[/html]He rolled his shoulders and sighed, releasing his breath in the form of a white cloud sent spiraling into the wind. "I figured you might," he said, now pushing up onto his feet and turning clumsily to face her. As always, his bad leg hung in the air, the tips of his claws dwindling just inches from the ground. Ears twitching, he dipped his head. "There aren't many left who know anything about how I used to be. I don't hold back when I find someone who might, and that's not often." Most succumbed to the recklessness of their youth, he found, and few seemed to live a truly long life in their current world. Kaena, this Tayui, and himself—they were the oldest of wolves he could remember meeting thus far. All the rest that had known Maluki—Laruku, Iskata, Haku—they were dead. Until the day that Colibri resurfaced, if she truly lurked not far away as Haku had said many months before, Jefferson would learn no more of his former identity turned killer.
He had been hostile, he knew, but now withdrew it enough to present himself more properly. The brute had preferred to be left alone, but he could not let such an opportunity fall to waste. Now facing her, he noticed that she, like Kaena and himself, had also seen a battle that affected her eye. Whether or not it was blind he did not know, but it was the strangest of hues. Had that been a result of the wound? His sightless eye had lost all its color, resorting to a milky white he perpetually thought best to keep hidden. It was haunting, really, and Jefferson had enough trouble already keeping idiots from running like banshees away from him.
His ears perked; she'd known his family? Ah, but she did not say she'd known him, and thus his ears flicked back once more. His eye averted and he scowled, disappointed, even as she continued to speak of Jantus and Skoll. "I didn't know Skoll, but I've heard plenty about him," he sighed, recalling the summer day Jantus and his troop had stopped by and all the spiraling thoughts the visit had given the unforgivable sinner of a cyclops. "Jantus brought his pack and they paid respects. I guess the guy never got a funeral, but he was worth all the trouble." He spoke with a slight bitterness, suppressing the mild envy that warmed his chest. He hated to die and know he'd be forgotten, just as he had Maluki. He had decided, long ago, that he would never be worth remembering.
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