Moonstone Quarry And The Light may Shine in Your Eyes

He had Strayed from the forest, taking a moment alone from the confines of the pack. Even a warrior from time to time tired of bloodshed and politics. 
He had found himself wandering a bit until he came to a section of Craggy cliffs, nothing remarkable at first glance. Until he saw flashes of chatoyancy jutting from an exposed bit of stone. 
He marveled at it for a moment, not sure if he wanted to bother digging the shimmering stone out, not typically being one for trinkets. 
His mind carried him to Cole, and he knew his mate would have loved this place. Before he knew what he was doing he released a howl; long, slow, mourning. There were never many wolves like himself that favored males...The reality that he would have to choose a female mate or be alone for the foreseeable future suddenly dawned on him.

*yoinks off page 2* :D

Mal had wandered farther than normal -- he needed time to think and some distance so that he didn't run into a packmate in the wrong state of mind. For a little while he'd considered himself even kind of lost, but he'd recently found the path he'd taken to get here in the first place and was fairly sure that he would find his way out and home in not too long. This place he'd wandered into was certainly different, but its proximity to Moonspear meant he wasn't going to linger if he had any choice in the matter. He didn't trust those wolves, no matter how reasonable they might act on second meeting.

And so he was wandering when the howl came from somewhere up the path ahead -- assuming echoes weren't tricking him -- and the way the patch of rock he was on had been so far, it didn't seem likely that he'd even have much of a choice but to see who it was. Sounded like someone else wasn't having too good of a time out there. Join the club or something. Mal was all too familiar with his own gloom and doom -- it was a throwback to what he thought he left behind, but maybe it was what he needed right now. He kept walking.

Eventually someone did come into view. It had been long enough that Mal didn't recognize the pack scent, but whoever this kind of messed up guy was, it had to have been him howling. Mal had seemed to have left his grinning countenance at home today, his expression was relatively flat. Not a good day, huh? was his bit of musing. His mind was otherwise too wrapped on what to do about Cupid, about how much of himself he might be losing if he did opt to forget. About what it meant. All of that. Right now some stranger's presence didn't come with the weight or responsibility that a familiar person did. For that he was thankful.

He flicked an ear at the sound of approaching pawsteps, a dusting of snow beginning to collect on his pelt. For a moment the male braced himself, years of training leading him to expect attack, but he settled down quickly. The male looked as bleak as he felt. 
"I have had far too many Not Good Days," he answered with a sigh. "Now I am simply mourning the thing that made those days better- at least until he didn't." 
He watched, somewhat tensely for the males reaction. If he made the connection, there was a chance that yet again, he would be called unnatural, and driven off. This place was too beautiful to have blood spilt on it.

The guy seemed more reactive than Mal was. It stood out to him, but maybe that was because so often it felt like he was the one being found and pestered or what-have-you, so this time Mal was seeing the other side of the coin. How would it have worked if he actually did put in the effort? Something to figure out later. Now was not the time. But you got good days. That's better than me. Whether Mal made the connection or not wasn't too clear -- he was a big follower of the 'not giving a damn' school of thought when it came to stuff that wasn't going to kill him. There were too many other worries out there to waste the effort.

No, Mal was the product of everyone else's distrust, ignorance, whatever. He had done nothing wrong and yet the world wronged him. Eventually he had found his footing, he had crawled out of that pit, only to be dumped again in another because in the end, nothing had changed. And right now Mal was just done trying for the day.

He sensed a sort of comeraderie, a mutual frustration with the cruelty of fate. "When life attacks your throat, you bare your fangs and rip its face off."  He answered, somewhat bluntly. He was relieved that the male currently seemed too exhausted to confront him, or perhaps he had managed to be vague enough to not draw attention to himself. "Silly, and sentimental. The idea of love. The foolish puphood promises. Now here I am sitting in the snow, staring at a foxdunging rock, howling like a lovesick shewolf." 

He gave the metaphor some thought, then shook his head, More like shoving you into a hole and sitting there watching to see if you'll die. Again and again. His life hadn't been particularly violent. It was just empty, full of bad luck and failed promises. Of things he couldn't change just based on their nature.

As he continued, Mal, on the other hand, couldn't really relate. He had always stood alone. He questioned whether the scattered remnants of his family would say they loved him, or if that obligation of blood was just not enough to inspire that feeling. He had no idea how easy or hard it might be for someone else to move on, but he didn't have much of a choice if he wanted to stay alive. But you know it. So is it not worth trying to find again or something? An interesting experiment to consider. Was it worth trying to make sure that he wasn't tossed aside? Would he actually want it? Uncertain.

He couldn't quite relate to the bitter sentiment, but he could understand where the other male was coming from. 
A bitter laugh escaped his lips. "I'm stubborn. Way too stubborn to die. " He cocked his head, exposing the scar on his neck. "Not that anyone hasn't tried." 
At the second comment, he hesitated. "It's not so easy when you..." He swallowed. "When you prefer males." 

Mal was also stubborn, but generally tried to avoid the whole fighting thing in the first place. If someone hated him that much, he was more apt to just avoid them. It kept him all in one piece. He did eye the scars though. Nah, he preferred keeping his fur pretty much pristine.

Mal didn't get what the fuss was about. What, do people actually get bent out of shape about that somewhere? He hadn't thought too hard about it. He had been too young to really noticed his own father's relationship with Alarian, and though he hated Seabreeze and Olive, it was more because they were awful people to him rather than who they liked. There's a lot of packs around here. If yours is being an ass about it, can't you just find another? It seemed like a pretty easy solution to him -- like everything in his life, if people were going to be jerks, then his answer was to go find somewhere where they wouldn't. His loyalties were to himself and none others.

He was taken aback by the reaction. "Actually, my pack doesn't know. I...my birth pack is not from here. And I was almost killed as a yearling for it." 
The snow was beginning to chill him, and he found himself wishing for spring, and with it, warmer weather.

There were indeed times like this where Mal was rather to-the-point.. Like this. This guy had an opportunity that Mal was pretty sure just wasn't there for him at all. Well I don't know about where you're from now, but if they give you issues, leave. Like I don't care in my pack. I'm sure others don't either. A pause, But if that's the issue, then you can fix that. And go be happy later. At least some people should be. Only link in Mal's personal failings was himself.

For such a smart wolf it was beginning to Dawn on him how rather dense he could be. He stood, shaking the snow out of his pelt and eyeing the glittering moonstone again. The ground was frozen for now, or he would have tried to dig it out. 
"I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me, but thank you. I...You deserve happiness as well. I hope you find whatever you are looking for." 

Maybe it was a bad thing that Mal pretty much had no loyalty to anyone but himself. Eh. Maybe not? Depended on your perspective. This probably qualified as his good deed for the week, at least. That goes for anything by the way. There are a lot of packs around here. Some are really not great. Others are probably ok. Don't waste your time with people who don't deserve it. It was kind of a slightly mangled version of what Mahler had told him ages ago. He didn't remember the specifics any more, but it was something along those lines.

Then a shrug, Doubt I will that easily. But thanks for the thought I guess. Yeah, Mal had such high expectations for himself, didn't he?

He shrugged. "Not every wolf is good for every type of pack. A wolf like me...I can't do regular packs. Not with what I've been through. What I've done." It wasn't any admission of guilt or the like, but a statement of fact.

And yet this guy seemed to have inadvertently stumbled across one of the key parts that Mal had sort of based his own pack on. Needless ot say, he had Opinions on this, so it made his reply sharper than it had been before. A spark of life, even if it was still kind of tired. You just saying that because that's what people keep saying to you back wherever you're from? This is a new place. You don't have to be what they wanted you to be. Spite them. Be something else. His brow had creased into a stubborn frown. His own frustration at the world brewing, he started forward again, looking for where his path was winding so he could head home, but he only went a few yards.

Again the man's words cut like sawgrass. It was Ironic- he was a 4 year old, fully mature wolf, and yet somehow, was as blind as a yearling. 
it had never occurred to him to just be different. Was there anything different from who he was? Even as a pup he had carried this madness. Nix had sharpened it. Honed it. Gave it a purpose. 
Some of the more vile acts he would never see himself doing again- that was change, wasn't it? But at his heart he had always been a killer. A warrior. A hunter. The only time his mind seemed to quiet was at the spill of blood.
He blinked, forcing himself out of the circular thoughts and noted that the male was leaving. Or attempting to, anyway. 
"The least I can do is help you find a safe path out of here. I'm headed back to the Haunted Woods, wherever you are going is probably along the way." 

Blink, pause. Okay, I gotta say it. Haunted Wood? I gotta say that's a name ripe for the changing right there. He almost sounded actually amused. He hadn't pieced together what the pack was, though. Other than just "a forest," the specific location of the Nightwalkers hadn't been mentioned -- and there were quite a few forests out there.

Mal had continued looking for some of the landmarks he remembered, but was listening at the same time. He seemed to consider it and then not come to a decision one way or another.  Good job, Mal, really decisive. I mean, if you want -- I'm pretty sure the way I got in here is up ahead... Somewhere. But I'm heading east -- my forest isn't very far, it's just a rough road. Was it really along the way?  He didn't care too much -- then again, he was big on the not caring about stuff right now.

He heaved himself to his paws and eyed the crags around them. "This way." He finally declared with a note of finality. He chuckled at the jab at the name. "Yeah, the Nightwalkers have a flair for the dramatic, I guess. Typical for packs like ours." For a moment he wondered if the fact he was a Nightwalker would change the other wolf's view of him. 
He made his way through the rocks,  guiding them both out of the quarry. 
"Never caught your name."

Of course the edgelords would live in that place. Though Mal followed and wasn't in a mood to trust anyone to start, he kept a mental note to just make sure there weren't any tricks if a particularly suspicious bit of path arose. Maybe it was all a trick. They were far enough from the Nightwalkers home turf that it seemed unlikely, but better to be wary of wolves that had never proven to be trustworthy than to toss that all to the wind because one seemed slightly reasonable.

He was certainly in a speak-your-mind kind of mood, A good pack if you want to keep doing things the rest of the world doesn't like. Whatever this guy did in the past, Nightwalkers probably thought it was awesome. They'd probably want him to do whatever it was more, because given how they'd behaved when Mal had run across them, he doubted they had anything even vaguely resembling morals. Mal. Yours?

He gave a wry smile at the male's sentiment. He had expected, and therefore wasn't surprised,  by the reaction to the pack he called home. 
"A good pack if you have a skill and do it well. An even better pack if you have been in a similar pack since 6 months old, and were trained extensively in that skill." He was a fighter and a killer. And damn good at them, too. He had the makings of an alpha, too, but he didn't want to be too boastful. The guilt he carried in him wasn't for being what he was, but for the horrible acts Nix had taught him to do- slaughtering pups and shewolves, torturing insubordinate wolves, forcibly breeding shewolves. There was so much blood on his paws he marveled that he wasn't stained crimson.  He flicked an ear at the name, and gave his own. " My mother said I looked exactly like my grandfather. I was a bad memory made to haunt her. As I grew, it became obvious my grandfather's pelt wasn't all I inherited."

Mal didn't have any idea why anyone wanted to keep being a monster -- or at least not when there were other choices were available. This guy seemed to not really want the chance to change. Who wanted to be irredeemable? Memory, apparently. His expression continued to stay reasonably grim as it had been.

In that aspect, Mal saw himself as certainly stronger. Nothing was going to stop him from being what he wanted to be, and his goal was to be better. Better than all of them. And he was. He might not be perfect nor always likable but he was a hell of a lot better than anything Nightwalkers had dredged up. They would just continue to be best kept at arm's length or farther as he'd hope from afar that they'd dissolve when the snow melted (though he'd accept before then as well). But you're just gonna keep doing the same thing. And keep being whatever other people tell you to be. I guess at this point it is your choice. All that talk about woe is him, he can't be normal or whatever was because he didn't want to be normal. It left Mal wanting the path to fork so he could part and not wonder about what else might be lurking -- as how could you trust someone who made that choice? Even if Mal thought he had purposely done the wrong thing with Cupid, he'd tried to fix it, even if the choice was ultimately out of his hands. He was actually forced. Again he look past for familiar landmarks, annoyed at the fact things always looked so strange from the opposite direction.

It was an interesting juxtaposition, that was true. 
But he was no longer a pup, no longer a victim of a busy, exhausted mother, an absent father, an uncontrollable desire, a ruthless, manipulative alpha, or his own ignorance. 
"We aren't all gifted with the privilege to be other than our natures. But, we can make choices. Just because I am scarred, just because I am skilled in combat, just because I live a certain lifestyle, does not mean I will repeat what I was taught growing up. But you see my choices and actions as Evil, because you have been taught that those actions are evil. Just as I have been taught that your packs, and actions, are weak." 
Perhaps if he spoke long enough, he could prove that although bloodlust and insanity were common among his type, they weren't all bad. 
"I mourn my mate, and my losses, because circumstances were beyond my control when....when those things happened." 
He picked his way carefully through the crest of the Quarry, his paws finally finding sparse grass between the stones.

Mal's opinion of Memory was dropping like a stone. He was acting like everything was so very surface level -- did he think Mal was stupid? Trying to help him was pointless, he really did just want an excuse to keep being awful, like somehow that'd make things morally alright or something. No, Mal needed to find his way out and get away from this guy as soon as he'd be able. Stuff was starting to look more familiar -- if he had to, he was pretty sure he could just take off and be able to find his way in not too long. He'd keep it in a metaphorical pocket and just wait for now. Maybe Memory would just scram on his own.

You don't know a damn thing about my pack, he retorted sharply. And at this point, Mal intended to keep it that way.  This has nothing to do with people liking fighting or what the hell ever -- Nightwalkers want to screw with people and get away with it. If you can't see you're shacking up with people that are happy being seen as thieves and practically drooling for a chance to kill people, you're blind. They aren't afraid to show that face to everyone. Their possible alliance came with an implied threat. They had boldly spoken of stealing from him. They'd even misunderstood him in ways he hadn't wanted to correct. No one wolf was going to suddenly make Nightwalkers a pack that anyone should trust -- it would probably would be easier to dissolve it and rebuild on a more amiable blank slate than anything else.

He had half a mind to tear the man in half. But if he did, what would that prove? Exactly the accusations he was being given. 
no.. perhaps he had a point. Nix had drilled loyalty and violence into his mind and heart. But now he knew what he was doing. He was Valour's tutor. He could teach him something different, something new. Quietly reshape the Nightwalkers from within. And then help him overthrow Hela. And if he failed, he would flee. Perhaps to Moonspear. "If you are so threatened by my presence, leave. I won't stop you, and I certainly won't harm you. You've given me a lot to think about, and although everything I have been taught is screaming at me, you may be right. I....I have lost sight of myself." 

Yeah, at this point Mal just needed to get away and go home. He had his own issues to go through and all he was doing here was wasting his time dealing with someone else's and he wasn't even sure the guy really wanted the help. And after all that was said, Mal wasn't going to risk giving a Nightwalker any sort of ammo to use against him later. There were too many ways for that to go wrong and he didn't want to see any of them.

Still, he was pretty sure he was back on track now, and up ahead where the track opened up they'd be able to go different ways. Literally, figuratively, both. Mal wouldn't be sad if he didn't see Memory again if he was gonna keep down the same figurative path. Less trouble. I've been getting out of here. You're not going to be going the way I am up ahead. So good luck or whatever. All up to you if you do anything in the end. Why did it seem like so many people were making choices that weren't good ones? Whatever. Some of them couldn't be helped. Maybe some could, but at this point it was up to them. Mal could only do so much. It wasn't like he was going to stick around for long goodbyes, either -- Mal was going to just keep walking.