ice kept getting thinner

Vesper · 01-31-2012, 10:17 AM

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Word Count → 800 :: Longpost out of nowhere. Hopefully it's coherent at least.

Zalen wagged his tail then spoke of the settlement of the pack—adding a curious explanation as to how it came about. Brows rose in a mixture of incredulity and interest even as he smiled in amusement, and Vesper hummed though she said nothing aloud on the subject. Thoughts worked behind her blue eyes, though—thinking about the ghost that had led them into Salsola, and wondering what sort of wolf the dark male had claimed. At the thought of love, she found herself imagining Blind, whom they’d both met in Halifax…then shook the memories aside. That ship had passed; she had made her decision, and it was childish to look back. Instead, she smirked and gave a small nod as if to show she accepted his story.

“What is the pack called?” the tawny hybrid asked, tilting her head. She did want something to tell Ezekiel, definitely, but she also didn’t want to have to refer vaguely to Zalen’s group for less important things either. Who knows—she might end up directing someone his way to find a home, if he was as good a leader as he seemed and they didn’t fit in with Inferni.

The male sat down, still towering in his optime form. It looked almost awkward, but it also gave a sense of feral power, a blend of luperci and ancestral wolves, running on all fours but with hands to reach up and grab and size to wrestle down prey. She wondered if she could accomplish such a thing in her own optime shape, but she already looked scraggly and awkward in it as she was; she would keep to four paws when she could.

He brought up that point—her being luperci—and at his grimace she cut her blue eyes away bitterly. “Perfect—would if I could’ve stayed that way,” she muttered, feeling again the loss that her natural body held. Sure, she didn’t spend much time out of her natural-looking shape, but she was still different—or normal, maybe. She was normal compared to all the others, and she didn’t want to be after fighting so hard to prove herself just fine without other shapes. “I got in a fight with some mongrel wolfdog,” she said, glancing back at him; the memory wasn’t a pleasant one, but she knew he would want to know. “She had a knife and a large wolf friend.” Her slender muzzle dipped down to trace one of the multitude of scars she’d received from that event, both blade and tooth and claw. “Luckily, my life was saved, but I was still infected. I won’t lie and say that I still live entirely with the old ways, but—I don’t shift much.” She glanced up at him, tilting her ears. “Inferni—Inferni helps, I guess, because they don’t completely revoke their ancestry. They don’t parade around pretending to be civilized and wearing clothes at least.”

And so she was admitting her new ties, something that he had likely picked from the distinct coyote scent on her patchwork fur. He mentioned it then—but went on to shock her with her words. “Her kind”—something she had not heard for a long time. It was not spat at her like she was used to, but it was still shocking, she who was genetically as much wolf as coyote. She knew that the fire clan did not have the best reputation, either, but…

“Myrika,” Vesper said, blinking at the familiar name in the midst of the warning. “Oh, good—she’s—she’s really nice.” Had she a hand, she would have smacked herself in the forehead for letting her tongue stumble; the other woman wasn’t even around.

His voice softened as he concluded, however, and he extended one of his large paws. She flattened her ears hesitantly, still taken aback by what she’d heard, but slowly she moved to place her small natural-formed one in his to show her acceptance of his words. “You were the first decent-minded luperci I met,” Vesper murmured, and shook her head. “I wish the boundaries of species did not have to come between us—or between anyone.”

She lifted her head suddenly. “I want you to know that Inferni, while it has some violent fools who play to the worst stereotypes, is also full of sensible coyotes like Myrika and I. Just… I’m the Optio there—the gamma. I’m sure between Myri and I you won’t find much reason to fear the clan. I’m not asking that we be friends”—a wry smirk crossed her muzzle—“because you’re smelly wolves like we’re smelly coyotes. But I want to let my Aquila know that I met you and that there will be no unnecessary blood spilt between us, if Myrika didn’t already pass along the message.”

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