[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's a long walk to Black Unicorn's territory. Wyrmbreaker doesn't say a thing the whole way. He walks, step by step by step, with a sort of grim patience.
At the edge of their turf, Umbraside, he stops. And throws back his head. And howls.
[Muerte Fria] In the Umbra, Soledad and Lukas walk side by side. Except Lukas is in Crinos and Soledad in Hispo, with a good chunk torn away from her throat, and Lukas guides the Uktena by keeping a hand at the scruff of her neck, because occasionally, when she catches whiff of where they're going or the smell of someone else's territory, she will tug, or pause, stutter in her steps, growl... something. Lukas will snap his teeth or snarl at her, give her a sharp tug, and she's walking again.
Like a prisoner.
Or a disobedient dog.
They come to the edge of Black Unicorn's domain, and Lukas throws his head back and howls, announcing his presence, requesting permission to enter, someone to speak to. Soledad stands by his side, tongue rolled out of her mouth, pink and bobbing as she pants. She felt too warm, she felt ill, and she felt weak. Her Rage was gone, her driving force, and her heart still hurt from the twisting knife of Hatchet's parting words.
[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (reposting for dre--)
It took a while, but soon there came the sound of something shifting through the umbra. The meeker gafflings fled, taking to the sky when they could, and otherwise making themselves scarce.
And soon there came chuffing sound of a wolf with mottled grey and brown fur. He'd been running for long, and the excitement still showed in his muscles, even as it stalked up and down, back and forth, just on the border of La Familia Territory.
It was as if he were saying 'This better not take long.' But there was no High Tongue involved. Only instinct. Just a wolf.
[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's a strange contrast when the Philodox is restless, pacing, and the Ahroun is still.
But Wyrmbreaker is still, and stony. He lets go of Muerte Fria as Brother of the Lost appears and nears, unless of course she tried to run. He doesn't think she'll try to run.
She might expect him to recount her faults now, each and every one of them that led to this pass. Disobedience. Noncommunication. Insubordination. Every step on the road to Muerte Fria at the borders of Black Unicorn's territory
(or what would be Black Unicorn's territory, did he still reside here.)
bloody and beaten, angry, resentful, sullen.
But there's no such retelling of tales. Wyrmbreaker, Crinos-shaped, nods to the wolf as he appears. And he says, quite simply, "Your tribeswoman is in need of succor, Brother of the Lost. She's apathetic, self-destructive, full of aimless rage. I think she is very close to falling to Harano, or worse.
"I know you have not claimed the duties of a tribal elder, but your totem is Unicorn and your packmate is the elder of my auspice. Will you help her?"
[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (sorry guys, gone again for 20-30!)
[Muerte Fria] Soledad stayed near Lukas's leg like a dog told to heel, growling and glaring off to the side.
Boy appeared, pacing along his territory, whuffing and urging them to be quick. Soledad's eyes, the same bright yellow of liquid gold, turned onto her tribesmate and watched him carefully, studying his movements until Lukas began to speak. He said that she was mad, apathetic, She didn't argue, didn't disagree, but if she fell into Harano it was <i>her</i> goddamn business.
He asked for Boy's help on her behalf, and she spat out a snarl to interject before Boy can give a response.
"He is a Boy. Young, aimless as I am. Only leader because Marrick lets him. He has as much direction as I do." The growl rises to something loud and destructive, almost a roar. The beast, supposedly dead, existed beyond Rage, and it climbed its way from the ashes to rear its ugly head. "Wrong choice. Can't even keep his Totem."
Said the kettle about the pot.
[Boy] The wolf paced one way, wild eyes analyzing Lukas. The wolf paced the other way, those same eyes regarding Soledad.
The wolf paced, but slowed, until eventually the wolf was no longer a wolf. Boy was a bit more still in his homid form. Those eyes seemed no less wild as they pooled around Soledad.
"But I can keep a <i>pack</i>!" He spat the words in his birth form, and there was still a curl in his lip. But was it anger, or more disgust?
"Where is yours, Muerte Fria? Who counts themselves proud to stand by you? The floors of my house are already <i>heavy</i> with full moons. I would help you because of your tribe. Because there are too few Uktena in this city for us to ignore one another. But I won't keep you."
And then he stands, this time addressing Lukas.
"How's that sounds to you?"
[Muerte Fria] The Hispo was a rather daunting figure to view, something straight out of a nightmare. She stood on long legs, not like the stilts that Skinny Legs teetered around one but like tree trucks, thick and laden with muscle with large paws that could curl to grasp if they needed to, much like the paws of a bear. Her coat, while long and luxurious, was pitch colored and tinged red, as though she had bathed in the blood of her enemies so often that it had stained her fur. Around her mouth it was even redder, supporting that theory moreso. She had a thick mane of fur around her neck and on her chest, a slightly lighter red than the rest. Her ears were tall, her teeth were long and cruel, and her eyes glowed a chilly sort of fury, the kind without mercy, without reason.
These sharp, slightly backward-curved teeth flashed in the air, gnashed with an animal hate that had no Rage left to back it. Had there been any, though, chances were good that she would've flown into a frenzy on the spot. She tossed her head and a roar ripped through the air. Her hackles stood completely erect, her ears almost vanished they were so tightly pressed to her scalp, and it seemed impossible for her to put her lips together now, they'd been curled back so hard for so long.
"It is NOT your choice! I <i>have</i> a home, and it is NOT YOURS."
[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker does not wince at Muerte Fria's idea of pleasantries, though in a handful of sentences she makes it very clear what he meant by <i>aimless rage.</i> He doesn't cuff her upside the head, either, nor discipline her further. It's not his place or his business anymore, what she wants to say to her tribesmate.
Instead, he listens carefully as the Philodox speaks. At one point the black-pelted Crinos twists his head on his shoulders, a gesture at once human and bestial and -- very faintly -- raptorlike.
"Her packmates," he interjects quietly, neither obvious censure nor excuse, "disappeared or <i>died</i> one by one until she could no longer hold the Totem."
He falls silent while Boy decrees and Muerte Fria retorts. The latter may as well be wind by his ears. He ignores her utterly: like a man ignoring the ravings of a madwoman. Which is, in effect, what this is. He replies to Boy instead.
"You don't need to look to me for approbation. Whether you aid her or leave her to her devices is between your tribesmate and yourself."
[Boy] "Alright then. Choose, Muerte Fria. It is your choice. You gonna come with me willingly?"
There was a bit of that impatience in him again. That pacing wolf made itself known in his voice and in the way he glanced over his shoulder.
[Muerte Fria] "Or what?"
The words were spat out as something of a challenge, tossed to the ground off a pink tongue that licked irritably at her snout and teeth repeatedly as she snarled and growled and huffed. She had yet to relax since Boy showed up, since she'd forgotten the hurt that the last remaining piece of her past had caused her some thirty minutes ago and replaced that pain with rage, simple and pure rather than supernatural and hot as fire.
He told her to chose, and this far it seemed like her choice was obvious-- she'd rather fight and leave the men here gasping for air or end up doing so herself.
[Boy] "Or <i>nothing</i>. Not from me at least. But you are sick, that's plain enough to see. You know the law. You know what can happen if you don't get help."
[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker draws a breath as though he might answer -- but Boy speaks first. He releases it slowly.
[Muerte Fria] "I will find my own help. When I want it. In my own time."
As though to emphasize the point, she stamped her front right foot on the ground.
That was her final answer.
[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "You're a child, Muerte Fria," Wyrmbreaker says; not angrily, but flatly, "petulant and stupid. This might be your last best chance, and you're spitting in its face. Squander it if you want. Die alone, be forgotten. It's nothing to me.
"Brother of the Lost."
The name is a sort of acknowledgment and farewell. Wyrmbreaker turns and walks away the way he came.
[Boy] He doesn't stop them, but he doesn't leave. He stays, at least long enough to watch Soledad. Who knows, maybe she would change her mind.
"If you change your mind...."
[Muerte Fria] Her ear flicks when Lukas addresses her but that's about all he gets. He's already put a hole in her throat, tossed her about like a rag doll while bickering with the Alpha that cast her aside, then dragged her across the Gauntlet, across Chicago's Penumbra, and threw her before a boy younger and less experienced than herself to be taken care of.
Her pride was shattered, her dignity bruised and limping. Her mind was torn in several different directions, she was ill to her stomach, hurt, bleeding, and so damn tired. As that short burst of rage died down, the weariness, the wear and tear began to show. Her hackles fell back down, but her ears remained aimed backward.
Several long seconds of silence passed, in which the two wolves were content to glare at one another. Then, slowly, Soledad shrank, went from Hispo to Lupus. She almost cautiously, hesitantly put a paw across the invisible line that marked pack boundaries, then crossed over to stand a few feet away from Boy.
She didn't want to say it, didn't want to admit that she needed the help. Broken and beaten as her pride was, it still existed. She simply bobbed her head, partially deferring, partially gesturing for him to continue forward.
<i>Let's go.</i>
[Boy] It seems that's all that needed to be said. Boy shifts back down to Lupus and trots off toward home. No more words. No more talking. They both needed the silence, it would seem.
When they arrived at the Umbral reflection if the house Boy stopped, turned once in a canine sort of 'follow' motion, headed up the stairs and stepped, back to the physical realm.
They were in an odd sort of antechamber. A tiny opening with a side table and coat rack on one side, even though they hadn't even been here long enough to require coats. The front door, which didn't seem to match the surrounding wood finishing, was to their backs, and the rest of the house was ahead of them.
"Welcome." Boy said, once again in his Homid form.
[Boy]
He leads her upstairs and, thankfully, they don't have to go very far. For whatever reason the room directly in front of the stairs, the quiet room that didn't face the street, was unoccupied. But furnished, to a fashion. A bed and a few storage shelves. There was a closet full of boxes and the wallpaper still looked fresh.
"This is your room for as long as you need it. I'll be right back with some bandages and...maybe a change of clothes if I can find it."
[Muerte Fria]
"Thank you," she uttered, and that was all that she had to say to Boy. When he left, she sat down on the bed and sighed heavily, moving her hand from her neck and lifting it along with the other to scrub at her face, leaving a massive smear of her own blood on her right side. It brought out the Native American in her heritage, reminded one of the warpaint they would use on their faces before charging into a battle. Except they probably didn't look so weary as she did.
By the time Boy returns upstairs, she has already pulled her shirt off and is sitting on the bed with her jeans unsnapped, left foot planted on the floor and right ankle rested on the opposing knee. She's left in what looks like the kind of sports bra one would pick out of the preteen section at Wal*Mart, a simple band of fabric across the chest with small spaghetti straps over the shoulders, made of a thin cotton material that was soley for modesty in the girls locker rooms rather than to actually support anything.
She had her shirt wadded up and pressed to her neck, and her other hand rested plainly on her thigh. She glanced up to the doorway when she heard him returning.
| [Boy] |
| When he came back up into the room he had a bundle of neatly folded clothing in his hands, and on top of that, another neatly folded pile of what was once clothes. indeed, the bandages he brought up with him had obviously once been graphic tees and recycled clothing. But they were clean. And they would do.
"Are you...do you need any cleansing?" |
|
| [Muerte Fria] |
| Soledad took the shirt away from her neck and looked down at it, judged how much blood she'd soaked up with it thus far, compared it to how quickly she felt the blood flowing, and decided that pressure over the wound and keeping it covered would do the job until she had healed herself up. Boy asked if she needed cleansing, and she watched him with hard, cold eyes for a few seconds before shaking her head and reaching for the torn fabric that Boy had offered as bandaging.
She was used to patching herself up, so it was automatic for her to start grabbing bandages, tying them together, and wrapping and folding them against the wound to try and fix it up.
She wasn't the best medic, though, so the job was sloppy, but functioning at best.
"I don't think so, Brother of the Lost. I should be fine." |
|
| [Boy] |
| "Hm."
He was quiet for a while, watching her try to patch herself up. He doesn't move in to offer help however. Instead, he leaves the clothes and the bandages on the bed.
"I guess you might want to rest or...something. Dinner's in half an hour. Come down to the kitchen when you're ready." |
|
| [Muerte Fria] |
| She continued to fiddle with the bandages, tying knots to keep everything secure, to keep the makeshift wrapping from slipping off when she turned her head or laid down to rest. Boy left her to her own devices, which wasn't such a bad idea. She needed to keep what little pride she had left and nursed it.
He told her that there would be food, informed her that it'd be ready in a half an hour and she could drop down into the kitchen at any time. She would nod, glance down at her bare, firm abdomen, then make a quiet huffing noise and grab the shirt that he'd brought up for her and pull it on over her head, careful about not pulling the bandaging off with the shirt collar.
She was quiet until Boy stood to excuse himself, but he would only get to the doorway before she would speak up to slow him down. "I... I apologize. My words were cruel and unprovoked. I was wounded in many ways and lashing out unjustly. Thank you for seeing past that and offering aid regardless. It will not be forgotten or go unnoticed." |
|
| [Boy] |
| He stopped at the door, turning slowly and paying her the respect of facing her as she addressed him, and vice versa.
"Alright...yeah. No harm done, right? An uhm...Its just what we do around here. In this house, I mean. The whole caring and forgiving thing. Maybe later if you want to talk about..."
He hesitates, possibly realizing he's been talking too much now, and cuts himself off with a nod of his head. His eyes glance over the haphazardly placed bandages and the still uncertain bump at her abdomen.
"Food in half an hour." |
|
| [Muerte Fria] |
| Food in half an hour.
Later, if she wanted to talk about it.
These were things that she wasn't accustomed to hearing, not anymore. It was strange to hear them coming from a mouth that she'd only heard words come from a few times before. The most they'd spoken and it had been an exchange of a handful of sentences while Soledad helped the other Uktena hang trophies up on the Wyrmpole. They were both beings of few words, but that made what was spoken valuable. Every little word counted.
She noted his eyes skimming uncertainly from her throat to the front of her shirt, and she just nodded, likely a confirmation of her understanding that food would be ready in half of an hour. So she would let him go, not stop him for anymore awkward conversation, and instead laid back on the top of the bed, draping her arm over her face and the other just below her chest.
Her eyes grew heavy under her blood-crusted forearm, and within five minutes she was asleep. |
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