Phoenix Maplewood I don't feel connected to all of your lies.

Etienne searched. It was another day. He had been closer to the creek and had saw nothing. Not even a scent of @Anselm remained. So he had come this way. He didn't think the mountain man would come this way, but perhaps.

He thought if @Druid gone and his own paw the harbinger of her destruction. Even if he hadn't bitten her or given her the sickness. He had given her a means to be out of this world. He had given her a reason to leave her children behind.

And @Heda gone. Her he could not draw pity for she ruined all she touched it seemed. But he could feel a slight bit of empathy even if she was a victim of her own self inflicted damage. There came a time when you stopped being a victim, pitiful and morose. Even Etienne had to do so.

He stood in the Maplewood ears splayed out a sadness in his chest. A sick welling of despair in his very bones.

What was he even doing here?

He threw back his head and howled as loud as he could. Putting every single ounce of every single feeling into it. Every single one that had plagued him for days, weeks, months, years. His throat hurt. His chest hurt. His eyes blurred. He would collect himself and head back to swiftcirrent, hopefully a little lighter. Because sometimes even the world has to scream. It's why they have thunderstorms.

Had to get this angsty confusing thread out for Etienne. All tags are references only, but they can answer of course though I am unsure how he would behave. Honestly
I'm not sure if this even makes sense hmm.

With yesterday’s exchange still fresh in his mind, Cambria found himself moving further afield, purportedly widening his patrol route. His thoughts wandered along with his feet, the yearling pondering how pack life had changed him. Once, he would not have hesitated to help a stranger. Nowadays, it was as though his altruistic nature had withered.

Or maybe you’re just saving it for your pack, he mused under his breath, slowing to a pause near where the grass of the plains gave way to the rocky terrain of the moraine. I’m not sure… he continued talking to himself, only the words drifted into silence as a howl rose into the air.

It wasn’t unusual to overhear howls in this wilderness, though there was something about this one that made his hair raise. The yearling proceeded stiff-legged across the rugged path, mismatched gaze honed on the forest over yonder as the wolf’s voice hit a lachrymose crescendo before falling away into ringing silence.

Cambria halted at the tree line, his earlier thoughts still swirling. Did this caller need help? He sounded distressed but not necessarily urgent. What drove the yearling into the trees was perhaps less an effort to resume his former altruism than a sort of morbid curiosity about who’d made that sound and why.

The silence rang with his last call and Etienne stood, breathing slightly heavy. Then he felt a bone crushing anger that he was in this situation. How dare any of them put him there? Then overwhelming grief. He ran the gambit of emotions in seconds and it left him exhausted. he sort of slumped into himself, even if he were standing firm.

Then a noise and he drew himself to his full height and searched for the noise maker themselves. Golden eyes narrowed. Slightly shamefaced that he had been caught losing himself in a way.

There were a great many leaves carpeting the forest floor. When Cambria noticed this, his eyes flung upward to behold the splendorous foliage here. He actually stopped to marvel a moment, wondering how he hadn’t noticed it at first. But then he remembered what had brought him into these woods, so he dropped his gaze back to terra firma and resumed his inquisitive prowl.

He pushed through some dense undergrowth, frowning when he felt some burdocks latching to his pale chest. Cambria paid them little heed now as he struggled through the underbrush, a rather noisy affair. Eventually, he decided to leap over the remaining snares of twigs and other herbage.

He cleared it, eyes assessing his new accouterments. The yearling felt a good shake was in order, though before he could fling the detritus from his pelt, his mismatched eyes peered ahead. They fixed on a figure and Cambria went suddenly very still.

It wasn’t the surprise of seeing him there—the Dragonling quickly recovered from that—but the stranger’s magnificence that snatched Cambria’s breath from his throat. He had never seen such beautiful, striking markings. His coat immediately reminded the native islander of a sandy beach. His eyes were as golden as a molten sunset over the sea. He was trim, with sharp features and a heaviness on his face that didn’t take away from his handsomeness.

Cambria had never felt so utterly transfixed by someone before. He continued standing there, admiring the feathers wound so deliberately in the man’s furs even as he forgot entirely about the litter strewn in his own.

The leaves kept the sun away from the world. It cradled Etienne in it's embracing shadows and he reveled in it. However, the dappled sun left a carpet of colors and his entire body and his soul they ached. Gods they ached. And yet.

A nearby noise and masked face lifted up and he stared, golden eyes on the foliage and what ever was about to come near him. A shift of his paws and he watched and he waited. Wondering should he run?

Etienne stared back. A sunrise eye and a ocean eye. But not just any part of the ocean. The deep dark parts that you didn't swim in, because you knew, you knew something lurked there. Something that could pull you in and never let you go. It was a strange combination, but it lightened the ivory man's countenance further.

A tilt of a colored ear. 'ello. I be Etienne.

The shadows shifted on the stranger’s face just before he opened his mouth to speak. Cambria blinked, realized he was staring, and felt a warm flush tingle from the crown of his head all the way to the tip of his tail. Swiftly if reluctantly, he averted his eyes. He hoped the man knew he’d only looked so long out of pure captivation, not to present a challenge, although that thought sent another wave of heat sizzling down his spine.

He drew in a sharp breath at the stranger’s—no, Etienne’s—exotic brogue. The yearling’s stomach did a strange little swoop. He glanced upward again, a mildly stunned expression on his face, before dropping his two-toned eyes back to the carpet of colorful leaves on the forest floor.

I, he made to reply, only to realize the words caught in his throat and tripped oddly off his tongue, I be Cambria.

The instant the words left his mouth, he flushed more intensely than ever. His skin must be red hot under his pale fur. Why had he said it that way? Etienne might think he was ridiculing him, when it was the last thing Cambria intended to do. The yearling was mortified, his tongue curling against the roof of his mouth as he visibly cringed.