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 Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:26 pm
 The journey home wasn't going as quickly as Kamiya would have liked. Part of that was because the size of the group; groups like this tended to straggle at the best of times, and given the tendency of certain members to wander off looking for trouble or herbs or both, it was a miracle they were all still together in the first place. It didn't help that Kai requested frequent breaks to rest his scarred haunches, or drink some water, or eat, or talk to passersby.
But it also didn't help that Kami liked to slip away when the others were resting to make...acquaintance...with the locals.
She didn't know why she did it, precisely. She certainly wasn't looking for love. For the most part, conversation afterwards pained her and it was all she could do to pull herself away on some excuse or another. She was always in a hurry to leave. While they were asleep, if possible. She hated herself every time.
Yet, she continued to do it.
This last time the wolf in question had been too young, even for her tastes, and he was both uncertain and arrogant. Almost shy. It was sweet, in a way, but oh-so aggravating, and she was in a sour mood now that she made her way back to the camp they'd made. The sun had been up for about half an hour and she knew the others would slowly start to wake up and wonder where she'd been all night.
She hoped nobody would be awake by the time she got back, but she had an excuse ready if someone questioned her...
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:42 pm
 Unfortunately, Kami had not calculated how easily paranoid Chou was, nor how much of a light sleeper he was. He had noticed her frequent absences, but had abstained from saying anything for about as long as he had been aware of them - they were not his concern.
As much as he was part of the group, he had yet to truly connect. Another manifestation of his paranoia: too easy to make bonds made it not so easy to break them. And who knew how long he would be traveling with this assortment of personalities? Though to be honest, the amount of days they had travelled together (being used loosely, as individual members were wont to wander) had begun to make Chou feel as if he needed to cement his position.
And that position was usually at the rear.
. . . Not like that.
Rear guard in the most platonic manner possible, backtracker, late night watcher - things that put his training to use. His large ears were not for show after all: his sense of hearing was amplified beyond the normal wolf's capacity, and while it did pose problems in some situations (such as sleep), he mostly thought it as a gift.
And thus the more he cycled through these thoughts, the more he realized that his best chances to solidify his "position" would be to . . . get to know his fellow wolf more. And the most obvious (and most approachable) would be Kami and her odd nocturnal disappearances.
Thus he placed himself accordingly to be in the she-wolf's way on her way back, able to hear her pawsteps even when softened, and waited.
He wanted to see her reaction first.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:54 pm
Kami froze.
There was someone waiting for her. Not just idly standing there, not just waking up. But waiting. She could tell from the expectant air, the quality of the breathing.
She was not surprised to know that the wolf in question was Chou.
The butterfly wolf was undoubtedly the smartest of the group she had fallen in with. The smartest -- and possibly also the strangest. But she didn't mind strange nearly as much as she minded stupid, so if she had to choose a wolf to suffer the company of, he was it. Hopefully he wouldn't ask any stupid questions.
She hoped she didn't smell like adolescent male anymore.
"Morning," she said, as cheerfully as she could muster. "Been up long?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:03 pm
"Just before sunrise," he answered dutifully - and then planted himself on his haunches in the same spot. Immovable.
The desired effect was there: she had frozen momentarily at the sight of him, and he planned to take advantage of it. Managing eye contact, Chou stared her down - there was no actual emotion being forced behind it, nothing but bright blue eyes meeting bright blue eyes.
But perhaps Kami would react differently and see something that was not there. And perhaps that would feed him more information than if he asked straight out.
"Yourself?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:30 pm
"Good, good," she said, a bit distractedly, and made as though to head back -- but then he stopped like an oak tree, and her brow furrowed. What the hell was this? An intervention?
Maybe he was leaving. Yes, she hoped that was it. He was leaving because he realized this quest was both stupid and time-consuming and he wanted to get back to looking for his sister, or whatever else he was supposed to be doing with his life.
...or maybe, a voice in her head chided, he wanted to tell her that everybody in the group knew about her little late-night philandering.
"...Never been better," she replied, but dryly. "Is anybody else up? God help me if they're clamoring for breakfast, I am nobody's mother..."
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:37 pm
"You are the matriarch of this group, Kamiya-san, whether you see it or not," Chou answered smoothly. His eyes were still upon hers. "And it does not pain me to say that secretive business does not go unnoticed. Not by me."
Secretive business was almost everything for Chou, really. IT was almost a hobby.
He was somewhat blowing smoke, though. The only evidence he had to go by was Kami's dry reception (which was not uncharacteristic) and . . . Ah. His nostrils flared.
Poor Kami. Perhaps if she had thought to clean herself first of the male's musk, he might not have caught it.
Thankfully for her, he did not hold reserves or bias about such a thing. A fact was simply a fact. "You were meeting someone tonight?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 8:53 pm
Matriarch. Did he have to use that word? It made her feel old and dowdy and unattractive.
Maybe that was why she kept running to the paws of any male that would take her. Gods she was pathetic.
"Secretive business?" She scoffed. She was right about to give him some or another fitting excuse -- that she was scouting ahead for the day's travel seemed most likely -- when he hit her with the follow-up comment.
How did he know?
She looked away, and huffed. "Well, yes. As a matter of fact I was. But that doesn't matter anymore." She lifted those bright blue eyes to his, almost defiantly. "Was there anything else? I'm getting hungry, come to mention it."
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:19 pm
Chou sighed softly. Avoidance never fared well with him: circumventing an issue only made him more suspicious and, naturally, more likely to prod until he knew. What didn't help him was that he was never one to investigate with direct methods himself.
But if Kamiya didn't feel like divulging, he would not force her - having given her ample chances to do so, it was obvious she wasn't interested in sharing. If it continued, he would know: simple as that.
Perhaps that knowledge alone might temper her.
"I only wanted to know if it should concern the group," Chou said with a small shrug, and then stood up. "With the prince in your custody, we should be wary of any wolf who might seek to take him. I have an inkling we might be being followed, but I will see to that matter soon enough; you needn't trouble yourself."
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Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 12:32 am
Now, that caught her attention. Her ears swept forward, eyes narrowing. "...Followed? By what?"
The idea that someone could possibly interested in them was laughable. Certainly, if any Kapu'Moana wolves were still searching, they would just walk up to them and say so. Wouldn't they? And who else would possibly have any interest in them?
...Well, maybe Marion had gone and made an enemy someplace. Or Kai, for that matter. He seemed the type to have angry women swarming after him for some wrong-doing or another.
"Whatever you're hiding is much more interesting than what I'm hiding," she said, with a wry sort of smile. "Your turn, butterfly-boy. What do you know?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 5:58 pm
"Most likely a wolf from what I can gather," Chou reported. "Perhaps a scavenger looking for mercy from a group of the more fortunate. I do not know if your prince has garnered enemies, Kamiya-san, but if so please tell me. The quicker we return him to his pack, the safer he will be."
He spoke as if Kailani did not have his own self-defending skills. He did not know if he did; but it was safer to assume. Chou's knowledge of the upper class was that while some could have skill, most relied on the hired paw of another. Better to act as if this was the case.
At Kami's attempt to reroute the conversation upon himself, Chou's long ears tilted back in apparent confusion. "What do I know of what?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 10:51 pm
Her ears flicked and her eyes widened slightly in surprise. She had expected to have to coax things out of him -- to ease information out. That he easily and simply laid it all out in front of her was both refreshing and astonishing.
"...I don't know if he has any enemies, either," she said. "Kapu'Moana didn't exactly make friends with the neighbors, but no one ever seemed to seek us out."
She gave him a long look at that point, and sighed. "...What is your story, exactly, Chou? And...why are you still with us?" That was the real question, wasn't it? The others she could perhaps understand tagging along, but Chou was so....put-together and strange. Surely he had somewhere else to be or something to do.
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 9:20 pm
Ah . . . A question he hoped to put off for a little longer. Even Chou himself was not quite sure - or so he told himself. the answer laid within his mind plainly, but he could not find the faculty to make his mouth give it form.
Believe it or not, he was a proud wolf. To admit this answer would be revealing weakness, which he could not afford; what if they asked him to leave because they saw him as a liability? Perhaps that was also why Chou worked hard at keeping a steady stream of information running through his ears, so that even when not in action he was providing his inherent usefulness.
He paused in consideration, looking off to the side as he did so. When he returned his gaze to Kamiya, he answered candidly, "I would prefer to answer about my journey's purpose at another time, when my thoughts are not disrupting the reflection of the pool." It was an odd turn of phrase, but a common one in his old pack: the allegory of a mind's placidity paralleling a pool which, without complete assurance and inner peace, distorted the image within due to its ripples. "But I can promise an answer when I come to face it."
He wanted to think himself proud . . . fearless . . . Such foolish thoughts when he first started out. And now they may very well doom him.
But Chou shrugged these thoughts off for now, for this was not the time and place to bring them up when he had asked for a rain check. "But I can speak of my old pack; that much I owe." He resettled himself on his haunches and nodded for her to do the same if she pleased.
"Setsuri lands are farther away from here than several weeks' travel, more southern than the ones who live underground and breed like ants." He did not catch wind of the pack's name, only what they often lived within: and he smelled bear there, and had moved quickly onward. "It is different there. Everything has bright colors, even our prey. Browns and blacks do not happen in majority; and one is devoid of color, the shamans declare it a sign, for good or for ill."
Chou paused again, his gaze lowering for a moment as he remembered something. Then he continued:
"I wish to know more of your pack as well. Shall we trade information as a new point of interest is brought up?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:40 am
Her brows raised at his sidestepping of her question and his odd phrasing. He was a strange wolf, indeed, and more clearly foreign even than she. But she decided to let it go, as she suspected that if she pushed that he would push back, and she had no interest whatsoever in explaining to him that she had been in congress with a wolf half her age.
Her interest piqued as he spoke of his land, however. She was unfamiliar with the pack he spoke of, but she knew the lay of the land and suspected because of it that Kapu'Moana must lay just above these ant-breeding wolves. Not that he would have passed through its lands; the territory was so small that it was easily overlooked.
She smiled. "We are the same. Earthtones are an odd sight amongst us, and they're usually seen as bad luck." Or fodder for sacrifices, she thought, but didn't say. The last time sacrifices had come up in conversation the person she'd talked to had refused to drop the topic.
Her brow furrowed, though, as something tugged at her memory. "...Devoid of color," she mused, softly. "You mentioned once that you're searching for someone...your sister?...who looks like you, but white. Was she a good omen, or a bad one?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:59 am
Chou blinked. It had been a while since he had mentioned that tidbit of information . . .
"That is still up for debate," he answered simply, not wanting to divulge all of his sister's life. That was a right she still held. "I for one only see her as my sister, Jun, not as a sign of good or evil. That is too much pressure to put on any wolf. It was what caused her to flee the only home she has ever had; no wolf should be forced to leave their home for something they cannot help."
It was that pressure which had caused all of Chou's trouble in the first place. Well alright, maybe his younger self's aptitude for being too defensive of his family didn't help either. At all.
But Kamiya did not need to know that yet. He was still suffering from shame.
"Earthtones . . . Setsurei call the worst of them doro. Mud. What do they do if an 'earthtone' is born in Kapu'Moana?" he asked curiously. "Bad luck" tended to draw attention.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:48 pm
She looked at him thoughtfully. Now he was definitely holding something back, but she didn't begrudge him for it -- she thought she sensed pain behind those inscrutably calm eyes, and that was just enough to satisfy her.
It did, however, make her wonder even more why he was lurking around with her on a pointless mission rather than facing those demons from his past. But then, she was hardly one to talk about running away. She'd made a career of it, herself.
"It depends on how angry the goddess was," she said, a bit dryly. She hesitated, debating whether or not to add anything. "They could hold no rank, although that wasn't unique to them. Plenty of us will never see anything but servitude." She didn't sound bothered by that. Indeed, she kind of missed it. At least when you were in the working class, you never had to think too hard. "But when things get very bad, and the goddess must be appeased, the earth-toned wolves are fed to her first." So much for not bringing up sacrifice.
But, somehow, she suspected Chou might understand
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