Willow Ridge worming their way into the black matter of my brain

@Greer. Set after this, in the evening.

There was a lot to think about, to plan for and deconstruct and prepare. So much had happened in a few short, sweet days; Hecate's leaving, Skoll's missed deadline, but most significantly, his and Morganna's agreement and all that went with it. At that particular moment, Craw was busy mulling over Celandine, and how pleasantly unexpected the situation with her had gone. He pictured her face, full of fire and defiance and yet also an awareness of her own vulnerability, as he gnawed at the thigh bone of the pig the pack had killed back in the heights of winter. The bone was thick with grooves left by numerous canines' canines, and the simple act of chewing on something hard was comforting. An outlet for frustration, a killer of idleness.

There were only so many different ways he could fill his time before everything would change. Ultimately, the timing was down to Morganna, who had promised her own deadline. The difference was that he trusted her to keep it.

Pulling his head back, he considered the tooth-marked femur for a moment, and then drew his tongue down its length, slowly, almost like a rough caress, feeling its contrasting ridges and smoothness. All the meat had long gone, and even much of the easily-accessed marrow had been sucked or scooped out, leaving only a thick length of hard bone which was good for little more than stress-relief.

Erebos, she'd said, and he pondered the name silently just as he pondered the boar's bone, with open acknowledgement of its pointlessness. Maeve. It wasn't as though he weren't prone to get stuck on names... Pharika still rolled around inside his head occasionally, but nothing had come of the ambiguity the woman had left behind, so he was forced to conclude that it had been nothing but coincidence. The uncertainty was murder, though. The wheeze in his throat taking on a rougher, coarser edge as he pushed a little growl into it, just another manifestation of irritation, Craw shifted the bone about so that he had access to the other end, and started crunching anew.

(This post was last modified: May 05, 2016, 06:10 AM by Craw.)

D: sorry for the wait love 
<3 thank you again for starting 

Things had been much easier before the health of his parents had begun to decline. They had been a force — unstoppable until their age had caught up to them. The thought caused the corners of his lips to dip. The only thing that had soothed the mind of the troubled shadow was that the wench had left. Fortunately, for Hecate, she had left on her own accord instead of being chased out by his sister. Morganna would not have allowed the ghostly wench to leave without a few scars.

Several days had passed since he had encountered the ghost lurking around the borders with questions about her former pack. Unfortunately he had been the one tell her what had happened to Phineas and the rest of the Silent Moon wolves. Since their encounter, her scent still remained strong along their borders, but he paid no attention to it. He had shown sympathy to the girl far too easily for his liking and he had resorted to isolating himself. The shadow was not pleased with his actions and needed to remind himself that he was an island of one;  void of emotion and uninterested in the affairs of others.

Just as the shadow was about to set out on another excursion a familiar scent reached out to him, causing his forehead to crease as his nostrils flared. Had the ghostly girl been foolish enough to cross their borders? He snorted at the thought; however, his curiosity got the better of him and Greer found himself pursuing the fresh scent.

The carrier of the scent took the shadow by surprise, but he remained quiet as he observed the grayscale male from a distance. Craw, he reminded himself as he noted the older male’s strange facial markings. Greer even had trouble remembering the names of his packmates due to his reluctance to speak (and introduce himself). As long as they pulled their weight and proved their loyalty, Greer had no qualms about the wolves outside the Archer bloodline that joined their tight-knit pack.

The spider-legged wolf remained pressed to the thin tree trunk as he observed the older male as he crunched on the boar bone. He was curious as to how Craw carried the scent of the ghost princess but did not care enough to ask. Instead, he offered a low woof to alert his packmate of his presence. 

(This post was last modified: May 05, 2016, 05:25 AM by Greer.)

@Greer <3!

Deep in the pack's territory as he was, Craw was not overly concerned with the idea of unexpected company, for it would almost certainly just be of the packmate variety, and thus harmless. As such, eyes glazed over in thought as he ground his molars against the hard bone, it wasn't until the greeting did he register the presence of someone else - and, ears perking and eyes snapping towards the source, he recognised it instantly as Greer.

The young Archer was stood against a tree, watching him, and the curiosity of that was enough to distract Craw from his thoughts for a moment. All he really know of the dark shadow was what @Morganna or Wraith told him, or the few glimpses he caught of the relatively private boy as he slipped through the trees. Craw just assumed that he wasn't particularly social, a recluse, which stood out in harsh contrast to the brazen, bold natures of his kin. This was one of Elettra and Angier's, if he wasn't mistaken... perhaps the Lyall blood was where he got the quietness.

What did that say about Morganna and Skoll's father, then?

Yellow eyes trained on the younger wolf's grey, Craw slowly put the bone down, licking his lips of the flecks of spittle which had accumulated as he had gnawed upon it. Placing his forearms neatly over the now-horizontal bone - in the same manner which, if he had been human, might have been steepling his hands on a table - he considered the sight of Greer, and more interestingly, why he had bothered to greet and linger. They were not close. Was the boy just bored? Was he aware of what was stirring in the pack, had Morganna yet told him? The light behind those monochrome eyes was far from dull, but what motivations and secrets did it show? Craw had been deliberating the value of approaching the shadow himself, unclear on whether or not Morganna had already told him of their plans and invited him along. The pale wolf would need a little more to go on before just laying everything out on the table.

Aware that this particular Archer was not much of a conversationalist, Craw kept it simple. "Are you well, Greer?"

(This post was last modified: May 27, 2016, 02:28 PM by Craw.)

\o/ @Craw

His forehead furrowed as he studied the pale wolf before him. What was so special about the golden-eyed male that caused Morganna to spend so much time with him? It was not that the young Archer was jealous — curious, yes, but not jealous. From what he could tell — a result of his constant lurking — the scarred wolf was fond of his sister and truly cared for her. But how had this wolf, with his strange markings and smoky voice, captivated the attention of the fiery queen?

As long as the scarred male was nothing like the pale wench that had pulled Skoll into her web, Greer was not against Craw’s presence. He was thankful for Hecate’s disappearance; she had dropped him as soon as something better had come along, only to abandon the better Archer as well. The shadow repressed the memories that he had with the floozy, for they were filled with nothing but lies. Perhaps, in her absence, Skoll would come to realize that she had done nothing but lie to him as well. Hecate knew nothing of affection or what it meant to care about another — she only cared about herself and her own needs. She had gotten what she wanted from the older Archer: a child. Now that she was pregnant, she no longer needed him. Poor Skoll, he thought bitterly to himself, his lips tight against his teeth in an attempt to prevent a grin from unfolding across his maw.

Not only had Hecate gone, but his brother had also missed the deadline on overthrowing Nicolo. Things did not seem to be fairing well for the former king.

At the pale spider’s question Greer answered with a quick shrug, the corner of his mouth dipped as he tapped his toes along the dirt. “Greer well enough.” Aside from Hecate’s departure, he was not happy with the lack of change. More and more, he was thinking of leaving the Ridge behind sooner than he had planned. The shadow had already put it off for several months; he was not sure he could handle another month or two of waiting for something to happen. “Craw well?” He did not care — he did not care how anyone aside from the very pregnant Morganna was doing — but it only seemed polite to ask.

As he had half-expected the shadow to answer his question and then move on, Craw's attention was fastened when @Greer offered his usual, somewhat stunted manner of reply and then lingered. He even returned the sentiment, asking how Craw was doing, to which the corners of the pale wolf's mouth turned up in curious pleasure. How polite he was being today! How was it that this Archer was so very different to his kin?, Craw wondered once more, taking a few moments to decide how best to answer. The boy was relatively close to his sister, as Craw understood it, which begged the question... Did he know? Was that why he was here? He had said well enough - was it a subtle sign of his discontent, or was that reading too much into it?

"I am doing very well," he rasped, entirely sincerely, with a knowing edge to his tone which Greer might notice, depending on how well he managed the subtlties of conversation. Was it just that he spoke in a clipped fashion, or did he hear words in a similar way? He already knew that Greer was far from stupid, and so, for the first real time, Craw considered the boy's value - no, he wasn't a boy anymore, the young shadow was fully-grown. He should be afforded the proper respect unless he showed he did not deserve it. "Has Morganna told you we are leaving?" he asked, a little lightly, as though it was a relatively casual topic of conversation. Eyes fixed hard on Greer now, he watched for the inevitable reaction, unable to accurately predict it.

Curiosity fuelled his desire to stay while his mind begged for him to leave. Greer did not enjoy pleasantries or small talk — he would much rather sit in silence than exchange a few meaningless words. He was not interested in the well-being of others, nor did he care to learn names or information about those he encountered — unless, of course, it could prove useful to the wolves of Willow Ridge. However, he could not deny he was intrigued by the pale wolf before him. @Craw was also on friendly terms with Wraith, a wolf that Greer was particularly fond of. If both the older shadow and his sister did not mind the presence of the spider, perhaps he was worth his time after all.

The tone the male used captured the Archer’s attention, his brows knitted together as his tongue clucked against the roof of his mouth. It had been evident at the clandestine meeting that Craw was not fond of Nicolo’s command, so what was keeping the spider’s spirits high? His lips tightened, his curiosity only burning more furiously as he waited for some sort of explanation, not wanting to taint the air between them with his butchered words.

He blinked, almost dumbfounded by Craw’s question. Leaving? His tail flicked in irritation — why had his sister not come to him? Had he not made it obvious to her with his frequent excursions that he, too, was looking to leave the willows behind? “When?” He asked, getting straight to the point. If Morganna was planning on leaving the shadow would join his sister; the willows had stopped behind his home long ago, and he would follow her wherever she went. 

(This post was last modified: May 05, 2016, 07:21 AM by Greer.)

That caught the shadow's attention. Clearly Greer had not been warned prior, which Craw could only assume meant that he had not properly caught up with his sister in the last few days; he doubted that Morganna would have deliberately kept her younger brother in the dark. It was just coincidence that it had come from Craw first, but did Greer see it that way? The wolves which would be coming with them had already been made clear, but there were a few creatures within the willows which sat on that fence. It all depended where their loyalties lay strongest... and whether or not Craw thought they were worth taking. Morganna no longer had the final say.

Greer's single word was not atypical, and, happy to oblige the young shadow in his avoidance of verbosity, Craw just smiled thinly at him and said: "Soon." Before her children were born, before the moon finished turning. It was too premature to extend some kind of invitation, for while it was clear that Greer was frustrated at not knowing beforehand, Craw couldn't be certain it meant because he wanted to come too. The wolf he had valued the most, @Wraith, had been told at the first opportunity, needing to make sure the dark man would follow. The rest were dust and bones.

(This post was last modified: May 05, 2016, 04:11 PM by Craw.)

There is a rabbit's nest nearby. +1 Health

i suck :c

While the shadow would have preferred to hear their plans from Morganna herself, he was not angry. The current queen of Willow Ridge had far too much on her plate as it was — she did not have time to seek out her little brother. Irritated, yes, but not angry.

Their brother had missed his deadline and Morganna was clearly frustrated with the lack of progress. It did not surprise him that she wanted to leave the willows behind. Although the shadow had planned on leaving by himself, he was intrigued by this new development. It certainly wasn’t his first option, but it would do. Perhaps once the puppies arrived Greer could make his solo departure and set out to do what he had initially planned. Until then, he would swear his loyalty to his sister — as he always had. He still cared for and respected his mother, but change was good; change was what he needed.

“Greer come.” It was not a question, Greer would join them and the other members departing from Willow Ridge. Whether they accepted his presence or not, the shadow would be there. Regardless of who (or what, at this point) the father was, Morganna’s children were still Archers and Greer would do anything to protect them.

But who would join them? Wraith was an obvious candidate as Greer knew how close the older shadow was to both his sister and the silver wolf before him. His lips folded into a soft frown at the thought: but who else? 

At Greer's declaration, Craw paused. He studied the shadow thoughtfully, recalling what @Wraith had said about the man. Greer was a curious one, who had never been entirely puzzled out, a shadow in appearance and manner. Not abrasive like some of his family, not with overt destructive or rebellious tendencies, not with insubordinate tones and arrogant manner. The young Archer just was. Wraith had seen something in him, liked him, and Craw trusted his judgement. Perhaps he just hadn't had the opportunity to get to know the man yet.

Well, that would have to change if Greer was to come with them. Morganna, Craw and Wraith knew perfectly well where they all stood with each other, but Greer...? Heaving himself onto his feet, letting the pig bone be temporarily forgotten, Craw lumbered deliberately towards Greer, posture fairly neutral and casual - until he stood a foot away from the smaller, lither wolf, and his head rose just that little bit higher.

By most standards, it was a tame show of authority, but he did not want to have to force the matter. By the standings within Willow Ridge, Craw was the superior, but he didn't give a shit about those ranks. He wanted to see whether Greer realised what he was asking for - if he'd figured out who his new leader would be if he truly did come along. Greer's nuances could be learned with time, but right here, right now, if Craw was going to support that choice, he needed to know if the man should show the proper respect.