Nova Peak how they turned out

She could feel them. At first, Bazi had assumed that it was gas - she had been farting up a storm lately, and it wasn't unusual to feel the painless twisting of her gut as the (sometimes unfathomably disgusting) fumes made their way through her intestinal tract. But this was different. This started out as a sort of fluttering sensation which, as the days passed, became little kicks. Kicks. They had feet! And attitude! 

The peeing and gas weren't half as bad as the nausea, and whilst Bazi complained endlessly to anyone that would listen, she didn't really mind. Today, she was lounging in the steeper, more sparsely wooded area of the forest, where it thinned as it climbed the mountain. The sun was high in the sky, warming the not yet obscenely round (but getting there) mother where she lay in the grass, waiting for the next little tickle from her unborn children.

Hey :)

thanatosAn adventurer at heart, it had been surprising for even himself when he stopped by the borders of a pack and requested entrance into it. He had wandered for a long time, and loved the life of a loner, so he simply could not understand why he did it. Perhaps it was a slight change of the breeze, a sign of Zeus, or perhaps Arion had enough of the silence that came with being alone and longed for the noisy chatters of the pack. Or maybe he hoped the pack had some problems, problems that would get his brain moving, or some rivalry or wars to fight. Whatever it was, it wasn't here now. A day of wandering through pack grounds had brought him nothing but immense boredom and he was ready to burst. Almost literally.

thanatos"Where are the damned poppy seeds?!" Arion mumbled under his breath, walking in a quick pace. "Bloody Hell!" he growled, keen eyes taking in his surroundings, searching every nook and cranny but it wasn't there. It would take too long to go back to his cave den beside the Bitcurrent, and besides, he needed it right now. Unless there was something better to keep his mind moving. 

thanatosDespite the mood he was currently in, which was immense boredom blended into frustration and anger, he still walked silently and gracefully even though he wanted to stomp through the forest. Guess what Janus drilled into his head would never leave. Arion trotted, increasing his pace, fierce honey golden eyes narrowing as he searched the ground.  "Τι είναι λάθος με αυτό το καταραμένο γη?!" he muttered savagely, scanning upwards where his gaze alighted on a pale figure with a rather large belly. Bazi was it?

Hey!

Bazi had caught wind of a new arrival, but hadn't sought him out. Between coaching Tryphon and growing pups, she had time for little else but sleep. It did not come easy to her, and when a harsh voice interrupted her siesta, Bazi was none too pleased about it. Squinting whilst her eyes adjusted to the light, she rolled laboriously into a half-sit and scanned the slopes for the source of the commotion. A tall, brown gentleman was looking back at her. "What's all the noise?" she grumbled down at him, wetting her nose with a flick of her tongue. Unless he was sourcing some kind of herb to knock her out during childbirth, it wasn't worth it.

One glance at her and then she was not important, his mind was racing, and his nose and eyes were working overtime, trying to find where the damned poppy seeds were. Arion noticed from the corner of his eye that the pregnant woman had sat up and spoke, grumbling, asking what was all the noise. He spared her another look before continuing searching, answering while he did so. "Its called searching for herbs. A sleeping one in particular, seeds of a flower. Eat several and off you go into the realm of Hypnos." Arion grinned for a second, a clever fake grin, hard to recognize as a fake one though. "Or the realm of Morpheus if you're lucky, or unlucky." No doubt this woman would not know what he was talking about, most did not. Ugh. To be surrounded by idiot commoners. Why did he choose to settle down, exactly?

"The name's Arion," said the Acheron, still rummaging and sniffing, but coming to the conclusion that the poppy seeds were not here. Straightening himself, his golden gaze drifted back towards the pregnant lady and cocked his head slightly, an impassive look on his face. "Right, you are......who are you exactly?"

How're you doing, by the way? Health on the up?

He reminded her of the witch in the border shrubs - obsessed with weeds and roots, although Hedda had at least attempted to be charming. Hypnos, Morpheus, poppy seeds.. Bazi's ears tightened around her skull in a display of mild irritation. She felt instantly excluded by Arion's fanatic ramblings, having not the slightest clue what he was talking about - or any desire to find out, unless the 'realms' he spoke of were neighbouring packs and a threat. The context suggested not.

To top it all off, he was being rude to her in her own back yard. Bazi allowed his question to hang in the air for a moment, studying their newest recruit. His coat was unusual, and there was a fat scar across the bridge of his nose. Slowly, Bazi got to her feet, taking care not to knock or jostle her belly. "Did Scimitar accept you, or Kaskara?" she queried, withholding her name. He knew she was the Alpha - her pregnancy made that fact clear.

Yeah, I'm healing. Still can't walk on my own though, but at least I'm not paralyzed. :)

The pregnant lady answered his question with a question which drew another fake smile onto his features though internally he was wondering why he chose to intentionally live in this pack of fools. He was living in a world of fools, but he'd been alone then, no one to bother him, now he chose to live in a territory with a band of them. What the hell happened to him? Arion supposed he should be glad that he was only with one idiot now, not surrounded by a band of them. He did not like being outnumbered, even if those who outnumbered him were his packmates. It made too much stupid in the air.

"I believe it was Scimitar," the Acheron said. Names were something he remembered but did not like to actually go into his head to find the name, it was too bothersome. Boring. But Arion would provide an answer to a name question merely because he could use his head. "Large, stocky, turquoise eyes, cheeks and underside a pale ivory. Agouti furred, strong. Must be a fighter. Scarred." Honey golden eyes gazed at Bazi's pregnant belly. "Soon to be father, I suppose." Thanatos smiled then and dipped his head slightly the the white dove. "I believe you haven't told me your name yet."

Well, that is something!

Bazi smiled gently at the thorough description of her mate. Stubborn, broody, wonderful, she added in her head. It still amazed her that things had worked out for them - but it was early days yet. Soon they would have their very own litter of children to twist and ruin.

She had no idea how little Arion though of his new pack-mates - how quickly she and her hard-won family had been dismissed as simpletons. Nothing about him suggested poor self-esteem (unlike Tryphon, Arion bore himself proudly and spoke with confidence), but there was nevertheless an awkardness to him that Bazi could only assume came from time spent alone. She felt a little sorry for him, pushing his cart of snark and wit through the world without company. He didn't seem like the type that was quick to make friends - but then, neither was Scimitar. At least it made them both interesting.

"It's Bazi," she finally introduced, ambling slowly down the slope. "He'll be a father before the moon turns again.. at least I hope so. Pregnancy is starting to get on my nerves." She settled within spitting distance, taking weight off her suffering joints with a grateful sigh. Close up, the mark across his face was impossible to ignore. It was both broad and long, and the result of an unusually clean cut. Bazi stared unabashedly at it. "Is there a story behind that scar?"

He was a bastard child, he knew. But not unwelcome among the ranks of his father's pack, for Janus though loyal to his mate, occasionally had other flings with woman. They were trained in a harsher and fiercer environment than trueborn pups of the pack, but it was not brutal and no matter what, his father and their stepmother still loved them. Arion was not content with staying at the Pavilion though, feeling the urge to leave the suffocating environment and prove himself to the world. So he left, but did not like the other packs he joined, so the fates gave him the path of a loner, it was lonely but Arion minded little, for he never had much friends anyways, actually he only ever had one. It was easy to adjust. But now, back in a pack, he wondered if he would be able to stay, or would he leave again? Or get kicked out for his insufferable asshole attitude?

"Bazi," he repeated thoughtfully, mind wandering to where she might come from before snapping back to reality once more. "Ha! Glad I'm not female," Arion said without regard of what the other might think. He frowned then, remembering what his friend and brother used to say about feelings. Stupid emotions that they somehow had. A weakness really, but he supposed they didn't know that. "....Sorry...that was probably inconsiderate." Thanatos winced inwardly, god, apologizing was definitely not what he was best at.

When the white dove asked about his scar, the stallion almost asked her which one before remembering she could only see one. The one on the bridge of his muzzle, the memory drew a twinkle onto his honey golden eyes. "That one...yeah but you wouldn't want to hear it. It involves two trickster puppies, an amused and angry father, drowning, a lost child and a bear." Not the best story about a scar.

"Glad I'm not female!" he exclaimed. Bazi shot him a dismayed look, shrugged lightly when he apologized, but said nothing more on the subject. She could have said something about the honour of bearing the future of the pack, but it wouldn't have been sincere - she looked forward to raising her children (this she was almost practiced at by now), but not their transition from womb to world. 

"No, actually, that sounds like a perfect story." And if he had more where that came from, perhaps Arion could pull his weight as story-teller for the duration of his stay, however long that might be. Bazi settled back down on her side with a soft grunt and looked expectantly up at her source of entertainment for the afternoon.  "If that's all you took away from a fight with a bear, you're lucky." 

Arion was torn between smiling at Bazi and yelling at her. What made him conflicted? Bazi, the Alpha was telling him to entertain her with the story of his scar. He couldn't refuse her because that would be impolite, and probably the wrong move since she was his leader. But he didn't really want to expose the story of his scar. It was humiliating and embarrassing and honestly? His family knowing about it was really enough. "Lucky my father was there, or I wouldn't be here entertaining you now." The stallion retorted, an amused smile touching his lips as he went into his mind place and drew the story into the front of his mind.

"I have an adoptive brother which my father picked up as a pup, older than me for about a month. We were best friends and often got into trouble. One day, we decided to prank my father and since my stepmother was pregnant, we told him that she was giving birth and he rushed in only to see her fast asleep. But I told the healer of the pack to create a kind of red dye to spread on her and the ground, and from a distance it looked like blood. My father freaked out and woke my stepmother who was very angry indeed, but not at us since she knew about the prank, but at my father because he woke her up. It was an amusing sight for us children." The stallion stared wistfully into nowhere, the scene playing vividly in his head.

"Of course she told him what happened and though he was angry at us for pranking him, he was also rather amused, after all, he was the one who told us about the various pranks he did on his own father when he was a child." Arion flashed Bazi a grin now, deciding that he liked telling stories. "Janus, our father started chasing us, playfully of course, and the two of us ran. I wasn't looking in front of me though and fell into a river. Swimming was not taught to us youngsters yet, so obviously, I began to sink and drown. Janus pulled me out by the scruff and while I recovered from my shock, he lectured my adopted brother."

Then the bear came

"From behind me, a gigantic black bear emerged from the woods and I stood there, dumbstruck and unable to move. It gleaming claws struck me by the muzzle and I let out a battle cry, which alerted my father who howled for backup before shoving me out of the way and engaging the bear and with the help of some others, killed it." The battle cry part hadn't been true, but it was better than admitting he had screamed in terror.

It wasn't the final battle with the bear but the events leading up to it that held Bazi's attention. She wondered why Arion painted such a vivid backstory  when it had no bearing on the outcome of events - he could just as well have said that he and his brother were playing chase with their father, and happened upon a bear. There description of the fight lacked detail, leaving Bazi to wonder if the true purpose of his story was to shock her - and disguise the intent. For a wolf that seemed so aloof, Arion had shared an awful lot about his past - and he wasn't a bad storyteller. 


"So you bear that scar because you fooled your father into thinking his mate had miscarried his children," she finished, quirking her brow in an exaggerrated fashion. Bazi dared not imagine what Scimitar would do in the same situation. What sane mother would agree to such a thing? "Did you ever think about that?"

The truth was, only part of the story was true, the other part was not. The first part of the story had indeed happened when he was a child but the fight with the bear was not, he had been careful not to reveal all the details of his past childhood life to her. Sure, she was a packmate, but a packmate was still a stranger and a potential enemy until proven otherwise. And Bazi did not really seem to him as the trustworthy type in his eye. Only the wolves he liked could past the first test of trust, and the Alpha female did not pass the test.

When the pregnant wolf spoke, seeing another perspective of his story and asked him a question. The greek stallion merely offered her a shrug and a brief, crooked grin. "Not really," he said with a tilted head and a mysterious smile.

His response heightened her mistrust, and Bazi wore it on her face like a blemish. He would not last at Nova Peak. It was difficult enough for a normal wolf to wedge themselves in among the steel-forged bonds of the veterans - and Arion was not normal. Bazi chewed thoughtfully on her tongue, watching the males's hard, orange eyes shift colour as a cloud rolled over them. 

Then she got to her feet, flashed him one last look, and ambled down the slope and into the forest.

last post from me, thanks for the thread :)

Arion cared not for the Alpha's opinion, he drifted into their ranks easily enough and while he lived there, he repaid them which was more than he should have done. Hunted and filled the caches, patrolled their damned borders. Next time, he promised himself, if he was in the same situation, he would not repay those who took him in. He was Thanatos, the son of Janus, an Acheron, and he did whatever the hell he wanted. They meant nothing to the chocolate nobleman, nothing at all, in fact he might as well damn them to the depths of Tartarus.

The rude pregnant female did not even say goodbye, instead flashed him one last look and left. Once he was sure she was gone, he spat at the ground in the direction she went and muttered a few terrible profanities in greek, before he too left, but in a different path. He did not want to bump into that arctic female after all.