Blackfeather Woods flesh and blood

prefer @Maegi @Euron @Ramsay or all :D

A strange thing had happened of late; he had come to care for his children, even though they were atrocities and proof of the crimes the beast had committed. But somehow that did not matter to him, as most things did not matter. They were also of his blood and he loved them like a father would. Found himself worrying for their health and wanting to keep them safe.

The spiderling glen was no longer needed so muchly now but Cicero went to the glen anyway to see if he could find any of the pups. He descended the slope down to the glen and glanced around to see if he could find any of them there. He chuffed a low call to see if any were near and interested in some food or a talk.

all! all! all!

Sometimes, she missed the sightless, soundless days of their youth. When the freakish litter had had to band together, struggling for each breath, yet pressed against each other lovingly. They were inseparable, if only by virtue of their infant handicaps.

Now, Euron was always sneaking about somewhere, and Ram was away doing something, and Maegi was engaged in talking to someone--they rarely spent time together, anymore. And she knew it was the cost of growing up, but still. . .she longed for simpler times.

And so, in order to grab hold of those simpler times once more, she traveled to the glen for the first time in a while. Perhaps one or more of her siblings would be there already, as if summoned by her wistful thoughts.

As it turned out, someone was there--but not Euron or Ramsay, but her uncle Cicero instead.

She gave him a friendly smile, though slightly disappointed that it wasn't one of her brothers, and padded awkwardly over to him, wondering what he had to share with her--for clearly, he had come to the glen for the same reason as she had: to speak to one or all of Blackfeather's newest litter.

The glen was base camp and Blackfeather's youngest sneak often returned to it for rest. The glen was not as busy as the rest of the territory; the boy found that most of his packmates preferred the outer fringes of the territory and beyond, the so the quietude of the nursery continued to serve him even now that he had outgrown its original intended purpose. Had Euron and his littermates been raised with proper care and structure, they would have been moved to a rendezvous site more proximal to the rest of the pack and that place likely would have become the new base camp; but that never happened, and so Euron remained attached to the glen and his siblings. Though Cicero, through his patient teachings of things Euron actually cared about, had also worked himself into the beginning of the boy's inner circle.

So while Euron might ignore someone else's call or only ever lurk around out of curiosity, he was keen to respond when he heard Cicero. He was not far off, and for once he did not bother creeping in like the creeper he was. Instead, he moved rather quickly (naturally furtive even still) to Cicero and found that Maegi was there as well. He greeted his sister with a fond headbutt to her shoulder before chirping a friendly greeting to older male, his mismatched eyes bright and twinkling.

"Hi!"

Cicero had expected Euron to stay in the background. If any of the others were around, then he guessed they might show up now. Ears pointed forward as Maegi showed first, looking expectant, as though she thought he was here for something in particular. Perhaps this was in part true, for he was here to look for the children, but he did not have anything specific to share. He just enjoyed spending time with them here. Not long after Euron showed, causing him to look up towards the boy. Only moments after Cicero nosed her forehead Maegi was near bowled over by Euron's headbutt, eliciting a chuckle from Cicero.

"Lively as ever," he commented as he playfully nipped at Euron's ear. Now Euron's mismatched eyes were clearer than ever before, differentiating him from his father. "How are things? Growing well?" He could not help but wonder what wolves they were frequently in contact with now. He knew that Vaati gave them food but did they get other things from him too? "Do you wish to play a game? How about a question-game, where you can ask Cicero anything." Children often had many inquiries, and Cicero did not mind indulging.

For once, she heard Euron coming and was prepared for his touch, though it still knocked her slightly off-kilter, what with the bad leg and all. Giving him an amiable sound, somewhere between a growl and a purr, she looked back at Cicero, who had spoken.

"Ask you anything?" Maegi questioned, pondering all of the things she could possibly throw at him. She could ask him about plants or poisons or gods or stars, all the things that interested her, but perhaps that would bore Euron or her uncle. She didn't want to be boring.

She was suddenly shy, and looked to Euron for backup. Then back to Cicero. The two looked so alike, the only thing separating the two was an eye color. Her brother was her uncle's perfect miniature, in almost every way.

Then, one burning question made its way into her mind once more, and she looked down at her right forepaw. It was the question that kept her up nights, and she had kept it hidden away for fear of the answer. But now she looked back at Cicero, and with a voice that trembled slightly, she asked, "What's wrong with my paw? It doesn't look like everyone else's."

She looked at Euron, feeling embarrassed. "What's your question?" she asked quietly.

Ramsay ambled in his peculiar way down the hill, late to the gathering but eager to join in. He hadn't heard Cicero's call earlier nor his offer to his litter mates, but he had spotted the patchwork wolf from above and made a beeline right for him. When he reached the bottom and saw first Maegi and then Euron, his short tail and hindquarters alike wiggled and he padded swiftly for them, though he bypassed Euron to bump into Maegi first. He saw his brother often, but it had been a while since he spent any quality time with his sister, and he was eager to show affection to her.

When she voiced her question, Ramsay swung around to view Cicero's reaction, then glanced back at his sister's paw. Like him, it was different from other paws, but he saw it as the best part of her. It was like true beauty on display, no lies, no trickery in deformity. There was no real reason for his affinity. Ramsay just liked things like him. For now, he didn't have a question, and wasn't even wholly aware of what they were all doing, so he shifted his attention to Euron when Maegi did and watched quietly.

Sorry I didn't notice this tag at first! ^^;

The prospect of being able to ask Cicero anything was exciting, and Euron wriggled in place and wagged his tail, even more so as his brother came to join them. But sometimes too much choice made it difficult to pick anything and with a quiet ummm... the boy drew a complete blank on what to ask. He had nothing but an I dunno shrug and a half-smile for his sister as she — and Ramsay — looked to him. That made him feel a bit awkward and Euron glanced at his paws and scuffed the snow with one before glancing at Ramsay, who Euron saw as more the leader of the trio.

Fortunately, Maegi was able to come up with a question on her own, evoking an immediate and defensive-protective what are you talking about frown from Euron. "It is not wrong! It is just different!" He blurted out, before springing off her question to add his. "Why is no one else having these," he turned his head to gesture at his shoulder patches. "No one else but you. Why are you looking like me?" Euron narrowed his eyes briefly as he stared at the marks that adorned Cicero's patches, murmuring more so to himself, "I want those."

Many questions came forth, though interestingly enough not from the weirdly shaped child that joined later. Cicero wondered if he had missed the offer to answer any of their questions completely. The most interesting of this was that they so unabashed asked their most interesting questions but that they had never thought to ask them before, while he would always have answered. It was intriguing, on the one hand because suggesting one could ask any question made them think about what they really, really wanted to know, and on the other hand because it might make them ask questions they were afraid to ask otherwise.

Maegi's question was a tough one. Euron interjected that her paw was not wrong, simply different, causing a smile to form upon Cicero's face, if only briefly. He then answered, face flat again as always, "Cicero does not know why. All wolves are different, though he has never seen one with a paw like yours." He didn't know that it was due to inbreeding that they were so different and warped, for he'd never seen such things before.

Euron then spouted forth many questions. Cicero glanced briefly at Ramsay, who might already know from a previous encounter. He then said, his voice void of any emotion and his face betraying none either, "That is because Cicero is your father." He looked over the other pups in self-explanatory movement — you are all mine, too — then back to Euron, having caught his murmured words.

"The red paw print Cicero can give, if the right ingredients are found. The spider..." He canted his head in thought; he and his siblings had received it upon their coming of age, from what he remembered, but he doubted he would be around for that of his own children, everything considered. It meant little to him, but if they wished it, he decided he would give it them. "... Is more painful and lasting. It is not for the weak of heart, and a mark one carries for the rest of their life. Cicero can give this, too, but think whether it is what you really want." He would not let Euron — or his siblings — make these split decisions right now, right here. If they did want it, then he'd let them at least sleep on it. It would possibly be another nail to his coffin, he realised, but Cicero had never cared about such fleeting things as life.

Euron's blurted retort made her duck her head, suddenly shy. Cicero followed it up with a similar sentiment. She wasn't sure whether to believe them. Maybe it would be okay if the paw didn't impede her in any way--but she saw how others ran and jumped. She couldn't move like that. It wasn't possible.

Maegi was about to open her mouth to argue this point when Cicero answered Euron's seemingly innocuous question, and her blood ran cold. She closed her lips, staring wildly once more back and forth between Cicero and Euron. Father? But. . .  She wasn't quite sure why the fact disturbed her so much. But he had been Uncle Cicero, all her short life, and now. . .father?

"But you're our uncle," she insisted, looking back to Cicero with a fierce look. Her mother's brother. "How. . ." A tidal wave of feelings crashed suddenly over her, and she took a step back, wanting to talk to. . .well, someone, about this.

"I've gotta go," Maegi said quickly, giving Ramsay an affectionate nuzzle with her nose before departing. Find me later, her gaze said. With one more haunted look back to her. . .father. . .the little white-pelted girl hobbled away, her heart heavy with the half-realization of what this meant for her.

 

spooked her!

He sat back to think over the questions his siblings asked. The game was easy to catch onto even though he had missed Cicero's invitation: they were playing 21 Questions, or something like that. As Cicero tried to answer Maegi's questions, the dwarf's eyes roved over the marks on Cicero's pale shoulders, the ones Euron mentioned a beat later. The spider was nothing to him—a scar long since misshapen by time and growth, and though he thought such blemishes to be lovely, Ramsay didn't want it—but the red pawprint drew his attention like it did Euron's.

Once Euron asked his question and before Ramsay could ask what had to be done to get the red print, Cicero's next big revelation came. It was no such thing to Ramsay, as Cicero had already baldly told him he was their father, so he was completely unfazed by the news. Maegi's adverse reaction was much more of a shock to him than the news itself; he screwed up his face in distress as Maegi lost her cool, then departed. He rose and took several steps after her with a worried call of, "Maegs!" but ultimately didn't go after her. Whatever bothered her so much about Cicero being her dad, he would talk to her about later.

Ramsay didn't truly know what an uncle was, nor that Potema and Cicero were siblings, and even if he did, he was unlikely to understand why that was a bad thing, or what it had to do with his sister's paw and his spine.

He swung back around to Euron and Cicero, confusion plain on his face, but when he piped up, it was to voice the incredibly cryptic, "you scared?" He was remembering Indra when he asked that, and how disgusted she was when he kicked the severed paw, and how she said she was scared of the woods and what they did to others. Ramsay wasn't scared, and his question was whether or not he ought to be.

Euron at Maegi:

lol

Outside his litter Euron had bonded with no other wolf besides Cicero. He was fond of him, and the news that he was their father was met with easy acceptance if not apathy. The pup had no idea what the implications were and did not fully grasp the significance either — he had a more notable reaction to Maegi's upset, casting his sister a sideways look as she spoke and then abruptly left. Like Ramsay, he would seek her out later to find out what the deal was. In the meantime he was perplexed.

Cicero's explanation about the marks intrigued Euron, who was drawn to the red pawprint the most. Perhaps because it contrasted so starkly against the white shoulder patch. But Ramsay asked his question next and Euron canted his head but remained quiet. His gaze flicking to Cicero for the answer. Truthfully, Euron was not even sure what Ramsay was asking.

Cicero watched as Maegi seemed upset. His voice remained void of emotion as he stared at her as she made excuses to go. He opened mouth to offer that she could find him later if she wished but since she was so quick to gather herself and depart all he managed was a quick nod that she might not even have caught. He looked back to the boys, who did not really care, which was more or less in his line of expectations. It made Cicero wonder if Potema or Vaati or anyone else had said something about this or him to Maegi, or about his supposed role as uncle as opposed to father: Cicero had never named himself either of those things up until this point, but maybe someone else'd named him uncle and explained their vision of what ways siblings should love each other. The kind of hurtful propaganda that'd made Damien turn away from him, too.

Ramsay did not respond beyond calling after his sister, but it was no use. She was already gone. Cicero elaborated: "There is no harm in the love between siblings, if both wish it so." He left out that Potema had not wished it so — mostly because it was irrelevant to them, to who they were and who they would become. It may cause only pain and insecurity that would do them more harm than good. Yet he felt it important to emphasise it was only good if both wished it so. He had never imposed himself upon Damien despite his unwavering love for his brother because Damien had not wished it so. Had he been in charge he would not let Sheogorath have, either, but it was hard to regret the turn of events when he had children that he loved in a different yet similarly significant manner.

Ramsay was next to ask a question and he moved on quickly. "Everyone is scared at times," said Cicero. "To say one is never scared would be to lie. Yet all wolves are scared of different things. Cicero..." He halted briefly, ears tilting back and forward. "... Is afraid the most of losing his brother Damien, or to see him harmed." In a way, his fear had come true — and the worst part was that he himself had had part in shaping his brother's insanity. "But Cicero is not afraid of pain or death, like most wolves."

That made sense. "I love Euron and Maegs," he told the pair of them, plain as day. He didn't catch Cicero's meaning when it came to love; he loved his siblings, and in a way he supposed he loved Cicero as well. He loved Vaati and each of the pack mates he interacted with, but in a lesser way because they weren't around much. Ramsay felt that he loved everyone, but none moreso than his litter mates, and he was none the wiser to the less-than-pure meaning behind Cicero's version of love.

He listened with interest to his father's next answers, and when the patchwork wolf had concluded—even going so far as to spell out his greatest fear—the boy shared, "someone said to me they were scared. Of here. They said was scary here. But it's not scary. Not scared of here." At least, he didn't think he was. Everything in the woods felt like home, even the death and decay that marked their borders, though he didn't much like it. He'd never been faced with the possibility of losing either of his closest siblings before, so he couldn't say he was afraid of that either, though should it ever come to fruition, then he would feel fear in its purest form and know his worst fear was much the same as Cicero's, albeit not for the same reason.

He was listening quietly and did not interject in between Cicero and Ramsay's exchange. He observed and he absorbed. But while his tongue was still his body still reacted. His ears cupped forward with interest, and he smiled and wiggled his tail when Ramsay stated that he loved him and Maegi. Then he grinned when Cicero talked of being scared. He knew was it was to scared too... but it was his mind that was twisted and deformed by the nature of their birth and so his response to fear was unconventional.

"That is making no sense." He commented after Ramsay spoke of someone believing their woods to be scary. He had encountered scary things in the woods — like the slip from the slope his brother and him had climbed together. But he could not fathom how the entire place was scary. "But I like it here and I like scary so..." the pup shrugged. That was the only explanation he had.

"Scary makes me feel... hmmm."

Euron hummed as he searched for the right descriptor.

"Scary makes me feel very alive."

Cicero grinned when Ramsay said that someone'd called this place scary. "Ah, different wolves find different things scary," he said. "Some may see the blood and bones upon Blackfeather borders as a warning, fear it is their own blood and bones next." This Cicero could understand, even if he did not mirror the same thoughts himself.

He smiled briefly when Euron said that scary made him feel alive. He felt much the same himself. Cicero clicked tongue against teeth and said, "Cicero, too." Then ragged ears cupped forward to hear if the boys had any more questions.

"Blood and bones are blood and bones," Ramsay asserted, "not wolves." He understood the connection, but if one was reduced to blood and bones, then they could no longer be afraid. That was where a vital link was missing for him. Anyway, Blackfeather's horrid display didn't bother him much for what it was meant to do; it didn't seem to deter many other wolves. He had seen it attract more wolves than it deterred, what with that hungry loner even going so far as to try to eat parts of it, and that made it dangerous not for outsiders, but for the pack.

He couldn't wholly relate to what his brother and father were talking about—fear jolted his senses awake but it wasn't something he necessarily enjoyed like they did. So he hummed quietly to himself and looked away for a time, and when his eyes wandered back, they lit on the red paw again and he asked, "how do you get that?" Not everyone had it—only Cicero and mother and Damien that Ramsay had seen—so he knew it couldn't be a given.

Euron agreed with what Ramsay said, but the disconnect that he had was different and it carried to the living. He cared about his siblings and he cared about Cicero. If it were there blood and bones it would matter to him. But his heart strings were astonishingly few, and there was not one for corpses to pluck at, nor were there any for anyone besides the aforementioned three.

"I like the blood and bones." He commented, going on to say, "but so do other wolves. They try to take them." His thinking was again in line with Ramsay's. From his experience the macabre decor was a lure more than a deterrent. He however did not contemplate how it affected the pack's safety. Instead, he was only concerned with how he wished to possess the pieces of the dead but had to compete with outsiders for them because they were kept on the borders. Euron would have hid them somewhere secret.

His eyes flicked to the red paw on Cicero's shoulder when Ramsay queried about it.

"Yeah?" he echoed.

The pups came up with interesting thoughts, and Cicero merely "hmm-mm"d through them, having little opinion of his own about their borders and the bones and blood that marred it. It had always been there, it did not affect him, in either way.

Cicero grinned when Ramsay asked him about the paw print. He'd explained when Euron had asked but he supposed his explanation had got caught up in Maegi's disappearance act, after which they had spoken about other things again. "Cicero can give it to Euron and Ramsay, if you wish." It sounded like a 'yes', but Cicero waited for explicit permission first. "But we must find dye first to make it with." Cicero knew that Potema kept these dyes, so he could look through her stashes. It was risky in case she found them, but then, he was fairly sure she was more afraid of him than the other way 'round, so he doubted she would try to stop them if they would look for dyes in her stock. "It is not a permanent thing. It needs replenishment." His would go stale soon, he guessed; Kove was likely the last wolf he could think of who would give him the paw print again. Though maybe soon, so would his children.

"I like, too," he agreed absently with Euron's assessment, but nevertheless, he found them troublesome as well. They attracted too much unwanted attention. He didn't know why he felt that was a problem yet, but it was only a matter of time before his logic and reality connected with one another. Euron's observation made sense, and drew those two things closer together, but it still didn't click for Ramsay and he let the topic drop.

Especially because Cicero was offering something far cooler.

It turned out there didn't seem to be any criteria to meet to receive the red pawprint, so Ramsay eagerly agreed with a, "yes!" that Euron was almost certain to echo. Maegi had left their company too early; she would not get to wear the print like they would, but perhaps she didn't want to anyway, since it seemed connected to Cicero himself.

Does this mean we can assume they have red pawprints after this or no? o:

Right on cue, Euron echoed Ramsay with his own enthusiastic "yes!"

If asked he would not be able to say what it was he liked about the pawprint. The stark color stood out against the bold white patch of his father's shoulder. It would stand out on his too. He might have answered that he simply wanted to look more like Cicero. Euron was beginning to wonder what it might be like to masquerade as another. To be another. To employ that in his sneaking and spying. But it was such a budding thought — a feeling, really — he hardly had to the words to fully describe it.

"Ramsay first!" He chirped, hopping back so that he could witness the application of the pawprint, as he assumed it would happen right here and right now.

as said in PM: Cicero would help replenish the paw prints but it's not official DB so they might get in trouble for sporting 'em :)

The boys were rather excited and Cicero then started leading the way to Potema's stashes. "Let's see if your mother has any dye left," he murmured as he started heading towards the stashes. While they walked he told them: "The paw print is an official mark of the Dark Brotherhood. Yet Cicero is not the one who can do it officially. Ask Kove about being admitted to the brotherhood and receiving it officially. However, having the paw print openly may anger wolves like Vaati.." He considered for a moment before adding, ".. or Kove, though he is the more reasonable of them." He just wanted them to know the consequences to these actions. It was clear from the way he explained it Cicero saw no harm in adding the paw print and would help them, but others may not think the same.

As they reached Potema's stashes Cicero nosed 'round in there until he found a leaf with some red mush on it in which he planted his paw. Cicero then looked to Ramsay, waiting for confirmation whether he still wanted it on the terms that he had just heard.

Oh, my bad! I never got a PM about this at all so didn't know.

Much of Cicero's warning went in one ear and out the other. The number of wolves whose opinions he valued was increasingly small, so if he was in trouble with Vaati or Kove, that was only par for the course for him. He hardly ever listened to Vaati anyway, even though his elder sibling was trying to teach his ungrateful ass how to be an assassin. Ramsay had never even met the latter, so he wasn't capable of being afraid of being reprimanded by Kove either. Anyway, the only wolf whose reprimands he would even listen to was the one giving him the pawprints, so he took it as permission.

"Always angry," he said of his brother with a shrug, and that served as his confirmation. He peered around Cicero's leg as best he could to see the red dye—he would never know what it was made of, but knew it wasn't blood as he'd originally expected—and then brandished his shoulders for his father's paw.

How did I miss all these threads I owed replies to. Mild pp of Cicero putting the print on Ramsay. Please poke if not acceptable — just trying to help us finish up!

Cicero's statement that the red paw would likely anger his older brother and possibly others served Euron not as a warning but as an encouragement, and the impish look that crawled onto his face and stayed there was testament to that.

He watched raptly as Cicero searched for what he needed and applied the paint to his brother's shoulder. "Oooh," he cooed, leaning in to closely inspect the mark with a bob of his snout in utmost approval. "Now me!" Euron chirped, wiggling his tail furiously as he spun around to offer the blazing white of his own shoulder to his father's paw.

oops, sorry about that, i thought i'd informed you too. the pp is fine! ^^ feel free to fade this out with y'all's next replies :)

Cicero snickered when Ramsay declared that Vaati was always angry anyway. Well, he had given a disclaimer but truthfully, Cicero did not care much either about invoking anyone's anger. As soon as he had found the paint Cicero placed his paw in it and he placed the paw print on Ramsay's shoulder as per the boys' desires. It did not show as much as it did on his own because of Ramsay's dark pelt, though surely Euron's excited chirps as he looked at the paw print made up for much of that. Cicero then placed his paw back in the paint and then on Euron's shoulder, leaving a much clearer paw print there.

"Just like real dark brotherhood members," said Cicero with a smile. "Well deserved." In his mind the boys deserved to be a part of the dark brotherhood — they were working hard to become strong members of the pack and contributed greatly. He nosed the boys' cheeks and smiled, feeling something akin to pride — a feeling he did not have often.

Once the paw print was applied, Ramsay withdrew to attempt to admire it. It was hard enough to see one's own shoulders when one wasn't shortened by about half a body length, but for Ramsay, it was completely impossible. He spun in place for several long seconds, frowning and growling and trying his best to grow a longer neck so he could see, until Cicero had finished applying the print to Euron. He pranced over on over-long legs to peek at his brother's mark and his short tail began to wag.

"Thank you!" Ramsay chirped with a beam at Cicero, utilizing his incredibly rare manners to express his utter joy and approval. "Go show Maegi!" he bid Euron, having forgotten that his sister didn't really want to see any of them right now, and not realizing that it would probably serve as a point of contention that they'd been marked and she hadn't.

Kris feel free to archive here or post again and archive!