keeping the timeline of this vague :0
It is not often that Wardruna feels guilt over things and when he does he struggles with what to do with the feeling that bubbles and sits heavily like a rock in his throat. He’s not sure what all he feels guilty for — perhaps it is an individual thing or perhaps it’s a conglomeration of things — he can’t sift through it enough to be able to tell ( thus it is probably the latter instead of the initial suspicion ). All he knows that he feels it when he thinks of Noma …and he thinks of her quite a lot. He has been selfish where she is concerned which is not overly surprising because he’s exceptionally selfish. He gets jealous when he scents Mur or Ezekiel around their den and he thinks it's a good thing he’s never caught them around. He cares about her, he realizes. He cares about her a lot. He hadn't meant to but he does and avoiding it isn't doing him any favors. It’s not perfect ( because the gods know Wardruna is far from that ) and the feelings are confusing and at times overwhelming for Wardruna whom never intended to get that close; but his jealousy and frustration are not without deeper things attached to them and he knows that forcing and being cold to her is not getting him anything. He’s tired of being that way to her. It’s met him with fort upon fort and wall upon wall and his knuckles are split and bleeding from trying to force his way through them and his revelation leaves room for the thought that perhaps he’s going about it all wrong.
He can’t force Noma to like him. He wants those sky high walls gone but trying to demolish them isn’t working. It has not occurred to him, before that very recently, that perhaps he simply needs to be gentler, affectionate, talk to her rather than command her. Sif seemed fairly accommodating when he was nice …perhaps Noma will be the same. Or perhaps there is too much bad tension between them. Wardruna hopes not, hopes he hasn’t damaged her beyond things he can repair. He wants to make things easy between them, he wants to make things good. To make things what they could be. He only hopes he has not made what could be a ruin. The easiest way to summon her would be to howl, to call for her but that would arouse the unwanted attention of the Easthollow wolves and he’s had as much of their poking and prodding and spying ( he assumes ) as he can take. So, Wardruna tries to find the freshest scent trail of @Noma’s and follows it hoping that it will lead him to her. 450 words
Something doesn’t sit right with her every time she thinks about the strange girl outside the borders. Why does it bother her? Nothing has before. He leaves the pack territory every so often. It had been one of his trips outside the territory that he scooped her up and forced her here in a mess she doesn’t know how to clean up. She should have stayed with Sif a little longer to figure out because his silence on the matter only continues.
She’d left the den earlier to see if Valette needed anything but before she could find her, she found a large rock she can’t remember. It has been a long time since she’d been in Easthollow and she hadn’t familiarized herself all that much since she’d been back, but she thought she at least remembered everything. This doesn’t seem familiar at all. Most of all, why does a bolder gain her attention as this one has? It is wider than it is tall with a flattened top. She glances to the sky briefly, the sun as high as it can go, and quickly she climbs on top of it. One foot slips and she nearly loses her balance but when she has all four feet on the face of the rock, she feels better.
Despite the cold, the surface is a little warm. There’s no wind to make it worse and as she spins a few times before she plops her read on the ground and curls up. For the first time in a long time, she feels warmth from within that spreads to the fringes of her chilly toes. She is not yet sure what to make of it but she knows she doesn’t like it and she is worried what will come of it. Sleep does not pull her into a lull and she readjusts just as a short gust of wind crosses over but it is gone as quickly as it came but with it she notes Wardruna and she moves her head on the rock, searching the opening ahead of her for the first signs of the brute.
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It does not take long for Wardruna’s approach but she doesn’t move right away. His scent is thick upon the air and her nose flares a little, ears alert to hear his crunching footsteps close in. She hasn’t been receptive to his attempts as another might have but her desire to continue on has come and gone. The strain of being in Easthollow has been too much, too worried they’ll eventually figure it out. Some days she wants to reach out to them, hide behind them from Wardruna, but most days she doesn’t want them to see what she’s become and the shame she’d have to face after everything she’s gone through.
She does not move when he speaks her name, but the next thing to fall out of his mouth draws her attention.
We should talk.
Both eyes open, looking at him from across the boulder. He mentions Sif, the stranger from outside the pack, and slowly she sits up as he says her name again.
...giving you your freedom.
It takes a lot of effort not to snort at his remark but she holds it back and bites her tongue when it’s apparent he has more to say. Instead of turning and leaving, letting her fend for herself—in her home pack, it wouldn’t be hard—but we wishes for her to stay with him. She stares blankly at him a few seconds and slowly licks her lips, uncertain what to do with it.
”What did you expect when you take someone against their will?” she asks but there is no harshness in her tone. While she is curious, she does expect some backlash of the question. Even when she’s spoken the truth to him, he’s gotten upset, and she shifts her position on the stone. It is strange looking at him from her elevated position.
But what does her freedom mean now? She still is at the whims of whoever comes next, whether it is Easthollow that helps her back to health (they won’t let her suffer) and leaving into the world of winter will bring her her demise quickly. What is left of her life has been drug out longer than it should and it seems so far away.
She doesn’t directly address the last bit of information. He drops his promise to terrorize her if she does anything to harm him and a small part of her doesn’t believe him. How is it this easy?
”I can’t stay here, anymore,” she says, picking herself up and slowly—carefully—drops down to stand on the ground. If choosing not to stay in Easthollow involves not seeing him anymore, she won’t complain, but it had been a mistake to begin with. It had been too risky. She doesn’t move right away but she stares at him, alert ears cupped forward.
It is hard to try and wrap her mind around. She’s not been exposed to many other ways of life. Silvertip and Easthollow always seemed normal to her, even Morningside. It may have a slightly different dynamic but it is still all the same. A few wolves have crossed her paths with different background but her exposure is low and she wonders why she went along with it all in the first place. But he admits he was wrong and she looks away, nodding her head a little though she doesn’t say anything else. She still has questions but they aren’t important and she isn’t sure she wants to know the answers.
Before she has time to sort through them, he brings up the wolf outside. She hadn’t realized she’d been part of a bigger plan. She hadn’t realized there’s more to all this than he’s let out. Her green eyes narrow a little, trying to find the source of this, but she comes up empty handed but he gives her an offer. While she has a choice this time, she doesn’t know why she’s compelled to fall into his trap again. It’ll just be a repeat, right?
“What does that make her?” she asks, with more questions tenfold. Will there be others, if he intends to claim land? “What does it make me?”
Wardruna doesn’t have a lot of answers for her whether about Sif or her personally and she doesn’t know what to make of it all. She does not necessarily feel the urge to follow him but she knows she can’t stay here and winter is upon them already, leaving her chances of actually surviving this time slim. She may have gotten a little more meat on her bones but her fur is patchy and thin and just being out here is enough to bite at her without a care in the world.
“I don’t know,” she says softly, looking at the ground. She doesn’t know where else to look but at him is not a possibility. It’s only more confusing when he’s in the picture. “I’m not Noma. I’m—” she pauses, licks her lips, and then looks around briefly as if someone might be too close. “They just can’t know who I am.”
Want to wrap up?
She takes a moment in the brief comfort. He doesn’t demand for her to know anything other than the fact she needs to leave. Whether or not it’s enough to keep her by his side, it’s enough to keep her in motion—until he says her name and she flinches. She hadn’t expected him to remember (she barely remembers herself) and she looks away, shifting her weight to pull away.
“Addie,” she tells him, instead. It’s enough to be her, or whom she think she is, without setting anything in stone. She still doesn’t feel close enough to herself that everything is going to change but, maybe, things don’t have to be the way they were before.
The cold envelops her and she regrets pulling away from the brute and his thick fur but if she stays any longer, she’ll surely drown. In that moment, she doesn’t care where they go but she moves. She does not move with any particularly quick speed or suspicion should someone come across them—now feeling as if they are committing some crime—but she does have a purpose in her step and a direction in mind.
sure! i'll conclude & archive with my post. :-)
Addie, she corrects him. “Addie.” He repeats in confirmation, acknowledging that it is what she wants to be called now. She has been Noma to him since the day he met her but the shedding of the name that he gave to her is like breaking free of her chains. Perhaps it is the first step towards forgiveness for what he has done to her, or perhaps he can never be forgiven. Regardless, she is still with him and has yet to bolt in the opposite direction and he takes that to be a good sign. A sign that perhaps it’s not totally irreparable. He is not sure where they are going yet, either, or what the unknown path holds for them but there is a buoyancy to leaving Easthollow; to the knowledge that they will either find a place where they do not have to hide who they are ( because in a way it has been a masquerade for the both of them ) or they will make their own and it is utterly liberating to the northerner.