Moonspear Will-o-the-Wolf

Moriko loved how the moon reflected its light on the waters surface. she had been staring at it for so long she became transfixed with the wolf staring back at her from the surface of the lake. She tilts her head, and so does the reflection on the lakes water. It mimicked how she felt somewhat. She was going through a short period of melancholy, as she did at times when she became to aware of her past and worried to much of her present and future. She still had that childhood fear of abandonment that crawls back every so often.

"You and I have grown a lot haven't we..?"  She added softly with a tiny smile, speaking to her reflection. "Though it appears sometimes even we have our moments of stunted growth." 

She shut her eyes momentarily, letting the breeze hit her before the let out a sigh, opening her eyes again as her reflection remained. As it always would. She would always be at her own side,and would always be the one person she could never escape. So instead of attempting to flee during her moments of fear, she's started to address her childhood self. Trying to be the care and safety she needed then now, and that she doesn't need to feel like a scared little child anymore.

Sleep was not often a thing that escaped him. Truly, he was indulgent in it where he could be. There were days when Dirge very much preferred to be the late riser, though one could reason those days were well beyond him. Some semblance of duty kept him in a routine, though if not for that then either Hydra would wake him or one of the children.

Lately, it seemed such a luxury was a thing of the past.

Arcturus did not darken their doorstep and Revui seemed to have gone well off into whatever part of the wilderness pulled him in. Primafaya was still gone and if he had to wager, Opalia too. The thinning of their ranks troubled him, not because Moonspear seemed less lively, but rather the timing of such things. The darkness that enveloped them was more than just the night; it was impenetrable by the oncoming day, extended far beyond their forested claim and the glen they kept in check.

It was burdensome, he decided. Thick and choking in its viscosity—the sort of thing that lesser creatures would herald as an omen in their scree and squaw. But he did not believe in such things. A warning was a warning and he read it as such, and found that he should not have been surprised. Like the squabbling brothers, he too had once been marked a threat long before he had risen to it and perhaps now, he tasted the bitter notion that maybe there was something to it.

It was not so much the darkening event that precipitated such, but rather the gravity of it. To feel so wronged that an angry head would rear itself—truly, he thought this one of the core traits of an Ostrega... with the omission of himself. Even now he did not carry that mantle, refusing to believe himself cut from the cloth that had beget Charon, Hydra, and so on. Incapable of such a fury, though admittedly it too had once consumed him as it did all of them a lifetime ago.

But how it troubled Hydra was what troubled him. How deep did that betrayal go? How would such a wound fester and weep from venom? He did not wish to know the answer, let alone find out. A silver tongue could only stymie so much—it had better be gold plated instead, to be a guiding force. Morning would come and perhaps before sleep would steal his introspection from furthering, he would continue to try and smother the embers more in those closest to him.

Until then, he paced beneath the guise of patrol.

At least until Moriko snapped into his focus. She popped in through the woods, moonlight catching her silvery coat enough to draw his gaze and divert his course. A distraction would do, almost any, though perhaps not the repulsive type of unsavory sorts at their border. At least the calm waters of their meager lake were well within, rather than skirting with danger of the deep wood.

She murmured something to the surface, but he could not make the words out.

He let several moments pass, offering her privacy until silence no longer suited him.

"Not often I find someone out so late," he offered in way of greeting.

don't feel inclined to match length... not sure what i'm doing with myself apparently

The she wolf gave a small wiggle of her nose, catching the scent before slowly turning her head to see him, then her whole body.

She gave a small laugh as she smiled, adding softly. "I'm glad I didn't startle you with my appearance, as I have been told I can look ghostly at times."

She approached a little closer. "Tell me, is the mistress called sleep out of your reach tonight as well..?" She asks this with a slight tinge of concern, hoping that he's not bearing any burdens that would keep him from sleep.

Shes looking at him, trying to see if she can sense if anythings wrong. Sometimes she can just feel the vibe of someone and sense that something isn't right, but she's also in her own bout of melancholy as it is.

"If you need someone to hear your thoughts I am always willing to lend an ear- that is,if it is alright with you." She gives a sleepy, but tender smile, hoping that in some way there is a possible way for her to help ease whatever burdens him.

With this the swishes her tail back and forth softly before rolling her shoulders slightly. Nothin wrong with a good little stretch after being seated for a bit- sometimes it also just helps her relax better and not be so tightly wound.

She was a delightful thing. He could steal her mirth to bolster the lack of his own, wear it as armor if not hold as shield. And he did, for even beneath her astute study of him she seemed capable of finding those little notches in his usual stoicism. Perhaps had they been more strangers out in the wilds rather than acquaintances he would have taken her up on her offered ear, but as it were he sought purchase in keeping up appearances for his own sake.

A good humored note left him, nevertheless, and he thinly offered her a smile.

"Alas the mistress of sleep does not elude me," he explained as she reclined, "I merely offered to take up the nightly patrol for the other mistress for a change." His smile broadened knavishly, how he hoped to be charming by placing some blame on Hydra than the churn of his own mind. Of their joint leadership, it was generally her who tended to the borders more often than he.

He forged ahead in their conversation.

"You were away for some time, if I recall. Did the wilderness treat you right?"

She examined, listening to his response before she was addressed again, blinking.

"Yes, the wilderness may have brought back some inner troubles, but it also allowed me some time to myself and my inner voice." She gave a soft smile. "As well as some time to view the beauty she has to offer. The wilderness is beautiful, but even more so when one is alone with it- as time is given in solitude to appreciate it."

She gives a soft wag of her tail, tilting her head happily.

"It may be hard to be aware of it in it's full beauty when busy or fulfilling tasks such as patrol, but if you ever have time to bask in it- I assure you you'll enjoy it." Cue more tail wagging from her. This converstaion was lifting her melancholy spirit slightly, as she was enjoying the company as well as the talk of the things she enjoyed.

"I apologize for my rambling-" She added bashfully with a small laugh.

"Rambling? Hardly." She was delightful, if only for the blissful ignorance that told him she knew as much of him as he did her. But it was the sort of thing that he found lacking in his usual fare of company, as Hydra had come to read him perhaps a bit too well, and it left him constantly patching and sealing cracks in a well built wall.

Yet he had learned with time and the company of such what morsels to offer, and when.

"I have had my enjoyment of the wilderness and what surprises it can offer, though. For a spell before I came here I kept to the coast. Went straight for it the moment I realize it was there. But there are many sights that should be seen up close that we can find from our mountain." He missed it, the tinge of such in his voice; he missed the unknown that came from days and days of travel, the long set aside concept that the world would never seem small so long as he never stopped.

Of course back then, he had never imagined his world changing beyond that, or that by taking a taste of finer things that it would tether him until he had to stay put. It had been worth it, he wanted to believe, and yet the call and pull of the open world had never truly went silent.

Moriko couldnt help but do a small excited little wiggle.

"Did you say the coast..? That's my birth place!" She smiles widely. "The smell of the air is salty sweet and thick at times- and the storms there are beautiful."

Moriko loved the coast truly. She was born there after all, but had to depart on short notice for safety reasons. Deep down she knew that she wouldn't find her parents or siblings, but at the time felt if she just wandered far enough, just kept looking, they'd be there- waiting.

She rubs her paws softly into the mud of the dirt below them. "Although they are always with me, as they have returned to the Earth which is always below my feet..I feel their presence stronger when I begin to taste the salty air of my home.." She adds quietly, smiling a little sadly. The coast made her happy, but almost in a melancholic sort of way.

She gives a faint wag of her tail. "Sorry that was sort of a bummer huh..?" She gives a small laugh. "How was your time near the coast? Do you miss it as well?"

Somewhere in the midst of her conversation, it seemed to merge with her thoughts and Dirge was only left to infer that something breached her consciousness. A memory, fleeting at best, one that seized the joy from her tone long enough to streak it with sorrow before she found herself again. A memory, one that he imagined was stirred up by the very brine in those coastal waters.

It is a thing he knows a bit too well, a thing that he suffocates as the tinges of her sadness become chased and held at bay by a dismissive laugh. He mirrors that mirth, a little slower to relent and close the door on things better left dead and buried. Saor and Nyx cross his thoughts but rather than sorrow to greet him at the turn of a lock, it is a soreness.

Reluctant as he is to believe it, the coast had been a scene for parting.

He had once left Hydra along its shores too, an eon ago.

“I‌ do, at times,” he tells her gently, “but often there is more than enough to keep me from wondering after it. I find the sea a captivating thing, truly unlimited in its span. How strange it is that it appears to go on forever—perhaps it does.” He ruminated on those feelings instead. “I had once imagined my life to go the same way, and yet here I am with more treasures than it could offer.”

Once a pleasant lie, that, but one he had convinced himself of until it had become truth.

She gave a small smile. 

"Yes, the ocean is mysterious but beautiful.." She paused for a minute, thinking. "I remember my mother- telling me something when I was very young."

She sat softly, flickering her tail. "She told me that the ocean should be treated like the beautiful thing it is.. but also be feared like the powerful thing its is.."

She tilted her head. These words had stuck with her for a long time, and she felt as she aged she understood them more and more.

"I believe the same can be said about life. It should be treated with respect and explotration, but also caution." She let out a little sigh. "As time can seem to last forver, like the length of the ocean, but before you know it, you can see the otherside of the shore. She wags her tail happily.

To her these words were her mothers, and it felt nice to continue their journey through herself and hopefully others. She also believed in these words,as she remembers her mother being very wise. When Moriko was a pup, her mother didn't simplify things for her. She knew that her daughter was capable of great knowledge, just like she was, even as a little tiny pup.

“Wise words to live by,” he conceded as Moriko finished.

He liked to think that he had lived a life like that, with some sort of decent foundation to place respect on. A respect that had grown, for the most part, by his station within Moonspear itself. His ambition was sated for the most part, some imperative and its requisites met by having obtained his position even if the means had more or less been by riding coattails to get there.

It had taken time, but it had tempered and soothed the blow left by his own failures to claim a territory he liked, but the mountainside had grown on him much in the way Hydra had. He could miss the open road and listen to its beckoning call, but he knew his children would root him no matter what, and that had fulfilled the requisite of being better than his own father at least in his eyes.

As it were, he wondered if perhaps his ventures had been very much like crossing a proverbial ocean, spanning from one shore to another; he was no longer quite a stranger in a strange land any more and that time was certainly forever ago by their own measure.

But his silence had drawn out, his thoughts a distracting specter.

“I am glad you returned to us,” he offered then.

They had a need of souls like her in a time like now.

Moriko could tell he was in thought. When he responded she was taken aback due to the amount of silence that was jsut broken. She gave a soft smile, her tail wagging softly.

"Thank you.. I'm glad to be back. I missed home."  Her smile grew wider as she said this.

She couldn't help but give a little smirk as she flicked her tail. "It's also nice to be missed..-" 
She teased, laughing at her own dumb joke.

Even though it was a joke, a jest, it was something that meant a lot to her. It meant a lot to have a home, and it meant even more to have those who made your home home miss you in your short abscense. Unaware to her she couldn't hide her happiness and her tail continued to swish happily as her left ear flicked. Sometimes even her emotions get the best of her, and this time she was overrun with happiness and a sense of family and unity.