Riddle Heights Seeking Refuge

The fact that he inched closer left her feeling..oddly distant. Once upon a time, she might have moved, tried to put distance between the pair of them, but for the moment, she simply remained right where she was. Vlarindara closed her eyes, almost as if she could shut out the others voice - his words. He ..did have a point - but it was she that had left her home, abandoned the wolves she'd sworn to protect..made their lives harder.. not the other way around. She could tell he was moving closer and flicked an ear his direction, listening a few seconds before she opened her eyes to watch him. Without even cleaning the wound - it was obvious that the ocular nerves behind her right eye were damaged beyond repair. Beneath the blood the golden orb was opaque and dim.. a whitish silver in color. The usual black pupil was just as clouded over, almost the same color as the white iris - but a slightly darker grey. The eye seemed to track where she attempted to move it - there was simply no sight, however. "Speaking from experience, are you? And no, it's not. It's a mark of my exile - the alphess of the pack left this parting gift when I made the mistake of crossing into pack lands."

(This post was last modified: Nov 14, 2011, 03:18 AM by Vlarindara.)

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd509/Happytic/shaaaatter-1.png); background-position: top; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding: 370px 25px 10px 25px; color: #000000; text-align: justify; font-family: bookman old style; font-size: 11px;">She watched him come closer, and didn't make more nor action to move or make him stop - so he figured that he was in the clear... or somewhere near it. His ears twitched when she asked whether he was speaking from experience. Was he? He had admitted before that he knew nothing of it, nothing of packs or the duties that go along with it. Yet at that moment he felt that he at least knew of family... or was it the wandering that he connected with? The arctic timber knew that he couldn't stay in one place for too long - but maybe that was not something that other wolves experienced. A few paces later Shatter was standing next to his new acquaintance, eyeing her scar before licking away the blood. It was deeper than it looked, he could only imagine the stream that had come from it before. She probably knew better than he did that her eye was useless now - clouded over and permanently damaged. Compared to her? He had gotten lucky a few years back, he had only been partially blinded in his left eye... it was more the mauling from strangers that had

"They're allowed to forget and replace you, but you need to live with this forever. That doesn't seem fair to me." Once again, it seemed absurd to him, but perhaps in a hierarchy wolves needed to show their dominance somehow... but that wasn't what surprised him. Blue eyes took on a gentle tone of question, an ear flicking back and his mouth setting in a somewhat long line. Caught between a frown and something more along the lines of being shocked. "You went back..." She had gone back to them, she considered them family enough to know that she had a home to return to... and this was what she had gotten instead. It was hard to imagine her pack as one with good intent, but he had to remember that he didn't have their side of the story. He didn't know why they had done this... unless their only reason was this female leaving to begin with. "You miss them..." And they hated her.

"The good thing about family, is that you can claim anyone as a part of it - all you need is a name." He sat down beside her, but made a quick circle around her so that he wouldn't be seated on her blind side. He knew that he hated that, so he assumed that she would as well. "Maybe when you get tired of chasing away inquisitive souls? You can start your own." It was something that he had tried to do when he was younger, and failed. He hadn't kept up with the little runt that he had learned to care for, nor the male that had helped raise him when he was too scrawny to hunt for himself. They were a part of his past too... "Starting over is hard, but it's not impossible."

"The sun will set on this my dear, your labors aren't in vain."

OOC: Lol, he hit closer to home than he realized, I think. Uhm...I might.. be metagaming a bit here about Prosper's death.. I'm not sure if it will come up in any of the earlier threads that predate this - but...uhm..yea.. I can always make another so she knows before this.. lol but it just came out in the writing.

The rough touch of his tongue stung, but she endured the attention - because she knew from previous wounds that if it wasn't cleaned.. it would no doubt become infected and she'd become ill... Again. Vlarindara listened to his questioning tone, her eyes closing with a pained sigh. "I knew I shouldn't... but I did.. I...I loved the pups - the Alpha...my..my little brother. I loved them all - but.. it was because of that love that I had to leave." She frowned, shaking herself and glancing at the male, giving him a gentle smile when he took her injury into consideration and moved to her left.

"I had given the Alpha up to his Alphess... despite my feelings for him. Over time, it became obvious that living beneath his mate wasn't going to work for me.. And to...keep my vow of protecting the pack - I left before I injured one of them, even by accident.. It was I that abandoned my post without warning.. for selfish reasons." There was a bitterness to her tone as she lowered her nose and licked lightly at one of her paws. "I..feel it wasn't a fair trade...After all - the pack lost at least one of their young pups..if not more because of my abandonment.. An eye for a life is not nearly a fair trade.. It...should have been me lying lifeless on the ground, not the boy."

Had she been able to cry, she knew she would have - the pain of knowing Prosper had died - alone and starved grew in her breast. The knowledge that once again, she had released her grip on Borden - allowed Jaysyek to take him...despite her feelings for the Lyall. "I...just wanted to see my brother...Raigo.. he's not...really mine - a young pup I picked up after finding my own way... He...he's better off without me.. A stable pack environment.. the best chance of surviving through the winter.." Her voice cracked as she shook her head and stood, pushing herself off the rock and walking a few paces into the clearing. "I apologize - I shouldn't be pouring my heart out to someone when we don't even know one anothers names.."

Vlarindara shifted, watching him quietly with her head canted to the left - to see him properly. "Vlarindara Windrunner...you can call me Vlar..if you wish."

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd509/Happytic/shaaaatter-1.png); background-position: top; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding: 370px 25px 10px 25px; color: #000000; text-align: justify; font-family: bookman old style; font-size: 11px;">She knew that what she did was peculiar - was downright dangerous, but she had gone back anyways. For her brother - for her family. She had done what his own sister hadn't (lol) what he wondered even now what would have happened if she had. It was love that had driven her back, something that the arctic timber wasn't sure if he had truly felt in a long time... and it was love that sent her away to begin with. He didn't need to experience what she had to know of the bitterness, the jealousy. Watching someone else be happy did something to you, it made you different - and that frustration showed itself in more ways than one. He knew that he couldn't have done what she did - when he cared about someone they were his, and he became quite a possessive, and his feelingless, neutral personality granted him permission within his own mind to... protect what belonged to him.

"They blamed their loss on your absence..." The words were thick on his tongue, but the passion melted away as quickly as it came. "Tell me... why it shouldn't be you that is angry. They were your pack, your family... shouldn't you have been able to put as much trust in them as they were you? You leave, and instead of acting as leaders and taking care of their pack... they blame their eventual losses on you. No, you were not there when it happened - but it only takes two to take care of a litter. If anyone should be dead according to your own personal judgement, it's not you, it's them." The words were simple, and he held no grudge against these wolves - he had never met them. But if a parent was going to take their anger out on others for their incompetence, when it came down to it there was no one they could blame but themselves. It wasn't they that considered her a murderer though... it was the female herself. "Raigo... is he still alive?" For a moment it was as if he was looking at himself. He wasn't sure what had happened to Scout - they were a couple of rogues, and he hadn't managed to be a very good guardian as a yearling. "If he's still around, then you still have hope. You don't know whether he's given up on you or not so... in that case you shouldn't give up on him."

She apologized, and he shook his head. She didn't have to be sorry - if he didn't want to hear what she wanted to say he would have blantly told her so. "Don't apologize... we're more alike than you realize." It was almost scary when compared with the resemblances. "Call me Shatter." Perhaps it wasn't too obvious that it wasn't his birth name? If not, then she had certainly told him enough about herself for him to explain why he had changed his name. "I'm glad I ran into you Vlar."

"The sun will set on this my dear, your labors aren't in vain."

OOC: I adore your ooc somments. XD They make me smile.

"I have faith in Raigo.. he's a strong lad.. Stronger than I..." Vlarindara gave Shatter a light smile, listening to the protesting of her stomach. "Would you like to remain here? I will go hunt us up something to eat.." She did, after all have to get used to working with only one eye that could see. The white female took a few steps towards the forested edge of her home, watching the other white creature in silence. "Y..You're welcome to stay if you wish - with winter coming- we rogues have to stick together... " Especially ones that were exiled from their pack lands - though she still didn't know his story... she did find that she rather enjoyed his company.

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd509/Happytic/shaaaatter-1.png); background-position: top; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding: 370px 25px 10px 25px; color: #000000; text-align: justify; font-family: bookman old style; font-size: 11px;">She had faith in him, that was all that it took, right? Life had screwed this female over so many times - the least that it could do was give her this. What she had returned for, what she had essentially lost an eye for. Shatter wasn't someone that did good deeds, or got into anyone's business - but hell, he would go hunt this boy down if he had to - and drag him here just so that he could hear Vlar out. How he reacted? Well, hopefully his pack wouldn't turn him against the girl that thought of him as her brother. That would be nothing but spite -she had paid for whatever wrong doings that she might have done in their, as well as her mind.

He wasn't sure what response he was expecting - but he certainly didn't know that he would be offered any sort of home. He was a wanderer, ornery and dead set in his ways. The male doubted that any sort of pack would ever want him, he had lucked out at one point in his life - but now? He figured that his good luck was gone, or that luck, didn't have anything to do with him in particular. Was he lucky? That he had met this she wolf and could possibly have a home in her? He had been searching for his sister for years, looking for just that... Standing up, he followed her to her little home's edge, his lips tugged upward for a moment - a smile, from someone that honestly didn't believe in them. There was something strangely familiar about this - all of this, but he would consider it a strange case of deja vu and end it there. "How else are we supposed to survive?" Not only did he accept this female's presence, he enjoyed it. Shatter knew that no matter how peculiar, he would be a fool to just pass it up. "What do you hunt up living up here anyways?" He would need to know if this was going to be his new home.

"The sun will set on this my dear, your labors aren't in vain."

OOC: Vlarindara Exit ;D

A smile touched her lips as she listened to his acceptance of a place to stay - finding a slight weight lifted from her shoulders at his agreement. A raspy chuckle left her lips as she started through the trees, leading him around the 'fence' of brambles and down the gently sloping mountainside. "Anything I can find, mostly....The slope isn't too steep - so elk and Deer still pass through.. but mostly - I just hunted Rabbits or marmots... squirrels and the occasional mouse. About two hours due north, following the mountains edge there's a waterfall - if fish are to your liking." She trailed down well remembered pathways - leading the other white wolf down the side of the Mountains. She continued to speak quietly, gently.. telling him about this corner of the world - and what he might find in it.

She was more pleased than she could have guessed - to have company.