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She was stuck. Well, she wasn't stuck literally. She could get up if she wanted to, but that would mean more pain and discomfort. She couldn't shift. She had tried to and it had hurt too. Nope, she was stuck lying on her couch with nothing to do except drown in her own thoughts, which were not as bright and happy as she would have liked them to be. The young lautari of Cour des Miracles was an invalid for the first time in her life. With a severely sprained ankle, she could not walk around like she usually did to help get her mind off of her problems. Jac, despite his best efforts, was no healer, and with Svara having died there was no healer that Ruri knew of that she could seek to try and ease the pain. Jac hadn't stayed long, as she had cried herself to sleep shortly after being helped back to her cabin. Heath hadn't come back either. Who could blame him? Jac, the king, had ordered him to stay away under the threat of more physical abuse. The ivory and slate female was not mad at either of them. How could she be? Heath had confessed his love for her and defended their love against Jac's accusations that it was all a selfish form of seduction on the part of the coy-wolf. Jac had only been trying to protect Ruri from someone whom he thought, albeit incorrectly, was out to harm her. Heath had left in order to avoid the physical conflict he knew Ruri dreaded. She had foolishly hurt herself chasing after him. Now...she was stuck. One would not blame the delicate female for being depressed. After all, her dream of having both of her loved ones being friends with each other had shattered into a million pieces and she could think of nothing to do in order to fix it. So...Ruri was forced, by the cruel hand of fate, to sit and don her best to avoid sending shots of pain up her leg while trying not to think about the negative occurrences of the past evening which only succeeded in making her think about them more. In a word, the innocent Majordomo was helpless.
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Word Count: 400+
Just to put this out there and avoid any confusion: Cuhlain is a figment of Finn's imagination. No one else can see or hear him. Finn's just going cuckoo.
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”Go away…” Finn murmured, tucking her remaining ear close to her head and loped down the beach, moving swiftly, but not swiftly enough to escape the voice. Whore. Just like your mother, you know. She got herself knocked up before I met her and she was in just he same predicament. ”I’m not… I’m not!” She growled, slashing at the air with her paw, trying to dispel the pale phantom that lurked beside her. Cuhlain Fidh had not changed in the three years that Finn had been away. He was the same gaunt, haunting wolf that grinned that terrible, toothy grin and whispered chastisements in her ear like some four-footed viper.
And look at you. Look! A freak. That’s what you have become. Finn crouched, hunching her shoulders to ward him off. Trying to concentrate on something else didn’t work, he was in every corner of her mind, that high, rough voice echoing terribly. Finn wanted out. She wanted out of everything. The pregnancy that she now knew about, the hallucinations. She would have none of it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy to get rid of either. She stood, moving down the beach with a more determined gait. She needed o do something to keep her mind occupied. Liquor was no longer an option. As much as she loathed the pups now taking up residence in her womb, she would take no action against them.
Up ahead, a little white cottage sat on the edge of the dunes, as pretty as a picture. Finn would have appreciated the sight before, being one of those people who enjoyed looking at the scenery, but today she could just not bring herself to feel anything but a dull apathy and a burgeoning terror. She loped over to it, Cuhlain snickering all the while, and knocked on the door. Perhaps someone would be home. Talking with someone real would probably help. She couldn’t even begin to share her problems, but even chatting about the weather would be more preferable than listening to the ghost of her father taunt and insult her. Finn wondered if she would eventually go mad. Like her father, and like his mother before him. Morrigan had been as fruity as a loon the day Finn left, and her father had been well on his way when he drove her off. She didn’t want to become that, but the paths she was treading had high walls and no escape routes.
”Finn's words”
Cuhlain's thoughts
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Short post...guess the only person I can blame for that is my accursed muse.
It came suddenly and rather quickly. Several knocks on the wood door of her cabin. Someone was here. Quickly she inhaled the unfamiliar scent. It wasn't anyone she knew, but they had the scent of the pack on them, especially that of Jac. Ruri could only guess that this person was a woman, who else would have Jac's scent intermingled so much with theirs? Doing her best to adjust herself into a more, presentable position Ruri decided it would be best not to turn the guest away. After all, it wasn't like she had anything to do, being injured and all. "Come on in. The door's open," she called, sitting up on the couch with her wounded right ankle propped up on a ratty old pillow. Keeping it elevated seemed to lessen the discomfort a bit, although Ruri did not have the slightest clue why. That was just one of those little questions that Ruri found herself occasionally pondering out of curiosity. Most of the conclusions she arrived at made little sense to her and were often discarded shortly after she arrived at them. However, thinking about such random topics was one of the ways she attempted to ward off depression when she felt it settling in. Unfortunately she hadn't quite succeeded in that endeavor this time. Perhaps this stranger would be able to take her mind off of her own problems with a conversation. Ruri did always enjoy conversing with her packmates.
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Word Count: 300+
Oh, no worries! Post length doesn't really matter to me. At least for other people. For myself, I'm a bit crazy about matching post lengths or writing more. XD
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Finn flicked her ear, heeding the voice and stepping inside. She shut the door behind her and Cuhlain’s protestations were cut off, as if he really had been locked outside. A quick glance around the room showed it o be quite comfortable. It had a lived in feel, and Finn assumed that the canine lying on the couch was the one who lived here. She nodded to the pale dog, her shoulders still tense from the non-stop scolding she had been receiving for the last couple hours. It was comfortable in here, the chill of the November day warded off by the walls. Finn was starting to get used to living indoors, she had even found herself a cubby hole in the dark, dusty kitchens of the hotel.
”I… I’m sorry for intruding. I was just passing by and I… wanted to talk to someone.” Finn shifted the weight from one foot to the other. Cuhlain was growling and talking to himself outside, his tattered voice faint, but still hearable. Little runt, should’ve eaten you at birth. Should’ve tossed you off a cliff. None of my other sons gave me such trouble… Finn smoothed a hand through the mane at the back of her neck, trying to shut him out again. ”Ah, I’m Finn. Finn Fidh” She murmured, vaguely distracted. ”And you?”
For the first time, she focussed on the young female’s ankle and drew in a quick breath. ”Are you okay? Your ankle…” The joint was swollen and looked quite tender, Finn grimaced in sympathy. Sprained ankles were never fun. She had only done it once in her life, but it had set her back, as she had been a wolf when she injured herself, and thus only had three legs to walk with. Jacquez seemed to be able to function fine, despite his missing limb, but then again, he never walked on all fours, so it was a little easier.
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Ruri smiled when the stranger entered her home. When the stranger apologized for intruding, Ruri suddenly found relief that the person was a woman. Then this wolfess introduced herself and Ruri immediately nodded and replied, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Finn. I'm Ruri, Ruri Aceline, Majordomo and Lautari of Cour des Miracles, and you don't need to apologize. You're not intruding. In fact, I'm glad to have some company at the moment." It was true that Ruri definitely enjoyed the prospect of having someone to talk to. After last night's events she could use something to divert her attention. She heard Finn mention her ankle and immediately her half-folded ears flattened in embarrassment. "I had a bit of an accident last night, trying to chase after one of my friends. I tripped and sprained my ankle. It was stupid of me really, I have that entire trail memorized and yet I still tripped over that rock. It's the first time I've ever injured myself like this," she confessed, her blind eyes wandering in Finn's direction. It was indeed embarrassing for the blind girl to admit. She had grown up learning how to memorize where things were in the area she lived in so that she could move around and not be a burden to her friends. The one time she wasn't careful she ended up getting injured and now becoming a burden or so she thought. The slate and ivory female soon found herself shifting on the large couch to make room for the other woman. "You can come sit down if you want. I would feel bad if you had to stand while I sat here," she offered politely. Ruri had been neglecting her duties as the lautari lately. Jac had said she was supposed to help make people happy, but it seemed like all she did lately was make people concerned for her sake. She would have to work on that when she could walk again.
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”Memorized?” Finn caught the strange word in the sentence and frowned, eyes darting across Ruri’s face. ”Oh! You’re blind?” She blurted out before immediately flushing with embarrassment. ”I would not have thought it… Unless I saw your eyes.” It was true that Ruri seemed remarkably alert and had a keen sense of where Finn stood in the cottage. The grey wolf found it slightly eerie that those pale blue eyes lingered over her very place more often than not. ”How is it you survived?” Finn said, confused again. A blind wolf who had grown past childhood? How strange!
Her family back home would never allowed such a pup to live. Any physical defects that might have hindered them condemned their bearers to death. Finn heard that both of her littermates had been less than whole. When she was five months old, Aegnus told her that their father had eaten them, and she hadn’t slept for a week. The fact that a blind wolf had managed to grow to relative adulthood, for Ruri still looked quite young, was impressive to say the least. Finn had scars, but nothing that really interfered with her ability to live or to fight. Apparently, blindness did not hamper Ruri much either.
”Thank you.” The she wolf said, gratefully sitting down on the couch. She realized in passing that this was probably the first time she had actually used furniture. ”I might be able to do something with your ankle… Lessen the swelling. Do you have a rag or something that I could borrow?” Finn asked. Her knowledge of medicine was patchy at best, but she remembered what her grandmother had taught her about what to do with sprained limbs: elevate them if you could, and put on a cold compress. Ruri had already propped up the hurt limb, and Finn was sure she could fashion a compress using the cold water in the ocean outside.
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Ruri couldn't help but smile when Finn finally realized that she was indeed blind. The fact that it wasn't as noticeable must have meant Ruri was getting even better at detecting where people were with sound and smell. When the scarred wolfess asked Ruri about how she had survived, Ruri withdrew for a minute, her mind travelling back to the day that her mother had abandoned her. It was not a memory Ruri re-lived often as it was not pleasant. However, Ruri had long since gotten over being sad about her mother abandoning her to die. Of course she still had a tremendous fear of abandonment but her love for her mother had faded a long time ago. She was nothing but a distant memory. "I almost didn't. My mother abandoned me when I was just a little pup. I almost starved to death until Jacquez found me. I've followed him around ever since. He's the only family I have." she replied, smiling when she thought about Jac. Of course, Jac had not always been the best parental figure to the girl. In fact, it had been his over-possessive, protectiveness that had driven Heath away last night. Ruri knew it was Jac's fault, yet she still could not be upset at him, or Heath for that matter. She loved them both too much to be angry when they both had thought they were doing the right thing. Ruri was snapped out of her thoughts by Finn's question regarding something for her ankle. A rag? The delicate border collie had to think for a moment. Did she have any old pieces of cloth that would qualify as rags. Certainly she had lots of new things like her clothes and blankets. It took quite a bit of thought before Ruri nodded her head. "There might be a small piece of cloth in that room over there," Ruri replied, pointing with her hand roughly in the direction of the room where her bed was. She had the whole house memorized, which made sense considering how much time she spent in the single story cabin. "It should be sitting on the small table next to the bed," she replied, hoping that Finn would be able to find the rag that she meant. Ruri would be happy if the wolfess was able to do anything to lessen some of the discomfort she felt, even if only slightly.
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