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Svara. Unclaimed portion of Overgrowth Sunrise.
It was the first time in a long time that Cercelee stepped foot outside of Dahlia de Mai, and even now she did not go far. Her life now was a far cry from the days she had spent recovering in Twilight Vale with Ember and Savina. Even now not a scar showed from her encounter with the coyote, they were so small and hidden beneath her thick fur. Naniko was a skill healer indeed. As Ember and her had discovered, Naniko and Savina were long overdue for a visit from the Dahlia de Mai Rosea, but today she did not plan on even moved outside of the Overgrowth Sunrise, which Dahlia de Mai had mostly claimed. Looking over her shoulder Cercelee imagined a visible border marking the end of her lands and the start of the neutral ones, the border was a tall stone fence which only those with the best intentions could scale. The imaginary fence quickly crumbled before her eyes and Cercelee smiled bitterly.
Stepping further into the neutral part of the lands Cercelee instantly became aware of the differences in the area. Visibly it was so very similar, the snow covered fields did not vary much from those she claimed and those still unclaimed, but the varying scents amazed her. She found scents of Inferni coyotes, Crimson Dream wolves and Phoenix Valley wolves. Loners and creatures had passed through too, all leaving their olfactory footprint. The traffic here was heavier and more varied than that in Dahlia de Mai. Strangers did not just pass through the pack lands and if they did their scents clung only to the borders. Here everyone’s scent meshed with everyone else’s, going this way and that. Cercelee stood in the middle of all the invisible activity which had taken place hours, days and weeks ago.
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Svara stood not far from where Hanna's cabin was. She sat in the snow, her body had grown since she had first come across these wolves. She was in her luperci form, hoping to obtain some mastery over it. When ever she was in this form Svara liked to be alone, not wanting others to see how vunrable she was in this state. Looking down at her wrist she grinned seeing the pink band that was made of string she had found in Hanna's place. They were braided together intricatlly in such a way that it looked like it had never been multiple strands but always one item.
Sitting there she gazed at the setting sun and the visible plant. It was bright against the moon making the young she wolf grin. For once she was alone and could think about the future and what was going to happen. Would her pack let her be their herbalist? With her additude it was unlikely and knowing that burned what little of a heart she had. Yet she knew that she would have to pay for her nature some time in her life. Svara sighed and felt the soft pull of a breeze. Hell she would be lucky if Cercelee didn't kick her out of the pack after her threatening words to the female a few days ago.
Falling back on the snow cladded ground she just started up at the sky her dark mane falling all round her a braid on one side. Her yellow eyes just continued to stare up, thoughts running over and over in her head. It was the sound and smell of a certian she wolf that made her get up and shift. Back in her wolf form she sat there and saw Cercelee blending into the snow a few yards away. It was this female she would have to learn to accept. Getting to her paws Svara moved towards the female her intentions mature. When She finally reached the she wolf the pup sat before her already pretty tall for her age, though her build was thin and lanky her height was all in her long legs. "Hello Cercelee." Svara almost felt her tounge twist with the dificult words. Growling slightly Svara jumped right into it to get it over with. "I would hope you'ed accept my.......regret at what I said to you the last time we met." Svara's voice was deep and bordering a growl. This was a big slap to her pride and she didn't like having to do it, but humility was a lesson she would have to learn.
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Sorry ‘tis short!
Cercelee looked up, surprised at the wolf approaching. The white lady did not speak, merely watched as the youth came closer and closer, taking in her appearance critically. The young adult was surpassing Cercelee in height, but that was not a hard feat. Cercelee still had experience and age over her, but it was strange to think how quickly the pup had grown within their lands. Idly she wondered if Flayra too looked so very different from when she had first set foot on these lands. Flayra, however, had no been seen since the pack hunt and Cercelee did know if the child had left their ranks or not. Perhaps Svara’s harsh words had run her off after all.
The words that came from the tawny female’s lips were even more surprising than the fact the female had approached. Cercelee had been expecting the usual slew of harassment and insults and she didn’t quite know what to make of the female’s apology, or what was as close to an apology as Cercelee assumed she would receive. Clearing her throat, Cercelee spoke neither hostilely or warmly, but just softly in a straight forward way. “Why would you regret those words Svara? I was informed that you don’t, and never will, answer to me.” Cercelee repeated back the words Svara had flung at her before, her eyes questioning the youth. Cercelee would forgive, but she didn’t know if Svara was sincere of it this was just the current whim of the female.
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The cold was seeping into her thick coat making her want to move so she could feel it no longer. She hadn't expected such a reply from Cercelee one that made her eyes narrow and a very threatening look settle over her face. "No Cercelee I don't Answer to you. Yet I find that to get somewhere in this crappy boring life I will have to kiss your white ass to get what I want and so I will if I have to. Does this answer what you wanted to know?" Svara's voice was deep and monotone. She didn't want this female to have power over her, but Svara wanted things, and she would gladly shove her pride to get them.
"I have no reason to respect you. No reason to care about you." Svara stated in her low voice. Sitting down in the snow again she just stared at the white female for a time. In one more month this female would have to be the one to promote her to an adult rank in this pack, a rank she needed to become an herbalist. "That girl. She threatens those who've protected me, though I don't like to say it out loud I owe them, and I will repay my debt to both of them." Svara's voice was low and tense, not liking anyone to know she had loyalty in her and integrity.....sometimes.
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Svara could feel her will slipping with the rosea's words. Feel the courage and steam that drove her start to run out. What would she do with out this pack? Although it was a pisser to admit it; she had become attached to Firefly and Haku. Maybe not in the way most people understood, but to her it was enough, to her it was home. Her pride said she shouldn't let this female threaten her, but her mind knew that this she wolf could. That her word was law in this pack.
Even through her harsh words and loud mouth Svara was still just a child. Her ears fell back on her head and her teeth pressed hard together in anger and frustration. Could she survive loosing another family? Tears pricked her yellow eyes and she dropped her gaze to the snow. This wasn't fair. So she had to kiss this females ass to stay!? It felt like her mother all over again.
Svara tried to hold in the tears that were pushing her yellow eyes. Of all things this girl didn't want this female to see her break down. Taking in a deep breath Svara tried to speak with out her voice cracking. "Don't make me leave." She heard her own voice crack even when she tried to get it not to. Finally it was to much to keep it in and the young she wolf let a sob escape her maw. "Please don't make me leave!"
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The reaction of the girl reminded Cer that even if Svara’s body was now rivaling her own, that emotional perhaps she still had some maturing to do. Of course, no one liked to hear that they were being requested to leave their home and Cercelee almost felt pity for the girl. Almost. Cercelee guessed that not only would Svara not appreciate the pity, she would take it as a sign of weakness from Cer and try to walk all over the white lady. Cercelee was instead determined to hold her ground.
“Why should I?” Her voice was gentler but still firm. Her eyes were kind but questioning. The Rosea was making it clear that she was not going to just give in. She could not let the pack become weaker by allowing the members to turn on one another with little reason. “What good can you do for my pack when you can’t get along with anyone?” Aside from Haku and Firefly. Cercelee titled her head, waiting for Svara to answer, but continuing before she really had the chance.
“Think of it this way Svara, I know you respect them but do you think they would be were they are if they didn’t respect me?” Firefly and Haku did not always agree with their Rosea, they did not always like their Rosea, but they respected her. Neither of them were always the most pleasant to the other members, but they took their medicine and held their tongue when asked to, and rarely without provocation did they threaten another member. Cercelee knew she could never subdue them completely, and probably never Svara either, but she couldn’t risk the well being, physical or mental, of another pack member due to the whims and moods of anyone else.
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Her words made Svara's fur rise in anger. This female didn't know who she was, she just didn't like how Svara talked to her. It made the young she wolf grind her teeth in frustration. "Why Should you!? Maybe because I'm training to heal your people! Maybe because unlike anyone else in this damned pack I'm will to show all you fools what you refuse to aknowledge! And Maybe because I would die to protect anyone in this pack because it is my home! That is why you white cotton ball and don't forget it!"
Svaras' words got increasingly heated and shouted. She didn't want to have to say any of those things again. Didn't want to have to take such a chunk of her ego and step all over it to stay in her own home. Her yellow eyes were narrowed and blood shot with her tears. "I give respect to those who have given some to me! Just because you are the leader of this pack doesn't mean I automatically respect you! I don't know you, and you don't know me or who I was!"
Svara was shaking with the force of her anger, but she didn't know why she was angry. Why was she so angry that no one in this pack knew where she had come from? Was it because no one gave a crap? Then again she didn't care about their pasts. Did she? A snort rose from her. "That is what I have to offer." She said forcfully.
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Cercelee did not startled at Svara’s sudden outburst, she was growing accustomed to the girl’s unstable moods. Merely she considered her words. A healer was needed, but Cer wouldn’t risk having one who was so ill tempered. What was to say that the girl wouldn’t, on a whim, opt not to heal a wolf? Though Svara claimed she would protect the others with her life, the way she treated others indicated otherwise. Cercelee did not choose to comment on any of this. Instead she posed the a question. “And what is it that we refuse to acknowledge Svara?”
Svara explanation of how to earn her respect elicited a chuckle from the Rosea. Did Svara really think her so high above the others that she deserved respect from them first? “And I respect those who deserve it Svara, which you do not. You have shown yourself to be nothing more than a foul-mouthed, tactless child. I have never disrespected you, you on the other hand have disrespected me and many of my members for no reason at all. You are disillusioned child, if you think anyone will bowed down to you in this pack with that attitude of yours. ” It was nothing but the truth. Svara had few friends within the pack, Dahlia de Mai would not much miss the girl once she was gone.
“I do not deny you have great skills and even more potential to be a great healer. Yet you do not have the personality to back that up. Who would come to a healer that mocks them openly? Who doesn’t respect her own leader, when all the other members of the pack do? None of them are overly subservient to me, I am not asking you to. I am asking you to give me, and all the other members you have such distaste for, what’s due us. Your fate is in your own hands Svara, wouldn’t it be a shame if you threw that all away on your childish, stubborn beliefs?” Cercelee watched the girl, only expecting to enrage her further, expecting Svara to snap at the hand that was trying to guide her.
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Svara listened for once. She took a deep breath and knew what the female said was right. It made it want to shout and growl and just scream. It made her want to howl until there was no breath left in her lungs. Hanna had been right, she would have to change to stay here. The pup felt cheated out of her own skin at this point. Her ears lay flat on her skull as she accepted the burning truth. Her paws stung slightly from the cold, and her fur rose from simple cold breezes that would pass. So she would have to start being more like her father then her ill tempered mother. It seemed so strange to Svara but it didn't mean she would have to change completely.
"You know what you all don't see? Is that most of you hate each other. Disrespect each other behind one another's back and yet when I do it in front of your faces you get mad?" Her voice had lost it's fight and was just a soft voice of a female child. "This is my home Cercelee and I will do what I have to do to stay here till I die. I'm not going to make another family change. If I have to kiss your ass to stay here I will. If I have to respect you just because you carry a title then fine." Her voice was almost weary as she stood before the white female. "And I don't have much against you, other then taking Haku's daughters side. We all make mistakes but don't you think that you lillium has earned forgiveness?"
Suddenly Svara was rambling on, going into her own past not even thinking about who she was talking about. "I mean I don't see what he did wrong. Just because he liked me more then mother wasn't his fault! I didn't mind as long as it meant I got to spend more time with him. Maybe I liked it I don't know, but it was always her fault, she always ruined everything!" Svara kept seeing her fathers face as he did things to her, things she didn't hate him for at all. That was probably why most wolves would call her nuts. Her yellow eyes seemed to be far away for a few seconds before she snapped out of it and just looked at the white wolf before her, not knowing what she had spoken about. As she saw it no one cared and no one needed to know her personal problems.
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Her words showed clearly that more than anything Svara wanted to stay in the pack, that she was willing to give what was expected of her to keep her place. Although the way she stated it wasn’t the most respectful, Cer did not expect miracles. Svara would have to adjust at her own rate, so long as she did. “Svara, there is a vast difference between kissing one’s ass, as you put it, and acting as a stable, contributing member of the pack. But so long as you keep your word, you can stay. ” None of the wolves in Dahlia were expected to submit relentlessly to Cer, and if they disagreed with the Rosea they spoke out. Yet they did so with tact, and in return Cer gave them all her time and energy. It was a fair trade.
Yet Svara posed two other interesting points, though only one of them Cercelee had to think long on. It did seem at time that there was a lot of dysfunction between members, but Cercelee could honestly say she loved each pack member and she would protect them with her life, even Haku and Svara as long as they remained in Dahlia. While she knew it was not true for all the others, she was content enough to know that if presented with a situation, Dahlians would stick together. She couldn’t make them all play nice. She wouldn’t bother answering that accusation.
However whether Haku deserved forgiveness, Cercelee was not sure of that. He had proven to be loyal to her ever since the Inferni War, yet mistakes of the past could be repeated. Would Coli being a member of Dahlia keep him from harming her again? If he could do that, couldn’t he do it to any of their members? Cercelee thoughts were cut short. Svara’s words now overrode them. Questioningly, Cercelee watched at the child babbled on, her story missing gaps but Cercelee pieced it together well enough.
“You mean your father liked you better than your mother? ” It wasn’t her place to step in, and Cer did not really wish to confront the sticky, sickening subject again, but Svara could not unsay what had been said.
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Cercelee's response to what she thought about ass kissing was ignored by Svara. She understood, knew that it wasn't really what was going on, only that she was making it that way. Change wasn't something she liked all to much, it was why she avoid it as best she could. The young wolf sat before the white female knowing the situation was getting to personal and that she had devulged to much. Cercelee's next words could not be ignored. She had opened her mouth about her past and now the rosea would want to know. It made her sick to think talking to someone about it.
It didn't make her sick because of what her father had done, because then they looked at her not with anger and irritation like she liked, but pity and sorrow. It wasn't something the pup wanted. She hated pity and saddness, and she had loved her father in every way possible. "Yes my father loved me more than my mother. He spent all his time with me, he taught me as much as he could and he didn't stop at loving me in a fathers way. He loved me more than that damned bitch of a mother I had. If there is anyone I want to kill before I kick the bucket it's her." Svara's yellow eyes snapped fire at the women as she took to her paws.
"Don't you dare think I'm like that fucking girl at the border, just because her dad didn't love her like mine doesn't mean we are anything alike." Svara growled in a threatening tone. "And don't you fucking look down on my father because he will always be better then all of you." Svara hissed between her teeth, defending a dead man who had molested and raped her for part of her childhood. The only problem was Svara had never ever hated him or what he had done.
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Her conscious told her to pry for more, uncover why Svara was the as she was, try to right wrongs that had been done to her, but Svara’s words and Cer’s own irritation told her not to. It was clear that whatever Cer had to say on the subject of such “fatherly love” would not be taken to heart, and she did not want to argue with the younger female, undoing what progress the two had made so far. “No, you will never be like Coli. ” Her tone was neutral, she meant nothing by it only that indeed the two girls were worlds apart. Cercelee doubted that even if Svara had suffered rape at the hands of her father, it wasn’t like what Haku had done to his own daughter. It was a strange though to think that two crimes of nature, incest, could be so vastly different.
Yet there were still questions. What had her mother done? Why had her father chosen his daughter over his own mate? They were answers Svara had, but perhaps Cercelee did not want to hear this at times time. Could not handle to hear them at this time. Sighing, she shrugged at the girl, indicating they were done, unless Svara had more to add. Standing, Cercelee turned from the girl, looking back only once before she left. “If you ever want to talk Svara… ” And with that she began to move back into the pack lands, back into her own life.
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