Heavy set paws carried the two toned dame over the unfamiliar terrain. Onyx orbs peered out of her cranium at the thick molten rock. Was this what their once prosperous land had turned too? She had spent a season already in this unfamiliar land and the prospect of moving again was about as appealing to her as a dive in the lava itself. She was sick of having no control over where she had made her home. Hell she was sick of mother nature. First the water then the lava. Lightning and wind were the only elements that had not yet interfered with her life. She knew all too well that the packs of the old Alacritis had reestablished themselves here, but she was reluctant to rejoin them. She was so utterly sick of being uprooted and moved... perhaps she was merely growing a touch more bitter in her older age. She was leaning towards joining Seracias ranks. They seemed like decent enough souls and God knows she adored Maverick. She wished she could have seen her own pups grow. She shook such thoughts from her head, half wishing her amnesia would take the memories of her mate and her pups.

She glided with ease along the ebony rocks, her onyx eyes, a mirror image of her surroundings missed nothing she took in the destroyed earth, the ashes, the scattered, buried remnants of life this place was a tomb, nothing more and nothing less. Her thin legs carried her to the edge of the volcano, her onyx orbs reflecting the bubbling lava beneath her. It seemed so harmless, docile. It was incredible to think such a vibrant shade of red could cause such horrific damage. The scent of sulfur and the heat made her eyes water and her nose tingle.

A familiar scent, one she had not encountered in quite some time danced among the sulfur and her head turned, the familiar massive frame lumbering towards her. She watched him, onyx eyes keen and dark as his thick musculature rippled with every step he took. She wondered if he was still with Glaciem, they had still been on that old island when she had last seen him.

I WILL INSIST WITH PERFECT SCARS UPON MY WRISTS That everything you once held dear, is taken away from you His paws tread the earth with careful grace, his mind fueled with the evidence there was a price to pay for his sins. For leaving Lithium. It had come in the form of beautiful, glorious, rolling liquid. Fiery, orange, magnificent, and most of all destructive. Much like himself, perhaps it was the thriving reason the demon so lusted for them, was so driven by their magnitude. He writhed in the glory. His darkness reached up, screaming to pull him under yet again, and he had to refuse such a thing. Had to refuse the thoughts, the adamant urges. He was not the man he once was, and he refused to be that guy. He couldn't afford it. Could not afford to be turned to what he had left, he needed a new chapter. It was the wrong way to go about it, the wrong way to follow his path, to seek out exactly what had brought forth the oozing liquid fires, but here he was, trekking up the side of the mountain natural as day. Gargantuan frame delivered itself before the massive dip, and yet, it was not what caught his attention, it was the familiar woman that stood around the arena, her scent dancing to his nares and his eyes dipping over her in greeting, if it were not for their previous greetings, he would have been inclined to shrug her off, and alas, the Greek brute did no such thing. "Are ye fooloowing meh?" Simple inquiry meant to test whether or not she was truly after him or if it was coincidence she was here...or was she...was the woman dead? Was he dead? It would only lead to realization and indifference in either case. Everyone died. He would too, he knew it, hell, he deserved it, and for that reason, craved it. "Ye knu I n'er see ye een Glahcium," His head would remain straight, his inky lips posed in a straight manner. He had no ambition, no emotion, merely questions driving him. speech!

Her thin, lithe bodice stood patiently, awaiting the massive brute to approach, they may not have been the most close of company, but they were pack mates, or at least they had been, and she knew him decent enough to know he would not suddenly decide to rip her to ribbons without a good reason. Her posture remained relaxed, her head raised just a touch above her spine and her tail flickering lazily back and forth. She kept her gaze trained upon him, amusement drifting through her mind. It seemed he always managed to stumble upon her in the most bizarre of times. He approached her, words falling broken and disjointed but still discernible and she smiled as his own line of thought seemed to match her own. Laughter spilled from her maw, light and airy.

"I could ask of the same of you my friend. Do not fear, I have not spent my free time tracing your scent." Laughter laced within her tone, amusement colored onyx orbs. His stoic posture and emotionless tones never changed, she admired that about him. Insomnia had always been a creature of passions, her emotions, painted upon her like an open book and when he spoke of Glaciem, the humor fled her gaze, a much harder expression adorning her features.

"That is due largely to the fact that I have not rejoined Glaciem and I am not sure if I will. For now my status remains rogue." The word felt bitter, tasteless upon her tongue. Once the Queen to an Arkhos and now nothing more than a nameless face amongst the crowd. She did not miss her superior status, but she missed the family it had brought with it. Aside from her own mate, Arkhein had been a tightly knit group of wolves. She missed that closeness and had yet to find it anywhere else. How the mighty had fallen.

I WILL INSIST WITH PERFECT SCARS UPON MY WRISTS That everything you once held dear, is taken away from you He would recline to his sinewy thighs, the great brute casting a sidelong look to the thin feminine creature. She seemed to find something funny in his inquiry. Daunting this one was. Ears would flicker towards his head in mildly ridiculed temperment, and the lord's salmon tongue would leak from his lips and cross his chops. She was different than him in every single viable way. She seemed to see brightness, seemed to yearn for something loving, and while in some ways he did, he was far too in sync with repelling the anger of life. The divinity of darkness. She seemed to clear the air, to emphasize that she was not there just to give jest and offer some provocative stalking. He wouldn't mind, he would take the lithe little woman, and he would do so any day. Fighting was his forte, his dream, his life, and his way. Nothing gave the brute more of a rush, and yet, he had to deny it. It was like a sickly sweet drug. Still, silence consumed him in the time between her first phrase, leaching to her second spiel. "Glahcium ees someh-ting I s'pose I'eel fi-yet f'er, boot, I dun't ay-ve a reason teh fi-yet," he had not held a reason to fight for a very long time, he was just overly trained, a spartan warrior of sorts. He was unique in that right, and he was tough for that very right too. "Mice Insom-on-ee-ya, woot is eet thet ye fi-yet fer? If there was some code in this new world he was supposed to follow beside, it had either thus far been hidden, or just something that didn't appeal to him. speech!

He pulled himself up to a halt. His massive frame reclining backwards to rest upon his haunches. His audits swiveled, to catch her teasing gestures but he did not respond to them, his pink tongue escaping his maw and licking at an inky black maw. Forever the stoic warrior he would be or so it seemed. They were polar opposites, he and her. Where she saw light and joy, he saw darkness and death. Where she had been crafted for speed and agility, he had been molded into thick muscle and brute strength. It was strange how fate worked to bring two opposing forces of nature together. Even stranger how they seemed to get along. She mimicked him, shifting her legs beneath her and drawing back to sit amongst the molten rocks. Nary a few feet from her the lava bubbled and hissed, filling the atmosphere with a sense of dread and foreboding. Insomnia found peace amongst it.

"Glaciem, I doubt, will engage in combat with another. They prefer peace and tranquility over chaos and death." Insomnia knew that if it came down to it, Glaciem would engage in a war, but the situation would need to be dire. Originally she had thought that peace that Glaciem promised would be the release her soul had needed, but she had been wrong. She knew not what she wanted, or where she wished to be, she was lost. His question caught her by surprise. Onyx oculars narrowing as she considered his question. She could lie, could spew how she wished for peace and happiness among the packs, how she wished for life for all things good and death to all things foul, but she had never been in the habit of lying.

"I used to know what I fought for. My mate, my pups. Now I suppose I fight for nothing, just the drive for basic survival." It was probably the most honest thing she had ever spoken and she was finished her onyx eyes drifted to the spewing lava. She didn't know where she belonged anymore, and she wasn't sure she had the heart to keep looking.

I WILL INSIST WITH PERFECT SCARS UPON MY WRISTS That everything you once held dear, is taken away from you She was by far the more kind and more light aligned out of the duo, though he had to honestly wonder what she thought about the Earth. She seemed to have lost something to be so... fore-longing perhaps? There just seemed a piece of her missing, and as he faded out and heard nothing but the beat of his own heart, he realized he wished he could feel for her. But he didn't. He was too far gone. It felt as though emotions of sympathy, nicety, and joy had been drained of him. He was a shell. There was nothing for him. She seemed to be fairly certain that Glaciem would avoid conflict at all times if absolutely necessary. The brute would nod his head, but his words would betray the lack of understanding, yet so perfectly would they convery the indifference, "Eet es tuh bayd, een Leetheeum we fi-yet wars amoong ourseelves to cross our po-eent, keeling was ayn eeveerydie theeng," He didn't know what she would think of the news, but it was the truth, something he was hearing more and more about and canines of the area actually giving into. He himself didn't care who knew about his past. This girl was just a stranger, her dejection would mean little. With a quick chuff of understanding he looked at her, fiery eyes blazing with what seemed to be a yearn to understand that pain. "I do not luff li-yek ye speak, I haed many weeves, and many cheeldreen, I do not meese theem," Perhaps he was incapable of any emotion, it would very well explain a lot, though, there was the flip side, that he had just never witnessed it. Women in Lithium always knew their place, and any who strayed died. They all knew pleasing their husbands and bearing children was the law of the land. Before leaving, Ifrit too had thought that was all there was. speech!

Insomnia knew little to nothing about the beast that sat before her. His monstrous body clouded her vision and blocked out the surroundings, if nothing else could be said of him, he was an epitome of power and strength, he practically exuded it. A warrior, most assuredly, from Lithium, as he had told her more than once. She understood his culture was a vast deal different than hers, but the massive male rarely spoke of such things and even though they weren't so close, when his jaws finally split and noise left his larynx, she listened.

His words surprised her, clearly it was an admission, but one he had spoken as though he were describing the color of the sky or the grass. t was spoke with such carelessness, she wondered why he had not simply ended her own life... and why in God's name had he chosen Glaciem? "If killing and death are what you seek why become a part of Glaciem?, they are probably the most peaceful pack I have ever encountered." She was curious, why choose to fight for someone that engaged in no combat if blood and carnage were all one sought out?

His final words saddened her. Onyx eyes softened and her tail ceased its incessant flickering behind her. She gnawed her lip thoughtfully debating on what she wished to say. She felt no anger or hatred towards him, only sadness. "I pity you. Despite the agony the loss of my mate and my pups brought me, the comfort and warmth of love, I would not have traded it for anything in the world. Love is a wondrous thing. Beautiful and pure. It cannot be stopped by claw or fang, nor it can it be broken if it is true. It is a bond untouchable by time, and I am sorry you have never felt as such."

I WILL INSIST WITH PERFECT SCARS UPON MY WRISTS That everything you once held dear, is taken away from you Coming to the condemnation that, clearly, he was incapable of producing emotions other than that akin to the wish to war and the wish to watch things crumble, he had to admit, it sparked a bit of curiosity in him. What was love? What was this great thing she seemed to carry on about? There had to be something powerful and something that just truly rang out to her about it, didn't there? Though, as she talked, it was odd, he had been equipped with all the same things, yet bridled without the emotions. Incapability or true lack of access? The man's inquiry had his head buzzing in wonderment. He had already shaken off that Glaciem was not a pack for war, and perhaps it exemplified the fact he was, indeed, supposed to be there. Here he stood trying to deny the war and blood, but as he spoke of waiting for it, it made the entire matter quite trivial...how could he be so against something he spoke of yearning for? If Glaciem was one to avoid rivalry, it would teach him kindness, compassion, and various units that he needed. Could such things even be taught? "Purhaeps oone die I wheel comb tuh know theese theengs," Was it as simple as that? Would one day he see a woman and be struck? Would it be a crescendo of events? He had no idea and yet for the first time in a long time, he felt that he wanted something greater. He was going to find someone and he was going to fall in love with them. It was a commitment to himself. speech!

Her thoughts lingered on the past, more than they should have, she knew that. Elyas, her lover, her best friend, her soul mate, was gone. Ripped away from her and she would never again see him. He was lost to her, had been for years and perhaps thats why she had tried to fill the empty space in her heart with the love that Glaciem offered... but what could they offer her? Safety? Protection? The veil of the concept of family? They could not bring her beloved back. They could not fill that gaping wound in her heart. That was her punishment, she knew what true love felt like only to have it cruelly ripped away from her.

Tears flooded the corners of her eyes. She had not thought back to those years in a long time, she had forced herself to forget how happy she had been and how much she missed the warmth of another against her pack, her lovers steady heartbeat along her spine, keeping her safe and making her feel protected. He had been her world and now... she hung her head to hide her tears from the seemingly impenetrable brute, he did not need to see her so weak.

She had no family, she had no home, she was growing into her later years and not even a pack she could claim for her own. She was a train wreck and she knew it. She rose to her pads, shaking her head slightly and brushing to the right of him, tears now dripping along her maw. He needn't see her like this. No one need see her like this. She swallowed the lump in her throat and took a shaky breath, calling back over her shoulder.

"I hope you find it one day my friend, and once you do, never let the feeling go, when its taken from you, its the worst agony imaginable."

-exit Insomnia-

Ifrit knew that he was no man of great importance in this world, no, he had given those things up upon leaving Lithium. Perhaps one day he would find something that mattered to him, but for the time being, he knew that he would be stuck alone until he could stand to understand the world around him.

Head would nod to the woman and ifrit would turn on his sturdy legs....He didn't know what to say, but he knew if he stayed, they would both end up lost, and in silence, not thinking to give her a proper goodbye, he would depart.

Speech!exeunt ifrit