No more than a day since the decison had been made in her mind and she was already there again. Well technically, she had never left -- no one but Blue Willow knew that she would depart and no one else would care to search for her if she decided to spend the night outside. To all of them she was just one in the crowd, another head and mouth to feed.
After the mediocre goodbyes exchanged with her former foster mother, she had lingered around the flatlands, sticking close to the edge of the Plateu in hopes she would change her mind or someone would notice her absence, or (the craziest of all) that the Healer would find her scent mingling with the wind and come look for her. Come bring her home like the very fist time.
But none of that happened.
Like the morning after her real mother had vanished, the girl padded around the lands aimlessly, retracing her steps over and over in hopes she would be noticed. But she wouldn't. She was a shadow, and shadows were always meant to fade when the lights went out. Her once radiant optimism was beginning to turn into ashes.
She was alone and would forever be apparently.
With a last chocked whimper she turned again, to retrace her steps for thr twentieth time.
I should really finish up some threads before creating new ones XD but I have wanted an Amelie thread for a while. She's the only one I believe Dante still hasn't met (even though she isn't in the Plateau anymore :( )
Dante was on a patrol when he caught sight of her, the elusive Amelie. He'd sought her out a couple of times after gaining leadership, hating the fact that he hadn't met all the wolves he was to lead yet, but always she was elsewhere, busy he supposed exploring other lands. He did not mind it, but it weighed on his mind that one would reside in his pack who did not know him.
Not having spoken with Blue Willow on the subject, he had assumed her absence these past few days was the same. If he had known she intended to have left by now, he may have thought twice in greeting her now. He did not know her and had no away over her decisions. She had not come to him, so he would have assumed she was old enough to make her own mind up.
But unaware as he was, he let out a bark in greeting. "Amelie, hey!" Blissfully unaware that she probably wasn't looking for his company right now.
She continued to slide along the border, her footsteps as quiet as a mouse but her lungs shrieking on the inside. A silent wail that could only be heard by her ears, piercing through the inner channels of her eardrums and clouding her eyes to the sight of the greyscale male that also happened to be pacing around the borders, his reasons with a greater justification that hers.
She knew very well who he was.
She had seen him once or twice speaking with Blue, running from one side to another while the Plateu swirled into chaos. He had been more of a leader that Peregrine had been, how much more of a man was still unknown to her. Though the minute he had walked out she had stopped seeing Peregrine as a respectable male, she still kept the nice memories they made deep inside her heart, stored to gather dust with the ones made with her foster mother.
Amelie could say goodbye a million times, but could never rid herself of the memories -- not even if they pained her little heart. She was lucky she was not aware of the fact that from the day of her decision, never had the Healer taken a minute to mention her departure even or miss her.
"Dante.. " she managed to blurt as she turned to face him, a fearful light shinning on those yellow eyes of hers -- she did not know what to expect out of a man she had never had the delicacy of speaking to. Maybe now that she was out of 'his' ranks, she'd get a glance of the type of leader she had had, and unfortunately abandoned.
"Amelie? Is something wrong?" He assessed her gently, lowering his posture a bit to show he meant no harm. She looked decidedly distraught and, though he did not know her well, she had never seemed the type to be upset lightly.
Despite the fact he was not being hostile and that she was not doing anything that would deserve some sort of punishment, she found it impossible to contain her body from shaking involuntarily at his sight. Being an abandoned piece of trash again had stripped her off her confidence. In her mind, the reason she was seemingly always thrown aside was not because the others were lousy at keeping the relationship going but because she was a lousy friend/daughter to have all by herself.
She felt she was the defective pieze of the puzzle they had to dispose of, not the other way around. She had been blinded to the option that maybe it she was not the only one that was broken and damaged. Though she suspected (and oh how right she was) that out of the two of them, she had recieved the hardest blows, she still thought Blue Willow had been in the least moved by her departure..
Even if she had not taken the bother to even miss or think of her once, Amelie still hoped to have forged some kind of impact into her heart.
"Yes. No." she blurted, feeling the little hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end. She thought it was a strange question for someone that had just lost everything, but still managed to answer -- or at least try to. She was still oblivious to the fact no one but Blue knew about her plans to leave, she had wrongly assumed she had had the delicacy to speak about it and not just shove it in the back of her mind like trash.
"I just don't know where to go" she breathed painfully, while casting her eyes to the ground. She had not planned what she would do next, but with Winter starting she knew she didn't have much time to think.
Maybe leaving had all been a mistake.
Or maybe loving Blue Willow like a mother had been what had condemmed her.
"You don't have to go," he said, though he did so with no accusing whatsoever. The choice was hers and hers alone. "But I understand as well as any the need to move on. Perhaps even better than some." He'd done his share of it, after all. If he had known that Blue Willow knew of the girl's departure and not told him, it hardly would have surprised him. Dante hadn't spoken to his Beta in quite some time, a failing that was honestly mostly his. He'd put more energy into hunting and patrolling than actively seeking out his members, a fact that he hoped to change soon.
The decision to part had not come lightly for the dark coated female. She had stuggled to convince herself that it was for the best that she would have to step aside from Blue and her plans. She had never held it agaisnt her to want to have a family of her own -- Amelie was well aware of what wanting to love someone felt like. And she was also well aware that never, despite the effort she put into it, would she be able to be real or enough for the Healer.
Amelie had merely been her guinea pig.
And now that Blue had realized that being a mother was what her heart desired there was no room for her, the experiment, to linger around them. The Beta would have a beautiful and happy family -- one she was not welcomed in.
" I ended up here by chance, because I was rescued" she began, her voice wavering as she tried to hold back the tears that begun to form inside her yellow eyes."But I - I cannot be saved from what happened now; and i-its no one's fault..." she tried to explain while feeling her lungs begin to twist, making her already jagged breath to slur her words.
"No. You don't understand" she protested, while giving her head a shake. But I cannot explain either, she thought sadly as she opened her mouth again only to let an impotent huff to escape from her lips.
"If that is how you feel then I cannot stop you, nor would I attempt to turn you from a path you think best. But know you will be missed. And that, should you choose to return, there is a place for you here so long as I am able." He knew it was irregular to allow a return, but she was young, as had been Junior. Sometimes the world needed explored before a home could be found. He did not know if that road would lead back here, but he wished to say it anyway. Even if he did not know her, she had been a part of these lands longer than he, and he felt she was owed at least something for that.
"I will say this, though. If you go far west... Be careful. Some you may meet... Well, it would be better for you if you did not." He would rather not have her running into his father's band, though he doubted she would go that far. And hopefully Atrix's territory had not grown by much.
@Dante
It had not been what had been done, but what hadn't, what couldn't be done.
When Amelie followed Blue Willow's footsteps happily along the edges of the Greatwater Lake she had genuinely thought she had found her forever home. She had been sure, maybe in a way that was too naive, that after the first night and the first time the Healer referred to her as daughter the deal would be sealed; that the mere fact of calling her 'mother' would make her such. But even if she admitted to herself that she had loved Blue more than she had loved her own birth mother, she knew that that love did not have the power to set their relation in stone.
No matter how she loved her, or how dear she held her in her heart Amelie's love could never compare to that of Blue's own kin.
She wanted children, not vagabond rescues like her.
With her head hanging low between her shoulders and her tail curled underneath her body, the girl swiveled her ears towards the man. Like Blue, he refused to ask her to stay and gave her free will to go, his best wishes even -- but like Blue he failed to acknowledge that what pained her was that once again a bitter goodbye showed her she had no strings to the Plateu; saying that she would be missed was a lie.
He wouldn't miss her when the only time they had spoken was to tell him she was leaving, and besides Blue, who had not even thought of her during all this time and would not for various weeks after she was gone, there was no one else to miss her.
"I doubt it" , she breathed between pained exhales, not really caring if he was able to grasp her sorrowful words or not. Would he tell Blue of this? That she had been lingering helplessly around the borders like a ghost?
"... Has she even mentioned me?" She blurted out not being able to silence the thoughts filling her troubled mind. "Sorry I --" she added quickly, her mind wanting to know the answer to that question but her heart fearing that she already knew.
"Tell her when her pups are born that I wish them all well"she finally mouthed, her voice coming out like a tired croak that soon died out, just like she would in the menacing cold that would come within weeks if she didn't find shelter.
Abandoned once and then another, the young vagabond turned her head after dipping her nose in farewell.
Like she had apparently faded from Blue Willow's mind, her image would soon fade entirely from the Plateu, leaving no trace of her presence or reminder of her existence among the 'happy home' that would become the Plateu with the birth of the pups.
Perhaps simply wishing her luck was not the right move to make. Maybe another wolf would have begged her to stay, told her that she belonged nowhere else. But Dante was not that wolf, nor would he ever be. His firm belief was that individuals should choose their own path, make their own decisions, and no one knew but then what would make them happy. If Amelie wanted to stay, she would. If she wanted to be a part of their family, she would remain and try. He knew nothing of her reasons behind going as he did not know her. He had no room to judge her decision or say it was wrong.
His eyes narrowed a bit with concern when her words came, and honestly they cut a bit. Did she think so little of them? Of him? Perhaps they were not close, but she was a member of his pack. He would miss her and he would worry for her, no matter if she was a member for two weeks or years. True, in time it would fade, for he could not always dwell on those who left. But it would be there. The regret they couldn't have met before now.
Dante's ears tilted back. "I haven't spoken with her." She had been so busy, and he, that they hadn't connected in a long while. Now he worried though. What other turmoil was he missing within the pack? "But I will." It was becoming a little more clear to the alpha why she was leaving, but honestly he could say nothing to help. If she couldn't see her worth to those around her, he couldn't make her. Sometimes, life happened and such things were made less clear. But family was a two way street, and with love came understanding.
He watched her go, then, feeling the worry start. Hopefully she would find what she was searching for.