you've got nowhere to go but here

Salem D'Angelo · 02-14-2011, 03:31 AM

Open for anyone, though please don't be intimidated or feel the necessity to match my length. I'm a ramblesaurus who hasn't played Salem for a while and therefore needed writing space to flesh him out a bit. Anyway, additional details for the tl;dr, it's midday and he's in his optime form.
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Snow swirled around him as he booked it up and over a hunk of broken concrete, long detached from a building. Halifax dared to crumble in light of the horrid weather, but he could hardly blame it. Ice and snow packed into cracks that melted and refroze and melted and refroze did nothing to seal or patch what was broken. It expanded the cracks, it crumbled the structures around him, but only minutely. One could say the same had become of his ties to his past, though he knew he no longer walked where a fog could obscure him (though between the brightness of the sun and the near white out conditions, one would beg otherwise physically), where he could hide behind falsities and be safe.

But honestly that was apart of the thrill, the rush that he was seeking. To come back to the places he had grown up in, the place where he had been born, and like how winter had a habit of transforming the earth, simply to see how it changed. A quick criss-cross the peninsula had revealed to him that his birthplace was still thriving, though he imagined those who were there had long vacated. He had lingered long enough to pick up on the scents, because he had heard commotion from afar. Wolves were social creatures, noisy creatures.

But in the city, there was an eerie silence to be found. Not a true silence, because howling winds and creaking wood, mortar, stone, whatever materials; they made sounds. White noise was abundant. Salem ducked into the first structure that didn't look horrible, choosing the rundown neighbourhoods over the depths of the standing office towers. It was a quaint structure, a house, most likely having belonged to some elder type of man or maybe a younger one. He paid no heed to the pictures on the wall when he forced the door open, and he didn't pick up the ones which hit the ground.

Instead Salem chose to go to the one place he could see his face decently, one room that was always certain to have a mirror. Bathrooms, that's what his father had called them. Houses had bathrooms, houses had many rooms. And he had once lived in a house. But he had grown up and he had left home just like he had left his first home, something that had shone back at him through his eyes when he had found a grimy mirror. His rough hands did little to clear the mirror, though he could garner a few details from it. Scraggily-haired, he had certainly seen better days. Winter had thinned him out a bit, but nothing excessive. But his hair, his disdainfully long hair… Salem sought to cut it on the spot. But he lacked the tools, which without a doubt led him out of the close-quartered room and into the rest of the house, where he absently kicked aside a skeleton.

“Scissors…” he murmured, trying to think of the most logical place they would have been. Should have been, even. Scissors worked, though he found them clumsy in his own hands. But in the cold, with frostbite already tempting to nip at his fingertips and toes, he didn't trust his hands with a knife. Nosily tearing a drawer from a counter in the kitchen, he scattered utensils of all sorts onto the floor and started rummaging through them, never once realising how quiet the house was or how the howling snow was confined now to the outside world where it belonged. But the feeling wasn't coming back to his hands, either.

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Talitha de le Poer · 02-14-2011, 09:54 AM

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Hope you don't mind if I join! Optime form by the time she finds him. 3+

What was an hour or five outside of her home? She was feeling better. Her ribs didn't hurt nearly as much as they had once upon a winter morning. She lacked a headache, which was wonderful. After resting, though she hadn't really rested, she felt she deserved some time away. As her body contracted and slimmed, her mind took inventory of each ache that arose in her bones. She hoped they were nothing.

Off she sprang, dashing through the snowy Dampwoods, around fallen trees and over rotted logs. It was exhilarating to move at her highest speeds, air whipping through her fur and making it hard to breathe. Laughter filtered out of her cream-masked muzzle, her body taking a tumble into the snow once or maybe twice.

The trip took an hour on its own, and by the time she reached Halifax, she was slowing down. Her body stopped in its steps, elongating and spreading out over more distance. Two legs was simply easier to move about on in smaller places, at home or in the ruins of the city. She wasn't sure what had brought her to Halifax. Search for more skulls?

That was an idea. More skulls for the Inferni borders, but where? Her eyes swiped over the skeletons of buildings, searching for places she might best find one of the coveted craniums. The choice was a strange one, but she gravitated toward a smaller building, one that lacked a door.

The winds that had whipped her auburn curls around outside didn't penetrate the walls of the house she had entered, but there was something new on the air in exchange. A smell, a clear one, and a strange one. Her eyes narrowed slightly; perhaps she had entered someone's current home, but it could just be a strange coincidence. "No need to leave yet," she murmured, her words hidden under her breath.

She was startled by the loud noise of someone tearing through...well, something. Her black-rimmed ears swiveled toward the noise, crimson gaze searching for the culprit. Curiosity, as usual, covered her sense of self-preservation as her legs carried her to the offending sound. Was someone there? The kitchen was where she found him, a mottled mass of black and grey and whatever else that made up his fur. A stranger to her eyes, but maybe not a stranger to the lands. "Are you looking for something, little boy?"

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Salem D'Angelo · 02-20-2011, 07:37 PM

Not at all! I'm glad you joined, actually! And sorry about the minor delay, I meant to reply last night but I'm usually useless on the first day I have off in the week lol. D:
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Though he heard the footsteps as they came into the house, Salem thought little of them. He was confident that they weren't threatening, though there was always the possibility that they were in fact, very threatening. Even then, he was sure of his abilities and aware of some of his flaws, and that gave him the confidence to get out of that mess too. It had served him well once or twice in the past, but fortunately Salem had never quite been in the situation where bodily harm was necessary.

So when the young woman came to stand at the entryway of where he was, Salem only saw the smatters of ginger-fur and cream toes out of the corner of his eye. This also came roughly about the time he pulled the orange-handled scissors from their roost amongst the pile of other nameless and unknown utensils. “Not looking any more,” he said as he rose to his full height. Only then did he notice that while she was tall (slender, womanly, perhaps even beautiful), he still had a few inches on her. And she was a mutt mix of something, if build to markings meant anything at all. “And who are you calling little?” But he didn't think she had meant to sound insulting.

He would at least give her the benefit of the doubt, this time.

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Talitha de le Poer · 02-20-2011, 09:21 PM

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<3 Rest is a happy time for those who get days off.

He didn't seem particularly bothered to see her, though a twitch of unease appeared on her face as she realized he was holding scissors. Her head turned, crimson eyes still focused on him while she seemed to look at the home. Best to know where potential enemies were rather than be caught unawares. Though he appeared calm, her hyper-expressive gaze flooded with anxiety. He was, first and foremost, a wolf. A dark wolf, with some sort of strange and light colored eyes that could almost remind her of a face she hadn't desired to think of.

She smiled at his words, a faint and bemused grin that lit up her face like a candle in the shadows. An innocent, sickening sweet smile. Though he asked her a question in return, she didn't offer an answer. She stepped closer, crossing her arms just under her ribcage. "You needed scissors for...what, exactly? I've never seen them used before." She studied him as she inquired about the cutting utensil, ruby gaze darting over his features and pausing only one or two times to take in features she was surprised about. As she neared, she realized his eyes weren't golden, but green, and he wasn't truly a dark wolf, but a mottled thing made from darker patches. It put her unrest at ease.

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Salem D'Angelo · 03-04-2011, 03:25 AM

Sorry about the short, I'm doing this all from an iPod touch lol.

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She was peculiar, but not out of the ordinary. Salem had seen many Luperci in his travels, though there oddities abound. Oh, how they loved to be, no, appear different — but he cherished his plain and speckled appearance.

But her unease did not go unnoticed by him. "For cutting, my dear," he murmured softly. He opened and closed the scissors once to demonstrate. Not once did his gaze leave hers. "Were you in search of something yourself?"

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Talitha de le Poer · 03-06-2011, 11:31 AM

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S'all good.

Her guard remained up, but her curiosity was slowly tearing it away. "For cutting, my dear." My dear was always the easiest way to get on better side of the Lykoi's nerves, and accompanied with a soft murmur, she turned into a mass of silent admiration. He wasn't dangerous, it seemed. The russet fae stepped closer to the dark male without fear of attack. "I know what they're used for, silly prince." She gave him her title of preference; prince was only used to describe those she felt comfortable near.

"Were you in search of something yourself?"

The de le Poer princess tilted her head away from the wolf for a brief moment. "No, I don't think so. It was just cold outside," she explained, lacing her fingers together behind her neck. Again, her crimson eyes wandered over the rest of the wolf's body, searching for some hidden feature that might give way to who, or what, she was dealing with. "What's your name?" she whispered, one ear falling back against her skull in thought.

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Salem D'Angelo · 03-17-2011, 04:18 PM

Thanks for being so patient, in that case! <333
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She seemed to relax a little in his company, at least once she had assessed that he was no more a threat to her as he had of her. Being received warmly was half of the battle, or so Salem believed, and the fact that she chose to bestow her own little title on him firmly noted such. It appeased him needlessly, though he was also no more a prince in reality than he found he could be in his head. Still, he left her question go unanswered in favor to listen to her briefly speak.

The thing they had in common then was that they were both out of the cold, both hiding out while winter gave one last encore with such flourish and robust energy to welcome in spring. He smiled passively, yet with a knowing bobble of his head; he too had come partially in out of the cold as well. Salem longed for the creature comforts of something warmer, though he would take a drafty human refuge over trying to find somewhere else. To her question though, he went whatever riddled and old path he had taken since he had left the care of his father. “Oh, I shouldn't tell you,” he said, an amused glint in his eye. “You'd find it funny, I prefer the silly prince title.”

Still, he wondered if she would persist.

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Talitha de le Poer · 03-20-2011, 01:02 AM

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Kinda short. o.o Sorry.

He seemed to refuse the opportunity to give himself a real name, the amused glint that lurked behind his olive eyes causing her to wonder what he was hiding. He preferred her title over his given name, it seemed, and she simply smiled and gave a nod. If he wouldn't disclose identity to her, then she certainly wouldn't disclose identity to him. "Very well, then, prince. You may call me Queen, for that is what I will someday be." It was all metaphorical, of course. She would never really be a Queen. At least not in the literal sense.

She tossed auburn curls from her features with a jostle of her head, a single hand reaching out toward the scissors. "Perhaps I could help you," she offered. She'd never cut her own hair; the curls didn't grow much longer than they had already, perhaps due to the shape and way they grew. He appeared much more ragged than she, of course. Helping the handsome wolf might comfort the tumultuous soul that filled her chest. "I can't imagine it's easy to hack off your own hair without hurting yourself." She could be wrong. She'd been wrong before.

Salem D'Angelo · 03-23-2011, 06:14 PM

Hey, that's okay. I don't mind short in the slightest. I do apologise that my posts are really lackluster though, I'm having a hard time trying to direct Salem for some reason. c__c;;;;
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A Queen? That intrigued him very much, but he was for the time being more amused with her astute observation as to what he had intended to do with the scissors. He had never told her what it was that he was planning on doing. “And where will you be a queen of, I wonder? Have you a castle and many knights?” But then again, it was often the intelligent that ended up being real queens and kings and so on and so forth. And just like those fairy tales, he had often wondered if he would end up amounting to anything. So far, Salem felt he had achieved very little on the grand scale of life. His experiences were mostly low and insignificant.

But everyone had to start somewhere, didn't they? “And while I do appreciate your offer, fair Queen, this is something I do not need help with.” He had never cut himself, though there was perhaps a first time for everything. But if there was anything he had been blessed with in life, it was a steady hand, and Salem knew it would be better for him to wait until he had more feeling in it to try anything at all. So for now he would stick with conversation, biding his time until something else ebbed up, good or bad.

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Talitha de le Poer · 03-23-2011, 10:37 PM

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Awh. That's no fun. <3 Well, I'm certainly enjoying threading with you, regardless of lacklusterness.

Her smile remained, comfortable on her cream-laced features as she listened and watched. He asked questions of her claim to Queen, but she gave no answers. After all, it was merely a joke, and to tell him who and what she truly was made the use of her false title a futile attempt at hiding identity. Instead, she focused on the scissors. Unsure of any other purpose for the bladed items, apart from killing something or cutting other various items, she naturally assumed he meant to cut his hair; she'd seen others trim their fur, though she never did it herself. A step closer and she offered help.

He refused, though politely. "I suppose being capable of doing such a thing yourself is a valid quality in another creature." She had little in the way of personal or useful skills, and it was probably the better idea for him to attend to his own mane. Her hands trembled with tremors. It was more than likely she would have messed up. "Why cut it?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow. It wasn't rare to see Luperci who eschewed natural lifestyles for humanized habits, but she herself had never heard the reasons why.

Salem D'Angelo · 04-02-2011, 09:57 PM

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“Why not?” he queried back with the gentlest rise of his brow. All things considered, perhaps he should have been pleased with the fact that he had a lengthy mane of hair to deal with — others didn't and some were cursed to have sparse amounts of hair. But something else afflicted them, that much he knew. “Why do anything, really?” he went on to ask, finding that sometimes living seemed too bland.

Dying was at the very least, dramatic.

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Talitha de le Poer · 04-09-2011, 02:55 AM

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His return query left her mystified. Why not cut it? Why do anything at all? She'd never thought so abstractly outside of her moments spent painting. Crimson eyes narrowed slightly as she gazed at his features, pausing briefly over the sickening eyes he wore so freely. For a brief moment, she felt he didn't deserve to look so nice. "I'm not sure I know anyone who grooms themselves in such a peculiar manner; do they do it that way in your pack?" Perhaps his home had different ways of treating their bodies. Only Ezekiel had ever looked so polished, and even he had once appeared much more in the natural sense. Secretly, she missed his dreadlocks.

One hand reached outward, palm turned up as if expecting the scissors. "Really, let me help you." Usually, she would never have pushed her help onto someone else. She was far too selfish. But something about this male called to some primal instinct lodged in the archives of her thoughts. She wanted to help him.

Salem D'Angelo · 04-09-2011, 01:01 PM

She continued to make small talk, her light commentary on his intentions and perhaps even history humored him briefly. She was a charming creature for a queen, though he was ultimately caught been what he wanted to do. He considered taking her aid just because, but his primal instinct told him what to do otherwise. At best his father had imparted some knowledge of what women were good for, though truly Salem had misconstrued the good he had learnt long ago.

"This I don't need help with," he said gently with a smile. A kind smile, one that reflected many of the same smiles he had given as a child. "But there is however one thing I find that would require a queen as fair as yourself. Though I don't imagine you would care to consort with someone as lowly as myself. I make a poor gentleman, being rather stubborn don't you think?" He didn't allude to what he meant, but rather tried to avoid being out right about it. He wanted to pique her interest, he wanted her to ask him just what that one thing was. And it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

Talitha de le Poer · 04-10-2011, 12:58 PM

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Again he refused, and though she wanted very much to demand his compliance, she knew better. The smile that he offered was gentle, kind, lacking the plastic coating that Ezekiel's usually held; it was certainly different, and for a moment it distracted her. Crimson eyes wondered over how such a subtle difference could change the face entirely. Did she look like Ezekiel when she smiled, or did her face have kindness? Certainly no gentle expression could ever be found on a Lykoi's features. Not hers, at least.

When he spoke, her ears shifted. There was something he wanted, something that required such a...fair queen, as she was. It almost made her laugh, but the sound was passed over by a scoff when he spoke of his own lowly status. "I find that simpering fools get nowhere. Your desire to do things for yourself is commendable." The correction was quick, blunt, factual. She had never met a 'gentleman', at least not in the traditional sense of the words. Her associates were cold.

"But what can I do for the prince? Usually, I do not help wolves; I can make an exception for a flatterer." This time, she laughed. The awkward melody billowed out on the air in a large cloud of white fog, the expulsion of air causing her to cut the sound short in order to cough. It all ended with a grimace as her fractured ribcage ached dully.

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