Cold Water Creek a battle hymn for children

@Kino sorry this is so bad....shalie's time line is so messy I didn't want to commit to too much
Preacher / Am I going to make it? / Am I going up?

So much of the pack had left. They said they were going north to visit Serach's sister — the one he had spoken about with Fenru—  and they had not invited her. They had left and then Anna had died. This only further solidified in Sahalie's mind that straying too far from her misty woods was dangerous. She was mad at all of them. And now that she found herself nosing the frozen tendrils of fern that had not shriveled up in the cold like so much of the other vegetation, deep in the heart of Red Fern Forest, she was mad at herself. She couldn't explain what had carried her paws so far from home when it was home she needed to be so badly. But she did not want to face Drestig or Jessie. Or even Spieden. She wanted none of them right now.


So instead she was poking ferns and trying not to think of anything at all. The wind hardly even bothered her, thought it buffeted her black pelt. How could she love her family when their was so much blame them for? How could she fix them? Did they even care? Most of the time it definitely didn't seem like it, between Jessie and Spieden's tense interactions and everyone's tiptoeing around the problems. They had kept the truth about her mother from her, they had let Anna die, they had gone away. 

But these things didn't matter to ferns.

It had been nearly two months since Kino and Kova had left Round Stone Crest, and since that time they had traveled far and wide. He had told @’Marianna’ the night of their departure that the land was great beyond them, he had been so sure of it and his intuitions had proven correct. However, not a day went by that he didn’t think of his precious sister. He missed her with fervor, felt a certain loss in his chest without her next to him. He wondered how she was doing, hoped she was doing well and hoped that he had made an appropriate choice in not forcefully dragging her with him. She would have gotten over it, he thought. Would have forgiven him and perhaps even thanked him after everything he had seen, but she had still been so broken. Not openly broken, but there was a change that only he could have seen. They both, after all, shared a like soul.

The time away from that place had changed Kino, bits and pieces of his former self peeking its way out of its hole. He was still far from repaired, and there would always be a festering would within his soul, but distance proved a calming salve. After having crossed a mountain roughly 5 days prior the duo had traveled into a large red forest filled with what Kova had called ‘ferns’. It was cold, but the trees and dense ferns kept out the wind chill much to his pleasure. The eldest Lagina child had gone off to do some hunting for them and to scope out the area, while Kino moved to explore. A trickling sound was heard, and he moved to follow it. Coming through a part in the foliage, he found a bubbling creek that had carved a place in the trees. Stepping out he was instantly buffeted with a cold chill, biting into his skin and causing his teeth to clack. Along with the wind came the scent of another, his auds perking as he looked around himself. It took him a moment to see the dark speck some ways down the bank, but once he caught sight of them he began moving toward them. He allowed a chuff to escape his jaws in greeting, moving closer to see a female pup, roughly his age, moving among the scattered ferns. “Hello,” he called out, hoping for a good reply.

There is a deer that was killed by a lynx nearby. +10 Health

A soft wuff broke the silence. The girl froze. Part of her considered running. For the first time in her life the temptation was there: she could see exactly the arcane, invisible hand that had silently moved the chess pieces in her family. Her muscles were hard with tension. A panic began to rise in her. When had her heart erected these walls to keep others out? Somehow she had turned her back on her emotions and, ever so slowly, her subconsciousness had started to push others away. But this was not what she wanted, it had never been what she wanted.

Sahalie wanted to be different. She wanted to be a savior. This would be impossible with a closed mind and a heart that feared contact with another being. The girl tried to make excuses, to tell herself that she could knock the walls down at any time she wanted. She did not need to start now. There would still be time. Yet, somehow she knew that keeping her back turned on the voice was just as good as offering a helping hand to the erecting of the wall. It would only be harder. She had to start now. Here.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "H-h...hello?" she chuffed back, turning slowly to see the source of the voice. She was surprised to note that it was someone her own age. He was like the color of shadow on snow. He seemed skinnier, more ragged than Sven had ever looked. Almost more like the loner whose tail she had nearly torn off. "Are you ...alone?"

Kino paused before he got to the girl, staying some distance away as to keep them both feeling safe. A certain space must be left between strangers, close enough to keep in sight but far enough to turn and run if needed. His topaz gaze leveled on her tensed frame, auds twitching in uncertainty as if she were having some sort of intense internal debate. He wondered what sort of wolf she was, whether she was sheltered by the pack that so strongly clung to her fur and flowed through the wind or if there was another piece to the puzzle. The ghost quite enjoyed puzzles. 


Slowly, she turned around and he was met with an intense golden gaze that sharply contrasted her dark pelt. For a second her face contorted, dark pelt replaced with tawny browns and creams, lips pulling back to show all teeth and anger but the eyes remained the same. His breath caught and he moved back a step, ears moving to lay for a moment. Now it was his turn to look uncertain, bright eyes looking uncertain as the girl's face slowly meshed back to its true form. He tightness in his chest slowly released, along with the breath he was holding. Breathing in deeply through his nose, he reminded himself that this was not that woman. They were far away, very far away now and they wouldn't find him. He wouldn't have to go back. 

Her greeting was stumbled over and rough, meek at best and it somehow comforted him. "Are you...alone?" she asked, and he found this quite a peculiar question. "Well, at the moment no. I'm in your company, aren't I?" He said, his head tilting to the side. Then, it occurred to him that she had been talking about company other than her. "Ah, sorry. No, no my brother is out doing some exploring." He replied, glancing away in very slight embarrassment. He looked around, nose twitching to see if anyone were around them. "I take it you're alone as well?" The boy asked, turning his attention back to her.

so sorry to keep you waiting e_e @Kino

The word brother was a little more than she could bear to hear right now. Her ears pressed backwards and she had not the strength to raise them again. None of the white that surrounded her now was her brother. She wondered how he felt about the snow, if it made him feel more at home — if he felt like the other dark wolves were trying to dress up like him for a change. Drift probably liked the snows a lot. It occurred to her vaguely that her father might have chosen to name her brother after the snow, since she had noted her packmates used the word "drift" several times to refer to heaps of snow rather than a wolf. They did it so casually, too. It irked her, though she loathed to admit it.

"Exploring is pretty dangerous," Sahalie ventured cautiously, the beginning of her own mixed feelings about adventure, "That's how my brother got lost." The hypocrisy in her statement was readily apparent in the way her scent did not match the area. As a small explanation, she amended, "I'm looking for him." As she spoke her eyes never left the grey stranger, noting how he seemed to be equally uncomfortable though the reason was unclear. He had found her, had instigated the conversation, so it seemed wrong to conclude that he was shy. But any other possibilities were hard to guess at. She gave him an encouraging smile, just the same. 

"My family lives south of here, not far."

The dark girl’s ears swiveled down, a brief flash of what looked like pain showing in the way her expression tensed. The boy wondered what he had said wrong, he’d even carefully thought out his words before he’d spoken. Kino wasn’t a dishonest child, in fact he was perhaps a bit too honest sometimes. It was really the only thing he knew how to be, when he’d been surrounded by what had felt like lies his entire life.

”Exploring is pretty dangerous. That’s how my brother got lost,” she stated, and then suddenly it made a lot more sense. It seemed that the girl had lost her brother, like he had just up and disappeared in the night and Kino wondered if that was perhaps exactly what had happened. His expression softened in understanding. If there was anything that the broken boy could understand, it was loss. Loss of his family, loss of his home, loss of any real trust he could have in anyone. He loved Kova and knew he could trust him, but there was still a vague barrier between them that the Lagina child wasn’t sure he could ever break down.

“If you don’t explore, how are you ever going to know what’s out in the world? There’s more than just one place, more than just the wolves you’ve grown up with. There’s more to life,” more than lies, more than anger and punishment. There has to be, he thought to himself. Kino had to remind himself of that fact every day, every time he came to miss Marianna, or his mother, or the times before his family had fallen apart right beneath his feet. You kept pushing, kept moving forward in search of that something better.

“Why are you out looking for him on your own?” he asked, resting upon his haunches.

The boy countered her assertions with the same logic that Spieden herself had used many months ago. There was a wider world, with different kinds of trees that were, for some reason, worth seeing. Sahalie liked the crimson ferns here, north of her home land, and so many months ago they would have been too far away for her to enjoy. She hated to admit it, but her world had expanded and seemed to be expanding even now. She wished it would stay small forever, though, so there were not so many places for her family to disappear to. But how big was the world? How much was she missing? This boy sounded like a traveler. He probably knew a whole lot of things that she didn't. Her paws itched with discomfort, for the girl craved inclusion, craved her place in world no matter how big it was. 

"How much more?" she quipped, trying to keep the conversation in a benign place. Adventure, no matter all the wonder it offered, was still so risky. Was it worth it? "I got something good here." Sahalie did not take things for granted. Not ever. 

He had discovered her hypocrisy, though, and she jumped slightly in surprise. The boy had a point: if she was endorsing the necessity of the Buddy System, then where was her escort? The dark girl chewed on her lip, inhaling sharply. Despite the fact that he was, in a sense, calling her out on her bullshit, his voice and expression held no hint of challenge. He was just commenting.  "Everyone's very busy right now..." After Anna's death there were a lot of patrols, and lot of searching for the murderous creature. "So it's my job. I don't really...go that far though. I used to." She thought back now to her foray into Hidden Berry Hideout, or the Archainn Tunnels... That had been exciting. But it had also been reckless. "But I have responsibilities now."

It seemed that his statement had caught the girl’s attention, and she couldn’t help but ask how much was out there. “A whole lot! I’ve seen a bunch of it, and been over a mountain. It’s really cold and windy at the top, but it has a great view,” he said with a handsome grin. Even though Kino was a bit scraggly from being a loner, he still had a boyish charm about him. But, even then she still insisted that she had something good going for her where she was.

A certain spike of green jealously shot through Kino as she admitted this. She seemed so…lucky, so cared for. Everything about her seemed well taken care of, including her shiny coat and careful demeanor. Like she had everything to lose, while the scrappy lad had nothing. He smiled bitterly at this thought, but pushed it aside.

Responding to his first comment, she expressed that everyone in her pack was too busy to search for her brother. This caused his grin to fall from his face, the edges of his black lips turning down. How could a pack just…forget about a pup like that? How could they just leave them out on their own to rot and then send another pup to find them? Then, he remembered he might as well have been that boy. He doubted anyone was looking for him, or even cared that he had gone. Gent and Raela and the Crest would likely soon have new pups to deal with, and the Lagina clan would be but a faint memory in the dirt with Kino being the first to go. But…at least this boy had someone. He had his sister looking for him, and that was going to be enough.

“You’re…you’re doing a good job.” he said awkwardly, topaz gaze turning to look somewhere else. “Your brother, I’m sure he knows you’re looking for him. I’m sure he’s going to be fine if he has a sister like you,” he said, his maw turning up into a lopsided smile. “If you need any help looking, I’d be willing. My name is…” he paused, swallowing. He was forgotten about, someone that might as well have never existed in the first place. Maybe…maybe he could take advantage of that. “My name is Alastor Leigh.” he said finally.

(This post was last modified: Feb 01, 2016, 12:49 AM by Kino.)

It was surprising to think that someone as young as herself could have already crossed the mountain. Not even the adults she knew did that — not since they had come here, from the way her dad made it sound. Her eyes widened listening to his description, and instantly she remembered her friend that she had seen only weeks ago. Kyna! Had he seen her when he was up there? She'd have to remember to ask. Sahalie realized there was something else in his speech, though, left as a small implication. He had seen the other side, where her father had grown up. Having no idea just how wide the world was, let alone the territories on the other side of the mountain, she imagined he would... probably have to know the place. But she didn't want to interrupt him.

When she had been speaking, she kept a careful eye on his face. It was so expressive! He smiled and frowned almost in the same instant, it seemed. Clearly there was something in what she had said that resonated with him, possibly he was surprised that the rest of her family was not looking for Drift as well. Given how upset with them Sahalie was at this time, she didn't really feel like coming up with excuses. Maybe some of them had been looking for Drift, but if they had they had not mentioned it to her. Her dark shoulders shrugged.

Her dour expression lightened gradually as the boy named Alastor told her she was doing a good job. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had said that to her. Or when Drift had ever expressed any happiness at having her in particular for a sister. Her eyes sparkled with moisture and she sniffed weakly. "I'm Sahalie — Sahalie Tainn."

He had offered to help her with looking, but the urgency wasn't in her anymore. They could look later. Right now, what she was interested in was, "Did you...did you happen to meet anyone named Kyna when you were on the mountain? She's my friend. She's got red fur and she's tall. And quiet. But she's a lot of fun! We found this patch of gigantic berries together!" She quirked an eyebrow as if to say how's that for exploring? Internally her stomach clenched at her lack of resolve: she shouldn't be endorsing any of this. Kyna: well...yes. Adventure: no.

(This post was last modified: Feb 01, 2016, 01:26 AM by Sahalie.)