Clandestine Brook come up for air

For @Attica. Backdating a little before the travel party gets to Quaking Vale as a group.

So while you search the seas for answers
I will still be waiting here
Make sure you dive down deep
Because if you do
Even though it takes a thousand lifetimes
My love, I know you're finally gonna see the truth, and you'll return
And I will still be here
When you come up for air
- Skylar Grey, "Come Up For Air"

---

Before November 28th; Late afternoon; Past sunset, dark; Overcast Clouds; 4 ° F, -16 ° C.

The further east-ward they traveled the closer they drew to Morganna's location. Talk of his half-brother Niles and the mate he was presently attending to cropped up in conversation every so often, and by day two there was little else to learn of the situation. They had crept down into the eastern side of Relic Lore and had started making their way through the frozen-over wetlands with Clandestine Brook as a guide when something pressed on Skoll's still jaded mind. His ghost gray eyes flickered over Attica, narrowing for the briefest of moments. He studied her as they walked at a leisurely pace for some time and when the band of wolves decided to rest for the evening (partly because Skoll had started to take breaks that left him more than ten wolf-lengths behind the traveling party) he took up a spot by a gnarled tree and settled down. He took in her dark coat, the way her pelt pattern reminded him of his mother, and how, at times, when she turned to look at him, he thought he saw a trace of his sister.

His black ears quivered as they folded back and the whites of his eyes showed as he surveyed the forest around him. He remembered now. All of it. Hecate had not simply disappeared. They had fought and it was his fault. What had once been a dream he thought he had forgotten turned out to be a memory long since passed. He remembered seeing Attica there by the riverside den that Hecate had found, helpless and alone. She had only been a few weeks old and he knew for a fact that the girl could not be left there for long. Attica had been so little then, able to be carried in his jaws. She had grown, clearly, but he wondered now as he staved off sleep what had truly become of her when he had left in search of the woman who had abandoned them both.

As the other wolves busied themselves with scavenging and settling down for the night, Skoll placed his head on his paws and curled his tail close to his side, more than content to be left alone while he tried to recall what else he thought he had forgotten.

(This post was last modified: Jan 29, 2018, 09:22 PM by Skoll.)

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

search the sea for answers

Attica Grace Archer

It had been easy enough to suss out which one was her father, Renier was the only other man in the band and she already knew it wasn't him. Attica had been meant to stop at the heights, but she found her paws drawing her down the far side of the mountain. It'd be easier to scout them out if she had more of an idea where they were actually located right? And she didn't think that @Greer would mind if he picked up on Skoll's scent too... It was like, a morbid curiosity kept dragging her along in the current of the traveling party. She'd always told herself it didn't matter, she'd never considered either of them coming back, but now that he was here...

She crept closer to where he was laying, everyone else was off doing other stuff and she wasn't hungry or thirsty yet. She laid down facing him, eyes studying what she could make out of his face in the cloud covered night. It wasn't much, the small hint of green in her eyes obscured along with most of the scars that crossed his muzzle and any fine detail, but it was better this way, hazy, just like the haloed face that had peered in at her in the dark and the cold more than a lifetime ago.

Skoll felt old. Like, Angier-old, which was stupid because he was so sure he hadn't even hit the middle of his life yet... even if his parents had just only died during the recent turning of the seasons. The sores on his body had yet to heal and the places where his insides felt battered and bruised had yet to pass. Everything ached, but he was not yet at the point where he would beg for sweet release. He had been there once before and he vowed to himself that he would never go there again.

He had just begun to doze off for a quick nap when he thought he heard someone approach. One silvery eye cracked open as the ear closest to the girl swiveled to face her like a satellite dish. He immediately suspected that it was Celandine; a huff escaped his chest and maw. He was getting tired of being fussed over. His eye closed for the time being and he let out an exasperated sigh, "Now what do you want?"

(This post was last modified: Mar 16, 2018, 08:07 PM by Skoll.)

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

what are you doin’ to my head?

Attica Grace Archer

Now what do you want? It wasn't like she had ever asked him for anything, had she? She began to wonder why it suddenly mattered to her, after all this time. What would Sven say in her place? Would he speak, or would he answer with teeth? But she wasn't sure she had it in her, so her eyes narrowed with a soft sigh. She couldn't place the feeling that was leaving a lump at the back of her throat, a storm of butterflies in the pit of her stomach. Her mouth opened, then closed again and she finally settled her gaze somewhere on the forest that lay beyond the older wolf's back. "Why didn't you stay with me?"

She sighed in return and Skoll was all too content to just lay there while she strung her words into coherent sentences. He thought he heard her lips peel apart from one another, her mouth opening to speak, but nothing was said. Not yet. It tested his patience, then all too suddenly, her voice came: "Why didn't you stay with me?"

Oh, Attica... The older Archer opened his eyes to look up at the girl. His baby girl who was no longer a just a pup (most especially when Macha had taken her place as the youngest in Skoll's brood of mismatched siblings). She was a yearling now, able to survive by herself and think for herself. He didn't need to coddle her.

"I went looking for your mother," he rasped. For once, he didn't want to sugar-coat or embellish his words. He wanted her to know the truth. "I loved her. I thought you needed her to survive; I couldn't feed you on my own when I found you." His eyes honing in on her ivory-tipped paws. "I got... lost."

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

what are you doin’ to my head?

Attica Grace Archer

Attica didn't visibly react to his words at first, still staring off into the forest as she processed the words. She supposed, in the scheme of things she was just a stranger to him when he had left her at the Ridge, but he had actual feelings for her mother. The tip of her tongue was clamped between her front teeth, her face taking on a more thoughtful expression as she realised she wasn't angry, though she probably had every right to be.

 

"Sven's mother left too and you stayed with him." It wasn't so much an accusation, as a statement but it had always been something that never quite added up in her mind. Was it because she was a girl and he was a boy? "Uncle Greer said I wasn't missing much." But, maybe he was biased? "What was she like? Why did she leave? Where did you go?" Now the floodgates had been opened, she had to try and rein herself in. He obviously wasn't in the best of shape.

"Sven's mother left too and you stayed with him."

Skoll blinked as if he had been smacked in the face with something hard. He should've known that one of his cubs had inherited his knack for words, but there was no denying that Attica had the smarts. Her tone was not pointed, though Skoll shakily lifted his head. He was all ears and she had his undivided attention. He turned the fact over that his younger brother Greer had relayed the idea that she had not missed much when it came to Hecate and her graces. Yet, Attica ventured to ask all the questions that Skoll had been wondering himself.

He had to remind himself to try and breathe normally, to not let his daughter see what a wreck he had become in his time away from Willow Ridge. In taking a deep breath, however, he had to wince. He shifted his weight and relaxed his upper body. For a meeting this casual, he didn't have any reason to remain so uptight and tense.

"She was beautiful," he started, his voice quiet, "and she was fierce. Headstrong and wild." Here, he looked Attica over, seeing nothing but Archer in her face and build. Frankly, it seemed there was nothing of Hecate's that Attica possessed. Her beauty was all her own in a smart and thoughtful way. "I don't know where she went, but I went looking and headed south. Though, to be truthful, Attica, I believe your uncle was right."

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

what are you doin’ to my head?

Attica Grace Archer

None of the words her father used to describe her mother really fit the Archer, there was nothing fierce about the girl unless she was fighting big birds with Kiki and Ravenna and even that took some pecking to happen. If she was perfectly honest with herself, she might have had her chaotic moments but she always tried to do the right thing in the end. Maybe it was that wildness that drove her mother to leave her. Maybe she just saw her daughter as a burden she didn't wish to bare? Maybe it was just obvious from the start that her nonna was what she needed.

Finally, a smile cracked her face when he said that he believed Uncle @Greer was right. "He usually is, though maybe thats just the advantage of not speaking too much." It was half a joke, delivered with a cheeky grin. Maybe she should be more like Greer? He didn't say much but he rarely missed anything. "Was that where Sven ended up? I had to get away for a while and when I came back he was gone... but then he was back again with a bunch of scars... I haven't... really talked to him since before I left." Even though she owed him so much.

He gave a long, soft sigh. His face tried hard to return the smile. What came instead was a series of three or four little grins. Greer, though quiet and of very few words, had always been Skoll's favorite of his mother's litters with Angier. Where Skoll needed a whole monologue to sometimes get his point across, the younger Archer needed only as many syllables as there were digits on his fore paws. He admired him for it and for the way the midnight black man carried himself - always watching yet never interfering unless he absolutely had to.

"Was that where Sven ended up?" Attica continued, before explaining that she, too, had gone away from Willow Ridge for a time. Skoll's head canted to one side as he focused on her lips. When she returned, she found that Sven was gone and when they were reunited, Attica had seen the scars that littered his once pristine white pelt.

"Yes," he spoke the word quietly, almost too hushed to be heard. His ears lowered, flashbacks of finding Sven on the borders of Devilsbite Dell immediately coming to mind. He never wanted to think it again, to see it all again, but he reminded himself that what had come and gone in the land of his lovers' coven had come full circle. In exchange for his obedience and his devotion, they had healed his son and had willingly let him return to Relic Lore.

He gave a feeble smile at last, stealing one more glance into his daughter's face before dropping his gaze back to the ground in front of her, "I'm sorry I failed you, Attica." He sniffed once, his ears laying fully back as he dipped his muzzle downward, unsure of what else to say apart from this: "I hope you know that I love you, I always have. Always will." He damned the day that Hecate had stolen away into the wilderness beyond. They were supposed to be one, happy, little family... with Attica being a sister to Sven, Hecate being a mother to the both of them, and Skoll proving himself by being a model Archer patriarch and father to the two cubs he had brought into Relic Lore. Nothing had gone as planned apart from Sven and Attica keeping in touch. "We're going to find your Aunt Morganna and once I'm better, I want to promise you that I will be there when you need me. Will that be all right?"

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away

what are you doin’ to my head?

Attica was glad that her brother had been able to find someone to help him in his hour of need. She wasn't sure what had caused all those scars but it was pretty evident from the extent of them that if help hadn't been on hand, well, maybe he wouldn't have been able to make it back. She managed a smile for her father's apology, a silent look that said You don't need to say that. Her life hadn't been horrible, it had been mostly stable until her nonna died and she might not have handled that the best but she had done okay, or so she thought. Believing that he loved her was harder.

The corner of her mouth tried to hold its smile, but her lips quirked downward ever so slightly. With some time, maybe she'd believe it, but for right now, this was all they had. It was a foreign concept to the girl, having someone other than @Sven to depend on. She seemed to be mulling it over as she worried the inside of her cheek, silver brows drawn down in thought. "I'd like that." She finally decided with a smile. "I should be getting back to the Heights soon, but it shouldn't be too far now. I don't think Aunt Morg plans on staying there forever, or at least, that was how it sounded when she was talking to Uncle Greer." Something about being attached to the west. It was a feeling she could relate to, maybe if he was close enough, she'd be able to visit sometimes.

Attica Grace Archer