The brute sat in Tue small clearing in the tall bushes, a small opening at the top between the branches to allow a view of the sky. Thoughts plagued his mind as he sat there and looked up at the sky. The son was setting on another day. He wondered to himself what the purpose of all this was. All his life he'd tried to be a good soul, but now... Now it was harder than ever because he felt a mountain of odds stacked against him. It was like a ocean. An ocean crashing down on him with such force that he'd lost himself. Newol wanted a Home
He wanted a place that was his and a family around him. And he'd had it and now or was gone. And of hurt. It finally hurt. He'd been so busy trying to fight for his little rebellion against the odds that he'd never stopped to mourn.

And now it hit him. He was alone. He was all alone in this world again and it just hurt so much. He had nothing to tether him to the beautiful Alacritis, save for his own stubborn will. He was failing a promise to himself. He'd said to himself that he would not join the ranks of his forefathers. He would not carry around any Riddles In The Dark. And yet there they where. Erani. Valhalla. The gorgeous Lady In Red. The fearless warriors who had painted this beautiful picture before his very paws. And now it was gone. It seemed like every piece of it was gone accept him. He was the only one left it felt. And without that what was he? These thoughts where not simple and easy ones. This was an ordeal of a broken heart. There was pain inside of him and nothing to heal it inside. All the words he never got to say. All the things he was without. He had oh so few memories of the warmth of a mother's muzzle against his own. They had been driven away. Both of them. The first had been for his own good. The second had just been straight cruelty. And what had it left him? A helpless pup lost and stumbling wildly in an attempt to find anything to latch on to. And it hurt. Right now it just hurt so damn much because what he wanted just wasn't there. It was gone. All the hope he had for this world. All the good he knew he saw that was just begging for a chance to live and be. All the good that would never be.

The wolves of this world who thought they knew hell really knew nothing at all. Because to live with the ability to see the chance for heaven on earth, and see just how unwilling everyone else was to walk that path. This was to live in hell. To spend your life chasing after a light with no avail. What made it so bad was the underlying reason why he wanted it so badly. Everyone and Everything was the reason. He wanted that light so he could share it. From the good and innocent to the evil and the strained. He believed in atonement. He believed in forgiveness. Such was the way of his existence. He believed everyone deserved a chance to be good. Because there was no story quite like that of redemption. All things that he believed in that he felt like no one else did. So as the skies danced in the colors of fire, he raised his maw to the sky and sang in a somber and defeated voice. In that moment he believed himself to be meaningless. He literary felt that he would do this up hill fight all his life and make no remarkable progress. At least that's how it started. As the song carried on it grew more and more desperate. More and more a plea he wanted the world to here. From the heartless woman who believed only in strength to the made wolf that sat unrightfully on the stolen throne. To all the sinners and all the saints. "Oh Its too far away for me to hold! Too Far Away Oh Oh! Too far away for me to hold!" It was just a moment of weakness. Just a moment where he couldn't keep his wants suppressed. He just wanted everyone to fight. To fight for their soul. That was the culmination of all his wants.

It had been a bit of time since Serra's paws had carried her away from the lands of Abaven; the better part of a season, perhaps. She had enjoyed her last trip aay. The rain had not been the most pleasant of things, but the male... Well, he hadn't been bad. The comfort of having another when the skies were pouring was not easy to forget. Indeed, Serra looked back on that day with a kind of fondness that she typically saved only for time spent with Quelt. For so long, Quelt had been the only thing that mattered to her. But he had lost his love, Irune, and she didn't know what he would do next. Would he leave his family again? Perhaps following the heart meant leaving family behind sometimes - it would explain him abandoning his pack in the first place. With that in mind, Serra would not be surprised to wake up to a pack empty of her brother; she didn't trust him as she had, not anymore. There was no going back to what they had been before he'd left. But she had followed him, leaving the rest of her siblings behind, and she was happy enough here, she supposed. At least in Abaven she stood a chance at making something of herself - there was little room to grow in a stagnant monarchy, after all. As Serra wandered, she found herself listening, ears pricking towards a distant voice. It was just close enough that she could make out the words - and that the voice was familiar. Newol, Serra thought with a smile, and the slate colored creature began to pad towards the other. "What is it that is so far away, Newol?" Serra let the words escape her maw as she approached the male, tail waving a slow path in the air. "Pleasure to see you out here, by the way." Though her voice was friendly and polite, Serra was more excited to see the other than she let on. "Speech"

Shimmer - Fuel


His singing was brought to a stop by a voice. A voice that he knew. Turning to see who it was that had approached him, he saw the same slate wolf from before. The beautiful female. This one would be the third that he'd seen. The third that he's been so close to he could touch. The Queen Temptress didn't count. She didn't count because that had been something totally different. That had been a slightly younger, and much much more foolish wolf. Just a show of how much he'd grown just how quickly. Her question shattered across his mind like glass, and at once he heard it from a hundred different directions in a hundred different voices. What was to far away? What was it? what was the word? That's just how far it was, so far he couldn't think of what it was.

This is what the Riddles in the Dark could do to a man. But there was a memory. A pleasant memory of this female, both wet from the rain outside. Sharing a meal in the caves that hid him from the rest of the world when he could no longer shoulder what was bearing down on him. This wasn't among the Riddles, not just yet. But there was always the fear of it happening. Fear. Such a damned thing. It was so hard to live life in fear of bad, but at this point what choice did he have.

Newol had nothing. Then, he'd had everything. Everything his heart had ever longed for. And he'd lost it all to someone that he'd once longed for. That served to cut the wound no deeper, but it was the serration that made the cut tear instead of cut clean. He had admired the Lady in Red for her tenacity, her beauty, her viciousness. She'd been a shining exemplar. A role model example of standing up and Taking what you wanted. What you believed in. But he hated her with a seething passion. For two reasons. One, she was a horrid devil demon monster conceived from the bleakest womb. Having all that power. All that determination, and to use it as for your own personal whim rather than to try and do something good with it. To try and make something respectable and enduring in the hearts of wolves. And secondly, despite all sense of sanity, the more potent reason why he hated her.

She Gave Up.

This was damning in his eyes. It was worst then anything that was or ever would be. To fight so hard to make something, be it good or bad, and then just drop it like you'd grown bored of it. No. It didn't work that way! It just didn't. Be it dark or light, to abandon what you worked so hard for, it was monstrous. Newol didn't want to fight. He didn't want to draw blood. He didn't want to die. But he believed, and if he had to he would do these things as best as he could with the full existent of his existence. And then there was The Viking Woman. She was just as fearless and determined and strong. But she was so attached to what she believed in it had torn anything that resembled a soul away from her. Of course, this was just his own personal observation. It could be different, and if one day he saw that it was, he'd be proudly wrong. But thus far, it wasn't so. This was one side of the field. A side where he'd seen a wisp of something he liked. But the wisp was drowned in an ocean of reasons why it was only another image of what could have been. These figures had the power at their paws in one way or another to save an ocean of souls. And they wouldn't. There was no way. It didn't exist. It didn't fit who they where.

And on the other side of the field where the faces. The millions and millions and millions of souls. Another ocean of what could have been and wasn't. Newol's adopted sister who had appeared just long enough to put him back on his feet then disappeared. She'd only reminded him have terrible fekking alone he really was. The russet faced woman who bore scars aswell. Then there had been Avalon. She'd appeared before him in what had been a moment of utter perfection and tempted him in much a different way. Rather than stoking his iron as the Queen had, she'd tempted his Soul. Only to disappear into the night. Another wisp of what might have been. Another Riddle. His birth mother. If she'd known oh so well that there had been nothing for the child and that to find something she'd have to abandon him and run for his dear life from the desert sands, then... Why? Why conceive him in the first place? Why create such disaster in the making? And finally... His second mother. The one who'd tied him to all this. He'd been a damned fool to pick up the last name Adravendi. It had made him weak! It had made him comfortable! He was no longer a Zaraidd. The family or royal blood who's right it was to more than any to act on a whim! For generations that had tried to improve the world around them so they deserved to declare weather or not to stay the course, or just burn the whole fuckin' thing to the ground with no remorse or sorrow so that someone could come along and rebuild something out of the ashes. Zaraidd's had done this song and dance for generations now and still stood like a pillar. Unbreakable. Able to drag through the worst sort of horror imaginable and not be broken, even to the bitter end. But he wasn't a Zaraidd. He'd been allowed a glimpse into that light of perfection, and it had stripped away his fortitude as he'd gone to embrace it. A mother's love. Belonging, being claimed. What good had it done him? he'd grown used to it and when he'd needed, she'd turned and fekking ran with her tail between her legs. Guess she preached on the principle of 'Do as I say, Not as I do.' No one over here was willing to stand and fight to the bitter end! There was no one on this side of the field he could depend on ether! It was all just different shades of the same Nothingness!!!

And he couldn't convince himself to believe any of it would ever change. He didn't have hope. There! That was the word he was looking for. Now that he had it he had a central point to focus the war waging behind his eyes. And with the finding of this word, he bit down, hard. He could no longer bear to meet the woman's eyes. What reason did he have to believe she's still be there later? Returning his face forward, he squeezed his eyes shut, the first wave of tears finally falling. He'd been in Alacritis for some time now, and sure he'd teared up a time or too, but he'd never cried. This would be the first time he'd cried, in a long time. They where the tears of someone who believed themself to be alone. Because he truly was alone. He was terribly alone. Honestly, what did he have? Who did he have anymore? His nose aimed down, lips pulling back in a painful snare. The scars across his maw scrunching together as he fought to suppress what ever this horrid and weak, pathetic creature he was right now. His chest throbbed he just wanted it to go away so bad. Why? Why did he have to be the good soul? Why couldn't he have been born with no soul like the only wolves who seemed to be successful at anything in this world? As the tears fell freely with his back turned to the slate woman, the Gorgeous slate woman that he believed would only be another Riddle of what could have been soon, he finally made the words stammer from his mouth behind barred teeth. "Hope... Hope's just so far beyond my paws." A knot formed in his throat as he tried to speak. It was hard to answer her and attempt to fight back this dreadful weak thing that he was at the same time. "I have nothing but bad memories here. Nothing but broken dreams and lost faces. I can't seemed to find something that will firmly tie me to this place. Something that will tether and keep me." His eyes opened as the breeze hit the brush, and wind crossed the sky. Tears still coming down, he raised his nose to see out of the opening in the branches up into the firy sky of the setting sun. His next words being more painful than the others, as they where an indication that even he was the very thing that he hated. "Some day even I'll be just that. Just another echo of something that was potential. And is no more."

It was a terrible thing, to have a soul. Even worse to try and use it. This world wasn't interested in people with souls. It had no use for them.

they saw trouble in my eyes He was silent and so Serra was content to wait, to let him sort out his thoughts. She settled down easily, her limbs arranged just so. Her shoulder was almost brushing against his, but she kept herself just far enough away that they didn't touch. There was potential, but she kept herself still, not allowing her body to cross that threshold. This was just friendly; anything more was not something that he would enjoy. It was then that Newol began to speak and Serra let out a silent breath of relief. His words distracted her from her thoughts, and the platinum colored female turned her attention outwards once more. She remained silent as he spoke, letting his words wash over her ears and slowly begin to sink in. Whatever was going on, Newol was clearly upset. There was not much that she could do, not without knowing the root cause of what was going on. But she could offer solidarity, and support. That much Serra could do with ease. Gently, Serra moved to press her muzzle against the underside his chin, offering him a lupine kiss if he did not recoil from her touch. "Sometimes the only thing that can keep you grounded is yourself," Serra would offer this solemnly, her voice quiet as she struggled to find the best words to comfort her friend. His tears made her want to take on the world and tear it down until she had damaged what had hurt her friend so, but that wasn't exactly feasible. Serra would have to content herself with comforting him, it seemed. "After my brother went missing, I had trouble remembering that. But you're all that you need to stay tethered, you know? You don't need anyone else; you're stronger than that." Stronger than her, at any rate. Crap, did that make any sense? Serra wasn't sure, and in the absence of anything else wise to say, the girl would simply press her body against Newol's, hoping her body would offer more comfort than her paltry words could. For a moment, Serra was silent, mulling over her next words. This wasn't something that came easily to her; Serra had never been one to allow her emotions to show. She had always been reserved, inclined to rely only upon herself. But lately, she'd been learning that relying on others wasn't a weakness, and that emotions weren't either. Perks of living in a pack that wasn't her first pack, she supposed. "Newol," Serra began at last, voice still soft, "Maybe everything fades, but I have trouble imagining you as anything other than the wolf that I know; a wolf full of promise and strength." She had come to respect him during the duration of their friendship. Whatever Newol was having trouble with, she was sure that he could overcome it. He had the kind of strength that Serra envied, after all. He would overcome. "Speech"