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He had cut west from Inferni, traveling at an even pace as the snow continued to stagger from the sky. It had not yet begun to stick to the ground, but it would soon. That alone was enough to get him ready to prepare for winter. As of yet, he had not found Laruku. He had not, in truth, looked for him. Jasper was wallowing in self-misery, blaming himself for the sickness and the absence of his lover. Everyone else was gone. They always go away, that familiar voice said, half-sympathetic, half-taunting.
“Why don’t you shut the hell up,” he replied, not realizing he had done so. Crossing through a rusted iron gate, Ahren made his way through the dying wildflowers and tall grass. This place had become a favorite of his, if only for the necessity of finding his addiction. The tobacco here was plentiful, though uncultivated, but he planned to change that come spring. For now, though, getting his supplies and heading back to the forest where he had been living was all that mattered.
Coming up to his selected harvest, Ahren drew the knife from his side. In the gray no-light, it twinkled dully. It was as sharp as ever, and cut through the tobacco like nothing. Do you think you should kill him? The ambiguous question could have been meant for two people, and so Ahren frowned and his ears folded back. He continued cutting the tobacco until the noise came again. Well?
“Not yet,” he finally responded, which seemed to satisfy the voice (his conscious? He didn’t know anymore) for the time being.
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-sorry so long.. I rambled.. again, like always.-
Firefly hadn't really left the packlands in a while, she'd been content to just roam and rediscover the place she'd called home. With the reappearance of Ember though she'd decided that perhaps before the winter snows kicked up a fury she should have one more look at the countryside in the last breathes of autumn. She couldn't deny that autumn was her favorite season, the fire that danced above in the treetops and rained in furies to the grounds below seemed to be able to make a little smug smile part her maw as she ran through the foliage, scattering the leaves and feeling the dry satisfying crunch beneith her pawpads. On a lazy day there was little more she wanted to do.. and she figured that she'd get her fill of the world while she still could. One never knew what tomorrow might bring...
She'd made her rounds through the forest while the snow had begun to fall, the brilliant crisp crunch of the leaves beneith her pads had in time taken a softer tone as the snowflakes had begun to dampen the dry warm shells. She had known winter was coming with the soft powdery fall that had graced the time between her sibling and herself but she hadn't expected the full force of real snow to come so soon. The gold and bronze pelted beauty had begun her trek back towards her packlands, the day had been spent well but soon she'd half to leave her childhood wonderland behind and fess up to the brute force of the bitter cold. Right now she just wanted to find Haku and curl up against his warm pelt, though she doubted that she'd find the male, the chocolate hued beast had set out again to roaming and somewhere in the back of her mind she doubted his nights were leaving him alone.
Guilt had flashed in her mind at the thought as she'd moved away from the woodlands and out into the open meadows and once lush fields as she stared up into the skies. She'd been the one to cheat last time, though she knew well enough that he too hadn't been faithful, but as tied up and twisted as their relationship was she couldn't claim the Lillium as her own, nor did she really think he wanted that. The soft feathy snowflakes that fell softly to scatter across her cheeks were cold, about as cold as she herself had turned in recent times. She sighed softly and tried to shake the thoughts from her mind, knowing that they would only add fuel to the fire that raged between the capaccino furred leader and herself, and the two of them hardly needed anymore fuel on that fire.. in the flash of an eye or the beat of a heart it could rage out of control and the passions belonged to furious monsters and it was like a bloody war all over again.
A soft sound that didn't belong to the snowfall or the winds that swirled caught her attention as in the sharp cold air she caught the scent of another. Quickly she tilted her face away from the falling crystals as she scanned the lands for the owner of said scent. She didn't catch the owner's presence right away but realized that the sound she'd heard had been a voice, and a second time it rang out. She pushed through the field, the crushed tobacco leaves underfoot still bringing up a fragrant scent around her as she finally caught sight of the male. She paused, watching him for a moment as she realized that he was gathering plants. Her ears folded back as she wrinkled her nose, the only wolves she'd ever witnessed gathering plants had been the healers and members of the fool pack of her mother's. She doubted he belonged to the second, the scent of lifestock and summer hay wasn't strong enough around the older beast before her.
She had begun to move towards the male when she realized after a moment that he was gathering something more interesting than hay or herbs, but tobacco. The female hadn't really spent much time around the plant but she had smoked before. Between the war and her own personal battles she hadn't even really thought much along the lines of alcohol or tobacco, but she watched the pale one cutting what he wanted off the plants as she picked at one of the tall stems of another near her. Her emerald eyes were half closed as she recalled the words he'd spoken and out of nowhere she asked. "So when?" She was a nosy little bitch from time to time, but when someone sat in a field all alone muttering to themselves.. it just made a body too damn curious as to what the mind is thinking.
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The low-growing plants, which looked practically harmless, resisted little against the movement of the blade. A scythe would have worked better, but this was just fine. As he gathered the leaves in a small pile, he continued in the same pattern—right up until an unfamiliar voice called out. Both ears swiveled at the noise, and he looked up quickly. Despite the blind eye and the color-blindness, he found her form quickly, standing by a much taller weed that had crept in. Appropriate, it seemed.
It was only then that her scent hit him above the fresh-cut leaves. In an instant, his eyes darkened and the hand around the knife tightened just slightly. This girl was Iskata’s daughter. Wonderful. “Vorgestern,” he replied, and dropped to cut another bundle of the sweet-smelling leaves. They joined the small pile he was accumulating and he paused to eye the girl. She looked like her mother. “Do you want something?”
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She picked at the plant, displacing the leaves from the stem, watching them flutter and skitter down to the ground as her emerald eyes never left the form of the male. The dull sheen of the knife as it sliced so silently through the plant was barely a concern to the Dahlia de Mai packmember as she stood so close to their territory, yet just far enough away. A smile split her maw as the male turned about, finally noticing the girl. it's about time.. she thought, the glassy blind stare of one eye wasn't unnerving, but it did catch her interest as she wondered if he was partly deaf as well or just that caught up in the words he muttered alone in a field.
The strange words that met her ears made them flick back slightly as she tried to place the language, her time in port and on ship had graced her ears with dozens of different tongues but her time in the wild had diminished her knowledge of the language the words he'd sputtered. The silence was momentary as he continued cutting and gathering. The eye that glanced over as he spoke should have warned her but the girl had never been one to listen to warnings or even care when darkness and danger were at the doorstep.
She grinned at the male as she answered honestly. "Just wondering what sort of man argues with ghosts in a snowstorm.." Those emerald eyes narrowed as she quirked a brow, "Or are you arguing with yourself?" she asked, treading very dangerous grounds, taunting and testing a stranger she'd never met before.
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He cocked an ear in her direction, listening to her speak. The accent gave away that she had spent time in Europe, and her scent gave away she was a part of the pack his son had tried to destroy. It was her tone, however, that told him much more. A smile broke over his face, warping it and pulling back black gums to reveal off-white teeth.
“Well, you certainly are a Sadria,” he said with a laugh.
“Take after your mother, all right.”
Hunching over, he moved on to another plant, cut it free, and continued in the same matter as he spoke.
“Your family never knows when to just leave things alone, you know that? S’why they all get into trouble.” A point was made with a gesture from the knife, which caught the light as it broke through the gray sky. For the moment, at least, the snow slowed and reflected the sunlight, catching his translucent guard hair and setting it aflame.
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She was rather surprised at the words that came from the male's maw, but impressed just the same. "Congradulations, it took the whole of this territory far longer to figure that one out." her voice was cold as she spoke, but as he spoke of her relation with her mother there was a sharpness that seemed to cast over the cold words. "I highly doubt I take after the woman at all." There was one thing that few knew would ruffle the girl's feathers more than comparing her to the Matriarch of that crazy pack on the other side of the lands.
She eyed the male with mild interest as he continued on, wondering just what history he had with the Sadira clan that brought such a lecture to life. He had her attention, thatmuch was for certain. "Some of us get in trouble because we like trouble." She said simply, she didn't know about the rest of the Sadira clan but she could name two that liked playing with fire more than they should, and both of them were sitting pretty as a picture in the middle of Dahlia de Mai.
The gesture that went along with the mention of the Sadira's love of curiousity didn't go unnoticed on the girl but she left it alone as she brushed the feathery whisps of snow from her pelt, the crystals turning into glitter on her normally fiery coat while the sun brought flames to live in the other's. "How would you know so much about the Sadiras anyhow.." She had no clue as to who the male was before her but she was at a bit of a disadvantage, he knew more about her than she him, she might as well learn what she could before all hell broke lose. Unless it already had and this was just the embers chance to flair up once more.
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Oh, he had struck a nerve. That was just as well—it was something imbedded in his blood, brought on from his long-dead father. Another flick of the wrist, another bundle of leaves joined the mass in his right hand. “Oh, you would be surprised.” One act had bound him to that family, lock and load. One girl, one mistake, one child. You should have killed her. His eyes darkened suddenly, as if a cloud had passed over the sun.
Just as quickly, Ahren was on his feet. He moved back to the pile, found it adequate (for now, at least) and settled down Indian-style. The knife was sheathed in one fluid motion, and from his pouch he drew twine. This he dropped in his lap. “You might not take after her,” he added, drawing a cigarette and sparking flame. Another flick of the wrist shook out the match, and another breath sent smoke into the air. “Then again, you have that same self-righteous air going for you.” A pause to inhale, and the cloud he let out, he proposed a question. “You got a sister?” This idea struck him as remarkably funny, and he let out a half-mad laugh, eyeing her like a serpent or a hunting-cat might.
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She watched as with a flick of the wrist and a nick of the knife the tobacco leaves were joined in a bundle and made their way to his growing supply. Her eyes twinkled as he spoke, the words made her laugh as she abandoned the weeds beside her. "Nothing much surprises me about my family anymore." The words were the sad truth, in her short time she'd learned that anything her family might be involved in wasn't even worth worrying over.
In seconds the man was on his feet quick as a flash and yet still she didn't move. Her sparkling eyes watched from the short distance as he began to prepare the leaves and bundle them. The knife that could have been so threatening disappeared in seconds as he began to light a smoke and he tried to explain it all to her. "Maybe I'm just spoiled and you've mistaken that for this self-righteousness.." she said sarcastically. The girl had never believed that she had any self-righteous notion to her name. She could care less about almost all her family and there were very few friends she kept close at hand.
As he exhaled and that small cloud seemed to linger her eyes flickered from the silvery grey smoke to the male it belonged to as he asked about siblings, specifically those of the female gender. The mad bit of laughter that came from the creature made her wonder how much it was worth, this strange question he asked. "Depends on who's asking." At one time she'd just had no concern towards the dark hued girl, after she'd returned from her travels it seemed that things had all change. Now after Ember had twisted and warped the truth Firefly almost hated the girl, and she seemed to feel the same towards Firefly.
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Yeah, I hear you on that,” he offered, realizing the same was true with the de le Poer’s. For all he knew, any one of his children who had run off could have a family. His cousin-sister could have a family. They could have bred madmen or preachers, so thick was the D’Angelo blood in his second litter. Gabriel was unexpected, taking up his mother’s mantle with God’s cross and sword.
Regardless, it didn’t matter now. At her statement, he looked up, smiling faintly. Spoiled would describe her aunt. He kept smiling as she answered his question. Yes, she had a sister. He could gather that from the inflection in her voice and the way she avoided answering outright. “Your mother ever tell you about her sister?”
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A slight smirk sat on her lips as he seemed to agree with her on family matters. She wasn't really surprised though, she'd learned long ago that the definition of family was nothing but a bunch of dysfunctional fuck-ups that held the same blood in their veins. Some cared, some didn't, some stayed, some wandered.. some just raised a little cain. The golden bronze woman could wonder a million things of her family but she never cared to. Her whole pack was more or less related to her and she didn't give a damn. She cared so little of the connection she'd taken her own blood as a lover and found more fire there than any other pair of arms.
The words she'd uttered had given her away but she still stood there relaxed in pose as his faint smile greeted her. She gave one in return as he asked her of stories her mother had spoken of before. She wraped her arms around her waist as she raised a doubtful brow. "All I've ever learned from her was how to run away." It wasn't exactly a lie but it was close enough. She had run away because of a combination of her mother's inability to stand up for them all in light of her own mate's belief's and because she herself wanted more than a history fillied with mist, fog and storm clouds. She'd found so much more and yet she'd still returned to these damnable shores.
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As he wrapped the leaves in twine, he stopped at her words. They were so apt, so perfect, and they struck him as remarkably hysterical. He laughed again, and cut the twine with his claws. “You should ask her about Aiji sometime.” Shrugging, he let out a chuckle and looked back to his work, hair falling into his face. The dark streak, which had previously bothered him, was overlooked in the field of dirty-blonde and sun-bleached white.
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When he laughed she almost wanted to smack him, but she had enough on her hands with one madman, inviting another one close at hand, an armed one at that wasn't exactly something she craved at the moment. Something about the male almost made her heckles rise and yet at the same time he kept her hanging onto every little word. This beast from the Sadira's past that she'd never heard of and yet he could connect her to the woman that no one else had even come close to just by a few chose words and her standing in a field of light snowy down.
She had spent time admiring the male, knowing once that his scarred and torn body must have been a sight, now just testiment to old battlefields that all but the fighters would forget. Flicking her ears back she wasn't interested in her aunt whom she'd never met. Come to think of it she'd never met a single one of her mother's litter, just their children. "What if I'd rather ask about you." The words carried a cocky tone to them. She hardly ever really saw her mother anymore, the woman was with child again and she would stay far removed from reality for a while, Firefly wasn't stupid. She could hardly remember a time that Iskata hadn't been in the den or close by with her and her sibling. Once, maybe twice she could remember going farther than the meadow under the eye of their mother. She was very much predictable, atleast in Firefly's eyes.
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Taking a drag, he reached up with his right hand and scratched at the side of his neck. What if she asked about him? Well, that was a sorted tale unto itself. Betrayal, murder, romancing a woman more devil then human, and the gypsy that had come after her.
“Well,” he said, exhaling a cloud of white-gray smoke.
“I don’t know if she’ll want to tell you about me.” Without explaining further, he drew another length of twine, cut it, and began bundling another bunch.
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She watched him as he worked, not offering to help since he seemed well enough off alone at his work. He paused a moment to take another drag off the smoke and after a pause spoke up once more. Suddenly Firefly grinned at his words. "Well," she stared mockingly, "Then that makes you a more interesting subject than my aunt." Moving closer to the male she nudged one of the piles of leaves with a toe as she continued. "I like seeing her upset anyways, it reminds her she's not perfect." She said with a devilish grin upon her maw. Firefly really was a cruel bitch and lately she hadn't had a chance to practice, perhaps the male was giving her just that, with her mother as the poor helpless subject.
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I am so interested in seeing the Firefly/Iskata thread. You have no idea. XD
As he finished the next bundle, smoke opened his lungs and he drew the cigarette from his mouth again. Exhaling from his nose, Ahren shifted his weight and shrugged. “Ask her about Aiji,” he said again. That was where the whole story started. Before anything else, before he had any idea who Iskata was, there had been Aiji. “You’ll know when to mention me.” Smiling faintly, he took another drag. “So is this something you do a lot? Insert yourself into other people’s business?”
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--and just for you I shall make certain to have another self RPG session soon between the two.  --
She watched from the corner of her eye as the silvery smoke travel in twin ribbons before being filtered in the autumn air. He kept insisting on her to ask bout this mysterious aunt she'd never heard of, she didn't want to, but if it would upset her mother the girl was game for anything. She liked pinning her mother under her thump like an ant, to see her squirm and wiggle in discomfort was a grand sight to the Dahlia de Mai packmember. She decided in her mind that she would ask about the aunt, though she still thought asking about Ahren first would have been more fun. The girl always like to drop hints and rumours of her sexual nature about her mother, lying about having slept with the male and the expressions that she could imagine upon the woman's face was enough to make her want to try her own way.. but the ghostly hued male seemed to believe that his way was best. "Fine." she agreed to the persistance of the man finally.
She pouted slightly as she sighed dramatically at his instructions. "You really know how to take the fun out of things.. Ahren." she said as she turned away from him for a moment to watch the snowflakes scattering across the field. The question he ask fell upon her ears as she smirked, twisting around with her hands on her hips she shook her head, "No, only the interesting ones. I'd think a man who talks to himself out loud is more interesting than most. He's got something important to say if he can't keep it in his head." She was such a tease, but the words were true enough in her mind.
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Oh, she knew his name. The blonde paused for a moment, still focused on his work. Someone had told her. If it was her mother, she wouldn’t have been playing these games. Someone had told her, though. It was all right. Someone had told him her name. Someone who had it out for her fuck-friend Haku, someone who had eyes and ears that the rest of the world didn’t know about.
“All right, Firefly,” he said, still looking at the tobacco.
Only then did he look up, and this time, there was no smile.
“I’m going to kill someone,” he said plainly, as if this was a topic of normal conversation. The weight of the words and the matter was not in his tone alone, but in the great distance and age in his eyes. He was just past four, and had outlived his father, but he felt the days in his bones and in his blood.
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One ear flicked slightly at the mention of her name but there was nothing more. She didn't care who knew her name anymore. The male had known more about her than her own packmates had within moments of meeting the strange woman, who cared that he knew more than a surname. The winds seemed to be picking up as she abandoned pestering the piles of tobacco he was working on, almost a prelude to the words he spoke, so sudden and icy.
The girl should have been scared but death was just another of those things that happen along the path of life. She didn't care when her day was, nor did she expect it to come anytime soon but if it did then she'd accept it for what it was. She raised a brow and asked boldly. "Well I assume it's not me, seeing how I'm suppose to report back to my mother for you." She knew there was always a chance he'd just been fucking with her mind the whole time and she was who was destin' to die this day, but she could only wait and see what happened this day.
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He felt the heat reaching his fingers and finished off the cigarette in one final drag, exhaling through his nose and stamping out the still-smoking device in the damn earth. When he looked up again, he was smiling—he seemed as though he couldn’t keep his faces straight. Someone stupider might have thought he was joking, and perhaps he was. Maybe he had never really wanted to kill anyone. Maybe, a long time ago, he never would have taken that knife and used it to rip out the jaw of a man who deserved nothing more.
“Right,” he said.
“I’d rather you give your mother some hell. Though if you are fixing to die,” he continued, lazily drawing the knife and pointing at her again with the flick of his wrist.
“I won’t object to helping a damsel in distress.” Another half-mad grin, and that second-darkness burned darkly in his eyes.
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By now she was sure there was something deeply mentally wrong with the male but that didn't bother her so much. She knew there was something dark and twisted in Haku and yet all the more reason she was drawn to him. The dark and dangerous part of these fellow was what tended to get her in trouble, but she couldn't keep away from them. Her addiction would probably be the death of her oneday, but atleast she'd die while in a state of high in one form or another.
She grinned to herself, almost mocking his grin as he confirmed her assumption. He continued on though with a bit of suggestion at the point of a knife she smirked. "Right. I'm not dreaming of a dark angel setting me free." The darkness that seemed to consume his eyes made her draw on as she began to move away from the desperado. "Besides, you don't get the boy thatway.." She wouldn't mind him being some dark angel sent to save her in some warped sort of way though he was old enough to be her father, but if his form of salvation was anything along the lines she believed she wouldn't be around to enjoy one bit of it.
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