up on pikes and making sure the wolves didn’t come knocking at their door, they were very much like nothing he had ever been involved with before. But Kaena’s words were a little bit reassuring to him, as was the fact that he understood that he was very much apart of them now, according to her. He knew that she accepted him, Mason accepted him, and for the most part he felt like Anselm had too. Gabriel’s opinion fell in there somewhere, but much more along the wayside because his recollection of the doggish-looking hybrid was fuzzy and he hadn’t encountered him since.
Regardless of that factor, old habits would be the hardest to break. He supposed that once he figured out what exactly his little niche was, or something he could do at least moderately well, then things would be better. And Kaena was right — being there was better. He shrugged at the notion that maybe there would be less to worry about; time would have to tell. “I just hope that I can find some way to be helpful,” he said after a slight pause, setting his gaze on the ground between them. “I really don’t have any skills. I mean, I can fend for myself and everything pretty well, but I’ve never really found myself anywhere that I could be useful,” or anywhere that he wasn’t told to stay out of the way, for that matter. But he figured that much was probably obvious. - Kaena Lykoi - 10-10-2009 [html]
- Hezekiah Finch - 10-11-2009 [html] Awkward situations were the story of his life. It could have been hinged on his history that his mere existence in itself was an awkward situation. So it was no real surprise that he found himself fumbling over simple questions. “Well,” he said, letting out a breath, “I used to like to explore. I don’t do that so much any more, at least not here.” Not when going outside of Inferni raised the risk that things could go awry. “I’ve pretty much just been watching others since I’ve been here.” Mason and his fishing, Anselm and his skull gathering and pike making. Both things had been interesting and while the fishing part wasn’t entirely new to Hezekiah, Anselm’s tasks had been.
“What kinds of things do people here do?” he decided to ask as a change of face, hoping that perhaps something would jump out at him and sound like something he could do. If not that, then he was confident that Kaena would be more than helpful. She had already done so much for him, so he believed there wasn’t much more he could do to in return other than learn. Surely doing that would better his opinion of where it was that he belonged in Inferni. - Kaena Lykoi - 10-12-2009 [html]
- Hezekiah Finch - 10-12-2009 Oh, pretty table! [html] And this was where familiarity washed back to him a little bit; their ranks were nothing more than roles. He had never known any different, although every system had it's bottom rungs and those were of course, what he also knew the best. The creatures who were either jacks of all trades or had no skills and no means of getting better at any of them. The young, the old, the sick, whatever; that was where they always ended up. And then there was those who had more or less the pride that they prided themselves on, the skill that gave them a place within their home. They were the suppliers, the gatherers, the hunters, he knew them all too well. As it were, it seemed like Inferni had plenty of pieces and parts rather than an entire whole and somewhere in the middle of that, he understood that something had happened to make it all change.
But all that Kaena listed appealed to him one way or another, from the skills that he already had a natural inclination for to the ones that more or less came second nature to them. He smiled loosely when she nudged him, thinking briefly about what the exact duty entailed for the Imaginifier — no doubt in his mind it had something to do with a few of the decorative skulls at the border — but there was the more pressing issue of Inferni having come over the mountain that loomed through the cool haze to their north. “I suppose it couldn't hurt me to learn a little bit of everything,” he thought aloud for a moment, “but if the wolves are as much of a problem as they seem to be, it might be a good idea for me to learn to defend myself better.”
It had been stressed to him over and over that sometimes, those wolves managed to make it pretty far into Inferni. The last thing Hezekiah wanted was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had been especially good at staying close to the heart of the territory, where the chances of invasion seemed to be pretty slim, but today had been the exception. He supposed that today was just like the day he had been dealt the bad hand that had thrust him to this particular region, only instead of waking up somewhere he didn't recognise, he realised he could just not wake up at all. Letting a brief pause fall between them, Hezekiah drew his eyes to the northern horizon, choosing then to query about where Inferni had come from.
“So it was those mountains, over there, that you all came over? Why?” - Kaena Lykoi - 10-16-2009 [html]
- Hezekiah Finch - 10-21-2009 I should try to put you together a table with those colours because usually I can make them cooperate. XD [html] http://sleepyglow.net/souls/gifts/hezetable.jpg) no-repeat center center;"> “Maybe once I heal up a bit more, we could do that,” Hezekiah suggested with a small smile. He easily imagined that Kaena knew a few things about fighting; her appearance obviously reflected that and most importantly, she was still alive. Even Anselm seemed to be an able-bodied fighter in his own right and Hezekiah knew first hand that he had intimidation on his side. Either way, he would certainly be eager to learn from whoever would teach him something, because those skills were more than just important, they were key to survival.
As Kaena launched into a brief retelling of what had become of the Inferni that lived on the other side of the mountain, Hezekiah tuned in to the scant injection of sadness to her tone and features. The fire was months before his time and while it was no doubt something that had been seen for miles in all directions, he couldn't recall if he had ever heard anything about it until now. The feeling of losing a home in its entirety to something that could ravage it that easily wasn't something he could fathom, but he frowned all the same. “Did the wolves start the fire?” Was that perhaps one of the reasons why they hated each other so? - Kaena Lykoi - 10-28-2009 [html] Oh yes. FIERRR. -burns self- X_X "Of course. I'm not going anywhere, so take your time healing up," the hybrid said with a grin, her scarred muzzle showing amusement in her little joke. She wasn't a very good clown; there was a time when most of her "jokes" were punctuated with blood. Kaena prided herself on her knowledge of Inferni; indeed, it had been her Immunes duty as the Veritas to know all of it, and she believed she had filled in the holes relatively well enough in her time gone. Gabriel hadn't told her what had happened in the first Inferni months before the fire, but the coyote woman could piece together everything since the fire and their abrupt move. The Dahlian war had occurred because of someone being found dead on their borders, and the coyotes had been swift to react, hadn't they? After that, there was the trouble with Phoenix Valley, which she had arrived in the middle of. Things had been quiet the last few months, and this was something Kaena was rather glad to see. The hybrid shrugged as his question, not knowing the answer. Gabriel might have known—she had gathered that much from when he told her of the fire itself—but he wasn't telling her, and if he was not telling his own mother, no one would ever know. "Might have been. I don't know for sure. Don't think anybody does, really." The silvery hybrid didn't want to speculate on what Gabriel might or might not have known. "Sometimes things like that just happen, I guess," she said, remembering again the Californian wildfire Gabriel had told her about. The hybrid woman had not ventured that far south on the west coast; she had seen the shores of Oregon and the Pacific Ocean, but the hybrid had not realized she was so close to where Gabriel had been. Maybe if she had, she would have sought the place out. - Hezekiah Finch - 11-07-2009 I need to start us that other thread, grahhhh. *puts it on her to do list before she forgets again* [html] http://sleepyglow.net/souls/gifts/hezetable.jpg) no-repeat center center;"> The notion that things could just happen like that did not surprise him, but it did concern him. If the wolves were responsible of such a thing, maybe they would do it again. But then again, fire was something that Hezekiah had a healthy fear of — he understood what good it provided, but he also understood what it could do and as he had just learnt, what destruction it could cause. Either way, it seemed as though that fire had been nothing more than an abeyance to Inferni’s ability to stick together as a clan. He was fortunate enough to have not been in existence when it had happened.
“Were the wolves as dangerous on the other side of the mountain as they are here?” he queried, though he felt maybe the answer was obvious. The competition between the two canine cousins wasn’t brand new by any rate and needed not to be spoken of in great detail. Any coyote with more than two brain cells to rub together knew by instinct alone that wolves were a possible threat. They were, in some cases, bigger and stronger; coyotes were meant to be the smaller, more flighty of the bunch. It was no wonder Inferni had stayed standing as long as it had, given the concentration of hybrids it contained.
- Kaena Lykoi - 11-10-2009 [html]
thanks to james for the header image |