Nightingale Palisade No Time For Games

@Gent - Overcast & 14C

Old legs were long past the point of feeling comfort on uneven footing. Each step was protested by joints and muscles that willed her back to more stable grounds, but the determination of her mind was enough to override the pain. When Avari went on a mission she became overwhelmed by an unbreakable resolve, a fierce tenacity that made it almost dangerous to stand in her way. To some it might have seemed like dedication to a fault, for she lacked the finesse and tact more politically natured minds might have had. There was no beating around the bush for Ava, she was on the hunt for @Kjors, and she didn't particularly care who knew it. Good help was hard to find though, and this required her to push otherwise retired limbs to the end of their limitations. Searching high and low for a man she despised more than the mate she had secretly had slain, a son she no longer knew the scent or the sight of. The two had been estranged for so many years, who could say how the boy might have changed. He could have turned colour for all Avari knew. He could have lost an ear, he could have lost an eye. The only thing she knew with any kind of certainty was that his name was still the same. The coursing river nearby deafened her to many of the sounds she might have otherwise heard, but there was a thirst for water she needed to satiate before she could keep towards fulfilling her thirst for blood. Years ago she'd have been more able to traverse the terrain and make it to the stream, but she lacked a confidence in her older and more frail body that kept her forward and in search of more gradual slopes towards the water. Without the reliability on her ears, the dependence was on her nose. Cool air made a harder strain on her body, but it bettered her ability to breathe in the surrounding scents. The richness of trees and falling leaves, and for some reason an unusually thick smell of foxes. It had been like that everywhere of late. She'd begun to think they were following her, and considered starting her own little cull of the pesky little demons. As she breathed so too did she catch the scents of many wolves. Some stronger than others, enough that she might have considered a pack nearby. All the more reason for her to stay on her course. If her son was part of a pack it was a foolish idea to think that they would be too pleased with her intentions. One scent was fresh. One male was near, but she could not give chase with her feet, thus she called forward with her voice. "Oh strong and handsome man!" Obviously there was no way for her to know the condition of this stranger without first laying eyes on him, but she'd become too familiar with flattery as a means of getting the attention she so desired. "Won't you stop and help an old lady cross the street?!" Maybe, just maybe if she made it sound as though she was in some kind of trouble, this unfamiliar male might feel an obligation to come and at least investigate her shouting.

It had been a long time since Gent had felt comfortable leaving his own borders, much less traveling as far as the palisades. Even longer yet that he had been able to take such a departure without being wracked by nerves. This time, despite the threats against his pack that still existed, a sense of security had been bestowed to him. Their numbers were up, and each member had undergone some form of training, now prepared to at least defend themselves if not take out any nuisances that pestered their territory. All was improving, and with it Gent's piece of mind.

As was the norm when out this far East, the king stopped at his fallen predecessor's grave. His mind turned toward Kjors and his attempt to ransom such vital information as the identity of Tokino's killer, as well as Kisla's perceived indifference of the whole ordeal, injecting a dose of anger into his veins. A piece of him felt as though, in being unsuccessful to glean the information from the River queen, Gent had failed Minka in some capacity, yet he could not blame himself. It was that snake's fault, and in time the man would be punished for his transgressions. The Lieris was certain of that.

With a sigh, he moved on from the grave, marked by nothing other than Gent's memories. As he walked, nearing the river's bank, a voice called out to him, stopping him for a moment in his tracks. He at least assumed those words were meant for him, though he couldn't say he'd ever been spoken to in such a manner before. His pale eyes swept the area, searching for the woman's form, but could spy none. Could she see him, though? The thought was unnerving. Relying on his sense of smell, he rooted the woman out quickly.

Once having found her, it was clear that she hadn't known his exact location, much less his appearance. This made her worse than even a simple flatterer; it made her something of a liar. His gaze was pessimistic as it washed over her, the Crest king halting his approach a few meters out from her position.

"Why so far from home?"

Oh the relief when her call was finally answered, gracing her with the presence of another mind and body she could pick at for some amusement. Initial feelings were nothing short of glee, delight that she'd come across something of use for entertainment, but such feelings were quickly washed away as the distant shadow neared, and she could almost smell the anger that lingered just beneath the surface. There was something tense about this stranger, and it put the knowing older woman ever slightly on edge. Still he came to her - they always came. Her smile was soft, but the arrogance had dropped away, the last thing she wanted was to be drawn into a fight, especially with a male who was younger, presumably more able than she. Far from decrepit, Avari was still at the age where she was more intent to swallow her pride and walk away than risk a fatal injury in battle. This, however, was not an attack. The other stopped his stride some distance away, and shot a question that seemed to come out of nowhere. So far from home? How would he have known, had it been so long since she'd come across another that she no longer held a single foreign scent in her pelt? Clearly, she had some work to do on the matter of making acquaintances. "What brings anyone to leave their home?" Answering a question with a question, a typical reaction meant to make it seem like she had some kind of control over the situation, and she met her own response with what looked like a shrug. "Boredom, hunger, intent, desperation." In the most roundabout way possible, she answered his question, without it ever sounding like she was. "Maybe a little bit of everything." If that wasn't a hint, and her voice changed tones to imply as much, then she wasn't sure what more she could do to answer with any sort of subtlety. "I could ask you the very same."

Sorry about the wait on this.

It seemed she had no intentions of taking his question seriously, not a thing that bothered the man at all, for he honestly wasn't terribly interested. It was peculiar that a woman of her age would be out on her own, especially in the rougher terrain Relic Lore had to offer, but such wasn't his concern. Yet. When she returned his question, he offered only what had been given to him.

"This and that, I suppose," was the swift response, before the subject was promptly discarded by the king. "What did you need assistance with?"

He supposed, of all things, he could hold some semblance to his own namesake and help a lady out. Perhaps putting out a little good will would return some to him, after all; he was certainly a believer of that. Just because this woman hadn't retained any signs of connections within her coat did not mean that she wouldn't hold them later down the road. As a yearling, when Gent had tried so hard to forge ties with others in hopes of calling upon owed favors later, he had simply been doing as his father had instructed. Now, as an adult, he was able to see for himself how intricately connected even the most surprising of events could turn out to be.

(This post was last modified: Oct 29, 2015, 05:33 AM by Gent.)

Repetition of answers was one of those things that could have signified one of two things. Either this male was smart enough to know that it was unwise to give back anything more than had been offered, or too stunned and stupid to know how to think for himself. While in her experience it was usually the latter for those who seemed to come so willingly to the call of a perceived damsel in distress, something of instinct told her that in this case, it was intelligence that left her without more to work with than this and that. "I have been looking for someone, who I have not seen in many years." Names were a risky thing to give up so easily, and while she was not adverse to taking her chance some days, something of amusement had her feeling like playing things a bit more underhanded than simply spitting Kjors' name at the first opportunity. "A boy..." the day she considered Kjors' to be a man was the day she jumped from a cliff "...a small boy. Golden eyes, and fur that looks like mud." Had she known that he was missing an eye she might have pointed it out, but as it stood the trauma had taken place after their last encounter. "And he..." she stopped to laugh, like she was remembering a fond companion "...he used to speak in a way that sounded... it sounded rather dumb." There was no better word for it, the man spoke like his father - with an accent that was entirely befitting of their intelligence.

The woman was becoming odder and odder in Gent's mind, but still he remained, willing to hear her at even as she suddenly offered to him the bill of a missing wolf, rather than continuing her request in help navigating the rough terrain they had found themselves upon. To know it was Kjors, her description perhaps would have amused him, the serpent having painted an ill enough of himself for the king to find mirth in insults to his being. Yet as things were, it only served to lead him farther from the scent. Never would he have described the River snake as a boy, and small was descriptive only in relevance to Gent's own mammoth size. Instead, he was to be considered of average proportions, and finally, the plurality of the description given of her target's eyes sealed the deal. With such a description to go off of, Kjors would never rise to mind.

He thought briefly of Datura instead, though the peculiar orphan lacked the right fur color and had never spoken with an accent around the Crest. With not even a possibility ready upon his tongue, the timbers king merely shook his head. However, he was mightily curious as to what her intentions were with the wolf in question, given the faint cutting edge that had slipped into her voice with those final words.

"Doesn't ring a bell. Got a name? I might've heard of him, if he's settled anywhere around here."

(This post was last modified: Nov 05, 2015, 02:02 AM by Gent.)

A lynx has left behind the remains of a deer. +5 Health

In another time she might have cursed the air at the denial of existence shot back by the male. She was certain, in her mind, that anyone who had come across her son would know him in the same way as she remembered him. That he'd lost his eye was still a mystery to the elder woman, and so it never occurred to her that she might have had more luck with her descriptions if she'd chosen to use that as the most glaring factor, rather than just calling him... well... small.

"Ah, but I am not surprised." It was amusing, if nothing else, to know that Kjors was such a failure that his name had failed to spread further than the tongue of Urien. "Really I am grasping at straws. Call it a hunch that brought me this way..." No mention at all of either Urien or Iopah. The less names she threw around, the less she risked damaging the reputation of innocent, or seemingly innocent lives.

"A name, I suppose, would have been easier in the first place." The fact of the matter was she despised to so much as think about it, let alone voice it aloud, and it would she when she finally brought it to her tongue that it came with acid from her stomach and a deeply rooted hate, no matter her efforts to hide the emotion.

"Kjors" Her gut twisted, but she managed to resist the urge to curl her lip (and her tail) in distaste. "His name is Kjors." The flirtatious facade had vanished in a flash. In a matter of seconds she'd gone from being something akin to a tail-chasing cougar, to a woman clearly scorned and enraged...

Was this her reason for being without a pack, on her own at her age and this time of year? His curiosity was steadily growing, and he yearned to ask her the many questions that were flooding his mind. Yet he felt that the ground between them was shaky and needed to be treaded upon carefully. It was becoming more and more clear that in this scenario, this hunt of hers, there were two clear sides and Gent did not want to end up choosing the wrong team. In fact, he wasn't sure he wanted to be a part of either wolf's aspirations. Rather than being beneficial, they may only be harmful. Yet as at last she gave him what he most needed to indentify her quarry, these concerns fell away. With the utterance of the serpent's name, he knew exactly which side he wanted to be on.

"Kjors," he repeated, but for a beat nothing more issued from his maw. He knew better than to blatantly through the brown furred man under the bus, what with the strained relationship between his kingdom and the River pack, yet the opportunity to send an enemy Kjors' way was far too savory to turn away from.

"You clearly feel some poison about this man. If I were to assist you, how much of that would leak back to me?" he tested. Regardless of what was said he knew that there would be a chance she might turn him in and he might gain some shrapnel in his hide, and still her response was crucial to his decision of whether or not to share.

It was almost obvious... almost... by the reaction that she received upon announcement of her son's name, that there was some kind of a history between this stranger and her child. She speculated, as she watched, the back of her throat beginning to bombinate with though as she merely stood, blinking, feeling the uncertain terms beneath her paws solidify more with every second. That was the thing about @Kjors. That had always been the think about Kjors. His friends were fiercely loyal to his cause and his enemies were the very opposite. Rarely was there a middle ground. Almost never did somebody neither love or hate him. "Poison!" She barked a sound of laughter at the irony in his choice of words... or was it perhaps a slip of the tongue? She had tried to kill Kjors with poisons, so slowly and so painfully... Maybe this was no foe of his, maybe this was an ally - someone who knew the story and was willing to side with the wrong individual. "This... this man... not that I would call him as such... slew my son." Friend or not she would try to turn the tables in her favour, the mere mention of the misdeed causing a visible shiver to run down her spine as fur bristled not with aggression but rather discomfort. The deep rooted anger had been rotting her inside for so long, pushing her to make the decisions that she had. Kill the bastard or die trying. "All I need is a brave, handsome male..." and it was only in her eyes that she flirted with almost no subtlety. "To point me in the right direction... without ever telling me his name... or where he lives... or with whom he might be associated." There had yet been no exchange of pleasantries or names, a deliberate tactic on her part to free her company of any association with her. Kjors couldn't possibly force anything out of her if she didn't know the details to begin with.