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 Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:38 pm
 As the days bled into late spring, Adonai's cheerful good mood faltered, sputtering like ill-tended flame. Tiyana hadn't quite left him, but it had come close, and now he was walking in a bit of a haze as he tried to decide what to do with himself. It was a dream, he thought -- a stupid fool's dream to even think he could make this work. He was trying to cheat time, trying to forestall its inevitable forward march, and that was impossible. All wolves knew that.
And the worst of it was that he had patched things up with the younger lady. If he asked, she probably wouldn't even remember that there had been a concern. That was the fickle joy of youth, he supposed...the flippant ability to walk away from everything without so much as a look back. Hindsight was the curse of middle age.
Was he over-thinking this? Was he concerned that he was playing in to whatever dark secret Tiyana had kept so carefully hidden in her past, that he was somehow doing harm than good? Was he suffocating himself under the self-placed burden of watching out for both their interests when it was unwarranted? He couldn't even tell anymore. In the old days, he never would have cared about all this responsibility nonsense. But that was before he'd done such a glorious job of botching the family he hadn't even asked for.
He sighed, keeping careful watch of where he stepped as he crept toward the river. Knowing his luck, he'd walk face-first into Thrush. That was the absolute last thing he wanted to deal with right now. He'd rather talk to Terreis. No -- Varia. He would rather have his daughter rip his face off than get a look at that smug ladybird's satisfied smile as she tossed another barb at him...and what was she playing at, anyway, with that Partridge fellow? He didn't trust that one bit. Partridge seemed half as smart as the bird he was named for, and if he had any guess on the matter at all he suspected Thrush was utilizing him for some devious purpose.
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 6:23 pm
 Devious purposes all utilized for the day, Thrush was picking around, actually looking for Partridge - in an idle way. When she saw Adonai's unmistakable coat off in the distance instead, she mouthed an unsavory word and hunkered down, anger and adrenaline boiling into her as if they were still squaring off that night in spring. Since he had assailed her with his pompous good mood, she had done him the great honor of upgrading him in her roster from nuisance to enemy, though she still did all she could to avoid him. But she seemed rather trapped today, if she didn't want to chance him seeing her turn tail and run.
Oh, she would never let that happen.
So she sat and began to groom instead, prim and sweet as always, a sly pale eye on the wolf who would spot her momentarily. My goodness, she thought coldly, someone's looking a little down. A fickle pleasure curled its way up inside her chest, and she tamped down a mean-spirited smile.
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 6:44 pm
And -- there she was. Dammit. As though somehow his thoughts had willed her into existence, there she was sitting around looking all prim and composed and full of herself.
She's going to murder everyone while we're asleep, he thought sourly. Always creeping around making smart comments and diverting attention off her past...must be hiding something really foul. Probably ate her damn family.
Did he actually believe this? Well, no, not exactly, but it seemed as likely as anything else. What did anybody know about her, anyway? Not a damn thing, that's what!
"Well, hey there Ladybird," he said, throwing a winning smile her way, though his eyes belied his agitated state.
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 9:05 pm
In a deep and invisible place inside her, her little pearl of hatred for Adonai accrued sediment. Visibly, she gave him a displeased smile, and set her paw down. "Look who's here," she recited flatly, not bothering to disguise the act of looking him up and down. "You look ruffled, sweetheart."
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:03 am
"Me? Aw, no...not really..." he said, but couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. He couldn't dare show her any weakness, or else she would tear into him with that vile tongue of hers and that goddamn false smile.
He smiled right back at her. "How are you doing, though? Feeling better, I hope? No, ah, trouble with your....delicate...disposition?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:10 pm
She surprised herself, the unkind ecstasy at seeing him unable to look at her sudden and potent enough to make her limbs quaver. But it passed. "All my delicacies are in order, thank you," she responded, her mouth twisting into a wry smile. "Is that what's been troubling you? Generally speaking, a fellow only looks this haggard when he's bitten off more than he can chew." And her sly eyes narrowed, peering boldly into the chinks of Adonai's facade. "You've got a mouthful of something, don't you?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:43 am
"Ah, yes," he said, forcing himself to look her in the eye. "That's precisely it -- I've worried myself sick thinking about you."
In the past, he may have been tempted to overshare, to tell her all his woes. No more. He knew perfectly well that she had no interest in such niceties, and would probably turn around to use them against him. So much for civility! And expecting her to respond in kind...to open up about herself....that was obviously asking for the moon.
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:54 pm
Now, normally, she would take the exit Adonai wanted her to take like it was the escape hatch from a flaming car, but such a literal opportunity for karma would be almost shameful to pass by. So she kept his eye contact, informing him without words that yes, he was being punished, and not in an especially cool and calculated fashion, though her voice failed to show it. Her face crinkled into a playful little smile. "Oh, that can't be it, Adonai, you look like you've got girl problems, and I don't think I qualify." She sniffed at him curiously, almost flirtatiously. "What did you do?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:34 pm
"Girl problems?" He echoed, giving her back a cool look. "No, things are going quite wonderfully with Tiyana. I'm going to go meet her in a moment, actually."
So why don't you sound happy about that, chum? In fact, why does saying it make you want to run away and retch a little?
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 9:00 pm
"Tiyana", she echoed admiringly, relishing the act of refusing to dismiss him, "I hear she's quite a catch." And at this point, some of her glee began to show through the cracks in her kindly smile. "She must make you feel so young." Her eyebrows furrowed. "Or does she make you feel very old? I guess I don't know how that arrangement works."
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:48 pm
He stiffened, a sour look creasing his maw. Clearly Balios must have said something, the damn blabbermouth. Or else Anatto had. Either way -- considering the way things had gone when Balios had met Tiyana...the way they had looked at each other...
His lip curled up in a snarl, but a witty comeback failed him. She had, somehow, managed to find precisely his insecurity, and twist her little claws into it. "She's remarkably worldly for her age," he muttered, but he knew that her maturity (or lake thereof) had remarkably little to do with their relationship.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 9:45 pm
Thrush tilted her head, looking mystified, trying to apply this answer to her question. "So, she makes you feel old, then," she determined mildly, but then her eyes narrowed, glinting in the light like swords being loosened in their sheaths. "Or maybe not. Maybe you're gonna put some puppies in her belly and you can try the family thing all over." The smile on her mouth had pulled into a grimace. "And won't that be lovely."
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:58 am
A complicated expression crossed his features, his lips curling into a snarl, a twitch starting in his jaw as he forced himself not to launch himself at her throat. A low growl started in his throat, booming in his chest. He was suddenly angrier than he had been in ages...almost as angry, perhaps, as he had been the day he had left his father's pack.
He would have launched himself at her, if he had not respected the pack so much. It wasn't that he refused to hit a lady -- although he avoided it on principle -- but he knew that fighting inside the pack boundaries wouldn't exactly earn him any friends and may well get him thrown out.
And what sort of example would that set for his grandpups?
He shoved back the aggression, and for a moment thought he had managed to maintain the moral high-ground -- but then the comeback ripped itself out of him before he could stop it. "At least then she wouldn't end up a withered old hag like you! It'd probably do you some good to have someone put some puppies in your belly." The compulsive facial twitch crept up the side of his maw, sudden and strong enough it looked as though he were having a slight stroke.
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Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:44 pm
She hadn't noticed the dark feeling that had begun to well inside her as she detailed out a sunny future for Adonai. The gall had waited just below her throat, just out of range of tasting. But it had tamped down a bit of her glee, so she was able to witness the near apoplexy of the other wolf's rage with surprisingly little preconception. She was wondering whether to be worried when he lashed out at her, and it was remarkable, really - they both seemed to have impeccable aim for not knowing what they were talking about.
She felt acid rising to the back of her tongue, but held it in check, fixing Adonai with dead, grey eyes. "You've nailed it, tomcat," she leveled back in a tone that was disturbingly flat, "my big problem is that I've never been held down and impregnated." She stared for a moment, waiting to see whether any remorse would surface in that twitchy face of his. "Maybe that's your problem, too."
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Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:42 am
Adonai, it happened, was the sort of wolf who had difficulty understanding irony or sarcasm once rage had taken hold. It was a common enough problem, really: once the switch in his brain had been turned from "calm" to "anger", certain mental faculties lost their grip.
So Thrush's words gave him pause and he stared at her for a moment, debating whether it was possible that her problem really was a long, lonely life. Adonai was no stranger to physical affections, and now that he thought about it, the idea of living without them seemed very bleak indeed. He was sure Tiyana would have agreed.
"I'm sure your little friend Partridge would be happy to help you out with that."
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