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 Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 10:30 am
 On the whole, Kai was pleased at how things were going in his life. He'd managed to escape the pack of his birthright -- a sheltered, suffocating environment that placed unreasonable demands upon him as their would-be king -- and was living free now. Sure, there had been some bumps along the way. The scars along his flanks proved that much, as did the way his extra weight had hardened and streamlined into lean muscle. He'd had a rough go of things at first, learning to hunt for himself rather than rely on servants...having to learn simple skills of survival and realize that here, in the outside world, no one cared that he had once been royalty.
All of this was a good thing. It enabled him to live the life now that he had always wanted: a life of romance and danger, living free and wild by his wits with kindred spirits!
Well, that was the plan, anyway. In execution, the whole thing was turning out rather differently than he'd hoped. Not badly, really. Just differently. Besides, he was still settling in, it was quite understandable that he would still have some growing to do.
As to, for example, the fact that he had to date never actually stolen anything in his life.
The idea sounded good! It was merely the execution of it which was a little baffling to him. For one, he needed to find a target. For another, he needed to locate something to steal. Also, he needed to do all of this without being noticed. Altogether the concept was a little difficult to comprehend in full, and he thought perhaps it would be a good idea to get in some practice before the pack began truly thieving as a unit.
So, with this in mind, the bright blue wolf set out on a merry jaunt away from the home base territory...searching for someone to rob.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:07 am
Wren had not wanted this lifestyle for herself, as much as she enjoyed it now. She never wanted fame or a high rank -- being an alpha looked to her like more trouble than it was worth. Still, she needed more than her mother's reassurances and the diaphanous hope they were made to inspire that something would change.
"One day," she would say. "Exciting things will happen to you one day, Wren."
Wren waited for her "one day" every day. When those days become weeks and those weeks became months -- when at last she lost count of how long it had been, enough was enough. Enough waiting. Enough idly lounging around expecting this adventure she sought to come smack her in the face while her triplet sisters got more and more uppity about their circle she was disclosed from. After all, there were four sides to a square, and they needed to be a circle.
Bastards.
Wren gave up on giving up, kicked the concept of waiting to the curb and left. She would find her place and if it meant being lost for a time, so be it. There were a lot of packs out there... a lot of wolves out there. She'd find somewhere.
Except that she didn't.
Time flew by when you were free, and with each sunset that desire to belong became as distant as the ball of fire in the sky going down, down, down, leaving her to roam the nights as vagabond and a thief. She enjoyed it. She needed nothing else but herself and her treasures, painstakingly gathered over... however long it had been.
Wren buried them all in a rabbit's den this time, and in front of it she slept, oblivious to the company she'd soon find herself in. Perhaps Kai would have had no interest in her, seeing as how the best of her possessions were hidden away. But. Wren did have one thing on-hand (er, paw); the blood-stained rope she had snatched from that shaman. (She hated that shaman.)
Useless? Probably. Yet even in her sleep she clung to it as if it were valuable.
One might wonder if for some reason it were.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 7:03 pm
Kai was getting better at some things. For example, he was now capable of sensing a fellow wolf in the area before he stumbled face-first into them. This was a tremendous amount of progress, and he was really rather proud of himself.
So, when he became aware of the she-wolf, he slowed himself and dropped to a defensive crouch, edging closer to the fellow creature in a silent stalk, keeping to the shadows. Verdauga would be so proud!
She looked a bit rough, he thought. From a distance, he wasn't certain if the pink marks along her pelt were markings or scars, and it caught him off-guard. He paused, and sniffed, and his eyes narrowed as he caught the scent of...blood? Ah -- there it was. Between her paws, a rope stained with blood, held close as though it were treasured by her.
How curious!
He settled back into a deep crouch, wondering for a moment why anyone would ever want to keep such a thing, much less hold it with such tenderness. Clearly it was something of value to her, and that immediately made it a potential mark for theft.
If Kailani had been thinking about it, he would have perhaps chosen something easier to steal than an item from directly between the paws of another wolf as his first target. He might have also taken into account one of the first rules of his pack: we do not steal from the poor or dejected, for they are our equals. She looked plenty dejected.
Still, once the princeling had an idea in his head, it was hard to shake, and so disregarding the finer points of the mission he was on, he crept forward on his belly, approaching his target with utter determination, eyes pinned on his prize.
He looked utterly absurd. Probably a good thing nobody was looking...
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 3:55 pm
Someone had told her once good thieves were born, not made. Wren rejected his words. In a way, his advice; the subtle tone of you're just not good enough burnt her like fire. Oh, she hoped he'd seriously burn one day, she really did. More than that, she hoped someone would murder her before she became the sort of wolf to heed the words of those she hated. What did they know about her she didn't know about herself? Nothing. Less than nothing. She recognized her shortcomings, but she was just as familiar with her potential to overthrow them.
One day, she would. That "one day" her mother always spoke of would come.
Just not yet.
She'd have to deal with her hindering imperfections for the time being, among the worst of them her sleeping habits. Wren was a heavy sleeper, always had been. As a pup you could have all but drowned her and she'd have stayed in one of the most helpless states a predator could submit themselves to, blissfully dreaming of better things to come. Her senses in her waking hours were top notch, but like this...
Kai was wrong to take the supposition they were but two wolves and a group of trees. Someone was watching them; a lot of someones. A lot of flighty, feathery, loud someones that saw the wolf approach and launched from their perches. Maybe they had thought Wren dead (she kind of looked it) or so nonthreatening they needn't move. Maybe they thought a fight was going to break out and didn't want to be so close to it.
Maybe, just maybe, they were birds that belonged to the very shaman Wren had hijacked her latest prize from. Her first thought when she heard the irritating screeching was they must be, and a cheetah would have blushed at the speed in which she shot up, grabbing the rope like a nearly-drowned man would gasp for air.
She saw blue and like with the birds, thought the worst.
Tekka.
Wren made move to run, yet she went nowhere, for before her paws could move she recalled that all her things were still hidden behind her. She'd die before she let someone take them, so instead of following her initial plan to run, she lowered her head and snarled at him.
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:01 pm
Kai was not a particularly graceful wolf. He was no oaf, to be sure, but his life had been one of lounging and diplomacy, being waited upon by slaves -- not a particularly taxing existence. And, while his wits had been sharpened by his time in the true wild, he still had a long journey ahead of him.
So when the birds took wing, and the dark wolf had jumped to her paws, Kailani let out a rather undignified yelp and nearly fell over himself trying to back away from her. "S-sorry!" he said, and if wolves could blush he would be purple. This wasn't going well at all!
He managed to reclaim what was left of his dignity by not completely turning tail and fleeing, and held his position, countering her snarl with a self-effacing sort of smile -- assuming a position that was not quite submissive, but far from asserting dominance.
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:24 pm
Wren never truly relaxed anymore, but his quick surrender did lessen her tension to a noticeable degree; her shoulders weren't slack, just not as stiff as they'd been in seconds past. She shifted her claws in the dirt and shifted her eyes in sync, trailing them across his face and his body. If one didn't know better, they may take her for admiring him.
Oh, please.
"It's fine," she groused. Closer inspection had told her this was not someone she should fight with needlessly. He may not have been threatening alone, but wolves with a build like his weren't alone. Wolves like her, with visible ribs and mangy fur, were alone. Humble didn't run in her blood, but neither did stupid. If she raged at him for the sake of it, it could lead to a fight. If it led to a fight, she could lose, or worse, she could win. They'd probably find out it was her somehow; then, she'd have a pack of these mindless drones ripping her apart.
Looking disgusted as a side effect of her internal conflict, Wren spat at him, "Just go away and don't come near here again."
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:31 pm
Kai's first impulse was to say 'yes ma'am,' and walk away from this snowballingly awful situation, but he resisted the urge. He'd done his fair share of running -- and of being chastised by strong-willed ladies, now he thought of it -- and his dignity needed a break from all the retreating. Instead, he quickly mulled over his options for ways to salvage this fairly humiliating series of events, and settled on a lie. He was a born politician. Lying came natural to him.
"My apologies, madam," he said, with that same self-effacing smile. "I was merely inquiring as to your health. This is an odd choice of sleeping quarters for a wolf, and I thought perhaps you were ill."
That sounded reasonable enough. And helpful. Who could bear to attack a wolf who was trying to help you?
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:42 pm
Physically? Not Wren. Not knowing what she did. She couldn't allow herself to think she'd have turned on him had he been a loner if only out of refusal to accept secluded wolves such as herself could be so pompous and stupid to begin with. There were a lot of pack wolves she'd encountered lately. Loners? Not so much. They were smart enough to stay away from everyone else. They knew trouble when they saw it.
"I am sick," she agreed, and without missing a beat fired off the punchline: "I'm sick of looking at you. I don't need you here looking out for me and neither does anyone else."
Speaking for all the desolate wanderers was a big job, but Wren had a big theoretical raincloud pouring down on her parade any time these encounters happened. The only thing to sooth her ailment was to get them to leave.
"I live here, so stay away. You can't have it."
Yes, she was doing a great job of not starting trouble...
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:51 pm
His ears laid back. Why wasn't this going well? And, more importantly, why was it that every female he met started yelling at him? Well, except for Mon, of course. But she was pretty much emotionless in general, so he wasn't sure she counted.
"My apologies," he repeated, and took a step back. This wasn't what he'd had in mind today at all.
Except....you can't have it?
His head tilted, curiously, his eyes glittering a little. "Can't have what?" he asked, rather innocently.
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:00 pm
Wren tilted her nose up a little and seemed to search his face for something. Whatever that something may be, she had either found it or found a reason to stop trying to look. "This land," the thief told him. She said those two words as a mother would say "my child" or a female in love would say "my mate".
If he were an alpha (stranger things had happened), he was either a piss poor excuse for one or trying to con her. She doubted the latter; a leader would have lost patience and opted to sic his cronies on her already. He must be some kind of scout, she thought.
"I know what times are like now. Alpha always want more." Accusingly, she kept her gaze locked on him. The distrust practically radiated around her. It was almost infectious. " This is mine. You can't have it. You run home and tell your owner that."
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:08 pm
He stared at her in utter bafflement. The land? How in the world was he supposed to steal land from her? He was having a hard enough time getting hold of a scrap of cloth!
Oh. Right.
Slowly, it clicked into place, and his face lit up with such a look of understanding and relief that it was a bit alarming in its urgency. "Oh! Oh, no." He grinned a little. Kai was really terrible at taking a hint, but perhaps he was charming all the same. "You're used to being wronged, by packs and all their false claims of authority. 'here's my teeth! here's my claws! now give me what you have!'." He shook his head. "I get that."
Incarnate needed a better PR guy, maybe. But gods help him, he was trying. The realization that at any moment she could launch herself at his throat and probably do him substantial damage hadn't even crossed his mind.
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:19 pm
And the realization this fellow could be sincere would have never crossed Wren's except that, as previously mentioned, she had become unwillingly acquainted with more and more pack wolves. Every week or so there was a new one that arrived, learned her name (no doubt only to have their memories cast it out as insignificant later) and left. Not many, but still one too many.
One too many morons with one too many things to say. The day they learned to leave well enough alone was the day Wren changed her name to "Well Enough" and savored the silence the rest of her life would promise. Lonely -- yes, it was lonely. Everyone was lonely, though. The only difference between her and them was that she wasn't pretending.
"Are you stupid?" Wren asked after a long pause and a hard stare, sounding flabbergasted to say the least. "You don't "get" anything. Do you just tell everyone this like you seriously think you know anything about them? You "get that"? You get me?"
Shut up, Wren. Shut up.
"Tell me, little boy, when were you last by yourself?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:34 pm
That wasn't quite the response he was hoping for...but now he thought about it, he'd kind of walked into that, hadn't he?
"I spent a good, long while being alone," he said, and it sounded loftier than he'd meant. He sighed. "Look. Let me start again. I'm not very good at this." Some great diplomat he was. Proably for the best he'd exiled himself from the homelands, all things considered. Ah well. He'd given lying a shot, now he tried over-sharing honesty. "My name is Kai. I was an alpha's son, but I left....because I can't stomach the way that such packs are run. The politics. The bowing and scraping and false authority and birthrights. All of it sickened me. So I left, and was alone for quite some time before I found my place."
Oh Kai, how pathetic was that? Now even he was disgusted with himself, and he withdrew a few steps, ready to shrug it all off and walk away now.
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:47 pm
"I'm not very good at this."
Wren felt her eyes rolling. No, really?
He rambled on his life story (over-sharing, indeed), and she was left looking more dumbfounded than should have been possible. Stealing was a talent, but you couldn't rob someone of their poker face. If she wanted one, she'd have to make it herself -- and learn how first. Normally, things didn't rattle her enough that she needed one.
This was... new.
"If you're lying, then you're an idiot. If you aren't..." Then she had no idea. This was beyond bizarre. She huffed out a breath that may or may not have been a sigh and angled her head downward so she could fit the rope over her neck. It looked like a collar or a noose, depending on who you asked, but having no familiarity with either to Wren it was just a rope.
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:55 pm
"Wouldn't be the first time someone's called me that," he said, and shrugged. He'd had a few close encounters with death, but not enough to squash his undying optimism and faith in wolf-kind. "But I'm a happy idiot, now, so I guess it can't be all bad." He turned then, realizing he was making no headway, and started to head off. "Sorry for bothering you," he said, and made his way for the woods.
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