Blackberry Fields Don't you fret, my dear

There were many a good reason as to why Rook had left the place of his birth and chased a tale that had only been told to him in whispers and brief excerpts in passing. Didn't his mother say it was in the west? Or was it south-west? That place his parents had called Relic Lore...

The boy's breath caught in his chest as he journeyed to the south, keeping the sunrise to his left and the sunset to his right, not stopping to rest until his aching paws couldn't take another step; and, when he had recovered, he began his traveler's lope once more, determined to make the 14-day trip as expected. By the dawn of the sixteenth day, Rook's muddied paws found a field beneath his pads, extending from the tree line and out into a vast meadow. He held his head high, taking in the sight of blackberry blossoms and thorny brambles. Over the course of a few hours, he had followed a young buck to this place, but now its velvet-antlered head was nowhere to be found. He turned his head to the left, scanning the area to no avail, but finding that the breeze brought to him the scent of a wolf pack nearby.

He fought the urge to shrink away and instead, he turned back to the meadow in front of him, determined to cross it, and in the meantime, look for something to fill his belly with. Strolling across the ground and stopping only once to pick a thorn from between his right paw, he eventually came to a full stop as he saw his shadow stretch out in front of him across the grasses and felt the sun beat down on his mottled back. His gaze lifted up to the overcast skies, not daring to turn around and face the gigantic star in fear of showing his ungratefulness. His blessings and prayers had gotten him this far, perhaps this, too, was a sign- a sign that he was not meant to follow the stag further into the forest opposite of the one he had just exited.

Slowly exhaling as the sun's rays were overtaken again by clouds, he shrugged to himself and lowered his nose to the ground, attempting to draw his prey's scent to him. Again, the sun came out and Rook had to pause to consider what it all meant. He turned his eyes skyward again, his jaw clenching as he turned about to face the faint white circle in the clouds. "What?" he questioned. "What is it? There's nothing here!" He scoffed as he eyed the bleak edges of the Ghastly Woods to the east and the thick foliage of the Thicket to the west. "You wanted me to follow... You. An' now look what You've gone and done!"

Frustrated he sighed and paced in a tight circle, stopping as the winds began to pick up, deriving him of his sense of smell. His ears came down as he quietly told himself that he was not lost and, most importantly, not going to let his family down. He had come here for a reason, or reasons now that He was telling him to stop his tracking, and he was not going to be so easily discouraged or held back by what his faith had taught him to do or believe.

But a sign was a sign... and it told him to wait. For what, he did not know, but in attempt to stave away his impatience, he plunked down in the grass and bowed his head in silent prayer.

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love... commits me here...

Chances are I have a BEN WHISHAW gif for that.

Klio had been running for a very long time. She was exhausted, parched, very hungry, and her jet black fur was knotted with thorns, leaves, twigs, and mud. But she still ran. The roe buck she'd been stalking from a distance had been the only thing keeping her moving for the past week. After entering this Forest, which had a populated and safe feel to it, the black yearling had found the buck, and had skipped through several pack territories in her attempt to stay on its trail. At one point, another wolf had joined her hunt. Not really, because they hadn't hunted together, but Klio had known from the moment she saw him that he too sought the food this creature would provide a hungry wolf. So, instead of following the roe buck and risking being found by him, she had followed him, and cleverly stayed downwind and out of sight at most times. There had been a time he stopped to drink and she, oblivious to the fact that he was there drinking as well, had walked right out of the trees, then noticed him, and darted quietly back into their comforting clutches. Now he entered a field of a fruit she knew well: blackberries. Oh, the sweetness of blackberries! There had been a field like this near her birthplace, a three to four month journey from here. The black lady snuffled up a mouthful before returning her gaze to the boy. She heard him say aloud, "What? What is it? There's nothing here!". Was he talking to her? She opened her mouth to answer, but stopped herself when she saw his peculiar demeanor. The boy continued, "You wanted me to follow... You. An' now look what You've gone and done!". This utterly confused her. Who in the world was he talking to? A scornful voice sounded cold and clear in her head: There are wolves and packs who... Submit to strange things, like the sun. I do not know why they do this... But you must stay away... They are not right in the head... No. The white queen had been wrong. Her long journey had shown this. And Klio could no longer take the silence. Perhaps a voice would cure her bouts of pain and memory... "Can I be of assistance?" She called into the silence after the male laid down.

@Rook: Sorry, my post was a little bit long!

He hastily ended his little intercession with a whispered "Amen" and before he could recollect himself and fully clear his head, it seemed as though his prayers had been answered even further. He moved to recline fully forward, but was stopped when a voice called to him in the distance. Rook's head came up to look in the direction from which the shout had come from. What and who he saw before him made him do a double-take. However, this young woman was much taller than when he remembered Aiyana and her eyes were not likened to the sun shining through the autumn leaves but the greens of the summer grasses instead. He mentally corrected himself; Aiyana wasn't particularly fond of him as a brother the way Trisden was. And it was highly unlikely that the black-coated woman would have left the Reach in search of him.

The young Lyall might have smiled if he was in better spirits. What he managed to give her was a curt, yet courteous, greeting in return, "Maybe? I mean, I'm looking for something, but I don't know if you can help me. The... thing I was following or looking for is long gone." He stood up to fully face her, one of his ears swiveling to one side before returning to its original position to mirror the other. Having been sheltered for most of his life, Rook should have probably felt a bit more awkward than he actually did when it came to addressing others, but something about talking to this particular being struck a chord. What he couldn't determine was whether or not it was a good one...

"Do you... Do you live here?" he asked, a bit uncertain if he should give her his name or not. Everything his mother and father had taught him shifted to the forefront of his mind, and suddenly he was attacked by curiosity, wariness, and the need to withhold every bit of personal information all at once. His tail, which had started low and near his heels, had come up in a somewhat genial wag, hoping that she might have a few answers for him. This meeting, this conversation, was probably what He had intended for the lad.

"Are you familiar with herbs by chance?"

Chances are I have a BEN WHISHAW gif for that.

Bishop is just hanging out up-wind of ya'll. She may come closer but for now... Idunno shes just watching

Aiyana might not have followed Rook all the way to the realm of Relic Lore, but his age mate Bishop had. And she was very, very cross with him —and she was sure that this crossness was exactly what mother and father would have felt too if they could see Rook now. (Bishop had no idea that his mother had sanctioned this journey.) At first Bishop had just assumed that Rook was moping and doing his solitary activities when she followed him beyond the borders of the Reach. Bishop had always felt obligated to keep an eye on her brother, and even more so now that father... The earthy wolf shook her head, unwilling to think about her father right now. A sigh slipped through her lips. She needed to follow Rook, she needed to look after him and make sure he wasn't doing what she thought he was doing.

Which, it turns out, he was.

The stocky girl had been careful to follow Rook at a distance, keeping half a mile or more away from him at best and always downwind. Though she longed to chew his ear off for leaving the Reach, there was another part of the girl, a younger part of the girl that longed to be included in whatever madness this was. She wanted to know what he was doing, but feared that if her anxious and responsible brother caught wind of her he would send her right on home without so much as explaining himself. After some time, however, Bishop began to catch sight of some landmarks she had learned of in her childhood: a mossy rock, a tree that had been split by lightning. That was when Bishop had become angry with Rook, drawing closer, hoping to stop him. Relic Lore? He was going to Relic Lore and he hadn't even told her? Rook was always trying to leave her out of things.

At some point, however, it occurred to Bishop that the two of them were no longer alone. Her heart stopped. A stag. She mouthed a silent prayer, just a little something Teacher had taught her. She was glad when Rook chose to follow this messenger of the Lord. It would surely lead them somewhere. At the very least it would keep them safe. She could sense her brother's growing frustration but knew not what it meant. What was he here for?

It was not long, though, before someone else was following the two children and the stag: another female about their age. The girl moved even closer into her brother's range, wanting to be close just in case this loner tried some sort of funny business. For a long time it appeared that the stranger thought she would just team up with her brother and take down the deer or something. Or maybe she wanted to speak to Rook, only the loner hadn't made any move to do so thus far. To Bishop, all this was very suspicious. When her brother laid down in the ground she was far back at the edges of the field, watching, waiting to see what this loner would do but still ready to pounce. She could not hear the words that transpired between them, but for now the loner did not appear to be aggressive. She would stay back here for now.

At this point, pretty much any wolf but social young Klio would've had suspicions and/or reservations about approaching a stranger in this manner. But, in fact, the black girl was determined to NOT have any doubts. Being told nothing but lies and nonsense while growing up had put that effect on her good personality.

He seemed to not have a lot of practice talking to others, because his speech was clipped and garbled, but then again, Klio figured she had little more experience than he. The boy watched her the entire time he spoke, causing Klio to shift her weight anxiously once or twice. He asked if she lived here and had any experience with herbs. Well, THAT would give him a complicated answer...

The white queen had been a huntress and healer, and used those skills to kill Klio's parents. After hunting down her mother, the white queen had slid some nightshade into her father's food. In raising Klio, the white queen just so happened to neglect to teach her about healing herbs...

"I don't live around here, and unless you're looking for poisonous herbs, I can't help you that much. I'm sorry. What herb are you looking for?" She asked, disappointed that she couldn't say yes to any of his questions. However, she did give her tail a cheerful wag in an attempt to brighten the mood. "Oh, I'm sorry, my name is Klio, Klio Zariadus of the Zariadus pack." She added. Unlike Rook, she had no qualms about giving away her personal information (although she didn't know his name or that he had qualms about it). Since leaving her birth pack, she had made it her mission to defy everything the white queen had taught her. It didn't make the flashbacks go away, but it made Klio feel like her own being, not the white queen's puppet. And that was a very good feeling.

Apparently Rook had not made use of his nose; not only had he missed the stranger scent as she followed him through the trees, but he had also overlooked his sister, Bishop, who was now watching his every move as he continued to interact with the stranger. The dark yearling answered that she didn't live around here, or at least in the surrounding areas from where they stood, and that she didn't know of any herbs aside from poisonous ones. The masked boy visibly frowned. Well, that wouldn't help at all... If anything, the girl seemed thoughtful enough to ask what kind of herb he was looking for. The only problem was that he couldn't really tell her exactly what it was that he wanted.

He shook his head in reply and she offered him her name: Klio Zariadus of the Zariadus pack. She wasn't someone he knew or should have known after all. "I-I'm Declan," he introduced himself, picking the name randomly from a variety of stories he had been told as a cub. A hot-flash swept down his face and along the length of his muzzle. Oh God, that was definitely a lie... and most everyone knew that Rook Lyall could not even shoulder a little white lie if his life had even depended on it. He winced as he hastily corrected himself, his tail wagging in apology, "Bu-But, my siblings call me Rook. Like... Like the bird." His face distorted with what seemed to be a very embarrassed smile. Had he had enough pluck and nerve, he might have been able to get away with it... but, alas...

"I'm from Grizzly Hollow," he said slowly, drawing closer to her by a few small steps. Now, this really should have been a lie, but it was actually a half-truth. His family had roots within Relic Lore and he was determined to make his way there so that he, too, might be a "true Lyall" in that sense also... having been well-acquainted with the lands his mother and father had once claimed. It was there, he believed, he would find some answers. Answers to questions that he had harbored ever since he and his age mate sister had been old enough to comprehend the stories and lessons their parents, siblings, and Teachers had to bestow upon them.

"Are you familiar with it?" he figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, before all this had happened, it was obviously apparent that his father had been proud of it all - every tree, every boulder, every pebble along the small stream that branched from the main fork of Jasper Rocks... everything that he had provided for his mate, Jaysyek, and the family he had tried to raise within it before "The Plague" had hit. If it had been as grand as his elders had said it was, then certainly, someone ought to have known something about it?

(This post was last modified: May 26, 2014, 10:40 PM by Rook.)

Chances are I have a BEN WHISHAW gif for that.

It was a lie. The yearling spoke and it was painfully obvious to Klio that he was lying, and that he knew it. Luckily Klio had always been superb at lying, and could lie right back. But he continued.

He was from a pack called Grizzly Hollow. What a powerful and elegant name for a pack! It must've been absolutely incredible... Klio thought. His question of if she knew of it made Klio disappointed. She would have to say no to yet another question!

Letting her tail droop unhappily, she replied, "Grizzly Hollow. How I wish I could say I knew of it! My home is not in this place. It is many months of running away from here, at a place called the Three Sisters. They're mountains, and some of the mountains nearby can spit fire.". She didn't know why she mentioned the name or main features of her home range. Oh well, it had been said. Wagging her tail again, she said in a much more happy tone, "Is the Grizzly Hollow pack still around? If you wouldn't mind, I ran away from my old pack, so I'm looking for a new one. Could you maybe take me to Grizzly Hollow?". Then she added, "If it is still around. It is, isn't it? If you come from there?".

The young girl was completely oblivious to the fact that he was descended from, not with, the Grizzly Hollow pack. But regardless, she wanted to belong to it. Any home would be preferable to this...

The boy listened as Klio repeated the pack name on her tongue, the place sounding more mysterious and arcane to his ears than it really should have been. She had come from a place where the mountains spat fire which, once mentioned, figuratively ignited Rook's imagination. He had never witnessed the creation of or even seen fire before, the place he had hailed from originally had been so carefully tucked away northwest of Relic Lore that there was very little to disturb the wolves, his family, there. If he opened his mouth further to ask about where she was from, he risked making himself vulnerable, making her aware of how very little he knew of the world as a whole. So when Klio recovered and continued on a more cheerful note, he could not have been more grateful.

"Is the Grizzly Hollow pack still around?" she asked. "If you wouldn't mind, I ran away from my old pack, so I'm looking for a new one." Rook's ears swept back as he learned that she, too, had run away. If Rook was going to be honest with himself, "running away" had been the more proper term when it came to defining his journey here. His mother might have given him permission to leave, but Rook Lyall had actually turned his back on the problems he had left behind in hopes of finding what he sought within Relic Lore and bringing it back home to face it all then. "Could you maybe take me to Grizzly Hollow? If it is still around. It is, isn't it? If you come from there?"

"Well, see..." he pawed at the ground, timidity starting to get the best of him as his bear-like ears felt like they were burning. "My family is from there. I'm... going there for the first time after being away for so long." He wasn't sure if that made sense but, oh, how he hoped it did. "I'm looking for my brother and sister. You could come with me, though, er, if... if you want to," he then offered, his ears coming up at last on a hopeful whim. "Maybe we could find it together? Do... you know what cedar trees look like?"

Chances are I have a BEN WHISHAW gif for that.

For awhile Bishop was content to stand there in the shadow of a white fir, but as she squinted out at the field and waited for the interloper to take off she was disappointed. To Bishop it looked like they were getting downright chummy, which was strange because Rook had always struck her as somewhat awkward. Jealousy tied knots in her stomach. She was not used to anyone outside of the family having her brothers attention, nor being left out of what looked like an interesting discussion — since every discussion that didn't involve Bishop turned out to be interesting. Taking a deep breath and puffing out her broad chest, the last daughter of Borden trotted out into the field to reunite with her brother and find out what she was missing out on.

She caught the tail end of the black loner's question and immediately her eyes flew up wide. Grizzly Hollow? Something about this strange, skinny girl must have struck a cord with him if he had already decided to divulge something that Bishop saw as being very personal in the space of five minutes. Bishop certainly wasn't sure how she felt about that. Father and mother had always stressed the importance of privacy. When Rook suddenly invited her along with him — something he had neglected to do with his own sister— she could remain silent no longer. "Oh Rook," the girl crooned as she drew close, inviting herself immediately into his personal space without a second thought, "I've been worried sick about you! What on earth are you doing out here?" Her tongue drew itself over his left ear, as her face turned towards the tail-wagger, "And who is your friend?" Her tone was happy but as unintentionally patronizing as ever.

(This post was last modified: May 26, 2014, 11:46 PM by Bishop.)

Oh. He's descended from Grizzly Hollow, Klio thought as she listened to the Lyall boy. The black girl had to fight veery hard not to laugh when he asked her if she knew what Cedar trees looked like. Of course she did! For the first half-year of her life, she'd seen nothing but cedar trees! Journeying here had been the first time she saw pines and aspens, and willows and oaks. But of course, he didn't know that information, so...

"Yes, I know cedar trees very well. If you don't mind me tagging along, I'd feel better having a friend around. Who are your brother and sister?" She asked, more out of mere politeness than actual interest, but it would've been tricky to know that. The black girl was eager to find a pack. But that word, pack, and the slight breeze had sent chills racing like rabbits up and down her spine.

In Klio's Flashback/Hallucination:
The white queen! Klio thought in mad panic, She's here! I must run! Looking to Rook, she meant to tell him to run, but he was gone. Turning, she saw the white queen stalking toward her, enormous and powerful. "Klio, come back here. You mustn't run away from your mother, young lady!" The voice of the white queen rang through the field. Stumbling through blackberries, Klio struggled to run away. Not here, not here, not now, not now! Oh, please, make her leave me alone! Klio cried in her head. The white queen ran easily through the bushes after her. Klio tripped, and was dragged into darkness by thorns and leaves and nightshade berries. A final voice came, "Don't run away Klio. You will never escape...".

What Klio Actually Did While in the Flashback/Hallucination:
A distant-eyed Klio looked at Rook several times, and then looked behind her, and said very quietly, "Run, run, she's here!". She bolted through the blackberries, only to fall down a few feet away from Rook and writhe in the bushes as if she had an uncurable itch on her back, then pass out cold for a few minutes.

Klio blinked several times and took a deep breath before standing up. It had been a hallucination. Even company could not shake the horror of her past...

OOC: Just thought I'd make this a little more interesting!