Iridescent Lagoon my empire of dirt

She missed her mother the most.

It was still very cold out. Winter was long from over with. Maybe she should have grit her teeth a little longer? Maybe she should have turned a blind eye a little longer? Been miserable, a little longer? Now there was a good chance she wouldn't be there when her mother passed. How long would it be before she even knew?

Modesto's siblings had been gunning for Katna's position the instant she shown signs of aging. All the while Modesto watched, unwanting and unwilling for any to lead their family savor very one which created them all. Maybe this, too, was another reason she could not find happiness under her little nephew's rule.

Sighing, Modesto pondered the words of @Viorel once more. Where were the others? Where were all her sisters now? Viorel didn't care, but Modesto did. Before she had been hesitant to find the coast again, for it meant leaving her mother behind, Vayko and Sharlee which she so favored after her sister Amondi. But now, Modesto was alone- outcast. Maybe she would run into the pirate a third time then. Maybe he could guide her home...

For now, this place would do.

In some part of her still, she was happy for loosing her shit. Had it not been for it she might not ever had discovered this place. The Iridescent Lagoon was by far the largest body of water she had seen since being here. Still a lake and without the crashing waves or smell of sea salt but she was happy to look out over open water again. It had taken her some weeks of exploring around it, trailing along the lands not for from its banks.

Here, the sands were pale and dotted with bleached out rocks, causing little pockets of water where minnows would get trapped. Not far from the water's edge, a rock formation of clustered boulders made for a good place for her to carve out a den atop it's rise. In the distance was the beginnings of what looked to be a dark and deep forest. She needn't go there for she had found refuge here from the hurt.

(This post was last modified: Jan 15, 2022, 03:48 AM by Modesto.)

Scully slunk along the Lagoon's coast, seeking out the empty den of Pookastone Scowl. @Deluge's rambling had gotten him thinking, and therefore wondering, about the other places his family had laid claim to in the Lore. Before he stumbled upon it, he found a stranger's scent instead. She rested upon the shore, barely standing out amongst the background and looking so boring he almost passed her by completely.

Only with @Avella in mind did he decide to approach.

"How ya doin'?" he asked simply, and from a fair distance still. He wouldn't need much to push him elsewhere.

In this open part of the terrain, it was easy to spot the wolf out in the distance, painted in colors similar to herself. He slunk along the lake bed lining and Modesto paid him little mind. So long as he kept his distance and remained lacking in hostility Modesto had no reason to show him any different.

"Well enough." She spoke, offering the same leisurely and lazy speech offering as he. With this only she stares back, a single furrowed brow raising. She wondered if he had a destination in mind and was only passing through. If so, she'd leave him to it but it was obvious she held no means of leaving her own claim.

The stranger did not seem perturbed by his presence, and so Scully drew a little closer, dark nose twitching in the winter wind. Catching more of her scent, he could catch hints of familiarity and came to the conclusion that this wolf was from the Backwater. Or at least, familiar enough with them to smell quite the same.

"Ways from home, aren't'cha?" he slowed to a stop, signaling his intent to stick around and talk a minute if she didn't decide to change her tune.

"Yer with Clover n' them, right?"

Or wrong?

He was curious enough to stay, at least for the time being. Modesto didn't fancy him trying to stay here by any permanent means though had no intention of running him off quite so quickly. She liked the sound of her own voice after all and speaking to herself had grown tiresome already.

Modesto's lip twitched at the sound of Clover's field-weed name. "Not anymore." She spoke flatly, her toes flexing and pressing into the sandy and rocky shoreline. "I won't be ruled by someone half my age and less then half my wit." A smirk.

Scully's brows bounced upward, his smirking smile crawling a little higher up his maw. That was an interesting response, to say the least. Gossip was his chum, and he found himself very glad indeed that he had decided to strike up this conversation that would hopefully continue to give delicious information.

"Good for you," he spoke without mocking or condescension, though the humor in his voice could certainly have been taken as such, his arrogance often preceding him by way of his features.

"Though you're the first to tell me they aren't sprawling and grand."

How eager was she to muddy their names?

His brows rose, his slithering smirk widening. At least he wasn't tied to them so far up their ass he couldn't see the truth. He was in agreement to her and yet...

"The name Valle is something to be proud of..." She warned, taking a step forward and her tail going rigid and out straight from her body. She wanted the younger wolf to know she wouldn't take her family’s name being spat upon in stride. She'd fight to prove her point if she must. However, "...at least, back at the Estuary. Viorel's rule isn't even a shadow of what we once were and yet he still wonders why so much of his family keep leaving him and those swamp lands behind."

As she had now, obviously. "I'm staying here now, for the time being..." She trailed off as she scanned this portion of the Lagoon with a jut of her grayed muzzle.

She reminded him of the matriarchs of his own family, the way she held herself, the way the chance threat to the legacy fanned a flame. Not a single hair on his hide cowed as she stepped forth, but he would not seek to give her further reason to burn, either. Impulse and bias told him that he wanted on this woman's side, no matter how many pretty faces the Backwater possessed.

What other wolves have left, Scully had to wonder, and could they still be found like this one? Silver gears turned to blurs within his head. She motioned to the Lagoon, and he recalled Pookastone fondly.

"You don't want to get away from the water?" he asked, testing just how tied she was to the little lake.

And Pookastone wasn't far at all either, just a straight shot north from this location into the thick forestry Modesto often looked to with a mild curiosity. It was where these broken up inlets of her new home turned to creek and stream and into the dark of that forest. Maybe one day she would delve within but naturally she was a much more free and open lands kind of woman.

"Not particularly." She answered with all honestly, taking then to settle on her haunches to the sandy ground now that she did not see Scully as an immediate threat of any kind. "I had, before being brought here, lived on a coast my whole life. Never been much interested in the cover of the forest or living up on some rock. I like the openness." She pauses, then turns the conversation. "And what about you? Where do you call home?"

A coast, the words brought both ears and wolfish brows upward with interest. He had questions there, but she of course had one of her own. He answered it first.

"Some rock," he answered with a smirk that did not speak of offense taken, "namely Willow Ridge, to the East. We're this land's legacy," just as she claimed her name to reign the estuary she'd mentioned.

"You familiar with a Morganna Archer, out there by the ocean?"

Was her coast the same along which his aunt had settled to raise her feral horde?

(This post was last modified: Mar 07, 2022, 04:22 AM by Eros.)