Sex: Male- It had been a few days since his fever, which had been on and off even with the aid of the few medicines he was able to scrounge up for at least two days following his strange fever induced visions in Red Fern Forest, had finally broke for good. Nanook would have left that infernal territory earlier if he’d had the physical strength to do such a thing. As he retraced his steps back through the Umbra Copse and back to Dragonfly Fen, the ironic Darkling felt something rather akin to relief settle within the willowy curve of his shoulders. Having never been broad or very masculine physically what he lacked in brawn he made up for in height, claiming taller than his father, Aether but shorter than his mother, a balancing medium between the two. A light snow had started to fall, dampening the air around him with a chill that would comb through the smoky layered, ivory tendrils of his fur every now and then. It was not enough to make him cold per say, but enough to remind him that this was not home. Of course, since his exile he could not exactly consider his birth pack his home anymore, he supposed. Never mind that his birthright demanded that he lay claim to it as it’s sovereign someday. Likely, he lost his rights to that claim, as well, with his exile. How teaching the mud mongrel pup a valuable life lesson (that one did not stab Sparta DiSarinno in the back and expect to actually get away with it) demanded such harsh and corporal punishment Nanook would never know. This was not something he could viably wrap his mind around, and when he tried, and accordingly failed, he couldn’t help the small voice that hissed in the back of his mind like a unshackled, unruly demon that perhaps that was why he had been exiled. Because while the leaders had claimed with such horror and aghast that what he had done was wrong, he could not make the clear and defining difference of right and wrong. Those were concepts he struggled to understand, or perhaps, simply, rebelled against for how could one’s definitions of “right” and “wrong” dictate another man’s? How could they dictate his?
Useless. The biting thought in his mind dug in like the claws of a predator, silencing the hissing of his ‘demon’; that was actually, more likely than not, his conscious (surprising that he had one at all). It was useless to play those crucial and crumbling moments over and over in his head. Had he not vowed, as he walked away from those that he loved after being formally humiliated and banished that Sparta DiSarinno was long dead. His legacy, his name. It was no longer his. They would have another son to replace him, no doubt, the rogue one. Perhaps they would even name this new son Sparta and try again. That was fine. He didn’t need them, he never had. He was Nanook. It was as simple and enigmatic as that. To spurn their own creation so willingly and heartlessly, that was their choice. That was their mistake. Deep breath resounded from somewhere deep within Nanook’s lungs, white furls of warm steam trickling out of his leathery black nostrils as he let it out, moving through the marshy, tightly packed pine trees of the Fen. Somewhere, he had a den here, though he had no idea if someone, or something else had laid claim to it, assuming it was abandoned, in his absence. He had not meant to be gone so long from his temporary home but life was far from ideal, Nanook had learned, and things tended to happen to delay him. If such was the case, he supposed he would be spending his day -- for the dawn had just broken over the horizon, or rather, what he could see of it as he sloshed through the mud, and weaved through the cattails that called this place home, as well -- searching for a new den. Dragonfly Fen (as far as he was aware, anyhow) did not seem to be overtly crowded with wolves so he doubted the task, if it came to be necessary, would not be an extremely difficult one.
A call from a male cardinal, it’s brilliant red plumage briefly catching Nanook’s eye, irises of liquid gold rose to study the creature for a few moments, it’s song saccharine. Ears perked, as Nanook looked back to his invisible path and the Darkling began his trek back to where he had left his den, days previous.
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE
PART OF THE SHOW...IT'S A RIOT, IT'S A RIOT...