Post by helaku on Jan 27, 2010 15:45:11 GMT -5
Haze - Adult Male Wolf, Lazuli
Aquene - Adolescent Female Wolf
----
It's been a number of days now since he last met with his nephews from Viridian, and the Lazuli alpha has decided it would be a good time to check in on the status of things - whether Tariro has convinced the other valley-borne wolves that unification would be a good idea, and if so, where to go from here. Having set out on his journey back towards the north a short while ago, Haze is only about halfway along the distance from the heart of Lazuli packlands to the river where the Viridian wolves are currently staying. Heading along a leisurely path that takes him a bit further east than usual, the brindle-furred wolf is crossing over sandy, barren lands that are but a taste of the extreme heat of the deserts that lie further towards the lands where the sun rises. He is alone for now, having instructed Motega to wait behind until his call.
Aquene had wandered, at times slow and at times fast, from her birthlands since the argument with Skelaghe. The Ute Alpha just did not understand. She chose wolves not even family over family, and this was wrong. Father said it was wrong. Aquene had also lied to her mother in saying that she had eaten shortly before arriving home; she had not. Her instability, still having to deal with her father's death among not being able to live with her own pack, had left her a mite thin. She had not eaten, and had not eaten in a day or two. No longer did she feel inclined to eat for that matter. She did not care where she ended up after having left Ute, and in the open space she continued walking without an aim or a purpose.
An occasional warm breeze over the desert plains carries the rare scent of another, unfamiliar wolf towards Haze -- the Lazuli alpha hasn't caught so much as a whiff from other, non-Lazuli wolves in what seems like moons since they had migrated to the southern lowlands to hide away from danger, and so his curiosity is automatically piqued. Having abandoned any thoughts of being any more a true alpha than merely a puppet leader until he can be replaced in the new pack, Haze is less concerned about establishing territory or dominance, moreso about simply learning who this stranger is, and why they're here...though, of course, if his family is threatened, he will not back down. His muzzle tips back in a soft howl, not the commanding call that Motega is waiting for, but merely a greeting that this nearby wolf will be able to hear.
Aquene's ears subtly perked when she heard the howl, and normally she would howl in return but her heart just didn't feel like it any longer. Partially, she didn't howl because her first ever howl came a little late--on the old Ute lands when her father died. Howling for her was only a reminder of what she lost. Aquene, though, did not forget what her father had taught her and thus changed her course to head straight for the howling wolf.
Though she's still some distance away, it's not hard for Haze to spot the approaching wolfess as she starts to draw nearer, given the flat, barren terrain surrounding the both of them here. No howl is given in return to his greeting, but the quiet brindle-furred male takes no offense to the other wolf's silence...she's still approaching, after all. Though he remains on all fours as the she-wolf approaches, Haze's stance is casual enough, displaying neither dominance nor submission towards the other wolf just yet. When she's within hearing distance, he offers a polite greeting: "Good morning, fellow traveler."
Aquene kept her eye to the ground even as Haze approached. In her dismay over the entire mess that her life was, she still retained some of the senses her father taught her how to use. She knew roughyl where this male was, although she knew that she was in no condition to do anything about it. Finally, she looked up at him with her one eye and sat, her opening statement very direct. "Are you Haze?" she said, roughly. It wasn't an intention that she said it rough...merely her conditioning that made it so.
Haze's brows lift in obvious surprise as the response is not only a blunt question, but an accurate one at that. "Uh, yes, I am," he answers honestly, if a bit suspiciously. "Er...how do you know who I am? Or rather, perhaps the better question is, why are you looking for me?" He sniffs again at this stranger, though neither her scent nor her distinguishing scars draw any recollections to mind about who this wolfess might be...her scent is, at best, vaguely reminiscent of some wolves he has perhaps met once or twice, but has since forgotten, or at least has failed to associate with this young female.
Aquene's face woudl have softened it if could, but sadly that wasn't the case. "Good," she said. "Because I won't have to walk any further. A long time ago, around the time I was born you met a wolf similar to me some distance from here. He had red eyes, and a sun on his shoulder faded by time and torn by the scars from a bear's claw. Do you remember this wolf?" No, she wasn't saying everything to begin with. Hooking conversations was yet another lesson of her father. Never spill everything at once, keep the attention of the listener. She breathed Haze's scent and hoped her mind would remember it as she honestly beleived she'd forget it.
Haze is growing older by the day, and he has seen many, many things in his several-years-long lifetime, but some things stand out in his memory more than others. A wolf bearing the mark of the sun is one such thing, and the older male nods in affirmation. "I do...though his name escapes me." He only met the wolf in question once, twice at most, so he can't entirely be faulted for a lack of remembrance. "I'm afraid I wasn't too well acquainted with him, though." He assumes the adolescent she-wolf is seeking out the sun-bearing wolf, rather than the sun-bearing wolf seeking him out through her.
Aquene wrinkled her nose a slight tad, her face giving the impression that she might pass out at any moment though the truth was otherwise. "You met my father, Helaku," she said. "I am here to deliver a message for you, though I fear it will do little good being as I've abandoned my pack, to whom he was Alpha. In life, he started as a Beta of his original pack, the Ute. When disease struck, the pack mostly died. A few years later saw him as Alpha of a pack that has never walked these lands, the stealthly Miakoda very far to the northwest. Once his work was done there, he returned here and refounded the Ute as its Alpha, and that is about the time you would have met him. Before he died, he told me of you and gave me a message to deliver because in his life you were one of the few males that did not induce tension on him at any time when you met."
Haze listens carefully to the younger she-wolf as she begins her speech, ears pricked forward alertly to catch everything she says. He briefly wonders why he's been sought out to simply be told the history of a wolf he barely knew, but then Aquene mentions the message that she's come to deliver, and why. He's quiet for a brief number of seconds after the younger female stops speaking, considering all that's she said before replying. "I see. I apologize for your loss, but I am happy one of his last requests is able to be completed. What message did the sun-wolf Helaku have for me?"
"My father said to tell you that upon meeting you he saw that you were a noble wolf," she answered. "He believed a pack-bond could have been established with one like yourself, but internal circumstances interfered with his plans to do so. He saw many great things in you which at the time had yet to reveal themselves. Unfortunately, if you were to visit the pack he has left behind, most of the newcomers would speak ill of him." She frowned at this and looked off to the side. "They didn't know him. Their entry and sudden shifting views among the pack led to heavy tension."
Haze vaguely remembers hearing the mention of a forming pack to the north from a wolfess he met not too long ago, and if he recalls correctly, she happened to be the mate of Helaku. He himself had not yet sought them out, having been occupied with other matters within the Lazuli himself, likely similar issues to those that had delayed the wolf in question from doing the same himself. "I thank you for the kind words," the brindle-coated wolf replies, regardless of whether he believes them himself, "and I am sorry to hear of your father's, and your pack's, misfortune. But, is there something to be requested of me?" While the message is accepted and the compliments appreciated, Haze is wondering if there is more to this last request than just a delivered note.
Aquene slowly shook her head. "If there was, it died with him," she said. "When he told me of this message, the disease had set into his mind much by the time. He taught me his ways of the Ute, and of the Miakoda. And I say...not to bother with my birthpack until my brother, Abel, takes its reigns." She looked up at him again with her emotionally dead eye. "I would offer a return message, but there is no one to hear it. This all I have. I've done what he asked, but it feels unfinished."
Haze stores the bit of offered advice in his mind, and while he will not act on the matter himself now that he is to be stepping down, he will mention the note to Tariro for him to decide about himself with regards to their new pack. "No one to hear it -- but you, his daughter. I admit I have not got much to say, having not known Helaku so well myself, but I appreciate you delivering his message nonetheless. Despite how you feel, you have fulfilled your father's last request, and I am sure he appreciates it as well. It is a sniff of happiness in an otherwise unfortunate season. Thank you for coming to find me, daughter of Helaku."
Haze stores the bit of offered advice in his mind, and while he will not act on the matter himself now that he is to be stepping down, he will mention the note to Tariro for him to decide about himself with regards to their new pack. "No one to hear it -- but you, his daughter. I admit I have not got much to say, having not known Helaku so well myself, but I appreciate you delivering his message nonetheless. Despite how you feel, you have fulfilled your father's last request, and I am sure he appreciates it as well. It is a sniff of happiness in an otherwise unfortunate season. Thank you for coming to find me, daughter of Helaku."
"You are welcome," she replied. "To be proper, my name is Aquene." She fell silent after this, not knowing what else to say. Helaku never mentioned anything about joining any packs, and thus it left her literally free of any responsibility. The only thing she could think of was how he used to play with her when she was little, and how that affected her views on pups. She'd rather not have them, as playing with them may only bring her sadness given the first thing she'd think of would be him. Her father's death was something she'd never recover from. He had been there, always. "If there is nothing more," she finally said. "I should be on my way."
Haze dips his head in a slight, respectful bow to the younger wolfess upon receiving her own name. "Well met, Aquene. If it would not be too forward of me to suggest..." the brindled male trails off briefly before continuing his statement. "As you have lost your own family and pack, you would be welcome to stay with me and mine, though we are in the process of changing ourselves. I will no longer be alpha in this new, unified pack, but I can assure you that it is no stranger to broken families." If she declines, he will not push further, but he knows the instinctual calling of their kind to be among others of their own.
"I will have to consider it," she said, her ears swiveling about for any hints as to the whereabouts of other members. She had little desire to follow another pack at all, with senior members and whatnot having their way. "In the last weeks I have grown accustomed to living a certain way, the Miakoda way. It is not a way accepted by the packs of this region. Though I am Ute at heart, familial loyalty is also at the center of Miakoda way. I disowned my own mother because of the changes at home. I am...unfit for any pack life for the indefinite future. Somewhere out there, my half-brother, my father's son from an arrange mating in the Miakoda, also wanders. He left the Ute for the same reasons I did."
Haze nods simply in response to the adolescent female's reply. "Very well. Luna's eye illuminates different paths for each of us...I wish you luck upon finding your own place in her glow." The older wolf shakes out the prairie dust that's settled in his pelt since he first stopped moving forward, then returns his gaze to Aquene. "Thank you for the message, again -- but I must be on my own way, to conclude some unfinished business of my own. My offer still stands -- should you change your mind in the coming seasons, I'm quite sure you'll be able to find me a second time." His muzzle parts in a weary, yet light-hearted, smile.
Aquene returned the smile a slight, though she did not foresee herself changing her mind about anything. She had all ready reached the point in starvation where she did not want to eat, and had grown lethargic but not yet did she physically show signs of having not eaten. "I will see you again if that is the way," she said. She herself stood, but there was hardly anything about her. She had remembered of masking her scent though traces of it were here and there. When she bowed her head and started to walk on herown path, her body did not have the posture of a wolf that was descended from Alphas. The only thing it said of her was that her life had been completely destroyed, or that she did not care for a society of ranks. Her sauntering was slow, and eagerness to be anywhere remained nonexistant.
As Haze watches the young wolfess depart, he can't help but think that she holds much sadness within her, a heavy heart that comes from more, perhaps, than her father's death. As she disappears into the hazy air of the desert plains, his thoughts linger on her and the news she brought, before the aging alpha finally resumes his own journey, one step at a time.okay.
Aquene - Adolescent Female Wolf
----
It's been a number of days now since he last met with his nephews from Viridian, and the Lazuli alpha has decided it would be a good time to check in on the status of things - whether Tariro has convinced the other valley-borne wolves that unification would be a good idea, and if so, where to go from here. Having set out on his journey back towards the north a short while ago, Haze is only about halfway along the distance from the heart of Lazuli packlands to the river where the Viridian wolves are currently staying. Heading along a leisurely path that takes him a bit further east than usual, the brindle-furred wolf is crossing over sandy, barren lands that are but a taste of the extreme heat of the deserts that lie further towards the lands where the sun rises. He is alone for now, having instructed Motega to wait behind until his call.
Aquene had wandered, at times slow and at times fast, from her birthlands since the argument with Skelaghe. The Ute Alpha just did not understand. She chose wolves not even family over family, and this was wrong. Father said it was wrong. Aquene had also lied to her mother in saying that she had eaten shortly before arriving home; she had not. Her instability, still having to deal with her father's death among not being able to live with her own pack, had left her a mite thin. She had not eaten, and had not eaten in a day or two. No longer did she feel inclined to eat for that matter. She did not care where she ended up after having left Ute, and in the open space she continued walking without an aim or a purpose.
An occasional warm breeze over the desert plains carries the rare scent of another, unfamiliar wolf towards Haze -- the Lazuli alpha hasn't caught so much as a whiff from other, non-Lazuli wolves in what seems like moons since they had migrated to the southern lowlands to hide away from danger, and so his curiosity is automatically piqued. Having abandoned any thoughts of being any more a true alpha than merely a puppet leader until he can be replaced in the new pack, Haze is less concerned about establishing territory or dominance, moreso about simply learning who this stranger is, and why they're here...though, of course, if his family is threatened, he will not back down. His muzzle tips back in a soft howl, not the commanding call that Motega is waiting for, but merely a greeting that this nearby wolf will be able to hear.
Aquene's ears subtly perked when she heard the howl, and normally she would howl in return but her heart just didn't feel like it any longer. Partially, she didn't howl because her first ever howl came a little late--on the old Ute lands when her father died. Howling for her was only a reminder of what she lost. Aquene, though, did not forget what her father had taught her and thus changed her course to head straight for the howling wolf.
Though she's still some distance away, it's not hard for Haze to spot the approaching wolfess as she starts to draw nearer, given the flat, barren terrain surrounding the both of them here. No howl is given in return to his greeting, but the quiet brindle-furred male takes no offense to the other wolf's silence...she's still approaching, after all. Though he remains on all fours as the she-wolf approaches, Haze's stance is casual enough, displaying neither dominance nor submission towards the other wolf just yet. When she's within hearing distance, he offers a polite greeting: "Good morning, fellow traveler."
Aquene kept her eye to the ground even as Haze approached. In her dismay over the entire mess that her life was, she still retained some of the senses her father taught her how to use. She knew roughyl where this male was, although she knew that she was in no condition to do anything about it. Finally, she looked up at him with her one eye and sat, her opening statement very direct. "Are you Haze?" she said, roughly. It wasn't an intention that she said it rough...merely her conditioning that made it so.
Haze's brows lift in obvious surprise as the response is not only a blunt question, but an accurate one at that. "Uh, yes, I am," he answers honestly, if a bit suspiciously. "Er...how do you know who I am? Or rather, perhaps the better question is, why are you looking for me?" He sniffs again at this stranger, though neither her scent nor her distinguishing scars draw any recollections to mind about who this wolfess might be...her scent is, at best, vaguely reminiscent of some wolves he has perhaps met once or twice, but has since forgotten, or at least has failed to associate with this young female.
Aquene's face woudl have softened it if could, but sadly that wasn't the case. "Good," she said. "Because I won't have to walk any further. A long time ago, around the time I was born you met a wolf similar to me some distance from here. He had red eyes, and a sun on his shoulder faded by time and torn by the scars from a bear's claw. Do you remember this wolf?" No, she wasn't saying everything to begin with. Hooking conversations was yet another lesson of her father. Never spill everything at once, keep the attention of the listener. She breathed Haze's scent and hoped her mind would remember it as she honestly beleived she'd forget it.
Haze is growing older by the day, and he has seen many, many things in his several-years-long lifetime, but some things stand out in his memory more than others. A wolf bearing the mark of the sun is one such thing, and the older male nods in affirmation. "I do...though his name escapes me." He only met the wolf in question once, twice at most, so he can't entirely be faulted for a lack of remembrance. "I'm afraid I wasn't too well acquainted with him, though." He assumes the adolescent she-wolf is seeking out the sun-bearing wolf, rather than the sun-bearing wolf seeking him out through her.
Aquene wrinkled her nose a slight tad, her face giving the impression that she might pass out at any moment though the truth was otherwise. "You met my father, Helaku," she said. "I am here to deliver a message for you, though I fear it will do little good being as I've abandoned my pack, to whom he was Alpha. In life, he started as a Beta of his original pack, the Ute. When disease struck, the pack mostly died. A few years later saw him as Alpha of a pack that has never walked these lands, the stealthly Miakoda very far to the northwest. Once his work was done there, he returned here and refounded the Ute as its Alpha, and that is about the time you would have met him. Before he died, he told me of you and gave me a message to deliver because in his life you were one of the few males that did not induce tension on him at any time when you met."
Haze listens carefully to the younger she-wolf as she begins her speech, ears pricked forward alertly to catch everything she says. He briefly wonders why he's been sought out to simply be told the history of a wolf he barely knew, but then Aquene mentions the message that she's come to deliver, and why. He's quiet for a brief number of seconds after the younger female stops speaking, considering all that's she said before replying. "I see. I apologize for your loss, but I am happy one of his last requests is able to be completed. What message did the sun-wolf Helaku have for me?"
"My father said to tell you that upon meeting you he saw that you were a noble wolf," she answered. "He believed a pack-bond could have been established with one like yourself, but internal circumstances interfered with his plans to do so. He saw many great things in you which at the time had yet to reveal themselves. Unfortunately, if you were to visit the pack he has left behind, most of the newcomers would speak ill of him." She frowned at this and looked off to the side. "They didn't know him. Their entry and sudden shifting views among the pack led to heavy tension."
Haze vaguely remembers hearing the mention of a forming pack to the north from a wolfess he met not too long ago, and if he recalls correctly, she happened to be the mate of Helaku. He himself had not yet sought them out, having been occupied with other matters within the Lazuli himself, likely similar issues to those that had delayed the wolf in question from doing the same himself. "I thank you for the kind words," the brindle-coated wolf replies, regardless of whether he believes them himself, "and I am sorry to hear of your father's, and your pack's, misfortune. But, is there something to be requested of me?" While the message is accepted and the compliments appreciated, Haze is wondering if there is more to this last request than just a delivered note.
Aquene slowly shook her head. "If there was, it died with him," she said. "When he told me of this message, the disease had set into his mind much by the time. He taught me his ways of the Ute, and of the Miakoda. And I say...not to bother with my birthpack until my brother, Abel, takes its reigns." She looked up at him again with her emotionally dead eye. "I would offer a return message, but there is no one to hear it. This all I have. I've done what he asked, but it feels unfinished."
Haze stores the bit of offered advice in his mind, and while he will not act on the matter himself now that he is to be stepping down, he will mention the note to Tariro for him to decide about himself with regards to their new pack. "No one to hear it -- but you, his daughter. I admit I have not got much to say, having not known Helaku so well myself, but I appreciate you delivering his message nonetheless. Despite how you feel, you have fulfilled your father's last request, and I am sure he appreciates it as well. It is a sniff of happiness in an otherwise unfortunate season. Thank you for coming to find me, daughter of Helaku."
Haze stores the bit of offered advice in his mind, and while he will not act on the matter himself now that he is to be stepping down, he will mention the note to Tariro for him to decide about himself with regards to their new pack. "No one to hear it -- but you, his daughter. I admit I have not got much to say, having not known Helaku so well myself, but I appreciate you delivering his message nonetheless. Despite how you feel, you have fulfilled your father's last request, and I am sure he appreciates it as well. It is a sniff of happiness in an otherwise unfortunate season. Thank you for coming to find me, daughter of Helaku."
"You are welcome," she replied. "To be proper, my name is Aquene." She fell silent after this, not knowing what else to say. Helaku never mentioned anything about joining any packs, and thus it left her literally free of any responsibility. The only thing she could think of was how he used to play with her when she was little, and how that affected her views on pups. She'd rather not have them, as playing with them may only bring her sadness given the first thing she'd think of would be him. Her father's death was something she'd never recover from. He had been there, always. "If there is nothing more," she finally said. "I should be on my way."
Haze dips his head in a slight, respectful bow to the younger wolfess upon receiving her own name. "Well met, Aquene. If it would not be too forward of me to suggest..." the brindled male trails off briefly before continuing his statement. "As you have lost your own family and pack, you would be welcome to stay with me and mine, though we are in the process of changing ourselves. I will no longer be alpha in this new, unified pack, but I can assure you that it is no stranger to broken families." If she declines, he will not push further, but he knows the instinctual calling of their kind to be among others of their own.
"I will have to consider it," she said, her ears swiveling about for any hints as to the whereabouts of other members. She had little desire to follow another pack at all, with senior members and whatnot having their way. "In the last weeks I have grown accustomed to living a certain way, the Miakoda way. It is not a way accepted by the packs of this region. Though I am Ute at heart, familial loyalty is also at the center of Miakoda way. I disowned my own mother because of the changes at home. I am...unfit for any pack life for the indefinite future. Somewhere out there, my half-brother, my father's son from an arrange mating in the Miakoda, also wanders. He left the Ute for the same reasons I did."
Haze nods simply in response to the adolescent female's reply. "Very well. Luna's eye illuminates different paths for each of us...I wish you luck upon finding your own place in her glow." The older wolf shakes out the prairie dust that's settled in his pelt since he first stopped moving forward, then returns his gaze to Aquene. "Thank you for the message, again -- but I must be on my own way, to conclude some unfinished business of my own. My offer still stands -- should you change your mind in the coming seasons, I'm quite sure you'll be able to find me a second time." His muzzle parts in a weary, yet light-hearted, smile.
Aquene returned the smile a slight, though she did not foresee herself changing her mind about anything. She had all ready reached the point in starvation where she did not want to eat, and had grown lethargic but not yet did she physically show signs of having not eaten. "I will see you again if that is the way," she said. She herself stood, but there was hardly anything about her. She had remembered of masking her scent though traces of it were here and there. When she bowed her head and started to walk on herown path, her body did not have the posture of a wolf that was descended from Alphas. The only thing it said of her was that her life had been completely destroyed, or that she did not care for a society of ranks. Her sauntering was slow, and eagerness to be anywhere remained nonexistant.
As Haze watches the young wolfess depart, he can't help but think that she holds much sadness within her, a heavy heart that comes from more, perhaps, than her father's death. As she disappears into the hazy air of the desert plains, his thoughts linger on her and the news she brought, before the aging alpha finally resumes his own journey, one step at a time.okay.