[html]  Geneva; Sunflower Sunsets.
The world was gray. Not only the sky, but the trees, too. They cast ghostly gray shadows on the ground and underbrush. Snow fell lightly; large, wet clumps melting to ice over the softer snow that had fallen the previous night. If he weren't so familiar with the area, Kansas was sure he could become lost in the weeping, gray landscape. He had always been skilled with navigation - he paid attention to detail, almost to the point of making himself sick in some instances.
He barely noticed the cold. It would get much worse in the next weeks, but Crimson Dreams seemed able to take care of itself; its members were careful. He and Savina certainly had plenty of blankets in their room. Kansas couldn't help but grin when he thought of this, of the day she'd brought him those... blankets. As he loped through the snow, the boy looked down as if someone were there to see his sly smile.
He was surprised when he began to notice the thinning trees. Several yards later, he found himself before an endless mass of tall, frosted stalks. Their flowerheads might have been cheery at one point, now with faces angled downward, empty sockets where seeds must have been last summer. Kansas felt their sorrow, almost; and he gazed at them with melancholy interest. They were gray, too.
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[html]  Geneva shivered slightly, her small frame shaking with tiny tremors. It certainly wasn't as cold as it could have been, not by a long shot. She was definitely used to the cold, but she didn't like it at all. Her coat hadn't thickened very much, still thin in some places with thick patches in others. The result was slightly ridiculous. Her tail had fluffed up and the scruff of her neck boasted some thickened patches, make her look slightly like she had a lion's mane.
She walked gingerly through the snow, her approach anything but quiet as the white carpet crunched and ice crackled beneath the pads of her paws. With amusement she realized that she matched the gray-scale landscape rather well. She had grown bolder as she spent time with the Crimson Dreams pack. Her insecurities were melting, becoming the weaknesses of yesterday. She still spent the lion's share of her time in Crimson Dreams territories, but she found that once or twice a week she'd branch out, exploring bit by bit. Her reason for this was partly because Naniko's babies were growing and soon they'd want to explore too, and she wanted to be sure that someone could be with them to care for them just in case.
The stalks of sunflowers rustled as she crept through them, the gray-scale jungle a mass and tangle of dormant flowers. She noticed light coming from the other side and quickened her pace. She made much more noise this time, the rustling, tangling flowers as she launched her way toward the outside. Lime green eyes blinked as she emerged, feet scrambling in the dirt as she stopped just in-time, coming nose to nose with a white blue-eyed male. "Ah, hello!" she said a bit breathlessly.
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[html] Geneva; Sunflower Sunsets.
Exploring the area outside of Crimson Dreams wasn't nearly as appealing to him as it had once been. He had Savina, and though she spent time doing the things she needed to do, he didn't ever want to miss a chance of spending time with her. It was as though she might suddenly slip away from him at any moment. Being with her was new to him, the most thrilling thing that had ever happened to him. Perhaps when the more assured he became, the less... needy, he'd be.
With the cease of movement the chill began to take hold. His muscles tensed, the fur along his nape and spine standing up. He looked away from the dormant sunflowers; they were making his chest tighten, and he didn't know why. Another day and he may have explored them; he thought about turning back when the sudden sounds of movement from within the sunflowers startled him to stillness again.
The small female stopped just in time, but he took a small, perfuntory step backward anyway. Her coat ironically matched everything else. But her eyes were a pretty relief. "Hello," he greeted with a small grin. "I, uh, wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry if... I startled you."
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"No, no. My fault," she said, grimacing slightly. Her paws burned from the frozen ground and trying to stop so fast. If the snow had just fallen in a flurry, it would have been softer. But instead it was a lot like jagged pieces of soft ice. She looked into the blue-eyed male's face once more, offering a smile of apology. "I really should watch where I'm going."
Her sense of smell failed her completely. What little use she had for her nose she utilized by breathing. She tried to decipher his scent, but she could barely catch the slightest trace, despite being right in front of him. But he looked so familiar. "My name is Geneva Stockholm. I think I might now you," she offered. It puzzled her. She hadn't really ventured far beyond the Crimson Dreams borders, and even so she had only met a handful of new acquaintances. None of them had been snowy white.
"I'm the Chief Sergeant of the Crimson Dreams pack," she added, wondering if that would help any. Was he a member of a nearby pack? Did he have connections to the pack, like the dark wolfess Ember did? There was something of her features in his face. Hmmmm.
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Had it not been for his improved social skills in the past several months, Kansas would have dismissed her blaming herself with a well-intentioned argument. But, fortunately, he had more sense than that. He simply gave a small shrug, pleased by her own courtesy.
As she introduced herself, her expression became puzzled, as if she were trying to remember something. Come to think of it, she did look familiar. He searched her face, chewing his lip in thought. Geneva. Her lime eyes and monochromatic coat were so familiar. Kansas wasn't out enough to have met her elsewhere and forgotten already. At last, she explained, and his eyes lit with recognition. "Yeah - I, ah, apologize, you looked familiar. I'm Kansas Sadira, Sergeant of Crimson Dreams." He paused a moment. "Did you... did you join recently?"
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"I thought you looked familiar," she said with a small smile. "It is nice to meet you officially, Kansas Sadira." She used the name he had given her, unsure of if she should address him by his given name. Although she outranked him (and only slightly), she wanted to make a good impression on him. He seemed friendly and open, and she liked that instantly about him.
"I've only been around for a short while, no considerable length of time," Geneva said. She didn't think that now was the time to tell him her whole story. But she could definitely offer some information. They had a lot of common ground. She turned the question back on him. "Have you been around for a while?" She thought he might have. He seemed so familiar with these lands, at ease even when these neutral territories were still slightly uncomfortable for her.
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Wow, ridiculous wait. I'm so so sorry.
And she was being the same toward him. There was something calming about Geneva, and he somehow felt more at ease with her than with most (besides Savina). He shook his head and gave her a warmer, more genuine smile. "....Just Kansas is fine." Just to, in return, be sure that she was as comfortable with him as possible. It was important to him to make good impressions on his pack mates. He needed to make a better effort to be friendly.
He knew this girl was ranked more highly than him, and as always he felt a twinge of disappointment with himself when she stated that she was fairly new. Though he didn't care much about his rank, he suspected others might. With a slight nod, he swept to his haunches, wrapping his tail around his hind end for warmth. "I—yes, I have. I was born into Storm... I don't know if you've heard of it; it was just... one of the old packs. I sort of, eh, followed Naniko into Crimson Dreams."
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It happens! No worries.
Geneva listened attentively, her ears straining to point directly upward without her even noticing. The gray wolfess was an informational sponge. She lived to expand her knowledge, finding that facts and figures were one of her greatest joys in life. She loved to learn new things, especially about packmates. Abstract information was one thing, but having a living, breathing source of information with a history was something else entirely. In secret, Geneva didn't just love facts. She loved stories too, and each of her packmates had his or her own. She loved to listen.
"I never heard of a land before this one," she said thoughtfully. She hadn't ventured very far from Crimson Dreams borders, except on a few occasions. To date, the longest distance she had traveled had been to the city. She tried to remember if she had overheard anyone talk about Storm before, but realized she hadn't. "Could you tell me about Storm?" she asked, and there were a million other questions in her voice. Was that were Naniko had come from? What had life been like? Why establish a new pack at all? She waited patiently to hear his answer.
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Kansas loved stories, too. He never bored of hearing others tell him about themselves (then again, he'd never yet spoken with a rambling idiot, either). His father had been full of tales, but he only remembered some of them, and only snippets of those at best. And then there were books. Kansas had accumulated quite a few over the months, worn and fragile though most of them were. Their stories not only taught him things, but also gave him a variety of places to escape to when that was what he needed.
He was struck pleasantly by how captivated she seemed. She watched him politely, interested but not uncomfortably so. It made him feel okay about telling her a bit of his own story. He was delighted when she chose Storm to question him further about--which wasn't so hard. "Sure." He paused to collect his thoughts, staring absently at the earth between his paws. "It was around... several years before I was born. I'm not sure who founded it; but it was a long time ago. I think it was one of the original packs of Bleeding Souls. Gibraltar was the Alpha before my father, Phoenix, took over. He led until the fire happened, and the pack disbanded.
"It... was beautiful there. A very large forest of evergreens. I loved it. I was sorry to see it burn." Though grinning, Kansas spoke with a hint of sadness, as if he were telling her about a lost childhood friend. He suddenly became conscious of his lack of knowledge, and it embarrassed him.
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Geneva listened thoughtfully, and caught the wistful tone in his voice. How sad and hard it must have been to see his home burn. She felt sympathy for him, along with a secret surge of pride. Although she did not know her pack mate at all, it seemed that he wasn't a quitter. He had adjusted, had risen above his tragedies to carve out a new home for himself and the ones he loved. And in the process, he had played a role in creating the home she loved so dearly. She was so grateful to him, and was sure he had played a role in the whole process, but didn't know how to thank him. It was be so strange to. Instead, she schooled her features to be neutral. Best not to smile when someone described the desecration of their homeland.
"I'm so sorry about your home," she said. And she was. But he had survived, and that was the important part.
She thought back to her childhood home. "I grew up in a city," she began. "So unlike anything here. Even the city in the neutral territories. My city was a mass of huge human buildings that touched the sky, taller than trees. And they were all made of glass, silvered like the face of water." He had shared part of his life with her. It only seemed right that she do the same.
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He didn't see himself as being particularly strong. He'd pulled through some rough spots, but he still allowed them to haunt him, turning him into a recluse for several months. There were some bad decisions he'd made during that time. He envied those like Naniko; she was still good enough to lead their pack into peace and happiness. And he'd let his losses wear him down. But Geneva didn't have to know that. And, with Savina, he was much better; helping himself, so to speak.
A smile broke across his stark features as she offered her sympathy. What a kind girl. "...It's all right." A little awkward, but that was just him. He watched her a few seconds, grinning again when she spoke. His brow rose as she fulfilled his curiosity, awed. How was that even possible? "That's unbelievable—" Realizing how this sounded, he shook his head slightly. "—Amazing. Did you live inside the buildings?" He wouldn't be comfortable, confined within something so fragile.
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She was glad that Kansas enjoyed her story as much as she enjoyed listening to him speak. She realized that it probably struck him as odd that she had grown up in a city. His childhood had probably been far more traditional within a pack. But Geneva couldn't imagine growing up any other way. The large buildings had stood as sentinels, shielding her from the cold, reflecting light in their windows. "I lived in buildings, I played in buildings." Geneva laughed. "I think I preferred buildings to the outdoors."
She hadn't thought the buildings were fragile. On the contrary, they were the largest, most solid things she had ever encountered. Even the tallest trees and the densest rocks didn't lend her the feelings of safety that those buildings had. She had felt like a princess in an ivory tower, a castle, a fortress where nothing could hurt her. "I never saw the ocean until very recently. I've never slept inside a cave."
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Kansas knew about the humans, the things they'd left behind. The existence of the buildings Geneva spoke of wasn't news to him, but the fact that she'd lived in them and enjoyed it surely was. In his books, humans had lived only indoors unless something was terribly amiss. But he'd grown up outside, subject to the harshness of the elements and wildlife - he'd thought it was normal. Though he lived in the house, he'd rather be outside its walls. He assumed all wolves preferred this, but he'd learned some time ago that assumptions were often very wrong.
He listened with interest, curiosity written upon his pale face. What she was saying was surprising, but when he thought about it, he didn't consider it strange. Kansas had never traveled far. For all he knew, other ways of life were more common than his. There was a lot he didn't know, things all the books in the world wouldn't teach him. He nodded, speaking softly when her voice had died down. "That's a lot of... change. Do you miss it? If you don't... don't mind my asking."
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