[html] For Kansas! And many, many, many apologies for quality and timeliness. I still owe you that table. (Maybe two, now. ^^ __________________________________________New places. Always, new places. She had lived years in them, shifted with the variance of days or hours as the mood took her, and somehow she’d found herself here, in a land whose very name was branded with bad luck. Bleeding Souls. Surely she wasn’t one such individual? Ah, not entirely true, not any longer. Luz’s heart had been touched, and thieved from under her sternum when she was busying herself amid gold-green pleasances in gold-green eyes. How safe she’d felt, before! How silly she had been, believing her heart to be on loan to wind and impulse. No longer. Strangers would not be able to tell; the she-wolf was oh so certain of this. Her symptoms were self-contained, reserved for the cobweb-rooms of the heart, where though the corners were folded over with invitation, the beds were never slept in. Nostalgia, it seemed, was sewn in with the season. The lower the temperature stooped, the more her caprice insisted she step out into places already visited, take second-looks at things she’d not always intended to see again. To Storm, it was. The first pack, besides that she’d been born into, which she’d called home. The travel-itch had found her there, too, and sent her running with good-byes unsaid. Little matter. She could not apologize for what she would not be willed to do; yet all the same, she felt apprehension at her heels, as well as accidental love from burrs, who’d seen a season of frost and frigid air out only be to be loosed by an errant heel. The border smacked with foreboding. She lived somewhere else, owed other allegiances. Too strange for words, to be standing here, at a crossroads she’d chosed before the trail doubled back! Too odd to be Luz Cresceno on days when she wasn’t her customary self. Yet, c’est le vie. With slanted hips, and a werewolf-hand on the higher of the two sides, she regarded the terrible loveliness of the river. A rock, at last enacting a shift that had been on schedule for weeks or months or minutes, tumbled off another stone without the least second of warning. The effect? Nothing devastating, save some small amount of splash making it’s way to Luz Cresceno’s calf. “ Riveting,” she remarked, with only scant traces of sarcasm. | |
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It's fine! You write so well. 
indent Nighttime was approaching, or, that was what Kansas thought. Noon had been several hours ago, and he could tell that the sun was beginning its steady journey to the horizon. Shadows were elongated, and where the sun did shine it shone brightly, making the snow on the ground shimmer like gold. It was a beautiful thing, and gave the boy the same sort of calm feeling he always got when bedtime was near. It was then that he could relax and feel totally at peace, perhaps nestled among his siblings, listening to story told by Phoenix. He was a strange child, to look forward to bedtime.
indent The boy still had a few hours left of daylight, so he opted to go to the river. It wasn’t far from the den site, and was easy to find because of the creek that stemmed out from it. Kansas walked casually alongside the icy creek, following the curves and pivots it made as he did so. He was careful with where he placed his paws – he didn’t want to slip and fall into the icy water. He shivered at the thought of having this happen to him and slowed down even more with his eyes on his paws.
indent Finally, he heard the dull roar that signified the river coming close. He continued to watch his step until the rapids were in sight, and moved to a safer distance from the creek before breaking out into a run. He jogged onto the riverbank, which was covered in rocks and sand. But he was surprised to see someone there. It was a shifted wolf, obviously a female by the shape of her body. He studied her gray fur and smiled as he trotted toward her. Just as he was drawing up beside her, a rock tilted from a larger boulder and slipped with a clink into the river. He heard her whisper something, and spoke up immediately. What’s riv…riv'ting?
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[html] Psh, but thank you all the same. As do you do you! __________________________________________
Her solitudes were ever getting trampled over; personal examination found them riddled with paw-prints, poor transitions between subjects, mood-swings. A sneaky thought asked if she was ever really looking for privacy, as she didn’t exactly haunt the most exclusive nooks or frequent unpopular corners. Her eye twitched in response. Yet rather than being startled by a stranger's voice, as a real introvert would have been, she merely turned her head.
Once she would have shuddered and made annoyed noises at a puppy's approach. Now she found herself decidedly less disturbed, perhaps even eager to press her eyes against their young bodies and listen to their fun-size vocabulary, as if by bumping personal bubbles she thieved a year, maybe two, from their youth. Her temper remained at its usual length -- long enough to endure the hot-heads and even the cool-heads at the usual irritations, yet prone to ignition at small, unexpected stuffs. The squish-talk that so many adults assumed when they spoke to those younger than them? Below Luz Cresceno, or at the very least, disdained by that she-wolf. And so it was that she turned, and sank to her knees that their heights better matched, and explained. “Here, ‘riveting’ means to engross, or to hold one’s attention. I’m using it both incorrectly and sarcastically.” A serrated smile.
The thought of telling him that honing in on whispers was twice as rude as the usual eavesdropping never occurred to her, even as a joke paired with a tilted grin. Somehow such information was better left to other creatures, other lessons, other days. Instead, her attention was snagged on details of appearance “I’ve never met a cream-colored wolf before,” she said, a truth, though she knew the shade was natural enough, and though that was not the item troubling her. It was his eyes. Great, and wide, and blue. A secret instinct inside of her, the sliver of mad-inspiration we all possess, begged to pluck them out, that they might be examined always, that Luz might own such eyes instead of near-stolid amethyst that grew dull and duller with the turn of days. She ignored it, but it did give a certain undesirable intensity to her stare, a quality that even children might meet with a shudder and swift exit. Knowing this to be true (as we all know our own face-muscle movements) the astronomer smiled in a sad style, the ruined way of the old lady at the bar, and introduced herself. “I’m Luz.” | |
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[html] Thank you!
i can't stop running away.
Perhaps she would have been disappointed to know that Kansas much preferred being talked to like he was older than he was. Being a boy of low confidence, if he was spoken to with a tone that suggested he was a weak little baby, he would have possibly cried like one. When an adult was like that, he just knew they considered him insignificant and stupid. He already felt stupid at times, slower than his brother and sister – this was often the mistake people made when met with someone shy. But Luz’s words, large and hard to understand as they were, made him smile and relax a little, so that he sat back against a boulder and looked frightfully up at her.
He did pick up that “riveting” meant to keep one’s attention on something, which was nearly exactly how the woman had put it. He understood the part about sarcasm and nodded, but he didn’t really feel like going deeper into it than that. Their conversation needed to drift away from the rock, or else he would seem annoying to her, he was sure.
He wasn’t certain if she was complimenting him or merely making an observation when she mentioned his coat coloring. Either way, she had noticed something that made him different; unique, and his smile grew wider. Still, there was that uncertainty of how to answer, so he was quiet a moment, and in that time she gave him her name. And how interesting it was! A little harsh-sounding, but it fit her, and he tested it out for himself, whispering it under his breath before deciding how to respond to her comment on his coat. "Oh, thank you. I dunno were I got it from." Neither of his parents were cream-colored. Perhaps inherited from a distant relative. "I like your name. I’m Kansas Sadira. D’you know any Sadiras? ‘Cause it seems like lotsa people do."
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