Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:51 pm

Kaqurei

Sabrina placidly took the stone and sought for an appropriate tower to stack it in. After a moment she said, "Interesting." She tried the stone on one, but decided it would unbalance the stack and gently eased it onto another instead.

"Yes," she said to Bianca's question without looking at her. "I was born in Ireland, at my father's estate in Dublin. My mother is American, however. She used to live here, in Reknab, actually."

The stone fit into its place. "Do you know about the time that your family's pack, as an official organization, was dissolved? Being such close neighbors, I wonder if there was ever a connection between yours and mine."

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:52 pm

Addie

"Uhhm," she pondered aloud, then chuckled awkwardly, "Now I wish I had listened better before... my fathers stories always stood out to me, because they were more illustrative I guess, but his family was more like... separated from society. Even now the Fox side of my family is very private, the reason being because so many of my distant relatives were banished from places or outright executed for dealing with "evil spirits". A lot of them would become law makers in secret or something to help the werewolf clans. I'm not sure at what point they ended up taking on a werewolf bloodline but a lot of them are still in Europe." she fidgeted with the tail end of her braid.

"That's the funny part; it's rumored that it was the Fox's who initially suggested the integration prospect to the Chapman's, since our family crest has a fox in it. But we don't know for sure if that's true. Ultimately many Chapman's agreed that this was a good way to secure their place in society, but aside from lone werewolves, it wasn't really commonplace in those days. A lot of Chapman's ended up coming to New York and kind of cut off their roots. So I want to say around the late seventeen hundreds? I have to write home to find out for sure..."

She looked up to the sky and crossed her arms over her chest.

"How did your father end up here, or your mother in Ireland?"

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:53 pm

Indy

Jackie huffed. She wouldn’t allow indignation to cross her face — she couldn’t afford to loose the competition, albeit in the strange form it was now. But she nonetheless was irritated. Had she been a cat her tail would have flicked back and forth. So she settled for the huff, and looked at the tree above Logan’s head.

"Jacqueline Anne-Marie," she shrugged, "It doesn’t really mean anything. My mother thought it sounded pretty, maybe"

She eyed the path downwards. She enjoyed looking over Logan’s head, but there was something satisfying in being up close and personal in someone’s space. Especially when they were insulting you. She eyed the trajectory.

"No one likes destruction Logan. The fire doesn’t ask to burn down the forest. It takes what it can get, and sometimes it’s a forest and sometimes its a campfire. The same goes for me; I don’t ask. It happens. C’est la vie."

The path was too steep to climb down unless she grew hooves. A shame she wasn’t part goat. She huffed again, sighed, then crouched. In one fluid motion she arced from the top of the small cliff to neatly settle besides Logan with a light thud.

"Besides," she added, "Weren’t you the one that followed me that day? I got caught up in the moment. But you? Maybe not ".

She waved her hand dismissively. "Don’t bother to answer that. It’s the past, who cares. But you know what? I’m still alive. I could have died a lot by now, but I’m still breathing, still burning, and maybe that means something. My life has been nothing but endurance".

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:53 pm

Mae

{Crack!}

A branch snapped somewhere in the woods up ahead of Logan and Jackie.

********

Still slumped in the earth, Ulric glanced at Theo as he went slowly to Toby's tree. "Theo and Toby seem to get along. They are almost friends." Ulric thought to himself, smiling solemnly. Despite the good nature of this thought, he began to feel somewhat lonely, and perhaps it was this sudden feeling of loneliness that drew his attention after Timothy once more.Timothy always seemed absorbed in his surroundings, he seldom spoke and even more seldom smiled. Ulric had tried many times in the past to make friends or at least carry on a short conversation, but all attempts proved vain. Would one more try make any difference?

Ulric stood up just as Timothy began to wander into the woods. Ulric might have called the direction aimless, but Timothy always appeared to know where he was going, so Ulric followed.

********

Behind the solitary cabin high on the cliffs of Phantom Mountain, the great black beast stood in the shadows of pine and log across from the reclusive woman of the wood. His eyes glinted with golden hues, a gaze cast long up the metal barrel to her features and down to her rigid hands. With a finger on the trigger and a face of stone, the woman was the picture of undaunted. The beast that stood before her was an insurmountable foe to which her natural power would have no chance to defeat, yet with one finger had she power to challenge him; therein was her confidence, therein was her strength, yet even withal he could hear her heart beating. The standstill under the trees lasted no longer than a fleeting moment, nonetheless it seemed to last. Yet no shot rang free; no sound rent the air. ... Thus the beast's form fell away to shadow and in his place was a man of great stature - his eyes unearthly bright, his hair and features fair, and his bare skin strange to see.

"One good turn deserves another." The man said, his deep voice breaking the silence.

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:53 pm

Addie

"Survival... I do think think is the same as endurance." Logan paused again and looked to Jackie, putting her hands on her friends shoulders and giving them a squeeze. With her head inclined slightly, she spoke, "Jackie, I do think you are weak. You are strong, I have respect for you. You do not need to prove yourself."

Those dusty purple eyes were focused intensely on Jackie's own blue eyes, and then Logan stepped away, raising her chin high once more.

"It is too hard to argue..." exasperated, she sighed under her breath. Then she looked up, hearing something up ahead, and only after a moment of waiting to confirm that it had not fled, continued more carefully and in a roundabout way, glancing to Jackie to indicate she wanted her to take the opposite path.

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:53 pm

Mae

On a mountainside everything is either up or down hill. The ground is steep with no paths to follow. Old trees and young trees stick out of the earth at odd angles. Branches and brier have no space between them.

Ulric followed Timothy up the mountain, climbing higher and higher on the uncharted slope. Ulric walked with hands and feet spread out, and thus climbed with ease, for a werewolf was naturally well adapted to the terrain in his secondary form. Timothy, however, went barefooted up the slope with his ankles at such a close forty-degree angle that Ulric wondered how he could take the strain.

"Don't you think your other skin would do better?" Ulric wondered at last out loud.

"I don't have another skin." Timothy said in reply.

"What do you call it then?" Ulric asked, watching the dirt from Timothy's path fall loosely down the mountain. Everything that fell seemed to fall a long way...

"I don't call it anything." Timothy irritably retorted.

Ulric watched Timothy's steps keenly and paused to look down at the increasingly daunting height behind them. "Its getting pretty steep up here. Shouldn't we head back down? We might fall from here."

"I don't care if you fall off the mountain."

Ulric's ears dropped briefly, but he was too disconcerted looking down to care much about the comment. "That's alright," he said, "I'm sure a lot of people would agree with you."
Timothy continued climbing the mountain, and Ulric stood for a long time watching him ascend. Rigid, rocky ledges could be seen through the trees higher up, and every loose piece of gravel that fell behind Timothy's ankles fell three times as far as before. At length, looking back down the mountain for perhaps for some sign of aid to turn Timothy's course, Ulric made up his mind to follow Timothy once again.

Climbing faster than Timothy had, Ulric caught up with the former at the foot of the rock wall. Here, the turmoil of the mountain could be clearly seen and felt. The air was thinner and colder, the trees more weather-worn, and the earth a living testament of the powers that passed over its face. The astounding evidence of ferocious storms seen at this height was an intimidating sight; massive boulders had been rent from the ledge and hurtled miles down the mountain; great trees, torn up from the root and snapped straight in half, were strewn out behind. Though all was peaceful and quiet now, Ulric worried about being in the mountain during a winter storm.

While Ulric took in the view, Timothy reached the rock wall and began following it along its base. He seemed to cling to it most of the way, for the ground was now so steep that one could not walk straight across it without grave risk. When Ulric turned to follow Timothy, he saw him using a fallen tree to increase his foothold and moving steadily along.

"Where are we going?" Ulric asked, hesitant to follow any further.

Timothy did not reply, but presently he reached a small, dark crevice in the mountain face and bent down to crawl inside.
In order to follow him now, Ulric knew he would have to relinquish his secondary form, and he didn't trust his human feet quite as well as Timothy did.... Nonetheless, Ulric was done looking down, so he followed.

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:53 pm

Kaqurei

"Hmm," Sabrina hummed, digesting what Bianca had said. "I see." She looked then content to lay the subject aside and get back to her meditation--or whatever it was she was doing--until Bianca asked regarding her parents.

She smiled, almost a wry look on her canid face. "I suppose one good turn deserves another," she said softly. She leaned back and considered the answer.

"My mother was is American," she said simply. "My father was here on business when they met. They decided to marry, and so returned to his home in Ireland."

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:54 pm

Kaqurei

****

The woman wrinkled her nose, and did not put away her gun. "And just what do you mean by that?" she asked, her voice bordering on accusation.

She stared at him a moment longer. Then finally she set her rifle at ease. She clicked her tongue. "Come on in, and we'll talk," she said with a jut of her head to gesture at the cabin. She half turned to go in that direction herself, but stopped. She looked back at him, nose wrinkled again. "Not like that. Get you a shirt on and we'll talk."

****

Quote from Adriana on August 25, 2018, 3:54 pm

Mae

The Alpha smiled.
"You'll have to forgive me," he said, "Had I known that I would find myself at gunpoint this afternoon, I would have worn something more appropriate."

It was a gamble to lower his secondary form in the presence of another, but her entry told him this woman was anything but surprised to find a werewolf outside her hut. Was she a werewolf herself? Her scent was masked, but the rifle in her hands denoted some doubt. After all, a rifle was a terrible disadvantage for any werewolf - a clumsy, loud weapon in comparison of a more skillful approach to an ambush. No, she was not a werewolf, but clearly she was someone who had stepped over that threshold of knowledge into their world.

"I regret to decline your hospitality." He said further, "You might imagine a house is as comfortable to me as a shirt might be, and I would prefer neither presently. However, I am obliged to your restraint that my skull has only the natural holes my mother intended. To whom do I owe my debt of gratitude?"