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 Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 7:50 pm
Location: Southwest Region of Quadrant 4, Ya'ax River
Timeline: Current, end of Summer Needles littered the ground, dampened from rain two days previous. The sky was moist, cool, and scattered clouds blew overhead pushing the region from shadow to light. Kiros' eyes always grew fuzzy when moisture sprinkled on trees gleamed in the passing sunlight.
The four wolves--himself, Kaho, Kara, and Ran--had recently arrived along the Ya'ax. They'd paused at an unnaturally sharp bend where a deep pool rested serenely over a gouge in the earth. Its waters were eerily clear. They were cold enough to bite through his thin fur and the hottest part of the day without running risk of a slow death. Kara had been more agitated upon their arrival, not less. The scent of other wolves was prevalent in the region and the four ran a risk of intruding on hostile company every movement they took. What was more, the ash seemed to have receded behind them. Sooner or later, they would need to decide whether they would walk their lives away or find another patch of ground to settle. The latter appealed to Kara, and Kiros would rather the first.
With no mate, no son, and no daugther, there was very little for which Kiros to stay. He lingered with this group, cynical as its components were, because they had sheltered him and safety existed in numbers. However, it was fear that kept him rooted. Fear of starving, fear of loneliness, fear of aggression. Kaho and Kara had an inordinate amount of the latter two, and despite Kiros' best efforts, even his pleasant conversation could not lift the pessimism. And he had tried, to the point of seeming nosy, to gleam happiness out of their group. Did he miss his children, his mate? Every day. But it had never occurred to him that life might not be worth pursuing, that it would be better to simply fling oneself into a pit, or fire, or wave.
As he ambled along a cliff-face, awing at the angular black rocks that had rolled to a significant distance below, his heart stopped for a fraction of a second. Kaho was a seer with remarkable grasp on other's minds. While he did not unnerve Kiros in the way he seemed to drive Kara to her own state of madness, it was still a surprise when a seemingly subconscious thought was heard and addressed by the butterfly-patterned male. Kiros' mind, now, leapt to the fear that Kaho was about to hurtle himself off the overlook.
"Pleasant day, Kaho," he called out, placing great effort into keeping his voice calm and what he hoped was soothing. "I think these lands are asking us to stay a while."
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 8:57 pm
Kaho blinked.
Suddenly, the world was clearer, bigger. What once served as white noise meant something again. Someone was talking, calling to him.
He tittered a laugh and turned from the pair of deer, a doe and her fawn. His voice shook as the ground in Telk had. "Ki —" Kaho set himself aright before he tried again. "Kiros." But it was too soft, no louder than the breeze soughing over the jagged stone and tepid water of these lands. Finally, "Kiros," and it was louder. Steadied.
Kaho resented him the most at times like this, when he was ambling around as though they weren't in perpetual danger of all the things he stayed with them to avoid. He was too much like Ran, and as far as Kaho could tell without prying — in more than one sense of the word — Kara had noticed the similarities. He wanted to believe she had outgrown her unrequited affections for their resident shaman, but he wondered if her recent bad mood wasn't in part a backlash of Ran's kindred nature driving her to loiter around Kiros more frequently than either of them.
What pissed him off the most was seeing Kiros here, alive, when so many of their own were not. He'd tried with everything he had to reach out to those who had stayed — to Blue, Sashta, Retsu and the others. One by one, they stopped answering. One by one, mental connections were severed.
Dead.
And he didn't have the luxury of pretending they weren't.
"I think they're more accepting it than asking," Kaho replied, peering down at him. Beneath the jocular remarks, everything had roots in cruel truth; they ran deep and spread through rotten soil where nothing else could grow.
Standing downwind and quiet as the dead (heh), the deer hadn't noticed him when he'd first clambered up the rocks to try to survey what lie ahead. Hunting was an opportunity consequence had robbed him of. Normally, he'd leave them be out of necessity, if not indifference. But watching her down there with her son, everything going so well for them...
He hadn't meant to. He had never wanted to practice... that. For a minute, he was someone else. Someone with blood running equal parts hot and cold. Someone cruel enough to foist their presence on the mind of an unsuspecting animal and try to take control. He could feel the hooves, the ears, the heartbeat. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could run her off a ledge, and he'd see how happy the fawn was after that —
Then Kiros had called to him and Kaho had blinked.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 9:27 pm
The grey wolf's chest inflated, and he dropped his eyes to the precipice edge when his cavity collapsed, letting out a hard-won breath.
"Well, that is just a thought." And Kaho's thoughts did nothing but bring himself down. Kiros' steps took him further from the ledge and he jogged the final steps to reach Kaho. His tail, held low, wagged slowly behind him.
"Are you thinking?" A quiet step forwards, aligned his shoulder with the seer's. The tree-tops swayed against the breeze, and their roots seemed impossibly small. The air was not quiet, however. A distant, young crow was hollering a name at the top of his lungs--no doubt missing a parent.
Kiros retook the breath he had lost, concentrating on the way it traveled down his throat. He'd awoken last night, the moon high in the air, with lungs that felt aflame. The ground had tingled his feet, and he had looked up to the sky with a sudden revelation. The utter vastness and potential of the future had struck him. Perhaps it was the air of this new land, or a renewed sense of purpose, but his lungs still burned when he took these lengthened breaths.
At the very least, it kept him from thinking about his family and fretting about Kaho's next downtrodden answer. It was unfair of him to resent Kaho for his nature, Kiros knew, but the feelings came despite that. If he could just accept that some things in life could not be changed, he was sure Kaho would be happier.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 9:55 pm
Kaho shook his head. It wasn't his intention, but for a second, perhaps Kiros would find respite in that his answer was left to half-hearted gesticulating and dismissive noises akin to a response. "Mm," said the seer, standing opposite him in every way a wolf could.
The deer, he realized, were already long gone. As he searched for them, he queried, "Have you seen Ran this morning?" when what he really meant was had he seen her last night. Alone. Because he himself hadn't, and Kara hadn't, and if she wasn't with them...
He looked askance at him, waiting, not unlike the too calm manner in which he'd once observed the doe with her fawn.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:14 pm
Mm.
Kiros explored the colors dotting the backs of his eyelids. He could almost make out the name in the distance--Tratchl, Tratotl, no Traxtl?--Ran. Muzzle twitching, he responded in a murmur, "Kara asked me that same question a fraction of the day ago."
The silence lengthened between them, until Kaho's patience outgrew Kiros'. An eyelid poked open, the other parting slowly as his gaze shifted. In order to see the full-butterfly on a dark face, Kiros had to turn his head.
"She left early." At the time, interrupting his peaceful, breathy snores. Deep dreams healed the exhaustive reality of the day. When he awoke, it was slowly, and he had to smell each flower, each tree as though he were a newborn puppy becoming reacquainted with his surroundings. If this process was interrupted, he would fall into a fit of depression that could only be corrected by solitude.
"I'm sure she's fine. Why don't you reach out to her?" Unlike Kara, it seemed unlikely that Ran would make a sport of Kaho's face for investigating where he did not belong. The shaman's company was enjoyable, and she possessed a bright set of eyes and curiosity that reminded Kiros of a young Pavati. His tail lifted and Kiros' ears perked forwards. Perhaps when he overcame the crippling fear of loss, he would once again have a family.
He tried to imagine Jozi's face, but the lines around her eyes had begun to blur. The exact tone of her voice mixed with the crow. Even her smell was too much like Kaho. What would she think of him, now?
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:43 pm
Kaho had always possessed more raw power than skill. A seer without a solid mentor to guide them was as likely to harness their gifts proficiently as a bird with plucked feathers was to fly. The visions he'd had an affinity for from the start; the mental chatter, though, was difficult and exhausting, let alone with how often he'd had cause to use it the past several weeks. Maybe he was going mad from it. They'd all heard the stories of seers that crumbled away into insanity.
Whether or not he should have heeded Kiros' suggestion, he beckoned Ran just the same, and indeed, her answer was jovial, warm, so very unlike --
I'm with Kara, she told him. I've been back.
Kaho mouthed the response to himself. He had taken to staring at his paws while the brief conversation was underway. Its conclusion coincided with the tail end of Kiros' moment of reflection. With both their minds wide open, Kaho didn't hear much, but he heard enough. He leveled his gaze with that mismatched pair of eyes. They seemed fitting, when he thought about it.
"You know what pisses me off the most about you, Kiros?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:53 pm
Tail falling, Kiros swallowed down the butterflies that rose into his throat. What pissed him off? His jaw clamped together as he began to consider the possibilities. Perhaps it was his optomism? That, despite his good words, they were no closer to an answer? It took every bone of solidarity in his body to fight the instinct to apologize.
"No, I don't." He shuffled on his feet, tail turning to Kaho as he crept towards the smell of pine, and the pleasant ruffle of wind in his fur. Breathe. Kiros concentrated on the sway of his weight onto his hind limbs. His front paws felt light when his rump touched the ground, and he let them slip forwards until they met nothingness.
"What makes you angry?" He lacked the stomach to add himself to the question.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 11:17 pm
And Kaho lacked the strength of conscience to not do so on his behalf. That soothing inner-voice was helpless to sound off over the pounding of his heart, the quaking intake of breath. The guilt twisted his gut, but instead of apologies, he used wrath as emotional succor.
"It's that you — that you think you've got all of us figured out." Kaho swallowed. A harsh burst of air expanded his nostrils. He was standing taller than he had before, looming almost. "That you're fine with what happened, everyone dying worse than prey. That you think you've got all this figured out too," he went on ruthlessly, albeit with wavering coherency. "When the truth is maybe you're just..."
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 11:35 pm
A onlooker might have grown jealous with Kiros' skill in keeping his temper low, and his jaw clamped shut. This was an outsider's pleasure, for Kiros himself felt his tongue turn to water in his mouth. Blood rushed into his head, the heavy, slow-pressing weight of guilt drawing back his ears.
His eyes wandered along the scarred, black callouses for pawpads. Maybe he was just as lost as them? He twitched one forepaw, watching it sink towards the earth many meters below.
"Yeah." A pasty seed had grown in his mouth and throat, constricting, drying. His voice cracked. He steadied himself and waited for Kaho to finish. If he didn't air his grievances now, then they would surface later, perhaps at a crucial moment; Kiros briefly considered these times.
And Kaho was right. It was selfish to think his answer was the one Kaho should follow. Everyone grieved on their own. The disaster was still fresh--though he could not picture Jozi's face, he could still clearly see the sky shake under the anger of the mountain, and feel the panic when the ash grew so thick it was more dirt than air. It was unfair to ask him to forget that.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 11:52 pm
Kiros, too, was right. In choosing silence now, Kaho unknowingly reassured him he would be all the louder later. He was that kind of wolf, for better or worse. Heavy subjects and their side effects, long-term planning, anything so far in future meant he was likely to lose his interest. In this case, he lost his nerve.
It would never have been his answer, but it was the honest one: What pissed him off the most about Kiros was how much of himself Kaho saw in him. Had this happened before it did, it could have easily been him dismissive of his lost family, his long gone friends, bound and determined to shrug it all off and live his life.
It made him envious.
It made him sick.
"Yeah," Kaho echoed, his voice more or less audible, the word more or less understandable. He bowed his head, then he shook it again. "Yeah. Right. We need to -- get back. Ran's with Kara already."
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 12:04 am
Kaho's voice began to calm. Thump. Kiros' tail struck on the ground as it wagged. An tangible, physical apprehension tugged at the atmosphere between them.
"You go on ahead." Thump, thump, thump. "I'd like to finish my walk."
Did he think he had them figured out? The distant, rotting log gave him no answer. The clouds presented no explanation.
Reversing the position he'd used to seat himself, Kiros moved to all fours and shook in an attempt to scatter the dust that had settled, both real and imagined. "I won't be long."
Finally, he could gaze back at red eyes. Both to convince himself and reassure Kaho, Kiros raised his tail.
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