Firefly Glen The Fireflies Are Out Tonight

After her run-in with Terance, she quickly left the territory out of embarassment. How could she just cry into him like that, she was starting to feel stupid for it. Crying made her look weak, vulnerable. Yet here she was, still crying.

"How could I be so dumb...so useless!" she shouted, kicking at the dirt. Then pulling her paw back, seeing a rather large pebble that had been in the dirt roll away. She growled at the pebble.

@Vaati

The wails spark his curiosity on his venture home to the dark woods, angry cries that he found quite unnerving amidst the threat of many deaths that were sure to come in the following weeks. Wailing he could not ignore, but upon the sight and scent of from where the frustrated wails originate, Vaati instantly regrets ever seeking it out. He identifies her as one of the Moonspear clan, but not of one of the Cerberus. Cassiopeia had only mentioned three names to go with the deadly trio, and well, this one kind of stuck out like a sore thumb from the wraiths he had come to know. She was crying. Sobbing actually, and he watches like a deer caught in the headlights as she strikes the ground in all her misery. It was a situation he had no business in, and neither wanted to be in, having never deal with crying kids nor others feelings in such a state. But, here he was, his scent and confirmed presence lingering in the air for anyone to find. If he were to leave and something disastrous should happen to the girl, his scent would be the first thing the Local Death Squad™ would find. He could run, but in no time the Cerberus would find a way to blame him, as they had to the unfortunate Redhawk kid. And he already knows how Hydra feels about those who run. "And who told you that?" He draws out, lounging to a stop only a foot away, his tone seemingly bored as if he asked only out of necessity. Really, the yearling would rather she just shut up instead of using her apparent sorrow as a beacon to all his enemies, but telling her so did not seem like an option at that moment in time.

Korei Julia turned her head quickly, and she shrunk down seeing them. They didn't smell of Moonspear. And being caught in the dark, she was now afraid. But, her ears did perk at their question. Just like what Wraen had asked. 

"My sisters...and my Papa" she said quietly, keeping her eyes on them. He got quite close, but she didn't dare move in case that got them to move as well.

Vaati's brow raises as the girl reveals her aggressors, and to his curiosity does he connect certain dots within his mind. "Your father? I assume you're talking about Charon." It seemed reasonable, it didn't explain a lot but she seemed to be around Hydra's age and held the same colour as the Alpha man. Yet, she seemed different than her assumed family; sensitive and perhaps, fragile. A gold mine in his eyes, had he met her upon the days when he sought to hold something that would keep Moonspear in line. Perhaps he still did. He sighs exaggeratedly, knowing he could not hold his tongue at the opportunity to further insult the spotted man while he was not around to throw a fit. "If it helps, your father is a pompous idiot so I wouldn't believe anything he says anyway." Vaati grumbles, perhaps also to himself. The man and his clear self-righteous disposition bothered him unfathomably upon his arrival at Blackfeather Woods, and Vaati had not forgotten it. But besides the matter of her supposed father, Vaati found something quite illogical and bothersome about the claim given. "Everyone is good at something. Don't believe their bullshit." He scowls quite audibly. That whole family was a giant vortex of bad news, and he knew it.

"You know Papa?" she asked. Had this been after their argument she would have agreed. But instead, she held her tongue as this wolf continued to speak.

"I'm good at looking at stars...." she murmured. "But what good does that do?" Besides having fun, and using them for direction, something she found to be useful when she found that stars were in certain places in the sky. "Can't hunt, can't fight...I've had this conversation before, it didn't help much" she admitted, even though at the time she thought it would.

Vaati snorts loudly, as if "yeah, I know him" was an understatement. "Not really, but I know enough to not want anything to do with him." It was slightly paradoxical on his part, as he was in fact, having something to do with Charon by seeking his daughters out all the time. "The stars, huh?" He glances up at the sky inquisitively before returning to the girl. "You could do something with that. Tell others their fortunes and futures by reading the stars. You could get people to do your bidding, if you're crafty enough with it." It was something his mother and grandmother had likely done once or twice in their lifetime, for delivering other people's fate (falsely or not) was a tricky tool of manipulation indeed. He thinks she may be too soft to do so, but wonders if, by playing into her own insecurity, he could make something dangerous out of her. The girl seemed like she needed it, for the weak very rarely survived in their world where monsters and even worse monsters clawed at each other for domination.

Korei was starting to wonder what she did not know of her own father by now. What exactly did she not know? How much was hidden? 

She had never thought of that. She had been told that stars could be used for that, but to lie? "I could never lie...No, I couldn't lie to someone." Or, could she? Now that she tossed the thought about in her mind, she had no doubt been lied to a lot. 

"Who are you, anyway?" she asked, starting to direct the conversation in her favor. Or at least attempting to do so. "And how do you know of Papa?"

Vaati shrugs in the dark, slightly annoyed with how virtuous she seems. She is too nice to be Moonspear kin. Whilst her lineage is factual, he could imagine Charon's frustration when three of his daughters came out the way they did and the blop of innocent white turned out the way she did. Not that there was something wrong with a girl with morals, but those kinds of girls did not survive long before something gave them a startling wake-up call to the survival of the fittest. "Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to get ahead. It's life." It was common knowledge, a trait Blackfeather used to the extremes. And it worked, for them. "It's better to be the one to use others than be the one other's use. Trust me." He licks his chops languishingly, the ache in his neck returning. It served as a reminder that while he had earned his scars for being the one on top, at least he wasn't somebody else's bitch.

"My name is Vaati." He doesn't offer his pack name, for he figures, that would send her running faster than he could explain. He isn't done with her yet, as he serves as a test subject of his for however long he has with her. The same experiment had been done with Cassiopeia, pushing the borders of her sanity whilst warping her into a whole new person in his image. It had failed, of course. She had failed him. The girl that stood before him was perhaps, a mini version of the same study.

Korei Julia tipped her head as she listened, still in a fearful stance of this stranger. How they spoke of using others to do one's bidding, it made her skin crawl. "No, I couldn't do that...I don't know anyone who could." Why would anyone do that? She also didn't like how he licked at his muzzle after speaking of controlling another. It unnerved her, a lot of things about him did.

She kept her mouth shut for a moment, before answering. "Korei...Julia" she replied, not sure if she should have done so at all.

Vaati's eyes roll at her claim, as if nobody had ever done her wrong. "What? You think other's haven't used you, lied to you? You think they won't in the future? Don't be naive. That'll get you killed." He warns and sits down at this point, stretching out his limbs and beginning to preen the blood off his paws. "You, Korei Julia, have a lot to learn about your own kind." It was instinct, something the girl clearly did not have a lot of. The need to push others under the bus to get what they needed, it was something present in all of their species. She hadn't learned that yet, unfortunately for her.

Korei shook her head, she didn't want to hear anymore of it all. No one she knew had lied to her. Even Papa had been honest. Brutally honest, but still honest. "No, they wouldn't use me..." But his next words hit the most. She felt a growl come from up her throat. "You aren't part of my family...you don't know them!" Although every word Vaati said put more and more doubt. Every word, she felt had some truth behind it. Because deep inside, she knew there was more to ther family then she saw.

The girl shook her head, as if physically, she could not handle the heavy truth in his words. On some level, he could not help but to feel bad for her, having been seemingly misled her entire life into believing the world would always rotate in her favour. Despite the state he had found her in, she still held on to the belief that nothing could hurt her, not while she disbelieved it could. "No, I don't. I'm sure they're fine. But I never said anything about family, you did." His brow raises in her direction, satisfied knowing he had implanted a spark of doubt in her mind that already existed. He then returns his gaze to his paws, digging out what old dirt, blood and guts rested between them. Family was blood, and one never betrayed blood. But nothing in the rules said that family wouldn't betray you. Vaati himself had witnessed it, how easily family became corrupted. Family was fragile, and he had come to realize that he could really only trust himself in the world they lived in, for everyone at some point, was going to let you down. It was their nature. "Perhaps, you already believe it."

Korei felt her mind spinning more and more. Maybe, through her uselessness, she indeed had a use. A hidden one. And somewhere, in her mind, she believed it like Vaati said she did. 

"I...I don't, I..." Yet now, she was believing it, more and more. "They wouldn't...they couldn't....Could they?" She was beginning to question herself. Her own being, and much she had been used.

Vaati sighs, picking himself up from the forest floor and stretching out his limbs. Her cluelessness is comical, both eye-roll worthy and entirely not his problem. But as she sits there and blubbers at her own denial, he realizes quickly that with the right influence, she had the potential to become quite lethal, in her own way. He looks at her for a few seconds before making up his mind, talking a few steps in the direction of Blackfeather Woods before offering the only thing he could. "Find me at the dark woods when you realize you want your circumstances to change." He hollers over his shoulder, unable to tell if she would ever muster up the courage to do so. If she did or she didn't; he could always find another weak, insecure girl to take under his wing and completely reshape. Apparently, they were everywhere. Perhaps that was what drew him to the dark haired girl in the first place, whom he could not get off his mind. But exactly which dark-haired girl he referred to is left a mystery with an answer left only to his own mental space of denial.

Korei opened her mouth to give some sort of reply, but only a little squeak of air was managed. She couldn't think of anything else to do, except get out of there in case they decided to turn back. Not even the fact that she never got a name from them comes to her mind. But one thing does, and that was his offer. And no doubt, it would come to her mind again.