ashes

Meee too. I spent something like two years not really writing/roleplaying. Houkie eventually talked me into joining when I got internet. I'm pretty happy I did. :)

Though curious as to who could have pointed in the direction of their pack, Mordecai did not press the topic. It didn't feel appropriate following what the traveler dropped next. Survival was a very funny thing, depending on where it was they found themselves. Mordecai had scraped through rough seasons on his own, but never entirely. If anything, he had unknowingly submitted himself into nameless packs of four or six. The Spine had once been robust, teeming with able bodies that had since fled them, or otherwise succumbed to things beyond their control. Wanderlust, he supposed, was chief among them. Time had whittled down the memory of many who had come in his stay to dust.

But he knew that it had to have taken a bit of effort, a prestige hit on the collective scale of self-esteem to admit such a claim. Though they were social creatures by default, Mordecai sensed that weight that rested between the ashen shoulders of the loner. He may have mistaken it, but he figured it was contentedness with him just being with his sister. The two wolves were probably a pack of their own. Slicking his ears back thoughtfully, Mordecai found silence at the forefront of his behavior. He hated the deliberation of picking and choosing words, but he was considering things. Considering the likelihood that perhaps, if he attempted to extend the offer of aid and shelter and all of that nonsense, they too would eventually depart when the weather changed.

Yet again, how had that ever been any different than what he had done in the past?

His lips pursed a moment, before he spoke. “I understand where you find yourself. But there are things I'd like to know, most of all what your intentions are if we take you and your sister in. How can you help us? How long will you stay?” He thought back to the same questions he had been asked, if only because he had been forward in his intentions a time or two. Both times he had been turned away, but he thought himself a more just creature than those he had sought aid from. With Jinx, he had never mentioned what his intentions were, but then again, she had never asked. Perhaps she had some eerie foresight into what the times had held again, or perhaps she gambled on every vassal in her court.