Rorret was tired. For the first time in months, he was genuinely lie-down-and-snooze exhausted, and the sun hadn't even come down. Granted, he wasn't supposed to be awake yet. Most of his kin would be rising within a few hours. But Rorret wasn't most of his kin, and right now he wasn't even at home.
He was heading home from his most recent interaction with....her. He tried not to remember her name. Tried because he knew what he would have to do to her later, when the pups were older, and the less he thought about her the easier that would be.
Rorret didn't have much of a heart, but what he had was fluttering with anticipation and a little unease at the task that lay before him.
But there was time for that yet, and in the meanwhile all this double-life living was making him exhausted. Giving a tremendous yawn, he flopped down in the shade of a tree in god-knows-where and willed sleep to come.
He lay in the only den in the middle of the dunes, muzzle on his restless paws. Brishen was a large wolf, truly the grandson of Gomorrah's Piper, even if his pelt showed his lineage from Agua Azul. A dark orange with pale blue eyes, he truly was a strange creature. He was large, but build slim and slight, almost feminine if not for the squared muzzle and thick brush of a tail.
The almost-muggy June air breezed past, rippling his fur and he stood. This didn't feel like home, although he stood at the heart and soul of his homelands. The dirt under his paws should've felt welcoming, and instead he felt like a perfect stranger. With a nearly inaudible sigh, he headed for the boundary lines. He didn't stop. He just kept moving.
His ears swept forward. Someone was coming. Dammit. Well, no rest for the wicked, as they say. Wearily, he threw himself back up onto his paws, calculating how long he had to ge thome and slip back into his cloak before someone noticed. Blinking into the twilight, he peered out and sought the intruder to his nap.
Brishen moved slowly, cutting through the forest on quiet paws. The night sounds buzzed around him--crickets, nightbirds, treefrogs--and he breathed in slowly. An ear flicked. In a field to his left, a herd of deer were grazing noiselessly, resting for the night. Although he hadn't eaten, he didn't feel the urge to hunt, not even when hunting burned the restless energy throbbing just under the surface. And to his right... He froze, head snapping up. He stared into the bushes. Wolf. Male. Now the question was...go forward and face him, or turn back for Gomorrah...
His nose twitched. Hesitation? Was that hesitation he sensed? He glanced around himself, debating whether he should slip away or confront the interloper. He also debated which face to put on if he did go out to greet him. He had so many these days.
"I hear you," he said, almost lazily, to the creeping darkness. Almost on a whim, he slipped backwards into a shadow, allowing it to envelop him entirely safe for the mismatched glow of his eyes.
The words were barely audible from their distance apart, but Brishen's nose quivered and his ears swiveled forwards. Of course he heard him--Brishen wasn't keeping quiet. Perhaps he was reckless as well as restless. Perhaps he wanted to fight, wanted to feel the thrum of anxiety laced with perfect pain. Gather a few scars and "look at me, father dearest". Not bitter in the least. He let out a hoarse laugh. "Are you so small that you hide from me?" he asked, his own voice gruff, but from misuse. Unless it was soft talks with his little sisters, Brishen said little.
Rorret slid through the shadows, walking a slow circle around the other wolf, sizing his up. Bitterness seemed to roll off of him in waves. How tragic. "Small...or large, like the night sky," Rorret said, vaguely, from a place much closer than he had last spoken.
Brishen stood stock-still, muscles tense as the other wolf sized him up. Only his ears moved, swiveling to focus on the stranger. He narrowed his eyes at the other wolf. He was no smaller than himself, lean and young and...devious. He could smell that on him. Slowly, Brishen tried out a smile. "Perhaps. Sit." He motioned to the spot in front of him, then, to show he was unafraid, he plopped his rear down and curled his bushy tail around his hindquarters.
Rorret allowed the shadows to release their hold on him. He wasn't wearing his cloak, so he felt comfortable enough in having this discussion here, now. If things didn't go the way he wished, he could leave the other wolf alive -- if he wanted to. "You're brave," he said, idly, drawing himself to sit on his haunches. Brave. Evarb. Arbitrary. Was his selection of this wolf arbitrary? No, somehow he didn't think so. "To approach a stranger in the dark." Somehow it felt almost fated, considering what he had done with the rest of his day leading up to this moment. "Or perhaps you are confident that no one will hurt you....or simply don't care."
This time, it was a smirk that rose up, a smirk that never reached his eyes. "Hn. Let's go with Number Three. I simply don't care. You have no reason to wish me harm and you will get none. And besides, if I come up missing...my family would step up to the plate." He shrugged, eying the wolf, noting the pale fur with a tinge of green. Wasn't there a legend of a great green wolf, a gypsy-man with secrets to spill? His lips twitched again. "Are you happy with life?" he asked, almost at random.
Ahh, so that was it, was it? The disaffected son of some royal family, perhaps. How quaint. Rorret was bored already.
Still, there was something else about him that stayed his paw. "Every day of my life," he responded, truthfully. Rorret did love his life, down to the most minute detail. It was a dangerous life, but he liked that about it.
Brishen felt a gentle wave of envy light his heart. This wolf, he didn't look to be from a pristine bloodline, nor did he smell strongly of pack. So was he a rogue? A loner? And if so... "Perhaps you'd be willing to share a few...secrets among brothers," he murmured, tipping his head briefly. Because his point of view? Life was full of painful, suffering days. He knew he shouldn't be this way--his parents had sustained far worse in the eye of a storm called Tornado...still it didn't help. It didn't help that his sister was weak and wary of the world. It didn't help that he was angry, bitter. It didn't help that his mother was dead. He coiled his lip upwards just the slightest, shaking his head.
Brothers. The word made him smile, although its use had been incidental. "The company of fine wolves," he said, a fisherman casting his line. If he could have read his mind, he would have smiled, as they had so much in common. "And being part of something greater than myself."
He turned a question back toward the other. "If you are unhappy, Brother, perhaps you have yet to find your higher calling."
