Kieran woke with a start and looked around the dawn light not yet peeking over the horizon. He shifted and stood shaking his fur, and licking down some of it. He shivered slightly at the chill in the air, but he would so remedy that with a run. Stretching out his legs and his back he began at a trot. Every so often having to bend his nose to the ground, make sure he was still in creek territory. The darkness combined with the fog made for a chaotic mess and he wasn’t exactly thrilled with it. He was however okay with it, he could work his way through it.
Sniffing at the ground again he continued on a loping run. He marked the borders and he would do some hunting. It was strange, but he had been here longer than he had been anywhere in years. It had a calming peace to it, and it helped to heal him just a little bit. His emotional wounds were still open and sore and bleeding, but they were closing at least on the ends.
Hope you don't mind me. :-)
Nefarious was finding that it was easier than he had initially anticipated: becoming accustomed to pack life that was starkly different than Akkuma as Swiftcurrent Creek was. It was before dawn, the air chilled with the frigid breath of old man winter as he bore down upon the Wilds, prepared to divide and conquer. Nefarious wasn't certain on if he was
ready for winter, or not, but whether he was prepared was irrelevant. Winter was coming; and it didn't care if he was prepared or not. The young Shaman initiative had no stores, medicinal or otherwise. He could start to collect things, surely, but some of what he needed wouldn't come back around until Spring and he would have to make do with what he could, finding possible substitutes if at all possible. Nefarious didn't
like working with knock-offs but beggars couldn't afford to be choosers. He would make do with what he could find and hope that, if his services were ever needed, that the substitutes did their job.
Sleep wasn't something that he was able to receive in a large quantity yet, this Creek still too new and foreign to the Kesuk for him to be able to settle into a deep sleep. Power naps did the trick, for the moment, but Nefarious knew that sooner or later he would need to take his guard down and allow himself some real slumber. Until that day, however, power naps sufficed. The fog, the more Nefarious kept walking became thicker, heavier, denser. For Nefarious, whom was still rather unfamiliar with Creek lands, it left him entirely disoriented, and took most of his attention to avoid face planting a tree. He side swept one quickly when his nose touched the hard bark, and paused, guard hairs bristling with startled surprise at the scent of another as it assuaged his flared nostrils. Knowing that it was better to hold off on attempting to find his fellow pack member conventionally, Nefarious let out a chuff, hoping that the fog didn't swallow it. “Hello?” He called out into the void, wondering if he was truly as close to the other as it appeared or if the fog was simply messing with him, again.
As Kieran continued in his loping gait, a new smell assailed his senses. And he froze with his nose lifted trying to figure out who it was and if they were part of the pack. He smelled the pack lands on them, but the fog was dense he couldn't see them. Dipping his nose to the ground he followed the scent until he came face to face with another. Turning his face the scar on the side of his face caught the little bit of light so the person would see that first.
"'owaya. 'oweya dis mornin'?" He stood near enough that the other could see him, but he did back up a little bit, he was crowding the poor male a little bit and that wasn't very kind. Unfortunately in fog though you couldn't always see the other person or thing, until you were right up on them.
As it turned out, the fellow pack mate, but ultimately a stranger, and Nefarious were much closer than the Shaman had originally assumed. Or perhaps, the other had moved closer — if the sound of bracken and autumn debris under foot was any indication. Lips curled back on instinct as Nefarious recoiled back, startled by the fact that one moment he was suddenly looking at thick, obscuring fog and the next he was literally
face to face with the guy — eyeing up the other's scar. A heavy breath was taken in hopes of controlling the rush of adrenaline. Nefarious felt a tree against his rump, the harsh bark tugging at the fur there but he didn't bother moving away from it, looking to keep some breathing room between them, despite that, accordingly, the other male had taken a few steps back. It was harder to see him now, granted, but Nefarious appreciated the lack of intrusion upon his personal space.
The other male spoke, causing Nefarious' brows to furrow. The Kesuk did not understand the first words that the other male spoke, in reality only picking up on the word “mornin'” and the way it was spoken — as a question. For a moment Nefarious did not respond, mostly because he didn't want to run off his assumption and be wrong but also because, if his assumption was correct he really wasn't sure what was the socially acceptable response. “Ok, I guess. You?” He eventually settled for, hoping that it sufficed, and more importantly, that the other man understood the common tongue.
Kieran backed off even more at the curling of a lip. HE did not wish to have his face laid into by another. That had happened once in his life and it was enough for a lifetime.
"Sorry aboyt dat" He hadn't meant to completely take over the other's space.
Kieran understood the common tongue fluently. He also spoke it, though it was garbled and a bit accented. That was exactly why it sounded so obscure. HE tilted his head as the other answered him, and he dipped his muzzle in response.
"Ah oi'm gran' so. kieran o'malley at yisser service"
Nefarious watched as the other man's silhouette, cut from the thick fog that writhed around them like a living entity receded from it's proximity still to the Shaman, likely because the other had caught the lifting of Nefarious' lip. Unsurprisingly, there really wasn't a part of Nefarious that felt
bad for it, despite that it was very likely that the male before him was of a higher rank than Nefarious himself. If brought into the conversation, as Nefarious certainly would have done would the tables have been reversed, the Kesuk was prepared to state the obvious: he wasn't big on having his personal space invaded, even if on accident unless he willed it so. What Nefarious had expected didn't happen however, and the other male actually apologized, or at least...that was what the garbled words sounded like: an apology. Nefarious didn't respond, mostly because he didn't know what to say in responsive, though “thanks” or some variation likely would have been what was expected; though Nefarious didn't particularly
hold it against the other male. After all, the fog was thick enough for Nefarious to barely be able to see his own nose. And though the Kesuk's pride would not let him admit it he was grateful the noise that had led to them nearly colliding hadn't been a trick of the fog. Being as new as Nefarious was did not leave him much room to blindly know his way around the internal territories of Swiftcurrent Creek.
The more that the other spoke, Kerian, as he introduced himself as, the harder it was for Nefarious to understand what he was saying,likely mistaking the words as he attempted to translate them to something closer to what he understood even if he was dead wrong. Which was bound to end badly, if not today then certainly another day. For a moment, doubt clouded Nefarious' judgment as he wondered if he'd joined the wrong pack but remembered moments later that Scimitar could speak just fine, and as he was the leadership that was the most important part. Hesitation overtook Nefarious for a moment as he wondered what else there was to say, if it was something he should further broach upon in the first place. “Have you been here in the Creek long?” At the moment, Nefarious couldn't afford to be a chooser and he needed help finding his way around, at least until the fog burned off.
Kieran did not hold it against him that he had curled his lip. Kieran would have done the same if a strange had shown up right next to him. Though in all honesty he probably would have went straight into biting. Nightmares in the daytime didn't necessarily scare the scarred warrior. No it was the ones that came to him at night that scared him.
Kieran smiled softly, it amused him when other's couldn't understand him. Only because there was no point in getting angry. He knew his accent was thick and his words strange.
"Ah've been 'ere for a while. 'oy aboyt yer?"
Nefarious watched the other male wearily, not knowing what...or how else to watch him. They might have been newly minted pack mates but there was little doubt that the other male was of a higher rank than the Shaman, and even then, Nefarious had just curled his lip at the other male, breaking ranks or what have you. It held fast that the other male didn't seem to hold it against Nefarious but the Kesuk was no mind reader and therefore was running off basis assumptions upon his own interpretations. Nefarious watched as the other's lips twitched upwards into a soft smile, discernible despite the fog that writhed between them. Nefarious played with the question, for a moment, of if he should be even more weary of his smile or if it meant what smiles should have normally met. That they were on friendly terms. Regardless, what was the worst that could happen between them? They were pack mates which by default automatically dictated that they had to, at the very least, be civil with one another. Kieran admitted that he'd been apart of Swiftcurrent Creek for a while, which Nefarious took as a clear advantage, though his posture had not quite made it to 'relaxed' yet. “New meat,” The Sigma admitted, because there was no sense in hiding his newness. As it was, it had came as something of a surprise that the other hadn't been able to scent the Shaman's newness, but either way it would have came out one way or another.
[size=x-small]I'm sorry i've been terrible with my replies lately :([/size]
If Kieran had known the male before him was wary of him at the moment. He would have done his best to ease the fear that he was going to retaliate for a curled lip. The simple thing was that he had came upon him in the fog, and he had a natural reaction. There was nothing about it that caused issue with Kieran. Had it been clear and the other before him had done the same thing, then he would have taken issue with it.
"Ah, everyone's new at sum point. what's yisser name mucker?"
It's alright. <3
Understanding the other male's words was still a struggle — just as it probably would remain so — but Nefarious was finding that the longer he was in Kerian's company the easier it was becoming. It wasn't
so easy that his understanding was flawless, of course, but it was enough that Nefarious felt he could somewhat make out what the other was saying. Or at least, he was running off of an assumption and hoped that it was correct. Nefarious wasn't ashamed about his relative newness to Swiftcurrent Creek, and it was just as Kerian said: everyone was new at some point. Even the alpha was new at one point, whether it was at the founding of the Creek or after it. Everyone had been through the awkward stages of being the new meat, but routine was easy enough to pick up upon and Nefarious held little doubt that he would pick up on the Creek's routines soon enough. For a moment Nefarious did not answer the male's question regarding his name, unsure if 'mucker' was something that he should be offended by or not. It certainly didn't sound like anything he wanted to be associated with, but he'd come to the conclusion that the other could not speak the common tongue very well.
“Nefarious. My name is Nefarious.”
If other's took the time to speak with Kieran or learn his own language they would understand him a lot better. But as it were many didn't spend enough time with him to learn his nuances and his language. He also used some strange pronunciations of his words too.
"Well met nefarious. chucker yer loike it 'ere so far?"
It seemed that the longer Nefarious spent in Kieran's presence the more prominent the struggle came to understand him. The shaman frowned slightly as he considered that instead of getting easier the other male's words became harder to decipher. There was nothin but trepidation that Nefarious felt, and his ability to assume what Kieran was attempting to say to him but assuming could have very well had consequences. After all, there were so many ways that assuming could go wrong. "Uh," Nefarious made the noise to unsettle the silence that felt horribly uneasy to him. "What?" Because he wasn't even going to try to assume that, especially given that he wasn't sure if 'Chucker' was something he should be insulted by or not.
Kieran shifted and smiled easily. He wasn't uneasy or upset that the other didn't understand him, just figured it as a way of things. Not everyone was going to be able to understand him. As a matter of fact most didn't. And those that did had to be around him for more than one conversation. He dropped the words do you because obviously CHucker most wouldn't understand and just tried again. Loike it 'ere so far?