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He hadn’t realized just how much the trip at sea drained him of energy. He had been so frantic in chasing the shoreline after he had been stranded that he hardly took any time to rest. After spending some time with his sister after one long year, and being accepted into Twilight Vale, he collapsed in one of the rooms upstairs and enjoyed a nice, long sleep. His first few days here were spent either with his sister or just milling about the great mansion. The rest had been necessary not only to soothe his physical aches, but his emotional ones as well, after Savina informed him of the sad events that had transpired back at home. But now that he was feeling better than he had in days, the brown wolf had decided to take another look around the territory.
The Italian boy was returning from a short trip down to the beach. It had been nice to sit upon the soft sand and watch the horizon without a desperate hope pulling at him. It allowed him to fully appreciate the beauty of the scene. The wonderful scenery coupled with the fantastic memories of reuniting with his sister gave the shore a special place in his heart. He trotted along the path to the mansion, curious to see which of his new pack mates might be running around the house. Soon Ehno passed by the white picket fence at a leisurely pace, eyes resting on the increasingly familiar mansion as he approached.
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Her stomach was nearly touching the rungs as she went up, so she pushed back a little bit so it wouldn't rub against the metal. There was something about the human metals that made her feel strange, like the ladder was something that she shouldn't be using. That it was something that was wrong for her to use. Naniko was used to more rustic living, in dens or caves, so sometimes she felt a little out of place in the mansion, using the humans' old things. She was determined to get to the roof to figure out the problem, though. Last time it'd rained some of it had dripped down into the living room. Usually all the water just rolled down the roof and into the gutter. So the gutter was blocked? And she'd have to look at the hole, too. Maybe she could put something over it, plastic, perhaps. She was in her four legged form as usual, climbing up the ladder one rung at a time. Naniko wasn't one for heights...but this was something she needed to do.
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Ehno was enjoying the refreshing bit of sunlight after all the storms. The sun had finally parted the veil of clouds in the sky, letting the sunlight reach down and warm the world below. A little glint of that sunlight reflected from a metal object off to the side of the house, revealing something he hadn't expected to see. His leader--pregnant leader, he reminded himself--was carefully making her way up to the roof on an old human ladder. In her lupine form. And it didn't look very safe. Becoming alarmed, he quickened his pace toward the building.
He slowed as he approached the ladder, stopping as he looked up at the white wolf. "Um, Naniko... do you really think you should be doing that?" He was worried about safety, but he wasn't exactly comfortable with the thought of telling the pack leader what to do. But he couldn't just stand around and wait until one misplaced paw led to a nasty fall. That wouldn't be good for her or the unborn pups she was carrying. "If you'd like, I could take a look up there for you," he offered. Ehno really had no idea what she was trying to accomplish up there, but he was getting too nervous to stand around and watch anymore.
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The ladder was fairly rusty, and a few of the rungs creaked as she put her feet on them. She held onto the sides of the ladder carefully, reaching up into the gutter. If only they had some sort of a device that they could use to get the leaves out! There were several trees surrounding the manor, and now that summer was drawing to a close more and more leaves were falling down onto the building. Not to mention the leaves that were already there from the many years that the place had been unoccupied. She turned partially to look down at the ground and gasped; she was much, much higher up than she had thought she was. This was really dangerous. Naniko had sworn that she wouldn't do anything dangerous, that she'd rest when she needed it and that she wouldn't put herself or the pups in danger, but it was very difficult for her to keep up her end of the deal. There was just so much to do...and she didn't really like asking for help all the time. It was bad enough that she could barely practice medicine in these forms. She frowned darkly, thinking. She ought to come down to the ground, really...but then who would clean out the gutters? She looked down again when she heard a voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar. Who was it? "Ah...hello, Ehno. No, I probably shouldn't be. Caught me." She began backing slowly back down the ladder, not stopping until her back feet touched the ground. "I didn't know that I was up so high, either...it was kind of scary. Oh, you would? That would be fantastic--I can't see what's blocking the gutters. I'm thinking it's leaves, but it could be anything, really. Maybe some old human thing got stuck in it."
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WC: 328
Ehno felt his slightly tense muscles relax when Naniko finally reached the ground, safe and sound. He released a quick sigh of relief, his worried nerves finally resting. It could have been horrible had she slipped up just once. The Italian boy offered her a soft smile as he approached the ladder. "Wouldn't want you getting hurt, now. I'd be glad to help."
With a quick glance up to the roof, he began to climb the old ladder. He had contemplated shifting to his optime form before climbing to make it easier, but he decided against it. The ladder was old and pretty rusty. Ehno wasn't too sure the long-neglected object would have been able to hold the weight of his shifted form. So he figured it would be better to just give it a try in his natural form. Of course it was still just as dangerous, and perhaps a bit hypocritical of himself. But Ehno would never forgive himself if someone else got hurt while he was around. He would rather he himself get hurt, before he would let that happen.
With that in mind, he slowly ascended the creaky old ladder. He kept his gaze up at his target, refusing to look down until he had made it all the way up. Pausing a few times when he hit a particularly noisy step, he eventually made it up to the roof. Determined to get off the ladder as soon as possible, he hopped onto the roof, glad to have his paws on something more sturdy again. He glanced over the side of the roof, triumphantly smiling down at the leader. "Made it!" Glad that he had made it to the roof safely, Ehno then turned to the task at hand. Amber gaze fell to the gutter at the edge of the roof. "You sure were right about the leaves up here," he called, beginning to dig the leaves out of the gutter with one paw.
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She looked up at him, biting her lip nervously. Now she knew how he'd felt, standing down here and watching her go up. She didn't want him to get hurt either, even if she did have the tools to heal him. She had never lost a patient before, even when Cercelee had come in with all of those injuries, so she did have faith in her ability. There were times that she wished that they had more healers, though; she was over-worked as it was. Naniko sat down, craning her head up, watching. "It was leaking into one of the rooms...I thought it'd be good to fix the blockage so it'd go down the drain instead. I didn't think leaves could really block it up that badly"
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WC: 324
It was oddly exhilarating to be able to stand there on the roof and glance around at the pack lands from such an elevated position. But maybe he was just recovering from having to climb that creaky old ladder. Either way, he did enjoy the sights from up there. He pulled away from his task fro a moment, amber gaze scanning the horizon. Ehno made a mental note to check out a few interesting looking areas in the pack lands that he spotted. That would all have to wait until he was done here, though.
The Corvus lowered his gaze back down to gutter at Naniko’s words, noticing that it was slightly packed with leaves and miscellaneous debris. It must have been ages since the gutter was last cleared out, but that wasn’t a surprise at all; the building had probably been abandoned for ages before the Twilight Vale wolves moved in. He continued to pull the gathered leaves and twigs from the gutter with one paw. When he had a significant pile gathered, he pushed it over the edge of the roof, careful to aim for a spot where Naniko wasn’t standing.
He turned back to the gutter, pulling a few more leaves from it before something else caught his eye. A bit further down, he noticed something bulky and black sitting amongst the leaves. Curious, he stepped toward it and began to push the surrounding leaves away. It looked like a bag of some sort. He tried to pull it out with his paws, but it was firmly lodged in there. “I think I found the source of the clog,” he called. He gripped the bag lightly with his teeth, and carefully maneuvered it out of there. He looked over the edge of the roof, before dropping the small black bundle down near the Andromeda. “It’s a bag of something… take a look at it while I check up here some more.”
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She was interested in seeing what was clogging things up, besides the leaves. Naniko expected that there would be some sticks, branches...maybe a dead squirrel or something like that. Heck--maybe a human had thrown a toy ball up there and it'd gotten stuck. She'd seen those kinds of things before. But what he tossed down was pretty peculiar.
Naniko held the bag down with one paw and tugged at the drawstring with another, pulling open the top. "Oh. It's just some glittery things...the humans probably left them. Sparkly rock things." She pulled one out, examining it on the ground. It was a little bit pretty...but she didn't really care about sparkly things like these. Naniko knew next to nothing about jewelry making, so they were of no use. "At least we found out what was blocking it...a bunch of useless rocks."
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SO YEAH I'm basically a failure for taking so long to get this up. D: Apologies!
Ehno continued his work on the roof as Naniko inspected the contents of the bag. It appeared that the bag had been the only major blockage up there. "That's all?" he called back, intending to take a look when he went back down. He finished digging out most of the remaining leaves, determined to leave the gutter as clutter-free as possible. He knew that if he left the leaves up there now, the gutter could possibly get blocked again when autumn came and the trees dropped their leaves once more. Satisfied with his work, he carefully made his way back to the ladder.
Amber eyes studied the ladder for a moment as he pondered just how he would get down. Going head-first seemed like it would be too dangerous. So, the Corvus turned himself around, feeling for the top rung with his pack paw. Slowly and carefully, he made his way back down the creaky old ladder. He wasn’t so anxious this time, comforted by the thought that each step lower brought him to safety. He sighed in relief as all four paws reached the ground, and he gave Naniko a grin as he stepped toward her. “Mission Complete,” he said, sitting down next to the Andromeda. Ehno then turned his attention to the open bag at her feet, and his eyes widened at the sight of its contents. “Those are diamonds.” The wonder was clear in his voice. “I was told in Europe that they’re extremely valuable. The humans apparently regarded them highly, and many Luperci back there do as well."
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"Why rocks, of all things?" She wondered aloud. Some luperci were really strange. Naniko had never been away from the main territories that had made up Bleeding Souls, though, so what could she say? There were probably a lot stranger things out there, things that she hadn't seen or done yet. Maybe someday she would take a trip to see them...after she was done leading a pack.
That wouldn't be for a while, though. The girl tightened the strings of the bag with her teeth, nosing it toward Ehno. "You can have them if you want them--you did find them, after all. They're of no use to me"
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