[html] Oh, he had his secrets. They all had them. Whatever they were, they were worth keeping in the dark and never letting them see the light of day. Though honestly, his secrets weren't really secrets at all, it was just that he never bothered going in very deep into anything. One could theorize that in all reality, he wanted to blend in with the background but stand out all the same as something special. The diamond in the rough, the hidden gem at the bottom of the treasure chest. Maybe he was that, and maybe he wasn't. Sometimes, Laurel didn't even know what it was that he wanted. “Why not,” he mused at her thoughts aloud. “I mean, it was a change of pace. Not every little band I've been with moves around all of the time. We stop sometimes and for a while, enjoy the sights and then carry on.” Which in a sense, he thought would be what they would do here. “Folks come and go just like you and I did, that's just apart of the fun.”
Scratching at the side of his face idly for a moment, he took another swig from his bottle. There was a bit of an absence on his face and though he was caught up in his memories for a moment, he shoved it aside to pursue something else entirely. His thoughts moved on to the others that they had picked up to make their merry little band, and the smile slowly returned to his face when a certain someone popped up. “So what do you think of Laurie? I met him a while back, I think a bit before I met you.” There really wasn't much to say about Jasper yet, but Laurel looked forward to getting to know the kid a little more. He certainly hoped that Nikita would also do the same, though he doubted that she would acquaint herself with everyone just as he did. And if she didn't, then hey, he wasn't going to push her to be friendly. He never had and had no intentions of beginning. [/html]
[html] She nodded, agreeing with his words, while she stared at her hands. She often worked them — twisting them together and such — whenever not actively moving. It was a bad habit that she had acquired long ago, from a nervous compulsion of not moving constantly. She barely knew that she did it anymore, and those that had been around her long enough had mostly stopped noticing too. She lost herself in her memories for a moment, trying to recount all the places that they had been in the past year. Too many to count on her fingers, and that was for sure. Sometimes she hadn’t even really known that they had gone from one group to another — she had simply followed Laurel.
The reason why she did so was something she grappled with as well. She did enjoy his company, that was for sure, but sometimes she wondered if he did the same. Maybe he was too polite to ask her to scram… or maybe their relationship was mutually beneficial. She hoped so. She couldn’t help feeling paranoid about it, but mostly felt guilty about feeling paranoid. Yes, it was complicated, and that was why she didn’t really think much about it. She dispelled the thoughts quickly when Laurel spoke up once more.
Nikita shrugged. “He certainly seemed… enthusiastic about the idea and everything,” she said. “And he certainly seems like a really nice guy. Hopefully all of that will carry over and he’ll work hard for this new pack.” Despite herself, she picked up the bottle once more and took another swig. “As of right now, I think our little group is pretty able-bodied. And hopefully it’ll only get stronger.” [/html]
[html] “It will, it'll just take time,” he said in return, recalling a place or two that he had trolled around with to be pretty small. But the longer it seemed that they were together, the more folks they picked up along the way. Of course, they hadn't been stationary as much as he had intended to be in this case; Laurel had liked the forest enough to want to stay there, he just wasn't sure if he wanted to admit he wanted something a bit longer term. A chance to take in the sights, to collect more friends like he had in Laurent and in turn, Nikita. Acquaintances had a habit of being forgotten just like a string of lovers that had turned out that way. “Folks'll come and go too, I reckon there will be a day when you see something that catches your fancy better than wandering around with me,” and that being said, he felt it was worth mentioning even if she never did.
Or really, maybe he would be the one to make the split; he couldn't really say that he saw into the future like some folks said they could. Gypsies were supposed to be known to be the mysterious folk that were made up of people who lived off of the earth as it were and told fortunes in exchange for something. He had seen a few that had pretty good guesses (not that he thought they couldn't do what they claimed to do, of course) and once or twice had been entirely right about something. But he couldn't read tea leaves or do tarot so it was a skill of little interest to him. “Maybe some folks will come up out of the woodwork from before too. I mean, I know the group we split off of was going east too, but we kind of went all over the place. That's probably why I've always made a better follower than a leader, I just go… wherever. No direction at all,” to that, he not only took another drink but laughed. He had been rather aimless since the day he had been born. [/html]
[html] She shrugged lightly, staring intently at her feet as she twitched them without much thought. She was wondering about what he said — about someday leaving him, perhaps. The thought might not have been so alien… a year ago, but it seemed hard now. Nikita was largely a person who lived for the day — she rarely thought into tomorrow, much less months or even years in the future. Maybe that was a problem, but she didn’t see it as so. Not yet, at least. When the day finally came that diverging her path from his tickled her fancy, she’d probably see it through. As of now, however, she was quite content.
Nikita grinned lightly, nudging him roughly in the shoulder with a free elbow. “You’re a better leader than I am, though,” she laughed. She knew the true meaning of her words; her one adventure off on her own, with her paws leading her where she decided, had ended in the worst months of her life. That was probably part of her fear of heading off on her own now; she might find her way back into that personal hell. “The wandering wasn’t ever bad, though. Good times, good friends. It’ll take time to adjust to stationary life, sure, but I think it’ll end up working out much the same as life on the road. Hopefully a little more solid.” Her olive eyes rested on the bottle she held loosely between her hands. She stared at it for a moment before sighing softly and draining it in a gulp that was rather disproportional to her small size. Oh, well. She blinked groggily and roughly placed the bottle down on the dusty floorboards.
“Maybe we should head of t’meet with the others,” she said, woozily hauling herself to her feet. She dusted herself off subconsciously. “It’d probably be best before we both pass out and they come looking for us.” Her angular face lit up with a lop-sided grin. [/html]
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He scoffed quietly to himself; he didn't think he was that good of a leader. Good at telling people what to do something, but other than that Laurel could have easily been just as good as being a needle in a haystack at times. Of course, he didn't really care for the term leader but it seemed like folks in those parts felt better if they knew who was in charge and why. So yeah, sure, leader worked. He sloshed what was left in his bottle around for a moment, listening to Nikita talk and pondering what all she had to say in the same old passive way.
It was her talk of going to meet up with the others that provoked him into downing the last of the liquor, his smile returning momentarily at the slur in her voice and the almost-tilt in the way she rose. “Yeah, it probably couldn't hurt. I doubt they're as ready to go as we are, but we'll find out soon enough.” He didn't have any idea of Laurent had been travelling around before they had reunited, but thought to ask the man later. Jasper seemed a little young to be as well travelled as his then coyote companion and the wolf with the accent had come from somewhere different altogether. “It'll be nice to get out of this city though. The concrete is starting to kill my feet.”
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[html] This'll be my last post.
“It’d just be nice to get out of this city period,” Nikita growled, though her face was creased in a grin that wobbled just as she did as she stood in the dusty booze-storage room. Not that it was really meant as a joke… she was just acting casual about her distaste for cities. She yawned blearily, stretching lithely as she prepared to get moving once more. She frowned at the handful of kinks in her muscles, and she momentarily worked to get them worked out. She almost fell over — twice — but, in the end, she was on her feet and feeling just as well as she had before sitting down with a bottle of alcohol.
She sighed. “Well, let’s go find them,” she said, her lopsided smile never fading from her lips. At the moment, she found the idea of drunkenly stumbling in upon their new companions simply hilarious. Giggling to herself, she grabbed as much as she thought she could comfortably haul all the way back to camp and — with a lot of caution to avoid falling — walked down the deteriorating stairs and then to gather the rest of the stuff and continue on out of this city. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she gave it, though; it did have booze, and that was a plus. [/html]
*slow to end, rofl*
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He rose up and left the bottle behind where he set it down, following after her silently and picked up the box to carry for himself. They'd make good time leaving when they did and where they had decided to have everyone met up prior to their little escapade through the city and Laurel wondered just what all they could have found in addition to what they had. So the duo spilled out onto the streets and took up a leisurely pace towards the college, heading off into the depths of the ruined city of Halifax.
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