Ankyra Sound that it has returned to dust

scarab spends at least twenty minutes fussing with his small menagerie of items, arranging and re-arranging the seaglass, feathers and pieces of salt bleached driftwood around the petrified sandpiper he'd brought home and guarded with the ferociousness of a dragon. he even went as far as to pee on his belongings in the hopes that none of his siblings ( while arguably the stars of his life ) would want to stick them in their mouths. ultimately, scarab comes to the conclusion that he will have to find a more private space for his growing collection for he isn't sure how much more strange things he can bring home before the suns of his life begin to question him or put their paws down and tell him 'no more'.

when he steps out of the rendezvous den they've been moved to he sets off with concise purpose. he sticks to the grotto figuring his things might be safer in the protection of the grotto than on the surface of the sound. he ventures deeper into the grotto fearlessly, confident that he won't get lost. there are plenty of scent trails going to and fro to reassure and reaffirm this ( youthful and naive ) assumption and thus scarab does not offer it a second thought as his search for a more suitable den for his possessions becomes his sole focus of his morning adventure.

rusalka was changing, and velen did not like it. he had never met the woman called caiaphas. it sounded as if her children had once been in charge, only to be routed.
he kept to himself and to dalia. to their children, wary. whatever small bit of trust was still left to velen he guarded jealously, keeping it close to his bosom. no one here had earned it. 
presently he dropped down into the grotto, enjoying the cool touch of the shadowed place. why had his wife not been brought here, he wondered, and set about exploring with a child’s enthusiasm.

scarab pokes his head in a small cavern, inspecting it with a critical eye not yet at the point where he considers his ability to fit into it as he grows. for now, he can and it appears to be secluded enough that he doesn't think anyone will bother his menagerie; especially after reyes' partial destruction of his lesser items — thankfully at the time he had yet to find the crown jewel of his collection. finding a new and secluded place to store his belongings had become top priority. replacing the feathers and crushed bird skulls would come after.

it's as scarab shuffles back out of the small cavern mouth that he hears the sound of footfalls. in the grotto where sound echoes and carries effortlessly he is not able to accurately discern how close the other was but he takes a small comfort in the realization that they sounded much too heavy to belong to any of his siblings. an adult is scarab's safe assumption ...and yet it doesn't exactly bring any sort of comfort to him. scarab, still very young, doesn't yet understand that the burning swell of fire in his chest: that hard push of emotions is a combination of dominance and possession.

hello? he calls out into the velveteen darkness of the grotto, eyes scanning the writhing shadows, hoping to garner the attention of the other.

a young voice suddenly cut through the shadows of the odd place, and velen froze, auds sweeping forward to thrust atop his head with a musing twist to his lips.
”i’m velen,” the mayfair-cairn murmured, approaching the direction from which the voice had come. ”rosalyn let my mate and i stay.”
it occurred to velen that he had never met the man named illidan either, and rosalyn hadn’t exactly been leadership when they’d joined. what exactly was this sort of place? he paused again, not wanting to startle the other wolf, who he had determined to be a child. no sense in scaring kids on his first month here.

i swear i saw scarab's ego inflate to 3x's bigger than his body writing this post, lmao

though admittedly scarab has not yet taken much interest in his packmates or their lives — and especially not the tumultuous nature of rusalka and it's seemingly ever changing leadership — it occurs to him abruptly that perhaps he should as a deep voice rings out into the darkness carrying with it an introduction. velen. scarab's life until this point revolved very much around himself, the suns and stars of his life and his menagerie. rosalyn let my mate and i stay. the name of one of the suns of scarab's life flows so easily off of this velen's lips and scarab's chin lifts in the darkness that conceals him.

scarab hadn't asked but this bit of information given freely made scarab feel dangerously important. in that moment, cloaked by rich, velveteen shadows he forgets that he is only ( almost ) three months old. rusalka and the sound is his birthright and thus why shouldn't newcomers need his approval, too? rosalyn's judgement should have been enough for her son but this game feels too fun to not see how far he can take it.

i am scarab, he offers imperiously after a moment; a name for a name; and though it goes unseen a sly smile dances at the edges of his lips. what brought you and your mate to rusalka? and what enticed them to stay in the fallout of continuous upheaval?

i love it

though as the boy continued to speak, velen knew he was young, he himself could not help but feel a bit judged by the formal tilt of the words issuing from the darkness.
deciding to come no closer, keeping the afternoon sun at his back, velen blinked into the grotto’s long shadows and tried to think of how best to answer scarab.
”our pack was disbanded and my mate had our pups early. they needed protection, and rusalka was all i knew.” there now; surely that would be a satisfactory answer.

though scarab has a rough idea of what the word 'disbanded' meant in regards to packs the truth remains that he can't actually fathom it; if only because he's never had to experience it. in this, he is lucky, especially given the tumulus nature of rusalka itself; for now, however, it remains something he cannot sympathize with any more than the fact that velen's mate had their pups early. early? scarab repeats with a cant of his head that likely goes unseen in the shadows of the grotto. that whole matter unfortunately goes over scarab's head; but he takes from it that there are more pups in rusalka ...which meant that beyond the two others he's already known about of and his own siblings there was more competition. he's not exactly pleased by the prospect but supposes, rather cruelly, that if velen's pups are like the other two: they are insignificant to him.

would scarab have been older and more wiser he might've pressed for more information: is that enough? because he isn't and he doesn't. instead, he settles for a simple: i see.; and then eager to change the subject asks, what're you doing down here?

oof i am sorry

”yeah,” velen murmured, already tired of the conversation with the unseen boy. too early, and stormrift had come down and both his brothers had disappeared.
and here, though velen couldn’t know it, he spoke with a child of the very man who had begun the downfall of the bay. it was a cursed place, he decided; it had not only failed smokestep, but ford also.
”i’m not familiar with this place yet,” he called into the briny gloom. ”was gonna head out, if you wanted to come.”
back into sunlight, back into existence, where hopefully he could clear his goddamn head.