Shadowwyn Moor moulin rouge

actually watching this movie hence title and odd thread

Quill had not thought of the day for a long time.

The entirety of the pack had been gone when she returned; the Canyon hosted a new number of wolves, all that had turned against her the moment they smelled her. It was then she presumed that none of her family were left. She could not find them and Eshe was best at this, typically. But no. None could be found and try as she might, she found no fortune.

So she turned tail and began her new life. It started with her name–she was Quill, now. Just Quill. No surname; she couldn't bear to change that part of who she was. Quill knew their name was still relatively widespread, and though part of her desired to avenge her family she didn't desire bloodshed. Enough time had passed where she could begin anew.

The Endore had begun in finding a band of wolves beginning a pack. She had joined their number but for now, moved away from the place they stayed. Quill had plenty more to explore of the lands and pondered at how large they were, and what she may find. This was the second time she had been to the Moors, but she enjoyed it here. It would not be her last.

@Bhreac

Bhreac had never been far from home. Not for a lack of desire — she'd always been butting up against the borders as a pup, and then farther as she grew stronger, eager to test herself and the world around her, but for a loyalty to her family. For all of her thirst for adventure and willful recklessness, she was loyal to a fault; they were her family, and she cared for them, and she would only leave them over her dead body.

In the end, it had nearly come to that. Their family had been scattered, or wounded, or killed, maybe. She wasn't sure where everybody was, and there had been too many scents going in too many directions for her to pick just one to follow, especially when she wasn't sure what she would even find. When she'd caught wind of Eshe at the borders, and seen the others from the hostile pack that'd taken them over rush to the borders, she hadn't been able to get to her in time. The first chance she got to escape, she'd taken it, going headlong after her sister.

She wasn't as used to running as she was to climbing, and the journey had been a little less than pleasant; still, despite the unpleasant circumstances, it was exhilarating to be out in the world on her own. And it all paid off the moment she lifted her nose from the ground where Eshe's scent was strong and caught sight of her. Barking, Bhreac rocketed toward her, tail wagging, barging into Eshe's side rather roughly with her head.

Stepping back to nip at Eshe's ear, Bhreac narrowed her eyes at her, but couldn't help but smile a little. It was good to see her again. "First sign of trouble and you high tail it out of there," Bhreac said, butting her head against Eshe again. "Asshole."

Eshe—Quill—had come to terms with the fact that her family were likely dead and gone. Thats what all the signs pointed to. And with no ability to investigate it without dying herself—something the Endore could not picture any of her family desiring for her—she knew she had to move on. Quill had tried to go back to see how things were, or if any of her siblings (the many she had) survived the assault... to be sure, their mother had fallen victim to whatever pack, and the tawny woman felt Rannoch would not have let them get away with that without dying himself for the cause... but could find nothing. They, whoever had taken the land, were swift in their finding of her. Quill had come back too quickly as they suspected she would.

She dreamed of the family frequently. Like Bhreac, Eshe had all the desire in the world to travel. But her family came first and foremost, and even if she and Bhreac fantasized, they would never make good on it. How could they? They had younger siblings to look after and help raise, and a legacy to maintain. One of them surely would succeed their parents (if their ambitious brother did not try his hand), and so they remained. Up until that fateful day.

So it was of no surprise when she fancied that it was Bhreac herself coming toward her. Sometimes Quill immersed herself in her daydream, other times she chased the phantoms away. Today it would be the latter. She was in no mood to deal with her ghosts. Quill, having even told others this was her name, had taken the first steps into her new life in aligning herself with Harlyn, Luke, and the others with her. One was incredibly handsome to her—

These thoughts were jarred from her when contact was made.

And words. A true voice.

She narrowed her eyes in what was legitimate disbelief. "You're not real," and it was then Bhreac butted her head against her shoulder. It sure as Hell felt real... "I—" and Eshe, typically eloquent and well spoken, was at a loss for words. "You... alive?" She paused, looking over her shoulder. If Bhreac was alive, there was hope, wasn't there?!

It was a mixture of optimism and willful naïveté that convinced Bhreac most of her family was still alive, just in pieces. She'd certainly never for an instant thought that Eshe of all of them had been killed. So she'd stayed with the pack that had cannibalized hers, out of equal parts stubbornness and hope that others would return. She was strong and had useful knowledge of the lands, and so they'd accepted her well enough, even if the whole thing had made her skin crawl. Kowtowing to the wolves who'd stormed into her life and scattered her family to the wind, or worse, had felt like constantly scraping an open wound against concrete.

Still, she wasn't one to dwell. She'd left, and she was with Eshe. All things considered, this was a best possible scenario.

"I'm insulted you'd think otherwise," Bhreac said, feigning offense. "There were what, a dozen of them? I could take them." Her voice got thinner toward the end of the sentence, rawer than she'd have liked; she was kidding, because although stronger than some and bolder than most, she wasn't particularly large, and still only one wolf besides. Logically she understood there was nothing she — nor anybody, really — could've done, but it still stung her sense of duty to have been unable to stop bad things from happening to those she loved. And if she were being honest, which she didn't particularly plan to be, it stung a bit that she was one of the only ones who stayed behind.

Eshe would have typically snorted, but not today. None of her sarcasm or excitement could be found, if only because she could hardly believe what the hell was happening. It was too good to be true. Most of the time when that thought occurred to her, she woke up. Or things came to an untimely end, as with her life in the Canyon. But she couldn't even think of a witty response to banter with her sister. She was too happy that she was present.

It didn't matter how or why, just that it was. The nitty gritty details she could really care less about in this circumstance. "I can't say I'm too surprised. Pops always did say you were the smelly one. Bet they didn't come in half-a-mile radius of you." Now she snorted, but she was back to the earth pretty quickly. "Anyone else follow you? Or, that you found?" The two of them had always been the closest, but they were also devoted to the entirety of their family. If there was a number to count and Bhreac knew one survived—unlike Quill, who had no idea—then she could only hope and believe that Bhreac did some measure of extra investigating.

Bhreac rolled her eyes at her sister's jibe, but smiled nonetheless, elated for a bit of levity and more importantly, a bit of familiarity. Eshe's follow-up question was less easy to take. Bhreac's ears flattened against her head and she took a step backward, shaking her head. It'd been chaos, when the other back had attacked; impossible to keep track of anybody, or anything, and although they'd fought back, eventually it had been clear that it was a lost cause and they'd been scattered. It'd been like a waking dream after that, and she was foggy on the details — if there'd been bodies, she'd walked away from them. If anybody from their pack had called out to bring the survivors together, she hadn't heard.

"It was like chasing fucking butterflies," Bhreac said. "Too many scents in too many directions. I couldn't hold on to any of them, and I was afraid that — I was afraid that if I followed anybody, I wouldn't find them... okay. Whenever we were little and we'd wander off too far, mom would tell us to stay put, and someone would find us. So that's what I did." Bhreac sighed, her lips dipping toward a frown. "You're the only one who came back."

That Bhreac had stayed surprised her. She had survived it, too. Well, it was no wonder; Bhreac was pretty and bright both. Eshe was lovely, too, but in a different way. Most of her family was stark black or white with lovely eyes; she was the tawny, odd one out of the family. Brown-cream-gray mingled to make her collectively agouti in person, and with her bright eyes, often changing from a molten gold to a simple amber in the light, there was nothing incredibly outstanding about her.

"I see," came the words that mimicked her mother when disappointed by something. But she was quick to shake her head as though it would rattle the disappointment away. Hadn't she already resigned herself to their fate? Accepted it? Bhreac was alive!

Still. It was like they had died all over again... she couldn't help that pessimistic prodding that brought her to sigh. Eshe would have to repeat the process all over again, though perhaps her period of denial would last a while longer given the fact that Bhreac was here and alive after all. "They chased me off pretty quick. I didn't even know you were still alive," she admitted. The scent of Bhreac had been scant on the borders. Likely because the new-Canyon wolves were sending the message of their claim and wanted to give off the vibe there had been no survivors. Whatever. It didn't matter what the message was. It was received and they could rest easy in knowing that she would not return there. It wasn't worth it, if her family had for the most part passed.

It looked like it was just her and Bhreac now, and that was a-okay with her. "I'm glad you're alive," it went without saying, but it needed to be said. Eshe felt cruel to have accepted her sisters fate, but not so cruel that she was too bothered by stamping "dead as a doornail" onto the rest of the family not with her. "Really, really glad. I was going to do what I had to do," well, sure! "But I knew nothing would be the same without you." Not as fun, not as bright... the list went on. Eshe had thought of all of this only minutes after fleeing the Canyon packs fangs but afterward had forced any and all thoughts of being an Endore and the family attached away as aggressively as she had been chased from her home. No point in dwelling.

"Anyway I'm joining this pack nearby," she gestured toward the Hollow, where the Moors ran into. "They call me Quill." Her loyalty had shifted from family to the Hollow and this new life, and she had no idea where to find a medium. She had been "Quill" for a couple of months now, but Eshe was who she inherently was. It never occurred to her to be Eshe ever again... she had abandoned old loyalties to adjust to the new ones she would need to make. Now she stood between a rock and a hard place. What would she tell Harlyn? Luke? Andalusia? Mordecai? All those that accepted her?

The truth, she supposed.

But she was more concerned with her sisters opinion of it. "I called me Quill, too. I wanted to let go of what happened." Every part of it. Holding on hurt and hindered her. She got nowhere in the time that she did.

It'd been easy enough to convince the pack that'd usurped them to keep her around. Without any tangible connections to her old pack, she wasn't a threat to them as long as they kept an eye to her, and she wasn't a threatening enough animal to be a problem herself. When the smoke had cleared, she'd swallowed her pride and prostrated herself before them, bowing her head and steeling her nerves just long enough to prove her usefulness.

She knew the lands and the prey, and as far as they were concerned, she was also a beacon to any of her family who might try and return — she'd been aware that they'd been using her as bait to suss out any survivors and well and truly chase them off, but then, she'd been using herself as bait, just to find a way out. It hadn't been an easy thing to do and thinking about it still made her feel scraped raw, so she gave her head a bit of a shake and nipped Eshe's shoulder none too gently as she parroted their mother's disapproving I see. As far as she was concerned, and aware, she was the only one who'd put any effort into trying to bring whoever was left back together. It wasn't in her genetic make up to turn tail and run away.

"I'm glad you're alive, too," Bhreac said, sighing, and already knowing she'd forgiven Eshe for any perceived slight. Despite her optimism, it was an overwhelming relief to know that she wasn't alone. Eshe's next words, though, surprised Bhreac, and she bristled slightly, looking at Eshe with a frown.

She opened her mouth to respond and then snapped it shut again, taking a beat to process. They were both loyal — and she'd thought, with her own recklessness, that Eshe was loyal to a fault. And yet she'd left their home so easily — she'd left Bhreac, even if she didn't know it, because she hadn't bothered to really look. Of course, Eshe had come back, at least, and that's how Bhreac had found her, but the whole thing still rankled her. And to find out on top of that that her sister had immediately shed her name and her past and her loyalty like a second skin and slipped into a new life as though it were that easy, after Bhreac had lived with the wolves who'd attacked and slaughtered their family in order to maintain her loyalty — well. That was a blow.

Bhreac wanted to forgive and let go, and it certainly wasn't her wont to hold a grudge, especially since she was genuinely so thrilled to find her sister alive, and in one piece. It was a gift she hadn't truly expected, and yet. And yet...

"Brilliant," Bhreac said, dripping sarcasm. "Really, that's great. Truly wonderful. I'm so, so... happy for you. I'm glad that while I was stomaching life with the animals that killed our family out of loyalty to you lot, you were letting me go. That's incredibly kind of you. Very considerate. You are... just brilliant, Eshe."

Was Eshe an empathetic?

Yes—when it suited her.

But presently it did not. Presently, understanding anything and everything her sister had gone through would be a detriment and since her sister was none too empathetic herself in the understanding, the woman who had become Quill in a matter of months bristled at her sisters sarcastic response. Pride was a big part of her, but she had shed all of that pride when everything she had loved was lost; what was the point? But it came back, clinging on the shoulders of her sister and diving into her throat. She swallowed it without choking: it was an old friend.

"I... I thought you were dead! All of you!" Eshe had for a fact seen her mother fall and although she had returned to attack in turn, her father had ushered her away. Even despite her age and contributions, the pack who had come to take over had enough profitable seasons to carry with them twenty strong wolves. It was a unique sight, to be sure. And she would have been a guaranteed casualty. "I came back, and then scouted out around the area... I couldn't find anyone. And I knew that my name would just be a painful reminder that I had ran—" granted, that she had ran ensured her survival and her father had prompted her to, snapping at her own heels as the Canyon wolves had, "Maybe it wasn't the right thing," she admitted, "But I couldn't remember or think about it. I can't right now." Her coping mechanism was certainly not the best, but Eshe had never been faced with such a thing before. She had never been taught, and her self-taught method was messy.

Quill was but a ticking time bomb. She hadn't known that, and still didn't; Bhreac had arrived in time to diffuse it.

"I could never really let you go," Eshe understood that much... "I just... thinking of everyone... thinking of..." It was too much, to imagine them at the teeth of those bastards. It was the way of life, sure, but it didn't mean she liked it very much. "Whatever. Never mind. I never thought I'd see you again, I never thought it'd matter," It didn't make it any better or easier to swallow. It was something she thought she had to do. Eshe still understood her own process. Stuck in the stage of denial, in being nothing, and belonging to no one. Untethered by that bloodbath of a past and free to exist as though nothing were wrong.

It would've driven her crazy, but she'd never be able to find out now, would she? So she thought it perfectly sane.

Perhaps Bhreac was braver than Eshe for it. Eshe would not have been able to stand life with the Canyon wolves... but of course, she had come to an immediate conclusion where Bhreac had at least belief on her side. Eshe thought herself a realist. "It was the only way I could go on..." which she had done for their family, despite dropping the name. In a sense, her loyalty remained.

Later, when emotions weren't so high, and she'd had time to eat and rest and find some sort of equilibrium again, Bhreac would probably be able to understand why Eshe did what she did. But now she was weary and hungry and hurting, and the implication that Eshe had seen fit to bury her whole life behind her — a life which included Bhreac — made her blood boil. She shifted her weight, digging her feet into the ground a bit and dipping her head as she tried to collect herself, and her thoughts.

Bhreac could feel herself flying off the handle, but she wasn't in the mood to correct any of it. She'd been wanting to scream for weeks — maybe months — and so maybe it was equal parts frustration with her sister and the knowledge that they'd be able to work through this later that made her so eager to snap back.

"Good luck with your new pack," Bhreac said, looking at her sister once more. "I'm sure you'll be very loyal. Fat lot of good it'll do them, though." 

Loyalty to Bhreac was an action, a promise — it was something actively done to keep those you cared for safe and out of harm's way. None of them could've prevented what happened to their pack, and some of their relatives had fought back. Bhreac wasn't exactly a behemoth, but she was quick and she knew the area, and she'd done no small amount of damage before everyone had begun to scatter. She'd always been stubborn and hard-headed, so maybe she should've run, too, but she just couldn't. Not when there'd been an ongoing threat. Not when she didn't know who was left standing, who would come back looking for a familiar face. 

She'd stayed at great personal cost to protect her family, and it had benefited Eshe, because if Bhreac hadn't stayed, they never would've found one another again, and it was unfathomable to her in the moment that Eshe couldn't see how the shedding of her skin — of her name, of which their family was vainly, excessively proud — was belittling to the sacrifices she had made, and degrading to any sense of loyalty to their family altogether.

Bhreac's immediate refusal caused Eshe to very nearly break.

"Don't!" Her yell was low in pitch and she moved to round herself and block a path she had nonsensically perceived her sibling might take. "You can't leave now," she breathed, taking a tone in which she had never used before. Was she... pleading? In her own way, perhaps. "You were dead. I couldn't think of you, I couldn't, not without believing that first..." And it was something she refused to believe, yet had accepted, thus adopting the name "Quill". Eshe was a strange bit of work. As far as protecting her new pack went, she bristled at the dig.

She too had participated (barely, but still) in the fight up until the point their father pushed she and the rest to get away. That was when, for the moment, she was perfectly fine with her sister departing. The words were cruel and went clean through the ribs, straight to her heart. "Wow," she breathed, shaking her head.

The words were twisted into something ugly in her head. "Wow." It was all she could say.

Eshe believed in these words that she was somehow blamed for the loss of her family. Her ears fell back atop her head before she herself turned away from her sister, knowing anything she might have said beyond "wow" might burn the only bridge with what remained of her immediate family. The words of Bhreac were a whip against her hide, but what burned more was that she partially agreed with her sister. Her stubbornness would not allow her to admit it, that what she had done was stupid even if she understood why she had done it...

But she stopped a short distance away. The last time she had run from something, Eshe had thought she had lost the most important things to her, for life. "What do you want me to do?" I fucked up, were the unsaid words, the message there inundated in the exasperated voice that could be heard.

Eshe whipped around to block a path of exit, and Bhreac turned to face her, whining a bit. She wasn't planning on leaving. She didn't want to fight — she wanted to enjoy having her sister back, she wanted to start learning how to live as a family of two rather than two of many, but it was like standing on the opposite side of a wide, rushing river from Eshe; there was too much between them to cross without first constructing a bridge.

What do you want me to do? 

Bhreac didn't have an answer. She just wanted things to go back to how they used to be, but there was no chance of that. She wanted for forgive Eshe, who was no more responsible for anything that happened than Bhreac herself was, but then she was also certain they both blamed themselves regardless. It was hard not to. Everything felt hard and fraught between them, everything sharp and jagged and rubbed raw. She supposed it was equally up to her to sand the hard edges, and so she sighed, stepping toward Eshe, and butting her snout against her sister's softly.

"Just don't leave me either, okay?" Bhreac said.

Were this a year ago, she and her sister would have likely blown up at one another. It could definitely be said that the duo had butt heads in their youth, and were even prone to doing so now. They were different but also quite similar. It happened to be their similarities that caused them to clash more often than not, but occasionally, their differences, too. They were sisters. That was life. But above all, they loved one another. Mistakes and intentional asshatery aside.

At her sisters "stipulation", Eshe whined herself. No. She had learned her lesson. She'd rather die than make that same mistake again. "You live and you learn" she'd been taught... and she had learned, but unfortunately a bit too late. "I won't." Eshe meant it. Of course, she'd always meant the things she said... but this she'd certainly stand by, knowing the cost of not. Eshe had decided that she'd rather die than that occur again. "...That means, you have to come with me." She grinned now. "I don't know any of them quite that well, but they're forming a new pack so... it worked." In the spirit of new beginnings, she had joined them... but Quill was but a moniker, now. Eshe Endore wasn't something she could refuse.

"Fine," Bhreac agreed easily. She didn't have anything else to do. The idea of joining a pack didn't really bring her anything but a vague sense of dread and displeasure, but she'd do it for Eshe, and in time the ache of what had happened to their pack would dull, and she might come to like it. Perhaps it was best to just throw themselves into something new. "But first, let's kill something, otherwise I'm going to end up eating whoever I'm supposed to be charming into accepting me into the pack."

With that, she brushed past Eshe with a grin, hoping to spend a little less complicated time with her sister and finding something to fill her belly with in one go.

Eshe was more than relieved to hear Bhreac agree with her. Good. She worried that might be a tough thing to rope her sister into doing, given the unfortunate event... but it was necessary. She was even a little bit excited for it. As far as eating went, the Endore nodded. "Sounds bueno. Let's get to huntin'," and now it was her turn to nip her sister right on her rear-end, her bright eyes flashing mischievously.

Competitive, Quill thrust herself (or, attempted to) ahead of Bhreac, a rambunctious growl emitted as she trot forward, nose to the sky. They'd hunt together again... something Eshe had never thought she would get to do.