King Elk Forest sweet adeline

open to anyone! but hopin for a chronicler thread, mb @Trajan or @Eucalyptus? set after his thread w/bri, keeping it a little vague

the story is coming together. deftly he weaves it around the strands of fate that tie the silvery prince and his group together. there is: mato's fateful meeting with rannoch, his time at the vale with brienne; there is: burke, his lineage of packs - arthendal, which delight still wishes to visit, the fen where the crown prince was born, the wicked caldera who've easily become minor antagonists in delight's version of the tale; there is: brienne herself, seabreeze, who's kindness and grace stop him from giving in to his basest jealousy. it is easy enough to detach himself. it is easy enough for him to move on if he is not present - if he is busy weaving himself into the story instead of thinking about things. and where does he himself fit in the story? does it matter if he is an outsider? (yes, he thinks: because he wants to know about the others like him, who didn't know mato before he approached them) well: he was nothing and had nothing, and the prince appeared and gave him something. that's good enough for now, he hopes.

Hope you don't mind a wild Mal!

Though not the most active member of their group, the brains behind the matter should not be forgotten. She had more or less only been taking care of Burke, who's strength was decreasing with every week. Not longer would he make it, Malice pondered, even though he wished for him to stay. Though she had longed to go to the peak Charon had spoken about, she did not wish it to happen on such a grim note. She loved him, truly, not only for the man he once was, but for the man he was now.

She was walking in no particular direction, sniffling the many plants she found on her way. She had liked plants ever since Veritas had healed her throat, though perhaps a teacher would come handy one day. It was not like she was simply eating everything she saw with the hopes it would not kill her, though. She wasn't paying attention much as she was entranced by a plant with a beautiful leaf design.

not at all! thanks for joining :)

from his inner monologue the thespian is pulled, catching the scent of someone unfamiliar. their numbers are small enough that delight can guess this must be - malice, yeah, burke's mate. they're at a distance - she doesn't seem to have noticed him - and for a moment he debates bothering her (after all he deeply enjoys his solo brooding sessions), but then again, there is that opportunity.

the androgyne rouses from his laying position and slips closer to the woman. curiously he notes she seems to  be a bit younger than burke - grown, sure, but not an elder. well, he's not one to judge. awkwardly he chuffs a greeting, silvery gaze traveling from her form to that which seems to have captured her attention - some plants? he guesses? and back to her honeyed face. "'lo," delight says, "what's that?"

She does not notice the figure creeping up to her. Only when he chuffs do her ears point towards him as her head whips up, pale yellow eyes staring intrigued at him for quite a moment. He did not recognize him,  but she supposed this was the man they called Delight. She smiles at him, wondering what the chocolate male found so interesting about her looking at plants to cause a reaction such as coming to join her.

Her brows knitted together then, worried to say she does not know what exactly she was looking at. I'm not sure... She answers, lowering her muzzle down to the plant. The leafs were so strange though - a whole different colour started at the root and the edges were lighter. But I do find it pretty. She chuckled.

she doesn't know what the leaves are, and tells him that, and delight loses interest. "oh," he says, and moves on to phase two, totally smoothly. "i'm delight singing-sunlight -- you're malice, right? burke and mato both mentioned you." he pauses, realising how odd that sounds, and tries again: "i mean - because i'm - i'm collecting everyone's stories, right now. the founding stories of tindómë." 

he glances at the plant again as if checking it is still, in fact, the same boring leaf it'd been when he walked up. so far all of his pack mates have been quite accomodating on his self-directed quest but there is still the awkward hesitation in demanding the life stories of total strangers - and so he bites his tongue for now, watching instead to see how she responds before he decides to press on or not.

She looks at him then, leaving the leafs be as she listened. She wondered if the name given was his real one, or another mask worn by those with a rather unsatisfying past. It wasn't uncommon - Burke and her had both done it for some time to protect themselves against the Brotherhood. She didn't know whether to judge him for it or not, but decided not to bother him with such questions. They did? She wondered what they had told Delight about her. Perhaps how she failed 3 packs, lost her 2 only children and was now just tagging along for the journey until Burke gave way. Gosh, it sounded terrible when she listed it like that.

And I suppose you want my story? She asked with one raised brow and a charming smile. She didn't mind her current pack knowing what she had done and what had made her realize she had been in the wrong. She wasn't afraid of judgement anymore.

she cottons on quickly; he flashes a vague approximation of a smile (he'll get it right one of these days). "something like that," the androgyne says, tilting his head just so. "whatever you're willing to share - but, yeah, how you ended up here, in the moment," he explains and takes a seat, expression open - ready to mentally record anything she deigns to share with him. really he doesn't know much about her besides her relationship with burke (and that she came from the caldera with him) - she's important because of her ties to the silvery prince and his grandfather, but since she is not a major player in morwinyon's life as far as he can tell, he does not feel the same pressing need for information he felt with burke (and with bri).

The events that had gotten her there - right in that moment - were quite a long string, but she was sure she could cut it short so she wouldn't bore him. She took her seat somewhat close to him, eyes wandering as she sought the best point to start. Well, I come from a rather brute, dry and empty place. I was to be the queen one day until I did something unforgivable. They banished me - that was possibly the best thing they could've done to me. She giggled, looking around at all the green that was present. As a kid, the best she could come across was dried out strands of left-over grasses.Fast-forward half a year or so, and I had started my own pack - Moonlit Hills - the place where I got my scar and the proud neighbors of Blackfeather Woods. Burke was their alpha at the time and we accidentally met while I was in heat. The thought still surprised her. Would she still be alpha of Moonlit Hills if they had never gotten so close? I became pregnant and was offered a spot among the Blackfeather wolves. I wanted my children to have a father and doubtfully went along. Little did we know I was not the least bit wanted there. How was Nemesis fairing? Why did she still care?

Burke got demoted for "bringing his whore in", but our children were born there nonetheless. Two adorable boys who are somewhere out there right now. We called them Pyro and Vassago - and Pyro, oh boy, he was such a wee thing... To avoid them being murdered we decided to escape. Aeronwyn, a former member of the Blackfeather wolves, traveled along with us to a place we would call Arthendal. She had so many fond memories of the place that it was hard to imagine they would never be there as a family again. Pyro and Vassago grew up there - it was where they both almost drowned and where Vassago lost his tail to a bear. She laughed about it now, but at the time it was the scariest thing she had ever witnessed.

But, are numbers grew fewer and fewer and we had to move yet again. This time, we had Sebastian to fall back on - Burke's son. They accepted us among them, though Vassago and Pyro grew up and went their own way. We lived rather peacefully there for a few moons until the water got poisoned. Luckily, at the time, our neighbors were kind and giving. We could live at Redhawk Caldera and, again, it was rather nice the first few moons. But then they began discriminating against Burke due to a food shortage. Mato came to visit - Sebastian's son - and we decided to go with him to, well, here. It was still a story without a real ending, but she'd like to keep it that way until her death. She blinked in silence at the wolf she had told all this to, feeling rather embarrassed about talking so much. Was it even comprehensible?

unlike the elder or even morwinyon, malice's story is woven with complexity - offering a more tantilizing sort of detail. his eyes never leave her face, fascinated by the expressiveness of her features, the way each new bit of information transforms, heightening the drama. 

it's akin to the sort of storyteller he wants to be - not merely capturing the minutae of their existence, but weaving the words to bring them life a second time, and beyond. in the woman's mouth arthendal was not merely a location on a map, but a home, even if the children mentioned were of little consequence to delight beyond their tenuous relationship to the silvery prince. 

he knows already the story of the caldera from burke - malice echoes burke's side, and he makes another irritated hum, still pressed by the redhawk's refusal to care for the elder. for a moment he allows the silence to settle - a beat - and then nods, expression warm. "thank you," he says. "that is helpful - i like your flourishes," the androgyne adds, though whether or not that will make sense to anyone but him remains to be seen. "burke mentioned arthendal is - was - not too far from here... where about was it located?" tindömé's numbers are too thinned for a scouting trip, delight feels - but he still wants an image, and once their base is flourishing he does intend to take the older man and go on a historical sight-seeing trip.

She was not known for her stories. She didn't know if she was even known for anything really, other than to the Blackfeather Woods Wolves. She was Burke's whore and not much more - the spawner of what had made their grow so soft. It was good she had been to; who knows what had become of the old Burke he was now in a place like that? They would've probably eaten them or something if the winter brought little food. She had not the least bit of regret for everything that had happened there.

She smiled gratefully, happy it had been comprehensible, and nearly wanted to return to her daily wandering when he asked. Her eyes grew rather wide, suddenly remembering they were back in the Tuktu after all. Perhaps this really had been their end destination then...

Arthendal was just a but North of here - simply follow the river through the Floodlands and you'd recognize it. I can take you there sometime, if you want. She offered, not the best with directions when it did not come to the stars.

he offers a tentative smile, a fleeting but pleased thing: "sure - burke mentioned maybe wanting to go as well." a scouting trip seems out of the question with their numbers as fragile as they are, but delight holds onto some hope that they will find some new joiners and by the time it's warm, it'll be safe to travel. "thanks, malice," he adds again, dipping his head quickly. with burke, malice, and mato's story, that just leaves brienne - who he's been avoiding because of the whole mato thing but that's another story (ha).

with nothing else to ask the woman off the top of his head, delight quietly excuses himself and makes his way back into the forest, leaving her to her interesting leaves once more.