Blackfeather Woods devoted to destruction

The woods were unruly, and there were whispers of all sorts of trouble stirring. These whispers were brought with the many prisoners that they gathered, but Cicero's own interests were not with current affairs presently; he mostly cared about how things were with his dear brother and sister, the former a bit dearer than the latter but the latter earned more through guilty conscience than the former. He thought of the pups she had birthed and wondered how they were doing and where they were headed. He had not sought them out yet, had bothered mostly with @Damien when he was allowed, had tried to make his brother come back to this world again.

Today was the first time that he actively sought out the spiderling glen where @Maegi, @Ramsay and @Euron were kept. Ragged ears swiveled back and forth as he neared it, afraid he may run into the presence of @Potema or @Vaati, but also eager to see how the children were faring, and how healthy they were — he had witnessed them only from afar, but that would change today. His mind was hazed by poisons he had taken not long before and perhaps that was what drove him there today.

Aside from the steel-coated stranger from days before, no one new had come to the glen in a while. The usual retinue of caretakers made their presences known now and again, but otherwise the three cubs were left to their own devices. More often than not they could be found in a ball with one another, conserving heat against the winter cold that was creeping closer by the day. Today, Ramsay was off by himself, farther from the den than was probably advisable.

He sat near the gentlest slope into the Glen, head tilted back and giant ears flopping down the length of his shoulders. Wolves came from up there. He wasn't strong enough or balanced enough to make the climb, and he would never be allowed at his age anyway, but he associated it with other wolves. There was a Something beyond the slope that he was maddeningly curious about. He was quickly outgrowing the bounds of the Glen, particularly because aside from his siblings and their occasional visitors, there wasn't much to stimulate them here.

The moment his keen blue eyes picked out the motion of a black shape, Ramsay hopped to his feet—still utilizing an awkward frog hop that emphasized his peculiar appearance—and began to wag his tail. He loved visitors, and while that was probably not always going to be the case due to the harsh treatment he was certain to receive as he aged, there was nothing stopping Ramsay from being excited about any and all visitors to the Glen. This one looked oddly like a giant version of Euron, but that meant absolutely nothing to Ramsay at this stage.

Hope it's cool I assumed Cicero came down the slope. If he instead came from the Web or ravine, let me know and I'll adjust!

The more his senses developed the more details he uncovered about the world. More scents. More noises. The foliage was no more a conglomerate - it was a host of shapes and sizes and textures. There was also moving life. Insects that had yet to die or hibernate. Rodents that scurried amid the tree roots and birds that roosted in the branches. The boy's mind was a ravenous one and he spent a lot of time feeding it information about his world when he wasn't pawing at his brother's snout, nipping at his sister's ear, or wrestling with a stick that looked at him the wrong way.

On this day, the pup had found a new thing. It was a black feather (ha). It had a smell and a texture and a taste that was entirely different and entirely pleasing. It was pristine - as if the bird had plucked it from its wing and let it fall to Euron intentionally. Or it had been, until the pup gnawed it, rolled on it, yipped at it, and otherwise reduced it to soggy tatters attached to an creamy opaque stem. With his initial excitement over his discovery waning, the pup hurried to show it off to his siblings.

Euron's eyes fell upon a new wolf, and his brother, as he rounded a tree nearby the den. He wedged the feather in some sphagnum growing at its base. He would share it with his Maegi or Ramsay, but not a wolf he did not know. Winding around the trees and skirting the bushes, Euron made his way forward to greet the wolf with a curious cock of his head as he took a seat beside a half-rotted log.

yes that's fine! :)

His eyes fell upon the children; one at first, an ugly dark one that reminded him nothing of Damien nor his mother despite the likeness in everything other than proportion. A ragged ear flicked forward, then back, as he pondered what he should do. He had come here to see them, but was he truly ready? And what if Vaati would find him here; their relations were hardly fixed. Yet he did not care much for those things, for it would only resolve into pain and he did not mind the pain. He savoured it, for it meant he was alive and it meant the beast was kept at some distance.

Ears swiveled forward as a second child came round from behind a tree. One that looked a lot like him; nearly exactly like him, he deduced, but for the baby blue of its eyes. Only time would tell what colours they would fade into. Cicero couldn't tell what the pup did but soon attention was drawn back to the ugly one. He wondered how long it may survive, unsure whether its condition would do something to it; unsure whether Potema or Vaati might relieve it of its misery. But they had not so far.

"Hello," said Cicero as he'd gone down the slope, though he did not know whether the two children that had come to greet him were able to hear or understand what he said yet. He had not had much interaction with any really young pups; he did not know such things.

The whole time that Cicero was inspecting Euron and he, Ramsay was crouched low with his tail wagging frantically. His gaze darted rapidly between Cicero's mismatched eyes, the patches on his shoulders, his brother beside him, and the trees looming over the Glen. Back to Shoulder Patches, back to Euron, who also had patches on his shoulders... back to Shoulder Patches... back to Euron... Ramsay's brows pressed down over his eyes and his tail faltered as he glanced between the two, but ultimately, he drew absolutely no conclusions. They looked similar, and that was super cool. He tried to turn his head to see if he also had cool shoulder patches, but his head hardly moved even an inch to the side thanks to his nearly nonexistent neck.

His attention went right back to Cicero when the older man spoke, ears drawn upright, and he grinned brightly. "Haaaa!" he screeched in response, resuming the wiggling of both tail and entire body as he flopped down onto his stomach and peeked shyly up at Cicero's chin.

She had been dozing off beside a bush, her body old enough now not to need constant heat from an adult. Upon hearing pawsteps, her still-blue eyes fluttered open, her vision blurry with interrupted sleep. She saw a lanky dark gray-and-white shape nearby, with her brothers looking up at him curiously. Ramsay emitted a high-pitched screech, which jolted her well and truly awake, and Maegi rose to her feet, trotting awkwardly over to the trio, ears pricked.

Her gaze fixed on the adult male. He was thin and almost ragged-looking, with eyes, like his pelt, that were two different colors. He must have looked fearsome in other circumstances, but for now, he had a smile for them.

Maegi looked suddenly at Euron, then back at the stranger. They looked an awfully lot alike; Euron was his miniature in almost every way, save for the eyes: Euron's were, like Maegi's, the deep cloudy blue of puppies. Intrigued, she cocked her head as she stared at the man, wondering just exactly who this guy could be.

He observed and, like his siblings, Euron noticed too that this wolf shared similarities to him. But he took a glance over his shoulder anyway to confirm, as if to make sure that his own white patches had not fallen off or that he had imagined them. Then he peeked at his tail which also had a black tip, and at his toes dipped in silver. He was not old enough to know what it meant, but he took comfort in what he saw and felt an immediate draw to the older male. If other wolves were safe, other wolves that looked like him were even safer.

Forgotten were his plans to hide the feather from all but his littermates. The pup snatched his prize and trundled forward bouncing and wriggling with excitement, blue eyes glittering as he crowded up beside Ramsay. He pranced in place momentarily and then stepped on his brother's back in order to stretch himself higher, reaching out with his snout to show his doppelganger the feather.

For a brief moment he glanced back to his sister and issued a squeak as if to summon her to the party.

Also come look at my feather.

Ragged ears folded back and forth as the stubby child looked from him to the pup that looked like him in many ways. Cicero wondered if his fur would end up the same as his, too, ragged and thin. Hopefully he would last the winter — although part of him thought it might be best for the pups and pack if they did not. Then perhaps some of what was broken could be glued.

A third child arrived, looking normal at first sight but with a strangely angled front leg on second sight. She too observed what her stubby brother had. The patchwork pup picked something up and pranced forward with child-like enthusiasm and innocence, yet unaware of the dangers of the world, assuming that Cicero meant well. He clambered atop his brother and showed the feather. The feather was plain black, nothing strange to see for most — at least not for Cicero — and there was a child-like wonder about the fact that the patchwork pup so proudly displayed it as if it were the biggest treasure in the world.

"Looks nice," he said, though unsure if the pups understood a word he said. "Pretty." It wasn't really. It reminded Cicero of the depths of his dark soul and the inescapability of it all. Perhaps some of that wasn't really just the feather. He waited to see if any of the pups'd try to mimic his word while he observed them, curious to find out if their problems were only physical or mental, too. So far it seemed only the former, which was good.

His svelte ears trimmed backward at the distinct sound of Maegi's footsteps, a trio of normal steps and a fourth that faltered without fail. He turned his head to regard her from the corner of his eye, lips stretched into a broad grin, but when she didn't get much closer, he turned his attention back on Cicero. His eyes remained there, drinking in the friendly face, until Euron disrupted him by clambering up on his back.

He was the smallest of his siblings, and due to his construction, that would probably always be true. But Ramsay would spend much of his life proving he wasn't a weakling or a pushover in spite of his size and proportions, and his response to what he perceived as disrespect was immediate. He bucked out from under his brother, turning awkwardly as only he could do to snap his jaws threateningly in Euron's face. At that moment, he didn't care whether he hit snout, prized feather, or empty air. As long as he got his message across loud and clear—NO—Ramsay didn't care for being gentle, even with his own brother.

Her brother was quite keen on the feather, but Maegi was much more interested in the man. Ignoring the squabbling match the boys had gotten themselves into, the girl walked closer to the adult, looking up at him with her denim-blue eyes.

Her lips formed, trying to make the sound the wolf had made, but all that came out was a deflated-sounding pppfft. Nevertheless, she broke out into a grin and giggled, making the sound a couple of more times before falling silent.

She picked up a small, smooth pebble in her baby teeth and laid it at the man's feet. Here, her plaintive gaze suggested. Here is a present for you, kind stranger.

Euron had not meant the insult that his brother perceived and was startled by the response. Fast reflexes and grace to spare kept his nose safe from the clip of irate teeth as he regained his footing and drew his head back out of reach. Feather still in his mouth, Euron blinked owlishly at his brother. His heart hammered in his ribs, a feeling that, strangely, elicited a grin from him. The boy dropped his feather, using a silver-toed paw to shove it toward his littermate. His tail thumped rapidly on the ground, and he ducked his head so that it was lower than Ramsay's. Euron cooed as his twinkling eyes peered up from beneath his brows.

For now, both Cicero and his sister were in the background as he tried to appease quasimado.

A lot of things happened at once; as was to be expected when dealing with three pups, he supposed. The scrunched up one didn't appreciate the normal one standing atop him and snapped, while the girl with the deformed foot tried to mimic his word. "Yes, pretty is a difficult word," repeated Cicero. A word he rarely used, for beauty was in the eye in the beholder, but he supposed it would not hurt to teach these children something beautiful amidst the dark, painful existence they were to have.

From the corner of his eyes Cicero watched the moment between the two brothers, where the normal child tried to appease his brother. He almost missed the pebble that the girl put in front of him, but caught her movement and looked to see her expectant gaze. Then he saw the pebble that hadn't been there before, and he assumed that she had put it there. "Thank you," said Cicero as he nosed the pebble. "Cicero has no gifts to return." His shoulders rolled in a shrug as he put his paw on the pebble and batted it closer to himself.

As Euron showed off his cat-like reflexes by dodging the clip of his brother's teeth, Ramsay allowed the surrounding world and its distractions to melt away until the only two things in his focus were he and his brother. It went without saying that the little gremlin, otherwise healthy save for the peculiar condition of his body, had a lot to prove. Not only to himself, but to the entire world. There would be no shortage of disgust and doubt in the opinions of others where Ramsay was concerned, and even now, he was determined to rise far above those points of view, until the dwarf had dwarfed them all.

He fancied that his gaze pierced so sharply into Euron's soul that the other boy's submission was an act of his own will, though in truth, it was simply Euron's nature. Given time, Ramsay would come to understand his brother's ways and would fail to take offense to readily, but in his infancy he was already very sensitive to perceived injustice, so his reaction was sensible to him. As Euron dipped his head and pushed the feather closer, Ramsay accepted his brother's nonverbal apology and dropped the facade, wagged his tail, and turned away. He didn't want the feather, and he didn't hold it against Euron either.

By then, Maegi had delivered her offering to Cicero. The dwarf boy missed the exchange and didn't understand Cicero's words either, but keenly watched a patchwork paw slip out and curl over the rock, and suddenly it was game time. Without warning, the stunted pup darted forward, eager to snatch whatever Cicero had out from under him in a game of keep away, heedless to the significance his sister had placed upon the pebble by giving it as a gift.

There was something about this man--he called himself "Cicero"--that she liked. He had a very calm, level voice, and his eyes seemed kind, if a bit empty. Plus, his eyes were pretty, or at least interesting: one the color of a sunset, the other white as her pelt.

She smiled as he accepted her gift, tucking it under his paw with an expression of gratitude. She was about to wheel away to find him more gifts when Ramsay began to prod where he shouldn't, trying to snatch the pebble away.

"No!" Maegi snapped, baring her tiny milk teeth at her brother. It was one of the only words she knew, and she used it ferociously. "No!" She cuffed him around his dark, floppy ears, scowling.

The pebble wasn't for him! It was for Cicero!

Euron's efforts had the intended affect — soothing his brother's offense and ensuring that the pup with the silver toes was safe from any further aggression. To his surprise, Ramsay turned away and left the feather where it was. Tail wiggling with delight at this outcome, Euron darted forward to reclaim his prize. He was then overcome with a need to ensure he kept it, he hurriedly whisked the feather away toward where he had stashed it before.

It was his sister crying "no!" that caused him to stop abruptly and pivot to look as she cuffed Ramsay across the ears. Curious, he stood there with feather in mouth watching for his brother's reaction.

A lot happened at once. The dark short pup seemed to be appeased once his brother showed submission and Cicero's attention was upon the girl. While the patchwork pup whisked away his feather and then went to bring it away to his hiding stash, Cicero watched him, the pebble the girl had given still under his paw. He did not notice the short pup's interest until he felt it peel at his paw to try and reach the pebble.

The girl followed with an instant objection of 'no', the first real world that he had heard the children say. Cicero just remained silent, watching the pair of them and curious to see which one of them would win this one.

A loud objection rang in Ramsay's ears and bid him throw on the brakes. His paws skidded against the ground and he twisted his short torso just in time for Maegi's paw to hit not just his ears, but the center of his head as well. She bared her teeth at him and Ramsay responded in kind, bristling fiercely. How dare she!

The beginnings of a complex that would fester in him for the rest of its life reared its head as he shoved abruptly into his sister's space, snarling as loudly as he could, close enough to brush her face with brandished whiskers. His voice was yet young and childish and it wasn't much of a threat to any grown wolf, but it was a distinct change in Ramsay's usual attitude toward his litter mates, which was protective and affectionate. It was also distinct from the disapproval he had first shown to Euron, more angry, but only because it was the second incident in less than three minutes. Cicero and the rock were momentarily forgotten.

Maegi was just about to skip off and fetch another stone for her dear uncle when the solid black form of Ramsay careened into her personal space, snarling jaws less than an inch from her own nose. Taken aback, she blinked and shied away, avoiding further confrontation. Jeez. She had just been mad about the pebble; nothing to get in a tizzy about.

All the while, Cicero just sat and watched. Sat and watched. He was a quiet, stoic presence among the chaos, this uncle of hers--in stark contrast to his maniacal alter ego (and their father, unknown to Maegi and her siblings).

Flicking her little white tail in annoyance at Ramsay's overreaction, she nosed about the glen, trying to find more presents for Cicero. She would let the boys wrestle and play further while she searched.

last post loves <3

Ramsay was quite the spectacle when he was provoked. The boy with the white shoulders found it just as amusing to watch the ire come down on someone else as he had when he was on the receiving end.

"Get 'er!" Euron hollered between loud strings of giggles, making a quick snap to grab his feather as it started to fall from his mouth. He wanted to see his siblings scrap but Maegi had another idea. She removed herself from the situation and went mosying about the glen and Euron uttered a quiet aww as he watched her go.

With the show over he continued to the tree and re-stashed his feather. It was then that he caught sight of something else moving among the shadows of the dark forest. Easily distracted, the pup started to sneak away in pursuit, abandoning his siblings and his father for his next source of entertainment.

Last post :)

The two odd ones started a fight, it seemed, though the girl did not respond to escalate it and so it all fizzled out soon with her leaving. He watched as she started moving about the glen easily, seeming to have forgotten about the fight already. It was good that there was a level-headed type too; the dark boy reminded him of Damien, when it came to temper. An admirable quality, yet one that could be difficult to handle at times. He wondered if these children would face the same adversities that he and his siblings had. They had always been close, closer than most other siblings, but perhaps too close for the standards of some. Although he seemed to be the odd one out in that regard...

He watched as the pups dispersed now that the fight was over. "See you later, bring you some food," he promised even though they could not hear. Cicero picked up the pebble and started to leave the spiderling glen, leaving the pups be for now.

Maegi's shy reaction appeased him enough to lick his jowls and move on. He was the littlest of them, but he would be damned if he was looked down on. Even if what he saw as disrespect was a result of Ramsay's perception rather than the actual intent of his siblings, he nevertheless read it as a slight based on size, and his reactions were more volatile for it. All was well as long as they didn't try to treat him as lesser, but for those who did and did so with the intent to, well... Ramsay had many teeth in his mouth.

He hardly noticed Cicero and Euron departing, choosing instead to spare his sister one last glance across the glen before he retired to the den to rest.