baby, i'm back

[Susquehanna]

Character Name: Susquehanna
Character Birthdate (including year): Gawd... *finds old joiners from BS 1* May/June '03? Jeez, she's an old woman!
Wolf or Luperci: Luperci Ortus
Your e-mail: usquehanna9587@yahoo.com">susquehanna9587@yahoo.com
A secondary form of contact: thirringingerfur-AIM or born2fly46902@yahoo.com-MSN
How did you learn/hear about 'Souls?: I joined here a LONG time ago and had to leave for -----awhile. Hanna's been haunting me, so I decided 'twas time to bring her back.

-----Hanna was confused. The ebony female had arrived back in the ‘Souls area not hours before, and made her way immediately north from her ingress point west of the swamp area to the place where she thought the Syemv pack had reigned. When she got there, she found the house in ruins, and was greeted by the slightly rangier scent of coyote, instead of that of wolf. She knew Inferni had been close in location to Syemv, but never had she expected a takeover of any kind, not with Akumu in control. Not even with Phasma, who Hanna only knew by name, as Alpha Female, had she expected the house to fall.

-----When she recovered from her shock enough to glimpse what she thought was a coyote “greeting party” she’d not stuck around to find out if she was right. Coys could be every bit as vicious as wolves, and she didn’t fancy adding any more scars to her already prominent few. A clawed ebony hand had stroked her throat thoughtfully, feeling the rough flesh that was a scar from her sister. After fleeing from what was now Inferni’s Packlands, Hanna had moved in a general westerly direction, toward her old pack, Chimera.

-----Upon reaching the borders, she’d stopped for a moment, dropped her packs, faithful to her yet, and begun the shift. If she was going to confront Damien’s spawn, or any Chimeran, for that matter, she was going to do it in full Optime form. Her bones began to twist, not crunching nearly as much as her first shift, and before long, she stood there in, as the name suggested, the optimal form. Her night-kissed tresses fell in a long wave down her ebon back. Similarly colored fur dusted the rest of her body, growing slightly longer in choice places. The now fully adult female stood around six feet, three inches in height, and she drew herself up fully to that height now. A silken tail wandered around her knee area as the female examined the razor-sharp claws on her fingers for blemishes. Finding none, she retracted them, stooped to her satchels and, rifling through one of them, drew out her clothing of choice.

-----A crimson pair of lacy women’s under things was extracted first, followed by a pair of khaki trousers. Both garments were modified for her tail, which stuck through. She pulled these on, panties first. She loved the trousers. They hung slack around her waist, but clung to her hips and thighs, before flaring back out. The female rolled up the cuffs to her calves, giving the pants a jaunty pirate look. A black leather belt was pulled through the loops on the pants, and two knife sheaths hung from it before it was buckled. Finally, a peasant top, cream in color, was extracted from the bag and shrugged onto Hanna’s torso. A panel of lace adorned the front yoke, held together by a thong matching the color of the pants. Two onyx beads swung from either end of the leather string, which Hanna tied into a decorative bow. The fabric gathered around the Luperci’s waist, and the belled sleeves, whose cuffs were also fashioned of lace, were split on the inside of the arm to the elbow, for easier movement.

-----Her apparel complete, Hanna walked on into the territory. She expected to be stopped at any moment, but not one wolf challenged her place there. By this time, Hanna was as confused as she’d been when no one had been around Syemv, but the confusion turned to a bit of grief as she approached the center of what had once been Chimera. The throne was empty. Bits of grass and leaves were strewn across it, as though it hadn’t been used in months. More somber, now, than she’d been when she’d seen the house, Hanna had started toward the place where her nephew was an alpha. IF it was still there.

-----Hanna now paced incessantly toward the murky area where she knew – no, she shook her head, thought would be the safer term at this point – the Clouded Tears lands to be. She reached the borders and stopped, using her keen nose to detect a mark. Finding one, Hanna walked a small ways forward and let out a howl for her nephew – Laruku Tears.

[Laruku Tears]

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*fails at life!* D;



It was ironic, really; the power that people assumed the alpha had when really, the title only belonged to the chained slave who would answer the stranger's call. No one else in the land would care to turn their head -- it isn't their business, after all; the affairs of their pack were not theirs to meddle with unless they stood to directly affect them. But regardless, today, the call had his name attached to it, very specific. And he thought the voice was a little familiar, maybe a ghost from the narrower pieces of his past, those times when he met someone for brief moments before they both moved on. By now, he would freely admit that he really had no idea who most of them were and just didn't care anymore.



The femme was shifted and fully dressed and so he strode forward, perfectly naked, towards her. It was one of the things that Laruku hadn't bothered to understand about those among them that had taken so much to the human ways. Tools and books he had indulged in himself, but clothing he found to be a hassle and ultimately useless. He didn't need them to protect him from the weather and was still too practical to care at all about fashion. The tawny hybrid with too many scars came to a stop several yards from the wolfess and narrowed his tired eyes at her. Do I know you?



Perhaps she would be offended at his apparent forgetfulness, but that wasn't really his problem. A thousand years had passed since he had seen this woman, if he ever had at all. He had been younger then, fuller then, without as many scars marring his face, chest, arms, and throat; the only thing he doubted had changed was the fact that he was probably just as stupid. Always just as stupid.

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[Susquehanna]

[html]You're fine, luff! Kennedy's back in the hospital again, so I may be slow too.

-----He didn't recognize her. Hanna couldn't believe that the tawny coywolf she took as her nephew didn't remember who she was. Tears almost, but not quite, sprang from her eyes. They stung, and had she not been standing where she was, she might have wiped them away. Giving a slight bow, acknowledging his leadership, Hanna opened her mouth several times before finally deciding what to say. She spoke almost inaudibly at first, then her voice grew in intensity, as she stated her name and lines. "I am Susquehanna, daughter of Rakha Colib and Kinitiny Soul, sister to Colibri Soul, who you once acknowledged as your adoptive mother. I am a former wanderer, and before that I roamed the packlands of Chimera under leadership of Damien de le Poer. I arrived in Bleeding Souls for the sole purpose of finding my sister, who had been abandoned wrongly by my mother."


-----Drawing breath, the femme sang the tune that Laruku had heard her singing once in the Crystal Cavern. Perhaps if he heard it, it would jog his memory.

'Panis angelicus, fit panis hominum,
Dat panis coelicus figuris terminum,
O res mirabilis! Manducat Dominum,
Pauper, pauper, servus et humilis,
Pauper, pauper, servus et humilis.'
------------------(-Cesar Franck)

-----Hanna broke off, chest rising and falling lightly from the intensity of the song, gazing with unfocused eyes at Laruku's face. She was willing him to remember with that, because she couldn't honestly think of a future with no family. Her mother had died - thus the long absence from the Souls lands - and so she and her brothers had adorned her body with the tribal tattoos it deserved and set her ablaze on a pyre. She had cried, then, long and hard, vowing to never tattoo again. She had, of course, reneged on that vow just days later, tattooing her brother in memory of their mom. But hey, who cared?


Drawing her gaze back to the Alpha's with another bow, Hanna inquired, a bit petulantly, "Do you remember me now?"[/html]

[Laruku Tears]

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It was ironic in many ways. Two and a half years ago, he had found himself on these same borders facing a mother with no memory of him. And now, though that mother was long gone and he didn't really believe that he'd ever see her again, her sister had found her way back here and he was facing her without really being able to recall when exactly they had met and what words had been exchanged. There were walls in his past and though he wasn't quite sure who had put them there, he had no real desire to there them down. There was nothing back there for him anymore.



So in a way, he wasn't really remorseful for not remembering. The important things he could relearn and meet again and hopefully, everything else would stay where it was and he just wouldn't disturb it anymore. Still, he knew what it was like to be forgotten. He had forgiven Colibri a long time ago, but still did not consider her his mother and thus, did not consider her part of his family (hell, he didn't even really consider his actual family his family), but if the woman still thought of him as a nephew, then he wasn't going to argue it. It didn't matter what the exact titles were and it probably never had.



Sorry, he told her sincerely, though his voice was still rough and stale, like he wasn't really used to using it anymore. In any case, the wolfess was unlikely to find him singing any time soon. It's been a while, the hybrid continued, A lot's happened. Are you looking to stay?

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[Susquehanna]

Sorry, I was doing this on a couple hours sleep and at school. It kinda jumps around a bit.

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Hanna was relieved to hear him apologize because she knew then
that he did indeed remember her. His face showed the sincerity of
his words even though his voice remained unchanged. Laruku's voice
was unlike what she remembered, rough and worn as opposed to
the auditory honey she recalled from their one meeting. Then again,
it'd been what, two years? since she'd last seen Laruku, long enough
for anything to have happened. He had brought up exactly what she
was hoping to hear. He'd mentioned that there had been much going
on and had asked if she was looking to stay.

With a fervent nod, Hanna said, "I was hoping you'd say something
along those lines. I'm hoping to stay here, if you'll have me, but can
you give me a rough idea about what's happened since I left?" There
were so many questions, it was hard to decide what to ask first.
After a moment's deliberation, Hanna started asking questions. If he
answered all of them, that would be wondrous; if he answered very
few, there were really only a few important ones anyway.

"Firstly, what happened to Syemv and Chimera? I think I remember
hearing something about Damien dying, but I don't know what happened
from there on." She waited, giving him time to respond, then spoke
quietly, "I suppose most of the family is gone, now, isn't it? The
Sadiras and the Souls both." She stopped there, the other questions
fading from her tongue in the shadow of that realization.

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[Laruku Tears]

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*fails at life* We can keep going. I title you now though.


Sometimes, Laruku felt rather unaware and uncertain of exactly how much time had passed. Too often, he had been completely absorbed by all of the turmoil that surrounded his life personally that the events of the land, the other packs, or even his own pack, eluded him. It was all he could do to keep the cracked and cracking pieces of himself together; everything else became secondary, even if he didn't want it to. The measure of his own life seemed to span centuries and he lost track of the individual minutes, days, months, whatever they were, and how the highlights of the outside world corresponded to the timeline of his own, he lost track of. Or he thought he did. Sometimes, his memory was better than he thought.



Certainly you can stay if you want, the tawny male said simply, shifting his weight, then breathing out slowly. What had happened, what had happened. The world was ending slowly, day by day; every year brought more unpleasantries and eventually, the sun would explode and the earth would wither. Someday. Some woman took Chimera after Damian died. She wasn't there long though. Ahren, Damian's son, took it from there and led for a while, then decided to leave the lands with his family and pretty much half the pack. The rest that remained merged with Syemv to form a pack called Aremys, but that was also short-lived. Inferni decided to take back the land Syemv used to be on and ousted the pack. I guess they kind of scattered from there -- some went to Storm. I don't know about the rest.



A shrug then, The Sadiras come and go like they always do. The bitterness had long since left his voice on the subject and his tone remained as emotionless as ever. Iskata Sadira moved to Storm for a while and had a litter there with her mate Phoenix, but one of the daughters went missing and I think Iskata ran off to look for her. Lisichka came back with his mate Konane and their kids, but they're kind of spotty. Honestly, these days, it was hard to tell if anyone was really there or not. They drifted in and out, days and weeks, what was the cut off line? I don't know.

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