Riddle Heights brother

For @Datura  - finally! Also sorry about it's long-windedness.
A liberal take on Rowan, you discover a turtle sunbathing on a rock near the water.

4 days ago, Rowan slept upon his ambition beneath the thick trunks of cedarwood trees. Then gifted by the Lyall king of the forest, he awoke with purpose: find @Maksim Baranski, and set right the wrong that had transpired beneath the cedars that spring.

But how did you find a pack that had disappeared? Hell if Rowan knew. When Kade and Ava Attaya decided to relocate, they took their family across the mountains. Following their likely demise, Maksim did the same. If two was a coincidence, perhaps three could be the pattern Rowan sought. At the very least, it was the best and only lead the ink-legged male had, so he set off toward the mountains.

Tirelessly he traversed the west, from the northern hideaway in the cedars that housed his family to the edge of the Serpent's Pass. Rowan was careful to avoid the Drooping Willows, not allowing a single long-fingered tree into his sights for fear that he might trip a devil's wire with the thick smell of cedars that coated his silver and black hairs. A difficult task, given he'd awoken to a grey sky and constant drizzle. It was tempting to seek the shelter of their wide canopy - but he resisted.

What a relief when the ground began to shoot up, a direction which he took to on a second-wind sprint. Anything to get him away from the willows, which he just wasn't equipped to deal with yet. By the time he reached the apex of the Heights,  the morning rain of fall had disappeared, leaving him drowsily side-stepping puddles.

The air was cool, but the sky was cloudless, resulting in a pleasant combination of weather that tempted Rowan to take a break, finally. He could not deny that he was exhausted from his travels - and with so much left to go, the Attaya was smart enough to know not to burn out so soon.

Opportunity presented itself in the form of a high boulder with a fairly flat top, bordered by red and gold flowers still clinging to the long-left summer*. In his weariness he almost believed the grey formation to appear as soft and beautiful as a cloud. Before all of his energy drained, he pushed the last of it to his hind legs, rearing forward to leap to the top. As his front legs reached forward to land, he felt something peculiar - hard, but also soft - get pushed away from his incoming body. One thwack and one smack later, Rowan was left standing quite perplexed on the top of the boulder. After a moment of pause he took a few steps forward to peer at the other side, naively hoping nothing was amiss.

Against the mountain's grey and fall's brown the greener turtle was easily picked out. Hidden well into its shell it laid about a yard away from a nearby tree trunk. Well, that explained the thwack&smack. The Attaya pursed his dark lips, hoping he hadn't just committed a turtle murder so soon into his journey. He had been off to such a good start, too.

*b/c I can't leave an easter egg in one of my posts without blatantly pointing it out, it's Ava's sunbathing rock from her Poison Path days #research

(This post was last modified: Sep 27, 2015, 07:56 PM by Rowan.)

adopt thea?

I am SOOOOOO sorry it took me so long to reply to this. Datura's been a little all over the place after the stuff that's happened in SMP.

History was all he had now. He felt this to be more true than anything as he picked his way through the ravines and rocks towards the northern area of the Heights. He came as close to the Lake as he dared, entertaining memories of places he had not been in years. Now that his Bella was lost to him once again, he clung to all the physical remains of his past, any memories of her or their time among the nightshade bushes. There was one particular place he remembered. It was a safe enough distance away from the Cove wolves, if his recollection served him. This memory had nothing to do with Bella, though.

The woman had faded almost entirely from his memory. It was hard to remember her face except for that it was sharp and that it was kind. It had been the second kindest face he had ever known. But what color had her eyes been? What had her voice sounded like? Her fur.... was it soft? Everything was soft in his thoughts. Desperately he reached out to stroke the rich darkness of Ava, of his first mother. But like everything in his life she had disappeared. He had been how old? Five months? And then all the kindness had faded. He had never learned why she had left. There had been no goodbyes. He had cried for days, though he never let @Belladonna know.

But she had liked this rock, he knew that much. It would be wreathed in rich colors at this time of year. The breeze threw the scents of fall in his face: this had been around the time she had left. The world had been gold and red and he had cried and all the beauty had faded with her. She had taken it all away.

Clunk!

A heavy, dull sound awoke him from his thoughts as a turtle quite abruptly landed in his path and rolled until it landed against a tree. His eyes wandered back along the path it had traveled, then up to a dark man on a bolder. He tensed. "Hello?" Had this man thrown this turtle at him? 

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it's no problem at all :B sry if Rowan is too awko taco /flail

Hello? The word halted all activity in his brain and body, momentarily frozen in an awkward stance at the top of the flat rock. His eyes darted between the shelled-up turtle and the golden-coated male who had come across him, noting their proximity and berating himself for not seeing the other. Then he contemplated turtle murder and the seriousness of its offense. Should he run and hide, now that there was a witness? Should he... dispatch the witness?

After a moment of panic he swallowed a breath that had been caught in his throat. Barely up the mountain and he was already winded in the brain. Clearing his throat he attempted to clear up the weird atmosphere, though his attempt wasn't fantastic.  "Sorry about the um... turtle." Rowan hoped it didn't sound as stupid to the other wolf's ears as it sounded coming out of his own mouth. This was the first wolf he'd encountered since he left Grizzly Hollow, which made him more important by default. If Rowan was going to run him off, it wasn't going to be with his incredible stupidity. Not if he could help it.

Averting his dull gold gaze for a moment the Attaya tested the air, trying to pick out what he could from the other male's scent. The intermingled scents of pack wolves were woven between the threads of his fur, but he couldn't pick out anything distinctly Maksim about it. Though Rowan had pretty much shuffleboarded a reptile at the man, a thing he had never done with anyone else, he somehow doubted there was enough intimacy between them to be forthright with his questions. Thus, he had to skirt politely around them  - which he was too awkward for and hardly good at. But he had to try.

"Again - my apologies about that," uh oh. Rowan's intonation had suggested he was about to use this man's name - but he didn't know this man's name. What did he call him? Friend? Pal? Bud? "Guy." The charcoal-pelted male somehow maintained a straight face and blew right on past that weird moment. "I didn't see him up here when I was jumping... I'm not from around here so I don't know if that's unusual or not. I'm Ro-" By some twist of fate he recalled that he was to go by an alias beyond pack borders. "Roamin... just roamin'. My name's Leo."

There was absolutely a follow-up question that ought to have followed the introduction. The space past his false name begged for something of more subsistence to fill the void. But Rowan had already proven himself terrible on the spot and could only stare blankly at the other, praying for the sweet escape of death (or maybe just a picked up conversation) to save him from the embarrassment of playing it cool.

adopt thea?

"Sorry about the um... turtle."

Datura's eye brows range dangerously high and he had to wonder if this guy was for real. It wasn't the turtle he cared about so much as the fact that the shell grenade had nearly taken a chunk out of his skull. It was unclear if this man was stupid or just awkward, from the way he continued on uncomfortably. He wanted to wince when he was referred to as guy.  Datura was bigger and probably somewhere close to twice this man's age. And he was just "guy." God, he considered introducing this boy to Gilligan. Surely they would have a ripe old time with their colloquialisms and their waffly syntax that barely contained substantive content. He snorted. 

Somehow he wasn't sure he believed that this man's name was Leo, but the kid was so uncomfortable Datura was more than sure he did not want to take a trip down that lane. Whatever baggage this guy had, Datura wanted absolutely none of it. "Uh-huh," he commented simply, as if to say "Isn't that nice." "Datura."

"Well there's more than turtles round these parts to be concerned about. My packs down south of here. And then there's one a little farther north," he tossed his head left and right to indicate their directions. "None of the wolves are particularly friendly." This possibly included himself, he wasn't sure yet. 

"So if you ain't from here, then where are you from? And what you doin' here?" Maybe this was related to the maybe-false-name thing, but usually it was a harmless enough question. The boy could avoid it if it was really that bad, as most strangers were like to do. Mostly, Datura just wondered why this man was standing on Ava's rock. The rock he wanted to be standing on.

(This post was last modified: Nov 12, 2015, 03:55 AM by Datura.)

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