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 Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 9:23 pm
 The small-built orange and gold wolf paused, lifting her nose to the sky, nostrils flaring as she inhaled the scents on the air. Her ears twitched and pivoted about on her skull, attuning themselves to her surroundings, and her expression was shrewd and attentive.
Odd, she mused; she had lost her companions two days ago, and had managed to evade them entirely despite being unfamiliar with the territory she was in. Pathetic. How they had planned to find the prince -- much less their way home -- was a mystery, if they couldn't even locate one of their own.
Unless...well, Kamiya admitted to herself, it was quite possible that her party had willfully abandoned her, just as she had chosen to sneak away from their ranks. Perhaps it was a mutual good-riddance, and if so, that was well enough for her.
The she-wolf pressed forward toward the sound of water. She had instinctively followed the river upstream, moving along its bank. The trail of the Prince had not gone quite dead, and she found herself following in his tracks on a subconscious level, searching for him despite having every intention of never returning to the pack that had enslaved her mother.
Still...once given a mission, it was hard to abandon it entirely, and having nothing better to do with herself, Kamiya continued searching.
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Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 12:35 pm
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Whereas Kamiya had something to search for, Edgar had nothing but shadows to grasp at. Not that he knew much about ambition these days. Oh, he used to, let that never be discounted! He had wanted to take control of Gomorrah as was his birthright; certainly his sister would have never done it, not that blubberbrained idiot who fell into step behind the first boy that gave her a smile and one kind word, and he had no other siblings that he was aware of. At the time Gomorrah wasn't the size it was now, nor nearly as . . . what was the word? Active? Well-known? His mother had created it after running from a pack that had only used for to sire good blood - when Edgar was born, well . . . things turned hairy pretty quickly.
But no, then the damn woman had to decide "Oh, well, it was a nice three months, let's hand it over now to the slut so I can go to retirement!" Not that Edgar knew the whole truth of that matter, but to him it might as well have been those words coming from Lilith's mouth. Now some wolf called Piper headed Gomorrah and filled it with her spawn, leaving him with nothing!
Born with nothing, a birthright for nothing, and now there was nothing before him. Maybe he shouldn't have left YMCA at all . . . He had been treated well enough, minus the beta's glares and constant nags about his lack of hygene and whatnot. The rat-like wolf sighed, plopped down listlessly near the river, and just watched its currents flow. He hadn't bathed in . . . three days now, was it? The stench of carrion still pervaded his presence no matter what he did; he was doomed to smell like Death forever, Edgar supposed with a small shrug.
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Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 5:23 pm
A repugnant odor touched Kamiya's nose and she recoiled, leaping away from the stream immediately. Someone had died upstream, she thought, a little confusedly; someone had dumped a body in the river and the tepid water had made its way down to poison her.
She shuddered at the thought, but realized quickly that wasn't the case. The odor was different, not exactly the stench of decay but something similar, and her brow furrowed, suddenly intrigued. Curiosity getting the better of her, the orange wolf crept her way cautiously up stream to get a better look at whoever -- or whatever -- was creating that vile stench.
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Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 5:41 pm
Contrary to his listless positioning, Edgar's ears were quite alert to the sounds about him - even his own body fought against the mind's many urges to just die already, furiously keeping up normal functions to sruvive. It was how sometimes Edgar would zone off and then, upon "awakening" again, find himself a good mile away from his original position. These attuned ears caught the sounds of pawsteps and quickly alerted a half-awake brain back into action. The first reaction was for Edgar to yawn. It wasn't as if things didn't walk by him all the time; some took a quick whiff and then trotted off as fast as their legs could carry them, or fly off to the nearest safe haven from the stench, or sliver and hope for a good hole to bury its head in.
Not this time.
Edgar's pale eyes happened to be floating off vacantly to the side when he saw . . . pure color. Hissing softly, he drew his head back and narrowed his eyes at the living sun carefully making its way upstream. "What do you want with me?" he grumbled in a raspy voice, a touch of that narcissism coming; of course it was coming to see him, why else would it be here? "Go on, there's more sky to look through tna this dismal patch over mere. Or do you want to burn me up?" He didn't seem to care that this "sun" had too many black dots on it.
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Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 5:50 pm
Her brows raised, knitting together over her brilliantly blue eyes as she came into vision of the rat-like wolf, looking over him curiously. She'd never seen a creature quite like him before, and the thought thrilled her. To be sure, she had been further outside of the boundaries of Kapu'Moana than most of her packmates, having always been the first to volunteer for any exploration...but she'd never been so far from home and this was, after all, the first 'native' she had stumbled across in her journey.
Was this how all wolves looked this far north? How utterly fascinating!
When he spoke, she stopped, surprised by his reaction. "I don't want anything with you," she said, perhaps a bit rudely -- but then, she thought, he deserved it. "I'm just passing through and you happen to be here. I can turn back around and go the other way for awhile if you want?"
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Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 11:21 am
"Do what you will," Edgar grunted, crawling a bit closer to the water's edge. From bright colors to sunshine on the water, God . . . His eyes hurt like hell; why could it just grow numb like the rest of his body already? The scars had long since stopped aching him, the only indicators of their presence being the tightened skin about each. Lowering his head enough, his overgrown whiskers lightly touched the river's surface. "Maybe I'll just . . ." He leaned forward more and more, his snout dipping into the water, then his eyes clsoed as they breached it, and then his ears as they docked, and -
Without warning the rattish wolf simply fell in headfirst. The river was deep enough that he had not connected with the muddy ground upon the impromptu "dive-in", though his worm-like tail writhed mostly above the water until Edgar righted himself. He still appeared as despondent as ever once his head broke the surface next, gulping down breaths of air. "Guess there's a proper way to drown oneself I know not of . . ."
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Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 11:02 pm
She jerked, impulsively diving forward to pull him from the water, but then pulled back as his snout broke the surface. She blinked at him and backed away slowly, confusion and concern fighting for position on her features. She rested back on her haunches and tilted her head. "It's hard to drown if you know how to swim," she said, rather pragmatically, although as she spoke she realized it sounded like a piece of sage and deeply metaphorical advice, and felt quite proud of herself. "Your body will resist death long after the mind has given up hope." She stared at him without fear, although there was pity in the depths of her eyes. "What happened to you, anyway?"
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Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 4:33 pm
And now he had invited the concerns of the sun-touched. Wonderful. Snorting out water from his nostrils, Edgar grudgingly treaded water until his paws struck the bottom of the river. "Too much to want to remember," he murmured, watching water droplets fall from his whiskers as if they were more fascinating to look at than the other wolf. "I barely know how to swim. Hell's gates remain closed still if I was pushed up rather than dragged down . . ." He sighed at this unfortunate discovery and then, zombie-like, turned his head to look to his unwanted guest at last.
"Fully aware of the body bit. Even a dull-minded mind like myself notices." He cocked his head, turning a little more curious. "Why do you care for a stranger?"
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Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 4:54 pm
She wasn't entirely sure care was the word she would have used, but her morbid fascination had gotten the best of her. "Do you need any help?" She asked, ignoring his direct question. The intonation of the way she spoke suggested that the help she offered may have been with the act of dying itself, but if she meant it that way wasn't quite clear.
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Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 5:20 pm
"Too much," was his cryptic reply, shaking his head a little as he sighed yet again. Oh, how he must have looked the picture of pity then, with his ragtag pelt, fetid stench, bones poking out even more than usual against his skin since it was completely wet . . . Hell, with a failed and half-hearted suicide to boot! Did he even want to die anymore? It was taking too long . . . "Pretty ones should not deal with rats," he muttered. "They might get stained. Would hate to ruin beauty by association."
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Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 5:49 pm
"I don't think you would," she replied. Certain social graces were lacking in Kamiya, as no one had ever felt it necessary to teach them to her. Her mother certainly hadn't spared much thought to it. She flopped to her haunches, blue eyes looking over him, the pity gone and replaced by a total impassiveness. "You're really good at feeling sorry for yourself, huh?"
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Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 8:10 pm
He shrugged in response. "You could say so." And then it occured to him to slip something more to her, to feed her crumbs in order to force her to linger longer - assuming she was the type to be interested in sob stories. Why he would want to keep her, Edgar didn't know. He hadn't been with a wolf's company in quite some time, so his already less-than-impressive social skills were already lacking; and even at his "peak", he wasn't the most likeable wolf. So why make someone stay longer? Why suffer someone's presence?
Probably just to get some sort of attention at all, negative of positive. He sneered inwardly at this desperate need, and yet was helpless to it as he added, "That is what fallen princes get, yes? The rough end of the bargain. A taste of power, and then to have it swiped from you from sluts."
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Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 8:20 pm
"Psh, power's overrated," she said, waving a paw, clearly not impressed. Yet she stayed. She couldn't pinpoint why, exactly. She certainly didn't feel any particular fondness for this odd-looking fellow, but then she wasn't precisely repulsed, either. "Last prince I met walked away from the job and left the whole place in an uproar. Besides," she added, looking at him again, nose wrinkling, "If it meant so much to you, you could've fought to get it back, right? I mean...you're not dead...so obviously you gave up." Things were just that simple in Kamiya's world: there was winning, surrender, and death. The notion of losing was a little alien to her.
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Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 10:00 am
At this he bristled, pale eyes narrowing for the first time in anger at her rather than just at her colorful appearance. "You assume wrong," he hissed, wormtail twitching. "I have always looked like this, stranger: never healthy, never worth a damn, never given a chance. My throne was given away when I was but an adolescent, tossed onto the shoulders of a female only liked for her way with males in a den!" He spat. "They rallied for her. I was left with nothing more than the choice or staying under that b***h's whim or leaving."
He growled at the mere memory of it, stiffening even as he forced himself to calm down a bit. "Nothing in this world is so easy, sunspot," he said, the last word almost hissed as well. "Not for those like me who are outcasted."
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Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 11:34 am
His anger fascinated her as much as his despondency, and she smiled. "That's better." She didn't clarify her meaning any, but took some time to examine him. "If you were prince in my old pack," she said, after a time, "It wouldn't have mattered who your successor was, you still would've been kicked out. They'd say you were a sign of punishment from the goddess."[/b]
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