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 Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 2:47 pm
 It had been a very long night.
Following the tension and drama, Ranuin had been swept up in the aftermath. He'd been torn up inside; yet it was his responsibility as the older brother to look after his little brothers, right? Especially in his father's absence. But he'd had no answers for their questions. He didn't know enough to answer; he was just as shocked by what had happened as they were...perhaps more so. He was reeling, shaken, looking for answers. In his daze, he'd easily stepped back when the Adviser stepped in and took charge. He was grateful at first for Mo's help in getting the boys home to their mother. Ranuin hadn't been in the best state to go back and explain to Princess Celestia what had happened when he was still processing it himself. He didn't envy the Adviser that duty at all. Ranuin just wanted to withdraw from everyone to try to process what had just occurred.
Of course, when the shock started wearing off, he started to realize that perhaps Mo had other intentions. He seemed more focused on Ranuin after handling his other duties...Ranuin could feel his attention, the same sort of focus of a predator reading prey's movements. He knew it well. He'd finally excused himself to go to bed, but sleep never came. He lay curled in on himself in his cot in his alcove, tossing and turning with the whirling thoughts possessing his waking mind. He did a lot of thinking, but reached no conclusions for his efforts. Only more questions, more unease.
He gave up on sleep about the time the sun was rising over the horizon. He stopped briefly by the kitchens; he wasn't hungry, but he'd eaten nothing since early the evening before. He took no joy in the meal, only asked for enough to ease the gnawing feeling in his belly. He still felt sick afterwards. Ignoring the stares and the whispers that he heard all too well, he headed for the door, the world beyond being slowly lit by the rising sun's glow.
Eyes hooded, he offered only a simple, "Going for a walk," as an explanation to the guard's glance in his direction. He still caught the pitying look, which only made the skin beneath his fur itch.
Once free of the gateway, he shifted to dire wolf form, caring little for the looks he got for once, and bound away into the growing daylight.
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Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 2:49 pm
 Stifling a yawn, Moonlight glanced upwards from the dining hall to where she knew her alcove lay far overhead. She'd been happy to take one of the higher rooms, having no issues with heights given her wings, but now she regretted that slightly. Ugh, too far away; too tired. It had been a fairly eventful night too, from the sound of it. She'd missed the actual exchange, but she'd heard plenty about it afterward. She felt bad for Aunt 'Tia and the boys. Ranuin seemed to be taking things pretty hard too; she'd heard he'd retreated to bed without saying much to her Dad. Of course, from what she'd heard, there really wasn't any question that things had to have happened as they did...but maybe not quite the way they did...
Wait, wasn't that...?
She stopped mid-step, having spotted Ranuin exiting from the dining hall. How had she missed him? She'd had her own breakfast/dinner and been readying for bed...maybe she was tired enough to have not noticed. Maybe he hadn't been there long. He seemed distracted. 'Wait, of course he does. Stupid Moony,' she berated herself, frowning. Poor guy looked like he was in a daze. Like he hadn't slept at all. Maybe he hadn't. Wouldn't have been surprising. She was surprised, however, when he turned and headed towards the checkpoint. Wait...where was he going? He wasn't going to do something stupid...was he?
Of course he was. This was Ranuin.
Grumbling under her breath, she headed for the door. Figures, she'd have to go stop him from being a doofus now, just when she'd been winding down to go to bed. The things she did for her goofy friend, right? Hopefully he appreciated her constantly saving his tail.
Clearly, her intention was to go for a quick run to tire herself out to sleep. She waved at the guards on duty and headed outside. Ranuin had already shifted and disappeared like the morning mists. Dammit. Stupid big galoot and his long strides... Grumbling again, she shifted as well. Her wings would be faster for travel, but she had to know where he'd gone first...and her other form was much better at that skill. Soon, a small jackal snuffled about the open area in front of the tree where a set of large paw prints had disturbed the remaining dew on the ground. Having found his scent, she circled a couple of times, then turned and bound off after the massive lupine.
She nearly lost the trail once, but picked it up again shortly. He didn't seem to be heading for the bridge like she'd feared. He wasn't leaving the island for the mainland? It was a relief; he wasn't doing something colossally stupid then. But...what was he doing? The trail led away from the Tree, but only to a rocky expanse still well beneath the Laisidhiel's branches. There was earth here, but mostly rocks, pushed up from the ground in all directions, some lone, some heaped upon each other. Atop a sizable stone with a semi-flat top, the dire wolf lay prone, head on his paws and watching the sun slowly creep into the morning sky. He flicked an ear in her direction, clearly noticing her, but did not otherwise move.
Since she got no other response telling her to 'beat it', Moony neared the rock pile, lowering herself to the ground and wiggling in preparation before making a series of bounding leaps to climb up the 'mountain' of stones. A bit harder for her than it had been for him, she imagined. Reaching the top, she eyed the dire wolf warily, then padded close. Her first instinct was to sit nearby, but at the last moment, a notion seized her and she carefully climbed up on the great wolf's back, draping herself over his broad shoulders. She prepared to be thrown off in irritation, but the motion never came. She received only a deep sigh in response, and so rested her own head on her paws to watch the sun rise.
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 3:27 pm
The sun was climbing well overhead by the time either canine moved again. The dire wolf was first, yawning and stretching his front paws before settling back down again. At the movement, the jackal rose and bounded down from the broad, shifting shoulders in case he prepared to rise. It seemed he had no more intentions of moving, however, but she took the moment to shift back to her normal form.
Though she was much larger in this form than her feral by comparison, Moony still seemed dwarfed by the giant wolf. Boldened by her familiarity with her comrade, she showed no hesitation in returning to her reclining position, draped over his shoulders and watching the horizon. There wasn't anything in particular in the distance that had her attention; that was all focused here. The great wolf's deep sighing breaths with a hint of a whine periodically. The ears laid back against his skull. The drooping, listless tail. She didn't need her own canine experiences to interpret the signals.
Even if she hadn't already known what he was going through.
A cursory glance showed that no one was near enough to have seemed to be following them, so after a moment, she reached up and started scratching behind one of the wolf's ears. "Yeah, I know it sucks, man. At least no one's blaming you or anything."
Another heaving sigh/whimper resulted from the scratching, though the wolf's massive head leaned into the gesture. It was quiet out here. He needed quiet. He felt anxious...antsy. He needed quiet, open space...the little canine had been welcome though in quiet companionship. Even when she shifted into his winged, hooved friend and begun speaking, he hadn't felt the anxiety return.
Until something in what she said seemed to rub his fur the wrong way.
He huffed loudly, pulling away from the scratching. He didn't feel like ear scratches anymore. He didn't know what was wrong, only that something was...
The dire wolf began to shrink, giving way to a more faun-like form on his knees. Moony continued peering over his shoulder as he looked back to meet her gaze with dark eyes. "Not blaming, but they're sure staring and whispering a lot," he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.
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Posted: Mon May 09, 2016 3:16 pm
Moony's frown deepened and she withdrew her hand. The words from her friend were filled with bitterness and something else. Anger? Or was it just frustration? It was hard to tell. She bit her lip for a moment, unsure what to say. Moony had never seen her friend so troubled before. It was understandable, of course; it was also somewhat disorienting when she was so used to the friendly, happy-go-lucky, wolf boy who never had a harsh word for anyone and always knew how to make her smile. She wasn't sure how to behave around this 'stranger'. She didn't want to mistakenly say anything that might upset him more. After some hesitation, she spoke up, "I'm sure they're just concerned for y--"Turning his back to her, Ranuin threw himself back on his haunches with a grunt. "There's got to be a good reason. I mean, he wouldn't have gone out for no good reason. And they have to know my dad is no traitor!" A hint of a growl crept into his tone as Ranuin raised his voice. He was no stranger to the whispers. When he was a child, he'd heard them all the time. Murmurs about the 'strange wolf boy and girl', about their paws, what it implied, if they were even still faun. He'd heard it all more times than he could count, and he'd let it run off like water from a duck's back. Yes, they were different, but they were still faun. His father had said so. They were still family. He never let it get him down for too long, though some times had been harder than others. That was long before any of Moony's family had come along to Laisidhiel. At that point, he supposed that getting used to faun with wings had been far more shocking than ones with paws.
But this was different. Now they were whispering about his father. About his half-brothers and their mother. Questioning their character and motives. It filled him with a anxious restlessness and the urge to lash out without fully understanding the depth of such feelings. It was fine if they'd talked about him, but his family? He was nearly overwhelmed with the instinct to lash out to protect them.Moonlight's ears twitched back at the harsh tone. "Ranuin...I know you're upset. Just...try to think about this calmly..." She threaded her fingers in her lap in order to resist the temptation to reach out for his shoulder. She wasn't normally such a touchy-feely faun, but this situation was a bit out of the ordinary. And Ranuin was one of her best friends in the Tree. If he was this upset, then it was only natural that she would be too, right?A muffled snort answered her plea. "You're one to lecture me on thinking about something calmly.""It does happen once in a while," she shot back with a hint of irritation creeping into her tone. Big, fuzzy, frustrating oaf! He was determined not to make this easy. She was trying to help, dammit. If only he knew the awkward position she was in. "Try to think about this from the outside. Don't take it personally. We have rules for a reason. And he broke those for whatever reason he had, good or bad. Maybe he's not a traitor," she received a heated glare for this, "but he still broke the rules, and with everything else that's happened, they have to assume the worst for everyone else's safety." She didn't want to play this card, but... "Would you want what happened to me to happen to some other faun?"Ranuin's furious glare instantly fell, looking as if she'd struck him. For an instant, it was like reliving that horrible day. He had never been more terrified before in his life than the moment he'd taken the bloody, broken, tiny form of his friend from her aunt's arms to rush her to the infirmary. Just the thought that he could have lost her...
"Moony, I-- Of course I don't. But...that's not what we're talking about here. Dad would never--""You say that, but who can tell? There are rules for a reason, Ranuin. He broke those. I mean, even if it wasn't to intend purposeful harm...he still broke the rules.""B-but, Dad's never done anything to hurt the Tree! Or anyone else!" Ranuin knew he was grasping, reaching in desperation, but it just all seemed so unfair, so wrong. How could they do this to his father? He'd never done anything that wasn't for Laisidhiel and her residents. "Why can't they see that? Why did they have to do anything? Couldn't they have just let him go? Or at least talked to him about it first or something? Why all this? And if he's completely innocent, is it right that they punish an innocent faun and his family like this?!?""Ranuin! The rules can't apply to some and not others!" How could he not see how illogical he was being?!? The daughter of the Chieftain's Adviser and of a Princess, Moonlight couldn't help reacting as she did. As he pushed and started arguing with her, she pushed back with equal force. She wasn't going to be cowed because he refused to see reason. "There are consequences for breaking the rules, and your father has to face them just like anyone else would. The guard can't treat others differently because of who they are or because someone knows someone else. They have to be impartial. Whoever saw this had to take what they witnessed at face value. If he really was meeting with Blood Pae... Maybe she felt she had no choice; for the safety of others, it was the right thing to do."Ranuin froze, dark charcoal eyes narrowing. "...she?" That had been an odd pronoun choice all of a sudden for it to have been altogether accidental. She'd been careful to say 'they' before, and referencing the guards, but then suddenly 'she?' Moony was acting like she had no knowledge of what had happened, only what everyone else knew. But...what if that wasn't true? Why else would she be fighting against him so hard on this? She should be taking his side!
He whirled around, grabbing Moony by the arms and locking eyes with her. "You know something, don't you? Who was it?!?"Moony had caught her mistake far too late; the words had already slipped from her tongue. She'd bitten her cheek silently, hoping against hope that Ranuin wouldn't notice...
Nope, he noticed.
She tensed, but was too late to escape his grasp. His hands clamped down on her arms like vices and her initial flinch proved that she wasn't going to just squirm out of this one.Even if she hadn't said a word, Ranuin could read the guilty look on her face. She'd let something slip that she hadn't wanted him to know. She did know something! He felt betrayed, mind leaping to the worst possibility. "Was it you? You did it?!?""No! Ranuin, I...it wasn't--" she blurted immediately, then wished she could pull back. She'd responded automatically when the blame had shifted to her. To think that something she could have done could have put her friend in such a state made her chest ache. Yet, would it be better if he blamed her instead, rather than know the truth? Maybe she could bear the weight of the blame instead. Would he go easier on her?No, it wasn't her. She was telling the truth. He could see it in her eyes. But, she was still protecting someone. In the back of his mind, he noted that he could practically smell the fear radiating from her. In his right mind, he would have been crushed to even think that he'd possibly upset her, but now...he was relishing the scent, desperate only for what he wanted to know. So, who else would she protect so desperately? If not herself, and clearly not him, who else was she close to...? Not many, was the answer. It made it all the easier for him to guess.
"...Twinkle."
His lip curled in a snarl. "So it's her fault then."Now it was Moonlight's turn to feel the anger ripple beneath her fur. Her golden eyes flashed and she spread her wings behind her in a subconscious attempt to make herself appear larger and more threatening. "Don't you DARE, Ranuin! Don't you dare start in on Twinkle!" she snarled back, feral undertones creeping into her voice. "It's no more her fault than any other faun in the Tree! If you want to throw blame, then throw it at Faroth! If he's really as innocent as you say he is, then he never should have put himself in a situation to make himself look so guilty! It's his own damn fault!"Ranuin's expression darkened further and after a moment, he simultaneously released his grip on Moony's arms and shoved her away. "So that's how you're gonna' be then. Gonna side with the rest of them. Figures. I thought at least you would be on my side, but I guess not." He pushed himself back onto his haunches, smoothly shifting to his dire wolf form. He was done talking. At least with her. He shelved the rest of the harsh things he wanted to say with a huff, then whirled and bounded down the rocks, heading vaguely back towards the Tree, but in no hurry once he got out of earshot. He needed some quiet.Moony sent him on his way with a fierce glare that faltered once he bound out of sight. She looked down and noted that her hands were shaking. She clutched at her arms, then cringed...that was going to bruise, given how tender it felt already. She'd always known Ranuin was strong, but she'd never dreamed she'd ever see that strength turned on her. It gave her a new perspective...and it was terrifying. Moony remained there for a while longer, hunched over and delicately cradling her arms, before spreading her wings in a stretch. She rose to her hooves, giving her wings a couple of quick flaps before taking to the air. She was still shaking somewhat, but she didn't want to risk running into the ground-bound Ranuin again right now. She was heading straight for Laisidhiel's branches for some much needed sleep. Maybe Twinkle wouldn't mind some quiet company...*****
[FIN]
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