I saw the sun

Larkspur D'Angelo · 05-08-2010, 11:25 PM

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Set in the Vineyards, backdated to the 5th.

There was a constant need to remain physical. Larkspur did not develop his brain as most others did—he was simple, and could not read nor write. His companions were few and far between, though not entirely by choice. Having never been raised to be social he was stunted and awkward around many. So instead he worked alone, rebuilding the home he had claimed as his own or working with his horse. Of these two things, it was the latter he was doing today.

They had traveled to the fields outside of the vineyards where Larkspur made his home. He had ridden out past the vineyard and through the open fields, alternating between a walk and a faster-paced canter. Technically, he was doing his duty to the pack—he covered far more ground on horseback. Between these rides and his travels east, the southern borders of Dahlia de Mai were rarely unwatched. It was late afternoon by the time he returned to the vineyard. Between several months of labor, a wooden fence had been constructed for the mare. It was here he turned her out, rubbing down the sweat and the dust from her coat.

Larkspur could finally consider himself content with living the way he was. He was surrounded by vineyards (which he did not eat, recalling their poison) and had a large home for himself. He slept in a bed and ate well. No one abused him, no one sought to destroy him. Perhaps things could be found in following Tak—perhaps the Khalif had been wrong all along.

King Chance · 05-09-2010, 12:55 AM

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(601.)

He could barely remember what he had been doing this day. The usual—walking around the broad packlands of Dahlia de Mai with little to do or think about. Ever since his father had disappeared, King had felt lost when it came to such things. He didn't really know what to do; he didn't really talk to others (as there wasn't really anyone his own age, and adults generally did not want to waste their time with being around such a young kid) so he usually had to go about entertaining himself. His mother allowed him to go off as long as he stayed within pack territory and if he was home at certain times of the day to check in. He was getting closer to that point of the day now, as the day was growing old and dark. He didn't want to go home yet, though.

King was slinking through the tangled vineyard, on the scent trail of something. Mouse, maybe—he didn't really know how to tell them apart. The lessening light was working to his advantage; the rodent would not know he was coming visually, and he knew that he was downwind. He inched closer and closer until he could see it through the dappled light, scurrying about in the undergrowth for food—just as the young wolf was doing, on a greater scale.

He was not very trained in hunting, but his instincts told him to stay in the shadows and remain quiet. The mouse remained oblivious of his presence until, the puppy lurching forward as quickly as he could, he was caught. King had caught the mouse under his paw, pinning its tail and hindquarters. The rodent squealed, trying to slip away and otherwise kicking and scratching and biting. King frowned as he felt the nips and scratches draw blood on his paw, angry at the little indignant thing. He pressed down harder onto his paw, transferring his weight until he could feel muscles strain and bones crack. Yet the creature continued to lash out at him despite pauses of pain. With a growl he snapped one of those scrabbling arms between two lines of sharp teeth before ripping it away. He could taste its blood in his mouth, salty and sweet and intoxicating. Then he lunged for the last time, ending the small creature's life roughly by tearing out its throat. It finally stopped its squirming and scratching and biting, and the smell and taste of blood was everywhere. King licked his bloodied lips, pleased with what he had done.

Through the red haze he could hear something above the general ambiance—loud impacts of what sounded like footsteps, but so much bigger than any he'd ever heard. Taking his bleeding and torn prize in mouth, King crept through the vineyards to investigate. When he had come to the edge of one of the thickets he saw the source, a wolf in his two-legged form on a massive four-legged creature that King did not have a word for. He looked in awe as the wolf guided it to a fenced area, getting off and then brushing the creature off.

Usually he would leave—he was not social enough to go about asking just anyone what was going on. But this was something that King had never seen before, and his occasional curiosity was brimming. So the boy continued to walk forward, mouse still dangling from his jaws, feeling small in comparison to the man and his tall steed. He didn't say anything, but his wide blue gaze was questioning enough or anyone to notice.

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Larkspur D'Angelo · 05-16-2010, 01:44 PM

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300+

Under his worn hands the sweat fell from the muscles of the heavy-set mare. She was, by breed, intended for heavier work—Larkspur didn’t know this, but he attributed her muscles to having more power. There had been other horses where he had stolen the two from. Most were flighty things, or brood mares too worn to work. It had been long months since he had been working with this one, and she had shown potential in her obedience. They were a perfect match, both unsure of themselves but learning. By now, the two had both become far more spunky they had been. Certainly, by nature, they fed off one another. Yet after so many months, he still had no name for her besides ‘Horse’.

With his back to the low fence, Larkspur was focused only on the horse. By this time, he was hunched over, scraping sweat from the mare’s leg. It was her whinny, a low noise and a jerk of the head that made him stand. Standing behind the fence was a boy about the age of his nephew. Immediately though, he recognized whose child that was. He had seen the boy before as a child, when his mother had held him against the coyotes. She had certainly done her duty in raising the child—he was growing into an impressive figure.

It was the eyes that betrayed his blood, above all else. That phosphorescent blue that burned against a dark face, it was unmistakable. Larkspur’s own eyes, a much more full-mood mad Jack-O-Lantern orange, sharpened and focused on the young man. He took him in, the holes of his pupils trying to swallow the figure, and he saw the shadow of what could have been and smiled in a most peculiar fashion. “Well ‘lo, King,” the Wahrer greeted, shifting his weight to better view the youngster.

King Chance · 05-17-2010, 09:13 PM

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(420.)

It took him a moment to realize what the man was doing—originally he couldn't understand the attention he was paying to the coat and then he realized it was something akin to grooming. King hadn't really thought that the beast would need such things, seeing as though its fur was so short on most of its body, but as he got closer he could see the sheen of sweat that it had, and the grit and grime that had by such coated it. Why he was paying such painstaking attention to an animal was beyond him (he knew he would never do something like that), but it happened that it was the animal that sensed his approach as the wolf had his back to King's approach.

The boy gave the beast a somewhat venomous glare as it betrayed his stealthy approach, though he switched that blue gaze to the vibrant orange one of the wolf soon thereafter. There was an acuity that came to his gaze after a moment, though it wasn't until he spoke that King realized that he knew who he was. But it wasn't as if he should be surprised—he was the son of the infamous Haku Soul and the half-brother to the Alpha, why wouldn't this stranger know him by sight? And though the youth stood up tall in the sight of the older and more highly-ranked man (and he found nothing wrong with this, with his arrogance), there was something in that neon gaze that made something inside of him shift. Was it the vaguest quickening of fear? He couldn't tell, but he didn't like it and he tried to suppress it.

"Hi," he replied dully, continuing, "Who are you?" As he looked at him longer, he realized that the black-and-white male was familiar, though in the darker parts of his memories. When the coyotes had tracked down him and his mother outside of the territory, he was one of them that had showed up to defend them. This gave the man a few points in King's book, though he did not remember his name. King's electric blue eyes looked over to the beast that stood behind the Wahrer, and he couldn't help but ask, "What is that?" He had seen them around Dahlia de Mai, sure, but he had never actually asked anyone what they were called, or what they were for. He was fairly certain that they were not for eating, which made King wonder what their use was at all.

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Larkspur D'Angelo · 05-22-2010, 11:33 PM

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300+

There was the shadow of evil in the child. He was a creature who had not merely been born, but formed out of his father’s need for an heir. The elder boys—the violet eyed alpha and his fat brother (whom Larkspur had seen in passing, and saw no more of after that)—were imperfect. They had been made accidentally, from love and from passion. King was different. He would always been different, though Larkspur did not know if the child yet understood this. Yet looking into his eyes, eyes which were far too intelligent for his age, the D’Angelo did not doubt he would come to know truth in his time.

Soon, but not yet. One hand traced the firm line of the horses skull, following it up to the widow’s peak formed under a thick forelock. He took better care of the horse’s appearance then he did his own, but the wolf could not be blamed for such things. In his mind, he would always look terrible. Until he was cleansed and all was made right. Soon, but not yet. “Larkspur. I’m a friend of yer father’s,” he added, though he did not believe that Haku had friends. He had tools. He had enemies. He had those who were also bound in shadow and sin. Not friends. Still, Larkspur was simple. He could not explain this beyond such a basic word.

“This,” he continued, combing his nails through the mare’s forelock. “, is a horse. You ride ‘em, and can use ‘em to carry things. Don’t s’pect y’d git good eatin’ out of ‘em, though.” Even now, he instinctually knew better then to attack a horse. They were larger and far more dangerous then any deer. He would take his chances with white-tails and smaller, less dangerous food sources.

King Chance · 05-25-2010, 01:20 AM

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(344.)

King wondered how much training those animals had to go through to be able to be so close to wolves. Sure, they would not hunt and eat them (even though the thought had crossed the puppy's mind once or twice already), but still—they were predators and they were prey-animals. The kid almost half-expected the creature to bolt as the older wolf dusted its neck off, but still it was there. He had to say that he was impressed with the animal's composure; it was so much more impressive than lesser animals, like rodents and deer and the like.

The wording of the man's introduction definitely caused a quizzical look to come to King's eye—he knew that the word 'friend' did not really fit congruently with his father, but he understood what he meant. So this was him, the mythical Larkspur. "Oh. Harlowe is looking for you, Larkspur," he said as a reply to the introduction. He had spent several hours walking haphazardly through Dahlia de Mai with the other child, hoping to find him. It was certainly ironic that he had found him now, but that was certainly beside the point. He transferred his blue gaze to the animal—the horse, as the wolf elaborated—and tilted his head to the side slightly. Even though he could see that it was useful for riding or transportation, as he could imagine, King couldn't help but think that it'd be even more useful for food. So when he eventually said, "I guess," he was really just imagining how long one horse could last... If a deer could give several days' of food, a horse could probably last a few weeks.

"So, uh," he said, returning his gaze to Larkspur's sharp orange eyes, "How do you know my dad?" The boy's blue eyes conveyed that he would rather go past the fact that he had just known him as the past Rosen—he wanted to know if Larkspur was anything of interest to Haku Soul, and whether he should be anything special to King Chance.

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Larkspur D'Angelo · 06-08-2010, 09:59 AM

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What it actually took to train and break a horse was beyond Larkspur. He had stolen the mare from another Luperci and worked with her since then. Though amateur at best when it came to dealing with the horse, the two had learned how to work together and thus thrived as best they could. Misery had a great deal of credit as far as this, having taught him how to ride and care for the mare.

He saw the expression on the boy’s face and smiled thinly, knowing fully well that Haku did not so much have friends as he had…well, who knew what he had. Were he educated like the boy he would have known such terms as ‘accessory’ and ‘accomplice’, but Larkspur was simple. He had been raised deep in the mountains by simple occidental folk, who knew as little about the outside world as they did about the truth to why the sun rose and fell.

The boy had come. This made Larkspur glad, in a small way. He had made the starting mark. He had gotten his claws in. All he had to do now was rip out everything false and his work would be done. “We met before I joined here,” he explained, going back to the task at hand. “We’re…we’re similar, I ‘spect,” Larkspur struggled, unable to communicate what he understood in his soul.

King Chance · 06-26-2010, 09:17 PM

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(318.)

After having looked for this man with Harlowe for several hours a few days ago, King was scrutinizing him—trying to find why Harlowe had been so interested in the first place. Sure, King's friend had admitted that it was family things that he had wanted to talk to Larkspur about, but he suspected there was something else. There was something in the scarred man's demeanor that did remind him of his father, and that was something respectable in the eerie blue eyes of the youth. Perhaps it was ironic that he didn't know that Larkspur's intentions with Harlowe were strangely similar to what Haku planned to do with King. Those parallels were invisible to him in the grand scheme of things, but he could tell similarities in separate energies of all the characters involved.

The boy watched Larkspur as he explained how he knew Haku, and King nodded; the explanation was satisfactory for him. "I can understand that," he said in a confident tone. He could feel it in their energies—they were both quiet, not loud like others. But it was quiet in a dangerous way, the way that others would underestimate and then get hurt by. King personally thought that there was a churning chaos beneath the energy of his father, but he did not know or had been around Larkspur long enough to know what lay beneath the silence of his demeanor.

King blinked, looking down to break these thoughts and then looking up to the horse. It was a mighty beast, though it seemed so docile in the handling of the Luperci. He wondered why the tremendous creature—who must weigh several times what Larkspur did—did as the werewolf commanded. So he asked, "Why does it do what you say? And why doesn't it run? You could easily turn on it and attack... and, then again, it could just step on you."

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Larkspur D'Angelo · 06-29-2010, 11:46 AM

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Sorry this is short :[

Boys were impressionable things. This was why Harlowe had been chosen. This was why King had been chosen. Men made their immortality by impressing themselves on their sons, living through them and living forever if they could so manage. The mother, in this equation, did much the same—save her bond was stronger and always would be. A child belonged to his mother long before his father. Yet King, who spoke eloquently and did not fidget as most boys did, was certainly his father’s son.

Larkspur knew in his heart that Haku wanted it that way, and smiled. The boy spoke of the mare, who had not fully relaxed around this new scent, and the scarred man patted the great beast’s neck. “If y’get ‘em young, it probably ain’t much dif’rent from trainin’ a boy. I d’know how this one was raised,” he added, not feeling as if explaining how he acquired the beast was necessary. “, but I s’pect that might be it. Besides, I’d rather kill somethin’ stupid then somethin’ I can use.”

King Chance · 07-08-2010, 10:57 PM

Sorry this is late! D:
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The explanation that Larkspur offered was sound in King's mind—though he probably wouldn't notice any parallels with how this man treated Harlowe or how his own father treated himself until later, if at all. It was all about how other things and other creatures could be useful to someone. If something was better off dead for him—such as any food—it would be so. If something was useful alive more than it could be dead, it was used—such as Larkspur's horse, or (though he didn't know of it) King himself, at the moment. The youth's blue eyes were fixated on the face of the mare, wondering if she knew how close she could've been to being dinner. Maybe she knew that, and maybe that's why she did what Larkspur said. Hm.

After a long, silent moment, King nodded. The puppy was not very good at conversation; he had not exactly been very well-socialized with other kids and adults. But as he switched his blue gaze over to the scarred Larkspur, he found a childish part of him craving information that he might only get from this man—a supposed friend of his father's. King rarely gave into such impulses, as he hated to appear immature (regardless of if he was or not), but before he knew it the words had slipped from his lips, "Do you know where my dad went?" There was a boyish timbre to his voice that rarely existed there, and it made him somewhat ashamed. But his father was gone and everyone seemed a little dodgy when he asked. He just got this feeling that Larkspur would tell him the truth.

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Larkspur D'Angelo · 07-08-2010, 11:28 PM

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Wrap this up soon? Though we should have them hang out some more. Big Grin

It was no so bad to be lacking social norms. Certainly it presented problems, though, of this he had no doubt. Larkspur himself was a creature who was not destined to live among others. He was blackened and wrong and without any useful skills outside of instinctual—and yet here he was, one of the highest ranking members in a pack he had sworn nothing to. Haku alone had held his loyalty, and with Haku gone, all that kept him here was that faint idea that something had to give. The world had changed, and it would change again. This was the way of all things.

A frown crossed the dark man’s face, and he felt his scar twinge with the motion. “No,” he said honestly, though his voice carried no bite. “Fer him, it’s likely best that way. Yer dad’s got enemies, boy, and he’s got enemies everywhere. But I s’pect,” he added quickly, as if dreading he might upset the boy. “He’ll come when he means to. I don’t think anythin’ kin stop what he is.” While he did not believe Haku immortal, he believed that there was something so terrible within the man that it would not rest for a long while yet.

King Chance · 07-20-2010, 09:34 PM

Definitely. (: <3
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The dark youth's face fell slightly—if anyone might've known something, he would've guessed it was Larkspur. But it seemed that know one knew much of anything except Haku Soul himself. Maybe his father had planned it that way—if everyone was guessing, he could be in any shadow. King would just have to be vigilant, and patient. But as for Larkspur trying to convey that his father had many enemies without startling him, there was no purpose—the youth's blue gaze was as unwavering as ever. He knew that his father had enemies; he knew that he shared a home with many of them. But what the D'Angelo surmised with was something that King took solace in—he would have to trust his father, for he would come when he planned to. After a quiet moment the youth nodded, looking up to the man who owned the horse, this Larkspur D'Angelo. "Thank you, Larkspur," he said in his low tone, nodding his head. "I think I'll go home now." And, after goodbyes and everything were wrapped up well enough, the kid wandered away, toward the den that served as his home.

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