Who can say where the road goes? Only time...

[Soran Aatte]

[html]OOC://Private, for Skoll <3. Sorry if you were waiting long for this, I wrote one before this and my internet went back on itself and ate it. Here it is now though Also 918 words

IC://

The late evening air was chilled, a delightful offset to the heat of the day, where not even the cool zephyrs that were still blowing through the lands, disturbing leaves and rustling the long summer grass, could take the edge from the heat. Even under the shade of the trees it had been bordering on uncomfortably hot, especially at the midday point, when the sun had been high in the sky. Mercifully the sun had now all but disappeared below the horizon, allowing the sky to darken to an inky black in the East, though the West was still painted with the reds, oranges and roses that the setting sun so often tinted the sky with at sunset. Small stars twinkled in the inky blackness, finally being able to shine now that the overpowering glow of the sun was dimming. Some listless clouds still littered the sky, trailing lazily across the open space, blocking the view of some stars and being painted with the same tinted glow of the sunset. High in a tree a lone bird twittered, calling the others to bed it seemed, telling them that night was falling and it was time for them to be huddling in their nests. Small creatures disturbed the leaf litter on the forest floor as they made their own ways home, working their way back to their burrows. A small crowd of rabbits sat close to one another, devouring the grass that peeked up from between fallen leaves and pieces of moss, having their evening meal it seemed. That was until one plump little rabbit froze, eyes wide with fear and proceeded to flee through the forest, rapidly followed by the others.

The reason for their fear soon became apparent, a slender black hand pushed a fern out of the way as a tall ebony wolfess padded through the forest. Soran had been planning to explore only her home, but had found herself wandering, curious about these new lands, wondering if any of her other dear friends had survived the fire that had ravaged the old lands. She had been devastated to find that they were all gone, only piles of grey ash in their place, she had wept for quite some time, the sudden feeling of loss had engulfed her, trapped her and she had lost meaning. But she had found Conri, her red son had survived and along with Naniko and Lucifer had come to these new lands and had started a new pack, her younger son Khaden, had also survived and was living within the same packlands. This gave the ebony lady the confidence to hope, perhaps some of her other loved ones had not perished in the flames as she had been so sure they all had. She was, for once being optimistic, daring to hope.

And so the slender fae had walked, padding through the lands with pointless haste, she was simply exploring, wandering adventuring, following the trail of the beach for a while, before moving into forest when she found it. But still she had rushed, wanting to come across her friends quickly, if they were alive she did not want to wait to see them, she had so much to catch up with them, so many apologies to make, so many things to make amends for. And so the obsidian lady had rushed through the lands, making mental notes of where everything was so that she would know her way back, but still rushing. Finally she had caught the scent of other wolves in this forest and now was following it, pushing past large ferns and ducking low tree branches.

Now that Soran knew that she had indeed caught a scent she found that she was able to slow down, her long legs taking shorter strides, finally able to relax and enjoy the scenery. And the scenery was indeed beautiful, tall trees stretching up seemingly endlessly towards the sky, so tall that the ebony fae had to tilt her head as far back as she could to see the tops, an act which caused the two silver hoops in her left ear to glint in the dying sunlight and the cold moonlight, now that that lazy heavenly body was finally journeying into the skies, a perfect crescent, stretched like a grin against the inky canvas of the night sky. The ferns were large, much bigger than the dark lady's hand's span, though they were fragile and bent and broke if she moved too close to them. Luckily the dark lady had retained much of the grace of her youth, though she was not as young as she had once been. Slowly the lady walked through the forest, following her sensitive nose, her jade eyes scanning the increasingly dark forest for any signs of movement or any familiar shape padding through the forest. Eventually the dark fae found the true border of the lands, the scent of another pack was strongest here. And so the dark lady selected a large rock, smooth but with a defined crack running through it, one side covered in thick green moss, giving the rock an increasingly lopsided appearance. She lowered herself onto it, sitting neatly cross-legged upon it. Slowly, the dark fae lifted her dark head to the sky and let out a soft call, a call for anyone she knew, she was so desperate to see a friendly face in these lands, to give her yet more hope that her loved ones were still alive somewhere. [/html]