Archainn Tunnels hello sleepwalkers

takes place on 10/6
@Sven Territory Discovery: Archainn Tunnels! (points to the people that get the reference :P)
Deep in the catacombs beneath Riddle Heights there are many routes to choose from. Wolves looking to use the pathway leading past the Underground Sea out into the daylight often get lost in the network of options to the left and to the right. Some never return. If one happens to take a particular left when heading east, instead of the brooding marshes of the Fen they will find themselves in a wide, well worn darkness. The tunnel network leading away from the Underground Sea are much broader than the rocky cut-outs beyond. At one point, perhaps, these tunnels were once the raging subterranean river that lead to the formation of the modest pool and other tunnels in general. The complete darkness has made the cave a lovely home for a colony of hoary bats.

Spieden was probably going to call her a hypocrite. But Sahalie loved exploring.

And she didn't know what a hypocrite was.

Initially, the idea of needing something "different" had been quite unappealing and nonsensical to the child, who only knew about so many kinds of differences. She thought different places had, maybe, different trees or, as Spieden had said "different moss," and different wolves. But then there had been giant orange blobs! And in the following weeks she discovered that beyond the orange blobs the ground was super wet —honestly, really gross. Hoping to get out of the mushy ground quickly, the girl had paid little attention to the direction she was navigating. Her eyes had been trained on her paws and the most solid looking patches of ground or tree trunks that offered her bridges over the most troubling parts. And now there was this huge rock! With holes in it!

Sahalie was not wise enough to hesitate when she saw these wide openings in the stone. It looked like a den, like her den, but it did not smell like there were any wolves. A little water trickled out. The swamp water had been unable to tempt her, but this rock water was quite alluring. Full of ideas of her own, the black cub charged into the darkness.

It was hours before she saw any sun again. Were it not for this sudden sparkling pool, she would have assumed it was night time. But there it was, as she craned her neck upwards towards the patchy ceiling. Sunlight was pouring through holes large and small, falling on a brilliant blue and green pool. All around her she heard an echo: water slapping against rock, water pouring from some wall too far away to see. The roar was gentle, comforting.

She closed her eyes and breathed.

This was different.

(This post was last modified: Mar 10, 2017, 07:28 PM by Sahalie.)

So @Skoll had given up. At least, that's what it seemed like. Maybe, those nights when he slipped away after he'd put his son to bed, he still occasionally searched for her. Perhaps it was something he simply didn't want to admit anymore, ashamed of his own hope. But Sven couldn't just wish this into being the truth, and he sure as hell couldn't just sit around and wait for the adults to fix this for him. After all, they were the ones who just sat by and let it happen to begin with. Angier, @Elettra, even @Morganna. They were supposed to look over everyone, even his little family on the fringe. They were supposed to keep his world together, and they had failed him.

So matters had been taken into his own paws. Every day that he didn't already have an obligation with one of his many keepers, the boy took off outside of the territory. Each venture brought him farther out into lands unknown, a different direction chosen each time. There were no clues to go on, and so he simply tried to put himself in her paw prints and think, where would she have gone? At some point, it had to of been against her will; otherwise, she'd be back by now, wouldn't she? Yet first he had to find the place of incident. How he would tell, he didn't know, but so dependent on this hope was he that the whelp refused to acknowledge the possible problems within his plan. There had to be a trail, had to be clues, and he had to find them.

When he had finally mustered up the determination to attempt scaling some of the mountainside and came across a cavernous entrance to an inky black length of tunnel, it seemed all too perfect. Delving deeper into the depths, finding the many twists and turns, the circumstances that could have possibly surrounded his mother's death began to come vividly to mind. How easy it would have been for @Piety to have become lost within these caverns, the many walls and impossible blackness acting as a barricade to keep her from coming home. The boy tried to sniff her out, but found himself overwhelmed by the newness of everything he breathed in. Unconcerned for his own safety, unable to even consider the possibility that he himself may become lost, Sven doggedly pressed on. He called out her name, the sound splitting with each fork and echoing deep within the mountain's core. If she was here, scared and unable to navigate the darkness on her own, she would hear his voice and follow it.

The time that passed was not recognized by him, and he did not tire. It did not occur to him to give up hope, not until he had thoroughly explored the tunnel's lengths. But as light began to filter through the jet dark, he feared that he had indeed reached the end, without even a trace of Piety to be found. A whimper escaped him, ears and tail falling, but still he pressed forward, determined to see today's venture to the very end. As he drew closer, his lungs took in another's scent. It was feminine, but unfamiliar, yet this didn't stop his heart from jumping into his throat.

"Mother?!" he called out, the word ricocheting ahead of him as he quickened his steps steadily until he was at a full run. Perhaps she had been gone so long that her scent had changed? Could that happen? Oh, how he hoped so! The air around him grew lighter and lighter, something was reflecting before him, the tunnel was opening up, and then suddenly he burst into the cavern. His paws skidded as they attempted to halt his momentum, and pale eyes searched the expanse frantically, completely forgoing the beauty of his surroundings. It wasn't until they lay upon Sahalie that his movement ceased. Slowly, his tail lowered, and his chin tucked against his chest. It hadn't been Piety after all.

(This post was last modified: Oct 08, 2015, 05:51 PM by Sven.)

@Sven

A voice was calling out. The distance and shape of the tunnel walls warped the sound until any information in the signal had been eroded. She could tell neither the gender of the caller, nor quite what they were saying. But it was a wolf, definitely. Mentally, she went through the list of wolves it could potentially be. And that was when it hit her: @Kyna had mentioned living on the rocks, maybe it was Kyna! Sure, she had said on and not in, but that maybe was not such an important distinction. Sahalie wasn't quite sure how anyone could get all the way to the top of the rock anyway. From her own experience, the rock against the horizon looked like it extended quite far up. When she had come to the hole, her eyes had not even been able to spy the top of the rock at all, nor had she been able to pick out a path one might take.

Maybe this was Kyna's home?

"Kyna??" she cried in response, her tail wagging evident by the tone of her voice, "Is that you?"

Footsteps echoed off the cave walls — a phenomenon she was still getting used to— and she could hear Kyna coming closer though she struggled to perceive the direction from which she was coming. Until suddenly Kyna was in front of her. But it was not Kyna. Honestly, for a second she stood there squinting and wondered if somehow Drift had wandered all the way out here afterwards. "Who are you?" she quipped uncertainly, though her tail continued to wave behind her, "You ain't Kyna. Or Drift."

If it had been an adult before him, his interest in her would have been minimal at best. However, despite the disappointment throbbing against his skull, he couldn't ignore the fact that this girl, despite creeping closer to adult proportions, was around his age. Thus his pale eyes gave her a few more sweeps than would have normally been afforded, even as he couldn't help but regard her with some level of suspicions. His age-mates back home had not been pleasant to meet, and it had taught him that those his age were only more honest in their outcasting of Sven and his pitiful family. Would she be the same? The barricades he was beginning to build against the world dictated that he decide yes before giving her a chance, but the many curiosities surrounding her linked hands with the possibility that she might be different from them, and encouraged him to speak up.

"M'names Sven," he answered her, lifting his chin again as he shifted his weight back and forth upon his paws. "Who're you? Do you uh, live here?" In the tunnels? Could wolves do that? He supposed they might. After all, here was a water source right here, they need only something to hunt.

She kinda choked on the implication that she might live here, something catching in her throat and then coming out hesitantly as a giggle. "What? No!" She considered asking if he lived here, when she realized that by the tone of her voice he thought such an idea as crazy as she did. "I was lookin for @Kyna. She said she lived on the rocks. I don't know if she lives here though."

For some reason she felt more compelled to qualify her search for Kyna as opposed to her own existance, and so she continued on, "Kyna is very nice. Maybe a bit shy and kinda scared of doin stuff at first. She's orange too, like these giant berries we found. They were bigger than you! And it was a lot of fun. So I wanted to go find her." Sahalie looked to the stranger expectantly, as if she had given him enough information for him to understand who Kyna was and perhaps illuminate her whereabouts. "She's our age," she threw on at the last moment.

Quite suddenly the dark girl was nose to nose with the white boy. He didn't smell very much like Kyna. His fur had an earthiness to it that was actually very like her own, like trees and bracken and brush. She chewed her lip. Maybe he didn't know Kyna.

She was so very much more talkative than his age mates back home, and while her flurry of words held absolutely no relevance for him, his ears pressed forward to take them curiously in all the same. The boy was utterly unsure what to make of the furred energy before him, and while he was not a milquetoast by a long shot, she was suddenly in his space, in his face with big gold eyes and soft huffed breaths as she analyzed his scent. His pale ears flew back against his head and his eyes widened, lanky legs locking as his body leaned reflexively back. Only Skoll or Morganna came so close, and that was typically only at bedtime. Certainly, he never would be caught in such a predicament with Niles, Ravenna or even Isolde. This was unprecedented, and he could not tell if he found it acceptable or not.

The silence persisted for moments more before he was able to comprehend that she was searching for some sort of answer from him. He certainly was clueless about this Kyna character, though he began to wonder the exact same questions that floated around this girls existence.

"I, uh..." was what he was at last able to break the awkward pause with, gray eyes flickering to the left as he took a step back. "I don't know any other kids but my dad's sibs," he informed her, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to seem nonchalant as her proximity continued to unnerve him. If she stepped away, he would be able to fall back into his relaxed self. Until then, he didn't see himself becoming use to this invasion of his personal space anytime soon.

"They aren't so great. What um... where are you from? I didn't think these caves would actually let out anywhere." He had thought they'd dead end with Piety.

@Sven

Her expression was open and benign, with the infinite patience of a girl who had no understanding of what she was waiting for. She would have been content with any response, really. When the boy finally opened his mouth, though, the sounds that came out were not very word like. He seemed... perturbed, and quietly she wondered what she had done to this boy who had, minutes ago, been more or less normal, into something that sounded more like an awkward swamp-frog. Almost accidentally, she took she took a step back —  her main intention being to have a better view for studying him some more.


When he mentioned other "kids" her ears perked and she stood a little straighter. Sahalie herself only knew two kids — three, counting this one. But if she knew anything about plural markers, it meant more than two, implying then Sven knew just as many or more kids than she did. Perhaps they could all get together and have fun. Eagerly her tail began to move behind her, though when the boy opened his mouth again she needed every ounce of her will power to stifle her movement. What made these other kids so bad?


She postponed her question in favor of answering his, since he had asked them first and all —  it was only polite. "I'm from Oak Tree Bend. We live in the woods. It's very foggy there and everything is pretty dark... It's kinda far from here." As she considered the journey back her body released a small shudder. Sahalie was loath to return to the mushy ground. Her attention turned itself back towards Sven, "What about you? And why ain't the kids you know great? Are they mean?"

She gave him a bit of space, and he found it so much easier to breathe. Her gaze was so transfixed, so thoroughly interested in him without holding the weight of expectation. There was something so simple about her presence, so genuine, and he began to realize that it was something he could easily be drawn into if he were to let down his guards and pretences. He hadn't found his mother, but perhaps that didn't make this trip completely wasted. Maybe he had found a friend.

Pulled more and more into their little conversation, he found himself relaxing further.

"That sounds pretty cool," he commented as she described her home, before his pale eyes caught the the subtle shake of her frame. It was something so small he dared not draw assumptions from it. That she might not think such qualities all too great did not occur to him. Like @Skoll, he was a nocturnal creature, and the fog made him feel as though he were some kind of invincible, as well as his fur blended with it and as easy as he was able to disappear within it at will. Oak Tree Bend was definitely a place he would want to visit one day, should he truly be able to befriend this girl.

"Uh, yeah, kind of," he answered as she swiftly turned the focus back onto him with multiple questions. Mean wasn't exactly a proper fit for Niles and his sisters, in fact, it seemed to do them too much credit. Sven would never let it known how thoroughly their rejection had truly injured him. "They're just stuck up. Way different from you. You seem... really nice, actually. Niles won't even talk to me, and Ravenna..."

The boy shook his head then as he closed his eyes with a frown. Already he was saying too much; they didn't deserve such mention, and certainly weren't worth a kind girl's time. There were far more interesting things he could tell her.

"We live at Willow Ridge, and my nonnas the Queen. I'm an Archer." Would she know how important that was? Or did the name lose its meaning outside of the realm of the willows? "We got these big trees, those're the willows, and their branches are way high up but the leaves hang down all the way to the ground. In the summer, you can hardly even see through them. It's great for hide and seek."

He hoped he was right to assume she hadn't seen a willow before. After all, he had never seen them outside of his home, and liked to think that they were uniquely theirs.

realized Sahalie totally forgot to give him her name xD just straight up ignored him.... /tries to get some exploring going

He called her home cool but she could merely shrug. Spectral woods was all she knew, really, besides the yucky marshes that stretched in between these tunnels and home. And Hidden Berry Hideout. But she had not seen much else of the world. It felt premature to call the mist-shrouded woodlands cool. Especially given the fact that there was nothing particularly exciting going on there. Ever. But Sahalie did not feel like protesting, figuring that if Sven thought her home was cool then that was just more street cred for her.

The girl listened to the description of his dad's sibs with a sympathetic frown weighing on her face. Stuck up? This was a phrase she didn't really understand, not ever having known a "stuck up" wolf. She understood that it was a bad thing, different from herself, apparently. The corners of her mouth twitched in an awkward, shy smile. Her heart beat faster against her ribs, her face feeling vaguely hot to hear herself spoken of like that. Compliments in Oak Tree Bend were doled out for good work, not for simply being nice. This was strange. Still, it was sad to think that the other kids wouldn't talk to Sven. That was definitely mean of them. Sven seemed perfectly normal. She decided this was what "stuck up" meant.

With glimmering awe in her eyes, though, she attempted to imagine the leaves of the dark trees of her home reaching all the way to the ground. It sounded like crazy talk. "Really??" she burst out, quite taken with this stranger's homeland. And they had a queen, too, just like Anna said about packs. Cool. An Archer, eh? Suddenly, though, she realized that a few moments before, when Sven had asked for her name she had only given him the name of her pack. "I'm a Tainn," she emphasized, wanting to place her own surname on an equal ground to his, "Sahalie Tainn."

Forgetting what all the introductions were about and her reasons for being here, Sahalie cast out a suggestion. "Wanna go explore, Sven? These tunnels might lead somewhere!" She beat the ground heartily with her tail.

(This post was last modified: Feb 06, 2016, 08:20 PM by Sahalie.)

SVEN ARCHER

& the night is closing in

Tainn. He'd have to ask @Skoll about that surname. He didn't recall having heard of it, and he liked to think that when it came to his father's lessons his memory was particularly impeccable, but it must be important, right? Just like his family was a noble line, Sahalie's probably was as well. Or were the Archers truly that special? It hadn't seemed to of stricken any particular awe in the girl before him. So many question, but none of those were for her; he would have to remember and save them all to take back home.

There were words on his tongue for her regardless, but before they could escape his jaws she had a proposition for him. His ears fell back a fraction as his gray eyes wandered. In all honesty, he did not want to explore further. These tunnels weren't going to lead him to Piety, he knew that now, and as bent on finding her as he currently was, the lack of that potential had him discouraged. Yet as his gaze lifted back to Sahalie's dial and he heard the thumping of her excitedly wagging tail, he found that it didn't matter so much if he didn't quite want to go on an adventure.

He had a chance to make a new friend, and he really wanted that. With a smile that was easier to put on than he anticipated, Sven nodded.

"Yeah, sure, why not? Lead the way, Ms. Tainn."