Hoshor Plains Wrap my arms around him and pretend

@Siqsa  

Something had changed in Wraen during the week, when Terance, Rannoch and Liffey had gone off to the Rising Sun valley to see their possible future home and deem it worthy. She had been left in charge, nothing dramatic had happened and by the time they would return, she would be able to hand over the reins of leadership back to then. But during these days, when she was on her own, she had had time to think and realize that she was not as keen to leave as she seemed to be in the company of the other three leaders. It was a very irrational idea, she knew it. They had to move in order to survive winter, to provide for all pack members alike, to tackle all problems, to help the pack bond more, to help raise the new generation and welcome new one in the spring...

...and when she imagined, what future would look like for her, she realized that... if things went as they had the past two years, nothing would really change. While rational Wraen had taken over, ever since she had stepped up to be a leading figure in the pack, the dreamer had not yet died. And there was this pitiful and miserable idea that the way life was now could not really be it. That there had to be more and, what was worst, it seemed that up until now she had been wholly focused on the figurative alpine path, but had had her back turned to all of the beautiful things in life.

These thoughts once awoken were hard to put to rest again, suddenly everything about the pack-life felt like a prison to Wraen, until she could not take it anymore. She left Sunspire behind to go, where she would not have to meet any familiar face. She wanted to be alone and she wanted company at the same time, she needed someone, who could set things right again.

gonna use this guy instead; letting him meat a buncha folks.

 

The assassin was scouring the entirity of Teekon for a familiar face. In the back of his mind, so many floated around him in a tidal spree of memory, awashing the silent man with such a painful rememberance that he couldn't just ignore it, anymore. Something he had learned was to keep you pain internal, but so many could he had crossed had given him hope to relieve the damnation he cursed himself with. It ate him alive, the black and white of it all. But what swallowed him whole, was the grey.

Utilyzing rationale, he stepped back from himself, mentally. And twisting the problem to a way where he would understand it, he knew internally his shame wouldn't allow him to pick a single face of the many which taunted him, inside. The traitor, he would be. Backstabbing, unworthy. Leaving when the pack needed him most...but what else was he supposed to do? Slade had promised them-

Fury led a path of white-hot shards of ice running through his chest, breath spiking into a single icicle that needed to be held. If he dropped it, he might have blacked out, right then and there. His heart seemed to freeze as well, and all around him, time slowed as he regathered his thoughts.

No; he could not see them. Not Gwen, nor Thistle, Raziel, nor Adair. Ashton might attempt to make him feel better, but he wasn't in the mood for jubilant words and silliness...He had to live with is solitude. And once his mind was made up, calm consumed him, once again. The world began to return to him, and once more the breeze ruffled through the ebonian's thickening pelt. Something he desperately missed was the sea. He had some strange connection with water, and he felt much more at ease with it. 

Memories attempted to drown him again, times he shared along the coast of Stavanger Bay with Thistle and other members of Stavanger, the play times he shared with Raziel on the edge of the lake as they trained each other for the next killing, so many came to him. Nothing held them back, and with no energy left to fight it, he surrendered. 

And the floodgates opened. 

A howl absoutely heartbreaking poured from his lips. Within it were words he never allowed to be spoken, songs he had never given himself the pleasure to speak with the packs, his dismay at the past, the present, and his fear of the future. The agony that Karma had dealt to him, and all of the wishes he had as a child, suppressed, all flooded from the maw of this Void assassin. He cried in the soliloquy, sung his woe and released his internal hell in that perish song. It was terrible, beautiful, calming, and destroying all at once. 

And once it was over, he sat, and silently, waited for the world to unravel him. To cast judgement on him as it usually did. 
Maybe this time another bear would come.
Maybe this time he wouldn't run.
And maybe this time, the Void would have him, for good.

Wraen picked up the mournful song of another lone wolf in the wilds. She stopped and listened to the very end of it, savouring every melody, every emotion it conveyed. She turned around to scan the area and see, if the person was in the immediate vicinity of her. But no such luck. The sound could cover a long distance over wide open spaces, the owner of the beautiful voice could really be anywhere. 

Therefore - in order to draw him or her (she could not yet tell) out - Wraen tipped her head back and howled in response.

There was no bear, no lion, no cougar, not even an alternative pack of wolves to end him. Fates had judged even he unworthy of an end. Was this to make him suffer longer? Was it not yet time for him to be undone?

In the midst of his existential crisis, the tormented dark prince heard a beacon to him, beckoning him closer. It was a howl that sprung forward from his own. It asked him to near them, and desired meeting. And everything within him warned him away from it. What if this was one of the many faces? What if this had been Gwen? Or Aglæca? He didn't know, and he struggled to fgure if the damn he gave was enough to keep him rooted there.

It wasn't.

And his limbs sprung just as the whistle ended, the dark pads moving quickly and silently over the grasses with as much spirit as he put into them. Almost desperate to release himself from his harbor of woe and sail into something so much more worthwhile, something beautiful, and free...

It took him 15 minutes to travel where his auds swore that howl to be, and in the distance of the night, he saw a lone silhouette. The howl he knew to be feminine, and Cry found himself suddenly unwilling to take that last set of steps that would bring him closer to this waiting figure. He needed to know, but didn't want to.

He knew he didn't want to hurt, anymore.

It took a long time before the dark stranger appeared and to Wraen, who had been expecting his approach from a different direction alltogether, seemed as if he had materialized out of thin air. Just like that. 

She was a little wary in the beginning, because ther was still a certain distance between them and due to her being slightly nearsighted, she could not make much of the other's appearance. Yet, how many dark pelted wolves had she to fear in this world? Cerberus and only, when all three of them ganged together.

And, when she got to her feet to take few tentative steps closer, she reasoned that had it been any of the trio, she would have been acknowledged by now. He was a handsome man, yet his features and expression seemed to be lacking something very important. She could not quite put her paw on, what it was, but the closest description that she would have been able to give - she saw the shell in it's glory, but could make out nothing about the soul that was hidden within.

She sat down again, wagged her tail a bit and regarded him in a friendly curiousity. Yet she did not take the first step, letting the tall, dark and handsome stranger take initiative in his own paws.

He had nothing to offer her. Nothing. He had no gifts, no food, no flowers...But what would he bring those for? He knew nothing of this woman, and she was lucky if she knew nothing of him, either.

Her scent teased him, promising him it was no phantom, nor memory that was made real to torment him any longer. That this was an unknown, and from the way she was poised, she couldn't recognize him, either. A fresh start was betwixt the pair, and he understood this was his oppertunity to have a life, finally.

So with bated breath, he took those steps, walking through the meadow under the stars of the night, banner showing high interest in the company he was walking to meet. Neck extended as he sent the more alert half of himself to investigate as much as he could before he neared too close to her personal space, but a he did, he was already admiring her in a way that didn't make sense to him. Never had he been one for looks, and though he couldn't decipher much, her eyes glowed a vibrant verde, lively as spring, where his were frigid, the ice blue of winter's heart. She was attractive to him in a way that deemed something much more was to be had, and thus it clicked in his head - She was beautiful because he knew absolutely nothing about her. It was his ignorance of her which made him crave to know of her more than just where she was from and who she had intertwined with;  he wanted to know who she was as far a who she was, and not who she was associated with. And the best aspect of the entire meet was she knew nothing of him, either. Or so he bargained on.

Snout held out, he offered her the oppertunity to express her own interest in a touch of noses, or atlease the chance to sniff each other. He couldn't force himself to speak at this moment...
Something too fragile as this could be shattered if words were uttered. Atleast, he thought so.

Not the one to speak, eh? Under different circumstances and with any other person Wraen would have felt the pressure to break the silence and clear any mutual and expectant awkwardness. But it did not seem that the stranger expected her to talk and therefore lack of words ceased to be a problem.

The man was very wary about approaching her, careful not to break into her personal space, and she wondered why. By all means he was in advantage in every physical aspect - being taller, stronger and possibly faster. He had rights to be confident and did not need to fear Wraen, the little, fragile bird. But again she found this convenient for time being. Better this than fending off over-friendly people. 

She raised to her feet, her green gaze briefly met his icy blue, she sniffed along his muzzle, her whiskers making light contact here and there as she carefully moved upwards to his cheek and eventually to the base of his ear. Satisfied with the results of the initial assessment, she retreated, and offered him a playful smile. Then went down in a quick bow and with wagging tail invited him to loosen up a little.

It seemed she too were fine with the lack of noise, as she gave just the same back. Everything was purely soundless, and from here out the pair were a set of motion stop silhouettes in the night.

Even in the light of the night, her eyes had a life of their own...

The ebonian prince allowed himself to stay still, but not tense as she whisked a breeze of her inhales across him, and after her own peek into his outter shell, she allowed him a chance to experience her own. Little did she know as she scented him, Cry scented her. The more she stretched across his face, he imperceptibly inhaled what he could of her. 

Pack.
It screamed a wail to him that jarred him hard enough inside that he held his breath. Would he risk something like this? A lone Wolf tangoing with someone of Pack? Of family? What type of trouble would he get her in? What if the ones he once associated with returned for him? He could be spied on currently, eyes seeking him and his company out from the shadows of the forest, waiting for him, and now potentially waiting for her? 
A wintery gaze cut across her body as she seemed to want to snap him out of his worry. 

But as he traced her body with his eyes, he could only worry more.
What if she had kids? 
Ice azures looked slowly over those hips as she rose rear in the air, banner inviting him to play. Impossible; she didn't have the fat most mother's endured after childbirth. 

He began to stalk steadily to her side, his lids narrowing over those piecing gems with a coy grin trying to hide from his obsidian lips. And with reserved determination, he allowed her to be his getaway. His spine flexed into a mirroring curve as he bent to mimick her stance, but the void male took it one step further; lean forelegs thumped a single challenge to the woman. He accepted her plea to relax, and gifted back to her the chance to make the move that would seal this playful dance.

Wraen's grin grew even wider, when the tall dark stranger responded to her offer for a game by mirroring her own actions. Her lips pulled back a bit in a soundless snarl, followed by a resonating impish growl from the depths of her throat. And with a war-cry in form of a 1/2 growl 1/2 bark ("wRUUFF!") she lunged forward, snapped her teeth in the vicinity of the other's cheek and then danced several steps away, out of reach. There she stood in a half-crouch, eyes focused on the opponent, while her body was prepared to run or move depending on, what her play-mate would decide on doing.

It had been far too long since he had enjoyed a simple romping around with someone. He had enjoyed the simple times where he and Raziel gave each other playful sessions in the eclipses of the night, and even when the roman would randomly spar with him from nowhere planned. His attacks would be precise, as too were the assassin's. But with a female, he could feel the need to remain delicate with her, such a small frame requiring attention as details lay much more minute than the broad castings of muscle and scars Raziel had.

With the accuracy of a surgeon, his ivories unsheathed from jesting ebony jowls, and he shied away from the nips she smacked just by his cheek. She was a quick one; small stature and ability with it caused her to be a swift plaything for him. He witnessed her careful prance as he wet his lips with a lolling grey tongue. And miliseconds after, his banner bent in an arc as he threw himself forward to close distance between the two. She wasn't getting away from him!
With it, the crest of his neck regally angled itself in a curvature to protect his neck while scooping himself through the loop of minor space between them to show his knackering for her own dark nape.
 

Wraen was not going to stand and wait, until the fellow reached her and got an upper hand of her. She had a natural respect to anyone, who was bigger and older than her (these two things often equaled more experience), and was not going to test her strength and meager abilities in a sparring match.

The moment he began to move, she did so as well. She ran in a large loop, encircling him like a sheep gone astray, barking at him and occassionally stopping in mid-stride, to go down in a quick play-bow again, to dash forward right afterwards.

More often than not, this was somehow going to turn into a game of tag. He could see she avoided his own lunge with a swift swish of dashing away, the fae's body whirling and wizzing before him like a living thong of lightning. She was almost uncatchable, but that was what they lived for; the quelling of the 'Almost'.

Her patterns of darting were irregular - he would have to nab her on a lucky hunch. Desperately he tried not to allow the hunter in him to spiral his mindset into a controlling ordeal, where he would simply throw himself forward in her semi-circle and cut her off, disabling her pattern eternally. No, he gave her her half-circuits in exchange to nip and nom at both that alert fave and that waltzing tail. Be damned the luck now; he'd bite at what he could!

Each of her crescents were punctuated with his own dashes forward, his leaps to throw forelimbs on her and catch her only for her dancer-like body to whirl the opposite way. Forelimbs netted nothing but air and ground, where her body teased from the other side of his own. But simply because he missed his quarry, the fun continued! In fact, more fun bloomed from this endless and fruitless banter of unsucceded tag. So many times the prey had been either too slow or weakened; this girl was lively and vivacious in both heart and body. She was the true spirit of the hunt!

And within, he knew he would ultimately find ecstacy if he had ever caught her.

Every lunge he tried, she skipped away from him like a cunning serpent, agile and unscathed. Yet deciding to change up his own methods, wintery gems narrowed as he curved the majority of his plight to the left, attempting to herd her into a feint which he knew he would soon double back, and head into.

Wraen knew that the stranger was well versed in not showing, what his true strength meant. He adjusted well to the rules of the game she dictated and let her have fun, let her think that she was faster and smarter than him, put up a disguise that he was the clumsier of them two. While she would have found this a bit offending, when tumbling around in similar manner with her siblings, she didn't feel the same way now. There was hardly any logic and rationality in, what they were doing now, she left it at that. 

Finally the man decided to take reins of the game in his paws and tried to lure her in a different direction. She, on the other hand, wanting a break from all the running, lied down on the ground to cool herself off.

And just like that, it was over. Perhaps she didn't have the stamina that he did. Or maybe she was bored of him. Either way, the romping came to a close with little more than her abruptly culling the dashes to part the bed of grass with her tired bod. 

Slowing his own advance, he kept himself standing, watching her. Not necessarily in an eerie way, but something more akin to 'well, what's next?' If anything he wouldn't be too surprised if the woman simply wanted to joust with someone outside of her own Family, to taste a bit of unknown, herself. The same thing it seemed he wanted, a break from the metronome of Life and it's expectancies. To be momentarily free of the faces you had seen before, and walk into something much more fresh. He understood it well, as well as the adrenaline it spiked in the parched soul. He had felt it, and wondered if she too had enjoyed it as much as he did.

It was then he considered it worthwhile to atleast mention the gratitude he felt to her. "Thank you", the baritones of the older male rumbled out to the heated fae, a slight roll of thunder to the silence between their slightly labored breaths. However, the rest of the words that could have led to a sweet conversation, something much more meaningful and easily accomplished by a talker failed to come from him. The dark prince was no such thing. He was a silent guardian, coming to aid those who made it past the iceberg of his untrusting and callous walls of his heart, and even moreso scaled the treacherous angles up to his mind, where they would matter most. 

This romping was nothing, only a miniature fleck against the frigid world that was his own. But with a tilted crown of curiousity, he watched her, wondering if there might be more to her than just another pretty face passed and forgotten in the wind. He hadn't left yet - that right there was a clear sign he believed more than he was usually apt to.

"Ahaa... so you can talk," Wraen responed with a beaming smile and swayed her tail few times. But with him having been silent during the whole ordeal that had taken place in the past half an hour, it did not seem that she was going to get more out of him now by asking questions. Something told her that the tall dark stranger just liked his attire and role too much to sit down for a drink and open up about personal details. A shame. She would have loved to find out more about him.

"I have to go now," she told him after a while, remembering about duties and responsibilities that awaited her home as well. Maia needed a time off from looking after the kids and she needed to do another evening round to be sure that everyone else was fine as well. "Maybe we will meet each other again... I am Wraen, by the way," she said, getting to her feet and stretching, preparing to leave. "What name should I remember you by?"

Last from me. Thank you!

Same! Thanks a mill, hun<3

 

"I can," he said with a bit of a chuckle through the serious paint of who he was. "I just didn't thinking you didn't want to." He watched her rise after recovering from her tire. A slowly swishing banner gave him a slightly brighter demeanor as he noted her next words. Though the mood depressed by his playmate's indication of leaving, he wouldn't give it ground. Last thing he needed was to be depressed, again.

"We probably won't" he said, not trying to be rude, or curt. He was being honest, but honesty more often than not was a painful thing when put where it was meant to be. "Unless you live near Shadewood." Maybe that cleared up the spikes a bit? "I'm Cry." And though it wasn't his actual birth name, it was a name he had stuck with for years. IT simply didn't tell enough about him to give anyone anything on who he was. And that helped the assassin massively. 

Taking those steps away, he gave a courteous nod to the pretty woman before taking his own leave as she did. Who knows; maybe she would come to visit? Or, if he were close enough to her own section of town, he's root her out. Should it be necessary.
Until then, he would live his life as she did here.

Same as every passing face he had come to see, and lose.