torch song

As instructed, Alexander followed the Hollow's second-in-command to her den. It was a welcome invitation, certainly and he had no intention of causing any trouble for her. He was tired from all that walking, and as much as he wanted to see his daughter, it was dark and late and he was exhausted. Alexander felt as though he could sleep forever at this point, and it wouldn't be unwelcome either. The next few days would be vital. He would meet the girl that shared his blood and know everything, and she wouldn't have any idea who he was.

And once she did...What would she say? What would she do? His thin gray shoulders rolled as he followed behind Elettra, ears back, pale eyes flitting back and forth. He'd never been here before. If he'd walked through this land upon his arrival those few years ago, then he didn't recognize it anymore. The journey was silent, even more so under cover of darkness. He certainly wasn't an <span class='word'>adroit</span> conversationalist, so remained silent, focusing more on keeping up and not merely collapsing into a snoring pile of fur and bone.

to clear up any confusion to whom may read this, this is set /before/ elettra's attack on vlarindara.

As he was not much of a conservationist, neither was she, tending mostly to business by her serious nature to spend time having small talk and playing. She hunted, she scouted the boarders of her home and marked them well, she spent time finding herbal remedies and studying up on them as best she could, forcing herself to remember their scent, their appearance and abilities they held for treatment. Like time went to playing around and even now the dark woman moved with purpose and determination, a constant hover over her being as was the air of confidence, power, and royalty.
She would not walk slowly for him, walking her even and poised pace, to force himself to push himself to the limits, even in his horridly thin, ragged appearance. What she had heard of him was nothing but good news, and she would push these story tales into a reality, or, he would break and prove the stories just that- stories.
She cleared her throat when they were near, allowing him to know by this. She would turn a round along the side of a small hill (not fairly far from the pack's main den in the least) to reveal a whole hollowed out within the side. Outside, were small clam shells and the like, holding water used for mixing. Quickly, she would dip inside, moving to the back of the area to show a small, rounded area, fitting for herself and another wolf, two if they were smaller- yet Alexander was not. She had learned more and more over time that perhaps a larger area was needed but more and more, she questioned herself if she needed bother, as her time in the Hollow seemed ever more questionable by the day.
She fell to a sit, silver eyes aglow in the dim lightly, the moon's rays falling upon the floor of the main area covered with furs and feathers from various hunts alike. Elettra had been a collector of sorts- furs, feathers, shells without holes and herbs. She did well to keep the place perfect, as it were.

He felt like some kind of desperate machine. Something told to operate at a speed that exceeded that which it was built for. But being a mass of cogs and of wires, it obeyed silently and without complaint. It was a machine, after all. The worst that could happen would be a complete shut down, but it hadn't been pushed that hard yet. The mechanisms that propelled its levers were only now beginning to show signs of wear. A strained squint of an eye, or the loss of rhythm in it's otherwise counted and timed pace. Like a delicate waltz, it function. One, two, three. One, two, three. The pressure within began to seep from the cracks in breathy huffs.

But the machine kept going. It was powered by pride and hope, and refused to break down. His mind was broken from this mechanical haze at Elettra's throat clearing, and he became alert, the tinier aches suddenly making themselves known in his conscious mind. He followed her path into a hillside cave, organized and cozy. It was hard for him to stop moving, limbs still twitching slightly as he sat in an empty space, wondering what he should do. <b style="color:#51b85f">"It's cozy," He said finally, breaking the silence, and turned his pale yellow gaze upon her. <b style="color:#51b85f">"speech."

He moved in, filling the room with his thinned out form though filling it none the less, leaving but a few feet on more between them and she adjusts just lightly to get her better view through the dim lighting from the opening of the den. He speaks, only offering a small comment on the place and, proudly, she replies. "Thank you..." It is a delicate tone on her lips- whispered even. It is unnatural from her otherwise rougher tones to her thickened, deeper voice, but she had grow accustom to speaking more soothingly in this area, where patients ether healed, or died....
A few moments might pass, only of her overlooking the still stranger before her; he harbored a potential to be daunting and powerful, massive even perhaps because even in his thin and ragged state, he could not been far from her own weight. His eyes are pale as her own, but gold, not silver. Greying with his age or perhaps stress of his recent events...or even just....filth. Her muzzle twitches and but a moment later, her head pulls away, dipping into the small dug out hole along the far back wall she rested against.
She pulls out some meat, part of a flank she had stored away, easily hidden of scent by the vast amount of herbs in here and she settles it before Alexander, pushing it into his direction. "Eat." Simple enough said and she buys herself not a moment's time for his curious objection before her skull is once more pushed into the small hollow at her side. There is a certain eudemonia she gains in the healing arts, if not where else. Within her muzzle, as she lifts it out once more, is a plant, fitted with small flowers and she sets it down with a fleeting (as quick as it came did it vanish) smile. "This is chamomile. Eat it and it will help sooth you- you must be stressed... Its known to help regain physical strength, too..." She clears her throat delicately as she finishes, her head falling to rest at the furs below her.

The space suddenly felt quite small, and Alex hunched over, as if it would expand the area. Although it was a healing den, he felt oddly guilty for taking up so much space, for wasting her time. As second of the Hollow, certainly she had better things to do than care for dirty, broken, aging men. But he didn't question it. He felt as if some kindness was silently being offered to him, and why fight it? The least he could do was listen to her commands (she was his superior now). After her quiet reply, silence consumed them again. It didn't feel so odd this time, as it seemed to really be fitting into the space. Alexander allowed himself to relax, sitting up a bit straighter as he became accustomed to the space.

He eyed her curiously as she dug around for something and he gave a curious sniff as her head reappeared, suddenly finding that he was salivating. A hunk of meat was placed before him, and the corners of his mouth twitched downward. But she seemed to know that he would want to protest, and spoke again. Chamomile. He cleared his throat, quietly, eyeing her offerings before silently giving in. He tore a bit from the flank before chewed up the medicine provided. It was a slow progression, but he felt everything within him relax. Not the odd strained relaxation he'd attempted just moments earlier, but true relaxation. He took a bit more of the meat, and nudged it back towards her. <b style="color:#51b85f">"Surely you must be hungry, too? We did walk quite a ways." His head tilted to the side, and he tried to keep the slight commanding tone out of his voice. He refused to sit there and devour all of it while she sat there, possibly hungry. <b style="color:#51b85f">"speech."

[ thought i might add in the northern lights in this thread. :D ]

"No." It was a quick snapping of words, cutting him off by his offering against her own to him. And after a moment, her silky black ears would fall, correcting her otherwise eager, quickly spat word. "I am fine and there is plenty more I can take in from the main den. Please, finish. You need to regain much strength." And fool could see his weakness; weary from travel, perhaps. Thin and bony from the winter and without the ability to hunt properly for himself. Dirty, with his lack of seemingly care to himself, now that he had become 'ruined'.
She turns away from him now, allowing him to know that she would not be accepting the meat by her up-turned muzzle as her silvered gaze turns to the still falling of the day. They had traveled far and time had moved by so very quickly through that travel and through their brief talk with Jaysyek. Now, the skies were a spectral of coloration- greens, blues, yellows in whipping twirls and circles dancing across the sky. Her silver gaze is aglow with these colors, reflecting them back as her head lifts higher, attention outside of the den and to the skies. And however few and snort they came, did she smile. "Beautiful...." She whispers, a deep sigh overcoming her, but smile never wavering.

<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>YES</span>

He didn't flinch as she snapped at him, though a frown spread over his muzzle. Alex grunted a response, and pawed the flank back towards himself, absently taking another bite. His shoulders rubbed against one another, and he swallowed. His stomach protested, and he took another bigger bite. He tried to focus on eating slowly, counting out each of his chews as he did his steps.

A few silent minutes passed before he looked up, distracted by Elettra's voice. Stepping carefully over the picked at meal, he settled beside her, looking up at the sky. <b style="color:#51b85f">"It is indeed. " He answered quietly, thinning tail curling around a twisted haunch. <b style="color:#51b85f">"I don't believe I've ever seen the sky do this before." Perhaps that was a lie, though he honestly couldn't. <b style="color:#51b85f">"speech."

(This post was last modified: Apr 01, 2012, 01:44 AM by Alexander.)

He would eat, slowly but surely, as she had hoped for, seeing this from the corner of her sight and accepting it to herself. Her snappy words might have otherwise started an argument with someone else, but he had taken them in easily, with only a slight frown and a soft grunt. Soon however, he would come to move at her side. Visibly, would her body tense, her dark hues mingling with her own pale and dusted furs- his perhaps coarse and thin from his state and hers, thick and plush as ever. The hairs prickled with they touched, sending her fur along her spine to rise. She might of moved, if she'd the space, but already aligned against the back wall she could not. And, didn't attempt to move to the other side, ether. Be in the season, or be it something else, after a moment her hairs settled and her otherwise tensed body laxed as his words lifted the air, seemingly calming her unease.
Along the back wall next to one another, food and bits of plant remained and the opening of the den was out before them, allowing the rays of the sky to pierce in, dancing over the furs and feather along the dirt ground. "I have..." She admitted to him, in a near whisper. "...Back home. The sky danced for us like this. They said it was a show, a blessing of the gods." It was, in her year or more of being here, the first time she had never mentioned something of 'home', of 'family'. No one had never bother ask of her past. Though many had claimed to 'know her type', not even her own leadess had asked to know of her. None had even bothered try.

He felt her tense at his side, but didn't bother moving, both because he knew there was no space to do so, and to see if she would herself move or eventually come to relax as she seemed to do before. He didn't overdo it, of course, even going so far as to shift the weight on his bad leg so it wouldn't have to lean against her. In time, as he had thought, she seemed to relax. The sky danced with colors, and he found that his eyes get beginning to feel a bit dry. He realized that he hadn't blinked for quite a few minutes.

An ear twitched towards her, followed not long after by his eyes, when she spoke. <b style="color:#51b85f">"A blessing, indeed." He quietly agreed, nodding. <b style="color:#51b85f">"My old home was too close to the human lights to get a good view of the night sky." He said, wriggling his shoulders weakly after he spoke. <b style="color:#51b85f">"Where are you from?" He asked her, no desire to share the silly story that made up his past. Once upon a time, he thought he was doing good, but now it felt greedy and foolish. <b style="color:#51b85f">"speech."

"Oh?" Peeps her words lightly at the mentioning on him living far to close to human's false lighting in order to see the true beauty of the night sky, alight by moon and stars together. She had heard of such creatures by travelers though had never met them- never even close. Her home had been far from the reaches of humans, as far as she had ever been aware. When he asked of where she was from, her ears turned back, her smile fading down to a tight line stretched over her lips. A 'hummm....' came from them, thinking it order, memories of her past long ago behind her now. Her place was here and she had a new life, as she would a new future, of course. But her past had definitely sculpt her into the woman she was now (the good and the bad), this was for sure. “The country of Torbine.” She speaks, both with a pride by her royal upbringing, but the words were serious, an undertone brought on by it's harsh development. “A vast nation, but in many ways no where near as nice as here.” She would admit, puzzled as to how easily it was brought out. She was not much of one to talk about herself or leak information that might otherwise bite her in the ass. However, as she spoke in response to his questions, it made her all the more aware no one had ever bothered to question of her past or her interests before. Perhaps, because of this, she had been more willing to speak of them then otherwise, had she always been asked.