Emberwood daughter of stone

For @Drogon! Lav wandered away from the main group a little, but I'm just gonna say that mama @Khoe is nearby watching out for her, if that's alright :)

It was early morning, before most of the pack had woken up. He mom was awake, taking care of the pups, Lavender asked if she could go play, then sprinted off a little. She didn't go too far, just far enough to be away from everyone else, but to still smell her mom's scent. The girl loved peace and quiet, it let her think. She liked excitment and fun as well, but sometimes she preffered to explore in the sanctity of her own thoughts.

She stopped in a clearing of flowers, and investigated every one. They were all so pretty, she loved the way the smelled. But more importantly than the flowers, was the stone she laid her eyes on. It wasn't grey like the others, it was white. It was cloudy white, with smoother edges than she'd seen on any other stone. Her stumpy tail began to wag as she bent down and carefully picked it up in her mouth. It tasted like every other rock she'd ever licked, which was actuall quite a few, but it was so much prettier.

that's fine! thanks for starting this! ♥

It is not uncommon for Dragon to venture away from Nova Peak — in fact it’s more uncommon that he doesn’t. He lets Cascada know he’s going adventuring before he saunters off. He never gives estimate of when he will return because he can never know. Some days he is gone for half a day, sometimes a whole day and other times he is gone for a handful of days at a time; but he always returns ( eventually ). Unlike many other adults has not tried to fill a hole in his life that he doesn’t need and certainly doesn’t want her to fill; he appreciates it and the free reign she allows him. No leash, no “you’re too young” excuses, no threats, nothing to stop him from coming and going as he pleased. The world has already done the unthinkable to him …he does not fear it and the dangers that lurk in the shadows. He grows and he trains and he knows how to hold his own in a fight ( or at least deal some serious damage and dodge and block if nothing else ).

The leaves on the trees of the emberwood are golden and orange and maroon: like the colors of a fall sunset and the young warlord ventures through it leisurely, unaware that he nears a migrating pack. Until he comes across the heavy scent of pack, wolf and a mixture of something else. Not wolf and not coyote. Canine but …not a scent he’s ever came upon before. Drogon’s black, leathery nostrils flare and his long ( for his age ) legs carry him towards the scent and he pauses just in the underbrush as he spies a little girl in a coat of light merle. She is young, much younger than himself and he shrinks down in the thick underbrush as glacial blue gaze scans the area around the girl for a watchful mother sure that she is there, somewhere. He debates for a moment, and makes to back out of the gnarled bush only to let out a low snarl as a sharp branch slices leaving a small wound that seeps slowly with blood upon his leg.

“Fuck!” Drogon hisses as he steps out of the thicket, right in the girl’s line of sight. His concern is hardly on the girl and hopes that she is more preoccupied by her rock than she is with him ( for he sees the white rock held betwixt her jaws as he spares her a glimpse and then a quick glimpse at the forest that stretches behind her in case an angry parent came flying out at him ) and draws his tongue over the smarting, shallow wound.

Lavender dropped her rock and whipped her head around, icy blue eyes narrowed as they rest on a small wolf. She had never seen him before, and she was curious. Fuck? She repeated, almost as a question. She dropped her painted head back to the ground and picked up her stone, then walked calmly towards the other. She walked a circle around him, examining him. She got closer and pressed her dark purplish red snout into his white fur. He definitely did not smell of her home.

She wondered for a moment if she should call her mom over, or her siblings. It could be fun if they all hung out together. But then she decided she would rather this be a one on one meeting. She backed out of his side and dropped her rock at his feet. Then in her sweet honey voice she spoke, Hoo?

No problemo!

i've accidentally closed this tab at least 3 times now. *le sigh* Thankfully I write my posts on Pages first so I don't lose my posts, lmao.

As it turns out the girl’s attention is not singularly focused upon her prize for he watches from his peripheral vision as she sets her rock down and repeat the explicit word that had spilled, thoughtlessly, from the boy’s lips. His tongue draws over his wound once more a low grumble in his throat. “Not a word a young lady should be using.” The hypocrisy does not fall beneath the tundrian’s notice as he chides her with a click of his tongue but he isn’t about to point that out to the girl. He lets out an inward groan as she picks her rock back up and then heads right towards him and he cannot help the curl of his lip nor can he stop himself from wondering why her parents didn’t bother teaching her ‘stranger danger’. A tough life lesson that Dragon had personally learned the hard way. Brows furrow as she walks a circle around him and then moves closer — bold as you please! — and has the audacity to push her nose into his fur. It happens so fast and the young warlord sucks in a rough breath and before he can stop himself, before he can remind himself that she is a little girl he snaps his teeth at her. His teeth do not make contact — the sharp clack of teeth accented by a low rumble is merely a warning. Not to touch him again.

“Fool girl!” He spits at her, reeling back, putting distance between them as his tail lashes furiously behind him. “You’re going to get yourself killed by sticking your nose in strangers fur like that.” She drops the rock where his paws had once been and if his reaction to her touching him hadn’t sent her away in fear he lets out a low pant to calm the rapid thrum of his heart: a war drum within it’s prison of his flesh and bone, spiked by adrenaline. “You have to be careful, alright?” He emphasizes, his chest rising and falling rapidly once as he sucks in a deep, greedy breath; and ghosts towards her a step. “Strangers are dangerous.” Can she even understand what he’s saying? He doesn’t know; but takes it upon himself to inform her nevertheless.

To show her that he’s ( relatively ) harmless he lowers himself slowly to his belly upon the forest floor, assuming a sphinx-like position. “I’m Drogon. Who’re you?” He tempers his smoke steeped whisky baritone to a softened croon: unsure the first step to what appearing reassuring looks like. He wants to be intimidating, the biggest and the baddest on and off the battlefield that he no longer knows what it’s like to function without that constant mindset; what it’s like to function with that suit of reinforced armor carefully stripped away ( though in this instance it is of his own doing ). “I’m sorry if I scared you, little bird.” Drogon speaks, the words “I’m sorry” feeling foreign on his tongue. He can’t remember the last time he apologized for his behavior ( and is struck with the consideration that he never has before this moment ); nevertheless his words are genuine ( if not partially selfish because he does not want to deal with enraged parents ).

Lavender only blinked as the older boy's teeth flashed next to her head. It surprised her, but she didn't actually know how to respond. Threats weren't often used on her by her family, and she'd never experience violence. She didn't know what to feel about this. However her ears did droop when he called her a fool girl. She tried to catch as many of the other words as she could, though she wasn't that well versed in the art of language yet. It frustrated her that she couldn't entirely understand him though, she liked to be in the know.

What she got was that strangers were dangerous, and that he was a dragon. He asked her name, which she understood, and she was happy to share it. Aru. Lavder. She said both names that she was known by, though they were said in the voice of a child. They weren't quite her names, but they were close. He apologized, for what though she wasn't sure. Because of the snap? Or for calling her a fool? S'ok Dran. You like raa? She asked, indicating the rock with her foot, and scooting closer to him.

Drogon’s instinctual reaction to her un-permitted closeness does not appear to phase her beyond surprise. He’d been expecting the full waterworks, perhaps a sobbing scream for her mother. For this the soturi is mildly surprised but nevertheless grateful. She gives her name in return: Aru and then Lavder (as to which he thinks might just be Lavender); and since he likes Lavender better than Aru — partially because he cannot make out what Aru is meant to be short for — the tundrian deigns to call her it. She is bold, he thinks, or perhaps it is simply that she is young and does not grasp the concept of danger as she scoots closer to him, indicating to the rock with a foot. She assures him it’s ok ( he rather thinks it’s not; for while it is acceptable to snap at an older child or adult in such a manner it is not acceptable to have done it to her for she is young and clearly doesn’t know any better ) calling him Dran. Drogon frowns and then realizes this his name is close to the word dragon. Despite the mistake he does not correct her. At her inquiry his gaze shifts from her to the white rock she’d collected shortly before he’d walked into her path. It’s not like any rock he can recall seeing before: white with edges that are smooth and rounded as opposed to jagged and sharp. “Yeah,” He responds after a moment. “It’s a pretty rock.” Maybe she collected them: maybe in his travels he could keep his eye out for other pretty rocks and if they ever crossed paths again he could give them to her.

Lavender waited patiently to hear the dragon's response, her icy blue eyes locked onto his own. When he said yeah, she let out a relieved and happy hum, and her cottontail took off. He even said it was a pretty rock, which she totally agreed with. It was gorgeous, and she wished she knew it's name. Maybe in the future she would learn that it's name was quartz, but for now it was only a pretty stone. She tore her gaze away from the dragon and looked back down at her find. 

I wan fine moooar! Ooh help! She said, then dashed towards the boy's backside and grabbed his tail. She hoped to drag him away, so that they could find other pretty things. Preferably rocks.

It appears to Drogon — by voice of her desire — that she has a similar thought to him only unlike him she does not mean the future. She means now. Drogon supposes she cannot be blamed for it — she is in the stage that focuses on the here and now; perhaps the future is too big of a concept for her to yet grasp. Or perhaps she is just impatient. She demands his help and dashes behind him — quick as a whip — and grabs his tail. His head snaps sharply to the side and he swallows back the snarl that threatens to tear for him throat. She’s just a little girl, he has to repeat the words himself like a mantra; for her puppy teeth are incredibly sharp and his honed instincts are to attack and not to differentiate between innocence and threat. “Ok, ok.” He surrenders and when she lets go of his tail he rises to his paws, glacial gaze scanning the terrain around them for any signs of that mother he knows is lurking nearby ( or perhaps not paying too much attention for there has been no appearance ). Drogon lets her lead the way, a thought occurring to him: though he had snuck out and paid the ultimate price for it ( well aside from death ) he’d been a little over three months when he’d been taken from his home and she had to be younger than that, yet. A month, give or take and he smelled no pack borders nearby. So what in the hell was she doing so far from her pack’s borders? “Where is your pack?” He asks her, hoping that she understood what he’s trying to ask. “Why are you so far away from them?” He inquires, yet ignorant to the fact that they are in the process of migrating to a new territory having missed the mingling scents of the others as he’d been too focused on his small cut and her.

He pauses to glimpse down at it, pauses just long enough to swipe his tongue over the wound once more before he catches up to her once more in a few strides. “Let’s not wander too far.” He warns her gruffly. Mostly because he does not want to become responsible for her and also because he does not wish to be caught with her and things get misconstrued into appearing like he was trying to kidnap her or something as The Stranger had done to him.

During one of the head-counts, Day realized one of his daughters was nowhere to be found. Lavender and Khoe had wandered off a ways. This didn't worry the leader, but he did wonder what they were up to, and if there was any fun to be had with them. He wasted no time in following the trail, and when it split off in two directions, he followed after his daughter.

His hair stood on-end as he saw that she was not alone, but a moment later, he realized that it was only a boy. He was, perhaps, four months her senior, but he was still a boy. Grayday, unable to see a child as anything but innocent, quickly relaxed.

"Did you wander away from your mama, Princess?" he scolded, closing the distance between himself and his daughter. "Who's this?" he added, looking expectantly toward the pale boy.

i'm just going to go ahead and lightly ppc lavender so we can keep this thread going! :D ♥

She leads him a little bit further but whether she heeds his advice or heeds her own instinct she does not wander too far from where they’d first bumped into one another. Drogon watches her for a moment as she sets her quartz down and begins to look for more for her collection. He glimpses around them, weary, wondering what would possess a parent to let their child wander outside of the territory as young as she even with supervision. Drogon hadn’t been quite so young when The Stranger had kidnapped him and led him horribly astray after finding him in the neighboring territory of his home but even still the two months there might have been between her age now and Drogon’s age then: it had been too easy to fall prey; and maybe that’s part of the reason why he was here, doing this. Keeping her company and shifting through dirt for rocks: because he isn’t sure if she’s wandered away and he does not want to leave her unprotected from strangers with ill-intent.

For once in his life Drogon isn’t being utterly selfish …or an utter douchebag; and despite himself he begrudgingly admits that her jubilean nature is …infectious; and that it kind of feels nice to do something for someone else.

The sound of footfalls has the guard hairs standing on end at the nape of his neck and each muscle pulling taunt in the tundrian’s body and he hesitates between the want to flee ( especially if it is an angry parent ) and the instinct to remain rooted and protect ( if it is not an angry parent ready to rip his face off ). The grey man that comes into the scene addresses her as princess and inquires about her wandering away from her mama …but it is not enough to soothe the tundrian. Words were hollow — this Drogon knows very well. He’s a master liar, after all. He’s told a lie so many times that he can no longer remember the truth. His lie has become his truth. Dragon relaxes, however, when Lavender greets her father ecstatically and explains in her partial baby-tongue the situation and introduces him as Dran.

“It’s Drogon,” He corrects softly, ash dusted ears fluttering back to rest at half mast atop his skull as he keeps his posture neutral in the presence of the girl’s father. “She stumbled across me and showed me her rock,” The tundrian indicates to the shiny quartz at the merle girl’s paws. “and demanded I help her find more.” and offers a sheepish grin in a conclusive finish. And here we are, it says, hoping that their combined explanations are satisfactory and he will not find himself on the wrong side of her father's mood.

Grayday's gaze was sharp on the boy. He wasn't particularly worried about him harming his daughter, but instinct demanded that any unfamiliar wolf caught alone with his child be questioned.

It was Drogon's grin that caused him to relax, though. Suddenly, the male saw him for his true age, rather than the age he projected. Day decided that he'd meant no harm. "Well, did ya find any?" he asked, looking between the two kids. Lavender's tail wagged as she realized she'd escaped her father's wrath, and she bounded ahead a few paces to renew her search.

Grayday turned his attention to the boy. "You keepin' yourself fed?" he asked casually, having detected no scent of pack upon the strange child. It was shameful that such a young boy could be allowed to fend for himself for any amount of time, but Day had a feeling that showing his concern would not lead to anything good.

“Not yet,” Drogon admitted when Lavender’s father questioned if they found any more rocks. Drogon had never seen a rock like the quartz before so it was very likely he’d just end up finding her the dullest rock he could find because, well, he wasn’t even sure where one went to look for such a rock ( and as he’s never been in a cave before he has no idea that they are a treasure cove of pretty geodes that might catch Lavender’s magpie eye for shiny and pretty rocks ). Drogon, having never been in a situation like this before: facing the father of a girl wasn’t sure how this is supposed to go and this wasn’t even a romantic venture! — on such a matter Lavender was far too young for Drogon, a toddler to his adolescent/nearly pre-teen and firstly Drogon would have to have interest like that to begin with. He’s still too young. He had a fleeting crush on Nyx but that had vanished as quickly as everything else in his life.

Drogon’s weight shifted as Lavender’s father asked if he was keeping himself fed. The question was casual, as if it were just another facet of conversation and the tundra’s glacial gaze took in the older man, hesitant. The question itself was easy enough to answer but frankly, Drogon was tired of the same questions “where are your parents”, “are you lost”, ecetera. It’s only natural that Drogon is suspicious that those questions will follow close behind the seemingly innocent question regarding his state of hunger. The soturi is old enough to understand why adults keep asking those questions: he’s a homeless kid, nearly feral. He’s emotionally damaged and his mental scars have permanently changed him. Roarke was dead. As in with everything, the gun for personality, for his mind had been survival of the fittest and Drogon had won. Yet, the Wilds in all their danger has made him crafty, sharpened his wit and intelligence, made him strong. Drogon Ansbjørn is a survivor at all and every cost.

“Yeah, I do alright.” He finally answers after a few moments of stretching contemplation. He’s not as filled out as he’s meant to be, but his ribcage isn’t protruding through his skin and he’s not malnourished. He doesn’t eat like a king but he doesn’t starve, either. “I don’t always travel alone so eating is good when I have a companion to hunt with.” Because the last thing he wants is anyone to fuss over him.

Grayday was too busy scanning their surroundings and keeping an eye on Lavender to keep careful track of Drogon's expressions, but he shot a relieved glance in the boy's direction as he mentioned that he did not always travel alone. By wintertime, the boy would be plenty old enough to fend for himself, so Grayday didn't worry too badly for him. It just seemed... cruel. He'd seen so many children lost, displaced, and orphaned in his time here.

"Well, if you need a hunting partner, you can always look me up," said the leader, moving to follow after Lavender as she continued on her quest. "I can't believe her mother just left her here," he muttered, half to Drogon and half to himself. "Look at her - a hawk could still cart her off for dinner. What was that woman thinking?"

He'd never understand that woman. Sometimes, he felt that he was done trying.

"We need to get back to the pack," he said with a sigh. "Who knows what the other kids are getting up to without me." He leveled Drogon with a tired but friendly look. "We're heading west, if you ever want to come see us. On a plateau on the edge of the flatlands, just north of some hotsprings. I'm sure Lav would be glad to have you around."

He summoned Lavender to him with a sharp woof. "Say goodbye to your friend, 'Rushi. We gotta get back to the others."

Feel free to PP Lav saying goodbye!

The man puts a generous offer between them: that if he’s ever in need of a hunting partner to come find him. For a moment, Drogon can’t help but question why this man feels compelled to offer that especially when he’s got kids to worry over ( Drogon doesn’t realize he speaks to the pack’s Alpha which would have only perplexed the tundrian more ) but he accepts it with a sage nod of his head, not quite sure what to say and grateful when the man speaks, evidently partially to himself, about Lavender’s mother. “I wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.” Drogon speaks up, unsure why other than he wants to offer some sort of reassurance that Lavender had been safe in his presence. It was the first unselfish thing he’s done …possibly ever and surprisingly, he doesn’t inform the man for sake of praise or validation but simply to inform.

There is a sudden and surprising sinking in Drogon’s chest when her father announces that they needed to get back. Drogon’s glacial eyes flicker to Lavender as she picks up her quartz and he swallows thickly in …disappointment? Sorrow? It’s the first time he can remember feeling anything at parting with another wolf since the incident. The tundrian wasn’t so sure he liked it …feeling things. It sits like a heavy stone in his throat and he wants it to be gone. “Right,” Drogon rasps, as the man offers him directions to find them if he should feel so inclined. “Maybe I’ll stop by sometime.” He says and looks down at the merle girl as she approaches him. “See you later, kid.” Drogon leaves the girl with a wink and offers her father a dip of his head as he turns and heads in a different direction unable to help but wonder how and why she’d managed to worm her way beneath his armor and what he has to do to find that chink and repair it to avoid it happening again.