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sosuwrimo 914. Set just outside eastern borders.
The undeniable truth was that she was much too far away from the safety of the clan’s borders and the closeness to her children to feel even remotely comfortable where she currently was. But perhaps this long trek had been a necessary break from her every-day routine. Halo found it much too easy to fall into a rhythm she could predict. Days, weeks and months could be spent within Inferni’s skull-lined borders without thoughts reaching out beyond, but once the need to move away from the borders rose, she usually spent some time outside the clan-lands. With all the discontentment filling her awake hours, it was probably for the best that the head warrior could steal away from everything and everyone she had to deal with daily. Patience was not something she had a lot of, and it burdened the few individuals she genuinely cared for if she ended up storing too much shit inside without letting it out in a proper way.
The incidents at the new pack’s borders should have sent her head over heels back home for a while, but instead, the foolish woman had gone further south. Now, again, she drew in the unmistakable scent of the closeness of yet another wolf pack. It was extremely rare for the woman to venture south once she decided to exit the clan-lands, and the result was a little trouble determining whose pack borders these were. Normally, the Triarii shied away from pack wolves if she could help it, but she seemed to have fallen into a fuck-all mood, and was not nearly as careful as she might have been. Definitely not as careful as she should be, that was for certain. She did little to hide her presence, but made certain not to cross the invisible line where the pack’s claim started. What she knew was that Halifax was to the east, and that was that, basically.
Her lovely shaped face turned to peer in the direction of the long lost city, where wonderful and terrible things had happened. Where they could still happen, if she was to allow it. But no, her confidence had slowly been restored over the years, and the shackles that had chained her to the ground had dissolved into dust. She was the terror lurking in the dark at night—or so she kept telling herself—and did not fear her fellow monsters as long as they kept her distance and did not reach out for a cruel embrace. She had conquered the greatest beast of them all, and there was little left to fear now. Especially since he was no longer in the area. But, of course, she wished he would be. Hate had turned back into its original form of adoration. But he couldn’t satisfy her hunger now, unfortunately. Rich, dark eyelashes shivered with richer memories of the sinful night where the twins had been conceived, but the moment was gone and they were all that remained.
Very slowly, the pack’s name took form within her struggling brain. Cour des Miracles. Perhaps. It was difficult to be certain, for she so rarely interacted with members from that pack. She couldn’t remember the last time she had caught the scent of someone from these lands. She was accustomed to hostility, and there was no reason to seek them out. She appreciated Ezekiel’s new standards, but he had to do much more to gain her favour. Having abandoned his clan in his youth, he had probably destroyed her trust forever, but it didn’t have to be unbearable between the two of them. The fault was hers, but not in her opinion, of course. He had disgraced her and taken away her voice as his sub-leader, and he had let in common trash and allowed them to mingle with the ones that mattered. She couldn’t help but boil with the thoughts of how wrong this was. But the disappeared Gabriel de le Poer would probably have let the same thing happen, had he still been Aquila. That too, was a particularly sour thought.
She continued south along the scented line of the wolf pack’s claim, curious to see if she could reach the ocean before the evening’s gloominess set in and discoloured the world. A furrow had set in-between her fine eyebrows, however, for she knew it was likely she would run into a patrol of some kind at some point. It would be her fault for travelling so close to the pack, but she was curious to check out the basic landscape in the pack’s proximity. Whether it would be useful or not was another thing, but they couldn’t shun her for walking on free grounds, even if it was close to theirs. If she managed to throw herself into conflict, that wouldn’t be so bad either, as long as they didn’t consume her with a superior number. She was generally confident that she would outmatch any one-on-one challenge as long as she wore her optime form, and it added to the general confidence it required to wander about so far from her home. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why she kept going. Even if she was to turn back, she wouldn’t reach Inferni today, so what harm was it to continue explore until nightfall?
In her very not so humble opinion the girl was already becoming the woman she should be. She may only be a few months old but already she was an incredibly lovely being to behold. With short chubby legs and a body made for hugging. The four month old pup was a gem amongst the rough, a dove amongst ravens. By the time of her 6th month of birth she would be the first of her siblings to shift, of course she would be! For she was the Princess of Cour des Miracles, maybe someday its Queen. But for now she was still just a child, an extremely inquisitive and curious child with a lust for learning things and collecting knowledge. She was more of a loner than her two brothers who spent a lot of their time together and could often be found wondering the pack lands alone in search of new things to discover and find. She had not yet managed to dare herself to leave the territory in which she had been born to but one day soon she would, maybe when she had her two legged form and could better take care of herself but at heart Lottie was a home bird, made to never leave the nest and fly away on beautiful wings.
She would stay at home with her mother and father her entire life, stay with Cour des Miracles her entire life for despite her longing for learning it did not overlap with her wish to stay forever with her parents. She harbored no desire to see what laid beyond those protective borders, beyond those tall tall mountains in the very far distance. Maybe one day she would visit them to see what they were like but never would she stray past them or stay for any length of time. In her life she might travel the length and width of souls and meet all the different packs, all sorts of different people but never would they call to her like her home did, never could they breed the pure joy within her heart that her people did. Strangers would come and go but the spirit of Cour des miracles would remain forever so long as there was someone to carry on the pride and keep their name going.
The girl was wandering close to their borders, perhaps hoping to encounter some interesting people or find a fascinating plant or animal she had not yet clapped eyes upon. Being of only a few months aged there were many things he had yet to see or feel or smell or taste, all manner of things. But she knew the rules so far, she had to stay inside of them or face the consequences. Lottie was a smart girl she knew there would be worse things to worry about than her parent's wrath if she stepped beyond that invisible line, while her brothers, Skoll and Hati, sun and moon chaser, worked on merely being children and playing with innocence Lottie was already concerned with the blackness that hung in life, it had all started the day she had seen Caspa cut down the tree and end its life. Since that her mind had been working and whirling and she had eventually come to the conclusion that if Caspa could easily do that to a tree then someone else might do the same to herself. She was small and not very strong, pretty much anyone could hurt her if they wanted.
A flash of unusual color in the snow and black world caught her ever flitting attention. The caramel and chocolate woman ahead was terrifying in her beauty. The blade she carried with her strengthened this view. Lottie herself stuck out just as much as this large eared female in the white of the snow but she was lower down and less noticeable. Thoroughly entranced by this woman that looked so different from the Cour ladies Lottie ran to catch up so that she was walking parallel to her only inside of the borders. As she did she caught sight of a fascinating tattoo upon the woman's chest,
"Hi! I like your tattoo." She grinned up at the woman in childish exuberance, for all her smarts she was still as naieve as any other child of four months.
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sosuwrimo 958. INDEED!
The white mass of crystallized rain was friend and foe combined in the simplest of foes. Tracks were laughably easy to follow, and it was with relative ease she spotted those with coats draped with earthen hues and what not. Both black and white coated creatures were trickier, as the snowy landscape offered both of these colours. Most devilish was the white furred wolf, for he could with ease dive through the white, invisible unless betrayed by scent or closeness. Halo, of course, kept all senses open and receptive, as she moved through territory where hostility was ridiculously easy to come by. Her appearance alone spoke well of her coyote inherence, but it was probably the scent of Inferni that spoke loudest against her favour. Or so it had in the past. At a younger stage of the coyess’ life, she had attempted to fix her racist attitude towards wolves. Unfortunately, she had probably walked into the wrong individuals, because the result had been an increased hatred to the wolfish race. Not every wolf was bad, she was perfectly aware of this, but the vast majority had rubbed her the wrong way entirely. It was so much easier just to play on hostile strings. Halo was known to be a bitch, even amongst her own, so it would be completely useless to attempt to redeem herself with the wolf population of ‘Souls.
The child was discovered in the distance, and her first response was to put on her biggest, meanest face and stalk away. But once it was discovered that the small canine actually was a mere child, she thought fuck it and stopped in her tracks. How long had it been since she had seen a wolf puppy last? A puppy was a puppy, true, but she couldn’t deny the fresh rush of simple curiosity as the canine came to take a closer look. The Triarii was almost surprised to see that the little female didn’t run away once she saw that she was a stranger. If the coyote had ever found out that her children had walked up to a stranger wolf by the clan’s roughed up borders, she would have internally exploded at their idiocy and gone to chase the cold trace of any wolf that had dared to interact with them, friendly or no. But this wasn’t the case, and she was glad to see the girl come up close without obvious fear or suspicion clogging up the frosted winter air. The child kept a certain distance, sure, but close enough for her young voice to be caught by attentive coyote ears with ease.
Scarlet eyes were sharp as she looked the pretty little wolf girl over, but not with a similar hostility she might have received had it been a fully grown wolf trotting along her side. While she had always openly disliked children, it seemed simpler to interact in this situation. Perhaps she could appreciate the small female’s young age, for a change. The first words spoken were complimentary ones, and the Lykoi woman’s pupils dilated slightly, slightly surprised by the opening dialogue. Fingers rose to brush against the crimson chaos star above her heart, and she even went as far to offer an unexpected little smile at the girl that had decided not to judge her. That was the beauty with children, she thought. They didn’t mindlessly judge like too many adults did, herself included. How old could this pack puppy be? Oblivion and Amnesty were well fed and strong for their age, though outmatched by this one. Itachi had more wolf in him than his siblings, but he had been a runt, and it seemed forever since he too had been a child. It had been too long since she last had laid her eyes upon him, and it was sad to consider the possibility that she might never see him again at all. Traitor or not, he was her child.
Slightly disgusted by her sappy thoughts, she pushed them away and focused on this little wolf instead. Oh, wouldn’t it be spectacular if it turned out that an adult guardian chased after the girl and found her in the company of a member of one of the more hostile canine groups there were in the area. ”Thank you,” the belated reply sounded, after a few seconds of nothing. Ruby hues remained on the girl through heavy eyelashes, but she did her best to express some form of kindness rather than the hard, blood-boiling stare she was accustomed to giving everyone, everywhere. Tilting her head at the strange little thing, she crouched down slightly, peering at the unreserved grin carved on the pretty girl’s face. She took note of the uncommon hue of her eyes, and was reminded of the distant spring. Amnesty and Oblivion shared the same blood-red as both parents. So many in the Lykoi family did, and that was what she was accustomed to. There were always exceptions. If she wasn’t entirely mistaken, Zana’s eye colour was more of a weak, greyish purple rather than the traditional mix of amber and red. But she wasn’t certain, and she had no desire to check it up unless she was forced to interact with the rat-woman.
”Are you playing out here all on your own?” The Triarii decided to ask, sweetly, without revealing her true motive. She didn’t plan to hurt the girl, exactly, but she’d rather not linger if the kid was playing hide and seek with another pack member. Interacting with an unsupervised child by the borders was not a good thing.
It only occurred to her as the exotically splashed woman turned to offer her a full view of her ventral side that she could be a threat to herself and her pack. Childish dumbness had not skipped Charlotte Haskel, as it did not to most children, only the few, the strange and the chosen were honored with such a thing. Distant pools though did not let on to her new train of thought and the young grin remained in place, lessons would be learn of course and Lottie was always one to gather knowledge from experience. The lesson of death that Caspa had taught her still rung within her ears although time had dulled its sharpness so that it did not ring quite so harsh.
A small yet thankful smile was sent her way and Lottie thought the woman awful pretty when she did that. She wondered if she should tell her this as well, could it be considered rude? Her mother often chased her children away from rudeness with sharp warnings and nipping bites, impolite words would not be tolerated, if one had nothing nice or unoffensive to say then they should just keep quiet. Her hear tilted as the woman, the hybrid leaned down towards her and regognised the forced look of kindness that dwelt within her curious ruby eyes. It was often given to her by someone who was forced to put up with her incessant questioning over this and that and why things happened.
But she had hardly spoken two words to this woman so surely it couldn't be that. Unless this woman had heard of her reputation from others around the pack? On that note, Lottie suddenly noticed she didn't smell like pack, or even like wolf or dog, or the hybrid of wolf and dog that she was soused to smelling. It was something different, something lonely as though time was spent alone a lot.
[b]"Yes. My mama says I should stay home, stay close. But I like to explore. Skoll and Hati, my brothers, they like to play silly games but I'm grown up, I don't play silly games like they do."[/color] Her grin twitched and changed into one that was more innocently secretive and smug, as though she were better than her boisterous brothers because she did not play and join in their silly games, she was sharing this grin now with Halo in hopes that perhaps she could relate and grin with her too at the silliness of brothers.
[b]"I'm Charlotte. Everyone calls me Lottie but I don't like that. You can call me Lottie though if you want. You're very pretty, maybe one day i'll grow up pretty like you. Hati says that I'm ugly cause I'm a girl but he's a stupid head, he doesn't know anything,"[/color] Her tail thumped the ground as she spoke, softly first but becoming more noticeable.
[b]"What's your name?"[/color] Lottie hardly gave a pause between her questions giving Halo pretty much no time to answer each one individually.
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--
Had she ever been so ignorant? The truthful answer was yes, but Halo was unable to believe such. All children were driven by curiosity, but it was so dangerous for young canines to wander without care. Even now, this little one remained within the scented line of her home, but it was not extremely uncommon for predators to lurk so close. The russet Triarii should know, for the clan’s borders were too frequently visited by creatures with foul intentions. She would love to offer them all a proper response, but even she knew that it was undesirable to offer up trouble for the clan without good reason.
”You should stay home,” the adult echoed as the girl spoke, though the child moved on swiftly as they always did. It wasn’t in her interest to educate the child of the dangers away from home. One day, if she survived, she would be an adult and a possible enemy, and the coyote hybrid would only draw advantage from such carelessness, though it was not something she expected would last. Most wolves grew up with knowledge about general survival, and this.. Charlotte was too young to know consequence yet.
Halo almost snorted when the girl stressed that she didn’t like Lottie, but added that the adult could call her just that. As if a name was important. But, ah, Halo was forever responsive to compliments, and she was aware that no creature was as honest and straight forward than a child. She smiled at this. ”You’re pretty too, Charlotte,” the woman purred, crouching down to come closer to the puppy’s level of height. A short moment passed before the pretty woman continued. ”I’m Halo.” Had this encounter happened a few months before this, she wouldn’t have been able to interact with the girl. But she had given birth to a second litter, and suddenly it wasn’t so difficult to deal with children.
But some things never changed, and she couldn’t hide boldness completely. ”Don’t listen to your brother, he sounds like a moron,” she shrugged, rolling her ruby eyes.
The girl almost faltered as the woman, Halo agreed with her mother that she should be home but Halo didn't seem like she was going to make Lottie go home and that caused her to carry on in her almost relentless tirade of naivety. Blue pools dashed about this way and that as an excited grin lit up her face, her since upright ear turned about while its still floppy sister remained still. She was a typical little girl, assumed in her knowledge and confident that she had somewhere to belong. But at the revealing of the others name her mouth dropped into a surprised expression before snapping shut and her voice came out in an even more breathless rush
"Halo! Like what the angels have in mama's stories. Mama says that Angels are very nice people who have died but because they were so good come back and they help people to find their way, they wear something called a 'Halo' and it floats above their heads and lets everyone know that they are nice people" Her curled tail lashed back and forth now, by this assumption she was forced to believe that Halo before her was a nice person because she had a nice persons name! Just like Hati chased the moon and Skoll chased the sun because that was what their names said.
"You must be a ncie person then cause only nice people have names like that" She was happy to share her newly found knowledge with this woman about her personality, unaware that her theory was completely wrong and there was not a more nasty person than Halo that she could ever meet. In her far off future when she knew more of Inferni and the canines that resided there she would look back upon this meeting and feel lucky that she had escaped with her life and body intact.
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--
Irony smiled at Halo. Perhaps her white, wolfish mother with the tearful, silver eyes had wished her youngest daughter to grow up with the intact soul of an angel. Halo was everything she suspected her mother would hate, but it was a decision she had made a long time ago after having been brainwashed by the con artist that turned out to not even be her biological father. If she hadn’t been stolen away, Halo would have grown up a wolf in her heart, and she suspected her personality would have been sculpted quite differently. She would have been everything she hated. She didn’t want to think about lost possibilities, for they would never be real.
It was true that her name was the same as the glorious circle above a celestial’s being’s head. But if she was an angel, then she was a fallen one with blackened wings, rustling with the hot breath from hell. She was a killer and a sinner, and thought she’d do a good job at representing everything that was wrong with this world. But she didn’t loathe herself. She was formed by the environment she had been born into, so it would be just as right to put blame on others. But Halo nodded at this child—could pretend she was a nice person with a pretty name. The child was too young to be able to think anything else. She didn’t know that the adult before her was a monster that could snap her neck within a heartbeat without feeling an ounce of regret.
”A moron is a dumb person like your brother,” the Lykoi hybrid lazily announced, wondering if that would make sense in the child’s ear. So moron wasn’t part of the girl’s vocabulary. ”You seem like a bright girl. Would you like to learn more words that you can tell your family?” the woman asked, voice dripping with honey and sugar. She didn’t see any point in harming a child without reason, but she didn’t mind corrupting it a little if it was responsive to it.
