Fallen Tree Cove Hide No More

Dated 7/18 For @Nathaniel

Long had the psychical aspects of her torn eye healed since the incident on the plateau. Nothing more than a set of dark hued scars in the shape of two distinct canine teeth marks lay across the abandoned socket to remind Hexamora of that day. The emotional wounds yet to fully heal still and the challenges associated with her new trophy far from mastered for the aging ivory woman. Her feeding reduced to scavenging off exposed carcasses scattered about the out lying perimeter of the territory than running the risk of a pack subordinate seeking out the wretched woman to scold her for yet again emptying a cache and leaving it unfilled. A sidereal fate, she decided.

Today was one of those days. The scent of rotting flesh from a slain deer made days ago luring the ivory woman from her hermit of a den away from the others and their close-knit like family. Making a silent get away out towards the eastern edge of the territory. Hexamora was so sure that the light tawny woman Desideria would have blabbered about the lastest news to the rest of the pack about her missing eye, but nobody came to see the new freak show attraction living under their roof. Mixed emotions became of this. Nobody in the pack gave a furry rat's behind about her, a sharp reminder that she was alone in the end. A lesson she would never forget again. Meandering at a slow lope through the dense pine forest, her cranium was constantly set into a sweeping motion. Singular optic scanning what little surroundings she could in any given second.

Twitching small, rounded audits her path remained undeterred from the increasing aroma of rotting flesh and lynx scat. No doubt the culprit for bringing down her easy earned meal. It took no time for her to reach the half devoured body of the deer, body wasting no time in settling in where the last scavenger had fed. Stained canines sinking into whatever bits of flesh she could manage to wrap her jaws around without jarring into exposed bone and cartilage. A feral growl quietly rumbled in her chest as she fed, completely unaware and vulnerable to her surroundings in that moment. A lesson to being partially blind she was yet to learn; you had to always be alert for anyone could be lurking in the shadows. Friend, or foe. 

He was avoiding the rest of them, he knew it yet he wasn't quite ready to consciously admit to himself. After all, once he'd accepted this problem, he would be self-pressured into finding a solution. It simply wasn't in him to accept that this home was now permanent, a possibility he hadn't concerned when hunting down the scents of his siblings. Now he was close to cursing himself, yet in the end he knew he wouldn't trade his time with them for any amount of freedom in the world. Still, it didn't mean he had to tether himself completely just so soon, right?

And so he found himself satelliting the territory, lurking outside of it, occasionally daring to stray farther in one direction or the other. Nathaniel still had to be useful to them, couldn't wander too far and be discovered missing in action, yet he could feign autonomy, couldn't he? It was this thinking exactly that brought him out to Hexamora's vicinity.

The first to hit his mind was that a stranger was roaming this close to the pack, but she smelled faintly still of the leaders and he was left only to question when she had been a member - recently, or currently? With the mark of belonging so faint, it was quite possible she had been ousted but still lingered to feed off scraps. Or perhaps she was simply like him, and would rather avoid them all. Intrigued either way, Nathaniel pressed forward to seek her out.

When she came into his muddled view, tucking into an abandoned carcass that had begun to rot, his stomach turned and he felt more inclined to assume his former theory about her place in the world.

"Are you... with the pack?" he questioned her, keeping his distance in case she answered his inquiry with aggression.

Bite after bite the aged meat slid down her gullet to fill the emptiness of her stomach where the air from her inhaling had not already. Gradually the once colorless maw began to obtain a pinkish hue that soon morphed into a shimmering shade of pale crimson with each tear of flesh. It was only when Hexamora paused to catch her breath did small rounded audits catch the faint rustling of pine needles under soft paw steps before an unknown voice spoke with uncertainty about whether she belonged to the pack or not. On a dime her body whirled around defensively and hunkered down towards the earth, single green optic coming to focus on her intruder after angling her skull to bring this dark coated wolf into her singular line of sight. Awaiting for his features to construed into a look of disgust upon the gruesome sight of her abandoned socket and scarring like everyone else did.

Then her nostrils were bombarded by the mixed cologne and perfume of the leaders revealing that he too was another subordinate under their rule. So, he was one of them. Holding back the urge to snort at this newly confirmed information she met his gaze with her own easily as her body rose back to its relaxed height despite her muscles refusing to uncoil fully. "Indeed I am, though I prefer the outskirts of the territory. I'm not exactly a pack favorite." She admitted nonchalantly. "The name is Primrose." Alias name rolling off her tongue like sweet honey in a mellifluous tone.

(This post was last modified: Aug 13, 2015, 04:40 AM by Hexamora.)

As she turned to face him it was not her words which met with his senses first but rather the horrid, and rather fresh scarring that ravaged on side of her face. A small portion of shock made its way across his features, but that was the only emotion to be expressed, as the other he felt would have been inappropriate to allowed outside of himself. Immediately his thoughts turned to Tagg, a wolf whom he'd seen before in passing and knew of from one of the information-rich talks he'd had with his brother Anthem. Nathaniel found it amusing that the pack was home to a grand total of three half blind wolves. Of course, his mild affliction was not made obvious just by looking upon him, and it was likely that no one but his siblings knew about the ordeal.

What made him curious about her was how recently the wound looked to have been afflicted. Was it within her time in the pack? Or had she been brought under the Vuesain shield as an injured charity case? His ears flicked to attention as her voice oozed from her bile-laced black lips, and was left with another begging question as well as a brief thought as to how little the name Primrose seemed to suit her.

"And why's that?" he questioned, before adding his name into the mix of spoken words; "Nathaniel."

As expected a look far from pleasant etched its way into the swarthy features of this stranger's face. Though the emotion was not that of disgust the small flicker of shock held the similar stinging response Hexamora fought hard to push past. Body offering a near invisible physical flinch. Nero, a wolf she had bumped into within the confines of the Sacred Grove had tried to school her on not letting her handicap become a hindrance, but the lesson hadn't quite stuck entirely. Her confidence in this new half visible world of hers was shaky at best. Unbeknownst to her this dark coated man held a similar disability, though concealed effortlessly behind his icy irises.

Briefly, a look of confusion passed over her own blood stained features at his returned question. Why did it matter the reason for her being so disliked by the others? The arctic woman was an old hag, a bitch and down right uninviting in the manor of all things warm and fuzzy such as friends and family. There was no emotional attachment to those around her and frankly she had no qualms with that. "I don't do good with warm and fuzzy, I guess. Nor do I exactly look like the type someone wants to call their friend." She spoke nonchalantly, small audits pivoting forward at the dropping of his name. @Nathaniel  she tested on a mental tongue versus verbally. 

"What brings you out this way?" Hex then questioned, head angling sideways in a tilt like manor to show her genuine curiosity. Since her time within the pack hardly a soul ventured toward the eastern portion of the territory aside from the alphas and Anthem during border patrols. The very reason the Beauvau woman had decided to dig herself a humble abode among the silence the sturdy pines offered. 

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity

Her answer wasn't very good, at least not in Nathaniel's opinion. And while others might have begun to dismiss the woman, not wanting to pursue such a line of thinking, he was all the more invested in figuring out what exactly it was that made her tick in exactly this rhythm. For it wasn't quite right. No matter how vile her personality, this reasons she was provided him with held absolutely no water. Perhaps she was skirting around the truth, perhaps she wasn't comfortable voicing it straight. Or perhaps she truly did not know better. Whatever it was, she was trapped in this little conversation now.

Even as she attempted to steer the conversation elsewhere, Nathaniel did not refuse her an answer but all the same would not relent. No, they would both see this one through now.

"I'm not good with warm and fuzzy either," he answered simply. "I tend to feel a little claustrophobic within the territory, so its nice to get a break now and then."

Nathaniel took a seat, feeling comfortable enough to and also indicating voicelessly to Hexamora that he was intending on a full length conversation. She wasn't getting away easy, even if it was solitude they were both chasing.

"Now please tell me, what the hell do looks have to do with making friends?"

Quietly arctic audits listened to Nathaniel basically repeat her previous words before circling the conversation back to where it initially started. "I don't know how one can become claustrophobic in a place as large as this territory, but whatever floats your fancy. Your issues aren't mine to judge." Out loud her mind retorted. A grunt wanted to escape her lips when he lowered his haunches into a more comfortable position while pressing into the subject of what looks had to do with anything. Like a pestering fly that refused to leave you alone in the sweltering heat of summer, this character before her made it clear he was far from finished with this conversation. As if the lowering of his haunches comfortably wasn't a large enough clue to such.

Seeing no theoretical exit routes of this conversation, as if he would actually let her, Hexamora succumbed to his annoyance and allowed her own embodiment to adopt a more comfortable position seeing as neither of them would be leaving anytime soon. Much to her regret. "Quite a lot, actually. You can't honestly expect me to believe you don't let appearance form the foundation of your judgement on someone." Bemusement forced the brows upon her face to quirk upwards. If her appearance didn't lend proof to her words, her personality surely would. Hexamora was bad company and those who crossed her path knew it the moment they laid eyes on the pale coated woman. Before and after the loss of her eye.

i'm still trying to get a handle on nathaniel's personality so please excuse any inconsistencies

She was rather determined to be hated, wasn't she? Nathaniel listened to all she had to say, her remarks of his own statement, mocking him with what he could only guess was unintentional irony, for she was guilty of the exact same trespass, as well as her jab back at him for the question he had asked of her. Rather than trying his patients however, it only interested him more. Since having left his birth pack and trailing after his runaway siblings, the man had developed a deep fascination with the lives of others, especially those with exceptional quirks such as hers.

In truth, Nathaniel hadn't always been so avoidant. When aligned with a pack, he had been a relatively social entity. While he preferred to watch and occasionally interrogate, he had been able to slip into the role of normal easily enough. When enough had been enough, he had simply left, and perhaps that was what had created the wall between him and this pack now. With Anthem and Angele determined in gifting their undying loyalty to the monarchs here, there would be no escaping these wolves. He knew, deep within his bones, that this would eventually drive him mad. Avoiding them altogether was only an attempt at staving off the inevitable.

"I make observations, yes," he agreed with her. It took effort for him to keep his words paced normally, to not show the woman how badly he was itching to delve wholly into this topic. Matters such as these were what kept him up at night, thinking.

"If another man is exceptionally large, I'll do well to keep on his good side. If I come across a wolf snarling and snapping, I'll most likely avoid them all together. When I scented you, the pack of your smell was faint, and I took in account all the possibilities of what it could mean. Same for your face, the wound. I can imagine all the possibilities I think pertinent, can brace myself for them all. But the difference is, I don't assume any of them to be true."

Much like the difference between profiling and stereotyping, in Nathaniel's mind her damnation could not lie in appearance; one could infer all they wanted from a visual, so long as they were flexible enough to accept when these deductions were proven false. Therefor, it wasn't her appearance that was scaring everyone off, and he was beginning to see the true answer for himself; she had an unearned attitude. Yet she was still here, not having turned her back on him and his words. Something in her wanted to interact, he felt, and perhaps the most solid fact of this was the bitterness in her. To posses that, she had to care.

"As you said, my issues aren't yours to judge. And yours aren't mine, neither. But I still think its interesting that we have them at all, don't you? Especially when you're critical of my confession. After all, isn't that why you're out here too? It might be a big chunk of land, but someone always finds you anyway, don't they? Are you sure you don't know what its like to feel claustrophobic in open spaces?"

(This post was last modified: Sep 10, 2015, 04:31 AM by Nathaniel. Edit Reason: nathaniel shut up )

Feel like she's having a therapist sessions xD

To make herself further comfortable front limbs lowered until they became outstretched before her, hind legs curling in to tuck beneath the weight of her body while small arctic ears pivoted forward to listen to the abundance of words rolling off his salmon tinted tongue. A look of slight interest clouding her facial features. "I don't bother staying on anyone's good side regardless of their size or size of their canines. Eventually they will all turn on you. Can't trust anyone but yourself and i'm sticking to that." The truth tumbled from her mouth, a brief look of perplexity adorning her face. Now where did that come from? Regardless her words held true in her mind, that Vuesain man the only one she has out rightly attempted to keep in favor of and that was only to keep from being evicted before she was ready.

Curling her ivory tail around her slightly leaned over body, more questions were thrown in her direction. Questions that dared assume to know why she was out here, darned to assume she knew what being claustrophobic felt like. "I am out here because everyone avoids me and I them and because I was hungry. It's not exactly easy hunting half blind after being use to having full sight your entire life. I'm forced to scavenge when I can to feed myself. I'm surprised they haven't ousted me yet since I can't contribute anything. Probably too busy with the whelps and being all high and mighty to notice." She scoffed as her woes came tumbling out one by one.