Ravensblood Forest the lament of pretty baby

@Rollo

[table width=85%][tr][td]

It only took Kitsch a few days to recover from her famished state. Kitsch’s gamine form had easily filled out  and a youthful curvature returned to her limbs, chest and backside once more. She still looked hollow in places but the young pearl was no where near the state she had found herself in at Teaghlaigh’s borders, starving and clinging tightly to her one, false bid for Arturo’s approval. After her initial gluttonous exploitations of Teaghlaigh’s coffers [and introduction to the all too serious Lia], her ravenous hunger was sated and settled — and Kitsch felt the nourishment percolate through her body and restore the blasé tenacity of her entire personality. It seemed to have taken a backseat during pursuit of her own survival.

This freedom from hunger also gave Kitsch the to liberty to see after other important matters, such as preening her downy pelt with precise and fine movements of her teeth and tongue. Sleeping lazily about the forest also ranked highly on her list nowadays and Kitsch did just that, since it was what pleased her. Now Kitsch did whatever pleased her for now Kitsch had no court to advise her and no guards to control her, both of whom had always treated her not unlike some political plaything, to be pampered and coddled and controlled, for her entire life up until now. But here she was, alone; here she was free to do anything she wanted. 

Kitsch thought of her mother and her father often. The young girl wondered if they missed her. This had been something Kitsch had just assumed to be true: her parents, the King and Queen, missed her and wanted her back. After all, who wouldn’t miss her and want her back? she was their pearl, their princess! But... if they did in fact miss her, wouldn’t emissaries and scouts have found her by now? It had been an awfully long time since he dissapearance and no rescue team had discovered her whereabouts. Kitsch wasn't that sneaky... it shouldn't be that hard to find her! With regret, Kitsch wondered if perhaps there had been no scouts at all. Perhaps her family thought they were better off without her. Perhaps they didn't love her. It was a reality that Kitsch thrashed against with the entirety of her being but, on the outside, tried to appear cool and uncaring -- as if this truth didn't bother the oujo one bit.

The frigid winter had snapped and the interminable snows had begun to melt. Rather than soak into the ground, the meltedwater traveled above the still-frozen ground and collected in little divets and pockets throughout the forest; some mere puddles, others coalescing enough water to become the size of lakes. That day, Kitsch came upon one these larger reservoirs and immediately dipped her ink-tipped nose to it. The cool meltwater slaked her interminable thirst and filled her belly once more; a comforting sensation after so much hunger. Then, laying her body against the shore of the small lake, Kitsch dipped her stracciatella paw into the water and watched the ripples ring out across the lake’s jeweled waters over and over and over and over and over again.

[/td][/tr][/table]

[table width=80%][tr][td]

It is the flicker of stark white dipped with the colour of the night that catches his eye. She is alluring, of the physical kind, for Rollo is not a man of love but of lust. Instead, it is her physique that catches his eye first, drawing him closer and closer in a greed induced sway. Desire will consume him, no doubt, and it is the threat of the very thing occuring that causes his him to halt; he is a man that appriciates beauty, but it is the threat of his own self that will defile the very meaning. To his other, beauty is no different from lust, nothing more than an object of his choosing and the eventual play-thing of his desires. But when it comes to lust, he knows little restraint, and he moves towards her; eyes unwavering from the object of his attention. The brute of a man lets out a low chuff riddled with desire, but his advance does not halt there. “And who might you be?” The smokey baritone that is his voice replaces the silence as he chuffs low in the direction of her ear, and he moves gildingly toward the woman; but not to impose upon the aura she emits. Should she oblige his request, he was more than curios to know more. Rollo was a man who appreciated the finer things, and she was undoubtedly the most equisite thing he had laid eyes once since his arrival. 

[/td][/tr][/table]

[table width=85%][tr][td]

The forest was quiet that day, was quiet most days — and much too quiet for the girl, who was a walking and talking crucible for a whole tumult of budding emotions. It was what had drained her about court life: the uniformity of it all. Everyone knew the same wolves, acted in the same manner, gossiped in the same tone and loved with the same inauthenticity as everyone else. She was loud but everyone else was so quiet, and they all treated her in the same way, too — righting her wrongs and dismissing her misdeeds as soon as they took place. Kitsch craved variety and newness and quickly forgot anything that could not challenge her in the ways she wished to be challenged. At times during her childhood, she felt as if she were living a hollow dream where everyone was asleep and she was awake; and Kitsch pushed against this dreamlike reality, yelling and pushing the others to awaken with her and demonstrate some real emotion… but none other did.  This had been the one, the singular positive result of her decampment from her homelands — out here, there was endless variety and it was all so real. 

…well, it was real most of the time but indeed that day upon the lake was quiet and warm and the air was heavy with spring moisture. All was still so the sound of encroaching footfalls behind her rang loud in her downy ears. Her ear fluttered lazily against the sound and for a moment, her crown remained where it was: pressed up against the earth, gaze trailing the ripples as they undulated out from the shore. Only when the last ripple faded did Kitsch lift her head and that’s when she saw him. The brute was large and skulking; she might have imagined this to be Arturo or Dakarai, if it weren’t for his imposing form. Keppel gaze flicked to his patchwork of a pelt, draped over his solid musculature, then settled on his steely gaze. The pearl pushed herself up onto one feathered elbow but did not rise from her earthen chaise. “Kitsch” was the only word she could speak and even as the sound passed her pale lips it slipped away and evanesced into nothingness, beseeching the unknown man to not feed her the same brand of monotony that so many others had.

[/td][/tr][/table]