wc453
escape is never the safest path
Ask Iskata, Laruku had told him. The words of the fellow hybrid still plagued him even weeks after they'd been spoken, and no further memories or revelations had arisen since their uttering. He was Maluki Soul, according to Laruku. He was in a pack... Clouded Tears, Jefferson thought it was. Somehow, he'd been right about Cercelee. But how did Laruku know so much about him? How was it that the blind creature could pinpoint who he was in a matter of minutes, when Jefferson himself had struggled with such a concept for years? It wasn't what he wanted to call an identity or mid-life crisis because in all actuality, it was not. Jefferson had endured pain and confusion far worse than this. In the beginning, he had been more than overjoyed to have finally learned something about his identity--though that joy was appropriately stifled--and he had known for a long time since. He had seen Iskata at the harvest festival and wondered what she knew about this Maluki--who was he? What was he like? Or did she know anything at all? Something told him that Laruku had withheld some information, though the Tutela could not fathom why. Jefferson simply needed... to find out more.
He'd been following Iskata's scent for some time, limping a bit more eagerly at a painfully hastened pace, but the sharp pain shooting through his leg were masterfully ignored. He hoped she was alone, for once, so they could speak like they had just days after he had first entered the pack. He saw her a bit more rarely than he wished, only from time to time at this point and only when it had something to do with the pack. Decent, regular conversation with his packmates and leaders were rare... Jefferson had far too many duties to attend to now, with his apprentice to guide and the underling that he was supposed to be watching over, not to mention that what he was normally assigned to at his rank. He'd become a busy businessman for someone who had once been such a determined loner. He followed her scent inside, still aware that she was pregnant but for the moment belittling the idea. Surely what he wanted to discuss wouldn't stress her out or get her sick... those were bad with pregnancy, right? Shit. He assumed she was in the hayloft, but just in case, remained on the ground level at a distance and called out. "Iskata?" His eye shifted from place to place, but then took a moment to stretch out his temporary anxieties that had been building up. The hybrid stood tall again. "We need to talk. It's about someone named Maluki. I was... told you know him."
