Blackened Down church of pines

Dawn, Patchy rain possible, 58 ° F, 15 ° C

kerberos rigel

The sun rises over the tree line
With welcoming morning light
Day sets on the church of pines.

He hadn't left home in a while and for good reasons. The Tainn children, his own child, Naira, Maera, Treyah. Perhaps the only wolf he wasn't constantly checking in on was Triell. Of course, he still did his best to make sure the dark male was comfortable and well. Kerberos wondered if this would have happened if he hadn't taken the reigns of the Draw or if he had decided to start up his own little family. Part of the Rigel male knew it wasn't fair to blame himself for their hard patches but he was sensitive still. He had gotten good at hiding it but when he was on his own it was easy to let his thoughts swallow him whole.

With a huff, he shuffled through the burned lands he called home. He was unsure if he would make it all the way to Hidden Tree but the area in between was nice enough. The area was a bit different than the draw. More fallen charred trees and tall grass in the places it could grow. In the dawn, a fog lingered about this place like some kind of ghost town. It didn't put him on edge, though. He welcomed it with ease. The fog offered a hiding place for him before he made his way back home.

The Draw leader climbed up onto a log and carefully walked across it. He had little idea how it would hold up in its current condition but so far it seemed to do well. As he hopped down from the log he gave a soft huff when his paws hit the ground. It was a mindless act with no real reason to it. He just needed to really stretch his legs before going back to the safety of his home.

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She had found her way back to the Wildwood for whatever reason her paws had carried her there. There were times the agouti woman no longer felt she had control over the direction she traveled. Sometimes she even wondered how she was still alive having not felt hungry in...well she wasn't really sure anymore. She'd lost track of the days and how long it had been since she’d last eaten something. Her thirst was perhaps the only thing that nagged at her anymore. When she went to drink she did everything she could to ignore her reflection for it only served to remind her of what a failure her life had become.

She stumbled across the grassy terrain not really seeing the blackened forest around her. The scent of a nearby rabbit was ignored, like most days she didn't feel like she could eat anything. Feeling the need to rest she managed to reach a blackened stump. This was where she fell back on her haunches sides heaving from the effort it had taken to get there. For a moment she sat resting, catching her breath. What had she become? Only a wisp of what she had been drifting around with nothing, she couldn't show up at the border of Willow Ridge like this unable to offer anything to them.

Once her sides had stopped heaving Leotie rose to her shaky feet once more. She looked this way and that to decide where to go next, what to do next but she could not. A whine escaped her as her mind once again clouded over as she let her paws carry her in whatever direction they wanted. It was better this way, she didn't have to think about anything and she didn't have to make any decisions as she once more was stumbling to nowhere in particular.

~Table by Switch

(This post was last modified: Jul 14, 2017, 06:20 PM by Leotie.)

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There are several fresh rabbit tracks in the mud. Hunt Opportunity

 

He had expected to be all alone, that the dawn would hold no one but himself yet he heard a soft whine in the distance. His ears swiveled softly and he shuffled through the long growing grass and around the charred tree trunks. Pale yellow eyes squinted to look in the faint light. As if that wasn't enough he caught the faintest scent of someone he didn't think would still be around here. He halted his movement unsure if he should even say anything. She didn't look in top condition and if the whine had come from her than he felt even worse. Was she injured? His face seemed to contort into a saddened look. He would be an ass to simply walk away but he really doubted she would want his help now. Especially after everything. But did she know? Would she bother to understand if he explained himself?

"Are you injured?" Kerberos' voice softly drifted out. He did not smile and his tail did not wave. Pale yellow eyes showed all of the guilt that was being pent up inside of him. He figured if she still lingered in the Wildwood than it was his business to figure out what exactly was keeping her here. Especially so close to the Draw.

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It was best not to have to think about where to go, that led to thoughts about what had happened, what she lost...Sven. Leotie shook her head and nearly fell off balance. Regaining her feet she paused a moment and took a deep breath, she couldn't think of that. No, she had to keep moving and let the fog back in. It was the only way to keep her mind from drifting to the things that drug her down, it was the only way to keep the sadness away. It would make her want to curl up and not do anything, maybe it would be better if she let the sadness in.

A voice reached her ears causing them to perk forward but she turned her head away from the voice. She believed it to have come from the other side so she turned her head to face away from Kerb and to where she thought the voice had come from. She'd heard the voice before but it was asking such an odd question, it had never cared about an injury before. “No injury,” she said as she sat back on her haunches facing the direction she had spoken before, “Why would you ask? You didn't before when we spoke.” Then she went silent, waiting for some response her tail sweeping the ground only once.

~Table by Switch

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He could have laughed at her words but the timing would have been awful so he merely wore a hidden smirk. "I asked and cared about it when you hurt your paw. Got you fir to chew on to help with the pain." His words were soft and careful, unsure what he could say or what he could possibly get away with saying to her. "Suppose that doesn't mean much to you now though, does it?" The Rigel man's tail moved only to give a once nervous wave. She wasn't facing him but at least she was talking to him and he hadn't been met with teeth and claws. Not yet at least.

Kerberos wondered if he should move closer, signify where he was but then he had to wonder if she was purposely facing away from him. He really couldn't find it in himself to blame her if she was. He'd likely had done the same to an ex-friend who hadn't stood up in a trying time. That's just what he was and it made the guilt claw at his throat a bit harder. A choking feeling that he did his best to ignore. Maybe if he just pretended that painful guilt wasn't there it would go away and he could live a life without it.

"Hungry?" He asked in almost a whisper. Maybe she didn't want his help at all but that didn't mean he couldn't at least offer it to her.

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She was growing impatient waiting for an answer to the question she'd asked, it wasn't like the voice to keep her waiting so. Then it came and it didn't make sense to her, Leotie shook her head in hopes it would help her understand. Then she looked down at her paw the one that sometimes pained her. Her clouded mind had forgotten why it did but she knew there was a tiny scar where the fur didn't grow. “It was weeks ago don't you remember by the river we didn't talk about my paw then. He would have asked, he always asked,” she was growing annoyed, “I don't know what happened to my paw,” she spoke her tail flicking angrily.

She waited once more for the voice to come back with something about her paw but instead it asked if she was hungry. A disjointed laugh came from her maw, “You know I haven't been hungry since that day and you know we don't talk about it either. How could you do that to me bring it up when you know what it does?” A low growl toward the voice sounded from her throat before it stopped abruptly. “What do you mean someone is behind me?” She asked the voice before she turned to face the someone the voice had spoken of. Her eyes widened and he jaw opened slightly as she tried to back up shaking her head, “He's not real, you're playing tricks on me.”

~Table by Switch

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Kerberos struggled to understand her answers. They seemed like they weren't directed at him despite their connection to what he said. He felt like some kind of weird middle man delaying messages between wolves. "Who always asked?" His voice was soft as he crept forward, concern evident in his tones. This all had to be some big prank to ward him off, send him running back to the Draw but as long as he knew she was lingering around like a ghost so close to home he couldn't wander back like nothing had happened. Something was off but hell if he could place it.

She kept speaking and his brain struggled to place things in order. Before he could offer any more words she turned around finally. His pale yellow eyes had grown worried and less guilty. As she backed up he moved closer. A deadly tango. "I'm real. I don't understand....who's playing tricks on you?" His head tilted to the side with a hard frown. She wasn't well was she? Hell, she might have gone off the end deeper than Naira. Kerberos wanted to offer sanctuary but the idea of collecting the mentally unwell didn't seem like the smartest idea he had ever had.

"Please, Leotie." He whispered as he took another step closer with plenty of room still between them in case things took a turn for the worse.

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The words that came from the voice only served to annoy the agouti woman for the voice knew, she had told him the answer to it's question. “You know who don't you, I told you but he won't be asking any more,” she said letting her gaze drop to her paws, “He doesn't even know does he?” She gasped, “Would he be angry when he finds out do you think? I don't know what he would do.” Her gaze went skyward once more, “If you must know I will remind you, shall I remind you or don't know now?” The agouti woman waited a beat before giving a nod, “Very well, I knew you remembered. It's not nice to lie to me.”

Then the voice warned her of someone behind her telling her they had come to harm her like they had done before. Leotie turned and came face to face with Kerb, she couldn't get to her feet fast enough as the panic set in. Everything came crashing down as she heard it in her mind, he'd come to finish her off.  Naira had to have sent him to make sure she couldn't come back, to take her from Sven like in of the ridge wolves had taken her mate. He spoke telling her he was real and a whimper found its way into the air around them as she became tangled in some of the blackened trees.  “You've come on her orders haven't you, what did she tell you to do? Kill me?” Leotie nearly screamed at him. Tears started streaming down her cheeks as she gave up her struggle.

Then he spoke again in a whisper and her blue eyes so bright and full of light now seeming dimmer met his golden gaze. “How could you?” She whispered back in a moment of lucidity. How could he let Naira do that to her, let her become what she was. She turned her head from him and rested it against her shoulder as the tears flowed freely, she didn't want him to see them.

~Table by Switch

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If this was making his head hurt he really couldn't imagine what Leotie's head was like. The pronoun game she was playing had him dying to ask more about this He and You. He felt like some kind of ghost she couldn't see or fully hear. Yet he feared for the worse. It wasn't him who was dead but perhaps it was Leotie. His brows furrowed as he focused solely on her. Surely being booted from the pack hadn't wrecked her that much. She was so strong. Had been so strong. What was she now? As obscure and murky as the Tainn woman back home sitting on an uneasy throne? He bit his tongue to keep his thoughts from entering the open space between them.

Kerberos felt his step forward had been wrong when she answered him. His head shook as he stumbled back a few paces. "I wouldn't kill you. I wouldn't kill anyone on anyone's orders either." It was not in him to seek justice or follow out the law in such a manor. There were other ways to deal out action besides ending one's life. What a cruel way to teach a lesson.

"I-it was - is - my fault." He kept his gaze on the tawny female even as she looked away from him. "I should have stuck up for you and demanded better reasons." Yet the thought of going against a fierce (was that the word he could appropriately use?) Naira sent chills down his spine. "We are, were - I don't know now - friends and I didn't treat you as such." The Rigel male whined softly. "I didn't think you'd wind up like this. It was like you weren't even talking to me Leotie." His ears threatened to press back against his skull. "I don't even know why you're here." In this very spot that laid not too far away from the Draw's lands. If Leotie thought Naira was going to send someone to kill her then he really couldn't wrap his head around her sticking around for it.

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