He couldn't sleep.
Dreams and images of his homeland flooded his mind. In every one was his ailing grandfather who, even at the end of his life, could muster the energy to join Jura on a patrol, or tell him a story, or teach him some secret about the pack and the families living within. He'd spent hours—nearly most of his young life, absorbing everything that he could and emulating the wiser elder. Now the pack was in the hands of Ithie, and he was nothing more than a rogue with weak ties to a fledgling pack and no way to apply the knowledge passed down to him.
He'd never thought to link the life of a pack leader and a king into one bundle. Jura, on a whole, was not an ambitious wolf. 'A leader should be the most humble of us all,' he could hear his grandfather say, 'and it would be a great, and terrible, fallacy to look down upon those you protect simply because you wear the bloodied mantle. They look to you for guidance, in all things.'
It would be beyond him to assume Charon or Amekaze needed advice in such things, as he was barely into adulthood himself. But he felt... well, useless.
So tonight his patrol carried him beyond the borders to the Terrace beyond. The moon was hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds, but the silence and neutrality of the place offered him a respite from his anxieties. He walked until the trees thinned enough so that he might look down on the valley below, and soon found a suitable spot to rest. He paused here, beside the rotting corpse of a fallen log, and sighed.
Dreams and images of his homeland flooded his mind. In every one was his ailing grandfather who, even at the end of his life, could muster the energy to join Jura on a patrol, or tell him a story, or teach him some secret about the pack and the families living within. He'd spent hours—nearly most of his young life, absorbing everything that he could and emulating the wiser elder. Now the pack was in the hands of Ithie, and he was nothing more than a rogue with weak ties to a fledgling pack and no way to apply the knowledge passed down to him.
He'd never thought to link the life of a pack leader and a king into one bundle. Jura, on a whole, was not an ambitious wolf. 'A leader should be the most humble of us all,' he could hear his grandfather say, 'and it would be a great, and terrible, fallacy to look down upon those you protect simply because you wear the bloodied mantle. They look to you for guidance, in all things.'
It would be beyond him to assume Charon or Amekaze needed advice in such things, as he was barely into adulthood himself. But he felt... well, useless.
So tonight his patrol carried him beyond the borders to the Terrace beyond. The moon was hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds, but the silence and neutrality of the place offered him a respite from his anxieties. He walked until the trees thinned enough so that he might look down on the valley below, and soon found a suitable spot to rest. He paused here, beside the rotting corpse of a fallen log, and sighed.
November 18, 2015, 08:35 AM
Hope you don't mind me hopping into this! Is it okay to bring to present day?
FitzDutiful had, once again, spent too long on the mountain. He had been so caught up with his troubles and tribulations that he hadn't spared a thought to how rubbish a leader he was being. Feeling like he needed to reacquaint himself with the world around him, he headed out on an expedition - aiming to find the Moonspear that Charon had told him about.
He was nearing close when a sigh flew on the wind to his ears, it seemed to suggest someone wasn't happy and FitzDutiful thought of just leaving it be - passing on by to where he wanted to go when the scent also came on the wind and Charon was an overwhelming factor. One of his pack members then? Deciding that seeing a member of the Moonspear was just as good as finding the place itself, FitzDutiful turned his angle to coincide with the sigher. Once he arrived he wasn't sure where the noise had come from but the wind, his nose, showed him a wolf beside a rotting log, slightly higher than him.
Going around to find a way up, FitzDutiful cautiously joined the yearling. "Life got you down?" he asked, gently.
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