01-16-2010, 06:18 PM
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 Jantus nodded, his eyes intense as Rurik described the fate of his pack. So this man had been a part of Syemv, which had become Aremys. Surely, such a man would feel great anger toward the child-killers...but as Jantus heard him speak, he was shocked to find the opposite. Rurik seemed less perturbed than Skoll had been, which--given the meaning the older wolf had found for his life--made some sense, but it seemed to bother him even less than Jantus. Perhaps the ocean had different lessons to teach, or Rurik was a much different kind of wolf...but either way, his reaction was far from what the alpha would have guessed. He supposed things really were different here. He looked uneasily at Rurik as he continued, even mentioning a friendship he shared with Gabriel, the young son of the Lykoi mother (who he guessed wouldn't be so young anymore). Shortly, he waived his hand to move on from the clan...soon enough they were discussing the Pine, and then what he assumed were battle scars. He would have laughed out loud, but the moment of pain he saw on his companion curbed his jocularity to a casual chortle. Russian women, huh? He wondered how peaceful a place it could be if the females were so jumpy...that and the fact that Rurik's family kept a sword suggested that it wasn't a place to drop your guard, though if it was so, Rurik had certainly weathered that to keep the laid-back personality Jantus saw now. "Well damn, Rurik." He followed suit with the sailor, sipping at his drink to slow down the process of intoxication (presumably just to a manageable level). "I guess you should have. I don't guess the girls of the Pine would be nice either if you shocked them in unfamiliar territory, but geez. That's a pretty price to pay for an accident." He had to admit, he would have been less entertained by a standard battle-scar explanation. Somehow, that story seemed to fit Rurik's personality better than a border struggle or fight for dominance. He thought that he liked it better...it was awkward, the more he thought about it, to think of this care-free sailor taking major injury in combat. Not that he couldn't handle himself...some warriors didn't have 'fitting' personalities after all. Often enough he found good personalities with lacking bodies...all of the coyotes who had attended the Resistance clearly fit under this category. "So...first and only, though? That's serious." Rurik had betrayed a bit of his feelings in the momentary pause, and 'first and only' seemed a distinguished detail to add to the woman. Clearly there was history there, but he wasn't sure yet if his companion had chosen to make that distinction to bury the subject or to push it forward. He would let the sailor decide. Plenty of people had pain to deal with, and some didn't or couldn't talk about it. This held especially true for warrior groups in the midst of conflict...when the struggle was at its worst, people buried their insecurities and fought on, or wore the numbing armor of stoicism when uncertain of their survival. The Pine was not like this constantly, but talking through one's issues wasn't as popular in warrior-societies as clamming up and bearing it. Jantus didn't know how Rurik dealt with this pain...or even where this pain came from. He supposed he would know one or both answers soon enough. |