Blackfeather Woods darkest days

Maybe @Damien ?? :D

Although his brother was rough around the edges, he was still Cicero's brother. Cicero loved him, despite his sometimes brutish behaviour. Damien was a bit simple, perhaps, but he had his uses. Together, Cicero knew, they would be unbeatable. Cicero had been scouring around for bad plants. When mother wasn't looking, Cicero sometimes tried them out to see their effects, after careful studying and sniffing them out. Dangerous, yes, but the best way to experience what something did to someone else was to go through it yourself, in Cicero's opinion.

He returned to the den with a stomach ache from some or another plant he ate. Cicero remembered the location, and he would return later, perhaps with mother or Potema, to ask what the plant was called. Presently, though, Cicero did not feel so good. He let out a hacking cough, waiting for the vomit to come to throw out the plant, near the side of the den. Hopefully no one would be home to see.

The coughs coming from the outside woke the night child up rather abruptly. Damien was taking a nap, one of those he liked to take after the training sessions with Burke. Hell they were exhausting, but it was worth it. The eldest Melonii son was getting good at spars, and he was sure he'd become the best assassin one day. That was the dream.

He got up with the usual grumpiness and a frown, and walked to the mouth of the den where he started looking around for the source of the annoying coughs, and to his surprise-not-it was his little brother. Naughty Cicero, just about to barf. He was so obsessed with these plants that Damien thought he would eat one of those silent killers Burke was talking about the other day, and being the protective older brother he'd learnt to be, he disapproved of this behavior on his brother.

"Cero?" he called out, half growling because he'd been awaken. "You're going to die if you keep eating random plants, y'know?" Damien said, rather matter-of-factly. "Burke says that there are plants that can kill you, and you wouldn't even know when it happens."

One of Cicero's ears turned backwards as Damien approached from the den, calling out his name. He turned his head briefly, but when he felt the hacking coughs return, Cicero quickly turned his head away from his brother. While Damien told him he might die one day to the plants he ate, curious for their effects and fully aware they might kill him some day, Cicero turned his head away from Damien and threw up on the ground. Cicero then turned and walked a few steps towards Damien to save both their noses from the pugnant stench of the throw-up.

Cicero could not help but smirk at Damien's words: both protective as well as smart-ass. "Cicero knows," he assured his brother, though it was evident from the tone in his voice that he did not intend to stop eating plants. "Does Damien ever get tired of knowing better?" Cicero grinned, the words clearly intended as a joke, although Cicero knew his brother might not think them as funny as he did. Upon approach, Cicero briefly nudged Damien's shoulder in greeting. "How is Damien's warrior training going?"

Suddenly, with the most gross sound Damien had ever heard, the patchworked boy threw up just a few steps away from him. The disgust was evident in the night child's face and somehow he still found it amusing. His nose wrinkled and he turned away. And then, pulled away by Cicero, the pup fled the scene, trying to remove that picture from his memory.

Still giggling and feeling sick, the dark pup looked back at his brother to anmswer his question. He hadn't, in fact, taken the joke very kindly, but probably Cicero wouldn't even mind Damien either. "No... Damien doesn't..." he didn't know if Cicero realized how funny he sounded when he talked, he was a different boy, there was no doubt about that.

The night child took his brother's nudge, and then he returned it with affection. Cicero was his only brother, and he loved him anyhow. "Burke is teaching me how to dodge attacks from any opponent!" he barked rather excitedly, "It's weird sometimes because I have to do the exercises without an opponent, but he says I'm getting better at it..." the pup explained. He knew that Cicero's interest on his training was legit, and he liked sharing his experiences with his brother. "Wanna see how it works?" he barked, jumping to a playful bow and swinging his tail in the air.

Cicero was not much of a fighter himself; at least not in the same way that Damien was. Cicero was smaller than his brother and most other wolves, and so he did not bother to train day and night to become something he was not. He liked tactics and fighting moves, for being nimble did not mean Cicero was bad in a fight, but did not train with the same fervor as his brother. He admired Damien for it, though. The teasing was taken lightly with a grin, for Cicero was used to it and did not mind. It wouldn't make him change, however, for his strange ways were driven by something deeper than his own will.

When Damien spoke of his training, Cicero listened with interest and nodded occasionally. Burke had really stepped up into their lives, much to Cicero's curiosity and interest. He wondered how things would proceed.

Cicero nodded when Damien asked if he would like to see. "Yes, that would be good." Damien could be rough when fighting, even in practise, but Cicero did not mind. He would be interested to learn a few good tactics, although he estimated that Damien would mostly show what he had learned, instead of teaching on. Maybe Cicero would have to ask Burke some day.

Damien enjoyed the time he spent with his siblings even though he didn't do it as often now that he was out doing warrior stuff and recognizing the territory. Burke had told him many times that a good warrior knows his surroundings and the best w3ay to use them on your favor, so Damien took it as a task to know every inch of the forest.

Cicero accepted being shown by Damine how the dodging worked, and Damien got excited about it. There weren't many people who he could share this with and he was happy that his brother showed interest on it even though it might have only been to make him happy. "You need to look directly into their eyes, like this." he said, locking his eyes with Cicero's, "And you need to be in a position you feel comfortable in, because if you don'ty then you won't be able to dodge it properly." he showed his brother exactly how to do it. Head low, paws placed slightly apart for balance, and shoulders tensed, ready to jump away from the attacker.

"Now you do it." the night child instructed, holding his position and encouraging his brother into the game.

Damien interlocked gaze with Cicero, and Cicero looked back through mismatched, neutral eyes, a sly smile on his face as he looked into his brother's eyes. When Damien lowered his head to the ground, splayed his legs slightly and then invited Cicero to try the same, Cicero lowered his head and put his paws apart, ready to jump away. He tried his best to mimic the position that Damien had just shown, all the while keeping eye contact with Damien.

"Like this?" asked Cicero while he continued the eye contact and remained in the tense position, wondering if Damien would try and test his stability now by actually attacking, waiting to see if Cicero would be good enough to dodge his move.

Although Cicero looked really cute with what he was doing, Damien could clearly see that he was doing it wrong.But hey, it wasn't his fault, Damien was just that perfect. He wanted his brother to do things right, and it kinda bugged him to see Cicero put his paws so wide apart.

"Erm.. Yeah.. But try putting your paws closer together. It will give you balance..." he said as he pushed Cicero's paws, deciding not to snap at his brother for such a simple mistake, but still sounding pretty annoyed. On anyone's ears, Damien would sound just like Burke did during his lessons. Corrections. Instructions. He wanted everything to run perfectly, and when it didn't, the vein in his forehead started twitching.

"Now try to dodge me!" the boy shouted and immediately leaped forward to give Cicero a big bear hug... With his teeth...

Cicero did not think that he did it much different from how Damien had shown, but he did not object when Damien said he needed to do better. Beside the fact that there was always room for improvement -- in both Damien's stance and Cicero's -- Cicero did not care to be right or treated equally. The world was, after all, a very unequal and unfair place.

Cicero moved his paws slightly closer together upon Damien's instruction, and looked at Damien, keeping eye contact and looking deep into his brother's stark white eyes.

Distracted by Damien's eyes, Cicero was too late upon noticing the attack. He vaguely heard his brother's shout and was taken completely unawares mere moments after. Teeth would hit wherever Damien wanted them to, and would inflict as little or lots of damage as he intended; even upon noticing the attack while it connected, Cicero surrendered to it.

It wasn't a surprise tackling Cicero down, Damien knew that his brother's technique wouldn't best his, and he had that hypnotic effect in his eyes that would distract even the best warriors. So when his teeh touched the black -and some of the white- pelt of the patchwork pup, he was more than ready to... Not bite.

Damien burst into giggles as he pinned his brother down, he would never get bored of subduing his siblings, but he wasn't mocking Cicero, it was all a joke that only him, in his own perfectionist and superiority(complex) ways understood.

"You're doing it all wrong, Cero!" he laughed, nudging his brother's head with his cold nose. He knew it wouldn't make a difference to explain how it worked all over again, so he opted for not doing so, and instead, he got up with a new idea.

"You're not a warrior, Cero. But there's something I know you're good at, and that would help me a lot with a mission I have..." the night child stated with a sly smirk and a malicious look.

Teeth hit their mark perfectly, but they did not snap down on flesh, catching only fur. Cicero laughed along with Damien, for he did not fear pain -- and often welcomed it, for it made him feel sharp and alive -- and neither did he mind losing. Cicero especially did not mind losing when it made Damien feel good about himself for winning. Besides, Cicero had learned from young age that he could not best his brother in a fight, for Cicero's strengths simply did not lay within the physical department.

When Damien said that Cicero was doing it wrong and nudged Cicero's head, a shiver ran down Cicero's spine. He briefly closed his duo-toned eyes, enjoying the moment of closeness to Damien a moment longer before his brother would get off him and come up with another plan.

When Damien spoke of his mission, Cicero was distracted from his own thoughts and he looked at Damien. "What mission?" asked Cicero and he looked at Damien with a dark smirk on his face, curious what he could help his brother with today.

it was with dark joy that the pup listened his brother's interest in the "mission", and it showed in the way he smiled with evil intentions. He had wanted to tell this to his sneaky brother since the moment he though of it himself, and now the time to put it on march had come.

Damien crouched to put his face close to Cicero's until their noses were almost touching. "You need to promise you will not tell Potema about this, or she will want to come with us." Damien insisted, knowing that the matters he was about to discuss would pick the princess' interest which would be dangerous for her in the state of health she was.

"I know who attacked our sister... And I know you do too..." the pup whispered, making sure no one but the two of them heard anything about their conversation. "Don't you, Cero?"

Cicero looked into Damien's eyes when they stood nearly nose-to-nose, and listened to what Damien had to say about his mission. He nodded in a silent promise not to tell Potema while his heart pounded in his chest, waiting for Damien to spill the beans on the mission.

The assault on Potema had not gone unnoticed, and he had helped to patch Potema back up, but at the same time, Cicero had accepted that what had happened was alright. Their mother had not punished the only wolf who could have done such a thing, and with that, Cicero assumed that meant that the pack was okay with attacks on other wolves. He did not care. Most wolves did not care to assault Cicero, anyway, and if they did, well, he had some surprise dinner for them.

So when Damien said they should take revenge upon the wolf that had attacked Potema, Cicero was somewhat surprised. However, he liked the idea, thinking it a good idea to punish the wolf in question. The pack was not all dark, after all, and once the three children would no longer have their mother to rely on, the pack still needed to be run. Their way.

In whispered tones, the patchwork youngster said, "I do." Cicero thought back to the capped mushrooms he and Burke had happened across earlier when they were exploring. He wondered if Grimnir would be stupid enough to eat them, but then, it was likely that he, like many wolves, did not eat mushrooms at all. The only way to make him eat something like that would be if he were hurt and Cicero would tell him it was medicine. Even then, it was a long shot.

"What's your plan?" whispered Cicero as he looked into Damien's eyes, wondering how his brother intended to take down Grimnir.

No further words were needed for the two siblings to know what the other was thinking about. Grimnir was the target, there was no need to say it out loud, and doing it would probably ruin the plan, so Damien didn'r mention it, he saw it in Cicero's mismatched eyes that he knew who they were talking about.

"Good." the night child said with a malicious smirk. "Where do you keep your poisons, brother?" he said suggestively, hoping that Cicero would have already learned about the silent killing Burke was going on about the other night. Damien was thinking like a dark brother now, coldly, meticulously. He was going to be one hell of an assassin one day.

When asked for his poisons, Cicero's face turned serious and he gestured sideways. "Cicero keeps it near the borders, hidden, to avoid any Blackfeather mistaking poison for medicine," Cicero explained with a secretive expression on his face. After the gesture, Cicero came into motion and started towards the borders, assuming that Damien would follow.

"Has Damien felt love or lust yet?" asked Cicero while the brothers started to move (assuming Damien would follow), fascination in his voice. He was interested to find out if his siblings felt the same sort of things like he. And even though they were on a serious mission now, and perhaps the subject was out of place, Cicero did not care for such things. He thought to ask the question now, and besides, it would only make a possible onlooker more likely to assume the brothers were just goofing around if they were to catch wind of their conversations.

Just to ruin your life I'm going to say that damien didn't follow Cicero...
Just kidding.
I'm not funny :I

Damien would have to give Cicero that he was one clever boy. Keeping the stash hidden, carefully placed so that no one would find it was a smart move. The Melonii litter had soon started to show signs of intelligence, but it was only a thing to be expected when they're the children of Meldresi, a studied priestess with immense intelectual baggage about almost everything. The pups were just following her steps, each one of them adding their own twist to it. Cicero, he was just as clever, but his secretiveness and "sneakiness" was beyond impressive, and the best part: No one even suspected it.

Damien silently followed Cicero out of the den, not without a sly smile across his face, but when his question about love-or-lust was trown into the air Damien got confused for a second, not because the topic was awkward, but because he thought Cicero was too distracted. But then he got it. That's what is was all about. Distraction.

The question got Damien thinking for a moment, and for a second he was silent as he decided what to answer. It was curious to hear Cicero speak of such things, but it was a normal thing to happen among teens just like them.

Love.

Damien couldn't help linking that word to himself. He loved himself. But there was mom and Potema and Cicero too, he loved them, they were family. The strange thing to Damien was that he felt awkward for not having felt "love" for a non-relative. Was that supposed to happen already? But...

Lust.

That was a different thing. Mephala was lust, deity of sex, of murder. It all included lust, and Damien had felt some of that. Not sexually, not just yet, but bloodlust... That time he'd taken away the life of that deer in their first hunt had been the first time lust had taken control of him, and he had allowed it. And then, that time when the flea bag attempted to murder him, he had felt bloodlust too, and he had allowed it. He had tore the mutt's face into pieces, not because he felt rage, but because he was in rage, driven by bloodlust.

"You mean, like... If I'm... In love with someone?" the pup asked a bit confused, "I don't think so, brother... Why do you ask? Are you?" was that awkward? Well... Yeah, a bit.

With amusement painted on his features, Cicero watched his brother go through different stages: first surprise, maybe even indignation, at the offered subject. Then followed acceptance and realisation, and then he threw himself at the conversation, thinking it nothing more than a mask for their operation. Cicero intended for him to think such; it was the perfect mask for having such a conversation with Damien, whilst he thought it no more than idle chatter to distract possible onlookers.

Damien seemed to take his time to think, which was good. He looked like he had perhaps not thought of the subject of love and lust that thoroughly. In the end, he did not really answer, merely phrased a question, then answered his own question. Cicero had not expected Damien to have yet experienced love, for Cicero had never seen him look specially at anyone, but he had hoped that his brother would elaborate on the subject of lust. He wondered if Damien's interests lay in the same area as Cicero's, or if they were very different.

"Amongst others," Cicero said when Damien asked if he meant if he had been in love with another. "And if Damien ever thought of sex." He may as well call it as it were, Cicero thought. Maybe his brother would then understand what he was trying to ask.

In response to Damien's question, Cicero tilted his head thoughtfully while he continued to trot towards the pack's borders, to the place his poisonous herbs and mushrooms were stashed. "Hm." He was not so sure, for feelings were confusing things. "Not really in love, Cicero thinks." Perhaps it was just lust, perhaps solely his growing body that desired some closeness, but perhaps it was love. Cicero had yet to find out. "Cicero is not sure yet." He would unlikely find out without actually getting close to the one he liked and finding out if it were lust or love that he felt. Well, maybe he would never find out; time would tell.

Although it might have seemed strange to anyone that Damine had never, in fact, thought about sex, the night child had more important things to keep his mind on, in his opinion. But it did feel weird being asked such things by his -relatively younger- brother. Cicero had had time to even go out of the forest several times when Damien had never stepped out of it, he surely had had the oportunity to meet other wolves while Damien usually kept time to himself. It conforted him.

"I guess I would have to be attracted to someone first, don't you think?" the pup replied thinking it was a bit strange to think of the topic. "Not really in love, Cicero thinks." his brother said in a bit of evident confusion, "Then why are you thinking about that?" he asked, not knowing that it was only natural for a wolf their age to turn in that direction.

Damien was walking just a few centimeters behind his brother, turning where he did and keeping up hoping that the stash wasn't too far away. They were starting to get too close to the borders for Damien's comfort.

It was strange to Cicero that Damien seemed so innocent on the subject, but perhaps it was he who was strange. Potema had never mentioned this subject either, after all, and while they were of different gender, she seemed uninterested with the subject, or other males in general, as far as Cicero knew. Perhaps he was the strange one for the thoughts and dreams that crept upon him occasionally. Thoughts that he knew not what to do with, did not know whether or not to act upon.

"Yes, most wolves only feel lust for others they are actually attracted to in some way," Cicero said, a hint of mock in his voice as he looked at Damien and grinned. To his question, he answered, "I am thinking about it because I am not sure what I feel. Whether it is either, or both, or none." Or something else altogether.

After that cryptic remark, Cicero stopped and sniffed the air. He turned towards a dead hollow tree not far from the pack's borders and put his front paws against the bark so that he could lean into the place where he'd hidden some herbs and mushrooms. Not that many -- Cicero preferred them fresh, anyway, and he'd never actually needed them so far -- but enough to harm someone with. Cicero looked down and asked, his voice cold and void of emotion, "What do we need?"

I'm loving this thread.

What Cicero was trying to express sounded just as complicated as it might have been right inside his own head. But that's the way the mind of a teenager was supposed to be, right? So, why wasn't Damien doing what the rest of the children his age did? What was different about him? It got him thinking hard, and deeply, as he tried to analyze what made him different from his brother, but he was quickly distracted from those thoughts when his brother suddenly turned close to the borders and finally uncovered his little secret.

"What's the strongest you have?" the dark child asked as he leaned in to take a few sniffs here and there. The herbal matters had never been of much interest to the assassin-to-be, but it certainly had its attractive. Those little weeds and 'shrooms Cicero so meticulously hid had the power to make a wolf desire his own death, and some were probably even strong enough to end a life.

Although killing Grimnir probably was a bit radical Damien still didn't have a sense of boundaries developed enough to know where or when to stop when it came to taking revenge. He wanted the bastard to feel pain, that is all he knew so far.

me too! :)

The subject of love and lust easily flowed to the subject of poisons. Had Cicero known his brother wondered why he was not normal, like Cicero, he might have laughed about that. It was very evident to Cicero that he was not exactly normal. He did not know, however, that the subject had actually brought his brother to so many thoughts. Cicero did not yet know what it was that went on in Damien's head, although he intended to find out more about that.

'Strongest' was a relative term that gave Cicero the insight just how little his brother actually knew about poison. It all depended on the punishment you wanted to give the other. "There are different poisons that do different things. No poison is stronger than another here, just different." Cicero thought it typical that Damien would ask for the strongest of poisons, being a fighter who put a lot of weight into brawn. "There is death, or vomit, or itching, or other things," Cicero began to explain, stopped, and then continued: "But a good vomit or itch can be stronger than death at times. It depends on the context." Cicero coolly looked at Damien's face to try and find out if his brother was understanding what he told him.

"But with a wolf like this one, Cicero is not sure there is anything good but death." Cicero looked at Damien again, and he meant the words: when he looked at Grimnir, he saw a liability. If that was one his mother intended to keep around, then that was okay with Cicero. However, it was clearly not okay with Damien, and therefore, Cicero would help his brother to eliminate it. And elimination simply worked better when it was for good. Especially with an agressive wolf like Grimnir. He might just beserk through the pain. It might even make him stronger. And they both knew who would be punished for it if he would get angry.

Although it was relative to Cicero, what Damien meant by 'strongest' was that he wanted to make sure Grimnir would no longer be a problem for them. He wanted the bastard to be taken down without remedy, and the only way in Damien's mind to get that was taking him down for good. He meant death. When Cicero started going on about how different poisons were from one another Damien rolled his eyes trying not to be seen by his brother, but when it got to the point where he mentioned death his ears pricked up immediately, and a grin slowly curved up the corner of his lips.

Damien had never had a problem wth peaking of death, actually, he found himself thinking of it retty often. There was no taboo in it for him, he pretended to be an assassin once he was of age, and death was just a part of him.

"I agree, brother." the pup said with a nod and a devilish grin, "Whatever we do about this must be definitive..." he claimed, convinced that it had to be them the ones who would put an end to the problem. This had been something Damien had been thinking about for weeks, and after the attack on his sister he had become completely sure that Grimnir was the main problem of the pack. so much thought had been put into it, all of it carefully analyzed, but the main thing that kept Damien goin on about it was:

"But I want him to suffer."

Death was a part of Cicero’s life, too, although he relished in this fact less than his brother did. Cicero did not care if Damien thought him to talk on for too long, or thought him not to understand what he had initially meant, and ignored any of the faces and eye-rolling, if he even saw them. Cicero was not sensitive to what others thought of him.

Damien agreed that death was the only solution, but wanted Grimnir to suffer all the same. This combination was dangerous, for lighter poisons meant more suffering, but also the potential that the victim might get over it instead of die. After a moment’s thought, Cicero shared: ”A smaller dose might not mean death. But a bigger dose might mean less suffering.”

He added, his face neutral: ”We could go for a smaller dose and finish ourselves before he has a chance to recover.” There was something about pain that was interesting, for it held more power than death. Cicero had never minded getting hurt when they played as pups, and even now he enjoyed being roughed up when he and his brother fought. But to hurt another… While he had not often administered pain, and his grudge against Grimnir was nowhere near as big as Damien’s, the thought of slowly ending Grimnir’s life pleased Cicero.

It pleased Damien too. He wanted Grimnir to feel the pain he had inflicted on his sister, and he wanted it to be at least ten times worse. "Sounds like a plan to me" Damien said after his broter suggested slowly hurting Grimnir before putting him out of battle with a lot of pain. That was what he loved about Cicero, his coldness and his affinity with Damien's own quirks and grim self.

"We will need to knock him out first and then take him down to the dungeons." that itself might prove to be a bit difficult. Grimnir was a huge wolf, and both Cicero and Damien were still far from matching his strength. But not only strength could knock down a wolf...

want to finish this one up & have a new one soon? (: this is my last post!

Cicero nodded when Damien said they would need to knock Grimnir out before taking him down to the dungeons. It would be a challenge to get away from the all-seeing eye of, in particular, their mother and Burke. They might not agree with the methods of the two boys -- if they wished Grimnir punished they would have already done so, after all.

"Cicero will prepare something," promised the adolescent, and he nodded at his brother.

With that promise and a lot to think about -- not just in the poison department but in other, more personal matters, too -- Cicero vanished into the shadows to take some alone time.