There's a place in the dark where the animals go
He'd been avoiding it for so long... his dad, the new woman, his brother and sister... He'd traveled between Boreas and Auster restlessly, unsure of where to settle. When would this mental torment and anguish end? He had grown up in the North in Boreas with his siblings, in a pack he'd grown to recognize; how was he expected to just leave Ivalice, relocate and adjust to a new "mother" and the siblings that would come with that? Unable to deal with all of the changes, on top of the anger harbored within his heart over his real mother, and his bloody fight with his brother, Ramsay had not spoken to anyone in ages. Today was no different as he wandered into the darkness of a strange cave, numb to any rational fear of getting lost in the dark, twisting tunnels. Instead, he entered recklessly without a second thought, caring little for what happened, or whether he ever came out of these caves again. His ebony-tipped tail flicked behind him, black-rimmed ears forward as he pressed into the darkness, his nostrils filling with a strange but enticing scent, like grass and herbs - why he was drawn to a scent right now was beyond him, but it was appealing nonetheless. He just hoped he'd be able to enjoy it alone, and not be troubled by anyone else coming along.
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He didn't really wander too far after the battle for Celestial, but he had the same instinctive reluctance to avoid the new pack called Talis, as well as Liar and the new pups. He would check in on them soon, he imagined, but the vacation away from it all had been quite nice.
The ashen child was barely a child anymore, it seemed. They all had grown considerably over the winter and with spring coming in, the mountainous wolf's thick hide was in a ghastly looking shed that only added on to the girth of his frame. The corners of his pouty lips and the white of his muzzle seemed to have a constant smear of pink through-out the first thawing of the ground for spring. He was thoroughly enjoying the new prey life, and the old, this season..
As he came across the caves, he'd been in the mindset of tracking already... using his senses to seek out any thing else that might fail to escape him in a game of cat and mouse. He didn't want to admit the slight perk of enjoyment he got from the hunt, and how that effected his evident gluttony - not after his lesson with Amalia, but he couldn't stop his indulgences none the less. He was scouting the outside for any trail of something that might have entered the caves recently for shelter. There were plenty of old tracks, but he needed something fresh that hopefully wouldn't have a scent that got lost the further he went in any of them. He honestly had no idea where he was, what this place was called or who it belonged to.. but the scent that he soon found flagging the area was that of his brother, Ramsay.
He didn't know what to think, but his limbs began to move in the direction of the tracks left behind almost immediately. It seemed he was driven instinctively to find his kin, regardless of the confusion creating a storm of confusion within his skull. It wasn't long before his world had become very... very... dark, but he could sense the closeness of Ramsay so strongly that he felt his hackles begin to prickly along the line of his spine. He blinked his eyes a few times, widening them to their limits as he searched for shapes in the shadows.
ooc:// oops sorry, I didn't see that you wanted it to be a stranger until after I made this post. ;3;
As his paws gently caressed the strongly scented grasses on the cave floor, Ramsay began to feel a funny haze come over him. At first it seemed barely noticeable, and he thought perhaps he was merely becoming disoriented because of the darkness he was shrouded in. Then, it became more obvious. The ground under his paws felt different, but not because the texture had changed. It felt... nice, but strange. He knew it was a grassy floor, but it felt like something he'd never placed paws on before. The sound of his echoing pawsteps on the narrow cave walls became distorted, causing his brow to wrinkle. He knew the rhythm matched his every step, but it didn't sound like he was the one taking those steps. Was it because it was so dark in here? Was he that dependent upon his eyes? He tried to look around, but he really couldn't see much, adding to his growing sense of discomfort and oddity. Was any of this real? He shook his head, eyes looking to the ground as he paused in his step, trying to get his head on straight. No... this had to be some strange dream. Maybe he'd been so tired he'd just curled up at the entrance of this cave and fallen asleep. That had to be it; he was just dreaming now.
When a voice called out his name, he didn't recognize it, and the reasons were two-fold. First being, he hadn't spoken to his brother in some time, not in close quarters like this. Secondly, of course, was the bizarre haze that was messing with his senses right now. The voice sounded like nothing he'd ever heard before, like it was echoing in different tones all at once. Ramsay blinked, shaking his head again as he spun around, trying to determine where the voice had come from, but he couldn't see. Wait, was that a movement in the dark, or just his eyes fooling him? The young man wandered toward the shadowy figure, a behemoth in the dark. Normally it might cause him some worry to approach an unknown, shadowy figure of such girth, but right now he felt nothing, and he was certain he was dreaming.
"I'm Ramsay," he said suddenly, nodding his head in affirmation, inching closer to the other being, "Who's asking?" And then he bumped into the other brute, his black-striped muzzle touching the other's shoulder. Ramsay froze, his hackles rising slightly - okay, now he was a little bit worried, despite his hazy state of mind. This felt all to real, even if it didn't really feel real at all. Something inside Ramsay told him that this was not a dream. But then, who was this, and how did they know his name? With his rational mind erased, he drew his muzzle upward, his nose touching the fur of this other brute, and he drew in the scent as he did so. Wait a second... he knew that scent! At least, he thought he did, unless this was another trick playing in his mind.
"Vadim?" his voice came out with certainty, although his questioning did not seem so sure, "I think I'm... dreaming. Am I? Are you? After all, what are the chances I'd run into you here?" Not that it was impossible, but after all of his time spent alone, he found it completely implausible that someone he knew just happened to run into him in the dark, while his mind was busy playing tricks on him in a dark cave he wasn't familiar with.
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