Engines at Idle

[Early morning, just outside the Elysium borders.]



It was difficult to say exactly how long Aella had been wandering alone. The days and nights seemed to blend into one another until they became a smooth blur, sliding past her like a river. Only the gradual shifting of the seasons and the measured pace of the stars across the heavens let her know with surety how much time had passed, but if she tried to remember any specific chunk of her journey, it all began to blend into obscurity.


The former Tenebrosi heir was not accustomed to life on her own - not that she wasn't managing just fine. On the contrary, the skills she had been taught in her childhood served her well now. It was just so different from the ordered and purposeful existence she had known before this point in her life. She was able to hunt enough small prey to fill her belly, and her svelte form was still in remarkably good shape for a loner. Her pelt had even begun to hide the scars on her chest, the ones her father - no, that wasn't right, he was just a deposed king now - had put there. However, without the duties and routine of pack life to pull her from one day to the next, without the goals and schemes perpetually fermenting in her head, she felt listless. Without purpose.


Not that there wasn't a certain appeal to the freedom of being a loner - at first she had relished in it. Sleeping and waking when she wanted, eating every kill she made without worrying about filling caches, answering to no one... for a time it was intoxicating. Eventually, though, the days became monotonous, and the woman grew bored. She was a political creature by nature, born and raised to live among her own kind.


For some days, Aella had been aware she'd entered a new land - more populated than the previous regions she had traveled through. She had skirted carefully around the more heavily trafficked areas, gathering information and sniffing at borders. Rumors and whispers had lead her here, to this dismal wood of moss and mist. Even as summer graced the landscape, this place seemed ...dark. Something about the shadows and silence appealed to her, and the things she had heard about this pack had piqued her interest. Perhaps... perhaps it was time to find herself a place in the world once more, but Aella had particular tastes. A place where her rather dark mentality might blend in and find allies was desirable, as was the opportunity of upward mobility in the ranks. She had no illusions false entitlement now, but neither did she wish to become some lowly omega. She... wished to be given the chance to prove herself, by her own means. She would not jump into some crowded pit, or stale monarchy. With these things brewing in her skull, she halted a short way from the borders she knew were ahead and sent a clarion call into the tree-latticed sky.