He's in his lupus form, btw. :3
[html] For the longest time, the sky had been overcast with no chances of the sun poking through and shaking the chill off of the earth. But the coolness of the morning weather didn’t really bother Hezekiah that much, but he still thought it was decidedly nippy. He had spent the night in the forest, having gotten himself well acquainted with it the day prior. Even though he had been through it a number of times, like many of the other places within Inferni, he was just beginning to explore them for all they were worth. Far from having any worldly, intelligible skill like his peers and superiors (or so he believed) and having nothing better to do that he could think of, Hezekiah stuck to what he knew best. He stayed out of their way. Occasionally someone was worth shadowing from afar, but he often lost interest in that, especially when he didn’t dare to get close to them like he had with Anselm. Having a repeat performance of how they met was something he certainly didn’t want to deal with.
There had been a nagging feeling that had burrowed itself deep down at the bottom of his gut that he had come to associate with homesickness. It was funny, really, because he knew without even calling up particular memories that home, as in the place he had been before, wasn’t that great. The only real difference between the two was that he got at least half a sense of belonging in Inferni and perhaps most importantly, he didn’t have to deal with his father. No more complaining about him wandering when he actually didn’t really wander at all. No more complaining about him being a reminder of the mother that he had never met. But the thought, then and there, was enough to make him stop in the middle of that forest where the fork of a swollen creek flanked him from side to side.
Hezekiah shook his head, but not to shake the thought — it had started raining. Though the thought was thoroughly dislodged from his head and almost immediately thereafter, he had turned back the way he had come, searching high and low for somewhere that would be decent cover from the rain. [/html]
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In the time since his son had departed Inferni, there had been a small wave of newcomers. Not all were new, of course—Fatin was as much a part of his family as his blood brothers. Still, the ache of loss was something that stuck with the Aquila. It was fading with the days, but it remained ever present. He did not think that Ezekiel would be returning anytime soon, but he still hoped to find the boy at the borders. Talitha had been gone much longer, so it would likely take his son weeks (if not months or years) to find the girl.
The duties of the Aquila kept him busy. With Kaena and Anselm helping him, there was a great deal less stress involved with the matter. They were his right and left hands. There was still the need to keep a patrol constant, and Gabriel did at least two a day. This was one of those times. The initial route had taken him north, along the mountainous path that had been carved over months of wear. Gabriel cut southwest, pausing only to remark his scent on landmarks, and once when a strange wolf had been spotted (one that quickly ran off after a show of teeth), but otherwise uneventful.
One drop hit him first, then the next. Gabriel frowned and cast a glance skyward. There had been the threat of rain all day, but now that it had come to fruition he was stuck. A few back trails quickly took him through the forest, and he was en route to the mansion when he nearly ran into a tawny figure. Startled, Gabriel’s ears and tail stood bolt upright, and his feet stopped moving almost immediately.
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[html] An explosion of colour that wasn’t yellow, red, or green came around the next bend far too quickly to suit Hezekiah, who immediately backed off and let submission creep into his frame out of habit. For a brief moment, he regarded Gabriel with a look of confusion, but the recognition came back quickly. He remembered where it was that they had encountered each other before and just what exactly his status was within this little clan of his. He remembered the scar that unfurled across his muzzle and the peculiar touches of darkness to his body that didn’t normally come up on either wolf or coyote. Another hybrid and his one he knew was Kaena’s son.
The rain went forgotten as Hezekiah pulled his gaze away, more intent on studying the ground than the expression that he believed was bound to turn up next. “S-sorry,” he managed to stammer out meekly, flattening his tall ears against the curve of his skull. It wasn’t just the fear of being rebuked that told Hezekiah to mind as submissively as he was; everything about the way Gabriel stood over him told him it would be wise unless he wanted to get on the bad side of someone who had clearly dealt with those who ended up on that side more than once over time. [/html]
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The Aquila’s nostrils flared, sucking in the air, bringing the scent of the boy to him. Both eyes remained wide, as if their jack-o-lantern colour might swallow the color around them. It was the ever present rain that reminded him he was in no danger, long before he realized the boy had dropped low and began whimpering. There had never been a time where he could remember such a display—the closest had been Conri, but that noise was incredibly different. It was intoxicating beyond anything else he had ever known; beyond alcohol, drugs, orgasm, even murder. This noise was familiar, but it was not the same. For this reason, he hated it.
“Get up,” he nearly barked. Both ears swiveled back, then forward, and he frowned. Something terrible lurked in the candlelight of his eyes, but the anger was not meant for the boy. With the rainwater quickly dampening his fur, the scarred wolf (though he did not consider himself this) took a step forward. “What are you doing out here in the rain?”
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[html] There was a certain coarseness to the Aquila's voice that Hezekiah both expected and not, but he was sure to right himself as soon as the command had came forward. Maybe what was surprising was the fact that when he expected his legs to be something akin to wet noodles, they weren't, and Hezekiah was quick to chalk that up to fear too. It may as well have been, because he couldn't pin down the feeling that bubbled up within him as he drew his gaze back towards Gabriel's dark muzzle to acknowledge his words firmly. And for a moment, they didn't register. He hadn't expected a question, no, he had expected to be told to stop being underfoot, to get out of the way, or something akin to those.
“I… was trying to get out of the rain,” he said, trying not to let his voice falter or otherwise make his quiet statement unclear. “I didn't meant to get in your way, I'm sorry,” and for the most part, at least he was good at apologies. Even though every mark of instinct in his head told him to drop and roll, to evade whatever it was that he had descried in those eyes, he was at least managing to maintain some sort of halfway point between standing at his full height (which still would have been smaller than the doggish Aquila) and appearing to crawl the ground like the drowned rat he'd look like by the time he got out of the rain. [/html]
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There had always been a certain bluntness in the way that Gabriel spoke. This was not to say he was by any means uneducated. Wordiness, as he saw it, was unnecessary. It was a militaristic thought, one that belonged to the world Gabriel believed in. Most people here were unfamiliar with such concepts, raised outside of anything more dangerous then a summer storm. The way that this boy reacted to his voice told him that he had been given orders before, and not questions.
Gabriel grunted, and shook his neck. “You weren’t in my way,” he explained, and began to pass the boy. “Come with me, we’re not far from the Mansion.” With that his pace picked up to a trot, moving at a speed he found comfortable. It would not take more then ten minutes at this brisk pace to reach the building and at least then they would be out of the rain. While the Mansion was not a place Gabriel frequented (due mostly to the associations he had with it) it was closer then the Caves.
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[html] Without so much as another word, Hezekiah fell in behind Gabriel as they headed towards the Mansion. It was a place that he had never been before and though he had his own questions as to what exactly a mansion was, he knew it would be better for his own eyes to see it in order to grasp just what it was. And that went without saying that he had seen it once before, but had deterred from getting close enough to really investigate it. Though now it sounded something like a shelter and if that was the case, then he had no qualms about visiting it.
But on the off chance it was actually something quite the opposite, he wasn't so sure on how he would feel. Tricks were nothing new to him, but they had at least not destroyed all of his trust in those that were esteemed figures. Not that he had never had a problem with leaders, it was quite the opposite and yet in a minor way, not. All of his problems so far had stemmed from his father, who for the briefest of moments as they passed back over the place where Hezekiah had thought of him, crept back up into his mind before dissipating into thin air. This was neither the place nor the time to spare a thought about him and the more Hezekiah thought about it, the more he knew he needed to stop thinking about it; he didn't want to fall behind. [/html]
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They reached their destination in a little over the estimated time, given that the rain slowed Gabriel slightly. Soon, though, the building loomed through the rain. It was somewhat intimating, especially given that it was out in the middle of the forest. Covered in vine just beginning to brown, and now mostly colorless from the years of weather wear and tear, it was a skeleton of a giant. A giant with black eyes, it seemed, since no one was home. Halo, was far as Gabriel knew, was the only one that occupied the place currently. She always seemed to find a way to keep herself busy, though, so this did not surprise the Aquila.
With muddy paws and damp fur he quickly made his way up onto the covered porch, where a good shake was given in order to help dry his coat. The rain had picked up in speed and intensity, and now was coming down in a torrential downpour. Sighing at the sight, the charcoal-brushed male focused his attention back on Hezekiah. It was only then, as he noticed the healing wound on his side that he remembered exactly who the boy was. “Your side’s gotten better,” he commented. “Anyone help you with that?”
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[html] A few minutes later, the mansion came into full view against the wilderness of the heavy forest that led out of Inferni. He didn’t know what to make of the mostly brick structure with it’s faded roof and grimy Tudor-esque stylings initially, but the closer they got and the heavier the rain seemed to be, every soaking wet step towards it became necessary. Ignoring the ghastly, dark windows as they approached the porch, Hezekiah watched Gabriel go up them first before following him, stumbling with the first step but otherwise finding the others easy to navigate. Then beneath the cover of it’s own roof, he too shook the heavy water from his coat with a sigh at the sound of the grumbling thunder.
Momentarily, Hezekiah cast his eyes upward at the overhang, as though there were something up there to descry from everything else that was around him. Houses were just as foreign as everything else he had seen, although this place was no house. It was bigger and better than anything the boy had seen before, and his attention moved on to what else there was to be seen, that was until Gabriel had addressed him. This time, when his translucent blue eyes met the vibrant gold of his leaders, he didn’t see whatever it was that he had saw before. What fear there had been had for the most part disappeared in the time it had taken for them to cross the forest to the mansion, but a small part of it nagged absently at the back of his head.
“Kaena did,” he explained, turning his muzzle to briefly glance at where the wound had turned to nothing more than scabbing that had started to flake free. “She put something on it and bandaged it up… and I’ve been mostly resting until it didn’t hurt so much to move around.” His head—where they had been no wound outside of unseen bruising—had stopped aching long ago, but his side had taken several days to simply stop being a source of constant pain. But now that he had been there a couple of weeks, he had lucked out at getting aid that had helped tremendously. [/html]
[html] Fail post is fail. :[
Over the years wear and tear had taken their toll on the house. Without repair in the next summer, they would likely see damage become much greater. Structurally, the house had stood up well. A great deal of this was due to its original architect, who had been wise in the climate he was building in. For now, though, the building served its purpose well. During the winter, it would likely become more populated. Certainly, it would be more comfortable then a cold cave above the sea.
“That’s good,” the Aquila replied, not entirely surprised that his mother had looked after the boy. If there was one weakness in his mother, it was children. “It looks a lot better.” Casting a glance back to the downpour, Gabriel shifted his weight and turned towards the door. As he saw it, there was no reason to sit outside when they could wait out the rain indoors. It only took a few minutes for the transformation to leave the Aquila on two legs. With one scarred hand he pulled open the door, holding it there for Hezekiah.
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Lies, it was fine! Mine on the other hand be a little choppy because I'm playing student worker since my cohorts seem to be short-staffed today. <_<;
[html] “It feels a lot better,” Hezekiah couldn’t help but echo when Gabriel commented on how it had been healing. He had been glad that it had healed, primarily because having a nasty wound at his side had been unpleasant, but it had ate away at his primal instincts. Being wounded meant that in a situation where fight and flight came up, he was hindered any way he looked at it. And having been a bottom rung sort of creature for so long had told him that more or less narrowed down his chance of surviving. As the silence fell between them, he quietly turned his attentions elsewhere until the familiar cracking of bone belonging to the Luperci needlessly grasped at his attention.
But for the most part, he only cast a few glances at always looked like some grotesque transformation; he even hated to experience his own shift from form to form. But within a matter of minutes it was over and it was there that Hezekiah found Gabriel all the more intimidating, but it was subdued and nearly imperceptible in his gaze. When the scarred Aquila held open the door, his gaze drifted back and forth between him, the opening, and the door itself for a moment before Hezekiah decided to slip in, his bushy tail wagging briefly as his own moment of gratitude.
Inside of the mansion, the dampness in the air was all but present. It was now replaced by something much more musty and foreign to the woodsy youth, but it wasn’t necessarily a foetor. Once again, he drug his attention from wall to wall of the entryway, investigating all that made the room unique. “Does anyone live here?” he queried after a few moments, turning back around to face Gabriel in the dim lightning. The smell of others had long permeated the area, but for the most part it seemed entirely deserted. And yet it seemed like such a nice shelter structure. [/html]
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“Halo does,” he mentioned idly, stepping inside. The door closed behind him, slamming shut loudly. Gabriel had never been particularly drawn to the wide entrance and its lavish staircase, but this was not where he intended to remain. Turning to the right, the hybrid made his way towards what had perhaps once been a drawing room. It was large, with tall windows (and what Gabriel had been most interested in), and a wide fireplace.
Gabriel squatted near the small pile of wood, one he made a mental note to replenish before the winter, and began piling it into the fireplace. “My daughter used to. There’s a lot of open rooms if you want one,” he added, sparing a glance over his shoulder before turning back to his work. A book, sans cover, lay nearby. With one hand he ripped out a few pages, crumpled them, and used this for kindling. With some encouragement from a box of matches, a small flame came to life. Carefully, and almost gently, Gabriel continued to pile up the assorted branches until he was satisfied with the size and placed two small logs on the fire.
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Crap post is crap and I blame it on my cold. I take an hour nap and pass out for five hours instead. ;_;
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He followed after the Aquila, jotting down Halo's name as they went from the entrance and into the drawing room. Like the previous room, there was much that added to the milieu; things that Hezekiah didn't know any more about than the man in the moon. Some of the objects were of some level of familiarity, but there were a number of things—antiquities and the like—that seemed like bizarre humanistic contraptions than anything else. Then again, the mansion was a bizarre humanistic contraption to him too. The biggest structure Hezekiah had ever seen up until then had been the shacks that luperci figured out how to build. So while he paid them brief attention, curiously testing the air and passing over a few objects with his nose, they were soon let go of when the sound of the match striking caught his attention and as Gabriel spoke again.
“You have kids?” Hezekiah asked as he crept a little closer, watching him work with the fire to prevent it from going out. He had no fear of the orange glow, having been familiar with it, but the concept of lighting such a thing indoors was the new concept. Observation was one of his better skills. As for obtaining one of the rooms, he didn't have anything much to say to that; he felt like they were awfully far from the caves and in Hezekiah's mind, supreme safety. Although things considered, he couldn't deny that the mansion had a certain degree of fortification to it and apparently was safe, otherwise he didn't think that others would have attempted to live in it past or present. “Why doesn't she stay here any more?” He asked on, not entirely thinking that by the term used to meant that she was gone completely from Inferni's embrace. He thought maybe she had felt the same consideration he was about the place.
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“Two of them,” Gabriel responded almost instantly. His work had concluded for the time being, and the small fire crackled in its home. The smell of smoke was not unpleasant to the hybrid, though it was thicker then usual. This much told him that the chimney needed cleaning, a task that was incredibly undesirable. It was something he had never done himself, having only spent a grand total of four months indoors. Though not uneducated or unfamiliar with human objects, Gabriel had little practice in handling them.
Hezekiah’s question was ignorant, so there was no rise of anger in the Aquila. He had grown somewhat numb to the fact his children were gone. They had come back once before, and he did not doubt he would see them again. “My children are Lykoi’s; our family tends to roam.”
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Gabriel’s explanation of why his children were no longer within the mansion or Inferni itself seemed to palliate than what it really was. They had left, simple as that, and that sort of abandonment was entirely unfelt by Hezekiah. With maybe the exception of the mother he had never met and could never meet, he had spent a majority of his life trying to fathom would it would have been like to leave. So instead he let his eyes go downcast for a moment, thinking. The only time he levelled them back out with the hulking figure of the Aqulia was when he had something to say.
“How come you don’t wander?” And maybe it was a silly thing to ask, but Hezekiah was pretty sure he was a Lykoi too. Kaena was his mother, or so she had said to be, and he thought he could find the resemblance somewhere. It seemed like an innocent thing to ask, but he had come from a long line of “monkey see, monkey do”. It only made sense to him then that wanderers kept wandering and those connected to them did the same. He only knew loyalty, knew that strength was in numbers as well as protection. So the decision had been made that he would not go from Inferni willingly.
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[html] Hurhur Gabe is funny.
There was a part of Gabriel that fully fell in line with pack mentality. Generations of his ancestors had done so, for protection and survival, and this world-memory clung to his instincts as it rightfully should have. Even the coyote part of his brain knew that there was strength in numbers. Perhaps though, too, this part of his brain had been the call to leave. He no longer felt such a thing—but then again, he no longer looked like a coyote.
“I have,” he explained, finding no ill in doing so. “I spent several months in the southwest. Burnt the need to wander out of me, you might say.” And, at this joke, he smiled. It was a peculiar thing, because Gabriel felt no humor about the situation. SoCal, though he did not know it by this name, had needed to be cleansed. Just as their old home across the mountains had so fallen, for it was the Hand and Will of the Creator that demanded lives, not Gabriel’s own. “Where are you from?” He asked, focusing his eyes back on Hezekiah.
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Hi! I suck. I kept forgetting to post this and then I lost it so I rewrote it. 6___6
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What Gabriel had to say reminded Hezekiah briefly of the people his father interacted with, who very much like his Aquila, had burnt the need to wander out of them. But of course, to Hezekiah they were much, much older. Ancient, maybe. Old enough to have been his father at least once over. The notion was something that the boy didn’t understand now, but he supposed he would in time. Just like many things he was coming to terms with, far and wide. However, it was the more pressing matter of where he had come from that made him falter for a moment, face contorting as he tried to figure out a way to say it without sounding worse off than he possible was.
“I’m not sure where it is from here,” he said with a hushed sigh. “I’m still not really sure how I ended up here… but it isn’t too different than here, I guess. It’s by the ocean, only ours isn’t on both sides. Lots of trees. There were coyotes there too, but I don’t know if there were more or less than what’s here. I lived there with my dad.” Things had been quiet there for the most part, although so far his stay in Inferni had yet to be too eventful. Which was fine with Hezekiah — right now he simply went with the flow.
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Word Count: 315
In Character
There was nothing out in the world except an endless desert and the same conflicts that Gabriel had always found. Inferni was home, and it had been home for years now. He had come back because there was no other place for him, or those lost children of the earth neither wolf nor coyote, to go. Hezekiah seemed like a nice kid, but he was young, and Gabriel did not believe he would stay in Inferni’s borders for the rest of his life. He was too young, and it was a pattern that those who were so young rarely were content in one place. His children had left, and he doubted he would see them before they were grown.
An ocean and trees. He could have been anywhere, really. It was the mention of the boy’s dad that caused Gabriel to perk up, suddenly interested in this unknown family member. More peculiar, still, was that it had been the father to stick around, as opposed to the mother. In Gabriel’s situation, he had barely known either of his parents until he was grown, and by that point he hadn’t really wanted anything to do with them. Of course, they had since proven themselves—his father only shortly before the madness took him whole, and then killed him. His mother still behaved as she once had, but he was accepting her, slowly, for who she was. Nothing would change Kaena Lykoi; at least, this was what Gabriel believed. “Does he know you came out here? Or did you just up and leave?” While it was a sensitive subject, the Aquila was curious about the circumstance surrounding Hezekiah’s departure. He recalled that the blue eyed coyote had been at a loss, as far as memories went, when he had first shown up here, but hopefully the time would have allowed those things to come back to him.
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[html] That all too familiar feeling of dread came crawling into his vein’s as Gabriel approached the topic of his father. Even though his own describe of where he had been from was vague and could have been anywhere in the world, Hezekiah felt like if anyone would know where he was talking about, it would be someone in an authority position. That alone sparked unease in him that he would be made to go back home, that his refuge there was temporary. So he hesitated, gaze sinking like a stone to the worn floor at his feet and to the side. But stalling never went over well with anyone, so he knew he had to answer; being pinned down for an answer wasn’t exactly in his interests.
“No,” he said quietly. It was more directed towards the former question, because he had his uncertainties about the latter. Hezekiah was sure that whatever had transpired had to do because he had wandered away, but wandering had been his escape. It was an escape that he had not needed since he had found himself in Inferni. “He won’t miss me anyway,” the boy added, his voice barely above a mutter. There had never been any pleasing that man and though he didn’t know it, Hezekiah had long been punished for things that were out of his hands. [/html]
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In Character
There was an obvious discomfort in the blue eyed coyote. Obviously, the issue of his father was something that Hezekiah didn’t want to get into. Even though Gabriel had no desire to try and find out exactly were the younger coyote was from, it still seemed like something that shouldn’t have been such an issue. Still, he was conscious that he was prodding somewhere he wasn’t welcomed. If experience told him anything, it was that shoving his nose in a rabbit hole might end up with him getting bit by the snake that took residence up when he wasn’t looking.
Though the corners of Gabriel’s lips pulled down slightly, he showed no further display of emotion. One ear flicked dismissively, electing to drop the issue if that was what his companion wanted to do. “Well, you’re here now and that’s all that matters. You seem like a good kid,” he offered, trying to bring Hezekiah out of his morose state. “As long as you keep yourself out of trouble you’ll do fine here.” Turning his face back to the fire, Gabriel yawned widely, off-white teeth (wolf teeth, by their size) revealing themselves and snapping shut smartly. “Once you figure out what you’re good at we’ll probably try and get you training in it. Might help keep you busy,” he added, offering his face and a faint, friendly smile towards Hezekiah.
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