Stone Circle Churchyard

@Merrit Trade Thread: Counselor

Arlette was looking for her brother. She hadn't really seen him around which probably meant that he was hiding from the pack. The white girl felt that if a wolf didn't want to be social, which was basically in their nature, then there was something wrong. After talking to Ira she realized that she liked helping wolves so perhaps she could help Merrit feel better.

The girl sounded a howl for her brother. She hoped that he would answer it otherwise she would have to find him the difficult way and track him down. Even if he was hiding she was certain she would find her brother. She was going to make it her mission.

He spends his days along the outskirts, riding the thin line that divides the pack from the world beyond, and he waits; he walks; he carries himself around and around, his attention, outward-reaching, watching the world with hurt and hungry eyes. He has grown comfortable in his body in the weeks since Stark's departure, yet his innocence clings only to the lingering curves of his youth. His demeanour bears the weight of a boy too quickly thrust into manhood.

He hears Arlette beckon, and he tips his head to punctuate the air with a howl back. Though he knows his presence carries a darkness as deep as the night, the boy always finds comfort in his sisters' company. @Keen's timid nature gives him things beyond himself to care for and protect, and Arlette's entire being holds a light she never seems to put out. His thoughts are preoccupied by Stark, Ezra, @Tulimaq, and he doesn't much wish for the presence of the pack - but for his sisters, he will always make the exception. He has nothing to prove with them. With them, he can simply be himself - the dark, the light, rough edges and all.

When she heard her brother's howl the girl turned to the sound. She rushed towards it with some clear eagerness. He was willing to see her! That was a good sign at least. She hoped that she would be able to cheer him up or at least make him feel better. She didn't take long to find him at the border. "Merrit!" she called out. He was so much bigger than her. She kind of felt tiny. A tiny child. Still she loved her brother.

Arlette trotted up to him and then instantly planted a lick on his cheek. "Hi! Hi!" She greeted and smiled. "I noticed that you weren't around so much. So I came to check up on you." She was going to be honest with her brother from the start. "I am worried about you," she whispered to him then.

He stops his patrol to allow his sister to find him with ease, and why wouldn't he? Merrit has no intention of avoiding Arlette. If he did, he wouldn't have called for her at all. A small piece of him wonders if she'll want any part of him in the end, once they start to speak and his sorrows sear the sunny morning. At least he knows he has no chance of exploding on her like he did with the wiry girl at the borders. His heart still weighs heavy against the cavity of his chest, but the turbulence of his emotions are something he is slowly learning to handle.

Arlette is one of the few who can stir a smile from him by her existence alone, and despite his sadness he offers her one when she draws near. "Hey Lette," he murmurs, and he presses against her - brief, yet he feels the warmth of her affection linger.

Of everyone here, she would be the one not only to notice his absence, but to feel the need and the responsibility to help him, and her words procure a sigh - but he doesn't deflect her. Instead, he lowers himself to sit by her side, acutely aware of how he towers over her petite and snowy frame. Arlette is his walking contradiction in every way, yet for everything, he loves her.

"It's been hard," he admits, and he takes a moment to gather his thoughts. To anyone else, he knows he would be clipped, but with Arlette, he has nothing to hide. "I don't want you guys to worry about me, but - hmm," he frowns and looks away. There's more he wants to say, and the willingness to speak is written in his eyes. "How about we take a walk?"

Arlette instantly snuggled into her brother. She wanted to show him that she loved him immensely. That even though he was sad that she would be there for him. At least she already got him to smile once. It seemed that he was happy to see her. She was relieved. Merrit instantly told her that times had been hard. She nodded slowly. Arlette didn't feel that way but she had not been so close with their father. She assumed that was about her father.

"But--" she wanted to protest but then Merrit suggested a walk. The young girl nodded in agreement. "Let's walk," she spoke with a nod. She could tell that he wanted to tell her something. "Just so you know, if you take some distance I would get worried about you either way," Arlette spoke and then offered him a compassionate smile. "I am sorry that times have been hard on you," she spoke then. How could she have been feeling great and he had not been? "You can talk to me about it if you like."

His sister's words brought a thin yet knowing smile to Merrit's face. He didn't want Arlette to worry, but there was an element to her compassion and to her noticing his absence that he found reassuring. Almost like, as long as she was around, he wouldn't disappear.

She didn't need to press him to get him to talk. It had already been on his mind to share. Merrit didn't know the words exactly, but he would try. "It's dad, mostly," mostly being the key - "It's like everyone just expects me to move on from this, but - I don't know - I just can't. Maybe it's because we still don't know what happened to him," he furrowed his brow and glanced at the snow which crunched beneath their paws. He let the sound fill the air as he thought. "Maybe it's because I don't really want to move on." He shook his head, "I don't know. I'm just so frustrated, and I'm frustrated that I'm frustrated, and no one else seems to be. And I'm frustrated that no one really seems to be upset at all - not even mom - and I don't know how everyone else can just let it go."

Arlette nodded compassionately when her brother started speaking. It was about their father then. She slowly shook her head. "No one expects you to move on, Merrit," she spoke in return. "I wonder why you think that? Did someone tell you to move on?," she asked curiously. She didn't expect him to be instantly better. She missed her father as well but when she did that she often went to see Greyback.

Arlette went to listen and nodded at the appropriate times. "I'm not sure if you realized but mom was extremely upset. However, she got over it better than I expected," she admitted. She didn't know about the loss her mother suffered. 'But you shouldn't expect the same from yourself," she returned. "Mother is an adult and perhaps knows how to deal with these things. Have you asked her about it? Have you talked to her how she dealt with it?"

Arlette didn't want to be harsh on him but it sounded like Merrit was being his own enemy. "Perhaps you have these frustrations because you don't understand." she offered. Arlette thought about his words again. She might have appeared aloof about his vanishing. "I was upset at first but seeing mother upset. I don't know, it made me less upset and more angry with Papa. Angry he left mother. Angry that he left us. I didn't want to be angry so I went to do the things that make me happy. Like seeing my friend Nuna." She explained. "What makes you happy, Merrit?," she asked with a kind smile. Hopefully her explanation would help him with his frustration.

Merrit frowned. "No one told me I had to do anything," but in watching the others the boy concluded that moving on was the norm - and that, in turn, made dwelling on his father's disappearance unacceptable... didn't it?

Arlette continued to speak, and he listened, slowly catching each word and turning them over in his head. He had been careful to steer clear of his mother in the days that followed Stark's departure, and he had felt a self-imposed distance with her ever since. Truthfully, he didn't know how she was doing, not beyond the face she wore when he simply passed her by. She looked fine, and more often than not he caught her scent tangled up with the familiar smell of @Greyback - something he didn't know how to feel about, nor what to think of.

"I didn't think of asking her," and even with Arlette's pointed questions, he wasn't sure he really wanted to. There were fractures in his foundation he couldn't fix himself, and the thought of expressing his weakness to his mother made him feel silly and weak. He lowered his gaze, frowned, said no more on this.

But he raised a brow at Arlette, surprised at her words that followed. Merrit had never counted his sister capable of anger - not when he remembered the storming fury that had propelled him toward the borders, and nearly carried him into the fray. Was that the kind of anger Arlette had felt? The thought made his stomach turn, and he wondered what she would do if he told her he had been angry, too - because he imagined his anger had been much different than whatever hers had been. He hadn't sought out ways to fix his fury, only ways to feed it, and though he had never quite reached the point of satiating the burn in his heart, he had come awfully close. And he hadn't told anyone this, not Arlette, not Keen, certainly not Valette - and neither had he told anyone that somewhere inside the flame still burned, unquenched and hungry, and he still fed it -

Maybe he did have something to hide.

"Learning," he interrupts his thoughts with an answer, though a bitter taste lingers on his tongue. "I like learning. About language, nature, culture," and he thinks of Tulimaq again, and he glances outward, toward the land beyond Easthollow, and wonders, again, where he is, where he has gone to, "and I'd like to learn more."

Arlette dipped her head instantly. "Exactly! So, if no one told you it isn't okay to mourn the loss of your father, or no one told you that you should get over it then it might be you just assuming you should," she offered. "I wouldn't think any less of you if you were sad, angry, or lost for a long time." she tried to offer him a comforting smile.

Merrit didn't speak much but Arlette could tell that his brain was thinking about the thing she had said. That was all she wanted. She didn't need verbal communication. She was best friends with Nuna who never talked. "Perhaps you should. Unless you don't want to," Arlette reasoned. "Would there be a reason you would?" she wondered. Perhaps it was personal to ask, but then again, they were siblings.

"Well that is good, because there is a lot to learn," she smiled. "We could ask mom if we could travel to Lost Creek Hollow. They are allies and we could maybe learn a bit about their culture," she grinned. "Would that make you feel better?"

Maybe Arlette is right - maybe his frustration is built on assumptions - and yet, he can't seem to step past the burning sensation that there is something wrong with his sadness. Nothing has shaken him so deeply as this - but why? He smiles softly at her reassurance, even as a frown threatens his brow. He feels lost and distant, despite being found and walking right here, and he wonders - how long before he finds he has wandered too far for even his sister to reach?

"I just don't want her to worry," he says, and as far as he understands, it's really that simple. He glances at his sister to gauge her reaction. "She has enough on her paws already, without my problems to trouble her." And what kind of problems were they, except ones he should have moved past already, and has only made for himself?

Merrit doesn't tell Arlette that he feels no stirring to visit their allies in the east. He knows the normal Merrit should be excited, but he feels only that same ache of hollowness, and a new wave of tiredness in his bones. Going to Lost Creek Hollow will not make him feel better, and the dull, yet persistent ache of pain behind his eyes seems to magnify at the thought of seeing anyone other than his own family right now. Even they suddenly feel like too much.

But instead of telling her this, he only says, "Maybe. Let me think about it," and he turns from her, toward the heart of Easthollow. He is done talking; he wants to be alone, but Arlette hasn't done anything wrong, and he doesn't want to make her feel bad. "I was planning to sleep a little once my patrol was done," he explains, "I didn't get much sleep last night. I'll see if I can talk with mother later - " but he says this more to satiate his sister's concern.

Arlette looked at her brother for a moment. She nodded when he spoke. She could understand that he would feel that way. "Okay so, imagine this," she started. "And I am not saying your thoughts are wrong. But, if I would be really upset about something and I would come to you." She paused for a moment and offered him a smile. "Would you find me a bother? Would you bother about my troubles? You would probably want me to cheer me up or make me feel better," she offered. She hoped it worked.

The female slowly nodded. "Alright. Let me know if you want to go." Somehow Merrit was not as excited as she would have expected from him to be. Arlette slowly nodded once more when the male spoke about sleeping. Was this him saying he wanted to go? "Alright. If you don't want to talk about it anymore then you should tell me so," Arlette reasoned. "You don't have to talk to her because of me though. Do it for yourself," she spoke with a kind smile, she probably inherited from her mother.