Europium [p]

[L A C H]

This will take place after the thread “Lost and Found, Now We’re Homebound.” This thread is mainly for Silve, but non-related pack members may post here as well. XD I‘m terrible at starting threads, so I promise to improve my quality. Or should I blame my sickness?[/color]

The infinite Deor lands seemed to withstand the frigid elements of winter, the towering pine trees and other coniferous flora painting the white morning with dark greens. Because the forest was rather dense (the boy appreciated this), the evergreens were laden with snow while the ground beneath was only dusted with white; the autumn leaves and pine needles were left visible and slow to decay under paw. And in spite of the deceivingly verdant landscape, the bitter season managed to touch parts of Deor. Mostly sycamore trees and shrubbery were dormant in the unsympathetic cold, and Starling stood like a wraith among their withered skeletons -- those hideous and bony corpses with a vaporous phantom among them.

Having just traversed the Deor clearing, the yearling’s pulse fluttered in his chest as he realized he was officially on pack lands. Only days before, he had come as close to ecstatic as possible when taking part of a reunion between his mother, grandmother, and siblings. Departing from his family gathering a bit earlier than he should have, Starling had been impatient to touch their silly notion of home with his own paws. Home was such an abstract concept for Starling, just a sound upon his lips and nothing more, but he perceived that others spoke of it as if it was a tangible place. In his mind, Deor was as foreign as any other pack’s territory, as he previously could not evoke an image to the name.

But now, as his buoyant mitts seemed to hover (as opposed to rest) upon the terra, Starling had something visual to associate the pack name with. His flocculent plume, like a large brush of milky feathers, jolted with less-than-passing agitation. Resembling a feline more than the wolf he was, the specter awaited the greeting of a packmate to relieve him from his companionless state. Intrinsically genial, he was in slight despair with the well-spaced intervals of silence between distant crow screechings (the sounds being his only company).

[Silve]

Swiftness seemed to be the word of the day, as fleet silver paws and the sleek, slender burden they carried moved through the bountious lands of Deor pack. Startling blue eyes raked the area all around the fae, while her body reacted to every leap, every bound, every change in the landscape, seemingly without the aid of the sharp eyes. Here a rotten log, bounded over as though there was little weight to her at all. There a tall tree, standing directly in her path, and skillfully she swung around it without breaking stride. These were the packlands of Deor, and this running was her duty to her new family.

Silve counted herself very lucky indeed to have found this pack, and been accepted into their midst. Her pack sister, Mist, was one of the most kindly wolves she had ever met. And not only was she now a part of a family, but this family had use for her speed, for those legs, strong running legs, that allowed her to move with ease thoughout the territory. For her sharp eyes, deeper blue then the sky when twilight neared, that could spy movement from afar. The job of a scout suited her. The pounding in her chest as she flowed through the trees, the rhythm of her paws, pounding the ground they flew across in a sound that was only audible to her herself. The exhileration of running free, but having a home to go to. It was what she lived for.

Slowing to a steady trot, using the undergrowth for cover, Silve searched her surroundings for the tell-tale signs of an intruder. Her nose hovered barely the width of a whisker over the snow as she inhaled the scents of the forests. Wide paws spread her weight out evenly, and she stood only an inch deep in foot thick snow cover. It wasn't until she stood only a short distance away that she noticed the other. The scent was the welcoming one of Deor, though the face was not one that she remembered. It took a little time to distinguish the light fur of him from the surrounding snow, the glare from the latter making her squint slightly.

The yearling stood not far from her, and facing in the other direction. She had approached from behind instead of the front, and so to keep from startling the younger varg, she backed away as silent as the passing of a cloud and came about so that she would approach from his front, if a little to the left. Her gait was slow, unhurried, non-aggressive. Very contrasted to the pounding sprint that had brought her near to him. Her chest still heaved from the wondrous impression of flight that it had laid upon her, though it was becoming smoother and steadier with each step. She had run barely two miles, by human reckoning, which was very little to her.

An easy smile found its way to the fae muzzle, and her blue eyes shimmered in the shaded way. When she came close enough she allowed a quick sniff of him and studied him more closely. The assessment done, she took a step back and sat with her head cocked almost comically to the side. "You are not one of Mist's pups," she pondered with a slight pant, "you are too old, I think. You are old enough that you must have been whelped before my coming to this place. I am Silve. One of Deor's scouts, as you are one of its yearlings, I can see. Tell me your name, that I might know it for future reference."

[L A C H]

Upon the sweet maw of the Deorian scout (as she publicized herself), Starling comfortably found her smile. That belated expression of extroversion was similar to her tactics in approaching him, he noticed; for although the did not initially hear her, he felt her company long before. In the same fashion, he perceived a hushed grin much before one appeared on her sharp features. However, his initial reaction to the female was not that she was particularly friendly but instead just quite cheerful. About her entire frame there was an impression of euphoria, and in her luminous orbs there lay a certain innocent joy. The bliss dulled its glow considerably from her expressions though, as soon as her paws stilled and she began to speak.

Uncertain on whether or not her salutations were feigned, the adolescent chanced words. “No, I’m not one of Mist’s children. I am one of her dear children’s children. My mother’s name is Cagalli,” he voiced with a dose of lightheartedness. Eternally motivated to inspire, the youth’s pewter-tinged ears revolved with courtesy, and his flocculent banner swayed ever-so slightly. A fair amount of snow powdered his withers and his poll, so he shook his coat with an graceful motion before speaking again. “I’m called Starling, and it‘s an absolute pleasure to make your acquaintance,” and he adorned the gentleman’s reply with a generous bow, his chocolate-hued nose briefly kissing the snow.

Inhaling gently as he lifted his dial, the various scents of the winter realm compiled in his lungs. The aroma of pine, soil, and the two dominant lupine musks melded much like a pack and under one name: Deor. This was the perfume that his mother and grandmother, Silve too, wore copiously. Soon the explicit fragrance would plait Starling’s pelage, and he himself (imagine the pup!) would bear the olfactory-triggering insignia of the pack.

“I can’t say I remember anything about these lands that unfurl before us,” he professed with his naïve chords, a voice not feminine but most certainly not that of male. Genderless but not ageless was his springtide tone, lyrical as a songbird. “You say that I must have been born before you arrived, and I do not doubt that. I must have also left too, since in my memories there is nothing but the faintest deja vu.” The fact that most of his life had been spent with wandering but charitable kerls was up to Silve to presume.

Like an inquisitive prince, unfettered from all society’s civil restraints, Starling’s gaze slid graciously over Silve’s form. He was no voyeur (nor even fully away of these strange sexual deviants), but rather assessed the dame’s figure in a mildly pompous stance. His delicate and feminine neck, lengthy and swan-like, allowed his head to tilt in the same childish manner that Silve’s did as his lengthy heron’s stilts allowed him to pad a bit closer. Starling did not mock her; the mannerism was shared between them, much like their proportions. Already close to his full height, the yearling was not tall for a boy and maybe the height of a femme like the one before him, and the slight tapering of his velvet muzzle gave him a similarly effeminate appearance. But whereas Silve was enchantingly cut from silver moonlight, Starling was instead loosely made of ethereal smoke, turbulent sea storm mornings, and angry clouds.

[Silve]

Looking him over carefully, she thought on the words. "Cagalli?" she mused. The name sounded vaguely familiar in her mind, but since, as of yet, she could not place a face to the name given, she shrugged lightly. It must not have come up in conversation with her packsister. "I am afraid I do not quite recognize that name," she continued, formal, for some reason. She watched as he shook snow from his fur, Silve herself liked a powedering of snow on her shoulders for a time. No other Varg, to her knowledge, was quite like this one, as he made it a point to bow as well. Good humor was one the side of the fae today, and she allowed it to show in her demeanor as she bowed in kind. "Quite the pleasure, pack-brother."

Listenning kindly to his words she felt confused. "I am sorry, Starling, but I do not understand. Where were you, if not here, after you were born." Hope arose within her that he had not shared the fate that she herself had. Loneliness from a very young age. Newly recovered memories. A shiver traced its way up and down her spine.

A short bout of wind picked up and caught the fur of the fae and tossed it about in an array of fine silver threads. The very beauty of the feeling caught itself within her and with eyes closed she tilted her muzzle into it. Ever she was trying to see and admire every beauty in all things. Not long ago she had led Mist to see one of the most beautiful natural marvels that she was sure the entire world had ever graced. A waterfall, frozen in its tumble from high ground to low. Tall slender legs backed her into it, and she seemed to lose her senses for a time. Shaking her head to slowly clear the trance from her mind, she decided to leave open an invitation for the younger Varg.

Standing decisively, she tilted her head in the direction she planned to tread. "As a scout it is my duty to Deor to see that my pack is safe from intruders. It is one that is all too important to shirk, my friend, and so I must move on. There are many pawsteps left to tread before I rest, but I ask that you follow them with me. It seems that the two of us might learn something from each other."

[L A C H]

Sorry! the ending is really cheesy and bad.[/i]

Concluding that Silve was not intending to be haughty and was instead plainly distant, Starling realized that he himself was the aloof one. And never sounding nearly as distant as he looked, his guise of peculiar chivalry was well maintained while he spoke. “I haunted the waterfall mainly, tracking up and down the river too. Lone wolves and others wandering from their pack aided me with hunts and in return, I offered my meager company. The life I had been living was not a poor one at all,” he supposed aloud, the yearling ebbing on a topic too mature for him to properly speak of. His good manners and flowery words conflicted with his true age in the same fashion as his looks.

His slender ivory legs, wisped with quaint tufts of fur at the elbows and ankles, bestowed upon him the ability to pour himself fluidly over the land. And like the silvery fae, each of his silent paces could devour considerable strokes of terrain. These heron’s limbs, taut with lean muscle, ached to travel further into Deorian country and have parched briars tickle his withers, decomposing foliage suck at his pads, invigoratingly chilly winds comb his pelt. As a result, Starling smiled ( a bit lopsidedly, the young wolf unaware ) at Silve’s invitation.

“Don’t mind if I consider this a tour,” he teased the very joke from his rose-petal tongue. His appealing sets of twelve incisors, four canines, sixteen premolars, and ten molars totaled for a dashingly carnassial grin (even if some of those teeth were stubborn milk teeth!). The expression of pleasure dissipated into nothing but a nonchalant attention. And suddenly his feathery auds perked to gentle pitter-patters on the leaves, at first thinking nothing of them and now wondering at their increasing occurrence. Although it scented only faintly of rain before, the wet musk was ever multiplying -- it reminded him of autumn -- and moments later the forest floor was freckled with darker spots where the rain had hit. At last a cold droplet plopped right on the center of his chocolate nose, his optics tenderly on the silver-soft coat of his newly acquainted packmate; it would be a day of europium and the rain that one hears first.

[Silve]

The moon-toned fur of the fae was beginning to lay flat after the breif bout of wind, as the strange-looking younger Varg's face lit in a lop-sided smile, which she found charming rather than frightening or sinister. A wide smile of her own found its way to grace her muzzle, and the fur around her blue eyes crinkled just right to show an amount of mirth. "Then it seems you fared better than I," she said, without jealousy or sadness. Simply stating fact. "I met not a one Varg until I was the age that you are now, after my parents were killed by a bear and my brother lost his mind in the mountains." The thought of her brother brought a slight pain to the scar across her right shoulder, as it always did, though the pain was less now than it had once been.

The scar was still pink as though freshly healed, though it was now nearly three moon cycles or more since the wound had puckered away into this scar. Now and then it pained her, mostly when the thought of her brother was near, although it sometimes seemed to do so of its own accord. Shaking her head lightly, she brought herself back to the present in time to hear Starling's acceptance of her invitation, his joke bringing a smile onto her mouth, but it did not progress to her eyes this time.

She dropped her head dramatically into a mock bow, wishing only to joke and tease in the way packmates would. Her eyes humbly focused on his paws, she imbued her voice with reverence, "Aye, milord," she growled lightly, "and an honor it would be to me to lead you on such a tour." She grinned, showing all her teeth in a mirthful way, not a threatening one. Lifting her head she looked back the way she had approached Starling from and nodded her head in that direction. "That is the way that we shall travel, we'll start slow for a time, for reasons of conversation. Some of the way will be sprinted." The last was spoken with an almost military stiffness, but that was the way it came when Silve spoke of her lot in the Deor pack. She bounded off into the trees as rain began to fall. The first promise of spring, at the moment she met another of her packmates. She had a friend who would call that a sign.

[L A C H]

Edit: Actually, I can't really figure out what to post, and I think your last post would make an appropriate ending? I'm up to starting a new thread with you, of course. xD