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 Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:39 pm
Renzi's life was one of varied routine; although she moved from project to project, every action was on a schedule. An ever changing, multifarious schedule, but a schedule none the less. She would sleep in the day, when the sun was ruthless and uncompromising. She would hunt in the evening, when it was in a better mood because it knew its job was nearly done. She would work long into the night, doing what she needed to with only the moon to peek over her shoulder.
Renzi didn't mind much when the moon was nosy; she liked the company. Of course, she had much else to help fight off loneliness; her inventions, theories and curiosity all kept her too preoccupied. There were times when she found something so delightfully exciting she had to tell it to the birds just because she had to tell someone. They would fly away or ignore her. It was those times Renzi did miss her pack.
It was times after the initial nostalgia, when her analytical mind fought off emotional downpour, that she recognized her longing was not for her pack, but rather just for the gift of being able to share her findings with something that would answer her. Perhaps, one day, someone would understand her as well, but she wasn't very confident it would happen. Renzi didn't expect something of others she couldn't expect of herself.
She had always felt like her mother was on the weaker end of the social food chain; she had become convinced her rank was obtained through favoritism of her own mother, the alpha, and not anything else. If only her perceptive mind could understand just how alike they were, Renzi would have been a lot better off. She had, unknowingly, let them convince her something was "wrong" with her.
She was too detached and too fair -- too much like Phantom for her parents to stomach. They wanted her to stand by her brother when he did stupid things and the wolf he crossed retaliated even if she knew he was wrong. They wanted her to hurt when there was loss; her mother wanted her to mourn her father. They wanted things from her Renzi could not do "correctly", and for that, she felt like the world was a place someone like her didn't belong.
It was a not-so-blissful ignorance, arrogance in a hidden form, thinking she was "special", albeit not in a good way. But that's what she'd been taught. She guessed everyone who hadn't died was falling apart piece by piece, and then there was her, with her routine and ability to break down her feelings long before they broke her. She felt cold, cruel, to analyze and decide the only reason she ever loved her parents to begin with was because they were her parents. If they'd just been packmates, she wouldn't have cared at all. When was the last time she'd wondered how Kaho was doing?
It got to the point where Renzi felt like she was watching her own life from afar. The lead character had so much potential, yet they were so unaccomplished and dull. She wished to be the kind of creative mind that could bask in her accomplishments without needing them to be shared with the world. She just wasn't like that.
Evening came and Renzi followed the tradition she had molded her life around. Being just one wolf, and not an especially skilled hunter, she had taken a creative approach to gathering food.
Digging.
Digging ditches, to be specific. She'd shared the idea with a passing loner once; he looked at her like she was insane. (If she really did favor her grandparents, she must be.) The idea was a success, however, and she sustained herself with the rabbits and squirrels and whatever else that fell into the trap and were unable to get out.
Wolves... She'd never thought about eating those.
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Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:40 pm
A shame Renzi didn't partake in her grandfather's cannibalism; Rook could have fed her for weeks if she'd found a way to keep his flesh and bone from rotting once he was dead from dehydration. Not many wolves in Renzi's position would think fighting with him wise. He looked scary, what with his massive size and teeth too long for his mouth, but weren't looks said to be deceiving? That, honestly, was the only thing tricky about him. Everything else Rook did was predictable if only someone took the time to get to know him.
Since they didn't, he was still something of an enigma to the world. Everyone was a stranger -- few felt compelled to be much of anything else. When someone did engage him in conversation, he always found himself paranoid of their motives. One too many times he had been asked to put his muscle to use in ways that did not suit him. Red was Raja's color, not his. The blood of prey was enough to make him feel guilty.
These encounters left him very aware of how dark the world was. Rook stayed true to himself; he was a nice wolf, generous and gentle. But in the back of his mind, every time he saw someone he wondered what they were capable of doing that no one should ever do. On the conscious level he could control he did his best to not think the worst.
This was a challenge when you fell in a ditch someone had dug and taken the painstaking effort of covering with all kinds of plants.
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Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:47 pm
Renzi was torn between frustration her work had been for null and the feeling that only seemed to grace her presence when looking into the face of another wolf. It wasn't as romantic as it sounded. She had been deprived of company so long seeing anyone brought about an instinctive joy she could ignore, but never stop. Renzi had always thought she was an introvert. She wasn't. She was merely an extrovert who had become so nervous about expressing herself for fear it would be too much like someone else that invisible walls had been built around her -- ones she didn't know were there.
She also thought of herself as some superior figure in the wolf world, able to look beyond what her eyes saw. Renzi observed with her eyes, but she judged with her mind, so ripe in logic she wasn't sure if it was possible for her to be more rational most days. Something in that hardwired brain of hers did note his large fangs and tremble. That part was small; the equivalent of throwing a drop of red food dye into the sea and expecting it change from blue. You could ignore that speck of red.
Renzi could ignore this.
He had probably not asked for those teeth anymore than she asked for her strange eyes, passed down by a wolf she had never met. Neither had her cousins, many of whom shared this feature. Renzi had considered the possibility every wolf with such a trait was somehow related, but aside from ones she knew were related, she'd never seen anyone else with those eyes.
She'd never seen anyone with these teeth at all.
Looming over the hole, she sighed. "Sorry. Are you okay? I'll get you out."
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Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:48 pm
Those eyes.
If not for those eyes, he may not have made the connection. The angle he saw her from was strange; only her face and parts of her front legs had been where he could see. There were plenty of black and white wolves in the woods. After all, he was one of them.
The strange pattern on her ears, the way they cut down the middle like mother nature had been designing her coat and just gotten too distracted to ever finish, was a tell-tale sign. But it wasn't enough. The eyes were enough. The distinct color he couldn't call blue or grey, but a mix of them in a war neither would win, confirmed it.
This was one of China Blue's daughters.
He hadn't seen them since they were puppies; hardly old enough to have their eyes open, in fact. Her coat had changed some, gained more to it than it had at birth, but the spot around her eyes and the eyes themselves were definitely the same.
Rook didn't feel afraid of his predicament anymore. Just very excitable. "Hey! --Hey! Aren't you..." What was her name? He just had to think a second. Rook never forgot a name. "You're Renzi, aren't you? From the forest?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:48 pm
Renzi had turned from the the trap, turned from him, and so he could no longer see her when the question sank in and she was sure every muscle down to her toes was tensed. Being asked about her pack felt more like an accusation sometimes. They had been... trouble, for lack of a better word. Lots of trouble.
Much of her apathy was the result of not being unemotional, but being so fair-minded. Renzi did not stand by her siblings when they were in the wrong because fairness told her not to. Her parents perceived it as something more than that, and as a puppy dependent on them for everything from food to answers she had no choice but to believe it.
It was ironic how her emotions won out against her logic on the one matter her mother wouldn't have wanted it to.
Years would go by after her grandfather's death before she was born. Renzi didn't know the strife he wrought on her family first hand, just that he had been chased out of his packlands by their alpha for the sake of revenge. The Black Forest was an ugly, terrible place, and she felt certain if Raja could see the barren wasteland for herself she'd never have made them stay there so long. The land wasn't just ugly -- it was useless, too. No game lived there.
Why Raja would chase Phantom out only to be chased out herself by his "other" daughter later...
All it equaled up to was a bunch of wolves fighting over something no reasonable soul should have wanted. Renzi couldn't sympathize with the driving force behind decisions being emotion-based, and thus she felt very critical of her old alpha. She didn't stop to think that Raja had always made sure they were well-fed, protected, and essentially done everything that was expected of someone in her rank.
She did it for reasons Renzi didn't agree with, so her niece judged her without the usual prudence she tried to approach these touchy subjects with.
"Yeah, I am, but the forest belongs to another pack now. Who are you?" Renzi was trying to locate the long, brown vine given to her by Aleu. (Renzi liked Aleu quite a bit. She had a good head on her shoulders.) If she remembered right, it was called "rope". She'd managed to tie one end of it around a tree and hide the rest in the bushes.
Ordinarily, Renzi would jump down the hole, kill whatever prey had the misfortune of falling in (as they could no longer run), and use the rope she had dropped down for her escape after she ate; she would bite onto it, dig her claws in the side of the dirt and claw her way back up. It was difficult, but most things worth doing were.
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Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:49 pm
The brain was a fascinating thing. Renzi's worked in ways his didn't; she was smarter than him. He was still the same as everyone else, though, being able to put two and two together without working out the math in his head, so to speak. He wouldn't have sat down and forced himself to logically consider every possibility, but he didn't have to. People knew two plus two was four.
Hearing the lands had new ownership, he instantly knew that Tekka must have succeeded. He knew there was no other way, but he still blurted out, "What happened? Was it Tekka? Did Raja die?"
Raja would never surrender the packlands she had fought most of her young adult life to get unless she was dead. If that were the case, Solan would have stepped up. If not her... If not her, someone would have. The Black Forest had some fierce wolves in their ranks. Not to mention strength in numbers. Packs that had a shaman, a seer and a high population didn't just disband. They had to be chased out or murdered by the dozens.
Again, Rook knew it was the only way, yet somehow he had a hard time really, truly accepting it. Part of him expected her to laugh, tell him she was kidding and provide some story about her just wandering around for the sake of it. Tekka was fierce, he'd give her that. As were the allies she had obtained.
But they were so...
They were so small.
"How? There was..."
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