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+--- Thread: Grouse Thicket put on your war face (/showthread.php?tid=20095)
put on your war face - Laurel - January 16, 2017
@Dagfinn pre-war-thread? :)
Life had been pretty sucky overall, but above all else Laurel was scared. She was scared that Jhala would grow bored of being nice and would finish what she started and scared that they would ditch her here in the cold, dark outside world. Whenever Laurel slept, she never slept long, with the knowledge they could just leave her behind and have moved on without her by the time she awoke. She grew even more prickly and irritated as a result of her sleep loss and fears running wild in her head, but the circle she was caught in wasn't one she could escape alone, if at all.
None of the places they passed meant anything to her, and none of them were home. She wasn't sure anywhere had ever been home, nor did she think anywhere might become home ever again. She was a drifting soul without a home and too cowardly to just leave. The cold was nearly unbearable on her, young as she was and away from the warm huddle of wolves she slept because she didn't want their pity nor trouble if they'd think she was too close to the precious pups. As a result, she hadn't felt warm in days, what with the cold that had come over them.
She never walked far, afraid to be left behind, so when she wandered away from the cave they'd taken pause in that day it wasn't far. She walked through the snow-covered world, wishing she'd find something to eat but fearing her efforts'd be fruitless again today.
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - January 19, 2017
Dagfinn had taken a peculiar interest in Reek's liver-coated daughter. Though he'd spent long nights with all these wolves by now, Laurel was still an enigma to him. He wasn't sure where she fit in with the cute little family, and there was a worried little voice in his head that suggested that she didn't. Maybe she didn't fit in at all.
She was never near them, and to Dagfinn - who had grown up in a pile - it was so strange to see a small, lone little figure trying to stay warm on her own. Why are you doing this? he wondered, snow crunching under his paws as he followed after the girl - not much younger than he was, when he stopped to think about it, but somehow, impossibly young.
"Can I come with you?" he asked, hesitating to fall into step beside her. There was something about this girl that stopped him from his usual cavalier attitudes about personal space, and so he did not simply tackle her, as he had tackled Moonbrook on the day that they met. Still, behind his manners, there was a deep longing press his shoulder against hers, to protect her from the chill.
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - January 19, 2017
Laurel halted a moment when she heard someone coming, ears perking towards him, but then before she knew it his shoulder was already next to hers and it seemed that it didn't matter whether she would say yes or no to his request; he had already invited himself along. She didn't say anything at first, considering a snooty remark about him inviting himself along but then deciding that she'd taken too long to think on something anyway by then.
She opened her mouth to ask if he wasn't afraid she'd snap and kill him, but then she realised that he may not even know what had happened. She hadn't seen him before the move, so maybe he didn't know the source of the healing wounds in her neck and Tapat's scars. Better to keep it that way, then.
So instead, she decided to talk about what was going to happen, soon. "Where are we going to live?" she asked him eventually while she continued to plow through the snow, occasionally stopping to sniff at something or scratch at the snow in hopes of finding food underneath. It hadn't escaped her that Reek and Jhala had talked to him, and she couldn't imagine it was about anything else than claiming a new territory, considering this was not a safe way to live.
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - January 19, 2017
It was good that she didn't ask if he feared her; Dagfinn would have laughed. Even if he had heard of Laurel's misdeeds, the dark youth felt he had nothing to worry about. If Laurel attacked him, he would overpower her. It was as simple as that.
But she didn't ask, and he didn't laugh, and the winter night stretched on around them like a wildcat stretches in its sleep: peace for a time, but inherently dangerous. Dag didn't trust it, but he reveled in it all the same.
"There is a pack just over there," he answered, tilting his nose to indicate the direction of the Golden Glade. "Reek and Jhala will take it over, and we will help him."
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - January 22, 2017
Laurel looked at him as he spoke, revealing the plans of taking over another pack. She frowned, feeling her stomach drop. Would it really be that easy? It would've been fine had he only said that Reek and Jhala would take over the pack, but he said that they would help Reek take it over. What did that mean? Was there going to be fighting? Laurel's neck was still sore from where Jhala had torn into her flesh and she wasn't so sure she was ready to get hurt again, or maybe die.
"I don't want to fight," she said sullenly, looking like an angry teenager even if her feelings were much deeper than just that. "I'm not good at fighting at all, and I don't want to get hurt again."
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - January 22, 2017
"I'll protect you," Dagfinn said, the words leaving his mouth before he could truly think them over. It was a kneejerk reaction, but not one he would really consider taking back, either. He would protect Laurel, and he didn't mean to hurt her pride or anything... but it sounded like maybe she needed to hear it, anyway. Like maybe she needed to know someone would take care of her.
He was sure Reek and Jhala (lol) would tell her the same thing, but he wanted her to know that he would, too. They were all in this together, now.
"If you don't want to fight, you can just stay behind me. No one will get past," Dag went on, perhaps a bit too confidently.
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - February 02, 2017
Laurel was surprised when he said that he would protect her, maybe because she didn't feel like anyone had genuinely wanted to protect her all her life. It was easy to miss out on the wolves who had been there for her in the light of her disappearance to Larksong Grotto; she'd been so young, and already that period of her life was becoming a blur. She'd never intended to go to the Grotto forever, but when her mother had come to their borders demanding her to come back and then calling her names, she just couldn't bring herself to return to the mother that had left her just as much as Reek had. Perhaps it'd have been different if it had been Casmir and Laika at the front lines that day.
Still, it felt like the first time, and she smiled for a brief moment. She didn't think that Reek or Jhala would protect her at all (nor that they'd excuse her from fighting, because they needed everyone on board to be able to take over), but somehow the word of someone she didn't know at all seemed credible.
"Thank you," she said, feeling a little bashful all of a sudden, and she looked away shyly, though she had no idea why.
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - February 05, 2017
Dag puffed up like a happy tomcat when she accepted his offer, and thanked him for it. Belatedly, he realized that he was maybe flirting with her. It made his heart do a funny little flip, because he wasn't sure he knew how to flirt, but he tried to tamp those feelings down. He'd hate for Laurel to see how silly and awkward he could really be, especially since she seemed to maybe think well of him, now.
"Of course," he replied, a little bashful in turn. Not like he'd been with Amber, though. He felt stupid and a little childish with Laurel, but he didn't feel like... like a child. "We - we should be friends," he said, then. "Will you tell me about yourself?"
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - February 06, 2017
Laurel was confused and filled with mixed feelings when he seemed to grow shy, too, after he had just so boldly promised to protect her. She did not understand why; maybe some day she would, but not now. She didn't get why and found it a bit off-putting, and neither did she realise that he only mirrored her own bashfulness.
But it wasn't like there were many others who liked her and the boy Seff had left the Grotto. "No," she decided curtly, then, a bit softer and sadder, "All my friends just leave." She didn't want to make a friend only to have them ripped from her. "But we can hang out." Whatever that meant. She wasn't even really sure, but at least she had someone who would have her back when she needed it, and someone who cared; at least until he would run away from her, too.
She wasn't really sure what she should tell about herself. "What do you want to know? I'm pretty boring," she said without humour, because she really did think she was. Her ugly boring tan colours mirrored how she felt inside, and if even her own parents didn't find her all that interesting except to bargain and fight over, then why should she care about herself? Why should anyone?
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - February 06, 2017
An expression of surprised flickered across his face as she rejected his offer of friendship. Who didn't want more friends? Apparently Laurel. But, considering her next words, Dag wondered if maybe she just hadn't experienced true friendship yet. Not everyone was born with a best friend built right into their litter, after all. (But Laurel had been, unbeknownst to the dark youth.)
"Okay," he said firmly, accepting her offer to 'hang out'. "Is there anything you like to do for fun?" he hedged, hoping to do something that she would like. "My sister and I like to race when we see each other, or tell each other stories."
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - February 09, 2017
Laurel wasn't sure what she liked to do for fun anymore. It was so long ago that she had felt like she had had fun, that she was beginning to wonder if she'd ever really had any at all. "Dunno," she murmured at first. He offered some tips of things that he enjoyed doing, and she smiled meekly at his attempts to help.
"I used to like adventuring with my sister," she said, being reminded of Indra now that Dagfinn had brought up his. She wondered aloud, "Don't you ever miss your sister?" even though what she really was saying was, 'I miss my sister every day'.
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - February 09, 2017
Dagfinn smiled weakly at her response. Thoughts of sisters always led him straight to thinking about Lotte, and this time was no different. Still, he tried to push past this and think of Laurel first. "You have a sister, too?" he asked, surprised. Laurel seemed like such a loner - it was difficult to imagine her doing the same things that Dag did with his twin. Did she have that kind of joy in her? Had she ever?
"Kylla - yes," he responded with feeling, his voice made rough by sudden grief. "She is the other half of my heart. I miss her terribly, and I worry for her all the time. The last I saw of her, she was in a pack by the sea... but when I went to visit, it was to see that the forest she lived in had burned down - and she was gone."
He looked toward the younger wolf, hesitating before he asked: "What happened to your sister?"
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - February 13, 2017
"Yes," Laurel said, though the wry look on her face expressed that it wasn't anything to be joyful about, now. "She was my only friend at the Grotto. It's all my fault that we left Laika and Casmir to go with Reek. He promised us we'd be princesses, but —" She cut herself off and pursed her lips in anger as she looked away. "She's not around anymore now." Who knew where she was now.
Kylla, Laurel could only assume, had to be the name of his sister. The way he described his sister made her heart ache because missing Indra was a lot like missing half of her heart. It was like a part of her had been ripped away and it would never be replaced again.
"I don't know what happened. She just... Was gone, one day. But she'd never leave on her own, not without telling me, so something must've happened." Maybe they would've looked for her if she hadn't tried to kill Tapat. But the pups were probably part of why she had left, if she'd gone on her own. But why would she leave without consulting Laurel? What if Jhala had murdered Indra and hid the body, because she hated her children so much?
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - February 21, 2017
Dagfinn didn't know what to say. There didn't seem to be anything he could do to make this better, but he hated to see the grief writ across the liver of the girl's face. Everything about her seemed shrunken and dull; lifeless. "Not all things are someone's fault," he said after a moment. "Sometimes we do the best we can, but things turn out in ways we could never have imagined."
Like when he'd left Donnelaith that first time without speaking to Laerke. How could he have known that it would be his last chance to do so again? Sometimes, ambiguous choices led to the most foul consequences.
"If you ever want to look for her, I will help you," he offered.
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - February 27, 2017
Laurel didn't believe what he said, but she didn't comment on it much. She wanted to believe that, but everything that happened had consequences; she'd found out the hard way. At times she wished they'd never left the Creek. But at other times she thought maybe they were so close because they were all they had, each other. And now she was gone.
He offered to help look, and it made Laurel feel mixed because it seemed to imply that she hadn't looked good enough yet. "I don't even know where I'd look now," Laurel said. "She's probably long gone, I wouldn't find her scent. Is... the world big?" She asked the last question rather suddenly, as she realised she didn't even know how far Indra could go. She hoped it wasn't too big, but considering all the wolves she'd already passed in her life so far and the distances she'd travelled, she feared for the worst.
RE: put on your war face - Dagfinn - March 12, 2017
Dagfinn's ears laid back, more at the tone of her voice than her actual words. She was too young to sound so spent and dejected. He wondered if there was anything that could make her happy.
"It is," he answered, wishing he could say the opposite. "But fate has a funny way of throwing us back together. I wouldn't give up hope just yet - I wouldn't ever give up hope."
Sometimes looking wasn't even necessary. Dagfinn believed that Laurel would be reunited with her sister one day, just as he believed he would one day be reunited with Lotte. He would have believed it all the more if he'd known that he'd met Laurel's sister before - that he'd lived with her and her mother, had eaten the same meat.
RE: put on your war face - Laurel - March 20, 2017
'Don't give up hope' was kind of an easy solution for a difficult problem in Laurel's book, but she didn't say that on account of... Well, she wasn't even really sure why. Maybe because she liked Dagfinn, or maybe because it didn't matter if he knew her thoughts.
"I guess I should keep looking," she said and she wondered if maybe she should leave too and look for Indra rather than stick around in a place she wasn't happy at. But how could she ever tell her father and Jhala that? They would probably either ridicule her or chase her off, or maybe even kill her still. She was too afraid to admit that she wanted to leave.
maybe fade? :)