Private.
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So much had happened over the last few days that she hardly felt like she was the same Legacy that had rambled through the packlands before Phasma Kiles had left this world. Feeling pangs of guilt for leaving them all for a day, unplanned though it had been, she had hardly been out of sight of the cavernous den since. Sleep, however, had been elusive even in the comforting home environment. Curling up in the family chamber at the usual time, she simply lay awake for hours before arising once more without having even closed her eyes.
It was a feathery, blue-grey dawn with the wind wildly blustering through the branches, making her shiver as if it were threatening to rip up all her beloved trees. Surveying this scene from the den entrance, she hugged her arms round herself. She'd been keeping quiet about so much that was foremost in her mind, and was able to think about little else, let alone speak, and had indeed spoken little to anyone - how odd it felt to be so reticent around her family. Fortunately, with the recent shift in the pack dynamics it was unlikely anybody noticed, or attributed it to anything other than grief, which of course was there too. Indeed, the child was a brew of emotions. She didn't know how long she stood there, dazed and preoccupied, fur ruffled by the few tendrils of wind that reached inside. [/html]
You have quite a pretty avatar. *gawks at it*
[html] Sleep came off and on for the young Valiant, who was just as equally troubled on a certain level by the things that had happened within the walls of their collective home. Maybe it was the fact that he was resting in a little nook that wasn't all that far off from where Phasma had taken her last breath that ultimately bothered him. Maybe it was that fact that he was troubled he hadn't gone to pay his own private respects that haunted him. Regardless, through a long night and what wasn't very good rest, he had woken at long last to ponder whether or not it was morning yet.
Stumbling through the dimly lit passageway towards the entrance of the den, he tried to vigorously blink the sleep from his eyes, even more so when it seemed like someone else was peering out into the equally dim light of morning. She didn't seem to be too old by any stretch of the imagination and of course sized played a lot on this. Still, he was getting pretty good at spotting a few of the sharp Kali features that all of them seemed to possess. Upon hearing the common roar of the wind through the closely packed trees, Valentine sighed. “It almost seems like it would be a nice day if it weren't for the circumstances and the wind,” which all in all, was a funny way to say good morning to someone. A child, especially. [/html]
Thanks- I remember drawing Akumu for you a few years back. I wonder if I still have it! XD
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Though still childish in her appraisal of such things as metaphors, Legacy felt somehow deep down that the wind and unsettled feel of the morning fitted the pack's circumstances fairly well. Most trees stood with only a shudder, and some felt it more than others; bowing down before the might of the breeze. There was no way to articulate this though, and no one to do it to; but just as she thought that she heard a voice. Luckily it came from the still depths behind her, else the wind might have drowned out the syllables. Not that they were wholly intelligible to the girl as it was. She suspected the wolf was speaking of the death of the Beta, but it didn't seem right to ask bluntly if this was so. The weather was a safer topic.
Then she realised she didn't know the speaker, and turned to peer at him through the dimness. She did recognise him, but no specific details came to mind. He wasn't that other black male, Lucifer, and he wasn't Kieran either, so he was a mystery. As much as it felt natural to her to be meeting a greater variety of wolves than just her family, she wondered if she'd taken the exploring side of things a little too far sometimes. She would be a packwolf too some day, but there was learning and then there was getting into trouble. Not that this wolf was trouble. She was sure he was trustworthy. Else he wouldn't have been allowed to join the pack. Right?
"I've never seen wind like this before." The girl fidgeted a little; solemnity didn't agree with her, though she felt just as sombre as she sounded. "How do the birds stay up?" The question burst from nowhere, and the minute she'd asked it she was searching for something less trivial, less aimless. "You know my mother Fatin, don't you?" [/html]
Orly! I have horrible memory skills any more so I don't totally remember that, but if you dig that up again, I'd love to have it! *saves everything people make for her*
[html] “Some birds are better fliers than others, but they don't really make much headway in wind like that,” he told her, eyes scarcely wavering from the few birds that did try to go against the current of wind. It was her next question however, that drew his attention away from the outside world and to the girl. “Yes, I know her. She's the one who let me stay here. Our mothers were friends a long time ago.” She seemed just as perceptive as he had thought, which drew a polite, but friendly smile to his face. “I'm Valentine,” he offered, not dancing around introductions this time. [/html]
you might still have it then, but I'll look through the sketchbook jungle for it when I have time. 
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The gusty day was less interesting to look upon than Valentine, even despite her inward-turning thoughts, and she turned to face him while he spoke. His smile was charming to the young girl's eyes and brought about an echo of the expression on her own face. "Oh - I see. Did your mother live here?" All answers she could get were pieces of the puzzle that would help her to know and understand this courteous-seeming packwolf better, which was definitely an objective she liked the idea of. She had an ease with strangers and did not consider that she might seem rude in her curiosity. Legacy was not one to fret over how she might be perceived. "My name's Legacy," she added, returning his introduction in kind. His name was rather pretty, and seemed like it probably had a meaning, though not an obvious one. Hers was contrastingly an obvious enough word, although admittedly you could speculate as to what exact legacy she must represent.
She was beginning to wonder if the fire was lit inside. Perhaps this conversation, if he was willing to continue it and was not in the middle of leaving on some business or other, would be better held inside. Could she suggest that, though, when every mention of the fire-chamber voiced aloud seemed to have no connotation but that of a dark body lying on the floor? Surely most of the grief would fade away soon. For some of them at least - she had not seen her mother at all since that day. Valentine was a wholly welcome distraction and she shrank back a little nearer to him, trying to escape the wind.
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I had a look through but I don't have it. I made many sadfaces. ;_;
[html] Like she, he also found her name to be quite interesting. It was an echoing sentiment back to when he had first met Lucifer and the two had jokingly admitted that their parents certainly had a weird taste in names, but having a name like Legacy, well… he wouldn't have been surprised if there wasn't some sort of burden lurking around the pretty sound of that name. “Yeah, she did for a couple of years. My mother has, or had, a habit of moving about for a long time.” He wasn't really sure why she had stopped once they had gotten away from the place, albeit he had an inkling that now he was out of the picture and grown that his parents would become elusive once more.
“I was born in Syemv, before it disbanded.” Though, he imagined it would have been nice to have been born in Jaded Shadows. If only things had been different, well, if things had been any different he imagined that he wouldn't have been there. Circumstances were often everything when it came to the world. Another gust twisted the air through the mouth of the den and this time, he shuddered. “Maybe we should get away from the opening. No telling who might come busting through the snow and the wind next.” [/html]
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He had an interesting sounding life. Syemv was an enigma to Legacy, but she'd heard something of pirates and something of wolves from far away, and it had always been a name of great intrigue to her. This boy would have been young at that time, but it was still exciting to meet a native. They both gave a shiver as a paticularly insistent blast of wind hit the pair, and she prioritised getting to shelter before plying him with her curiosity - not that it wasn't tempting. Nodding to show she'd been thinking along the same lines, she took one last look out at the admittedly unenticing landscape before heading inwards.
The fire was unlit. It was early, but it wasn't often she came in and there was nothing but embers. The pack had definitely been despondent lately. Thank goodness for Valentine, one of the few that wasn't merely a wraithlike presence after the loss of the Beta. Though of course having been born in Syemv he must have known her a little, even if not at the time. Picking up a few sticks that lay beside the hearth she gave it a hopeful prod, uncovering a red glow beneath ash. She was hesitant as to the next step: she thought she knew what to do, but despite her months of observance had no first-hand experience. Oh, well. Pausing for a moment she looked up for Valentine, likely already holding yet another question on the tip of her tongue.
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[html] As their luck would fare, the fire had been reduced to nothing more than a smouldering pile of ash and hot coals… but far from unusable. He watched Legacy poke at it for a moment, the thoughts of how to get it going again only coming to him when the girl had looked in his direction in a question way. “It needs tinder,” he said, gaze drifting from the young girl to the hot glow of the coal. “I'll get some, just wait here.”
Not wasting a moment on the off-chance that said coal would burn out, Valentine headed for the storage, nimbly reaching it with a few long strides around the worn corners of the cavern and feelingly blindly in the dark for a log. He grabbed a couple of them, pulling at the dry bark that still clung onto the dry wood, coming back into the sitting room and setting them down next to him as he sank to his knees beside the fire. “I guess whoever usually keeps the fire going slipped up today, but it's not too hard to get it going again,” he went on to say, not thinking about who it had been who had been keeping said fire going, “but you take something dry, like grass or fluff from a cattail or bark like this and put it over the top of the coal.” Following his own instructions, he did so.
“But don't dump a whole bunch on there, since you don't want to smother it. Then what you do is cup your hands near it and blow on it lightly. If you do it just right and enough, you'll get a flame going again. Then you can add more tinder to the pile bit by bit, then the log.” Once that was out, he did his best to emulate just how he had done it once or twice before, working gingerly and quickly at trying to get the fire going again. It took a moment or two, but the smoke did start to rise from beneath the dry tinder. He withdrew for a moment before giving it another prod of air and just like magic—a small fire flared up. Adding a few bits of tinder to it, he shuffled it back towards the remnants of what was left of the previous fire. [/html]
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Tinder! That was a word she would remember religiously from now on - it was evidently quite the secret to fire-starting. He swiftly headed off to the store, and she remained still, sitting on her heels next to the fireplace. He was so helpful and decisive, so dark and straight-forward. A small smile crept over her mouth as she absent-mindedly resumed her prodding the dully glowing embers. A piece suddenly flew upwards, flicked by the tip of the stick and stung the back of her hand. She jerked it away ruefully. Better leave the fire stuff to Valentine for the time being, she thought. Moments later he was back, with wood.
Watching carefully, the girl took every word to heart, the suspense building as he made an example of what he was telling her. She grinned when the little flames danced seemingly from out of nowhere. Somehow it felt so much more homely in the cavern, with that familiar crackle. Darting a look at him, she exclaimed "You made it look easy!" She didn't doubt that it would take her a few tries before she could get flames like that to come out of nowhere. Dropping a few small bits of dry bark in herself, very carefully, she frowned with puzzlement. "But, Valentine... what if there aren't any embers to begin with?"
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[html] “Then you'll need something to start the fire with,” he said with a smile. “There's lots of ways to start a fire, but I like to use matches the most. A match is a thin little stick with a bit of charcoal or something on the tip of it. It's usually red.” Matches and tinder weren't exactly the easiest way to start a fire, but he didn't really want to try and explain how gasoline was efficient and yet so very dangerous at the same time. They probably had enough problems to worry about than setting the entire den on fire. “Then you can pretty much use the same methods that I just did, although sometimes the match is just enough to catch the tinder all on its own.” [/html]
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A match wasn't something she'd heard of, but something about it sounded human - charcoal wasn't usually red, after all; she liked drawing with the blackened material. If it was on the end of a stick, or something was, it must have been put there. How the fire came out of the stick was yet another question, but she didn't have any anyway, so it wasn't exactly relevant. Human items were rather troublesome for Legacy. She liked and saw value in the few that were found around Jaded Shadows, but knew she could never venture a trip to the city without considerable duress. The walls and ceilings of humanity held great terror for her - she knew as much without even encountering any more. She knew it because of her nightmares.
"It's much cosier in here now," she observed a few moments after he finished the explanation, giving it time to sink in, and wanting to justify her seemingly rampant curiosity. "I like that the firelight is so alive... and you can't see the walls, it's just... darkness." Impractical thoughts were replaced as usual by another inquiry that hit her: Valentine really was asking for it, being so informative and helpful. He was turning out to be one of the most interesting people she'd met. "Do you make matches, or get them from somewhere?"
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[html] “I'm sure you can make matches, but I'm not sure how to. You can usually find them in the city though… if you look hard enough.” Everyone seemed to like them though, because they were perfect for starting those cosy little fires that everybody wanted. Yet there were always the archaic ways of rubbing two sticks together at high speeds, but he didn't go into detail about that. “But it sure is nice to have the warmth in here again. With the way that wind's blowing, if it weren't for us, I'd say this place would be pretty chilly by the time nightfall came around.” [/html]
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It was the first time the city had been framed to her as a place of resource or anything useful, more than just a teetering cluster of walls and roofs that seemed to lean in towards one. Perpendicular was the word, but it gave her more chills than such a simple expression might have been expected to. "I couldn't go to the city," the girl said with a shiver. "It's too... eerie. Like I might get trapped inside. I think I'd be warmer with something to wear, but I suppose I'll just have to stay by the fires on days like this." Maybe one day she'd bump into someone on their way there, and sweet-talk them into digging up something for her.
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Mind if we push this towards a close? ^^
[html] He nodded agreeably, feeling that there was also an eerie sense about the city. As a child, it had always been off-limits to him and what times he had disobeyed his parents had never ended up very well. “I can't blame you for that. I don't really like going there unless there's something that I'm absolutely looking for. With the coyotes having taken Syemv's house, I'm sure that they utilize the city frequently too.” He was thinking aloud more, not sure if they actually did or not. He had never really seen them stray all that far from their beaches and didn't intend to find out whether or not they did. It was hard not to think ill of them for what they had done and it did seep into his tone when he thought about it offhandedly, but the world was turbulent. Things happened, wars were won and lost and ground was gained one way or another. [/html]
sure thing!
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It was a shame that Legacy loved the beach so much: it was a love that seemed bound to get her into trouble, and already had. She thought she knew the house he meant, too. She'd seen it from a distance, and wondered whose it was. Seemed selfish to her, for the coyotes to have taken it from his old pack; lives were built in places like that and to lose her own den would have been devastating. Jaded Shadows had to be strong for more reasons than one, she realised, and then she wondered if perhaps she was too weak - not just physically but mentally - she did not wish to hurt others. Not since her more reckless puppy days had she fostered a liking for violence or revenge. Did Valentine enjoy fighting? So many wolves she knew here were peaceable, at least to her mind. But peace could only be kept through defence, sometimes. No doubt Syemv hadn't been entirely peaceable, but where was it now? Was he all that was left?
"What makes them so different to us," she wondered aloud, but it wasn't really a question, indeed almost a grumble. "I can't go anywhere without feeling afraid that they'll be there first... Even my friend among them, Empusa, admitted they liked hunting wolves." Perhaps it was because they were so similar that they threatened one another's very presence. She would have been happy to live and let live, but this approach just kept getting her in trouble. With a sigh of exasperation, she rose to her feet. "I think I'll go and see what my sisters are doing." God forbid another day spent alone, after such morbid thoughts, and sooner or later Valentine would have something better to do.
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[html] Though he knew that he was far from the last of those who were apart of Syemv, it was more of a problem with talking to someone who really had been behind its actions in the latter of its days. Phasma had been that wolf and it was a topic that they had touched on briefly, but now if he wanted something beyond that he was more or less shit out of luck to find it. The coyotes would know such, of course, but he dared not to venture to their grounds and ask them. He had seen the signs of their reign strewn in the trees and though he imagined there were ways to be at peace and speak in civility, he did not want the task of finding them out himself. “I'll see you later then,” he commented idly as her words prompted a faint smile onto his face. “Guess I'll keep the fire goin' too.” It wasn't as though he had anything better to do and truthfully he had no inclination to venture outside of the caverns as long as it was being windy. Letting Legacy go see her siblings, he turned his full attention to the fire and stirred it absently with a stick. [/html]
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