Willow Ridge the dark before the dawn

For @Skoll only.
Dated 10/7 - Cloud cover intensifying, after dusk.
This whole adventure has officially been dubbed with this themesong.
Hopefully this backdating doesn't bug up anything Skoll has going. If there's a conflict, just let me know and I'm sure we can work it out. Sven is pretty malleable right now. c:

SVEN ARCHER

& the night is closing in

His breath was ragged as his paws beat upon the ground, long-legged strides eating up the ground beneath him ravenously. He had done it, after all of this time spent sitting and waiting, after all the miles he had covered this past week, he had finally found his mother. This was what he should have done sooner, he chided himself, but the thought was rapidly buried under the pureness of his excitement. She was so close, he now knew, having picked up her scent within the fringe of the Cedarwood Forest. They could have her home before the night's end, they could be a whole family once again before the morning's light. All he needed was his father to come with him, to help him fetch her. After all, there had to be something lurking within that forest, holding her captive. She couldn't have been so close to them and not come home. She wouldn't have chosen that.

At last, he crossed back into the Archer domain, but his speed did not relent. The trail of his father was easily picked up, the man most likely patrolling the borders or searching for a nightly snack. A sharp bark snapped through the air as Sven breathlessly beckoned the elder Archer to him.

"Father! he called out, pale tongue lolling from betwixt his jaws. "Father I found her! I found mother!"

(This post was last modified: Dec 09, 2015, 09:32 PM by Sven.)

sand at the bottom of the hourglass

The clouds above loomed over him like a tent, hiding Relic Lore away from the sight of the stars. Nights like these, Skoll realized in his yearling months, were the kind to be appreciated. With barely any light to accommodate for the gift of night vision, it delighted him to know just how easily it was for him to melt away into the dark. He wasn't able to evade those who knew him well enough, though. With those select few, he granted them the privilege of catching him. One of these individuals, undoubtedly, was his son who came galloping along the trail he had left behind on the edges of the Ridge's lands. A bark sounded in the distance and vampire cringed.

"Father!" that youthful voice rang out. The older Archer rolled his eyes as he came to a stop. If he gave the boy only just a minute more, the second time he called again, he would be closer. Now what could the little prince want? Hadn't his father already given him everything?

The words that came next as soon as Skoll caught a whiff of the boy caught him off-guard. Sven had found his mother... It set off the alarms in the prince's head. For the heir to be so attached to his mother, even after she had abandoned them all simply would not do. Large, dark paws turned him around so that he might meet his son a part of the way - so that when he finally came to set his ghost gray eyes on his sole successor, he could do so with a snap of his teeth and an unmistakable snarl that told of his displeasure on the matter.

"YOU... WHAT?!"

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

SVEN ARCHER

& the night is closing in

His senses told him that his father was no heading toward him, coming to meet him halfway as he had expected. Yet even as Sven slowed, his tongue escaping the barricade of his fangs as he panted, Skoll was not moving as hurriedly as he was. He found it curious, but then Skoll often didn't rush at anyones call, and he supposed the man could still be excited without racing. Then he saw him, visible only by the twin moons that were his eyes, and a smile crossed over his youthful features only to be chased frantically away by the flashing of his father's teeth and the anger that erupted from his vocal chords.

The boy dug his paws into the earth, swiftly ceasing his momentum as his ears fell back against his head and he cringed downward. His father's shouting was enough to drive his enthusiasm away, and utterly confused the boy. He'd known his father had given up looking for her. He never would have thought that he had forsaken her.

"I... I found mom," he answered, his voice heavily perplexed as his tail curled up toward his stomach. "I know where she is so... so now we can go get her, we can bring her back home." Why didn't that make Skoll happy? Had Sven interrupted something? Did it matter? What could possibly be more important than Piety?

(This post was last modified: Mar 17, 2016, 12:31 AM by Sven.)

sand at the bottom of the hourglass

The three words that Skoll had already thought of dreading were uttered. "I found mom." The older Archer released another growl, even as he noticed how his son folded before him. Even that little white tail had disappeared. Had they been human and Skoll had been summoned from his desk for something as frivolous as this - finding Piety and where she had been hiding - he would have pounded his fist into the nearest wall or hard surface (the kitchen counter, dinner table, a side table in the hallway...). "GODS, SVEN!" he gnashed his teeth, standing to definitely tower over the boy now. "THAT'S ENOUGH!"

He glared at the youngling, tail arched over his back and hackles raised at full height. "Your mother isn't coming back," he firmly stated. "She abandoned you!" He exhaled sharply as if he had been holding his breath for one second too long, "She left us! We do not forgive disloyalty!" The last sentence was heavily pronounced with saliva dripping from his lower jaw from keeping his teeth pressed together in the heir's face.

"I'm going to tell you this once; and, you better listen up. I gave your mother everything and she repaid me with nothing! When you love someone, it's always give-and-take. You give more than you take... I was lucky she didn't take you!" Pressure seemed to have built up in his chest and his nose burned from the sobs he had never released from the shock of it all when she initially disappeared. Her departure had fashioned him into more of a monster than a prince.

Ears back and head bowed, Skoll's lips finally came to drape back over his teeth and he withdrew from the little ghost. "Sven," he murmured, his voice soft in the air, even softer still when he came to utter the cub's name again. "Sven... You're my son... My one and only. I have never abandoned you, I have answered your calls, fed you, groomed you, laid by your side in the night and kept your nightmares at bay..." He looked to his son, his stark black face now startlingly devoid of ire, "Do I not also get your love? This... fire... you so readily wield for someone who isn't there?"

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

@Hecate taught baby boy bad words

SVEN ARCHER

& the night is closing in

He wasn't sure he'd ever heard his father holler so loudly, so angrily at him before. Sven was all but flattened against the ground under the weight of the sound unleashed upon his eyes, submissive to every degree--excepting that ghostly gaze. His silver eyes remained frozen to his father's face, a wide ring of white surrounding them even as his brows knit together in their confusion.

It was too late now for his father to try and confirm that Piety had chosen to leave them behind, or had been pulled away by any selfish strings of fate. Sven had been living too long with his stubborn and childish hope to shake it now; it had rooted itself too deeply within his heart, and to pull it out would be to tear apart his very being. And still Skoll persisted with words that physically caused the boy to ache.

His jaws parted with silent words, his throat burning with want to weakly correct the elder Archer, and yet he couldn't bring himself to utter a thing at all. It wasn't until his father's wave of torrent of anger seemed to suddenly subside that Sven at last began to feel his own build. Skoll turned away, became sullen, and when his voice raised again, the message was clear; the boy should feel guilty for what he was doing to his father. Even as he did feel the burning of shame, a piece of his heart lurching toward the man who had, indeed, always been there for him, Sven also felt the flames of outrage licking against his ribcage.

How dare he make this a choice between them both.

With renewed passion, Sven was back on upright legs, no matter their shaking. His grey eyes held a dangerous light to them as they glowered back, and his tail began to raise, slowly but surely creeping up into the air to curl defiantly above his back.

"You aren't the only one who could have left," he retorted in a hollow hiss.

"Is that what you would have just assumed about me, if I was gone? Or is it just mom that doesn't get your faith? If you have a reason to doubt her, fucking tell me what it is! But for all I know, there's a damn good reason she couldn't come back and I'm not just going to give up until I know either way!"

That was love, that was what Piety would have done for him, for both of them. He just knew it. So what was it, then? Was his father really the liar all along? Or had something happened between his parents that he had been kept in the dark about? It shouldn't be so difficult to pinpoint; that it was only made him angrier.