who are you for one, i don't feel again you

For.. @Jorunn !

She could not help but be suspicious of him. Jorunn reminded her of a less damaged Tryphon - plucked from his family at a young enough age that he might be able to adjust to a new one. If they allowed him to stay, of course. In Bazi's mind, he was still very much on probation. What if he carried some sort of dormant disease, and had been ejected from his previous pack because he posed too high a risk to its members? These thoughts circulated in Bazi's mind as she watched the children at play, following the Stavanger pup's every move with cold, staring eyes.

When night fell and the kids had all but exhausted themselves, she sought him out. Three of her own children slept in a fuzzy lump not far from their father, whose tail was wrapped around a lightly sleeping Swift. The stray slept nearby. Bazi crept forward, nudged him roughly with the bridge of her nose and whispered, "Get up. We're going for a walk."

Adjusting to what he took be his new life in Nova Peak was ...easier than he'd thought it would be; but things were horrendously different. He was used to knowing his place (at the top of the puppy heirarchy) and in Nova Peak he had to recognize the cold hard truth: that he was a stray. He didn't truly belong there, but his lack of knowledge about his home made finding it a near impossibility; and that was assuming he was still in the same area as Stavanger Bay. He had no concept of distance and had no idea how far the sea had actually tossed his body around before finally dumping it. The past days (or was it weeks?) had Jorunn on the best behavior he'd ever exhibited in his short life. There was no fighting over the best choice of meat — he let Scimitar and Bazi's children eat first and took what he was given. There was no assertion of his dominance; for while he still had the urge (used as he was to being the first born) he did not act upon them, playing the quiet, obedient orphaned child.

It was Jorunn's natural defense (though unintentionally likely also in his best interests) and he clung to it like it was a life jacket. He only played with the other children when he was invited too, and minded that he didn't play rough as he would have his siblings. His place was at the bottom here, and he knew it. He accepted it; which for the self-centered viking child was a huge achievement towards growing up. He was startled awake from his light sleep when he felt someone give him a rough nudge with their nose. Sleepily, he blinked up at the shadowed shape of Bazi, ears slicking submissively back to his skull as she whispered that they were going for a walk. She was easier for him to see in the dark and he had no trouble shuffling from the corner of their den he slept curled in and followed her outside. “Where we going?” He asked her, unable to help his childish curiousity, though his voice was soft and laced with traces of sleep.

Jorunn was a good boy - he blinked at her, eyes adjusting to the gloom, and followed her away from the group without complaint. When he asked where they were going, Bazi dismissed the question with a quietly spoken "Just away, so we don't wake your.." Brothers and sisters? ".. the others." She hurried them on, making a beeline for the nearby Bitcurrent. They could talk in whispers over the water without having to worry about being overheard.

It occurred to Bazi that she could kill him. Snap his throat, drain it into the water, and dump his body beyond the borders. It would look like he ran off in the night, and the river would hide the deed. The pale mother shook her head. No. He was just a boy - if his pack was far enough away, there was no reason why she couldn't return him. He certainly didn't belong to Saena, and smelled nothing like any pack she had ever encountered. But then, he had been on his own for quite some time.

When the trickle of water was loud enough to distort their voice, she turned back to the boy that was following her. "You need to tell me where you came from," Bazi told him in a low voice. "So I can take you back."

I kind of find this sort of ironic if only because of Ragnar x Bazi's previous run-in(s) with one another. :P And now she's looking after one of his kiddos, hehe.

Bazi responded to he sleepy question, explaining that she was just leading him away so that they didn't wake the others. From what? Jorunn itched to ask one half of his new guardians but kept the question back. He was not comfortable around either of them yet, and this kept him well tempered; or perhaps it was the cause of the trauma he'd endured that had forced him to mature a little more faster than he was supposed to. At any rate, he was beginning to recognize that he couldn't just rudely intterupt others with a question just because he had one. His mother had let him get away with a lot of things, he realized; things that some sort of primal instinct within him told him to keep chained. He didn't give her any sort of verbal response when she'd responded to him, tagging along because she'd told him to. She was the adult, after all.

Their path took them to a water source — the tell tale trickle of nearby water a dead ringer. For a moment, there was a swell of panic within Jorunn's chest and he habitually inhaled sharply, his heart beginning to pound in his chest. It was not the same sound as the sea; nor was Bazi a bear, but moving water was not associated with anything good for Jorunn, currently. His steps slowed, becoming more hesitant, ears pinning back to his skull as he looked up at her when she glimpsed back to see that he was following. His steps were tentative, heavy and reluctant, but he couldn't disobey her, no matter how tense he felt inside.

“I...” He took a deep breath, a greedy sort of gasp as he steeled his shoulders and kept on. He needed to conquer his fear. He was pretty sure she wasn't going to eat him, or turn into a bear, for that matter; and for what it was worth while he was weary he felt safe enough here in Nova Peak. “I dunno it's name.” This was what you got when you were a self-centered brat that didn't pay attention to much of anything the adults had told him. You missed out on important information. He was honest, at least, even if it meant he would likely never see his family again. There was a small part of him that didn't want to return. What would he find if they could return him? Would Floki be dead? Charon? Atreyu? What if the bear went after one of them after the sea stole him away? He shuddered to think about it and so he didn't, fixing his eyes on Bazi, taking in the details that the cover of night provided his monochromacy. It was easier to see by night, by far, he'd learned.

"I d'no it's name." Bazi stared. Was this kid fucking serious? She resisted the urge to ask the boy if he'd been born yesterday - perhaps his mother had dropped him on his head as a young pup, or the trauma of losing his family had affected his ability to retain information. Bazi made a gruff noise and sat down, directing Jorunn to do the same. "You must remember something," she urged in hushed tones, angling one ear towards the sleeping family in case a nosy pup woke up and decided to follow. "Smells? Sounds? What was your mother's name?" Bazi had not met Thistle Cloud, and she would not remember any of the now-departed Ragnar's names if Jorunn repeated them.

Gosh, that feels like such a long time ago now!

Jorunn wasn't sure how to explain to her that even if he had retained it, he would not have been able to effectively pronounce it; but the truth was he hadn't retained it's name. Jorunn was self serving, and he'd had no realistic need to know it yet. It wasn't as if he'd planned on the events unfolding. If he'd had some sort of foreshadowing he might have paid more attention; life rarely gave foreshadowing ...so here he was. Unhelpful. Dissapointment resounded within him, but it wasn't like he could do anything about it. Jorunn associated Bazi's noise with disapproval and felt his shoulders slump as he plopped, without a lick of grace, down upon his butt heaving a heavy sigh. Even with Scimitar and Bazi, Jorunn did not relish in the idea of being a dissapointment. He took it hard and frowned at the dirt beneath his sandy colored paws. He didn't know his mother's name, either. She was just 'Mama' to him; and he'd never had any reason to call her anything different.

“The sea,” Likely also unhelpful; but it was something, he thought, right? His birth pack was located near the sea. “And...a bear.” His shoulders tensed as he remembered it's unpleasantly large shape, dark grey as it barreled towards him, jaws parted to reveal greyscale teeth. It was the bear's fault — all of this, he was determined to place the blame upon the beast as opposed at his own paws. He shouldn't have interrupted it but all he'd wanted to do was play. He shook his head, ears drooping communicating that he didn't know her by any other names then 'mama'; but for the sake of wanting to avoid further dissapointment he didn't verbalize it (as if they would actually spare him it). He didn't bother giving her his father's name because it was irrelevant to him — always had been. He couldn't remember Ragnar and the only knowledge of him Jorunn had was because of the stories Thistle had told; but Ragnar wasn't a help because he was dead. Jorunn might not have truly grasped the concept of death in it's entirety but he knew that it meant he wasn't there and never coming back.

The sea. Disappointment rose like a tide in Bazi's eyes. She had spent weeks trying to coax details out of Tryphon - also 'of the sea' - to no avail, and he was a fully grown adult with a grown man's vocabulary. Perhaps she could walk the boy along the coast and hope that his parents were still nearby, but that wasn't without risk. Ideally, he would simply.. find his own way. Bazi huffed. "A bear," she repeated, perplexed and agitated by this unhelpful detail. "Did you hit your head on the way out of The Sea? Come on - there has to be more you can tell me. Did you have a pack? A mother? Is it a big pack? I'm not waltzing into enemy territory with you without all the information," she snapped, temper flaring out of control for a brief moment.

His silence hadn't spared him her further dissapointment, he saw as he glimpsed up at her face. His gaze only studied her facial expression for a few seconds before it lowered back to the dirt at his paws. She repeated the word 'bear' and while Jorunn had to admit that it could have easily sounded like something out of a child's imagination he hadn't imagined the bear. “Yeah, a bear.” He repeated solemly. He would be happy if he never saw one again, though he gave a slight shake of his head. No. Maybe he could train and when he grew big and strong he could become a “bear slayer”, in vengence of what that bear caused him and his family, and what bears everywhere caused for young wolf pups. “Yes,” Yes, he had a pack. Yes, he had a mother. Had. For all he knew the bear might have went after them, too, when it was clear her target: him, was no longer within her grasp. “No, small.” At least Jorunn was pretty sure what he knew everyone in Stavanger Bay. Maybe he'd missed a few wolves but he'd been familiar with most of them, at least.

“B-but,” The idea of him going back home was a welcomed one but it also caused panic to rise in his chest, at the same time. What if the bear was still there? What if they returned him and it came back? He'd rather stay here with Scimitar and Bazi then return with the possibility that the bear would return to complete the deed. “the bear,” He squeaked, hiccuping the word. “What if it comes back for mes?!” His chest heaved as he neared hysteria, blinking up at her. Surely she wouldn't take him back and throw him at the bear? Or...maybe she would.

Jorunn's monosyllabic responses did little to solve the mystery of his origins. Small pack by the sea, something about a bear. Bazi was on the cusp of asking for more details about this bear and its role in bringing him to Nova Peak when Jorunn's breathing quickened, as if the scene of a nightmare had fallen over his eye. She crinkled a brow at him, opened her mouth to answer that there were no bears at Nova Peak - the adults of the pack worked hard to ensure it.

But then she had an idea.

She lowered herself to Jorunn's level, sliding her forelegs forward until her chest made contact with the ground. "It might," she told him, meeting his eye. "You're right. I've seen it, stalking around the edge of the territory. It's clear to me now.. you were supposed to die out there, but Scimitar rescued you - and now the bear can't come in because you belong to this pack. You owe my husband your life. Understand?" Her cold eyes bored into him. "You have to be a good boy, and serve this pack and my children. You have to tell the truth - always, about everything. Have you been telling me the truth about where you came from? You aren't sick, or leading someone in here? I have to give you back to the bear if you misbehave. Those are the rules."

Jorunn watched her with wide eyes, pupils blown large in their crystalline blue and silver irises so that there was but a thin sliver of color in his panic as she lowered herself to his level. His ears slicked back to his skull as she spoke as sharp gasp ripping itself from his lips. It might. Oh no. The bear might come back for him after all! He didn't want that to happen. If he never saw another bear in his life he'd be a happy guy. A small whimper escaped from his lips and his tail curled in close to his back leg when she spoke that she'd seen it around Nova Peak's territory. It was looking for him. If Jorunn'd been old enough to understand that bears didn't obey pack borders like wolves were supposed to, he might have called her logic into question. But he was young and naive and fell like a moth to a flame into Bazi's manipulation. As long as he remained in Nova Peak he was safe then. This, at least, was easy enough for Jorunn to grasp. “Yes,” The young legend gasped. “Yes, yes!” He nearly begged. “I will be a good boy an-and stuffs.” Anything she wanted just as long as she didn't throw him to the bear. 

“No, I's not sick and I'm alone. The sea took mes. No one's coming.” He didn't necessarily know that it was true but there was no trail to lead him to Nova Peak. His scent had been erased by the salt water, making it unfamiliar to those that knew him, though the sea wouldn't have left them much of a trail to follow, as it was. He didn't know these things, rather only that no one but Scimitar had found him and that had been days (a week?) after he'd washed up on the shore. In Jorunn's mind: if they were looking they'd have found him before Scimitar but they hadn't; and while he wasn't sick he didn't tell her that he couldn't see color but that was only because he didn't realize that his inability to see colors wasn't normal. For all Jorunn knew everyone else saw the world in black, white, and shades of gray, also.

That seemed to do it. Jorunn pleaded with her, promising that he was neither sick nor the harbinger of disease or attack. Bazi pretended to take her time with his response, studying his face for any trace of dishonesty. The air between grew thick with manufactured tension. "Alright," she conceded eventually, glancing left and right in the manner of a practised conspirator. "You can stay. But keep this talk to yourself - the others musn't know about the bear. If they don't know, it can't hurt them." Because, you know, that's how bears work. Bazi straightened up and half-turned back to the pile of sleeping bodies that made up her family. "Go on back to sleep," she whispered. Bazi herself needed time alone to come to terms with exactly why she was manipulating a child.

Last post from me!

Jorunn nodded — perhaps with more vigor and eagerness than the situation required but he wanted to be absolutely sure that Bazi knew he wasn't going to tell anyone. His lips were sealed. He didn't trust himself to speak, afraid that his childish voice might squeak when Bazi put the fear of the Gods in his heart (or perhaps the fear of herself?). All Jorunn knew was that she had the power to throw him back to the bear if he wasn't good and that he didn't want to ever see another bear as long as he lived. ...Or at least until he was big and strong enough to take one down, at any rate. She dismissed him, encouraging him to go back and sleep and dutifully Jorunn turned and hurried back to the den, finding his corner in the back and snuggled up against the wall, curling in on himself, squeezing his eyes shut hoping that it was not of bears he dreamed.