misty hills and twilight
#1
She had known that she was going to lose the child dispite all Deuce and she had done. The silver and gold woman wasn't for certain what was going through her mind in this moment of time. Her ears were pressed back against her skull as she lay down atop one of the hills in the dampwoods on the edge of Phoenix Valley. Her mind was a buzz with memories of places she'd been, the lives she'd lived and the future that was stretched out forever until the end of her time. She'd lost children before but it still was something she knew she'd never actually get use to. The question echoed in her mind, how can you get use to losing someone. She knew it was just one of those stupid questions that had no real answer so she just filtered it into the back of her mind and left it there.

There was no snow upon the world today, it seemed that the sun had melted away the brittle cold of winter coming for just a moment in time. The woods were misty and dreary, actually reminding her of where home had once been. She smiled for a rare moment as she thought about Clouded Tears and how life had been as a child, how she'd been so horrid and bossy. She chuckled softly to herself as she wished her mother could see her now.. she'd give anything for her mother to atleast see that she hadn't resulted in a miserable failure.. that she'd finally settled down and made something of herself... She could bet her mother wouldn't have like half the choices she'd made but she was just as stubborn as the small framed white woman had been in her hayday and they would have had to just live with it.. but she knew dreaming and wishing and wanting for things she couldn't have were pointless now.

Instead she just sat there watching the weak pale sunlight filtering through the trees and dappling in the mists of the late autumn day. It was a strange way to mourn the passing of a child but to each their own.. and atleast she knew his suffering was over and unlike the two that remained nothing would ever break his little heart or cause him grief. There were no more neverending questions with no answers for him.. just as she once believed, an eternal life ahead of him romping and playing with the rest of the puppies that would never grow up. She smiled, hoping that perhaps the haunted hills of Clouded Tears would find theirway here so the children of Phoenix Valley would have more company.
#2
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Surely he was a ghost already. Surely this was what it was like to live after death, to wander without seeing, and to go without knowing or purpose. Surely this was what it was like to be a spirit that had forgotten who he once was and why anything had happened to him. He breathed and touched things without feeling, and all the days blurred together like a dream he couldn't remember. Trying to think about it was like waking up -- everything disappeared as soon as he got close. It was the opposite of what the fog should be; when you neared things in the mist, they got clearer until you could touch them. Whatever white expanse he was walking through now, everything was all the same.


And so he went because there was nothing better and nothing worse to do. The habit and instinct that still occasionally propelled his body would remember from whence he'd come, and he didn't concern himself with the idea of getting lost anymore. There was no where he needed to stay away from, and no where he needed to be, so what did it really matter in the end where he actually was? He had grown thinner still, but it wasn't as if his ribs were showing. He fed himself when it was convenient, when he just happened to stumble over a carcass, fresh or old. The more important change was that his mind had grown thinner, emptier. This was what it was like to be a ghost. He wove through the forest like nothing was there at all, not even himself.

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#3
The mists unlike fog did nothing to dampen the sounds of nature in the woods about her. She had been staring off into the hills as the crisp crackle of footfall in the leave sof autumn met her ears. Perked forward almost instantly the woman raised her head quietly as she gazed around. She hadn't really expected anyone to be so close to the packborder unless they were looking for someone from the lands, but it seemed she was wrong. Her eyes watched the ghostly figure passing through trees as the Matriarch almost instantly felt her hackles raise, a soft growl growing in her throat.

She had no clue who the strange shadow was but a looming feeling was overshadowing the leader as she rose to her feet and moved quietly among the trees to watch, to make certain that the shadow stayed beyond her packs borders. The whispy strands of mist were softer and thinner the closer she drew towards the wrath in the woods.. the closer she drew the more she realized what she was following. The scent that finally greeted her once she crossed his path made her call out, "Laruku?" in disbelief to the shell of a man she once thought she knew but never did.
#4
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Really, what he should have done was ignore the voice and keep going as if he hadn't heard. He should have walked away and not looked back because all that was there was a person he knew and the memories associated with her and the memories associated with memories, none of which he wanted to be reminded of or bother with. It was just a reflex, a habit that was burned into every person as a child, the instinct to turn and see when your name was called. So he stopped and he turned, coyote ears wide, but only semi-alert. He already knew who was there.


Yes? was all he could come up with for a response. What else was there? He could already predict where their conversation would go because the memories were already there, and it seemed as if all of their conversations went very much the same way. It was routine, and even his half-hearted apathy had become part of it. It didn't matter if he tried to ignore or tried to plow through it or anything else; it would happen, and that was that.

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#5
She had thought so long ago that she'd caught his scent along that shack in Esper Hollow when Laurel had been showing her around their humble packlands, but she'd trusted that he was well cared for and that he would get better. She really had no understanding of the sickness that had take the life of her litter's father or turned her cousin into thisghostly beast before her. When he turned and she caught hold of those filmed eyes her ears pinned back against her skull as she whined softly. There was no other response to his condition except to ask, "It was you, in Esper Hollow?"

Iskata wished now that she had asked to see the sickly who'd been watched over in the cabin but she never had. Her cousin had survived but in the simple views of the word, for now he was alive but what kindof life was it. She took another step towards him, "You.. can't.." she didn't even want to ask, but she had to know, the tale-tell signs of his loss was right before her but she knew she was bordering on rude.. but there had hardly been a time when one or the other hadn't said something or another to trigger the other. " You can't.. see.. can you?" The words was whispered as she closed the distance between them, for a moment in time she'd forgotten just why she'd been here all along in the haunting hills.
#6
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Esper Hollow had mostly been a blur. There were glimpses of it in his memory, naturally, but they were difficult to coax out and he didn't really want to. They were mostly cold feelings, physical coldness, mental coldness. He remembered the endless beating of rain and his daughter's voice (sometimes Ahren's voice, sometimes a stranger's voice, sometimes Tsunami's voice, sometimes his mother's voice, or the voice of a woman he imagined to be his mother). He remembered having had dreams, but he didn't remember any of the dreams themselves. He remembered wanting to die (still wanting to die), and he remembered feeling guilty for that somehow (even though there was guilt for still being alive, too).


I guess so, was all he could say of Esper Hollow and shrugged. There was nothing to dwell on there. The scarred hybrid turned away as the other approached; he could feel her eyes on him. Maybe it was a paranoid imagining, but common sense told him that anyone would stare. He shrugged again. No, I can't, he admitted impassively. Just answering questions. She would keep talking, he knew, but if he didn't fight back, then maybe their meeting could be all the more brief.


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#7
The words he said were almost ghostly and she felt her spirits drop again, reminding her of why she was even out here as she sat back on her haunches and lowered her eyes down to gaze at silvery paws. She knew her cousin didn't care about the family as she did but after losing the pup she felt even more desperate.. the family seemed to drift further and further apart and all she wanted was to stay connected. Her tattered ears were flattened against her skull, the woman herself looking like a pup that had been scowled as she asked. "Why are you out here all alone?" She wasn't going to ask him again. She knew what his choice would be and she wasn't going to push it again.

Her nails tore into the litter on the ground as she wondered if she should just give up like he'd wanted her to do so long ago. If she should just give up on them all.. maybe it didn't matter or not what she felt.. though they didn't want her now or probably even in the future.. she would be there if even for a moment they needed her, no matter how selfish the need or how brief. Her want for family, for connection, for togetherness seemed so simple... but after so long in seeing how different their family was.. maybe it was best. She knew he'd probably be thrilled for her to admit her defeat.. but she was proud just the same. Instead she sat there feeling numb and strangely more alone with him there than when she was alone.
#8
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He only responded with a Why not? but the truth was that he didn't feel alone. The heaviness in the back of his mind was there just like it had been there for the last... had it been two years already? He supposed it had been (he's never leaving you). Sometimes it was just endless cackling for no reason and with no trigger these days; sometimes it was just a second set of breathing. Sometimes it was disturbing silence, but the presence was still there, like a creature in the corner, watching. Laruku stared at Iskata with nothing in his eyes -- even before he'd lost his vision, the emotion had fled from them anyhow.


Do you have a reason to be here? In that particular location? On earth? On their plane of existence? He didn't know what he was asking (he never did, and it didn't matter). They were words, and they rumbled dully from his throat. She would reply with more, and eventually they would both tire of the exercise.


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#9
For once there was no disappointment from the words he gave her, she knew he didn't care and she'd grown use to it now. She just stared at him with the silence surrounding them as she lowered her face down to the ground, nipping at the cold snow that she hadn't disturbed with her tearing and fretting at the ground. The coolness on her throat was barely even felt as she swollowed the meager mawful. She cast her eyes away when he reversed the question, shaking her head without even thinking of what she was doing. Almost instantly as she remembered she'd stopped the action and just stood there while she tried to push past it all and answer.

Finally it came, "Burying my son.." she said, not stopping to think how many sons she had or the fact that the male knew nothing of her last litter. The first hybrid she'd brought into their strange family had been unwanted, the second litter had been her choice.. and yet the ones she'd actually embraced and wanted were fading before her eyes while the haunting reminder remained strong and constant in her shadow. Iskata raised her sky orbs up to glance at him, there was so much she could say, could ask.. and yet she knew now it was useless. Now, unlike then she didn't persue her nagging nosy ways.
#10
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Someone laughed in the darkness, but there was no one to hear it but Laruku. Dead children, dead parents, dead siblings, and dead lovers all rotted under his feet. In the frozen dirt they melted away until they were nothing but bone, and then the bone dissolved too and by then, even the memories of them would be gone. The world kept spinning and people forgot, or they died themselves. The hybrid had a dead son too, but it had been his daughter that had buried him. For a while, he had had two dead sons, but one had seemed to have risen back out of the ashes -- he hadn't seen Arkham for almost a year now, that was only a little more than how old the boy was. He'd never really been his father.


I have a son buried, his voice said, Outside of Inferni, where he was killed. Had Rachias told him that? Had Gabriel? Had someone else? The knowledge was there; how it had gotten there was not. It didn't matter -- he had always known it would happen anyway. Andre only grew up to die; Laruku really should have just killed him himself that day. That would have been the responsible thing to do. Kill your own children, not other people's.


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#11
She had hear him wrong, she had to have, the numbness that had taken hold had suddenly dissolved as she felt like she'd been shot through. Her ears flicked back against her skull as she raised those doubter's eyes back up. "You? You have a son?" she blurted, realizing her mistake once more. "Had..." She really felt like she'd been detatched from the world around her since the birth of her last litter. When had Laruku had children, what all had she missed since she'd been forced from Clouded Tears. The silver and gold woman knew now that there was nothing of the male before her she'd ever known, except their relation to eachother through blood.. and that wasn't much even then.

She lowered her eyes again as quietly she asked, almost not expecting him to answer, "When?" Even now she had never thought.. hadn't the hybrid cousin before her been some sort of devoted to Tsunami. She wasn't sure of anything anymore, it had been a long time and time was still moving past them too fast. Her eyes glanced towards the hills where Anaz was buried. "He would have belonged more to Inferni than here with me.. if he'd lived." she said finally. She doubted that Inferni would even want the boy if they'd ever known who had birthed him. There were some things in her past before this last litter was born that she wished she could erase but now was too late for wishing.
#12
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When, indeed? A thousand years ago. He was ten thousand years old, so his children had to be at least a thousand. They had all grown up fast -- as fast as anyone else, but those days always seemed too short. Tragedy struck like lightning, inevitable, but unpredictable. They spent their whole lives looking up through the rain, half-heartedly wondering if there really was a sun back behind all the grey clouds. The shadow was laughing again, louder, wilder; it was just one of those things, one of those memories. His scarred shoulders shrugged. Last July, was his reply, and he surprised himself with the accuracy of the recollection. They had been born on his birthday. Happy birthday! Here are some bastard children born to a woman three times your age and whom you don't remember fucking!


Laruku had spent a while hating Kaena for letting him sleep with her, for being a whore, a slut, a demon, and whatever else she was. But that hadn't lasted long. It was much easier to blame himself. Mine were raised in Inferni, his voice continued, and he felt like a distant observer of the conversation; None live there anymore though. It seemed like Clouded Tears would always be interconnected with Inferni, even now that the former was gone. They took turns at war and lust and then went in circles. Laruku didn't wonder who had been the father this time for Iskata, didn't wonder whether it'd been consensual or not. The details never seemed to matter.


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#13
She was unsure of how to process the information but in the end it didn't seem to matter, Laruku seemed uneffected by the news he was giving her. Why should he be surprised though her mind argued, he knew he had kids, had known for a while now she safely guessed. Her eyes flickered off to the lands where he said the had grown up in, though something once again commented on her train of thought, how Inferni probably was the old Inferni, not the new one. Still somehow in her mind they were the same.. just because the land had changed hadn't meant the souls had.

Iskata should have left it there but these new souls she'd never known about were raising questions like fleas, and somehow they were drawing away the pain of knowing she'd never see her young one grow to be an adult. "What are their names?" She realized as she asked that he had more than one. Did that mean there were still others unnamed, unknown still out there somewhere. He said they were no longer in Inferni and she wondered why, yet that didn't last long. She laughed suddenly, a strange sound at a strange time.. but all it brought was a wistful bitter comment at the end. "Always were just a bunch of drifters.." Clouded Tears, Inferni, Phoenix Valley, Dahlia De Mai.. did it matter in the end.. they would all just drift away on the wind, like ashes, a feather or just like the dandelion's seed. Her own would probably be the same, there was no point in even wondering anymore.

"Are you going to drift away too?" she asked mildly. She knew the answer, but then again somehow Laruku had always been a drifter, even when he was tied to the lands he'd drifted, in circles, on winding trails that always lead back to the beginning.. but he'd drifted just the same. Iskata had come to be content in the stories of far off places that were brough tto her now, still an eye was turned to the distant lands but no longer did her paws want to follow the same old path. She'd given up on believing there was truly something out there, it was all here now.
#14
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It was funny somehow, divulging all the information now when he'd tried so hard to distance himself from it before. He didn't know why he'd bothered now; he didn't know why he'd bothered with anything though -- things happened, life went on. He didn't care anymore who knew what. His once-secrets seemed far away and distant, like they weren't really his to keep, so what did it matter who he told? The words would all disappear in time, as people died, as people disappeared into the ground. In the ultimate scheme of things, there would be no proof that anything had ever existed. He wasn't even a speck on the timeline. He was less than a dust particle. And that was disturbingly comforting.


Rachias is my daughter, he told her. Arkham is my other son. There had been another girl in the litter, but she hadn't been his. More confirmation in his head that Kaena was a whore, a slut, and utterly unbefitting any kind of family life. It was funny that it should be her, of all the stray women he could have fucked (and might have fucked). But he never wondered about what it might have been like with anyone else, and he never imagined that perhaps he had other children somewhere else, by someone he didn't remember at all, and in a place he might not have ever been.


Laruku was not a drifter. His mind and body had always been anchored whether he'd liked it or not. He did not try to leave, and his mind rotted in place from the lack of exercise. And the truth was that Rachias and Arkham were very much the same. They had only left Inferni because they hadn't belonged, had never and would never belong. They belonged no where. After all, they never should have existed in the first place (just like him). Does it matter?


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#15
The silver and gold lady took in the names but little more, she doubted she'd ever meet the children of her cousin and if she did they probably wouldn't care whatsoever of having any ties to the other side of the family. Having grown up in Inferni she could assume the teachings they'd received, but if they'd left the lands maybe there was hope still that the youth weren't so believing of the way of the clan. There was nothing the woman could off them either, no sercrets to the live of their father, their granddam or even their uncle. She was just a distant branch on their dark and gloomy tree. Now with life moving on perhaps they would meet oneday.. but she wouldn't bring up the connection.. it seemed there was a strong dislike for being a cozy family in their blood.

The names made her smile though, to know that atleast somehow the male who seemed to want nothing, no connections, no strings attached.. would have something worth leaving behind. "They're beautiful names.." she said, though she was unsure if the male had any part in naming the brood he'd sired. All the less, they were lovely names. There was a twing of curiousity to find the children and see if she could find any connection to their father.. but she gave up the thought before it ran too far. Instead she just breathed deeply, the scent of the woods all around as she turned her eyes away when he questioned her words.

She was silent a moment, the sadness of it all, of having lived so long and yet it all came down to the same thing, the same questions, the same answers.. somehow this night though he'd turned it about on her. Quietly she answered. "Did it ever matter?" She turned her sky orbs back to try and read his face, though she knew there was probably no reason to even try. She'd never been able to in the past and she wouldn't now or ever.

The soft call of cattle echoed from the edge of the pasture as Iskata's ears flicked towards the sound. A soft rustle as she rose to her paws and turned towards the direction of the packlands before sighing softly. She didn't want to return to the responsiblities or the questions she knew would be waiting for her but she would have to and now was better than later, the later she waited, the more time it gave them to build up a larger assortment of questions. "They'll be waiting for me.." she said softly. Who, she wasn't certain, Magdalena was watching the puppies, or had it been DaVinci.. it didn't matter anymore.

Suddenly she stopped and looked back to Laruku, "Jefferson.. spoke with me.." she said, almost thoughtful as a warped smile appeared on her maw. "Thank you." Laruku might not want the family he was connected to and Maluki might not remember them either.. but before she'd even realized who he was she'd become close to her nephew. She hadn't shared it with anyone til now who he once was but it was nice to know that the family still did exist and still resided in the lands. Knowing in someway was enough nowadays, better that they lived and resided than roamed with no knowledge of if life or death held them. Though Laruku was more a ghost now than ever.. atleast he lived.. atleast they all did.
#16
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No, it had never mattered, but there were times when it felt like things mattered, when it felt like every, little insignificant thing mattered a great deal. Ideally, people would go on thinking that things mattered because it gave them meaning and some kind of purpose, some kind of hope. To that was to lose everything, and knowing that, Laruku had decided that nothing mattered. Losing everything had been the only way to come out of it with some half-baked sanity. It was ironic, somehow. Most people needed things to matter to keep going; he needed the opposite. It was empty, but not feeling anything meant he had no reason to run away either. It was really too bad the apathy was never a permanent thing, though sometimes it seemed to be. It was in their nature to care and to feel that things mattered. It was hard to fight against nature.


Laruku didn't say anything else as his cousin walked off. He didn't know who was waiting for her, and almost didn't remember who Jefferson was, but he supposed that it was good for Iskata that she had people there in one sense or another. If there was ever anyone that had cared, then certainly it was her. She cared too much, but she was, perhaps, happier that way. He couldn't tell, really, but he waited until he thought she was out of sight, and then he turned and went back the way he'd come.


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