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 Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:07 pm
 Novacaine was in a surprisingly thoughtful mood.
He generally made a point of not thinking too much. Exploring and examining, absolutely. Soaking in the details and wonderment of all the world, always. But not actually thinking. It generally depressed him.
But more and more, he was starting to find it impossible to ignore some of the concerns that had cropped up in his life. At the end of the day, he was filled with a deep-seated unhappiness that was more than a spot of melancholy. It was a gnawing emptiness that settled in his gut. A feeling that he would never really fit in with his family...and that he could never be satisfied with knowing that.
That was the hard part. If he had simply recognized his differences from his family and packmates, and accepted it, he would have been fine. He wasn't the only sane wolf in Agua Azul, after all. But he might have been the only one who tried really hard not to be. He might have been the only one who lay awake and longed for something else. He wanted, in his heart, to be part of something...and that was the thing that hurt him the most.
He sighed and rolled over onto his side, staring absently into the undergrowth, and wondered how he could ever get up the courage to go looking for something he didn't even know existed.  Fubar, on the other hand, was in an astonishingly good mood - as close to a good mood as he ever was, anyway. He lay with his head between his paws, his tail occasionally sweeping the ground behind him, staring daggers into his cousin's skull.
"If you're that unhappy, you should just leave," he said, suddenly, as though picking up a conversation they'd been having, despite the quiet that had been between them for hours now. This was fairly ridiculous advice for the blue wolf to give, but he didn't care.
Something moved, nearby, and he flicked an ear. "I think someone's coming. A bear, probably. Going to kill us both."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 4:20 pm
 Cue had walked in silence alongside Aislin, his hope that she would abstain from talking, too. For such a short journey, he managed to cover a whole lot of ground; it was as if the act of coming upon her friends in itself brought about his courage. And he had found it, just as soon as he'd realized desperately what he had to do. Calm settled over him like a hand at his back, and he looked to Aislin with an air of unprecedented readiness, of authority, before he strode into the clearing, his head high, his chest full. "I'm Cumulonimbus,", he told them, his yellowy eyes meeting each of theirs with heartbreaking earnestness, "and we came to tell you that we have to leave."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:05 pm
 Aislin trailed behind him, silent and gentle, like a lovely virginal ghost. The sun was making a slow descent into the ocean at her back, and the light managed to hit her at just the right angle to give her something of a halo as it glittered off of her pale fur.
She watched after Cue as he strode confidently into their midst, and her heart wrenched. He was so...compelling. She hoped the others would feel that, but she wasn't sure that they would.
Still, if it didn't work right away, she had complete faith that between the two of them they could find the right nerve to hit. Novacaine rolled over onto his belly, thrusting himself up onto his paws. He was alarmed -- or, anyway, as close as he got to being alarmed, which meant he moved slightly faster than a tree sloth and his eyes widened just a bit more than usual. He regarded Cue with a long, probing gaze, then looked at Aislin as she crept in behind him. He looked back at Cue.
"Okay."
He knew that Aislin had been spending a lot of time with him lately -- time that she didn't spend sleeping, anyway -- but he hadn't suspected they would be so serious already. Then again, what did he know about relationships? He was the king of caution, anyway.
A long, pregnant pause. Then, because it seemed like he was expected to say something else, he added, "...Good luck."
Fubar quirked a brow at him, the arrow over his eye twisting. "...Where are you going?" He asked. Clearly, Cue's words hadn't had quite the pregnant impact that they were intended for. Damn those vague pronouns!
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:33 pm
Cue's lips pursed, as if in grief at the pink wolf's understanding, and he shook his head, still looking earnestly from one wolf to the other, trying to read their faces. "We're going," he said, with a first look back to tender Aislin, "to somewhere better than here. It will be safe, first of all, but it will also be better." At this his eye fixed on Novacaine; he thought he knew what he saw there, the aching hollowness of a wolf who has nothing in his life but the recitation of a thousand meaningless words and actions. "A place where every wolf has a purpose, where life is good."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:06 pm
Aislin, sensing that Cue could use some backup, Aislin added softly, "You can both come, too." Then, just to make sure that the point was made clear. "In fact, that's what we're asking -- we want you both to come." As she said this, her eyes flicked meaningfully to Fubar.
Fubar was always charmed by flattery, although it also made him immediately suspicious. "And where is this great place, then? Why haven't I heard about it?" His eyes narrowed. It was hard to tell which would be more upsetting -- if such a place did exist and nobody had ever told him, or if it was all a lie or some kind of trick.
Novacaine turned that unnervingly probing gaze back at Aislin and blinked a long, slow blink. Oh. He hadn't expected to be invited. That put a totally new perspective on this.
He looked back at Fubar when he spoke. That...seemed like a good question. He looked back expectantly at Cue, but there was something stirring in those deep green eyes -- something eager and hungry.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 9:17 pm
Cue paused, then gave a thoughtful shrug. "Because it doesn't exist yet," he answered, "because we have to make it." His brows set with a beatific sort of determination. "We've been having...visitations. It came down upon me at the beach ten days ago. And ever since, it's been visiting Aislin in dreams, showing her the same message, night after night. There is bloodshed and tragedy headed for this pack...but just as important, we're being guided to something beautiful outside of it." His ears trembled, and oh, you could almost imagine tears glistening in those bright eyes! He spent equal, measured time looking at both males, his face earnest, but ready for rejection. He seemed to be well aware of how strange his claims must sound.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:26 pm
Fubar started to say something, but Novacaine gave him a rough shove to stay quiet. "Bloodshed and tragedy?" He asked, and his voice quivered a little. All of his family was in Agua Azul, and as much as he was annoyed with his family members lately, he couldn't bear the thought of something terrible happening to them. His green eyes widened with alarm, and his usually-monotone voice picked up the slightest hint of fear. "...Like...a war? We have to warn everyone!"
Aislin nodded grimly. "That's why we're telling you. We want everyone to know." She hesitated, shifting a bit from paw to paw. She could tell how miserable Novacaine looked, and she had some of the same anxieties. "I...I don't know exactly how the Presence communicates. I mean, I know it's telling us to leave, and find a happy place....but the vision's it's showed me, I don't know if they're literal, or if they stand for something. It might be...just...a place away from unhappiness. Or it might really be a terrible disaster."
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 2:09 pm
Of course - he hadn't considered how much family these two would have. And just when he thought he was doing well, too! He sighed, but didn't allow his posture to drop more than a notch. "We don't know who will even listen to us." He eyeballed Aislin. "We can tell them what we've seen, but I don't know how much time we have. And I'm worried that if we tell the wrong wolves, somebody may actually try and stop us." He heaved a sigh, and cast Fubar a searching look. "Will you come with us?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 12:46 am
"Well, I don't want to sit around and wait for the sky to fall in," Fubar said, and it was difficult to tell whether he was being entirely sarcastic or if there was genuine worry behind the words -- Fubar often worried, or claimed to worry, about such issues, but no one ever knew how seriously to take him. "It sucks here, anyway."
He caught Aislin beaming at him, and added in a low grumble, "But -- just so we're all clear -- I don't believe a single word of any of this. I think you'll get a few feet outside the border, realize you're hungry, and the whole adventure will be off." Fubar would never be caught dead admitting he might be excited about anything.
Novacaine bit his lower lip in anxiety. "I...okay," he said, hesitantly. He glanced at Fubar, then at Aislin, then finally laid his eyes fully on Cue. He imagined himself warning his family of impending danger...and, quite suddenly, his thoughts were filled with derisive laughter that rang cruelly in his mind and blocked out all other thought.
His family had never been as cruel to him as he imagined them to be. But there was no telling him that; the more he thought about it, the more he realized that his family divided almost evenly into two categories. Those who were too crazy and self-absorbed in their craziness to really care what happened to him...and those who never gave him the time of day.
But...leaving them all to die? That is, of course, if anything were actually going to happen...but, then...who would listen to them? Cue was right. This was so hard.
He glanced at Fubar, who was so quick to dismiss all of this, and wished he felt so confident one way or the other. "You said every wolf would have a purpose?" He asked, finally, a bit dubiously. "That life...life will be better than it is here?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:38 pm
Nimbus's eyes shone as he gazed at Novacaine, as pained and accepting as the eyes of a Pietà . "You matter," he answered, with a sincerity that would break the heart of any cynic. "You can be great. We can be great."
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Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:02 pm
Novacaine's tail swayed, ears perking forward. No one had ever told him that before. He was fairly certain of that, anyway -- he sure couldn't remember anyone ever telling him that he could be great, or even that he mattered. He wasn't sure he believed it, but he didn't dare say anything for fear that it would all be taken back away from him immediately.
So, he rose up to his paws and shook himself out and said, with earnestness, "...When do we go?"
Fubar's thoughts were already whirring. He was thinking of a certain stormy grey female who seemed to think he was pretty nice already, thank you very much. But he didn't really want her joining Agua Azul...meeting all of his relatives. What if she decided she didn't like him anymore? Well, not that he cared one tiny bit if she liked him at all. Right.
If he was going to be stuck with a group of weirdos, he might as well be stuck with the right weirdos. Or at least a smaller batch of them.
"Give us...a couple of days," he said, vaguely. "So that we can finish things up. And...you know. Say goodbye, or whatever stupid thing you have to do."
"You can bring Sophia," Aislin said, patiently, and she could have laughed at the look of shocked indignation on Fubar's face if she had been paying any attention. "If she wants to come. What's important is that we go as soon as we can."
She knew there had already been one war -- the war of succession, unseating Twist from the alphahood. Would Chocolate not be able to hold the pack together? Was that what the visitation had tried to tell them? Who was it safe to tell their plans to?
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Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:21 pm
Nimbus's face had gained the rapt and almost predatory tenseness of a cat watching a squirrel on the other side of a window. "Two days from now," he confirmed, smiling from Nova to Fubar to Ais. "That's when our lives will start." He felt the euphoria in his words sinking into the meat of his body, the very tissue, and the joy, the ambition there made him smile wider, made him almost glow with pride, with hope. He caught Aislin's eye as he turned, suddenly untroubled with the awkwardness of his body, and loped gracefully away into the trees.
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