To the wolves, it was widely known but seldom talked about that sometimes other canids came from other places with wild and lurid tales of cultures and religions foreign. That there were other lands not Boreas or Auster, and by that principle of not being those two lush and flourishing continents, the ones who came were gaunt or half-starved, their tales seemingly maddening by lack of context and their pallor complexions.

Yll was one of these. Fate had chosen winter's approach as the season of his escape from his own bondage, and as he travelled south from his place, the water froze deeper and more solid. Luck would have it that most of the way was ice or ice floes, suitable for a fast gait and each mile traveled on foot instead of in the water steeled his heart that this was the right way. What he attempted would be known by those of his lands as a broken internal compass, and that was why only the fate-driven had a second, stronger magnet on their compass, instinctively pulling them to Boreas, or to Auster, or to the many little isles on their shores.

There was nothing epic or glorious about his journey, as evidenced by the ribs that clearly poked through his medium build, hidden by dark fur, but perhaps detectable by one who knew to look for it. When he had travelled, he had done so quickly, stopping only for water, because there was no prey and because the miles seemed only long and hard and he knew if he lay too still in wait for something that never came, he may simply freeze over, and never move again. When he saw land, he ran faster across the shifting ice jetty, ignoring his paw misplacements from exhaustion as best he could and swimming now and then until the next one. And when he did reach land, he found this place as hard and unwelcoming as the life he left, which made it all the more easy to adjust. He drank water, he ate dung, a pulpy sapling branch, and a tuber. He would have eaten the rabbit that was eating the tuber, but even though he gave full-hearted chase, he was simply too weak to catch it. These things filled his stomach and offered little nutrition, but it was still better than nothing but the frigid biting air that was all his lungs and stomach had to swallow the last few days at the mercy of the ice. He napped under a great fur tree and regained a little strength, then in a nook created by a rocky overhang, and felt a little better.

With refreshed mind, body, and soul, he knew that he needed to know three things. One, that he was safe. Two, that what happened on his land would not happen here. And three, where he might find a heal-all to attend to his minor abrasions, frostbite, and find sick-meals that would acclimate his stomach from his travels nothing to whatever prey this land had to offer. He cleaned his paws while he thought, and tended his wounds.

He rose stiffly, ignoring the creeks in his bones, the pains, and the sheer exhaustion. He would likely stay in this place, but he could not stay in this area, as there was no food, no answers, and no companionship, so he needed to keep moving. He forced his body into a slow trot, heading south from the very northern tip of the ice spires that named Cathedral Point.

Yll Tempesto

Against her better judgement Circe had ventured north. She'd left her cold-blooded companion behind and missed him terribly. The little cobra made for good company and a useful prop in her more mystical performances, but the cold of the north was simply terrible for him and he would be more of a hindrance than a help. She now walked along a ridge with a fat white rabbit swinging from her jaws. Already plans were forming for her to bed down for the night with a nice rabbit supper to warm her. But... Circe spied the thin dark shape moving swiftly towards her as she topped a ridge and immediately changed gears. She dropped the rabbit and placed a paw on it to keep it from sliding away. "Greetings, stranger. I didn't think I'd see anyone this far north." "Circe" "Gwydion"

Half starved in body, soul, and mind, Yll was mannerless. While he could give the excuse that the nuances of well-roundedness and society had been forcibly stripped away from him during his indentured servitude, the truth was more painful: that he had developed little care to try. Or, he could say that he was angsty and anxious from his long journey and sought solitude - but he also sought answers, which could only be gotten from others. His defenses and guise were as naked as the soggy mewling rat that he was born as.

Being quite tired, he did not spot the form of another one and a half times his size until - his nose suggested that this one may bear feminine hormones and rude as it was, a quick glance down south saw no apparatus of a certain kind - she had drawn near. Her steps did not seem dainty but elegant and refined, steeped in self-assurance of one who knew what they were about. She was black. She was white. She drew near enough for conversation. His eyes did not focus on her eyes in challenge, nor on her words to listen, nor did he bow or shrink himself as a sign of immediate respect. Instead, from the moment he spotted the stranger, his eyes were focused on the ragged still form of her rabbit. When she set it down, his head bent as his eyes followed. And when she put put her paw on it, he drooled subconsciously.

Saying nothing and showing no form of acknowledgement of her words, he moved forwards a few steps, lifted one paw, his front right paw, and tried to place it atop the rabbit. But he had stumbled on a deceptively thick patch of snow on his left the step before, so his right paw lift had more momentum than he had planned, and the paw was in line to smack the rabbit on the top of its head. He wanted this rabbit. He wanted to claim this rabbit as his own. Wordlessly, rudely, and mannerlessly, he tried. If he could place his paw on the rabbit, surely it would be his. He dearly wished to eat it, witnessed by his salivation, eyes, and perked ears keen on the woman's prize. But there was no aggression, no sense of fight and no preparation for it, only the attempt of a sticky-fingered thief with the worst deception skills ever known.

Yll Tempesto

Inwardly Circe rankled at the male's rude behavior. Had she not recognized this as an opportunity to recruit she may very well have stomped on his reaching paw and been on her way. But that would have been a foolish waste of a starving and seemingly desperate man. Circe released her hold of the rabbit and took a step back so the male would have room to eat. She hadn't yet decided what she would do with it if he fled with it, but it was a fun thing to consider and would certainly change the terms of the game that was brewing. "It's yours, friend. You look like you need it more than I do." Not even when she'd traveled alone through the homeland had Circe gone hungry enough to be reduced to a living skeleton. A mix of skill and charm saw that she was fairly well fed, so watching Yll now she could feel no empathy. There was, however, a growing excitement in her breast. This man might be just what she needed. "Circe" "Gwydion"

Sometimes even a fool got lucky, and his absurdly arrogance and lack of all manner and semblance of society had gained him such an occasion. As soon as her paw had left the rabbit by an inch, he lunged forwards with his face to grab it and jerked backwards, nearly loosing his footing, but with such a speed of one who expected to be smacked, but no wince of it. The instant he held the rabbit back in his own place, he didn't take any steps backwards to eat his prize in safety, but instead he began to devour it, again with rudeness and lack of all civility. His teeth crunched loudly and jarringly on the meal, crushing the bones in such a hurry that his teeth clacking together could be heard now and then, a nasty, grating sound, like accidentally biting on a spoon or fork. Instead of trying to eat piece by peace, his aim was to swallow the entire thing whole, or as fast as possible. On two occasions, he tried to swallow and it got stuck, bulging grotesquely in his throat, and he gave such a racket choking and heaving that it was a wonder that all the wolves of the north didn't hear them, and that somehow, he didn't die for his foolishness. But as the bits began to go down, he slowed, taking more time to bite and chew and swallow rather than try to swallow the thing whole like a snake when he first started. At last this was complete. Unabashed, he licked his lips slowly, cleaning his whiskers, and felt satisfied that he was clean after the third lick, showing one who observed that he prided himself in efficiency.

He regarded her silently for a while, as if slow to process what had happened now that there was a heavy burden for his stomach to devote his energy to. His lips pursed as if he might speak, but there was no sound, and found himself looking at her. Her bulk and size, her coat, the way she held herself, but never directly at her eyes in challenge. He noted her easy manner and self-assured way, the way that her tail hung but did not grovel. For a few moments, he considered not answering at all.

"I once lived far north of here.", he said after some thought, thinking this a safe thing. His mind returned to his purpose, reminded him that he had questions. "I have questions.", he spoke plainly. His voice was of one who had so many minescule bits of accent that they all mushed together into no accent at all, perhaps seeming very plain and boring.

"In this land is there an empire that spreads by conquest and servitude, seeking to rule all the ends of the earth and accomplishing its aims effortlessly?"

He spoke to her with no disrespect, but there was an air of expectation that she would know, and answer him truthfully. Absent were any notions or semblances of gratitude or thanks. Nor was there any showiness or ego or air of his own self-importance. He did not even bother mentioning why he was in this shape, of his journey, or of his troubles. He only asked a question, and in this, perhaps, he showed some meekness. Or maybe even in his lack of words and in the absence of troubling another's heart, maybe this was his kindness, his gratitude.

Yll Tempesto

He attacked the rabbit as if it get away, wolfing down pieces of it with all the savagery of a hellhound straight from the fiery pits. Rather than appearing put off by his grotesque display, Circe's expression was ever so slightly entertained. She lay down sphynx-like in front of him and watched unabashedly as he ate. Circe was quiet as he ate - he was certainly making enough noise for the both of them. Her thoughts were on the best way to bring the man into the fold. Perhaps others would have taken in his gaunt appearance and lack of manners and dismissed him, but she didn't. No, she saw something promising. Broken things were her specialty and she took them on gladly. Finally he spoke. "Ask them and I'll do my best to answer them." Maybe, if it suited her. His question made her harrumph thoughtfully. "There are several such "empires" in Boreas and Auster. Each no doubt thinks they'll be the one to succeed. But there is only one that will. The Abraxas have already conquered two packs and set root offshoot bands in Boreas." She eyed him curiously. "What do you want with a people like that?" "Circe" "Gwydion"

In his travels, he had encountered many wolves, among them souls who seemed... not quite the same. They used odd expressions and mannerisms and most of the little, minute things in their body language went unseen, as if they had a form of slight autism that excluded the nuances of the slight, small things, as if they didn't quite understand canid or wolf but tried their best to imitate. This one, this female, she seemed to understand. Her relaxed, unconcerned demeanor soothed something that was wound tight and rattly, like a poorly hung mast which directed its ship errant. He did not count the number of times when his eyes glanced her direction, but they were few, and seeing her laying down passively gave him a sense of calm. He would not be surrounded, attacked, beaten, and forced into indentured servitude like before. He allowed himself to breathe a deep, cleansing breath. But it came out as a cough; he still had a bit of meat in his windpipe.

He had cleaned his muzzle, asked a question, and she had answered. His tail curled behind him as he sat. His eyes, his facial features, everything about him revealed that he was thinking, which might appear that either he was thinking much too hard on such a simple matter, or that his poker-face was quite terrible.

He had not been gone long from the place he had come and he did not imagine that the nameless, leprous empire had suddenly named itself in a matter of days. Splitting branches, yes. And the inadequacy of any competition to be called its rival, yes. It could have had happened, though. Or, perhaps it happened in the past and what she knew were the beginnings, the antiquities of the modern epidemic. Which meant that his empire - the great one that came and slaughtered and took and incorporated like a great commercial industrial machine - that empire was still out there, and could very well be on this land. If there were more than one, though, the land had to be vast.

"I have travelled in a circle.", he said to his front paws, gazing at the granules of mud that had worked its way between his toes, examining the fine details of each dirt particle. He had come from north of here, travelling south, to get someplace that was considered very, very north. His mind tried to map out the spacial geometry of such a consequence, but wolves were bad at math, and he was no exception.

He looked up after a little while. "To stay away from them.", he said simply. He lied. He untrusted. He bit his tongue. And despite his earlier revelation of his non-existant facial confidentiality, his face betrayed none of this. What he wanted was to warn the ones who were here, to find his family, to stop it. But there was no stopping of that blood empire but by more blood and he was sick of fighting. So in a way, he understood that the largest part of him, the part that wanted it all to end, was not willing to do anything more than lip-service to what mattered most. It troubled him and stuck in his throat.

"I wish now to beseech a heal-all, to work off my debt to that service, and to rest some place safe until I have recovered.", he looked at her now, but not in the eyes as challenge.

"Is it safe her..... no, don't answer that.", he interrupted himself, and his voice took the tone of a direct order, though unintentional, and somehow empty, as if it were a child trying to lead a kingdom that knew he was not their king. "You seem safe enough, so this place is safe enough. But we never really are safe with the likes of them around, are we?", and now came a choking, hateful, self-loathing tone of sarcasm, and not sarcasm at all.

"Lead the way, lady.", he neither implored nor asked, and there was no politeness in these words except for the last one, not used as gender or noun, but as if a royal title. It was, perhaps, the first ounce of respect that he had shown her beyond neutral indifference.

There was not a thought of suspicion that there might be a danger in the woman, who she was, where she came from, or what she wanted. He was like a child who had never seen rain and expected every day to be bright and shining, not realizing the ferocity of a storm, or how wicked and cruel it could be, how unfeeling.

Yll Tempesto

I took a gander looking at Circe's profile just now and felt kind of shocked at just how exactly perfect Yll and his current state of mind might be for Circe's ill-purposes. He came from a place where he was manipulated as a soldier-boy, brainwashed with busyness, threats of harm to his family, impossible expectations, and sleep deprivation. I swear I hadn't made Yll for any plot, in fact, he is from another site, it sort of just happened. Wow. I feel honored to be a part of your plot! Let's see what happens!

"To stay away from them." While it didn't show on her face Circe could have kicked herself for misjudging him so thoroughly. The moment those words left his mouth she realized she'd made a grave mistake. Being Abraxas herself she'd just accidentally sabotaged her own scheme to add him to her collection. Well, she liked a good challenge. Already a new plan was forming so when he told her to lead the way she didn't rise and do as instructed. Instead she leaned in closer in the hopes of catching his eyes. Her expression was a carefully cultivated mask of concern. Circe exuded goodwill and the way she leaned in made it clear she had no other choice but to be honest with him even though she knew it was about to cost her his good opinion. "Friend, I would like nothing more than to do this for you. With me it is indeed safe, but I would hate to take you with me only to have you feel betrayed later." He'd been careful not to meet her gaze but still she paused to try to search it anyway. "Deceiving you is not my intention, so you must know: my name is Circe and I am Abraxas." She was dying to know what he was thinking and if the guise she'd picked would work on him. She'd fed him, treated him kindly and been honest with him. Surely that was all it would take to bring a man in his condition to her side. If not she'd try again. Circe was willing to work at him until she'd exhausted all of her kind options. And if those failed? Well, she had other ways of getting what she wanted. "If you can find it in your heart not to swear off all Abraxas, this one will be happy to help restore your health." "Circe" "Gwydion"

OOC: woooo yay! Fingers crossed this works out! And since we haven't had a chance to talk outside this thread, welcome to Ardent!!

Weary in heart and body and soul, he had thought nothing of the little endearments. His face was puzzled as she spoke, the way that she got closer, the way that she seemed friendly, and the words, her words, how very contrary. She had begun to seem altogether more lovely and caring but then she spat out a confusing poison. He heard a ringing in his ears as if she had struck him a blow, but it was no ringing but the sound of his heart thudding in his throat. The rush of blood, the rise of what little adrenaline his body could provide, fight or flight, fight or flight, FIGHT OR FLIGHT, his instincts screamed at him like an eagle diving at his head relentlessly, like the ceaseless tick-tocking of a great clock in an empty hall altogether too large and growing louder still.

In the confusion, he smelt fear. He came to realize it was his own. The blurred months and seasons and years and pain and hurt and exhaustion and all of the cries of those he killed and did not kill but still were dying seemed like a red film on his eyes and grew more opaque the longer he looked until he could no longer see her but a sea of blood, his blood, the blood he had shed, and the blood of his soul drowning.

In all of this, only a few seconds had passed, and to an onlooker, the black and too-skinny wolf had seized up, as rigid and pale as rigor mortis.

And then he ran. His first steps came stumbling, nearly wiping him out into the snow before his retreat had even begun. This retreat was of no seasoned soldier but of the boy in him still 6 months old and terrified watching the conquering pack behead their leaders in gruesome agony and awesome power and the realization that moment was the easiest moment he had to live through because that choice was the only one that was not his own. His tail alternated between curling beneath his stomach and between flashing out to the side for balance. He ran as hard and as fast as he could, taking no liberties to dodge or weave or other embellishments seen in action movies. A marigold streak marked the first 200 feet of his flight, vividly yellow from the dehydration of his journey.

Yll Tempesto

If Circe lets Yll go, he thinks about things and over many encounters may form a deep bond. Or maybe not.

If Circe catches Yll - which will be easy -, she'll have to attack him and the resulting enslavement will be as interesting to read and roleplay as a hollowed out rotting log. I don't really want to take this route because I've played depressed characters before and it's just not very fun for anyone.

Another option is for Circe to track Yll and care for him where he crashes to recover. This forces him to listen and reconcile and is probably the fastest way towards a deep, true bond.

I'm sure there are other options, too. Or we could just fade out here, whatever you like!

Just enough time passed for Circe to get her hopes up. A few heartbeats later her hopes were smashed as the skeleton man took off running as if his life depended on it. Well, hell. Only after she'd watched him run into the distance did Circe's surprised and innocent expression changed. While she didn't think he'd stop and look back she couldn't risk letting her true feelings show right away. Once it was safe, however, she hissed angrily and stared after him with an annoyed expression. She cared little for his fear, but the fact that he had taken her kindness and given her nothing in return offended her. How wasteful. Her time, that rabbit, could have been better spent on Pnuma. But, she wasn't done with him. She wouldn't give up yet. Perhaps her efforts hadn't been wasted. He was in terrible shape and he wouldn't get far so she'd let him run himself into the ground and then swoop in to save him. "Circe" "Gwydion"

OOC: I like option number 3! Would you like to continue this thread or start a new one in a different territory as if he's run for a long time? If you start a new one just pm me the link <3

The first 200 feet of his frightened flight were bright amber from dehydration, and in his haste and senselessness, he took no precautions to hide his tracks. There were no thoughts in his head but the need to escape, as bright and vivid as if his paws were in a fire and every instinct, intense with pain, screamed at him to get away.

When he had gotten far enough, he stumbled and half retched, the hard activity of his weakened state upsetting the new meal. He made no move to get up, and where he bowed, he shook with the efforts of upturning his stomach contents. The work was laborious and full of bile, and when he was done, he panted, feeling hot and over-exerted, trembling as his blood sugar and adrenaline began to plummet. There was a young spruce tree near him, and he allowed his weight to tip onto it.

When he had rested enough and the shaking and pulsing of his head had ceased, he knelt his head to gobble back up his meal. There was no sense wasting half-digested food, he would need every ounce of it, as in this tired state, he could very well die from starvation, being too weak to hunt again.

Stomach full again, but queasy, he took off in an easy trot to the south, hoping to find someplace warmer. But he knew that he would need fresh water first, so he kept his eyes and nose keen for moisture.

-- fin--

Yll Tempesto

Sequel : https://www.ardently.org/showthread.php?tid=25949