Willow Ridge the ship went down in sight of land

For @Leotie only.

the devil is & always will

Sven wasn't entirely sure where his paws were taking him. His heart had grown stiff and for once, his head was not drowned with thoughts and worries. It was empty, and he wasn't sure if that was any better. He felt numb, peacefully so, but this hadn't been a choice. This was resignation. Piety would never be the mother he had so desperately wanted his entire life. Finally he could swallow that fact, live with it and move past it. But while the truth had clicked together at one moment within him, this transition would not be immediate.

He had to acclimate. Had to remind himself to breathe.

His steps slowly came to a close, and Sven found himself standing as still and thoughtless as a scarecrow. His breath came out in plumes, as white and silent as the winter landscape around him. This was the first time he had felt nothing.

be a gentleman.

It was clear that she wasn't needed at the border any longer and she didn't particularly want to be there. When Sven had left she had left not wanting to look at the woman who called herself his mother. She didn't know really anything that had happened between the pale Archer and his mother but from what she gathered it wasn't good. Why wouldn't Piety want to speak with her son first before speaking or business or Adeltra? Yes, the little Archer needed to be home with her family but why couldn't the pale woman say even just a hello, give a nuzzle to her son? Leotie didn't understand.

She didn't remember her mother, she'd been too young when she'd been taken from her but since living in the lore she'd seen mothers with their children. She even after what she'd done Leotie considered Naira to he a good mother. It was also clear she cared about the son she had brought with her and the way she'd looked at the boy. Did she care more for Cyril than she did Sven?

Leotie trailed after Sven through the willows not really sure where he was going or if he would stop. She was staying close by but giving him a little space as well in case he needed it. Then when he finally stopped she approached quietly brushing her head against his scruff before placing a kiss on his cheek. “Are you okay?” She asked quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

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the devil is & always will

So lost in the nothingness that was his current state, he failed to notice that Leotie had followed him at all, much less that she was drawing closer to him once he'd ceased moving. He felt her touch, and it drew him from his reverie. His pale eyes watched her, blinking slowly as her words soaked in. Talk about it? Sven wasn't sure there was anything he could say. The matter felt... dead.

All he'd ever needed in life was to simply be wanted. Genuinely, unconditionally, without reserve. Those first precious months with Piety had been the most loved he'd ever felt, and he'd chased it ever since she vanished. Had always hoped that if she would just come back home, he would have it again. Then she had appeared again, and left him in the same moment, but instead of vanishing as she had before, he heard the worst stories. That she was with Morganna, that she had been torn apart by another wolf, that she'd started a new family, and only now could he accept that she would never be the one to give him what he wanted. What he needed.

But then his eyes met Leotie's blue, read the caring in them, felt her concern reaching into his own chest. Sven faced her and stepped closer as something unfamiliar and dangerous overtook him.

"Have I ever told you that you're beautiful?"

be a gentleman.

She was worried about him and what was going through his mind then as he walked before just standing there. She knew that whatever he was feeling she could never understand without him telling her. She wasn't there to force him to tell her or tell him her opinions of the situation. She was there to listen if he wanted to talk or to just be silent next to him while he sorted through things if that was what he wanted to do. She would leave it up to him and what he felt comfortable with.

What she did offer were gentle touches that she hoped would bring him some comfort and a reminder that she was there for him. Just as he had always been for her. He looked at her as she spoke and at first she wasn't sure he heard her. He still didn't speak, not at first. What did come from his maw when he came toward her was completely unexpected and she stood searching his eyes for a moment before a shy smile broke across her features. “No, I don't think you have,” she said quietly her gaze dropping to her paws, “Thank you,” she added meeting his silver gaze once more. “I have to tell you that you are an amazing man Sven Archer,” she told him leaning in to kiss his cheek, “And handsome too.”

To her he had always been kind and understanding to her. She'd always felt like he'd been through alot with the way he seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Yet he went on everyday still trying to do what he thought best for his pack and his family. To her that was what made him amazing and deep down she knew him to be a good man that was just rough around the edges. She would remind him of that as often as she could because he needed to hear it.

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There is a moose carcass that has been scavenged by coyotes nearby. +15 Health

the devil is & always will

His pale gaze was intense as it watched the reactions pass through her baby blues. She was flattered, that gentle smile crossing her features the epitome of who she was as a wolf. Too good for him. Her tongue brushed his cheek and he wished he could melt at her words, that he could take comfort in her affection. But she was unwittingly working with faulty information. It would have been better if they had gotten that chance to go north before the worst of it had traveled down to bring their horrid news to the Ridge's doorstep. Maybe then he would've blown, and she could have seen it for herself.

He wasn't sure if she would trust him when it was just words alone, but damned if he wouldn't try. He couldn't settle for illusory anymore, couldn't be what he thought everyone else wanted him to be just to suffer abandonment when the cold metal of his being shone through the cracks in his paint.

"What if you don't know who I am?" She saw shining armor where he wore war paint, morality instead of heathenry. They couldn't last that way.

"I'm darkness, Leotie. Poison. I was born in it, from it, and I won't ever escape it. I don't want to."

be a gentleman.

The compliment wasn't expected but not unwelcome either and for a moment it left her speechless. She wasn't sure at first what to say in return. After he'd seen her at her worst, nearly skin and bones and out of her mind it only made her appreciate what he said more. So much so that she needed to tell him what she thought of him. She had gotten to know him a little better since coming to Willow ridge but as he spoke again it was clear that he didn't think well enough, she didn't disagree.

She was sure what he said had to have been brought in by his mother's visit. He had warned her things could go badly on their trip. She wasn't afraid of what that meant then and she wasn't afraid now. She had made up her mind about Sven Archer and there was nothing he could do or say that would change it.

“Then I get to learn who you are,” she told him after squaring her shoulders and looking him right in the eye. She knew there was still so much more that they needed to learn about each other and she was prepared for that. What she knew was how he had treated her, only with gentleness and kindness. That was what mattered.

She couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to push her away with his next words, scare her so that she might not care for him so much. “Then you need a light in your life Sven. I have already told you I am prepared to see that side of you and it won't make me care for you any less and that I am here for you as long as you want me here.” That of course didn't mean she would give up in him without a fight. She cared too much about him to give up so easily especially behen he hadn't given up on her.

She hadn't taken her gaze from his a she spoke and now there was something else she needed to say that she thought very important. “I want to know that side of you, to see it for myself and really know the man that I care so much about.”

(This post was last modified: Dec 09, 2017, 05:46 AM by Leotie.)

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MATURE POST bc language and... violence? sven did/wished bad things and he's talking about them.

the devil is & always will

She was determined. He loved that about her, so much so that he was certain he couldn't bear to watch that resolve crumble when faced with the black shadow he really was. But shadows did need light to be brought to life, she had that right even if in that moment he did not want to admit it. She had made a promise, yes, but she hadn't known the depth of the murky waters she'd been stepping into when she had uttered those words. He couldn't hold her to such an ill-informed vow. Couldn't trust that she would be able to keep it.

"I wasn't supposed to be born," he told her, voice louder and more filled with cold emotion than he had intended as the confessional began, "The Ridge started tearing itself apart when I was. From the moment Piety left, all I've ever been is anger. Ravenna's sister Isolde froze to death when we were months old and I was glad for it. There was this gathering, this freaking impromptu funeral for her and I fucking fed off of their agony. I thought about killing them obsessively. I even planted a rattler in the pack den, hoping it would poison them. Ravenna. Enoki. They meant nothing to me."

His eyes would not release hers, the gaze the two silver stones held determined in realizing truth within her sky blue sights.

"Craw taught me how to torture. It took all day for that coyote to die, and I loved every second of it. I've dug up graves, I've got a fucking museum of skeletons behind the falls. And the ones that did this to me?" he turned slightly, snout motion to the scars that crisscrossed his pelt, "It'd make you vomit knowing what I did to them for revenge. I'm a killer, Leotie, every bit a monster and right now, sure, I'm okay. Things are better, but none of this has gone away. The anger is still there, waiting, and it's not going to leave no matter how much light you shine. It's who I am."

be a gentleman.

(This post was last modified: Dec 15, 2017, 09:13 PM by Sven.)

She hadn't been expecting a full account of the things that he had done but he seemed determined to make her see the kind of man he was. She sat back on her haunches to allow him his chance to push her away since he seemed so determined to do so. The things he spoke of we're horrible things to he sure but they brought something to the surface in the Agouti woman as he spoke. Memories of the horrible thoughts she'd once had, murder and kidnapping, things that she had never thought herself capable until they had actually come to the forefront of her mind. Did that really make her any different than him?

“Why weren't you supposed to he born?” She asked this bothering her most. “How could you not be angry Sven with them when your mother left and the ridge was tearing itself apart. How could you not think it was your fault?” She couldn't understand the depth of his anger but what she could was why he felt so angry and if they made him to feel that he wasn't supposed to have been born or that everything that was happening was his fault it was wrong of them. He was just a pup and had no control over the way they treated him.

She didn't pull her gaze away from his, he needed to know that no matter what he'd done in the past it wouldn't change the way she felt about him.

He spoke of torture and loving it and digging up graves, having a museum of skeleton's and still the things that he said didn't bother her, didn't upset her or make her want to run away screaming from him. “May I see them sometime?” She asked cautiously, for she did not know if he would want her to. “As for the ones that did this to you Sven," she said touching one of his scars with her nose, "They deserved every bit of what they got for hurting you, trying to kill you," she spoke a coldness entering her voice. She hoped that whatever he did was horrible because they had tried to hurt him, take him from her. “You have been good to me Sven, better than most wolves I have come to know here in the lore. If your anger and the darkness that lives inside of you has been there this whole time then I can't leave you now because of what you've told me, I won't leave you now,” she said looking into his eyes as she spoke her tone confident, this was how she felt and there wasn't any changing it. “It would be wrong of me to leave you because maybe I have a darkness inside me too,” she admitted.

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the devil is & always will

His breathing became heavy as she refused to leave. Leotie remained patient, immobile, matching his persistence step for step and draining him of his resistance. Half of what he'd said, he had never told another soul before. Not his father, not Hecate, and certainly not Attica or Ravenna. To have bared it all, these things that were so horrible, and there be no effect on his audience was... foundation-shaking. Insistant anger became overwhelmed by that emotional reaction he had always done everything in his power to avoid; fear. Because now, he was in uncharted waters. Now, in Leotie's eyes, he saw a possibility that had seemed ludicrous moments before; true, unconditional acceptance.

He was terrified to receive it because he was certain he could not survive losing it once it was within his possession.

The ghost took a step back when she touched him, unwilling to allow her to feel the tremble within his body. She told him he could be this confession of his, this darkness and anger and still be the man she'd thought he was before; a paladin. It felt impossible, but his fear told him she could make it true. She could make it true and then take it away from him.

... maybe I have a darkness inside me too. His pale eyes measured hers, searching for veracity, and it was there. Moments of silence passed by them, his tongue stiff between his jaws. Sven Archer didn't know what to say anymore. It would be quite a stretch of time before words would, thickly, drip from his mouth. Tears chased after them down his cheeks.

"Then what are we?" he asked, and prayed to God she would have an answer for him, "If you're saying we're a mixture, that I'm not only my sins and you aren't just light, what does that make us?"

His whole life, he had known how to categorize the wolves around him in only two ways; good and bad. He'd always been a bad wolf, playing at being a good wolf but always transparent to some extent. It was difficult to see in shades of grey, to be forgiving and understanding. That was for better wolves, ones like @Sahalie. His breath hitched. Maybe that was why, despite their friendship, despite how she drew him in, there had always been something wrong between them, something that maintained a distance and ultimately, caused her to leave his life entirely. He lived in a world of grey and shadows and she walked the surface of the sun.

"You have no idea how terrifying the things you're saying are."

be a gentleman.