Neverwinter Forest wasting time on climbing hills

Maybe @Mal? Or anyone else that wants to join the teenager pack. Open to @Okeanos of course.

Ibis had eventually reconnected with Okeanos, although they hadn't been separated for long. He mentioned that he'd found Mali as they'd been intending, and then proceeded to show Ibis how to reach the forest. It didn't seem very different from the Hollow and had her aching for home as soon as she stepped foot between the trees. There were some natural paths; it helped that she was following Okeanos through the forest at first, and his broad figure made way for her much smaller, slight figure.

At some point Okeanos was distracted by something - maybe he thought to go hunt for something to make Ibis feel more at home, or maybe he thought to scout out an area of the woods that were new to him - but either way, Ibis was left to her own devices. It was cool in the woodland shadows; she could spy a few plants that were familiar as she trailed along, but many more - grasses, seedlings, trees - which were foreign. All of it smelled like Mali, and she still wasn't sure what to feel about the fact that their adventure had found its conclusion so swiftly.

Ibis moseyed through a small meadow within the forest and as she stopped to sniff at the flowers, she had the distinct feeling that she was being watched - and looked up, resembling a startled fawn in that moment.

On the other hand, maybe Ibis was at an advantage in comparison to her brother -- Mal didn't have any sharp memories of her other than the fact she existed somewhere in the background.  It was Okeanos and the older grey chick that primarily featured on his disliked list, but that other pair of siblings were long since gone.  He couldn't even remember their names.  Okay, he probably didn't remember Ibis' either until Okeanos said it.  He was just that great of a social butterfly.

Which was probably why instead of going over to say hi, Mal's first reaction was to just stop and watch her.  He still really wasn't 100% sure what was going to happen here -- whether he really wanted them to stay or if at some point it would make more sense for them to go elsewhere.  But at a certain point, if he wanted a pack he'd have to find some wolves he trusted.  He would have preferred if both of them were replaced by his sisters, no question there.

Then she noticed him.  Watching for a moment longer, he finally started towards her at an easy pace.  He was probably a little hard to read other than "neutral" mostly because his own mind was kind of a mess.  With time would hopefully come clarity.  The siblings were quite different in size, as became clear.  She was positively shrimpy, even in comparison to the completely average-sized Mal.  Hey.  He didn't know what to expect from her, and emotionally kept at a distance.  If she agreed with her brother, then maybe it wouldn't be a problem... But if she drank the koolaid and thought nothing had been wrong at Elysium, it probably wouldn't work out in the end.  There were certain lines that he had drawn that he was now unwilling to budge on.

IDK what I wrote ahaha, I'm running in to a small writing block.

The history shared between the children was no longer applicable to Ibis, as far as she'd be able to tell. She had vague recollections of the travel between packs when she had been tinier than now, but it hadn't been a particularly difficult - nor particularly joyous - event in her life; her memory of Mali, therefore, was incredibly limited. It was probably why she had described him to Tristan as, a boy covered in clouds. She recalled he was a pale fellow with a mottled coat, but nothing concrete beyond that. Ibis knew that finding the boy and reconnecting was important to Okeanos and she was eager to help him, even if she was useless in the hunt. The girl knew it was selfish to use this trip to explore and learn of the world rather than look for Mali — but she didn't know what else to do. 

Hey, called the boy's voice; she raised her head and glimpsed to him, smiling softly, but didn't know what to say.

She took a deep breath and let the flood of pine wood overwhelm her system for a moment. The girl settled to her haunches as she observed Mali, almost too shy to look him over for long - awkward, unsure. But she did eventually speak up and comment, Hi. Okeanos said he'd found you... You live here?

Being here in the forest was a little bit better. It was a distraction from how she had left the Hollow, and all the friends that she'd given up for this adventure. The forest was different in so many ways — but beautiful too, glorious for its differences. The flowers were a particular comfort to her now. They were some variety of daisy, Ibis presumed, and while the bulbs hadn't opened fully yet they smelled distinctly like some of the greenery that grew in the Hollow by her clover field; but they were pink rather than blue. As she sniffed, Ibis caught a lump in her throat and found her eyes tearing up ever so slightly as she was overcome with nostalgia for home.

She didn't want to be the weepy little girl, so she contained herself and drew away from the flowers again, sighing softly - It's very pretty here.

He nodded.  Yep, for whatever bizarre reason Okeanos had come looking for him.  Seemed pretty weird still but whatever.  Stuff.  But just because they for some reason hunted him down, it didn't mean he was suddenly gonna be a bundle of cheery goodness.

But this territory?  He looked around briefly.  He didn't really have a vocabulary to say things about it.  It was a forest.  It existed.  It seemed fine.  It's good.  I guess.  I think it's best -- of what I found at least. And no people wanting other people dead.  Pause, a sidelong glance, Unless you guys got plans.  He was not being serious and said with a bit of teasing, because he was pretty sure the pair of them were powder puffs.  If they actually stuck around, Mal was certain that he'd be the one doing any dirty deeds that needed doing.  And of course, Mal being Mal meant he missed entirely any emotion she showed because he was kind of dense.

His reaction was lackluster and took her by surprise - how could someone choose a home but not care for its unique qualities? The boy went off on a tangent about death which made Ibis frown and peer at him for a moment of horror, and then she shook her head. Of course not! That's terrible, why would anyone want that? She wasn't sure if she should feel offended or concerned, and opted for both. What had he been through?

Apparently that was a bit much.  But again, powder puffs.  Maybe it was gonna be a problem.  He shrugged again, I'unno.  Lotta people wanted to.  Which both seemed to weird him out and try to make him try to seem super cool, like his joke totally went over well.  Obviously it hadn't.  But teeth and blood kind of painted everyone else  out there in a different light.. And even those who didn't show such brutality seemed to be so casual about asking about wanting him to help kill someone... His eyes drifted well away from her, sort of picking apart the scenery a good 45 degrees away from if he'd been trying to look at Ibis.  He took a couple of steps uncomfortably.

Well whatever he'd been through leading up to this moment, it wasn't right. It had clearly affected him as far as Ibis could tell, and she shook her head at the implication that anyone would arrive at his forest and try to do him harm - specifically Okeanos or herself, while neither of them had any ill-will in their bodies.

That is ridiculous, and gross, and please never talk like that around me again. This wasn't really going well. She'd only wanted to say hello and get the lay of the land, but it seemed like he was less interested in catching up and more invested in weirding her out for no reason what-so-ever. Ibis was innocent to the darker aspects of the world and that showed in just how absolute her revulsion was. Maybe you misunderstood, she offered more for herself than him, trying to make sense of the death thing he'd brought up.

Gross. Nope. She didn't want to think about it. A sense of disquiet settled between them after that, and Ibis didn't know what else to say. She wanted to empathize but she had never experienced any sort of death, so........... now what?

Misunderstood? He laughed uncomfortably -- just a couple of short chuckles -- before taking an uneven half step back towards her his voice waaaay less even than it was before, They ripped each other's throats out, how do you misunderstand that?  But with that Mal felt like he'd gone too far, spun away immediately after finishing the question, taking a few steps away and not looking in her direction at all, as if it would prevent her from seeing how much it had disturbed him.  That had pretty much been the first thing that had happened since he left.  Kind of a hard thing to forget.  What did she want him to do?  Pretend the world was nice and friendly and joyful when it definitely wasn't?!

He slowed his breathing a moment, not looking back at Ibis still.  He had left partially because Elysium didn't actually want to look at reality as far as he could tell.  Life was cruel and again and again it gave him a bad hand, not that anyone else seemed to see it -- Mal's eyes were metaphorically open to it all.

His voice pitched wildly as he explained, exacerbating the unease that Ibis was feeling as if it were a fun game to play; he was toying with her, and she didn't like it. The thought of someone being so violent with someone else that they'd --- ooh, she couldn't even fathom it! A shiver ran down her spine and she recoiled as he did, shaking her head and almost shouting back, Stop it! Stop it Mali, I mean it! It felt awful to be infantalized like this, and the sharp look on Ibis' typically pleasant face said as much.

If he wanted to get a rise out of her, the tactic worked. She watched him as he turned away but didn't notice that he felt his own sense of revulsion. Why do you do that? Why do you have to be so --- so infuriating? I just wanted to say hello, not talk about a bunch of gross stuff! Do you even care that Okeanos came to find you? Probably not, Ibis readily assumed. If Mali wanted somewhere safe to hide away from the gross things in the world, he had found some place suitable - though if he kept the attitude up, he'd be alone.

And yet again, one of the Elysium wolves was treating him like he was a tiny pup, like somehow his existence and experience was a horrible thing and he was immediately regretting thinking that Okeanos and Ibis having left them was a sign that they'd realized the err in their ways.  Not Ibis, at least.  She was still just as brainwashed as the rest of them he'd left behind.

He bristled defensively, spitting his words, but from his tilted back ears and other posturing, he certainly felt like he was the one under greatest attack -- he expected to be verbally beaten down just like every other damn time. You're calling me a liar!  Just like all the rest of them!  Because all of you just treat me like trash -- you know that?  You always have!  Well, not her specifically, but every damn wolf in that pack, so since she was taking up the same weapons as them, she counted in their numbers, even if he didn't know that she'd left them for the Hollow and then left the Hollow for whatever.  That's what you came here for!  He sort of side-backed away from her.  Why did he think they were any different than before?

She was fuming a little, but tried to listen. Mother always practiced good listening and it was something Ibis had to cultivate as a skill during her scouting missions, but it was hard to listen to this boy go off; none of it made sense. What part of Ibis' revulsion had to do with truth? She did not doubt the things he spoke of, she just didn't want to hear about it. It was gross. It made her uncomfortable. The girl took a breath, trying to steady her nerves so that she could face him and his unruly emotions; you'd think that someone as emotional as Ibis would have a handle on that kind of stuff, but she was feeling out of her depth.

Mali, no I — I didn't mean it like that, she tried to explain. I believe you, I do. Absolutely. Its just... So dark, and gross, and, well, I don't know what to do with that information. How could she possibly help him see that the world wasn't an abyss of blood, murder, and darkness? Ibis had never experienced any of that herself and could not empathize - and she hoped it would never affect her, even if that was a naive thing to hope.

He was emotional, and angry, and Ibis didn't know how to counter that. She didn't want to stop him from feeling what he was feeling, nor did she want to offer corrections - it wasn't her place to step on his beliefs or try to fix him. So she went quiet, and as her posture slackened in to some crescent of defeat and worry, Ibis murmured: I'm sorry for whatever happened to you. I don't... I don't know what to say.

Mal, he finally corrected rather spikily.  He calmed down a little as she seemed to verbally back off a bit, but he wasn't going to leap into trusting her.  That was too much of a reach for him as she had just gone and brought back all the memories of what he'd left behind -- and dug down a bit to the crazy beach people, whether she meant to or not.  He was still plenty defensive, though maybe fractionally less likely to bite if she encroached on him physically.

Well that is what's out there.  And not just those psychos.  That's reality.  A brief pause, continuing sourly and more quietly, That nobody wanted to tell any of us about, apparently.  At least Mal had the excuse of being ignored by the lot of them.  He doubted that they cared if he lived or died.  Did they just want their kids to hide at Elysium forever?  Did they not care about their own children?  Probably not.  They were so caught up in dancing around living their own lives that they probably didn't think that far ahead.  But we should know. We're adults.  You know, so they could stay alive and all that.

She held back the urge to flinch when he corrected her on his name; she'd do her best to remember the change, not wanting to upset him any more than she already had. The boy did have a point even if Ibis was too nervous to really focus on it. Their parents should have prepared them for the world, not just hidden them away in their secluded willow forest - but Ibis had gotten out of there, she'd been places, she'd seen things, just nothing on the level that Mal described. It made her uncomfortable to think about how dangerous the world might actually, truthfully be. Was she somehow luckier than him? Ibis had been to many packs and aside from being easily lost in the wilderness, she had not run in to danger. That did not discredit Mal's own situation - all that he'd been through to flavor his view of the world; that was valid, and just because Ibis was unfamiliar with the aspects he spoke of, did not make it any less valid.

Still, she did not appreciate the vitriol he levied her way. It hadn't been her intention to rile him up or call him out as a liar — but that's how he took her words, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth. Why did everyone always think she was so innocent, so vapid, so bland? Nothing bad had happened to her, sure - but her experiences, and her adventures, were just as valuable as Mal's! Right now she was full of apprehension about furthering the conversation. At the very least he had stopped yelling at her and seemed more peaceful, but she had to wonder how long that would last. What if she set him off again?

We are, she murmured in agreement to his statement about adulthood; although she didn't feel like an adult, and would never look like one either. Um... Do you... Want to talk about it? She offered, even though hearing about bloodshed and death was so far out of her proverbial wheelhouse that Ibis would probably have nightmares for weeks if Mal did share further. It sounds like you've been through a lot of scary stuff, and I want to understand better. You -- you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to though. But I'm here and so is Okeanos, in case you ever... y'know, want to.

That was all she could do, wasn't it? Offer to listen, even if she wasn't equipped to handle the truths he might opt to share. Ibis was coming to the conclusion that her step-mother might've been right about her: she was a soft, useless, air-headed little girl and that might never change. That gave her something new to think about.

In a sense perhaps they were two very different sides of the same coin.  She was good, he was not -- or those were the brushes they were broadly painted with.  But chances were, the one that was used as a shorthand illustration of Mal probably had far more negative effects on him than Ibis did.

But her offer?  Um.  Dunno.  Trust issues, man.  He still looked pretty uncertain.  He didn't hide his distrust particularly well, but that was probably how he looked most of the time at this point.  Dunno if you'd really wanna know. But whatever.  He also kind of felt like he wanted to run off.  Shifting uneasily, But that's life.  Or something.  He looked away again for a moment, not sure what to do now.  Part of him said to stay because this was gonna be his pack and he shouldn't run off, but that was fighting with the whole run off and lick your wounds thing and left him a kind of torn mess.  Mental flailing, go!

He was right, of course. It wasn't hard to intuit that Ibis wasn't really up for the nasty details, but she had offered and out of all the lessons her mothers had taught her - and her father, in his limited capacity - it was to keep to her word. She couldn't recant what she'd said and the offer was true. One day perhaps Mal would trust her enough to elucidate on his previous experiences and through sharing, perhaps begin to heal whatever mental and emotional wounds plagued him. At least those were Ibis' thoughts on the subject: he seemed damaged to some degree and, cliche as it sounds, she wanted to fix him.

Still, he wasn't ready to talk about it to her yet. Maybe that day would never come, but - Well, I'm around if you ever want to talk. She clarified again, a thin smile slipping across her features. Perhaps it was better to move on to happier subjects? Or maybe he didn't want her company at all - that thought helped to center Ibis a little bit, sober her up from the emotional whiplash of the conversation they'd been having.

The girl looked around for a second or two, thoughtful, and then remarked, You really did choose a nice place to live, Mal. Do you think you'll stay? Or... That we could stay with you? She glanced at the boy as she asked this, wondering if he'd be willing to try the whole family thing over again on his own terms this time.

Right now his opinion of both the siblings was somewhere around "warily tolerating their existence" as he tried to figure out who they really were and whether they were going to show an ugly face like that one grey girl did.  Elysium had always seemed that way as a whole, so if they were Elysium's children (far more than he ever was, it was doubtful Mal had ever considered the post-move pack "home") he needed to see how brainwashed they were.

Either way, he nodded slightly.  Definitely wasn't a conversation he wanted to have today.  He looked back to the trees and his gaze wandered there as he spoke, I'm staying here unless something better shows up.  Don't think it will.  Whether you stay is up to you.  He was one wolf, they were two, but in all honestly he could always subtly drive them off by being a royal jerk if he needed to.  Right now? Shrug.  He was pretty apathetic as long as people didn't directly push his buttons at the moment -- he wasn't changing himself, though.  Deal with it or scram.  Or more likely he'd scram and hope they were gone when he got back, because even now he was starting to feel a little edgy as if he should go somewhere and be by himself again.  It was far too ingrained into his habits at this point to avoid basically everyone.

But yeah, I'm gonna go do.. Stuff.  So see ya around.  Or not.  Again, whatever.  He turned and headed away.