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The ocean was the woman he loved. It was great, vast, beautiful... had the sun in its eyes constantly, made the most melodious of sounds. Perhaps it was in his blood that he found sailing a particularly enjoyable passage, and yet a majority of his life had been spent on land, simply walking from place to place. Sure, Nikolai had sailed to the Canadian homestead some time ago (a few months, he thought?) and Russia was far, far away now. The sun was setting over the ocean, displaying a magnificent reflection onto the water and for the homesick beast; everything in these lands were so much different from Russia. Even the sunsets seemed worse, the air seemed tasteless and bland, the souls insignificant and uninteresting. The winters were just as cold, fortunately. Nikolai could appreciate the snow, but he had yet to find a creature or a place that held his interest for more than a few days. Perhaps coming from his homeland wasn't the greatest idea... well, at least his knowledge of the world would increase. It was what he wanted.
"Oh, my dear Russia," he said into the wind as it rippled against his fur, resulting a discouraged sigh from the brute. The breeze that was carried over the ocean was always inevitably cold in the winter, and yet, he did not mind it in the least. He was a winter boy; spring and summertime were okay to look at, but he much preferred cold weather over warm. It would have been easy enough for him to find a ship to board and sail back to Europe--paths between countries to Russia were memorized and settled in his mind with a photographic-like memory--but finding a place to even sleep in those Canadian lands, he did not like. What he assumed to be once sandy beaches were coated in snow and icicles like daggers, but the unfreezing ocean still rustled and swept in its hearth. As he stood in the snow, looking out over the ocean, he wondered how he'd ended up there in the first place, but disregarded the thought for the time being.
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There had never been much reason for Cercelee to visit Halcyon Mountain before, now that no packs inhibited it’s slopes and Cercelee knew that only ashy soil and charred trees laid on the other side. Yet in the past few days there hadn’t been much reason for Cer to stay in Dahlia de Mai either. Haku, Firefly, and Cwmfen all did a fine job patrolling the borders, and Slay hadn’t been much around to keep Cer company. With nothing to take care of in the pack the ivory Rosea took to wandering, and her wanderings had brought her to an unknown shoreline. Cerulean eyes lit up when the female realized what this was, having believed that she had thoroughly searched every beach in the new lands. Perhaps this one would be the one to satisfy her, and Cercelee was eager to find out.
Unfortunately for her the shoreline was already occupied. The male, his face pierced and tattooed, seemed lost in his own world, and Cercelee would have been glad to leave him there had she not heard, carried on the winds, his coo for a foreign country. The name was vaguely familiar, though she hadn’t any idea where Russia was, but it seemed silly to her to be longing for a place she knew was out of reach at this very moment. ”Russia is a long way off my friend.” Her voice rang out clear as she approached the male, stopping a few feet away and taking a seat, not waiting to be invited, this was neutral land after all.
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The mother sea was an object of adoration that most seemed to take for granted; it was a deep abyss, necessary for life and yet capable of killing. Its unsalted forms froze in the winter and provided the children with a temporary amusement, while in the summer, it was warm and satisfying to those suffering from the heat. It was still, relaxing at times; the sound of crashing waves was like no other, but when the wind increased and beat at the waters, the sea could become a fearsome, terrifying object of destruction and woe. It could fend off fires, but it could drown and flood the people. It was balanced and unbalanced, flowing constantly, always moving. He loved it.
The duel-eyed creature suddenly peered over his shoulder at the sound of another voice, though the crashing waves had muffled a majority of her words. His eyes fell upon a bright-eyed female of a pure white color, and her demeanor was anything but intimidating. He watched silently as she helped herself to a seat beside him, a puzzled look in his eyes. She sat down and he faced forward again, bending forward to lean his elbows on his knees and allow his arms to dangle in between. A pause spanned between them, though his thoughts did not immediately return to the ocean and all its glory. "Many seas and walkink to get there," he said, eyes distant as they overlooked the water. "Russia is my homeland. I do not know if I vant to stay or go back." He paused again, strangely not busied with his cartography or anything that day. No, nostalgia had taken him in for a few hours, and he was enjoying the few moments' relaxation. His eyes turned back to her, quiet but gently interested. "I yahm Nikolai... I come to draw maps of lands."
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Silence followed her comment and Cercelee titled her head, waiting for a return, holding her breath. Perhaps the male would not speak to her. Then it came, merely an acknowledgment of just how far away Russia was, and perhaps a memory for him, of how he had come to stand on these shores. Closer now, and having heard him speak more words, his accent was clearer and Cercelee waited to hear more. Not disappointed, Cercelee smiled sadly at the male. Homesick was a foreign feeling to her, Dahlia was the first place she had ever truly thought to be home and never had she been too far away from it. “Perhaps you can do both. Stay for a while, and then go home, if you’d like.”
The voice came again, the foreign accent tickled her and while she was eager to ask questions he would have to answer, she did not rush, Cer did not wish to appear rude. “It is a pleasure to meet you Nikolai, I am Cercelee.” Did her voice sound as foreign to the male as his did to her? Cercelee doubted it, in these lands her accent was too common place. Although her voice had individual qualities, soft, soothing, melodic, her accent was of these lands. “Maps? Of these lands? What will you do with them?” What use did anyone in Russia have for maps of these lands?
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Nikolai turned, pointing his duel-colored eyes over her shoulder at her. It was relatively rare that he would stop for some decent conversation, especially for one in this language. Normally, he didn't bother with these people much anymore, or as much as he was able to. It was not that he didn't like them... well, that was pretty much it. They weren't the Russians he was used to. He couldn't find himself becoming accustomed of their ways of life. It was either too simple, or too complicated, these people seemed to live. He could not find someone who spoke actual Russian like he did, but guessed that French might be roaming about just as the English was, but these people were of varying lands. They were not all English, not all Canadian. Nikolai didn't quite understand it, as they were not cartographers like he.
"Cannot go back to Russia," he said, turning his eyes to the sea. "Memories. Nowhere to go." He could have gone and found his mother, but he didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be a part of that gypsy crusade any longer; Nikolai never belonged there with his family in the first place, but now as an adult, there was definitely no room left. He was on his own now. "Cercelee," he repeated without looking at her, struggling a little with the name's pronunciation. "I draw maps... I keep them fvor myself." He didn't really know what to do with them... he just enjoyed doing them, and then kept them.
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Cercelee looked out over the water and squinted, as if by sheer force of will she could see Russia, the land Nikolai couldn’t return to. Of course all that the lady saw were the rolling waters further out from shore. Looking back to the male, Cercelee took a moment to study him. There were so many whom yearned for lands far away from the ones they lived on, but she hadn’t met anyone who seemed so authentic. Savina too had come from across the ocean, and her accent was strange and pleasant, but not so thick as Nikolai’s, her words were clearer, more controlled in the language she spoke.
Ears perked forward as the male repeated her name, and Cercelee couldn’t deny she liked the way the sounded rolled off his tongue. Obviously it was not a name he would normally speak and though he struggled with the combination of letters it was a pleasant way to hear her own name spoken. Still she did not understand the maps. Just to keep them for himself? “Are they like a record of where you have been?” A dairy of sorts, recording memories in the form of longitude and latitude. “Or plans for where others might go?” Others he might not even meet, was he charting out their futures without knowing so?
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I told it Nikolai, and it posted Jefferson. Oh well.
How strange that he had never considered why he made such maps; Nikolai had always just been a wandering cartographer, it was just what he did. He could, of course, imagine what spawned such an interest, being that he admired nature and the ocean. Anything that was even remotely related to the ocean sparked his attention somehow. A sailor at heart, that Nikolai. Just a sea rogue running amok on land, unfit like a fish out of water. She seemed to enjoy his art, as exotic as the talent was, and somehow the Russian managed to appreciate that.
"Record... yes..." He had to piece together her words and meanings to understand what she was asking, being that he hadn't heard the word "record" before. He nodded his head faintly and shrugged his shoulders. "I yahvf been to each place on map and wrote down. I yahvf been to many places." He was a little stiff suddenly, disliking the focus on him and his mapmaking. He wasn't sure whether or not she was being silently skeptical, and didn't really care if she was. "They yahre fvor me. I do not show them to people. Nobody vants to look."
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They were a journal then, almost, of places he had been. Though it was likely that the memories were something he would always have, Nikolai had solid proof of the places he had been. Something to look at and remind him, if he ever did want to be reminded. The idea was novel to Cercelee, though she wasn’t sure that’s why Nikolai liked his maps she only assumed, and she wondered how she could put the idea to her own purposes. Of course, she had no where to record, and life was just life, the events came and went and didn’t need any sort of record. Perhaps a map of Dahlia de Mai? It was a thought.
Hesitantly, part of her felt he didn’t want anyone else to look, but part of her wondered if really no one else had thought to ask, Cercelee posed her question. “Could I look at one of them?” Cercelee had never looked at a map. She knew that they existed in various forms, the library back in Wolfville had plenty of them, but they had never sparked her interest. Now she wondered just what they were all about, what one might look like, why this male used like to draw them and keep them. “I haven’t been many places. Actually, I haven’t really been anywhere.”
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His dark-hued ears perked a bit at her request and his duel-colored eyes immediately turned to her, expression filled with surprise and slight hesitance. He glanced down at his satchel a moment, pondered briefly, and wordlessly reached for the small leather bag. Upon opening it, rolled parchments stuck out of its contents, pointing in all directions. It was a wonder how any of them actually fit in there, or how many there actually were; the satchel's contents were countless, messily filled with the rolled papers and maps and seemingly nothing more than such and a few pens. Nikolai leaned down and fished through it briefly, speaking as his eyes dotted from rolled map to map. "I find map you might know," he muttered. "Vas at beeg packlands not long ago. Met girl veeth stoopid bird. Talk too much. I get bored, I leavf. Do not feeneesh map." He rambled briefly, then brightened a little when he found what he was looking for. Pulling it from the satchel, he unrolled it and presented it to her, lacking any real humility and hesitance all of a sudden.
"Dach-leea de-may," he attempted. Paused, pondered. Eyes wandered up in frustrated forgetfulness. "Dach-lee... Day-lee..." He shook his head suddenly, grumbling foreign somethings before turning back to her: "Трахнитесь, я не помню. Vas beeg pack on ocean. You know?"
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Cercelee smiled at the male as he gave in, shuffling through the maps. Navy eyes watched, not knowing how he knew which map he was searching for or how he would know the map when he found it but trusting that indeed he knew what he was doing. His words as he searched caused a larger grin to spread upon her maw. “Cwmfen?” She was the only wolf who had a bird that Cercelee knew of in the pack, though Windseeker had one she was long gone now. Cercelee peered at the male, her tail thumped twice against the ground as he unrolled the paper.
“Dahlia de Mai.” She offered, though like her own name she found it pleasant to hear the familiar words spoke by a foreign tongue. Moving closer to the scroll, Cercelee glanced once more at Nikolai to see if she could read his expression but found that the map made more sense than the male’s face. “Yes, this is my pack.” Cercelee was taken in by the images, never having seen the map from such a viewpoint. Never even imagining what it might look like. “Do you have maps of the other packs?”
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Ok, so I'll close this up after this post. ^^
She seemed pleased by the map and whatever little he had scribbled onto it. Nikolai was not a bad cartographer, not at all; he had the inspiration and personality necessary to keep wandering and dedicating himself to what he did, but he found it somewhat difficult to focus sometimes... especially when provoked by Cwmfen or anyone else who jumped in his way. He had nodded (though somewhat impatiently) at the mentioning of the onyx girl's name, and offered a slight smile when Cercelee continued to mention that the pack was hers. He could have guessed as much--the white female struck him as an authoritative type, possibly the gentler of most and thus a perfectly fine leader. He could respect that, he supposed.
"No, not yet," the Russian replied, rolling the map back up and finding room to stick it into his satchel once more. "I havf not been here long yet. Havf much more to see. Vill take long time to see all." That said, he grunted and pushed himself up onto his feet, slinging the satchel over his shoulder before turning and looking gently down upon her. "Ay, the life of vanderer. I should go." He took a few steps away, stopped, and glanced over his shoulder once more.
"You are kind volf," he said quietly. "I come say heh-llo, sometime. You vatch for me." With that, steps began again, carrying him elsewhere. No goodbye was said, because Nikolai was never the type to leave someone forever.
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