I don't look for trouble,

Addison · 09-20-2010, 07:21 PM

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The new packmember stood out behind one of the old barns, watching the herds as they grazed in the fields. Her sister was off in the pasture beyond, surely playing and entertaining herself in the ways that pups did. Addison was surprised that the young one had adapted so quickly to life in the Valley; it was as if she had always been there. She watched the form of her sibling disappear over the crest of a hill and she got up to follow her. She didn't like it when Grace left her sight. The little girl didn't have a whole lot of common sense yet, and she didn't want her getting hurt.

She spotted the pup playing in a small patch of yellow flowers, flowers that had flourished in the end-of-september heat wave that had struck, and sat down on a rock to watch her play. She was responsible for Grace and took the job seriously. She had brought Grace here to give her a better life than she would have had.

Addison yawned as she looked out over the fields, waving an annoying fly away from her face. Things were just as calm here as ever, it seemed. So much had changed since she had left, but so many other things had stayed the same. Her time away from the lands now felt like some sort of an odd dream that she was waking up from. She continued to watch the pup play, beginning to feel a little drowsy in the afternoon heat.

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Jefferson Soul · 10-16-2010, 04:02 PM

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Hi, I'm back. X_x Do you want to postdate this to make it more time relevant?

Addison's return had undoubtedly lifted an enormous weight from the leader's sore shoulders. The relief that she was alive and well overwhelmed the typically unfeeling creature; he had not known how terribly he worried for her until the second she stepped back into his life, bundle of joy wrapped up in her arms. Addison had left him and Phoenix Valley behind shortly before war raged in her new pack of choice, yet not once had he seen her then and not once had he heard of her. The next thing he knew, she'd vanished from there, too—and then reappeared in Phoenix Valley with flawless timing. With Pripyat to accompany her little sister Grace and Jefferson together with Geneva again, the brute could open his arms fully to the return of his adopted daughter without regrets she wouldn't enjoy her time back.

It was no surprise he had panicked when she showed to him the small child. He had taught her better than that, of course! His thoughts had first drifted to Geneva, whose only child survived due to miscarriage, and it was not until Addison exposed Grace as a younger sister did Jefferson finally relax. Had someone hurt his daughter, the brute might have throttled the idiot in the worst way possible.

He stepped from the ranch that day with the intention to care for the barn folk. Autumn's chill had crept its way into Phoenix Valley; soon enough the animals would be stuck inside for hours at a time and their foul moods would get the best of him. He hardly looked forward to it. Tattered ears perked at distant giggles and yips as he swung around to the pasture, eye falling first on the playful Grace at work with play. A breeze swept past as he strode quietly, hand in pocket, to his daughter's side and joined her in quiet observation. "She reminds me of you," he said plainly, a slight smile at his scarred features. "Spunky. Wouldn't be surprised if she leaves us for a pack at war when she grows up, too. I figure it's a family trait, since I didn't give that to you."

Addison · 10-17-2010, 08:54 PM

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Grace has a player, now, so I dunno if I can post date it too much :3 Would probably be all right.

"I didn't realize that they were at war when I joined 'em. I was just focused on getting what I wanted" She said, clearing her throat. Jefferson had approached her rather quietly, but her ears had caught the subtle crunching sounds of his paws on the grass and gravel behind her just before he had spoken. "I took off during the fighting, actually. I didn't really care about Dahlia itself." Addison was honest, in the least. She would tell him the truth. "This is the only pack that ever really mattered. Where my family was at, and all."

She wondered at what he said about Grace being like that. Surely she wasn't that bad. "Was I that much of a picky eater?" She asked, laughing. She was having a hard time getting the pup to accept any meat; she just wanted to drink milk. "I haven't run into that uh...Pripyat, yet. And haven't found any good lookin' guys, either. Two things I was looking forward to when I came back" She joked.

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Jefferson Soul · 10-29-2010, 02:14 PM

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"What you wanted?" the cyclops cocked a brow and pointed a fixed eye on her, his tone dark yet inquisitive. Dahlia de Mai had never been a place of peace until Haku's son took over—and since then, he'd heard hardly a peep from the neighboring pack. Had there been a creature of interest his adopted daughter had followed so whimsically to that dangerous pack, endured a war for? Had that creature been so horrid and selfish to not refuse her, not guide her back to her home, where it was safe?

Jefferson could have throttled the jackass, had he just gotten the chance. He considered it still.

She had escaped amidst the war and destruction, and silently her father breathed a long sigh of relief. Had she been forever scarred due to his half-brother's wicked antics against Inferni, the Patriarch would have been beside himself with rage. She spoke of Phoenix Valley as home and a smile played at his lips. Why had he smiled so much lately? It worked at the muscles in his face in ways they never had been moved, as if, quite possibly, he had never had so much worth smiling for in such little time. Such sentimentalities, Jefferson decided, were worthless to dawdle on about. "Pripyat has been sticking with his mother, but he's getting older now. You'll find him around soon enough." When it came to her comment of attractive males, the cyclops simply scowled and cleared his throat. As much as he loved Phoenix Valley, he doubted any male gaining his approval to sleaze about his daughter.

Addison · 11-03-2010, 07:58 PM

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Jefferson = Simba from The Lion King 2 XD

"New experiences and all that. A different way of life. I was young and reckless...thought I could do everything and never get hurt" She explained. Now she knew better. Addison had been in a few smaller fights since leaving 'Souls, but nothing too big. There had been loners everywhere and she'd had to protect a kill or chase off a wild animal to protect Grace.

"I like to think I've gotten smarter now, though, Dad. Grown up a bit. And that's good to know about Pripyat...I guess you're right, I'll meet up with him later." He hadn't answered her joke about the attractive males, but that was alright. The girl simply grinned back at him, enjoying the uncomfortable air that she had put on the conversation.

Addison didn't mind uncomfortable conversations in the least; she wasn't a wolf that was easily embarrassed, and enjoyed joking around with others. "How has running the pack been going since I left? I haven't come across many wolves, actually, which I for one think is really weird" She said.

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Jefferson Soul · 11-06-2010, 03:31 PM

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In his eyes she was still the little ball of fluff, the little toddler he had found in the snow amidst that terrible storm of the winter. She was still his daughter, the thing he'd never known how to raise, the thing that had taught him to be a father in time for Pripyat's eventual arrival. Addison referred to herself as only once young and reckless, but the girl had never shifted from such in her father's careful eye. Compared to he, the girl was stilll as youthful and crazed as she had been as a frolicking pup chasing squirrels and nipping at his ankles.

But she, even before he, had grasped and understood she'd grown up some. He hated to believe it, even as she cradled that pup in her arms or watched it with a maternal eye as it moved about in the dirt. She had grown and she embraced that growth. He, however, could not. "You... don't have to grow too fast," Jefferson mumbled, though his shallow eye lingered on Grace instead. He said nothing more, not sure what else to say; she was his daughter still and would be forever, but the more she drifted from his grasp, the more he desired to hold her tighter. She had disappeared. Ty had gone as well, and for some time Geneva and he had been separated. His eye dwelt still on the ground. Even when he had fought off every living being and multiplied his scars, years ago before Phoenix Valley had even been remotely close in his future, he had never felt quite so alone.

The brute swallowed a lump in his throat, cleared it, and raised his head high. "Quiet," he said simply. "Many have come and gone. The pack changes a little everyday, but mostly they keep to themselves. It's strange." His eye thinned. Strange, indeed, for a pack of united loonies and dreamers who could not surround themselves with anyone else... himself included.

Addison · 11-06-2010, 04:29 PM

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She knew that he worried about her. Why wouldn't he, with all the trouble that she had gotten herself into over the years? She was beginning to think that things like that ran in the family...maybe it was the D'Angelo in her that made her so prone to such behavior. Grace was starting to get into trouble a little bit as she grew. She seemed to like getting into trouble, liked seeing what Addison's reactions to her antics would be.

She continued to watch the young one grow, nodding at Jefferson's reply about the pack. They did seem like they were pretty reclusive. Grace and Pripyat probably got bored, with all the adults holing themselves up. Soon they would be adults themselves, though, before she knew it. Every wolf was a pup at some point, she thought, as she looked back up at Jefferson. "What were things like when you were little? Where did you live?"

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Jefferson Soul · 11-06-2010, 08:05 PM

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Had he never told her? The cyclops turned his green eye to Addison quickly, wide in alarm, before his gaze became stony and glared elsewhere just as suddenly. Was it that he had simply neglected to tell her of his own past, or was it a silent decision he had made somewhere in her childhood? She had been no more than a youth when she'd left; there had never been time nor instance worth such a discussion before, but now she had returned matured and older. Was it worth even knowing? His past, his empty stories were worth nothing. She'd learn nothing from them. She'd learn only that her father was just the shell of a monster—a monster that, somehow, had been born completely innocent and just went wrong somewhere on the way.

He turned his shoulder to her, gazing his blazing eye over the territory instead. "I was born in a place that burnt down," he started, a hiss in his tone. A pause. "Clouded Tears. My grandmother was one of the pack's greatest and longest leaders. My mother and father were her subleaders. I was the eldest of five." Put that way, the creature known as Maluki sounded like some sort of royal lineage. What had happened to him? The boy had been born into such a fortunate place, surrounded by love and safety. His grandmother had been his idol, his father his guardian. One by one, they'd all left him behind. Ceres died—Laruku had said Maluki was devastated by her death, and understandably so. Jefferson's first gaze upon Cercelee had shocked memories into his head he didn't understand, recollections of a ghostly woman she resembled that he could not recognize in the least. Acid disappeared, and Laruku with him. Most of his siblings vanished, died, or left. Before his mother could go too, Maluki had left himself. He never returned.

"It was happy there," he said, cutting himself short. Jefferson knew this only because that was what he had been told. The memories, the names he held in his brain of these people that he'd once held so dear—or so it was said—he knew only because they had been put there in conversation. His entire past might have been constructed by Laruku, Iskata, Haku. He didn't know. He didn't care. "That's all I know," he said finally, conclusively. She would have more questions, he would have less answers. He would find them as they came.

Addison · 11-10-2010, 07:58 PM

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She couldn't remember him telling her such things before, but her memory was pretty spotty. Addi didn't have the best long term memory, only able to hold onto bits and pieces of things that had more recently occurred. She didn't know much about the old lands, the territory that had burned down...only what Sirius had told her about it and the wayward gossip she had overheard a few times. She knew that many wolves had died in that fire. Sirius and Apollo had been born in it.

"So you got spoiled, huh? Being the son of the alpha" She said, grinning. She couldn't even imagine Jefferson as a pup when she tried. The rest was explained quickly, and she nodded when he was finished. It was good that he was happy there. She'd been a happy pup in Phoenix Valley, as well. "I don't know if I'd ever want to lead a pack or anything..I just like doing my own thing most of the time. I was real happy living here as a pup, though, so ya know."

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Jefferson Soul · 11-11-2010, 02:04 PM

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"Grandson," he corrected quickly, eye flashing about as if worried for listeners. Had he been spoiled in his youth? According to what Laruku had told him, it was entirely possible; however, evidence against such a notion told him otherwise. Laruku and he had been in equally tragic conditions; while Laruku had lost his eyesight entirely, Jefferson had only lost one his eyes—but in exchange lost power in one of his legs. The two boys, supposedly raised as brothers, had grown to be brutally scarred, angry, lonely creatures. How could two boys, raised in a spoiled, comfortable home beneath the guardianship of an entire pack and its leaders specifically, have ended up in such unfortunate conditions later in life? Jefferson didn't refuse to believe he'd once been spoiled, but he felt no reason to dawdle on the thought.

"Spoiled, I don't know," he said, dipping his head. She didn't know a thing, it became obvious to him then. She was his daughter, and she didn't know? Surely it was his fault, somehow; he didn't speak of his past (or lack thereof) openly, and only a few had ever been informed. A number of those who did know, of course, had died or vanished: Iskata, Laruku, Cercelee, Deuce, Haku. Perhaps, just perhaps, the story of his past was as much a curse for everyone else as it was for him. "Addison, I'm an amnesiac. I don't remember much before a few years ago. I don't have a fucking clue how I lost my eye, among other things." He had no memory of a two-eyed existence. His vision had, as far as he was concerned, been restricted as far as back as Maluki's reign. His leg, however, was a different story. The Patriarch turned away, a scowl darkening his features, and relished in the silence.

With shame lingering in the green, he soon glanced back. "Leading a pack is a lot of responsibility. You've taken over guardianship for your little sister; that's only the beginning of it all. Running this goddamn pack of loonies has been the hardest thing I've ever done." Harder than murder, facing his past sins, or meeting his vengeful triplets for the first time. Harder than raising Addison, or saving Geneva, or raising Pripyat. "The least I could do was make sure you were happy growing up. You'd been through enough already." Including having me as a father.

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