[html]
AW, Halifax.
It had been exactly three months now since the fire. A quarter of a year. It had taken him that long to crawl out of the empty forest and further west to where the city lay in ruins. It was nothing like the Concrete Jungle, that ever-nameless slab of cement and brick and glass that he had trekked and picked over thousands of times. Here, the skyline was different, hazier perhaps. There was more greenery snaking in and around the grey, and he could hear birds calling even from further in the city. For such a lush environment, there had been a notable absence of canines in the area when they'd arrived; thus, the other wildlife was bountiful and the songbirds were trilling loudly in the early morning glow.
The concrete felt strange under his feet, but he didn't hesitate anymore. He walked along the sidewalks in the shadows of the buildings, wandering aimlessly for the most part, though he veered away from trails that had been left by others recently. Just because he had finally come out of the forest didn't mean he was looking for social interaction. He had just missed the smell of rust and urban decay, odd as that sounded. After Clouded Tears, he had spent the most time in the city, after all. There was a small bookstore on a deserted street corner in an artsy looking part of town. He walked through the broken glass of the door, but the tiny bell still sounded as he passed through.
Cobwebs lined the floor and corners and he could see his own footprints in the inch of dust he was stepping through. There was a big red chair in a dark corner lit only by a small hole in the ceiling. There was already a book on the arm. Without another thought, he took the seat, curled up, and started reading.
[/html]
[html]  iClaim! 
I guess I'll bleed in silence
He had no clue, really, why he was out again. War waged. The forests behind Halcyon Mountain stank of rot and decay. Lubomir had paced the borders of Shadowed Sun so much he had grown tired of the moss, the leaves, the smell of damp earth. He needed out. He remembered how Tristan had woken him in that blazing inferno, saving his life without knowing it. Sometimes, in the depths of his misery, he could see that such a death would be a condign end to his poor pathetic life.
But the sea... Ah, the sea, so glorious and restless, he longed for the feel of salt on his wounds, for the sand under his paws. He didn't know what to do, what to say to Skoll or Tayui any longer. His wounds ached, his recovery was slow and painful and most nights he would simply lie awake and tremble, shake, quiver with fear. He had given his word. And he could no longer take it back. Soon, his feet crunched the gravel and he could smell strangers. They smelled neither of Dahlia, nor of Inferni, Labyrinth Glen or Twilight Vale. Were they loners? Would they dare live out the war as such? Achingly, Lubomir shuffled through the city. Humans. They destroyed. They created. They killed and maimed and incinerated, but they also loved, showed gentleness and preserved wisdom. In the Old Country, such a city would be populated. Here, it lay in ruins.
Soon, all too soon, Lubomir grew tired and he longed for the safety of his pack. In this state, what could he do? What support could he be? He would be felled by a coyote at first sight. No one would be any wiser until it was too late. He cursed his lack of sleep. Was there a need for such alertness? No. There wasn't. But never before had he felt so trapped, so wounded, like a caged beast, like those the humans kept for shows, trained, docile, broken wolves who must have cursed every day when they woke up, who swore to Fenrir for revenge, who hoped one day to kill those who wielded the whip.
Lubomir had caught the scent of fresh shifter and followed it through sheer idleness. What point was there in going back? To find what? His pack, blissfully asleep? No. He might, in due time, go back, take a book and immerse himself in its pages. It would be a bittersweet comfort, such an escape, but it would be better than nothing at all. He paused and hovered in the door frame. He could see the other reading. One who seemed so literate, to alienate himself like that... What could Lubomir say to him? Had he not said enough? 'I hope that book is worth the dust you inhale here.' His voice, to his ears, sounded flat and dead. Like himself. Broken, shattered, left unhinged. Lubomir had been such a balanced individual. Had the war truly shaped him this way?
|
| |
[/html]
[html]
His memory had grown fractured and poor, he knew, and things that had happened the day before were slow to resurface in his mind. At the same time, singular moments from years ago still sat fresh upon his mind, always there, always clear, even if it had long since become numb to them. But there were other things in the past that did not enjoy such everlasting attention. He could not remember the last time he had picked up a book, could no longer recite the passages and scripts from long ago dead poets and authors. The book in his hands now was not something he could recall having read, but the words felt familiar all the same. They were pages of short poetry, modernist, playful. They were conservative in their description, but his mind drank the letters like water, as if they were the only things keeping him alive. He had been starved of these fantasies and romances for so long.
Laruku had always been easily immersed in things; his thoughts and memories were bad enough distractions, but a book, oh, with a book, the rest of the world melted away. He didn't hear or smell the stranger approach and was thoroughly startled when the voice came. The coyotewolf turned suddenly to the other, and his mind seemed to hiccup. Grey wolf, yellow eyes. Honestly, aside from coloration, they looked nothing alike. And yet, the association was instantaneous because the memories never left. In the dim light of the bookstore, it seemed almost like a dream, but he shrugged it away as quickly as it came. He still thought about it, but it didn't bother as much anymore, at least not on the surface.
Most books are worth the dust, he replied simply, his voice similarly empty, though not as bad as it had been in the months prior. He turned back to the worn pages. I missed reading, he continued for no reason, Or maybe I missed the dust. Or more likely, he had missed both.
[/html]
[html] Who does Lubomir resemble? =)
I guess I'll bleed in silence
The early morning sun heated his back and his tail flicked in annoyance. With himself. He tried to let the sentiment go and started studying the wolf in the chair. He seemed bigger and broader than Lubomir, but then they all were. He had yet to find a male scrawnier than him, though that was not saying much. To be able to immerse one's self in literature... Unwillingly, he made his way inside the shop and to the bookshelves, his unbalanced gait raising small clouds of dust and leaving prints. He could see them, bound beautiful and silent, their entire beings waiting to be touched, held, explored. He reached out and took a book down, a compilation of poetry which he flicked through. Modern. He found one he liked and read an excerpt to the wolf.
'I blindfolded the sun
with my nights
and asked the sun to catch me.
I know where you are, the sun said,
just behind that time.
Don't bother to hide any longer.
Don't bother to hide any longer,
said all of them,
as well as all the feelings
I tried to blindfold.'*
Passion coursed through his voice, and his eyes shone. But as soon as the poem was over his eyes dulled again and his posture slumped, showing where he had been wounded. Lubomir looked at the stranger again and sighed softly. Blindfold. They were all blind, out there, fighting their endless brutal wars. And he was blind to what he felt for Ember and Mew. For one a semblance of love, for the other something akin to pity. And for both the horrible realisation that he had been rendered useless. 'Tell me, stranger, do you blindfold yourself to what happens there? You stay here, in dust and books. Do you, do I... do we purposefully draw a green scarf across our eyes, so that we may not see the horrors?' He inched closer and showed him the title of the poem, so that he would understand the green scarf. For once, Lubomir felt shackle-free. Here, in this dingy room, he could pretend he was someone, something else. A learned one.
Poem is "With a Green Scarf" by Mircea Sorescu
|
| |
[/html]
[html]
He looks like Tsunami (not really, lol), Laruku's one truuuue looooooveee~~~ 8D
Laruku had never really looked like a wolf, but as he had grown older, the coyote characteristics showed through more and more. Likely, the only reason that he hadn't been mistaken for one more often was because for two and a half years, he had had the scent of a wolf pack on him. Nowadays, there was nothing to suggest in one direction or another. There was no pack scent on him, but there was none of Inferni either. He was a ghost in the forest with the guise of a lanky coyote. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen a real wolf as scrawny as the male before him now, and wondered vaguely if there was any blood in him that had made him so; some kind of domestic dog, perhaps. The hybrid had never really been one to pause so long on appearances, but he felt reassured in that the longer he studied the stranger, the more his automatic association fell away. They looked nothing alike.
They sounded nothing alike either, though Laruku was still captivated by the words and the surprising passion that floated through the air. The sun was too symbolic, and the connections and memories that he'd been fighting surged back at him. Red eyes passed over the title of the poem quickly before turning away again, back to his own pages. He felt silly sitting there with old feelings heavy on his mind; it had been years already, years. How much time did it take for a soul to heal? Of course we do, he answered, trying to concentrate on the present for once, We always have; we always will. It's an easy escape, and it's in our nature to survive. The coyotewolf stared at his book without reading, What are you running from today? For himself, he ran from everything, every day.
[/html]
[html] Who died in the fire? OMG that is so sad  (
I guess I'll bleed in silence
Lubomir knew he should, by now, be able to distinguish between coyotes and wolves. But he wasn't. To him, this was one of the taller wolves. He carried no scent of pack, so he was surely one of the loners. Loners. He tried to imagine them, a handful or shifters (and the black wolf, so non-shifters too), walking around the forests, between packs, trying to find some sort of way or something. Way, where, though? He knew, in his heart, that he could have been one of them too, because if he hadn't nearly died on the mountain, he might have bypassed the pack entirely. In his mind, this one had no ties. He was truly free. The fact that the war could evade him completely made Lubomir slightly envious. He thought that sometimes, he would have given anything to have kept his mouth shut. Tayui was right: his opinion reflected on that of the pack.
The stranger's next words made him pause and think. Slowly, he replaced the book in the shelf, but let his fingers trail down the covers of the others. He thought of all the knowledge here, of what the humans had written and left behind, and of the way these tidbits of knowledge had been preserved. It was the stranger's private library and Lubomir was the intruder. He knew he was. And yet this male had not thrown him out. He felt like laughing, almost. Laughing at his own stupidity, for this is what it was. He had had the nerve to interrupt another despite seeking solitude. He drew himself slightly in, as children used to do, to protect themselves against the monsters of the world. He appeared even scrawnier now and his recent wounds became more visible. 'I run from the mistakes I have made. I gave my word and now I cannot take it back. But I cannot keep it either. So I am trapped, I have nowhere to run, not in this state. And I have fled before.' His eyes clouded over slightly and he stared at a fixed point above Laruku's head. 'I fled from things that haunted me. Now, here, I have found them in new shapes. The monster remains the same, the face just changes.' Lubomir sighed and focused his attention back on the wolf. 'And you? Who haunts your dreams?'
|
| |
[/html]
[html]
No, Tsunami didn't die in the fire. It's about five thousand times more complicated and depressing as that. 8D
Freedom was a strange concept, and Laruku was sure that few people in the world knew what it was really like, knew what it really consisted of. Still, he was aware that by abandoning his pack (because honestly, that was what he had done), he had tossed away the shackles that had chained him in Clouded Tears since he had returned. The alphaship and a deep-rooted obligation had kept him tied, but now that the weight was gone from his shoulders, he found it hard to stand up straight if only because he was not accustomed to it. It had been almost three years since he had last had that sort of freedom from responsibility, and he didn't know what to do with it.
But even with those tethers cut, there were others that remained. His pack had dissolved, but his family remained scattered throughout the land. He had cousins and second cousins in Dahlia and Twilight Vale. He had a child in Inferni, as far as he knew. It was impossible to sever those connections, even if he had never really counted himself among the ranks of either family. He wasn't fighting in a war, but he was set up to lose things all the same.
The hybrid was a little surprised at how readily the other seemed to give away his secrets, if they were really secrets. They were vague and general and could apply to almost anyone, including himself, but such was probably the nature of many secrets. Dreams? He wished he could still say that he didn't have dreams, that his unconsciousness was nothing more than a stretch of darkness like the night, but that simply wasn't true anymore, and he was compelled to be honest. His younger self had sworn away lies but had been consumed by them all the same. Older now, he had long since recognized some lies as necessary, but simultaneously, few things really seemed necessary anymore.
Ghosts, perhaps, he said, Memories, people. Places. There are no monsters other than myself. But that was the most terrifying monster of them all.
[/html]
[html] What happened? :o
I guess I'll bleed in silence
Ghosts, huh? Lubomir knew more about ghosts than he cared to admit. He knew that after the fight with SteelRose, when he'd passed out, he had seen One-Eye and Frigg. He wasn't sure what to call it. A dream, maybe, a desire to be with them, in some better place? And, of course, there had been it. The voice, the darkness, the side of him he'd never known before. Now, with his injuries, he'd had time to think more about it. The grey wolf had no clue what to call it. He knew that when there was excessive violence involved, this thing would take over. He wasn't even sure when exactly it had come and why. All he knew was that it terrified him.
As did the stranger's next words. They sent cold shivers up and down his spine and he found himself leaning against the bookcase, his knees shaking slightly. The edges of his world were blurring and Lubomir knew that unless he focused he would pass out. Silently, he cursed himself and his weakness, his lack of energy and his decrepit body. He allowed himself to sink to the dusty floor, raising a small cloud as he did so. 'I do apologise. It seems my body is still too weak to hold itself up for too long.' Again, there was that faint trace of passion but it soon died.
Lubomir drew his knees up and winced again. Too much pain in too short a time. But what could he do? Struggle back to the pack? No. He rather enjoyed talking to this stranger. 'I read once, long ago, that if one stares into darkness too much, darkness stares back. I feel that as the days go by, it's creeping out of the chasm. And now you must think I am a madman.' Really, it was probably one of the nicer things that could be thought about him. 'You know, I do not even know what you are called. Perhaps it matters not. Names are like labels we are given. What do they say about us? Nothing.' Slowly, Lubomir fixed his gaze on a shaft of light coming through the window, and at the little motes of dust floating in it. Perhaps they knew true freedom. And brief lives, but that wasn't as important.
|
| |
[/html]
[html]
Oh, man, it's a long story. Here's the important stuff, I guess: They'd known each other since summer of 2005 and even in the beginning, their relationship had always been rocky, on-again, off-again, emotional and really chaotic, but for the most part, they were okay. Tsunami left abruptly and without word in the summer of 2006 to look for his missing sister and her children. A few months without hearing anything effectively crushed Laruku, who took up binge drinking. This led to him inadvertently killing a member of Inferni for virtually no reason at all, launching Clouded Tears (his pack) into war, though virtually no one realized it was pretty much all Laruku's fault. At some point during this war, Tsunami returns and rejoins Clouded Tears. He gave his explanation for what had happened, but Laruku was unwilling to forgive him too quickly. To complicate matters, Tsunami suspected that there was something Laruku wasn't telling his pack about the reasons they were at war.
Eventually, Laruku and Tsunami get into a huge fight about it and Laruku admits to having killed for pretty much no reason -- as Tsunami was pretty idealistic and had steadfast morals, they both knew this would probably kill any chance of reconciliation they had. They both kind of deal with this, and for a while, Laruku thought he was okay with it -- even when upset!Tsunami goes and accidentally impregnates a close friend of his. But really, he developed a really psychotic split personality that threatens to kill and eat Tsunami's yet-to-be-born children. Shortly after the kids are born, Tsunami and one of his sons are swept away by a high tide. Laruku spends the next year or so grappling with this split personality (Ryoujoku), but most of the time it seemed like Ryoujoku was winning and he was gradually losing control of himself. Ryoujoku does end up killing and cannibalizing one of Tsunami's children. Tsunami returns briefly, finds out, and tries to kill Ryoujoku, but is unable to when he realized Laruku was still alive somewhere inside himself. Tsunami then leaves again. Ryoujoku seems to stop manifesting physically after that, but remained as a voice in Laruku's head. More recently, even that seems to have faded away... o_______o There's a ton more little detail things, but yeah... I guess that's the gist of it. Feel free to dig back through the massive thread archive in my extended profile if you want to read anything, lol. ANYWAY.
Laruku had only ever met one ghost, his father, a crazy man who had given him crazy blood, among other more obvious characteristics. He didn't remember much about the meeting anymore, only that it had been unpleasant, and that Tsunami had been with him the entire time. It had been Tsunami as well, that had told him that his mother intended to see him, that her ghost did indeed float amongst the mists of the packlands and that she still cared. But the hybrid never did meet her, and didn't think much about her anymore. Maybe Tsunami had lied when he'd told him about her, maybe not, but Laruku was content to simply say that it didn't really matter anymore. His parents and the mysteries and lies surrounding his conception and upbringing were things that had plagued his younger self. They weren't the ghosts that still haunted him now; after all, he had never known either parent while they were alive. How much could they contribute to his inner turmoil anyway? No, the ghosts that wandered through his dreams were the ones he'd created himself because he had known their representatives in life. They were all the people he had wronged somehow. They were all the people he didn't deserve forgiveness from.
The coyotewolf looked on with an apathetic eye as the other sat against a shelf. There was a war going on, he was reminded, looking at the stranger, but it had nothing to do with him. He didn't need to think about it until the injured upon his doorstep, until his relatives and former charges came to him looking for advice. In another time, Laruku might have laughed at the other's telling words of darkness. The gaze that gazed back was something he had become far too familiar with; the darkness was only a mirror, and the gaze was only himself. Laruku did not laugh, but a vague smile found itself on his black lips all the same. Mad? Aren't we all mad in here? As we've always been? Red eyes looked over at the other briefly, We're born mad; we just don't realize it for a while yet.
Laruku Tears, he said of his name. He could not remember the last time he had given his surname; in the past he had avoided it for its obvious connections with the pack he had been born into, the pack he had led. Despite what the other claimed, the scarred hybrid had always considered his name to tell far more about himself than he might have liked. His name had been given among his mother's final words; his name carried the memory of the pack that she'd loved and that he'd loved to hate. He had given far too much of his life to that pack, or perhaps far too little. Either way, his life there was not something he would so easily forget -- it was, after all, his name. But he did not elaborate. You might be surprised, he said instead, A lot of people would venture to say that far too much could be learnt from a name.
[/html]
[html] That is so sad DDD: And oh god I love reading Laruku/Ahren threads, they all seem so... poetic
I guess I'll bleed in silence
Madness. They spoke so idly of such grand topics. Or maybe they weren't grand and only Lubomir's mind had made them so unbelievably big and scary, things to be afraid of. He realised that much of his existence had been spent in idleness, protected from the true facets of the world by Frigg's love and One-Eye's strength. It had come as a surprise, especially in recent times, to discover that this had been the truth all along. Sitting in the cold darkness of his den, he had slowly thought back to the days of old, when he had lived a simpler life. A life, he now understood, made simple by the rest of the pack. By their presence and their protection. By the absence of war. Lubomir embraced the ghosts of his sister and brother-in-law, not because they helped him cope with the loss, but because they offered escape to some other world. They offered peace and melancholy and a touch of surrealism. He had been happy, though at the time he did not know it.
Lubomir felt strangely at peace with the fact that this stranger ignored his pain. Better in pain than crippled. But at least he did not mention it, or offer help. The grey wolf did not need that kind of help. What he really needed was to relax and enjoy this... conversation? It was more of a demon exchange. 'If we are all truly born mad, how is it that we do not show it until a later age? My madness may not happen until I am so old that I barely move. And if by here you mean these lands, I can only be silent. I know next to nothing about them.' The last thing Lubomir needed was story time. Or having to explain about where he came from again.
Laruku Tears. And odd name, but then so many were. Mew, Ember Phoenix, Skoll and his god Fenrir, Gabriel of the chosen ones... So many names, so many meanings. And his own, Lubomir, love and peace and Varg, wolf. He nearly sneered at the thought. Love. Peace. What awkward shallow concepts. Perhaps it was to Laruku's advantage that Lubomir knew nothing about Clouded Tears. It also meant he would not ask. Instead, he offered his own in return. 'I was born Lubomir Varg and it is this name which I have kept. I do not know what you could possibly learn from my name, other than the fact that it is old and not of these lands. Two things I have offered already. As for yours... I find it unusual and nothing more. Perhaps that is what you meant?' The grey wolf would explain what his name meant, but he would not share the true feelings he had about using it. It had been shortened now, to Lubomir, to hide that he did not belong. He was part of a pack, yes. He did not belong.
|
| |
[/html]
[html]
lol, have you read this madness? It's probably why we have the weird-looking beret icons. 8D
Does a madman know he's mad? the hybrid wondered, echoing a centuries-old question. It seemed he had gotten himself in another conversation about the philosophies of the mind, of their nature and perceptions. It seemed like an ironically inappropriate thing to do, for he was certainly a madman himself regardless of the fact that the cackling in his skull seemed to have disappeared almost completely following the fire. Maybe such things really could be killed, but he didn't like to invest too much hope in that -- doing so was only an open invitation for the creature to return. If a child behaves madly, is it considered as such? They refine themselves to an accepted standard of sanity, only to gradually tire of it and return to their original state.
His words sounded scholarly, and it was a formal tone he rarely got to use anymore, what with alphaship obligations far, far behind him. The urge to laugh hung quietly at the back of his throat; it seemed so pretentious for him to say anything on the matter. Circumstance had too much to do with everything for such sweeping generalizations to be made. Besides, like most everything else in the world, madness was a subjective label, and unlike sanity, it was one that even society's rampant and systematic categorization could not seem to define. Lands are often independent of their people, but these people came from a wretched place. Inbred swine, he said of them all, of himself, of his children, Corrupted and torn by war, vice, and history. They had faced the apocalypse once already, it seemed; he wonder how long it would take before fire swept through the forests again, attempting to purge the world of what it had never needed. Madness, madness. It consumed them all. Maybe this stranger-to-their-past thought he was immune. Maybe he was. Maybe not.
In the long run, they were all dead anyway.
The hybrid took in the offered name and drew no immediate conclusions other than, indeed, what had already been offered. But the seeming lack of information did not deter him from his previous assertions. Names are like any other pieces of information, he elaborated further, You still have to know other things to make the most of it. A human scientist may value a rock from the moon for its properties, but anyone else might find it to be just a rock. I don't know the language your name comes from; perhaps if I did, I would derive more from it. I don't know your past or your family; perhaps if I did, I would derive more from it. I don't know you; perhaps if I did, I would find irony. Because whatever else may be said of names, they were almost always ironic, whether that was because it was awfully fitting or awfully unfitting didn't matter -- it was always ironic. Traced through a bastardization of one language he didn't know to another, his own given name could be understood to mean "rainbow." Ironic? Probably.
[/html]
|
