Neverwinter Forest You got to take me

Stretch.

Too bad it was only January, Mal was already getting tired of the snow.  A few deer had finally returned to the forest, thank goodness, but their existence meant that he was keen to make sure the borders held.  They would, given how much he'd been out marking them.  It didn't give him much time to roam, unfortunately.  He should do so soon.. Get a few more people -- he had to wonder if the fact the pack felt like it constantly had a leak in it was something that went down everywhere.  People would show up, have promise, then scram.  So it goes.

Hopefully elsewhere was also looking more promising, and that was what brought Mal a dozen yards past the place he'd marked, investigating a trail he'd seen cutting through the fresh powder.  It was a trail of another small deer heard that had gone around Mal's forested home.  As he looked off in the distance, he was reasonably sure a few darkish blots were them, but as far as they were, there was every chance they were actually wolves or bears or something. Whatever it was, darkish and not trees.

He looked back to the forest, then back to the distant deer.  Well.  He was pretty sure those weren't his deer.  Maybe he should go back and find a trail.. How easy was it to tell them apart again?

He’d finally made headway, and found himself far enough from that cursed realm of the East to slow himself down, take in his bearings, and maybe find some sort of a respite or rest. Anywhere felt better than whatever place he’d just come from, even if the mountains just divided different layers of Hell. At least the only demons on this side of the range were the ghosts he was used to, and he would sooner take seven thousand false visions of them over one more nauseating, bloodied scene.

Thankfully he found someone tangible today. Someone not bleeding, not dying, not dead or catatonic. Just someone normal, and what. a. relief. Tuathal didn’t care to make his approach subtle. Politeness and properiety mattered to him once, now he thought them wasted time.

”Whatever y’do,” he said in hello, “You do not want’a find yourself on the other side of those mountains,” He gestured up to the looming hills that stood against the sky the herd roamed beneath, and shuddered, “tellin’ ya kid, all Hell’s hangin’ out over there.”

!! >D

Something else ended up catching his eye -- not the distant deer/mystery animals, but a solitary wolf wandering his way. With a purpose if anything. Weird. Still, Mal was totally fine with seeing what was up with this guy -- maybe he could bring another new face into the pack and all that.

However, what he said brought a somewhat lopsided grin to Mal's face. I was born over there. There's reasons I'm not planning on going back. Most of them were just he didn't want to ever see anyone from Elysium again -- but even if the pack no longer existed, as Cam had most likely eventually told him, there were too many bad memories from over there. Coming here was a good choice, at least in comparison to what else had been around. What stupidity are they up to now?  Probably trying to befriend bloodthirsty coyotes or something that would end badly.

:D *rubs hands* I had to

The kid didn't seem taken aback, even in the slightest, and Tuathal found himself unnerved. Not that he thought this stranger was any bit culpable in anything that had transpired - he was, decidedly, too small and too chill to fit the shoes of whoever had killed the lady in the bank - but the sheer revelation that stupidity was a word even a boy of this kid's age could attribute to the antics of the East...

"Stupidity," Tuathal slacked against the snow, propped by his haunches and his tall front legs. He favoured his right, and slouched in lackadaisical flair. His voice ran anything but. "Stupidity's not even -- " his tongue flashed across his lips. "Wolves killin' wolves, rippin' off limbs left an' right, then disappearin' before anyone can do anything about it," he laughed - bitter, and upset. His nerves trembling through - "An' then I - then we got this girl... saw the whole murder first. She's so... she's just... shit man," he let his tongue slip, and spat the word at the ground, "no one should see that, doesn't matter how young you are. Put her whole damn body in shock. Slipped into some kinda sleep and just... won't wake up..." the slightest quiver ran up his foreleg, and frayed the tenor of voice. The mental scar Ibis had left was still too much. He shook his head "Hell, man. What stupidity did they do when you were around?"

That.. Didn't sound quite right. Usually it was genuine stupidity that seemed to breed on that side of the mountains. Still, Mal's lack of shock probably wasn't what this guy was gonna expect. Instead, he squinted, That sounds more like what I saw towards the coast up there in spring or whatever. Was exploring and like four wolves show up, all trying to convince me to come with them, offering food and all that.  Seemed really weird, so said no, started leaving, then as I'm heading off, suddenly two of them turn and try to kill each other.  No reason. I thought they had but somehow those psychos lived, and one went on to murder another day or something. Literally. Like three packs want them dead around here, so they probably aren't coming back. There were a lot of messed up people around. Did the world really get any better out here?  Didn't seem like it.

For the ones that lived there for real? These two chicks somehow convinced my dad to basically abandon me and my sisters and take over the pack. We were just kids and they stopped teaching us, didn't talk to us, didn't search for my sisters when they went missing... Just ignored us. They'd act all nice to some people, but if you didn't think they were the best thing ever? You might as well not exist. Subtle cruelty. Or something like that. Sounded good though.

Of course, Mal had no idea it was Ibis, or he likely would have said something fairly crude about her deserving it to a point -- for not believing him, for ditching him, for acting just like the two witches she called mothers. If she stayed, she wouldn't have to deal with it. As it were, she was a faceless wolf, and he'd seen those horrors when he was well under a year. Still qualifying as a pup, in fact. But Mal moved on, Mal was stronger and was going to actually do something.

Woah woah woah hold up -- Tuathal's face reflected the gawking surprise he felt draw up inside -- so this whole murder schtick, this was more than just a one-off, one-time, one-man show? Holy moly, he'd ended up in the wrong neck of the woods - should'a known, with what bits of dysfunction he'd heard about these Wilds from Ceara, the short time he'd lived here with her.

And family dynamics seemed no better. Actually, hell, they made the Blackthorns look like saints. Some of his siblings had flown under the radar, for the sheer size of their sprawling pack, but Tuathal never questioned for one second whether or not Ma or Pop actually loved them. That was a given, with every litter they'd had. That was what had driven Tuathal up the wall.

"Hell, man," he hissed underbreath. If that was this kid's family, amazing, that he would end up so normal. "Good riddance you got out of that sinkhole, 'fore they messed you up too. Jeeze." He splayed his ears, "This whole place is just a land of loonies."

But was Mal really normal? Jury was still out. At the very least he was doing a hell of a lot better putting on that facade than he was back six months ago or whatever. Or maybe he was growing up. Either way, he wasn't quite the same ball of anger that he had been back at Elysium. Would any of them really recognize him now if it wasn't for his very distinctive coat?

Yeah, but I'm still missing a couple of sisters I wish I wasn't, which though he said it very reasonably, the words themselves were kind of pointed just by their existence. He'd accepted the fact that he probably wouldn't ever see them again at this point. Whether they were dead or alive, he didn't know. As such, Mal moved on fairly quickly, But I'm pretty sure if you keep walking you're going to find more out there you wish you hadn't. I haven't been too pleased about the neighbors but I'd rather not get worse ones by taking a chance somewhere else. I'll live with these if they don't go farther off the deep end. Hopefully they'd just forget that Mal and his pack existed in the first place.

Then, at tilt of his head, So why'd you stop running for the horizon anyway? After all, this guy had seen some bad stuff and he'd just wandered on over here pretty casually. Mal had been plenty paranoid for weeks after what he saw. Then again, he was still pretty much a kid at that point, so maybe that had something to do with it.

"I get ya on that one, kid," because man, didn't Tuathal know about missing sisters... that weird similarity of wishing for their lost forged a strange kinda connection in the heart of the rogue, like some empathetic tie that compelled him to see the kid with something akin to camaradarie, even though he hardly knew him.

Tuathal snorted at the kid's statement, but made nothing but a murmur only he could deciper. At this point he was pretty convinced he'd seen the worst the world could offer -- after all, he was pretty sure he spoke from experience far wider than the expanse of experience this kid spoke from. He found it almost laughable, that he'd think this was new information.

That all went without comment. To his question, however -- "Shit man, I dunno," Tuathal rolled his shoulders, and instead of answering, simply shot the question right back at him, "you know what kinda whack is out there, why'd you stop running, too?"

Apparently I can only brain short posts at the moment. Hmm. O.o

It wasn't really a good thing that he understood the whole sister plight. How many others were out there feeling the same way? Why couldn't they all be just left alone and let live happy lives? It was probably wishing for too much.

It really was kind of a shrug sort of question no matter who asked it, when you got right down to it. Because it feels more like I could do something here than other places. That even if the world outside goes crazy, we'll be okay with what we've got. All the real psychos are far enough away that they'll really have to consider if it's worth the effort to try and mess with us... And it's close enough that if my sisters ever do come back, they might be able to find me. It seemed reasonable enough to him. If the world was going to keep trying to be awful, he'd pick the least awful place and stick around there, or so had gone the theory.  It was probably a good thing he'd decided against Bramblepoint -- he'd be even closer to Moonspear and Nightwalkers there.