Ankyra Sound The annual parade of the mysterious hooded figures

For @Reyes and/or Isilmë if she's with them, but the other Rusalka pups are welcome as well! Faster pace preferred. This occurs at the same time as this thread based on Vercingetorix telling his kids to stay put. Set in the forest.

Arrow Lake boasted an impressive forest, but this easily took the cake for coolest forest Dragomir had ever seen. It was darker and the air was heavier than in the mountains. The trees were taller than the clouds, or at least that's how it appeared to the pup, who was but an ant among their vast trunks. Moss carpeted the floor so heavily he could scarcely hear his own footsteps and the whole earth seemed to spring underfoot. It even hung in heavy curtains from low hanging branches. Huge chunks of fungus erupted from rotting wood and the ground seemed choked with weeds and ferns. It was like something out of a fairytale.

His shyness forgotten, Dragomir hastened between colossal roots, logs and knots of foliage, exclaiming cool! and wow! as he went. For now he had just Reyes and maybe Isilmë for company, which helped him come out of the uncharacteristic shell he'd developed over the last little while. He felt more normal than he had since leaving Diaspora. Nothing was ever the same as your first home, but he thought he could come to like this majestic seaside forest as much as Diaspora's crystalline lake.

Little did the enchanted pup know his father was busy deciding all their fates with the enraged pack down on the beach, and their likelihood of being allowed to stay here was very low indeed. Giggling, he dove across the moss to tap his forepaws at a croaking frog.

The chaos was too much for Reyes. He liked some degree of instability and even flourished in it, being the culprit of many pranks and poorly thought out misdemeanors against his siblings - but the yelling adults and confusing atmosphere of the fields proved to be too much. Even hours after the event Reyes was unsettled, more agitated than what would be typical of him, and drawn in to a sullen silence.

He had never been a tour guide before and it honestly felt wrong, especially compared to his usually defensive behavior; but it felt good to be home, breathing the heavily salted air and listening to the shifting of the distant waves. The blackpine earned some gasps and stares from Dragomir; then they eventually moseyed towards the beach, but stopped short when he noticed that Dragomir was pausing a lot more frequently than he would've liked and so he had to wait for him - and his pale sister - to catch up.

Common, he drawled against the gusting wind, feeling the sea air ruffling at his auburn coat.

The sound of Reyes' languid voice drew Dragomir's attention away from the frog. All he really wanted to do was explore this vast new world he found himself in, but Dragomir had been instructed to stay with Reyes. That's how he'd chosen to interpret his father's warning to stay, even though what Vercingetorix truly meant was don't move at all. He was feeling much too shaken after witnessing his parents shouting at each other to really listen.

He still wasn't sure what to make of the other boy, the one Vercingetorix had probably replaced him with, but he stepped toward him with pink nose twitching and asked, where are we going? Surely they could stay here and explore the forest and the adults would be back in a jiffy. This was Reyes' home, though, so maybe the red-brown cub knew somewhere cooler they could go to wait, or somewhere they could find some food. Dragomir could use some stellar sights or something warm and delicious to settle him after the blow-up between Vercingetorix and Aurëwen, so he followed willingly.

Lead the way, he offered, though it was already sort of implied that Reyes was the leader and he was just the foreigner following along. He hadn't felt very conversational lately, but as they drew nearer to the roaring sea, he asked, where are we?

He hadn't spent much time in the woods, and he wasn't sure how he felt about them. For a long time they had been a black swatch of color on the horizon and the path leading to them, and through them, was too steep for the likes of him. While he was a bit bigger now and more mobile, Reyes was not all that inquisitive of the world around him. It had been quite a shake-up when he had been introduced to the sand and the sea by his parents, for instance.

He liked the forest well enough, he supposed - although the boy remained rather stoic in comparison to Dragomir's flickering attention (judging from the frequent stops and awed expression on his face). Reyes wanted to get somewhere more familiar and hoped to lead his new friend through the woods and down to the beach, but... As he roamed to a small ledge overlooking the beach, he saw the dark shapes of the adults and thought he could hear shouting.

From behind him came Dragomir's question ( where are we going? ) but Reyes didn't pay much attention to it. He was trying to figure out who was down on the beach — but it was such a ways away, and so hard to keep focused — eventually he gave up and with a huff, climbed down from the ledge, leading the boy through the grove until the soil loosened and became a burm of tall yellowed grass. A few feet further and the grass was also thinning in to a loose mixture of sand, stone, and pulverized bits of bleached shell.

Where are we? Came the other boy's question, and Reyes looked briefly at him before trying to remember which direction led to the rendezvous site where his siblings were probably sleeping, or playing, or whatever - and shrugged without comment. As he was looking around he heard an incoherent shout from the opposite direction and turned to regard the blocky shapes of the adults. To get his mind off of the unease that brewed in his belly Reyes said, I wanna show you somethin', and then without further prompt, launched himself in to a haphazard run across the sand.

No answers were forthcoming, so Dragomir followed along in silence. They passed through the edge of the forest where the trees thinned out and the soil gradually transitioned from fertile loam to sand. Reedy grasses tickled his face as he padded through them, feeling less and less steady on his paws the further they went. He wanted to ask again, but knew his manners; it was rude to pester.

He, too, heard the unintelligible yelling in the distance. Dragomir stopped and picked up his ears, craning his neck for a glimpse of what was going on. He knew Vercingetorix had gone to do something and the only reason he hadn't run off again like he had Aurë was because Verx hadn't ominously left his son in the company of a total stranger. Reyes probably qualified, but not as much as Sanguinus, whom Dragomir had never even seen before. The shouting made him nervous and his tail twitched side-to-side, betraying his uncertainty.

Before he could suggest that they go and see what the commotion was, Reyes pulled his interest back with the ever alluring, I wanna show you something, then took off down the beach. Dragomir was compelled to follow not only for the sake of his curiosity, but because the pack animal in him yearned to do so, but the true nature of sand soon became apparent to him. The ground seemed alive under his paws. It slipped and slid with every step so that the more effort he made, the shorter a distance he seemed to go. Frustration soon became despair as a misstep sent him toppling to his knees. Ray! he bleated, floundering in the sand. What the hell. He never had trouble walking elsewhere.

Wait! he cried.