straight up chemistry

@Maksim @Cinder @Quil
Others welcome to pop in as well!
Continued from here!

IC: As the borders fell away behind the quartet of Cut Rock River wolves, Mace found himself lost in thought. Like Maksim, Mace did not understand his parents' reason for not returning with him... It was their home, after all. The Attaya wolves had, however, their own reasons, likely steeped in the grief of their family being splintered by the very land that was supposed to keep them safe and nurture them. He didn't know their reasons and didn't understand them, which made explaining them to his sisters somewhat... Problematic.

Nonetheless, it was his duty as their brother to guard them now, and shelter them from any harm, be it mental, physical, or emotional, that sought to find them. So as they walked in a dejected silence, he turned to Cinder and placed a comforting lick of tongue against her cheek. "You know they loved you deeply," he repeated, his ears planing toward his tousled neck as he attempted a smile. "They would never have gone if they'd known you were here, safe."

Did he know that for sure? Of course not. But if Mace's parents had taught him anything, it was that they were virtuous wolves who cared deeply for their family. He felt certain they would not have intentionally departed without their living children in tow, not without believing those they left behind had died. He needed, as desperately as Cinder and Quil did, to believe that that was true.

gorgeous set by kydnt

She walked in silence – a quivering mess of emotions as her inky paws drifted deep in the snow. The fulfillment of having Mace at her side, feeling the brush of his warmth against hers brought an elation she had never believed she would feel again. Yet his words shuddered her very heart, and while her brother had tried to placate her with gentle love, there could be no forgiveness now at what her parents had done. They were alive, and while there was a bittersweet relief in that alone.. the Kade and Ava she knew were seemingly dead. Her loving parents did not abandon their children. Her heroes did not simply leave. And so with that, Cinder Attaya held a different form of grief now – the one in which the parents she had once believed she had were gone forever. Perhaps, they had never existed.

She felt his touch, blinking from her reverie before leaning closer to him. She inhaled sharply – the familiar scent almost stung her eyes with the tears that threatened to form. Yet she was grave from his words, and a derisive snort escaped her then. “You came back. They didn’t. That speaks volumes, Mace,” she murmured. The maturity of her words – the absolute belief behind them astounded her. Had she chosen those words? The Cinder Attaya she knew cared not for speech, but for play. For pretty things. For being beautiful, and a princess. She did not speak so carefully before.

Perhaps, she surmised, the Cinder Attaya she had known before was dead as well.

like a black widow, baby

OOC: Anyone else can hop in at any time!

IC: He wanted so desperately for them to return to what they had been: children playing in the shadow of veiled woods, listening to the rumble of the nearby falls as they fell asleep. He wanted their parents there to tell them stories of their past, that their children would grow up well-educated of Relic Lore's history. As it was now, Mace could not name a single of his parents' friends or enemies that weren't in Cut Rock River itself; it did not sit well for their children to be ignorant of their rivals, should they accidentally stumble upon one of them.

Cinder's logic certainly didn't help. Mace wanted his father to be the gallant king, with his beautiful lady queen and his proper children; he did not want to think of Kade and Ava as those who left their family behind. It was harder, with his sister's negativity, to chase away that image. "They'll come back one day," he tried, but even the words sounded like they were said in vain. He would offer to go find them and bring them back himself, if only it wouldn't distress her more to be left by him, too.

As though the subject of family, and his sudden desire to ask if she had heard from Rowan, was depressing, he pressed on to other things. "Did everyone else make it over the pass? he wondered, glancing first at Cinder and then their other companions. The state of the pack had been of utmost import to Ava, and probably Kade as well... As it would be to their son, who would hope to surpass either of them in his devotion to his family, though he did not say it aloud.

gorgeous set by kydnt

She barely held back a snort of disdain to his words – Kade and Ava, returning. The thought seemed so impossible to her now, and still she could smell her mother… feel the warmth that emanated from her father. That comfort had been stolen from her by nature, but she remained deprived of it now because they were apparently so devastated they couldn’t bear to return to their presumed dead children. How strange to think how quickly these feelings could be smoothed if they had accompanied Mace – now, without him, they had lost all of them.

Yet a sick lurch gave way in her stomach at the thought of Rowan missing. Presumably dead. Casting her eyes back, they fell upon the mountain, knowing the winter would hold her back for now.. come Spring though, she would seek her brother out. Otherwise, she was no better than her parents.

For now, she trudged beside her brother, not considering the other companions with them. His words drew her mind to him once more, and her golden eyes sharply glanced up, falling upon his cheek. He had grown so much since she last seen him, even if their absence from one another had not been that long. Briefly, she wondered how much she had changed in his eyes as well. “Yes,” she mused, attempting to think back to the day. She had been so weary of the events, she had put little thought to others but her core family. Others would deem it selfish, but she held her priorities as her family and close friends. “There was a fight once we passed the mountain and Maksim pushed out a she-wolf I did not recognize.. another followed after her, a male. I don’t recall their names.” She shrugged at this, uncaring.

like a black widow, baby

The snow they trudged through was thankfully not unforgivably deep, but there were spots it caught at his ankles and threatened to spill him on his chest. He tried not to pay too much mind to his surroundings, feeling it made him more grown-up to be confident where he stepped... But before long he was sneaking glances at his toes and placing his feet with the guidance of his eyes, careful not to bump either of his sisters in the process.

Cinder told him a little of the pack's affairs, and Mace was surprised to hear that Maksim had rid himself of a pair of wolves. His curious expression begged for more information, but he did not verbalize his desire, lest it have been an act the Baranski was ashamed of. Leaving wolves behind in the dead of winter was as good as a death sentence... Done in the name of justice, though, no blame could be assigned. He was certain they had deserved their fate.

"And the pack now?" he urged, taking particular interest in the politics. He would one day make a good Vigilante, an enforcer of hierarchy, unbeknownst to him. His interest in the pack's internal affairs was a first step in that direction.

gorgeous set by kydnt

Look Out!

There is a moose carcass that has been scavenged by a bear nearby. +10 Health

Their walk from the borders seemed to go on for an indefinite amount of time. The shock of seeing her eldest brother with her own eyes after all that had happened, after all that she and Cinder had endured alone, was still fresh enough that she didn't know how to feel. The world of cedar trees that loomed around them now seemed more like a dream than a place she'd come to know. All this time she had feared and prepared herself for the worst, that they were all gone and swept away into death by the waters that ruined her perfect life; it was the only way she'd been able to cope, but she'd been wrong all along. Her mother and father were alive, her brother missing. How misguided she'd been to assume that she and Cinder had been the only ones to survive. All the same, the news that Mace brought with him only made her rationality and feelings more murky.

The middle child trailed along at Cinder's side, not because she didn't want to be near her brother but because she knew her sister was a fragile thing, rocked by the day's turn of events. As she always would, Quil would tend to her sibling with all the love and support she had to give. Now and then her own amber eyes would look to Mace as he spoke, the familiar sound of his voice lingering in the folds of her mind.

Cinder's reaction to it all was increasingly hard for Quil to swallow. Was what she insisted upon true? Did their mother and father not care? Had they not returned to find their daughters, as Mace had, because they weren't strong enough to face the wreckage of the flood and what it did to their family? Her brows furrowed. She knew in her heart that what had happened was a disaster─Ava and Kade hadn't meant for any of this. It wasn't their fault. They loved their children. Maybe they didn't know where to look? Maybe, as Quil had thought, their parents believed she and her sister were dead...She didn't judge her sister for believing what she did, or regard her differently, or love her any less. But the change in Cinder broke her heart a little more every day, and she did wish that her sister hadn't come to resent, or hate, or give up on their parents.

Disinterested in the current small talk and still reeling from it all, unsure of what to say, Quil remained a quiet listener. There were so many things she wanted to ask Mace, perhaps once he was settled she would seek him out.

Quil remained quiet -- had Cinder's own mind not been reeling with the day's events that had stretched out, she might have found this to be unlike her sister, and perhaps elicit worry for her. Yet Quil was likely just as shocked as she was-- their parents alive. Such news was elating in one sense, and so very earth shattering in another. How could Kade and Ava simply assume anything? How could that satisfy them? Even at the age of seven months.. it hadn't satisfied her, and come the break of winter, Cinder had fully intended to seek the eastern side of the Lore once more, scouring for any side of them.

Something she would still do for Rowan.

Mace spoke once more, drawing the swarthy female from her reveries. Blinking, she cast her honeyed eyes upon him, uncertain what sort of update he was expecting from her -- had her pride not disallowed it, she would have been questioning her parents and everything she had missed not being with them during their time away from the Lore.

"I don't know," she shrugged almost moodily, her ears fickering back to her skull for a moment as she attempted to think. She had not spent much time with anyone these days, and only barely had forced food down her own throat to just sustain herself before depression would grip her once more. "The winter has been hard on everyone. Everyone is still settling, I suppose," she finally offered, her eyes shifting to Quil for silent confirmation.

like a black widow, baby