Stained Ebony

[Chez]

Paws did not move nor twitch as the grey varg slowly let out breaths, his chest moving up and down. Auds were the only things that twitched, though he was having a dream worse than he had ever had before. Suddenly, his leg pulled back, and ears shot flat, as he raised his lips, showing a set of ivory canines. Optics still not showing, his front paw scratched at the grass that he lay on, in the shade of a small tree, nightfall staining the evening sky with ebony.

"Go!" Zei's small paws scrabbled at the muddy dirt as he tried to get as far away as he could. Behind him, vargs with almost red eyes snapped at his tail, canines showing as they gained on the small whelp. Behind him, he heard howls of pain as his pack members cried mournfully, before the silence of death surrounded the whole den.

Zei was the only one still alive as he ran around branches and logs. He soon spotted a line of wood-string that humans had set. He leapt over them, before curving to the side. Two balkar vargs tripped over the string, and a net dropped over them, hooking into the ground below. This rope was almost steel, wearing the vargs as they tried to tooth at the trap. Zei watched, almost feeling like laughing.

Something growled. Spinning around, his golden eyes locked with a pair of yellow ones. A balkar. Zei ran with all his might, before swerving around a tree. The balkar kept going straight, perhaps knowing he would come back closer to Zei.

As soon as he met a group of leaves and twigs, he collapsed into darkness. As the balkar looked down at himself, his own crimson liquid stained metal needles, and the wolf let out a roar of pure hatred.

Zei could barely hear is last words.

"I...will...get you..."

With that, the wolf became silent. Zei's black coat shook with the breeze, and before he knew it, he was running off into nowhere, sobbing uncontrollably.

He had lost everything he had once knew.

Green optics illuminated Chez's surroundings, showing no harm. He was terribly hot, though he shivered, before quietly padding up to a small pond. Ripples lifted the water off it's original height as he lapped it up, and wagged his tail slightly, feeling the sensation crawl down his neck. He soon heard a leaf crunch, and spun around.

"Who goes there?!"

[Amoraque]

((I don't know whether this is private or not but...))

Amoraque scoffed as she appeared from behind the varg. She didn't like the fact that he had called her out the way he did, but it wasn't as if she were hiding. She sat by him, but not next to him. She didn't know him and she had only done that to one.
<What do you want?> Amoraque asked, slightly bothered by the fact that she hadn't seen familiars. She licked her forepaw. <Appologies for my rudeness, varg. You are not familiar to me...What is your name?>

[Chez]

(nope)

Chez sighed. "Sorry, I shouldn't have jumped on you like that." He grinned sheepishly. "I am Chez of Koran. You are?" He dare not mention that he had just joined.

[Amoraque]

(Good)

Amoraque studied the varg. <I am Amoraque of Ge-Rad> She told him simply. <What are you doing out here?> She asked him, trying to figure why he would jump at her. He would have had to had been in thought to jump at her the way he did.

[Chez]

Chez closed his eyes, and looked at the ground. Again, another vision of Zei entered his mind. Opening his eyes, the wolf saw Amoraque. "Resting. Just resting." He sighed deeply, and sat his head on his front paws.

[Amoraque]

Amoraque knew when one wasn't telling her the entire truth.

<Please do not lie.> She said, even if it weren't a lie, anything short of the truth would be considered such on her mind. <Did you know that memoried are a poison?> Amoraque asked and nodded. <Yes...A vicous poison that eats at the mind, plagues it with things of the past and drives it mad>

[Chez]

"Yes.." Chez said, and he realized what Amoraque meant.

The haunting visions he had so often...they came as either his, and Zei's memories.

They hung on him, as deadly hate, whom in his true mind, that he did not try to cover up, he hated himself. He would do anything to rid of hate, it just blocked a varg's mind from their destiny, to him. It was a deadly poison, and the source of it was almost always from memories...

He remembered all too well his parents, and he imaged them standing, proudly, at a large cliff fit for two vargs. He would have been the dragga of the pack, in replacement of his frail father, if not the Night Hunters of his land had came and destroyed it.

He also remembered his cousins, whom visited his pack every half moo. He remembered all to well his second and older cousin, Krow Reihco. Zei had loved him, and Chez had, too, before the incident.

Krow had collapsed when on the edge of a cliff, which buckled below him, and the impact knocked him out for a half moon. When he returned to the world, he had a serious mind disorder, and he grew up as a mad, young wolf who thought everything as his own.

Chez had grown to hate the orderly and crazed varg, and after his parents died, they had never seen each other again.

At the memory of Zei and his family, who had loved him, as he longed to do back, Chez lowered his head to cover as his golden optics filled with tears.

He quickly shook them away. HAe had not cried for many winters, and when he had stopped from crying it was many years ago, perhaps 4 or 5.

"I miss my mother and father," Chez admitted, his head pushing upward to face the she-wolf.

"They were killed by Balkar seven winters ago." He let out a heavy sigh, he had not told this to someone for years,.

[Amoraque]

Amoraque could see that it was paining him to tell her that. As if he had not spoken them to anyone for years, but the memories were there and they had to be faced...Like AMoraque had to do.

<No that I weep for you> Amoraque told Chez. <Are you alone now? For it would be a pity for you to be. No one can survive alone and from the expression and emotion I can sense around you, your memories would probably kill you> Amoraque looked to him. <I'm going to hunt. You cna come along...the only way to rival deadly memories are to make good ones>

[Chez]

Chez nodded, and got up off his feet.

"I have been alone for many years." He thought not to chuckle, and closed his eyes. Zei was there, watching him.

"Good luck and work." With the few words, Zei's image turned into another vision. He was running, through the forest, he could hear larger wolves barking after him-

Chez opened his eyes. He couldn't bear it. Letting out a tiny whine that only he could hear, he shook his head.

[Amoraque]

Amoraque felt something wrong as Chez shook his head, possibly clear of thoughts, and nuzzled against him slightly.

<Be free of such turmoiled thoughts> Amoraque turned around and began to walk away to find lunch. <Come, Chez> Amoraque sniffed the air, hopefully to catch whiff of the rabbit she had seen earlier...

[Chez]

Chez turned his head to Amoraque, and quickly nodded again. Cranium then went past it's focus on Amoraque to behind her; an ivory rabbit was hopping back and forth, not facing the two vargs..

"There," He muttered so Amoraque could hear, and began to stalk the rabbit slowly. The clear moonlight of Tor illuminated Chez's eyes as a cloud uncovered it overhead; his emerald optics were glimmering as he stood, watching intensly the rabbit's every move.

His tail drooped; another vision entered his mind. This one, unusually enough, he had never seen before, for it was becoming normal to see these visions.

Krow Reihco and Zei, speaking to each other.

"...no, he must never know. Anything we say might let us off..."
"...but we have to. It is the only way."
"We will both get killed if you let it out,"

As Krow finished the conversation, Chez felt a sudden urge to know. But, how could he know it to be real?

Krow's image in his mind was blurry, though Zei's stood out like a bullet in a pair of socks.

"If he ever finds out, I'll rip you to peices myself. I won't hire the balkar."
"Yes, Krow...."

Then, as Zei stalked off, the image flashed out of his mind and he saw the rabbit before him again.

Still, a question stood out in his mind.

What did he mean, if he ever finds out? A secret of his.

Chez paused for a moment.

That's it, Krow wasn't acting like the mad Krow I knew before we left!

A shadow moved across a nearby patch of trees; Chez froze.

It seemed to glow white, with Tor illuminating it to make it glow. Or was it Tor?

The ivory figure dissapeared.

Imagination, Though Chez, and sighed.

But that image...it had looked like Krow....