Blackbeak Bluff any thoughts of guilt, any feelings of regret, had faded

@Faeryn

he stood at the edge of the earth with the wind whipping against his frame. illidan should have felt a fear for the safety that he cast aside and the life that he seemed to care so little for. instead, he leaned his long-legged frame over the edge and breathed deep the scent of the ocean below. one shift of the wind and he would have plummeted to his death. the wildling figured that if that was his intended way to leave the earth, then he would not fight against it. when the gusts did not claim his life, the dark-hooded youth turned and began to trace the edge of the cliff at a careful pace.
 
from up there, the world seemed so small beneath him. the sea that had appeared endless and fierce was nothing more than a stretch of glimmering blue-grey. he thought it foolish that he had ever felt intimidated by the ocean when he was capable of moving far away from its reach. his perch on the cliffs was sign enough of that; from up there, nothing below him could cause him harm. there, illidan felt indomitable.

Bump to present day? <3

It was a good thing Raleska hadn't seen Illidan lean against the wind or tempt fate, because she probably would have shrieked in terror; loud enough to startle him and probably, in all likelyhood, cause him to slip to his rocky, wet doom. As it was she was quite far away, but she came upon the boy as he stood on a perch, his breast stiff and a wild, willful look in his gaze.

She trotted up to him with a loose wag of her tail, studying his face to see if he was hunting or just staring at the endless sea. "Whatcha doin'?" She ventured, clambering up alongside him to survey the grey, windy domain below.

fine with me<3

a familiar voice pulled him from his thoughts. the boy turned his dark crown toward her and offered a questioning look. for a moment, he felt as though he was experiencing something else. the wind whipped against his frame for a long few seconds before it died away and left the two siblings standing on the edge of the earth. illidan shook his head, hoping to chase away the thoughts that plagued him.
 
“i was curious about the edge. you think if the wind was blowing hard enough and someone stepped off, they’d float?” he proposed the idea to her after taking another quick glance over the side. it was a risk that he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to ever make. the chance that it might work was too slim for him to take the plunge. perhaps someday in the future, he would find himself there and ready to make a different choice.

The wind picked up around them as Illidan spoke, and Raleska strained her ears to hear his answer over the loud chorus. It appeared he wasn't hunting after all - a tidbit that was perfectly fine with Raleska, because she wasn't in the mood to do much of anything.

She shivered as a rather sharp burst of wind clawed up her spine, averting her gaze from the cliffside. Illidan's thought of them floating was met with a bemused smile, but she didn't mock him for it. She didn't know enough about gravity to know how absurd that was. "Hmm.. I don't know. We could experiment, maybe." She rose suddenly and searched the area wildly, finding a long bough of fallen pine not too far from them. Carrying it back rather stiffly, Raleska muttered a muffled "Mfwatsh 'dis," and then hurled her mouthful of tree over the cliffs, watching as the wind did nothing and it hurtled to the depths below.

it was good that she hadn’t laughed at him. the reaction likely would have caused him to seek silence instead of voicing his curiosities in the future. raleska was so willing that she even wandered over to find a bundle of… crap that she flung over the edge of the cliff with no more than a muffled warning. illidan followed the debris as it fluttered in the air for a moment before it dropped toward the rocky depths at the bottom of the steep foundation.
 
something in him said that it would still be okay. he should still step over the edge to prove it to her. his body kept him rooted in his place, but he could not help but venture a look over the edge one last time. then, he fixed his hawkish gaze on his sister with a smile that could have been mistaken for charming. “good thing i didn’t test it by jumping,” he remarked with a soft chuckle. “you’re pretty smart,” illidan then offered to his sibling – the dark girl was still a stranger to him. he realized that he knew very little about her at all.

It was so very good that Raleska couldn't read Illidan's mind -- those thoughts were black and troubling, and she was better off being unaware of them.

She glanced over the cliff where the earth fell away and nothing but sky hung -- the sea snarled below, but somehow she knew hitting the water from this high would be like hitting stone. It looked so distant and frothy; a chill climbed up her skull.

"Of course I'm smart." Raleska rebuked, somewhat indignant that was ever even a question. Her parents were the brightest wolves she knew -- unless she was dropped on her head a lot, which she wasn't, there was no reason she wasn't at least as intelligent as them. Her fur rifled in affront, but the girl's prickly demeanor shifted. "We all are,"  she added, hoping to soften his reaction to her sudden flare in temper.

illidan was surprised at his sister’s quick reaction. he recoiled against her words with a worried crease of his brow. what had he said to inspire such a quick turn of her head, the fiery snapping of her comeback? he thought he might have offended her or caused her to believe that he considered her stupid before that moment. he had never thought raleska to be stupid… but he did not know her well enough to realize just how quick her mind worked.
 
“i don’t know about that… you weren’t the one who was going to test it by walking off the edge,” he responded to her in a quiet tone. he still had not moved back to where he had been before. the space between them was all that he believed was saving him from an outburst. the wariness on his features was swallowed the dark color of his coat. his sharp yellow gaze was glued to her, haunted looking in the dismal lighting.

Raleska hadn't intended to be so sharp in her retort, but there it was. She could see Illidan's mind shifting, the surprise subtle but not undetectable. She tried on a reassuring smile for size - she hadn't meant to be offensive, she was just a girl that knew her strengths and was proud of them.

"Well, you lived and learned." She answered, trying to keep a semblance of neutrality to her tone. By now her fur had calmed, and the only thing keeping it slightly at ends was the wind rifling through it. "So next time maybe you throw a stick, or someone who annoys you first." She stepped away from the edge with a grin, as if she expected him to fling her overboard next.

Attempting to evince some sort of play out of her brother, Raleska daringly nipped at his tail - and then without much of an apology, bolted back towards home.