Ankyra Sound Grubble Rubble

Arrille was quite liking the pool. How it reflected on the ceiling and the walls of the chamber, in a light of blue. It looked so...mystical. Unreal. Unbelievable. He stood there, looking into the water. He wondered what was down there. How deep did it go? Was there something magical down there? Or just a dead end? Could he make it down there? So many questions he had.

Forgot to tag @Kierkegaard

The grotto had been where Caiaphas had first taken him when he had sought her for his injuries. He had a special liking to the place – because it was hers – and he felt as though it was a secluded enough place to establish his own den. It would allow him some reprieve from the companionship of other wolves. The grotto was enough, and would be enough until the end of his days. So, the ashen beast fell to them and wandered through the caves with lengthy ears held upright and alert.

The scent of a stranger passed through his nose. With a grunt, the ragged creature moved toward it and found the pale frame of a stranger in the lair. Kierkegaard sniffed the air with a frown, finding that the wolf belonged to Grimnismal, and chuffed softly to alert the other of his presence. “What are you doing in here, boy?” his gruff baritone struck through the cave and echoed softly.

Arrille's ears perked up, suddenly alert as he heard a voice behind as he turned his head to face them. He was quite large, and unfamilar to Arrille. "I, uh...I was looking in the water" he said, turning back to the water before him. "Just...thinking what's down there, and such."

The boy did not seem too perturbed by the presence of the ashen brute. The frown remained painted on his face as he listened to the reasoning behind why the child would linger in the grotto. If he had not known better, he would have almost thought this boy to belong to Caiaphas – not by birth, but by claim. Still, he was not sure if he was eager to have the young fellow in the caves.

Kierkegaard huffed a sigh and drew his gaze to the waters. “Not much,” he remarked in a grumbling tone. “You'd find more on the beach.” It was true – or so he imagined – that the grotto would not hold many secrets, but there were bound to be treasures hiding beneath the swell. If there were secrets to be found inside the caves, Kierkegaard felt as though they belonged rightfully to the dark-hooded woman who had first laid claim to them.

Arrille shrugged. To go out there meant to go where he could possibly be seen by Drageda. He wanted to remain hidden, somewhere he could be safe. This place, he felt very safe inside. "But that means going out there...I feel safe in here" he said blankly, still looking to the water. 

Then he decided to look up. "Have you seen Caiaphas? I haven't seen her in a bit" he added as he went back to looking at the water.

The reply that followed was something that Kierkegaard did not anticipate. His molten gaze fell on the youthful boy with some contemplation. The mercenary wondered why he would be afraid to venture out beyond the grotto. There must have been a reason for him to feel as though he was safer within the caves. While his tone did not reflect fear, the ghost could sense something looming over him. At this, the brute frowned and drew his gaze away. ”You have a pack to protect you from the outside,” he rumbled softly. Some of his harsh resolve had softened by the peculiar lad. Still, he remained stiff and distant to the youth. He had never known his way around communication.

The next question was moderately more surprising. Kierke’s ears were thrust forward with growing interest. He wanted to know about Caiaphas. ”She is in the sound. Tending to her own matters,” Kierkegaard remarked, almost stiffly.

Arrille glanced back to the other wolf. That was true...yet still, he felt safer inside the Grotto, and Caiaphas had made him welcome here...to some extent. Despite having not come out to answer the questions he had for her, that he had been promised if he had joined. 

Having his answer, he turned back to the water. "She brought me here, if you are wondering...with the promise of answers." And he did not wish to admit it. But slowly, he was becoming impatient, wondering if it was worth it coming here. The impatience would be easily noticeable in his tone.

The stranger spoke with impatience regarding the dark hooded woman. Kierkegaard’s dark lips twitched upward in a ghostly smile before vanishing. It seemed as though this was another one that had been wrangled by the sea waif. And though he knew that she had a penchant for the youth, he had never heard of fulfilling promises of any kind for her captives. Most of them left with the finest Stockholm syndrome that had ever been witnessed. Nevertheless, the ashen mercenary assumed that it was partially his duty to subdue the burning impatience inside of the young man. All answers came in time, he had found.

”She has never broken a promise,” he stated falsely. Though he could not imagine that Caiaphas would leave this sad youth wondering. She did not seem the type. ”What answers do you seek?”

The young boy remained still, until a question was asked of him. This time when he turned, he turned his whole body around with a very curious look. "About...about my father" he answered. "She knew him for some time, and he disappeared some time ago" he added and he had always wondered about why his father had left them. So that's why he wished to know of his past.

The boy's father is what he was after. Kierkegaard frowned deeply and turned his gaze away from the youth, thinking on the subject for a good long while. It seemed as though the pale youth had wanted to know more about his father. There was a curious prick at the back of his mind that caused him to wonder if the young boy truly was one of Caiaphas' brood, but he could not see her sharp angles on him and he did not share the fiery glint in her eyes. She must have known his father, though, to make such promises to a child. The ghost was certain that she should want Arrille to stay in Grimnismal. Still, something bothered him about the strange way that the young boy spoke.

“D'you remember much about him?” Kierkegaard grumbled in inquiry to the melancholy fellow. He snapped his attention back to the young boy's face and managed to hold all the expression of a thistle bush. His brows remained furrowed and his dark lips were curled downward in a permanently thoughtful frown that creased his aged features.

Arrille nodded. He remembered a lot about Father, how he was, how he looked, how he talked. But not his past. And that, he wanted to know. He wanted to know it all. All of Father's past, he wanted it all. Just so he could get some clue of where he was presently. Of why he left.

"He left when I was a few months...I remember a lot about him. Why he left, I don't know. And that is what I want to know...I thought anything Caiaphas told me could lead me to him." Then he could get things straightened out with Father.

The young man stated that he had been a few months old when his father had left. He also remarked that he did remember quite a bit about him. This struck Kierkegaard as an oddity; he could not recall one thing from when he had only been a few months old. He could scarcely remember things from when he had been only a year. He assumed that this was a benefit of being so young, but he did not imagine that a few months in someone's company would afford them a kind light. This skepticism lingered on his rough face as his ears swiveled forward, toward the young man.

“If you only had a couple of months with him, why the hell does it matter?” he then asked. His tone was rough and tumbled from his lips in a graveled baritone. “You managed to make it this far without him. What good is it going to do to see him again?” His fiery gaze bore into the pale boy with a strange intensity. Kierkegaard knew what it meant to be left alone at a young age. He did not hold a relationship with his own father, so he did not understand why it was important.

Arrille was caught by surprise by the other's tone and words. He frowned back, almost glaring. "Because he is my father. If I know more about him, I might know where he is. Why he left...he left me and my mother alone, and I want to know why" the boy answered. Perhaps a bit angrily even, toward the older wolf. "And why's it matter to you, why I want to know? He is my father." He felt a great attachment to his parents. Anyone who knew anything about them, he wanted to know it all. And Caiaphas could give him that.

It seemed as though the ashen mercenary had struck a chord with the young bright-eyed wolf. The older brute peered down at him with a cold scowl and a splaying of his ears in opposing directions. His upper lip twitched, curling slightly over a single canine before it returned to its position. Kierkegaard had never been spoken to in that manner before, and he was eager to show this young beast why that was an important breach of social communication. “You want to know why he left you and your mom behind, boy?” he growled, stiffening his limbs and glowering at the younger wolf with a merciless flash of his teeth.

“He's a piece of shit. There's no other reason to it. You'd like to know how I know? I left my kids dozens of times. My father did the same to me,” he snapped. Then, a cruel sort of snicker passed across his muzzle and he shook his head in disbelief, turning himself away from the emotional child. Kierkegaard didn't have enough of a reason to remain there; he did not want to willingly subject himself to the tantrums of the young.

Snorting, the grey brute started to leave the grotto and frowned back at the younger male. “Your father isn't a special kind of piece of shit. You're better off just letting him go.” If Arrille wanted to waste his life in a search for answers, it would make no difference to Kierkegaard. Still, the old hound knew better than to chase after things. Perhaps when the blue-eyed youth had grown to Kierke's age, he would understand how much time he had wasted.

Arrille glared back as if the growl and the other's words were a challenge, as if Arrille thought he was trying to be egged on. If that was the case, it was working. The other wolf spoke of how his father left him, and how he left his children. 

"Yes, you left. Your father left...but you are not my father" the boy spoke back. Indeed his back legs were shaking a bit as the other wolf appeared to be growling at him, being a bit aggressive than any other wolf in this pack had. "He will come back to me. And if I have to, I will bring him back. I will convince him."

"I will never let him go...I don't know who you even are, but you don't know my father...Caiaphas does, so I will see her." He waited for a moment, wondering for a moment where exactly he would go to find her.

Something in his demeaning remarks about the young boy's father had sparked a fire in the youth. This wasn't at all shocking to the ragged old wolf. He could have anticipated that the bright-eyed boy would be quick to take his father's side and defend him with everything that he had. It was a pity that Kierkegaard had lost interest. Had he found himself in a better mood, he would have encouraged the behavior and perhaps would have made an effort to ignite the burning passion in the pale beast's gut. At that point, the ashen mercenary thought it best if he just crawled out from the grotto and found a quiet place to nap.

The words that were trailing behind him did not phase the lumbering brute. He swiveled a single ear backwards to catch the tail end of what Arrille was saying before he snorted and shook his head. “Yeah, good luck with all that, son,” he sneered. While he did not have a doubt that if Caiaphas had given the boy her word, she would follow through on it. His distrust seemed to settle in the fact that he knew better than to thrust blind faith on the foolish.

Picking his way out of the grotto and into the open, the ghost sighed softly and fixed his gaze on a point down the beach where he might find some peace and quiet. He did not anticipate the young man would follow; he seemed eager to fill Caiaphas' ears with his vows of redemption for the father who had walked out when the boy had been no more than a pup.

Arrille flicked his ear when hearing those words, and he let out a low growl once the older wolf was gone far enough. He did not have their name...but he knew right away he did not quite like that wolf, whoever they were. Once the other wolf was gone, he headed off to try and find Caiaphas. Now he wanted more answers to his questions. Even if she was busy.