Willow Ridge now i'll be needin' stitches

@Angier
9/14, clear skies, deep into the night.

SVEN ARCHER

& the night is closing in

Father had already been gone for several hours now, and without his remaining parent Sven found himself as restless as ever. Even the opportunity to curl up with @Morganna could not draw him into the confines of any den tonight, and he certainly did not want to share close quarters with the virtual stranger @Elettra and her other family, no matter how highly Skoll spoke of the queen. In all honesty, on these rare occasions that his father left to search for her, Sven truly felt like a ghost with no ties to this world that had always carried on without him.

As his paws carried him through the swaying shadows, his pale eyes shone sharply with each kiss of the moon's light that the constantly moving tendrils allowed through. There was something to them, something that was trying to manifest itself, and something that would not be MOLLIFIED. The many emotions, caused by abandonment and the utter lack of answers the child was able to obtain, were growing restless, tired of being kept sealed within the untouched quarters of his heart. This stifling fed the virus that was his father's genetic gift to him, and he could feel his heart blackening under the weight.

Sven was burning to let it out, but how could he? @Piety was out there, she had to be, and if she heard about him misbehaving in any capacity, she would surely stay away for good. The Archer heir felt as though he had no other options, but still he was a child and his self control was not enough to keep such turmoil at bay forever. When something new passed through his lungs, the levy began to give.

He knew the scent, knew the voice, but had yet to place the face. While Skoll hadn't given Angier the honor of being named king, Sven was aware that this man was his nonno, and his relation to his nonna made him a royal as well. He led the pack alongside her, willingly shouldering the responsibilities that came with it. Sven couldn't comprehend it all, but he knew this meant that Angier was meant to take care of them, so why had he allowed Piety to vanish?

Fueled with purpose, his strides quickened, thrusting him through curtain after curtain of willow leaves until the man was within his view, another shadow amongst the crowd. Anger was seeping through the cracks, acidic and melting through everything it touched. By the time Sven had approached the elder, his face was twisted with both anguish and rage.

"How could you?" he demanded, voice cracking from the raw emotion it held. "How could you not even know she had gone?"

(This post was last modified: Oct 23, 2015, 02:04 AM by Sven.)

When he counted the heads of his little ones after he bid them good night, Angier made for the outskirts of the den site, the lands in-between the heart of Elettra's domain and the borders of their territory. Every now and again, he made to turn around and look over his shoulder, despite the protest his joints had taken up, only half certain that Niles was on his trail again. The boy was old enough to brandish his own type of cunning and craft (much like his older half-brother) and, though the tawny father preferred his son get an adequate amount of sleep and leave the night-walking for his adolescent years, Angier paid the scampering of small paws little to no mind. However, the boy at his back was not his son and the voice that came calling after him in the night was certainly not his boy's. It was his grandson and his call came to the Leader on a note of unmistakable disappointment.

"How could you? How could you not even know she had gone?"

The Lyall stopped in his tracks and turned to address the little ghost of a cub. His ears rotated forward, conveying his sudden interest in little Sven's plea. The boy's eyes had changed by now; had the youngster's face been reverse or inverted with the stark black on his face instead of white and the bits of black on his muzzle turned white, he could have been transported to another place and time when Sköll had first started sneaking out past bedtime.

"I couldn't," he answered, barely feeling the need to be penitent for such a thing as Piety's disappearance. "She isn't my responsibility." He tried to make his words hold some sort of significant meaning but failed at it after realizing that the boy had not even been born at the time of the last pack meeting. Perhaps Sven had no concept of his parents being the pack's lowest-ranking members; but if he did... "Yer father is meant to be lookin' after 'er.".

His bottle brush of a tail swayed slowly from one side to the other. "Just as yer father an' mother are meant to be lookin' after you." His eyes skimmed over the young Archer's head and back, at least grateful that no (physical) harm had come to him, "What're ya doin' out here on yer own?"

Are you watching closely?
Taekwondo (M, W, F) | Rapid-Response Day (Tu) | WoW Nights (F, Sat, Sun)

@Angier

SVEN ARCHER

& the night is closing in

He couldn't? The flames flared higher with an intensity that the boy was afraid might burn him alive from the inside out. This inferno within could be seen as clearly through his greying eyes as though they were windows. The boy had been so desperately seeking something that would sooth the burning, anything that might help douse the fire, and yet every word uttered by the elder only served as kindling. A growl began to leak from his throat as Angier dared to fold the blame back onto Sven's father, and then a step further even by throwing Piety back into the mix as though it were her fault she were gone. It wasn't, it couldn't be.

"What do you care, then?" he snapped back, unable to help the curling of his black lips as they pulled back to reveal his fangs.

"What business is it of yours that I'm alone? What good are you, for anything? I thought you were supposed to be a leader, I thought that's what it meant that you were Nona's mate, but you don't even know what's happened under your own nose!"

His hackles bristled as he wanted this man to know exactly how severely he had wronged the pale Archer heir, and an inkling existed along his spine that words may not be enough to do this. Yet his anger was not yet at its breaking point, and he did not feel compelled to become physically forceful. But oh, was the boy so close to it.

"And you see nothing wrong with that?" he hissed, before sorrow began to weave its way back into his voice amongst the outrage as he begged to know, "Why doesn't any one else care?"

(This post was last modified: Oct 23, 2015, 02:28 AM by Sven.)

"What do you care, then?" the boy quipped. It took everything within Angier to hold his tongue. He was going to let Sven finish and let go of whatever pent up emotion he had within him. This was not new in the slightest; Sven's father, Skoll, had been this way when he was about the same age. Patience would be best, or so he thought. It wasn't until the heir continue on, specifically ratting him out over being such a terrible Leader that the Lyall thought to raise his hackles and flash his clenched yellowing teeth.

"And you see nothing wrong with that? Why doesn't any one else care?"

"You jus' wait a minute, boy," he growled, his own thunder daring to try and overwhelm the cub. "Let's get a few things straight 'tween you an' me all right?" There was a tension in his tone that made it quite clear that there ought to be no question about who held superiority here and now. "I am yer gran'father and I care 'bout ya so don'tcha dare test that. YA HEAR ME? When they're not 'round, I'm respons'ble fer ya."

"What's 'appened thus far shouldn't concern ya in the way it 'as, but it's too late for that." He almost scoffed, but, instead, he merely shrugged with a small roll of his right shoulder. "Leave this to yer father, he knows what he's doin'." Had this boy been Octavius or Niles, he might have closed the distance between them and straight up coddled the lad, but he didn't - he'd learned early on with the likes of Skoll that not every cub liked to be drawn near and "held" close. The one time he had done so, Skoll had nipped him square on the nose.

"You wouldn't understand, Sven," his voice softened for a moment. "What yer father has done to acquire you was not without cost." He knew he shouldn't have told him such a thing but perhaps the little ghost wouldn't understand just yet. "Maybe when yer older you'll get it, but yer mother probably had some other matters to 'tend to. Ya shouldn't worry 'bout it. What's done's been done. She's a grown woman; she can take care of 'erself."

Are you watching closely?
Taekwondo (M, W, F) | Rapid-Response Day (Tu) | WoW Nights (F, Sat, Sun)

A young deer has been separated from the rest of its herd. Hunt Opportunity

SVEN ARCHER

& the night is closing in

Angier's first reaction had been meager at best, but this time he returned fire, temper flaring as Sven's had, and while it was not the water he so desperately thirsted for, the boy found he enjoyed spreading the flame unto another. He puffed out his chest and lifted his chin, standing defiantly against his pseudo grandfather's thundering, but each and every word was being closely listened to. This man before him insisted that he did too care, and all the boy could do was scoff in response. What the hell did he think caring was? This was their lengthiest encounter to date, the man seemingly too far concerned with precious Niles and his sisters to spare attention to the other heir. His own lack of knowing was evidence enough to his lack of presence within Sven's life, and now he was yelling back and insisting he was blameless rather than trying to fix what was wrong. Piety had always fixed what was wrong. Piety had cared. This man, as far as Sven could see, was nothing but lies.

As he rattled on, Sven's own intensity and outrage continued to steadily climb higher and higher within his throat, threatening to leak out of his mouth like venom. Shouldn't concern him The disappearance of his own mother, shouldn't concern him? What else Angier may have been hinting at was lost on the relatively innocent boy, but the final claim of his eliminated the last of Sven's patience. He spoke as though Piety had merely chosen to take a stroll and leave them all behind, as if this was what she wanted for them. The audacity.

"You're so full of it!" he screamed back, worm-like tail curling upwards as his hackles jutted upward in rough bristles. "Something is wrong and you aren't lifting a paw to do anything about it, that's the bottom line here! Mom didn't just decide she didn't want to be with us anymore, something happened to her and father shouldn't be the only one worried about it! She's my mother and I'm not giving up on her like you all have, and if you really did care about me or father, you would be worried too."