Hideaway Strath Most people are searching for happiness
"YOU WAKE UP IN THE DARK AND HEAR THE SCREAMING OF THE LAMBS..."
376 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#1
All Welcome 
For my absolute love @Fury <3
Forward dated about a week and some days.

The brindled beast has been confiding in his demons more. He is numb — his state of mind nonexistent, yet too real at the same time. He has grown more — finally to his massive, intimidating adult height. His body thick with heavy muscle and his steps lumbering and predatory. His mind is restless, but when he forces it to blank it’s like he’s not even real at all. Even now, more recently, he finds himself harboring the night. He has not seen the light of day in some time — he hates it. He prefers to move as one with the shadows these days. His mind is full of darkness and he has no desire to be brought back into the light anyhow.

So, once again, he leaves Blackwater. He doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going this time. Not a soul. Not @Tulok. Not @The Listener. No one. He’s a ghost after all — fading into the night.

Am I even real? He caught himself thinking it a few days ago. Even now, he wonders. Even now, as he sees the familiarity of the Strath before his very eyes he wonders. The childhood memories make it even more surreal. 

Where those even real? 

No, no, they were real. He still has the scars to prove it.

With that at least confirmed, he moves forward. He doesn’t howl. He doesn’t disturb the night — he just invites himself in. This was his home after all. Who’s to say he can’t? His teeth will meet any who oppose.

Besides the fact that he knows his memories of the place are real, he also finds the scent that covers the lands real. It confirms that they are still here — Fury and Arashi. Along with some other scents as well. 

So he moves forth without a care in the world. Who’s going to stop him? He’s not even real anyway.
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Ooc — Liv
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#2
She saw the shadow come in.
She followed. 
She stalked, and she hunted him.

The wind was not yet telling of who he was. The curled tail as she drew closer however, made her stay her fangs long enough to get and sniff the air. 

"Alduin?" She finally spoke, the question more of a statement.
"What are you doing here?" She asked, voice softening with worry. He looked anything other than okay, even as she was coming up to see his face.
Fury is in peak condition
Health (100/100)
Fury claims a +6 buff in all combat dice rolls
"YOU WAKE UP IN THE DARK AND HEAR THE SCREAMING OF THE LAMBS..."
376 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#3
The dissociative mindset he’s found himself in doesn’t make his life any easier — especially because he now allows Banesteppe to dictate him and his actions. Now he is truly nothing but a dead man’s pet. Or so said dead man likes to say. Alduin wants to argue, but he doesn’t find himself truly caring anymore. Why fight him? He makes the hellhound stronger. He makes him unkillable — undefeatable. 

Except it’s clearly taking a toll on his mind, though that was never really stable to begin with…

And now, not only does he have one ghost bothering him, he has a second. The voice of Fury herself rings out in the night and Alduin stops to hear it. 

She’s not a ghost — she’s alive. He thinks. She never died. 

The thought makes him shake his head. He is getting worse and worse every day. Yet, her words make him think, 

What am I doing here?

Not even he knows. He simply wanders. Perhaps he had her and Arashi on his mind when he left Blackwater that day.

So after a few seconds of silence, the hellhound finally speaks. 

“I came to visit.” He hums deeply, yet his voice sounds empty of emotion. “It’s odd being in the Strath again…” He adds absentmindedly, finally lifting his head some so he can make a show of gazing around the land.

Only, a second after he turns his head towards her like an owl in the night, blood red pools of syrupy red gaze towards her casually — emotionlessly.

“Do you want me to leave?” 
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1,693 Posts
Ooc — Liv
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#4
"No, no, you're welcome here. But you don't look good, Alduin..." She said immediately after he asked if she wanted him to leave.
Her gaze was one of motherly concern, she had aided in his training and bonded with him much when he was younger, to the extent she felt he was like a son to her, even now.

Fury sighed and looked around at the stillness of the Strath. 
Arashi was within the valley, somewhere. For now though, the Warchief would return her golden gaze to the dark boy and sigh.

"Would you like something to eat? Our caches still need some filling, but there is enough that I can share." She offered.
Fury is in peak condition
Health (100/100)
Fury claims a +6 buff in all combat dice rolls
"YOU WAKE UP IN THE DARK AND HEAR THE SCREAMING OF THE LAMBS..."
376 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#5
The pale woman is quick to speak against his inquiry. The feeling of acceptance and companionship is but a small ember, but it burns nonetheless. Usually he would feel much more elated by such confirmation of friendship, but his emotional level is teetering on zero and he can’t figure out why. He’s been like this for a few weeks now too. 

At first it was subtle, until it became so bad that even the hellhound himself noticed. Banesteppe continued on with that usual purr in his tone — ready to push his buttons, but Alduin finds the man’s mannerisms bothering him less and less lately.

How strange. 

He looks into it both too much and too little. But now, it is not Banesteppe that has his attention, it is Fury. Fury and her slightly subtle way of telling him he looks like shit. Which is probably valid considering he hasn’t looked at himself in a while. Which makes him think that he probably should. Maybe it’ll help differentiate whether or not his physical form is real in the moment.

Her gaze is akin to the ones @Simmik, his lovely mother, would give him. He’s sure she knew of his sickness even before he did. It seems like it’s showing more than ever now because Fury is giving him that same look. 

So he gazes back at her, face unchanging as she moves onto the topic of eating and caches. He hums thoughtfully, his tone dipping at the end.

“Interesting that you noticed,” He hums absentmindedly, averting a his eyes to look up at the moon. “because I’m not good.” He mentions in dry sarcasm  about his appearance that she had commented on before. “I am sick and I will probably die sick, Fury.” His voice is much more monotone by the end of those words.

A moment of silence passes and then, in a much lighter, but clearly sarcastic, tone he says, “But yes, I’d love a midnight snack, thanks for asking.” It’s accompanied by a humorless, barely there, upwards tilt of his lips. As well as a pair of molten lava eyes that show the evidence of his sickness.
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Ooc — Liv
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#6
Fury sighed oftly at Alduin's words. 
He admitted he was sick, said he would probably die sick. 

The Warchief would smile softly as he acceoted her offer on food, and with a loose motion of her muzzle, she would lead him to a nearby cache. 

It had a few rabbits, some squirrels...
The Warqueen picked a plump rabbit from the dirt and lightly tossed it for the yearling man's large forepaws "Here you go." 

Allowing the young man time to eat, Fury would eventually ask "How is everything? Blackwater, etc.?" 
Fury is in peak condition
Health (100/100)
Fury claims a +6 buff in all combat dice rolls
"YOU WAKE UP IN THE DARK AND HEAR THE SCREAMING OF THE LAMBS..."
376 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#7
All he would get is a soft sight to his short rant about his sickness. He’s fine with that. It doesn’t bother him, but for some reason he thinks it should. Overall, he can’t find it in himself to care, so he follows the pale figure through the grasslands of the Strath until they hit a cache. Where Fury is quick to throw a healthy rabbit his way. 

He stares at it for a moment, even drops a massive head and sniffs it. All while he wonder when the last time he ate was. He’s still thick with muscle and even a touch of fat, so it couldn’t be that long.

While he investigates the food and wanders his mind briefly, Fury hits him with another question. 

How is Blackwater. 

With a chunk of meat and blood soaking onto his tongue he huffs out a laugh through his nose, but his eyes and face remain stale. 

“They are no longer. I don’t know where they’ve gone.” He answers back. “The scent was fresh enough to smell, but lacking.”

He continues chewing, swallowing his mouthful before planting a heavy paw onto the rabbit and tearing off a hind leg. His body drops to the ground in a regal lying down position as he hold the limb in two paws and crunches over bone and flesh. Blood stains his lips as he gazes up to Fury.

“I will not be staying. Neither here, nor Blackwater.” 
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1,693 Posts
Ooc — Liv
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#8
Immediately, upon hearing that Blackwater had dissipated, she worried for her sons that had been staying there on the islands. 

With a long breath she calmed herself before acknowledging his second statement. 
"Where will you go? What will you do?" 
Fury is in peak condition
Health (100/100)
Fury claims a +6 buff in all combat dice rolls
"YOU WAKE UP IN THE DARK AND HEAR THE SCREAMING OF THE LAMBS..."
376 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#9
Fury takes in a long breath and then she asks the questions of the hour. 

Where will you go? What will you do?

He huffs out a cynical laugh, swallowing a chunk of meat from the rabbit he found himself chewing on not long after it was thrown at him. 

“I don’t know where I will go, but surely there are other forsaken souls that wish to be lead. Perhaps I will find them.” He says the words cryptically, slowly. Almost as if he doesn’t care if it happens or not.
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1,693 Posts
Ooc — Liv
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#10
Fury assumes he's talking about the potential to form a pack of his own.
It didn't seem too far off course for the likes of Alduin.

"Should you create your own pack, consider mine an ally to yours." She smiled softly.
"And please, don't hesitate to visit, or send some form of word that you're alive." She added
Fury is in peak condition
Health (100/100)
Fury claims a +6 buff in all combat dice rolls
"YOU WAKE UP IN THE DARK AND HEAR THE SCREAMING OF THE LAMBS..."
376 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#11
Fury quickly extends the olive branch of an alliance between the two potential packs and Alduin nods firmly at that. He knows he’s grateful for her understanding and friendship, it’s just some sick part of him just doesn’t let him express it. It’s as if he is incapable such emotion any longer. 

And so to her next words he nods once more. “I will. Perhaps, we may team up once again.” A short pause accompanied by a hardly there smile. “The proper way — hopefully involving blood.”
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Ooc — Liv
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#12
The Warqueen chuckles softly and nods to his words.
"Perhaps. I am thinking of getting my allies together for an interpack hunt. Maybe you could join us then?" The Alphess invites with a casual nature. 

Yet there is hope lingering behind fiery orbs.
Fury is in peak condition
Health (100/100)
Fury claims a +6 buff in all combat dice rolls