New horizons and sights for my eyes
#1
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December 9th! Halcyon Mountain. I made her injuries vague since I didn't know what Eris would do to her. XD

She was here again. She had not gone home, even after her confrontation with that bitch. She had gotten some nasty wounds to prove it, too. She didn’t think she’d make it all the way back to AniWaya, especially not like this. She was certain her wounds would soon become infected, too. She had licked the ones she could reach, trying to soothe them with her saliva until she could find someone to help her. Cour des Miracles was also too far away for her to find Alaine and she didn’t know else who to find. She didn’t even know if she wanted to find help anymore. She didn’t want to die – no, she knew that. That would be completely unacceptable if she wanted to exact her revenge. But the tiredness she had felt when speaking with Dawali had not gone away. Making these treks back and forth across Nova Scotia was hard for her alone.

She was so tired. She hoped she didn’t have a concussion, since that would mean her next sleep could be her last. She wasn’t even sure if luperci could get concussions; she had read it in a book about sports injuries (she wasn’t sure what a sport was, but she eventually figured it out) for humans.

She sighed and continued west, heading closer to Anathema territory. She had come all this way to join them and she wasn’t going to stop now.

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#2
<3

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Their scent lingered on his pelt, though vague and unconfirmed quite yet. Anathema was still a new entity, hardly able to lay claim to an overall "scent" shared amongst themselves, but Attila caught a difference in his own scent, the thing that carried with him in and out of their silly underground caverns. Markku had made notice of it as well, scolding him for it accordingly—"They'll never take you back in AniWaya reeking like that!"—but Attila was proud of it. He was a piece of something growing, something alive and breathing. AniWaya had been much the same, but did a pride lie within him for that place? No. He had not been a piece of AniWaya, he had simply been the outsider allowed in by blood and because some bear had decided to make nice with him spiritually.


He didn't even know his leader's name, really. He'd only met that Theodore fellow, and that hadn't gone well either. But still, Attila considered himself a piece of them, alone. Independent. He would not spend another winter alone.


The underground life was a unique experience, yet one he took in gratefully. It was tiring, somewhat, and he found himself commonly taking treks outside their territory to stretch his legs and breathe fresh air once again. It was not far from his own territory that Markku came sweeping back to him, voice and wings flurrying, screaming something about his mother being nearby. At first the Aston boy refused to believe him, thinking the owl was just trying to get him to go back to AniWaya again, but Attila couldn't risk it. He followed the owl willingly, and ran headlong into his mother just moments later.


"Mom!" he panted, a wide smile first portrayed, but was quickly swept away as his iced eyes dotted from wound to wound across her body. Fresh wounds, at that. "Wh... What happened to you? What are you doing here?" And his ears tucked back and his tail tucked in, and suddenly Attila was a child again. He forgot that pride, that feeling of independent capability as an adult. Suddenly, he cared only for her, like he did so many months ago.

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#3
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<3!

Tayui frowned when she heard a voice call out her name. It rang with strength, so she knew it couldn't be Claudius. He had not followed her to Anathema, preferring to remain in AniWaya where he was "safe". She turned slowly, wondering if it could be her son, returned again from wherever he had been doing whatever he had been doing. Vague assumptions culminated into vague ideas, but quickly disappeared when she saw that it was indeed her son. Any attempt to guess where he had been would be futile, so instead, she took his appearance in stride. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts so she could greet him and possibly even offer him a smile.

She winced when he pointed out her wounds; she wished he did not have to see her like this. She really did look quite pathetic and she hated knowing her son saw her like this. She had devoted so much time to preserving her image and ensuring no one knew about the hatred within her heart that this small break in her plan bothered her more than she would have liked to admit. She frowned and then shook her head, trying to come up with some sort of response that would make sense. She didn't want to lie to her son, especially when he was showing such obvious signs of concern, something she hadn't experienced since her encounter with Alaine.

"A hunting accident mostly," she replied. A half truth: she would soon be hunting Eris. "I left AniWaya," she added, addressing his questions in reverse.

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#4
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He knew she would inevitably be curious for his whereabouts, though his mother had never been enlightened to what exactly Attila spent his time doing in his oh-so-inconvenient absences. He considered himself to be young, a free spirit; the ways of his parents were not the ways of he, for Attila chose to live his life recklessly and to the extreme. He would enjoy it no other way knowing he would only grow up to regret everything he hesitated if that were the case. He loved his mother still, but she would not understand. She would not understand the migratory soul she'd given her son, the drive for sex and freedom that resulted from a childhood of, well, perhaps too much freedom. He didn't regret a thing.


She did not greet him, or at least not loudly, and her smile hung weak in the air. Tayui gave an excuse she forced to sound legitimate, but he knew her well—or he himself had adapted all to well at the arts of deceptions and lies, and perhaps it was that knowledge instead that dispersed any mist his mother attempted to veil before his eyes. "Don't lie to me," he snapped, then withdrew quickly, his ears flicked back. He had never been assertive with his mother, but it had been a long time. It was always a long time between the periods they dwelt around each other. Maybe more had happened to him in his absence than he had thought. Her last words she spoke with an enthusiasm absent in fibs, and yet he still wanted to disbelieve it.


"You didn't leave AniWaya," he said, subduing to a much more reserved tone, "did you?"



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#5
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She immediately flattened her ears in response and felt an indignant stirring of anger in her chest. Oh, she had indeed been hunting; just not the kind Attila had thought of. Well, she would be and she did not think of it to be too far of a stretch to say she already had been. It was close enough to the truth and she did not appreciate her son calling her out on this. She would tell him the truth about the previous day when she was good and ready, not when he returned demanding answers from her. All the resentment she had felt during her absence began to bubble up in her chest. His words stung just like her wounds and the cold air certainly didn't help.


"I did," she replied, addressing his second question more, but leaving her response vague enough to satisfy both. "It was no longer my home so I left," she added. She did not realize until after she spoke these words that they were doubly relevant to Attila as well. Perhaps his home was wherever he was; perhaps it was wherever she wasn't. She didn't know enough to even speculate and that made the stinging even worse. She didn't know her son well enough to even guess where he had been or why he had left. She felt too bitter and too angry to even look at him long; she didn't want him to know what she had become.

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#6
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He backed down rather quickly, like a pup scolded for wandering too far from the den. And of course he had committed that very crime numerous times, though such scoldings were few and far between, or so he always thought. Attila had been allowed much freedom as a child, enabling him to come and go as he wanted, and that constant adventuring played into his adult life, keeping the boy from settling anywhere too long. He was not a child anymore, and the boy had certainly hardened in his ways and morals, but his vision of his mother went unchanged. She had been nothing but loving with him, and he would—or should—treat her no differently.


"I'm sorry," he said, ears flattened as he backed off, head dipped. He had always been quite the troublemakers, as evidenced to how he had treated his siblings, but never with his mother. After all, Noir and Claudius would thank him someday. He'd been rough with them to toughen them up. One of these days he'd jump Noir and she'd actually fight back, and what a day that would be.


He sighed, then returned his iced eyes to her. "I left too," he said, as if that wasn't obvious enough. He'd been gone months, once again. Typical. "I found a place called Anathema," Attila puffed his chest, standing tall. "We live underground. Outcasts and misfits. I fit in better there than I ever did in AniWaya." He said that, of course, as if he'd already met the entire pack, which he hadn't.



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#7
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377

She frowned when Attila apologized, in part because she had not expected an apology and in part because she wasn’t sure if she wanted one. He was right, after all, but she had a certain image to preserve even if it meant lying to her son. It was probably better this way after all. She shook her head and tried to smile, but it felt awkward and forced. Even though she could not make herself smile, she still tried to project loving and warmth. Even if she was displeased with him or resented his words, she still loved him and nothing could change that.

“I forgive you,” she replied. Her voice was a little hoarse and it scratched halfway through, but the intent was there.

Attila began to speak and Tayui immediately recoiled slightly in surprise at the mention of Anathema. Oh, she knew all about Anathema. Although she had not yet joined, she would soon have the scent of the pack mingling with the old scent of AniWaya: she had been here a number of times already. Even though he was near Anatheman packlands, she was still surprise to hear he had joined the pack. Was he never going to return home, even if to inform her of this? Again, she felt resentment bubbling up, but she forced it down, nodding in response as he spoke. His response, too, echoed her own sentiments: AniWaya was no longer home, so they had both found a new one. It was probably purely coincidental that they had chosen the same one. Again, she wondered why Phoenix Valley, the other supposed pack of misfits could not satisfy them. She shook her head and shrugged.

“I know a bit about it already. I spoke to Naniko and she showed me the caves too,” she replied. She hoped he did take this as belittling him – she was just trying to connect with him, but she hoped it didn’t sound like she was trying to one-up him. She wasn’t. She tried again: “you know, I used to lead a pack on this same mountain. It was called Shadowed Sun. I could show you the old packlands sometime. If you wanted, of course.” An invitation for reconciliation: she hoped he would take it.


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#8
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HOLY DICKS I thought I replied to this! O_O; So sorry for the wait!

He was forgiven, promptly and simply, and that was that. He did not necessarily know his mother well; he was not an analyst of those he was not interested in for physical reasons, and thus he was simply accustomed to her warm and freeing ways. He did, however, still sense a strong disappointment behind her shaded eyes and quick words, but not formed into spoken criticism. He watched her a moment longer, then quietly dipped his head and nodded, releasing a silent sigh into the air between them.


His words on Anathema sparked some sort of reaction out of her; she responded knowledgeably, having met Naniko and already wandered the area a bit, yet her scent and presence had completely fallen beneath her son's radar. Had she plans to stay? Tayui did not go as far as clarifying her intentions, but she had already left AniWaya behind and was heading in the general direction from whence he himself had come. "Oh," he muttered, perplexed, confused. "Are you... staying?"


Considering he himself barely knew Naniko as of yet, the boy chose not to go into more detail on how exactly he'd ended up with the rest of them. She spoke of a former pack, however; an easy transition away from the subject. "I didn't know you led a pack," he replied, head tilting to the side before nodding. "Yeah, show me. Are some of your markers still there? What happened to it?"


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#9
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No worries. :3 (388)

She hadn’t known what to do when Attila had finally rebelled. She had always tried to soothe everything, from a minor scratch to a major argument, with gentle words and a soft heart. Even know, with her heart so full of turmoil, she tried again, but fell short. She could see Attila’s expression change when she said she forgave him; he recognized that it was not the same sort of forgiveness he had received before. She supposed this one was conditional – she forgave him, but only if he promised to drop the subject. She didn’t want to talk about why she left AniWaya just yet. That would mean telling him about Noir and that was not something she wanted to do. Maybe she would somehow do it later in the conversation, but not now; not after she had finally found her lost boy.

When Attila posed a question – thankfully – Tayui nodded in response. She did hope to stay, but she didn’t know for how long, so she chose not to respond verbally. Until she really understood where this life was taking her, she didn’t want to tell Attila something she’d later regret. Or worse, she didn’t want to tell him something she’d later redact. She was in a constant flux trying to decide where she needed to be honest and open and where she needed to keep things to herself. But this was one of those things she didn’t want to lie about – not to her son, at least.

When Attila followed the new subject, Tayui raised her brows in a look of mock surprise. Of course she had led a pack! She had led two, in fact, before deciding AniWaya would be a nice place to have a family without the responsibilities of being a leader. And it had been for a long time.

“Two packs,” she replied. She could see Attila was hoping to find out a bit more about the pack, so Tayui took a few steps in the direction of the old Shadowed Sun territory. “There should be some marks left. We stored a lot of our books under the roots of a tree. Not the best place for books, but it worked. We could go back and find it if you want and I can tell you about the pack on the way.”


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#10
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She did not provide further conversation on the subject of Anathema, and at that, Attila let it rest. There was little more to ask; his mother was not the vagrant type like he, as the boy must have gotten such a tendency from whomever his father was. Certainly she would stay a while, if for no reason other than for the fact that she'd finally caught up with her son, but even Attila didn't know long he would remain.


She began to lead him to wherever it was she had placed her pack, or packs, or whatever it was. At first he wondered if she was toying with him, egging him on in some drawn-out process to get him to come back to AniWaya somehow, but the further she led him, the less he believed any plot was possible. He had never pictured her in such a way — a pack leader, standing above all the rest, in charge and responsible for so many lives. Tayui had always struck him as quiet, reserved; how could she possibly have led a back, let alone two? Was that perhaps why they had failed? He smirked a little when she wasn't looking, and the boy didn't think twice as to why he found such a thing to be humorous.


"Go for it," he said, waiting for to enlighten him with what must be tales of endless adventure and mayhem for his rather adventure-and-mayhemless mother. The Aston boy was ultimately curious, though he bit his tongue each time the urge to ask why the packs disbanded rose. Instead, he cleared his throat and skipped up to walk in time with her. "Shadowed Sun, right? What was the other one?"


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#11
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(426)

She nodded when Attila moved to follow her into the above-ground Anatheman territory. Even though now it was called Anathema, she knew she would always think of it as something else. Although the scents had faded, some of the scratches she had made on the bark to mark the borders were still there. There wasn’t much left, but she still certainly had her memories of when this had been Shadowed Sun. It was been a pretty peaceful, if not short-lived pack. It was unfortunate, too – she hadn’t heard of any packs that had attempted what they had since its disbanding.

She brought him farther up the mountain and they plodded along at a comfortable pace. She sought out the familiar deer paths that carved roads into the Appalachians, following the map inside her head to the heart of the former Shadowed Sun territory. When Attila repeated the pack name, Tayui nodded quickly and glanced back to see him following her closely. He asked about the other pack, Jaded Shadows, and Tayui felt her eyes light up. These were both packs dear to her heart and she didn’t mind at all discussing it with him. She was glad he was interested in it – she had never thought he of all her children would find this interesting.

“That’s right,” she replied quickly, affirming his suspicions. “The other one was Jaded Shadows. I took the name of my old pack to make Shadowed Sun. I thought it was quite clever continuing the legacy, since Jaded Shadows had been formed from Shadowed Stars. So it went Shadowed Stars, Jaded Shadows, and then Shadowed Sun.” She paused and almost chuckled, too. “Jaded Shadows was beyond the mountain in the old Bleeding Souls territory. It was on Ashened Mountain and I created Shadowed Sun in the likeness of Jaded Shadows in some ways. The fire that devastated Bleeding Souls disrupted everything and I lost track of a lot of old ‘Shadows wolves. I eventually formed it with a friend from another pack.” She paused and then continued. “It was interesting, the fire. It broke up a lot of packs. In the chaos, new bonds were made. The only group that survived almost in its entirety was Inferni. And some were remade anew. Dahlia de Mai became the new Clouded Tears. Your grandmother Colibri invited me to that pack. And a former Lehrer, Anu, invited me to Crimson Dreams when it was known as Twilight Vale. A lot of packs changed, but some things still stayed the same.” This time, she actually chuckled.



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