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+--- Thread: Seaside Moors i'm highly animated, even though i'm decomposing (/showthread.php?tid=42575)
i'm highly animated, even though i'm decomposing - Val - July 14, 2020
week eight of raleska's bastard children -- never had valravn's biological mother expected them to live this long. it was not as if her life had gone as planned: she had never expected to get pregnant, never could have foreseen her encounter with dacio, and certainly, would have never predicted she would dump the subsequent brood on rosalyn. raleska's guilt was tremendous, and she often lurked near @Rosalyn's den, bringing what morsels she managed. it was a relief that neither regin nor valravn remembered her, but raleska hadn't taken any chances by sticking around any time they came out.
her limp seemed as if it might be permanent. while she avoided interaction with the puppies as a general rule (to look upon them was to be freshly reminded of how she had betrayed her own blood), today she came across valravn playing quietly with a stick at the den's mouth.
raleska froze, the seal flipper in her jaws nearly slipping free. valravn looked so much like how she remembered rhakios. a bolt of discomfiture hit her as the trauma of her early days roared deafeningly to the surface --discomfiture that transferred into raw and ugly shame.
she thought it was best to move before he saw her. so, raleska tried to lightly step away only to have the boy look up, startled ----
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"fuck,"
valravn jumped at the stranger's voice, having seen raleska's shadow linger in the fringes of his sight. he knew her only as the wispy wayfarer that occasionally came by their den. sometimes she brought interesting trinkets, but she never stayed. occasionally he had caught her talking with his maman, but any time he had brightly wagged his tail and approached, the stranger slipped off.
he didn't think much of the stranger when she disappeared: out of sight, out of mind.. but today, she looked like she had seen a ghost -- today, she didn't instantly turn tail and run. moreover, today their eyes met for the first time, and valravn felt a stirring of strange familiarity in his subconsciousness he could not place.
curious as that was, he was way more interested in what was in her mouth.
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the second thing raleska noticed was that valravn's eyes were transitioning to a soft color utterly foreign from the rest of her family.
raleska expected that both he and his sister would inherit the glaring yellow of her mother. it was such a prominent trait of her damline -- it tore through the entirety of her family like a well-aimed bullet -- surely, how could he dodge it?
raleska dreaded ever looking into those eyes again. the very idea she would see caiaphas' eyes blazing back at her had filled her with sour, repulsive terror.
it was not caiaphas' gaze that stared back, set inquisitively between valravn's dark face. there was no hateful yellow, no wicked shrewdness -- only a genial and soft olive breaking through the nebulous blue of his youth like a muted sunburst.
thank fucking god -- raleska didn't think she could handle much more familial resemblance in the child that had once been his. for the briefest of moments she wondered how his sister fared -- did she also bear the sigil of dacio's influence, were her eyes the same phlegmatic and dusky green their sire had been? surely, if dacio had come through in valravn, he would do the same to @Regin, right?
sidetracked by her thoughts, raleska startled just as valravn did when she turned her attention back to him and saw he had literally teleported under her nose in the span of a second --
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treat? toy? gimme! val's eyes lit up in excitement as he seized his opportunity and leapt for the goodies in raleska's jaws. he had zero compunction about being so close to this stranger, even though somewhere in his fading thoughts there were alarm bells ringing.
he ignored them, as he would likely do for the rest of his life. his teeth closed around the flipper and his eyes nearly widened in surprise to feel how rubbery, how dexterous, the foreign object seemed. it slipped from the stranger's grasp like it had been oiled in butter -- with a high squeal valravn bolted victoriously back to his favorite spot with his ropy tail flouncing behind him.
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shithead thief! raleska jumped a second time as she felt the flipper ripped from her jaws, watching as the offending sootsprite scooted back to his spot and set the flipper in his jaws, chewing and pawing at the bony proffering with clear overexcitement. raleska's eyes narrowed as she watched after the scoundrel. he was so engrossed in his new toy, that she was able to slip away without him even noticing.
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whatever this was, valravn was thoroughly enjoying it. it was crunchy and soft at the same time, a perfect paradox of gristle and rubber; he better not let regin or chacal see this. in his euphoria, valravn never saw the wraith leave. when at last he remembered she had been present he looked about him, saw that she was gone, and continued his ravenous worrying of the seal's appendages.
valravn chewed furiously at the meat for some time, and then when his jaws were tired and sore, toted the prized toy back inside. he sat atop it like a smoky smaug, curling into a ball and eventually falling asleep.