Secret Caverns the pages cease in mid-sentence

Firstly, tag-tag for @Quil. :D Now, I don't know much about Secret Caverns; couldn't find too much info on-site, but a search brought me these for reference (courtesy of TABs!):
x Tunnel Map (we'll be at exit #3)
x Cavern entrance (the "hole in the earth")
x Some setting music, just for kicks: Adrian Johnson - Desire

Rook Lyall

September 27th; Evening, before sunset; Partly Cloudy; 44° F/7° C; set promptly after this thread.

There was something about Quil that was genuinely nice, intriguing, and flat-out made him feel like forgetting all his worries and cares. As he led her away from the edges of the Willow Ridge borderlines he romped forward with his tail high in the spirit of play, turning to look back a few times as though to make sure she was following him. It continued on like this for a time, where he tried leading her on in some sort of game of catch and chase through the trees, waiting for her to catch up only for him to continue onward, until Rook's path had him veering back towards the northwest. If he had not slowed down a bit or even paid attention to where he was going, he might have accidentally found himself falling down into a hole in the earth: one of many entrances into the Secret Caverns.

For the final time, he came to a stop and he looked at her, his tail wagging while his smile still remained on his masked face. Then, as carefully as he could, he descended from the fern-covered knoll, his pads and nails skidding a bit across the jutting stones before he jumped down. Once facing the cavern entrance he gazed to Quil with a curious tilt of his head. "How about we go... in here?" he asked, advancing their adventure into the probability of exploring a currently unknown landmark of Relic Lore. "Do you want to see what's in it?"

A quick assessment of the area - the look of it, the scent of it, the probability of whether or not his pack mates had actually been here before - told him that not many creatures had even touched the place, predator or prey. He leaned forward before taking a step toward the eye-shaped opening. It reminded him of the Grizzly Hollow, but something within him wondered if this underground entrance might lead them elsewhere (maybe even into the network of tunnels that made up Whisper Caverns territory) instead of the coziness of a warm, dark burrow...

a half-finished book is, after all, a half-finished love affair.

(This post was last modified: Oct 10, 2014, 08:25 AM by Rook.)

Chances are I have a BEN WHISHAW gif for that.

<3333
I'll take these chances
just like the way you took a chance on me
I don't have any answers
but I've been places and I've seen things...

She was so invited by the way he led her from home. The sway of his hips, the way his barreled-chest puffed up in a carefree way that she mindlessly mirrored, and that smile that had her in many ways mesmerized. The Attaya girl followed the Lyall boy without a second thought, matching his paces and playing into the boyish-girlish game of chase that she found she liked a lot. The day's previous events slipped away and out of her mind with the fading light of the sun as it wavered high above the both of them.

Quil's golden eyes were glued to her agouti-furred friend, tracing over his ink-tipped plume and the rippling of his muscles from behind as he led her onward, and when they weren't, she was taking in their changing surroundings and seeing the world in a novel light ─ one that she was enjoying immensely. The planes of willows eventually faded into rolling hills of unfamiliar landscapes, which they zig-zagged through like fish on the riverbed. Here and there, he would slow down to let her catch up and flash her a pretty grin, and she would sweep closer to him with an increasingly open heart. Truthfully, she could have kept pace, but she liked the way the afternoon was playing out just the way that it was. Really, it was all more than she would've ever even hoped for.

Eventually the duo came upon a rocky opening in the earth, one that was perfect in its naturally imperfect shape and the way it seemed randomly concealed in its own end of the world. A final, friendly glance from him told her what his words would soon after confirm, that they had arrived to their destination. Rook carefully stepped closer to the mouth of the opening, which was by all means mysterious and alluring. "How about we go...in here?" The grin he'd given her widened into an approving smile as she proceeded to skitter down to join him, her dark toes parting over the rock under her weight as she moved. Halting at his side and mere inches away, she breathed in the scent of him as she stretched her neck to steal a look inside. It was actually very dark, and she could only see in for but a few feet, where the beginning of the tunnel was borne of stone and dirt. "I do," she offered as she found his gaze with her own.

She leaned closer to the angle of his shoulder before taking a single step toward the opening of the cavern's tunnel. "Have you...been in there before? It's awfully dark..."

(This post was last modified: Oct 11, 2014, 02:40 AM by Quil.)

Rook Lyall

Being the youngest in his family had its perks. Not only was Rook well-prepared and mentally equipped to deal with a challenge when directly faced with one, he followed through with his own dare. A playful smirk apparent on his masked face as he came to stand next to Quil beside the strangely shaped entrance. "No," he replied, his ears angling forward as he sampled the scents that wafted to him from the mouth of the cave. Dead leaves, forest debris in all states of decay, the chipmunk that had been here an hour or so before them, the vixen that had slept there two nights ago... Nothing pressing or worrisome.

He slowly lowered one arm down into the gently sloping dip that would lead them down into the dark tunnel, then the other... The ground here was felt cold against his the undersides of his paws but he slowly ventured forward. "You aren't afraid of the dark, are you?" he continued their lighthearted banter. "Because if you are, I'll let you know, I'm a renowned monster hunter." A hint of a laugh exited his lungs and he turned around so that her shadow - or, rather, what was left of it in the day's dying light - fell across his face, slightly darkening it. "Well, all right, maybe not really, but I can be intimidating if need be." With his being unable to tell so much as a white lie, that was pretty much the truth; really, Trisden and Bishop were the ones to assure him there was nothing hiding in the shadows at night or that there was no such thing as the feral wolf-ghoul-bat hybrid called Aswang. Whether or not he still believed in such a fantastical, nonsensical creature, however, had yet to discovered.

With his tail still wagging about, he went back to facing the darkness, his paws skipped about in the dark as the musty smell of some unknown creature reached his nose (in all actuality, it smelled a bit like... well... ratty, unkempt fur and urine if he was going to be honest with himself). He slightly frowned, his voice echoing back to Quil now off the stone-and-mud walls, "Do... you smell that?"

a half-finished book is, after all, a half-finished love affair.

Chances are I have a BEN WHISHAW gif for that.

There is a rabbit's nest nearby. +1 Health

She wasn't so surprised when her counterpart informed her that he hadn't been here before; to her, it seemed as though no one had been. Secluded off in what was really the middle of nowhere, the dark hole, with its promise of novelty and adventure, might as well have existed in a dream. Quil stared down into it for a moment, her tail swaying behind her secondary to the thought that the two of them could be venturing to their deaths or, so she hoped, into a place meant just for them to share.

An effortless laugh escaped her lips as Rook made mention of his monster hunting skills, and for whatever reason (perhaps the fact that she wanted to believe everything that came out of his mouth) she reasoned that he probably could be a hunter of monsters. She had, after all, seen the way he was quick to make his stand against Skoll. And even if it wasn't what she wanted to believe, the girl thought there was something dreadful about the silver-eyed boy. But instead of lingering on that thought, her eyes fell down upon Rook's face, his mask darkened by her shadow as she stood above him in the last of the day's sunlight. "I can't say that the dark is something I've ever been afraid of..." she began, "...but who's to say what's in there." Her face softened as she watching him sniff the place out, lightening further at the frown that touched his features when he caught a whiff of something he obviously found distasteful.

"Do you smell that?"

She stretched her neck in an attempt to uncover whatever it was he'd smelled, and, being unsuccessful in her effort, she made her way down to join him. It hit her then, and her muzzle wrinkled comically. "Whew," she breathed, glancing sidelong at him as she ducked past a straggling root and tried not to laugh. "I do now. Maybe whatever came before us got scared and peed itself. Right here." She did laugh then. Pushing a hair past him, she peeked about, her ears flexing forward at the far-off sound of water dripping.

Rook Lyall

Rook let out a hearty laugh at the sound of her "Whew." Though the dim light at the entrance of the underground cavern was still enough light to illuminate the tunnel for a few more meters, Rook had to wonder what would happen if they went further down into its possibly dangerous depths. The sound of water reached his ears when the two of them had a small stretch of silence come between them. It sounded like it was splashing against a hard surface, more flat stones, like the ones that had framed the entrance of the cavern. As he walked with her, staying pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder with her out of a habit of keeping in pace with his twin sister, he lowered his head. His eyes were as wide as saucers as he glanced around, keeping a sharp eye out for anything visually striking or dangerous.

"Wish my parents' den was this spacious," he said after some time when they had come to a fork in the now nearly pitch-dark path. "I had to share a sleeping space with three sisters and two older brothers." His nose wrinkled at the memory; in the summer he ended up at the bottom of the sleep pile and, during the winter, he was usually the one pushed out towards the entrance. The den that Borden and Jaysyek had made with their own paws might have been a decent space for a small family, but when his father insisted that they all sleep in the cramped space, it became something that was definitely not a highlight of his cub days. There was always a foot in his face, a tail in front of his nose, a nose in the space between his eye and the bridge of his muzzle, or pointed heel pressed up against his back.

"So," he mused now, looking to Quil, practically a silhouette of the dark-coated girl that he had met in the afternoon light. "Should we head right or left?"

a half-finished book is, after all, a half-finished love affair.

The laugh that escaped him echoed through the narrow space of the tunnel as they meandered onward, and it brought a toothy smile to her face. In a way, it even raised her spirits. Sure, they had been having a lighthearted afternoon traipsing through parts of the Lore that were unknown to her, but it wasn't until now that she really realized how much she'd actually had on her mind.

Pressing onward, she didn't even have to pay much attention to the pace they kept as Rook walked at her side. Here and there, her eyes, at times squinted in the darkness, would glance over at the tawny furred boy, at the silvered appearance of the white in his coat and the sheen of his gaze. Narrowly avoiding yet another dangling, exposed root, she stepped closer to him and around it, the feel of the tips of his fur brushing hers like a tickle on her side. When he made mention of his parents' den and the way it had been shared between the members of his family, it was both a heartfelt and sobering moment. She envisioned his body, nestled somewhere in between the (as she imagined) tawny bodies of a sister or brother, envisioned the faces of his mom and dad and what they might look like as they slept with their children ─ tucked away somewhere safe that perhaps they only knew...And it made her heart throb. Distant and blurry were her own memories of sleeping with her brothers and sister, with Ava and Kade and against their immense warmth. But she would never forget how safe it felt to her then, how fulfilling it was to feel the slow and steady beatings of their hearts as she had laid with her sooty nose tucked into whatever crevice suited her at the time. Beneath the tuft of fur on her father's chest, perhaps, or the crook of Rowan's shoulder. Now, and for most of her life, she would long to be able to feel that again, just one more time, or every time. How different her life would have been...

"Three sisters and two older brothers, huh? ─Sound like a pretty big family. I bet it was cozy," she added. When the pair approached the fork in the tunnel, Quil took a couple of good looks down each of the ensuing passages. They were both as dark as the one that led from the entrance, and honestly she couldn't make out much with her sight. But to the left (what she presumed to be west, though there wasn't really a way to tell anymore), she thought she could hear the sound of that water dripping. Would they come across some kind of mysterious or beautiful underground lake or stream? One with a silver, mirror-like surface untouched by wind? She imagined a space with rocky, slippery grey walls that shimmered like little diamonds or stars. It seemed more promising than the quieter route to the right.

But Quil's curiosity about Rook his circumstance, and his family had been readily piqued since his mention of them, and although their goal was to explore about down here, she wanted to know more about all of that. In a way, maybe she wanted to shared her story (a sad one, it was) with him. Truth be told, the only people who knew about what had happened to the Attayas were Maksim and the Cut Rock wolves that had once lived in Darkwater Rapids, too, and she hadn't spoken about the flood, disappearance of her parents and Cinder, or what life was like apart from them to anyone. "I used to sleep in a den with my family, too," she started quietly, lifting her gaze to Rook's masked face for a moment before, suddenly feeling a bit shy, averting it to depths of either tunnel. "I remember it was up on a knoll, near a cliff that looked down over the river." She gulped, nearly inaudibly, as she thought of it. "At night, the sound of the water used to be like a lullaby...I have two older brothers and a kid sister." Though he probably couldn't see it, her face softened with an affectionate, sad sort of pride as she daringly, tentatively, opened up to her newfound companion. She wondered if he'd be interested in exchanging stories in such a way.

"Left?" she offered, the question in her reply prompting for him to make his own decision based on consideration her suggestion.

(This post was last modified: Oct 15, 2014, 10:20 PM by Quil.)

Rook Lyall

As Quil suggested that they head to the left, Rook gave another humored laugh, "Ohhh, cozy would be an understatement." Stepping around her, he began to meander down the other tunnel, fully aware that the unpleasant stench was growing a bit stronger. He did his best to not mind it, though, and taking a rather shallow breath, he smiled at her, slowing his pace as he advanced their conversation onto a tangent of their current subject, "I'd have done anything kid sister; being the baby might work in my favor most of the time, but it's definitely not my favorite. I'm always picked last, I'm picked on, and I'm not very fond of being on my own unless I really prefer it." His eyes went up into the tunnel ceiling which seemed to be getting higher as they began to head down a slightly sloping incline down into the earth.

"You... said..." Rook couldn't help but start to wonder, considering now that he had just come upon her on his Aunt Elettra's lands, more about her. "You said 'cliff' and 'river' --" In Rook's head, it seemed all a-jumbled and possibly all connected. Maybe he had made assumptions on all the wrong things. "Were you born in Willow Ridge? I-in Relic Lore? And, was that other guy, Skoll... Is he related to you?" After what Narime had told him about Willow Ridge, the musings and wonderings that could have been thought up after considering his relatives and his mother's allies, he was starting to question what he had done with the information he had been given (who he ought to trust, who was considered an ally, who was who in this complicated network of pack politics). While he was at it, he wondered if he ought to be proud to be related to them at all if Skoll had treated Quil so terribly in front of a stranger like him. For good measure, the better part of him figured he might want to apologize. After all, it only seemed... right. "'Cause if he's... Elettra's son, he'd be my cousin, and I'll apologize for him doing that to you earlier. No one should ever be treated like that."

His shoulder brushed up against some sort of rocky formation and he came to a stop, peering at Quil through the dark as the air seemed to shift above them. He was oblivious to it all, for the time being, his attention wholly focused on his companion while the darkness of the cavern tunnel ahead of them let out muffled squeaks and something likened to that of the beating of bird wings.

a half-finished book is, after all, a half-finished love affair.

She smiled at his remark as he stepped around her, her gaze following his figure from behind for a moment before she followed suit. The stink that had hit them like a brick wall grew to be a bit more pungent, and even though her nose crinkled at it, it wasn't so bad, because...intertwined with it was his smell, and...it was filling her with warmth.

Naturally, her right fore paw found the first slick of shallow, slippery mud as they walked and talked. Her toes sank in and for a second she slipped up behind him (fortunately, where he couldn't see) as a puff of breath escaped her lungs in surprise. Quil shuffled forward to Rook's side as the ceiling of the passage began to rise, her hip bumping softly against his; a single ear pressed sideways to catch his words. She wasn't the youngest of her own brood, but she imagined that it probably was hard to be the lastborn. Cinder had always been spoiled and doted upon by she and Mace and Rowan, and by Kade and Ava for that matter, but that didn't mean that she wasn't babied either, expected to keep up and prove that she could run with the rest of them. If being the youngest wasn't Rook's favorite, she thought he'd turned out exceptionally well for it. He was friendly, well-spoken and didn't seem to be shy like she often felt she was. Certain things about him were charismatic, and the kind quality of his mismatched gaze as it sometimes graced her was, well, rare.

Where she'd hoped that they could exchange stories about life, she wasn't disappointed, and sooner than later his questions came. They were all justified, being as they were just getting to know each other and didn't know much about the other, but she was still a hair surprised when he'd asked if she and Skoll were related. Quil laughed lightheartedly under her breath, thinking that she could see where he could think that. She and Skoll were both their own shades of black, and granted that they didn't really know each other, either, something about their dynamic came naturally; the way he felt he could push her around (maybe not anymore) and the way she was comfortable enough to shoot him down. But Skoll was certainly not her brother, and in her mind he wasn't even in the same running with Mace and Rowan. Her brothers were honorable, playful, and as open-hearted as she was, at least the versions of them she'd once known. The Archer prince didn't seem to be any of those.

But then Rook did something that made her heart leap the smallest leap ─ he apologized. Which was something he absolutely didn't have to do, because the last thing he'd done on the borders was something wrong. But she really appreciated that, and found it quite surprising that the boys were related? "Thank you," she breathed, looking over at him thoughtfully. "That's...that's kind of you, and you should know I didn't take what happened back there to heart." She knew of Elettra's ties to Kade, but hadn't gotten so far as to consider what Angier's story was and the fact that there was much more to the Relic Lore she'd returned to than met the eye. Quil could only assume that Elettra was Rook's Aunt, but then, the more she thought about it, there was something about Rook that drew a parallel to Angier ─ the shapes of their ears and their markings, perhaps.

"I think that, even if you may have gotten the short end of the stick from your brothers and sisters sometimes, you turned out all the better for it." Perhaps it was an assumption, but it was what she really thought, and she wanted to be honest with her friend. She cleared her throat with a soft rumble as she prepared to give him the answers he sought. "...Well, I...I wasn't born in Willow Ridge, and, no, Skoll and I aren't related," she answered with a humble grin. "I actually just settled in there. I was gone for a while..." she thought of the lonely days and nights spent alone as she searched for Cinder and her family, "and just recently came back to Relic Lore. But, I actually was born here, over the mountains and to the east. Darkwater Rapids." Those two words were unbelievably bittersweet, and it was the first time since she'd left the place that she'd spoken anything of it. To anyone. "My father and mother founded the pack there after they left a forest just west of here."

She breathed. How much more should she offer Rook? Should she spill her guts, or part of them? She was scared; scared to say too much, scared of what he would think if she didn't say enough. Honestly, she wanted him to know the truth about her. For whatever reason, she knew he deserved her honesty.

"But...the spring that I was born, there was a flood, and..." Her brows pulled together, from remembering and the pain she suddenly felt and from being scared to even say it out loud. "─Rook...it washed them all away." A shiver ran through her as her head fell slightly. Avoiding a protruding stone in the wall, she took a deep breath and a moment of silence and continued, looking ahead with wide eyes so that she wouldn't tear right up.

"My sister and I made it, and those who were left relocated to Cedarwood Forest ─ Cut Rock River, actually. Anyway..." She felt like she was probably filling his head up. "After that I left for a while, spent some time near the coast, and when I returned I found Elettra and Willow Ridge, and now here I am, with you." She smiled at that, her golden eyes looking over to his mismatched ones that shone like pale stars against the silhouette of Rook's face."What about you? Where are you from? And how in the world are you related to Skoll?" There was no judgment in her voice, just curiosity and a genuine interest. Quil wanted to know all about Rook.

Rook Lyall

While it was good and heartening to know that Quil had escaped from Sköll's grasp (obviously) unscathed and intact, it was nice to hear it from her. But, on the other hand, even if Rook had known nothing about how his Uncle Angier had taken care of cubs who were actually his step-children, he took it all in stride. Her graceful acceptance of his apology, her comment about his acquired manners (both his mother and father's doing), how she answered him fair in square. She hadn't been born within Willow Ridge and she and Sköll were not related (sibling-wise or maybe even mate-wise, if he dared to assume). Thank goodness... Now that Rook really reflected on it, where the prince's fur had been a midnight black, Quil had been dark brownish-red, a russet kind of hue that reminded him of the muddy creek behind the den within Renegades Reach. And, she, too, had a mask on her face. In the dark, there wasn't too much light to help him confirm the fact, but she went on to tell him about her birthplace within Relic Lore.

Even if her face was shadowed for the most part, she easily gave him the right words from which to conjure images to work with: the backdrop of the mountain above a singular stream or a network of small creeks. A waterfall or two above a pool of damp, wet stones... Darkwater Rapids. It wasn't a pretty image though, he soon discovered as she went on, and in the event of a flood, her family was swept away. He made a face in the dark, the sort of scowl that wrinkled his nose and made his mother and sisters stop to ask him if everything was okay. His lips had pursed but as she fell quiet, even if for a little while, he interposed. Had he known that Quil was the Attaya girl, he had been wanting to meet, he might have said something else (especially if it had clicked in his mind that the forest she was referring to was his very own spot in Cedarwood). What came out instead was a simple and kindly, "It's all right, my family is gone too. They're elsewhere, but their place in Relic Lore is abandoned also."

She seemed to have pulled the name from him when he had at last attempted to wonder which forest she had briefly touched upon and he perked up again. Quil had her own questions and, as he had just had his musing answered, he figured it was only courteous of him to do the same. "I came from Renegades Reach in the northwest, some... bleak, lackluster sort of territory called the Greying Glades. Whoever established it first didn't even need to be creative with naming it; I'm not sure why my parents settled there. They used to have a place here in Cedarwood Forest called Grizzly Hollow." Something fluttered above his head - he swore he could have felt it - and he ducked momentarily before opting to move forward again. It didn't last long; what little light poured in from the entrance of the tunnel and what remaining daylight came from the pinpoint of a skylight in the ceiling of the cave showed to them that they had come into a pile of immovable fallen rocks. A dead end where the ground had failed to unearth the rest of the tunnel where a bunch of glittering stones had emerged from the walls of mud, mineral, and rock.

He tilted his head upward, seemingly engrossed with the sight of weird-looking birds, twittering and clicking among the number of stalactites over head. "I learned a while ago that Elettra is my aunt," he revealed, not yet ready to look at her in fear that this airborne creature might take another dive at him, "If... Yearlings are apart of a pack, they are either born there or recruited, but since you aren't related to him and given that he's so proud of where he's from, he must be my cousin." Typical, typical, Rook... Too logical for his own good. He cracked a grin when he was finally able to tear his eyes away from the dimly lit ceiling of the cavern and look at her, "Besides, maybe that's how it works with family. My dad's quiet and reserved like me... Maybe my uncle is rambunctious and that's where he gets his nerve from." His laugh came through his nose and a grin, "We are our father's sons." It was his turn next and as he supposed they ought to exit the secret cavern tunnel, he made to turn around and not pay the winged creatures any mind. If she wanted to stay a while in their well-hidden hideout, he could stay with her, if she had something against bats and strange sparklies, he wouldn't mind walking her back out either.

"Does..." he hesitated, wanting to know more about her also, but a more pressing need for information had him pining for knowledge of something more close to home, "Does Willow Ridge have anyone who's well-acquainted with herbs or the healing properties of things by chance?"

a half-finished book is, after all, a half-finished love affair.