Nothing was the same after the earthquake, and even after the funeral Deus' guilt did not in the least bit begin to subside. His family was lost in their own grief, and something was going on with Uncle Eli too. Deus felt so alone and confused, and found himself gravitating to the Valhallan borders in search of Aoife. She was his best friend, and maybe one of the only wolves he knew who weren't still dealing with their own pain. Deus was a good boy and had been an obedient follower since the day he was born. It was out of that desire to please his parents that he waited so long at the border, but Aoife never came. Maybe he wasn't calling loud enough, maybe she wasn't nearby. The longer he waited the more sad he became, and eventually he couldn't take it anymore and he stepped out of Aerie territory and into the lands' of the neighboring pack. He'd never left Aerie territory before and the uncertainty showed in every tensed muscle of his body. He moved slowly through the moor, whispering into the fog. "Aoife? Aoife, please, I need to talk to you." It felt like he'd been walking forever, but it could have been only a few tense minutes before he refused to go any further. Would Aoife's pack be angry with him? Would his parents and Eli be mad at him? Should he turn back? The pup froze, contemplating his options and trying not to cry. "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

Kaija was special. She was cool. Askell had even told her so, and he'd been so impressed with her tusks that it wasn't hard for his reaction to inflate her ego a bit once she really thought about it. Yeah, she was totally cool and everyone should think so! Confidence inflated quite nicely, Kaija had taken to strutting around the borders in search of anyone who might be trying to come to Valhalla. She knew her own family and pack wouldn't think she was that cool because they knew her, but maybe if she met someone new they'd be just as impressed with her and her ever-growing tusks. Surely someday they'd be as big as her dads! She was pretty sure they were even bigger than Arne's now, at least in her mind, which was really cool.

The sound of a stranger arrested her attention from her self-directed thoughts, her head snapping around as she peered through the fog. The voice was unfamiliar, and she gave the air a big sniff to try to figure out who it was. "HALT! Intruder! Stop right there or I'll stick you with my tusks!" Her voice, childish and clearly quite feminine was hardly threatening but her voice was deadly serious. She wouldn't let anyone get in and mess with her siblings or her mom, no way! She didn't care that he was older and bigger, no way, she'd put up a fight!

Whatever Deus was expecting to come find him, it sure as hell wasn't a tiny tucked terror. His eyes widened as he looked upon her odd mutation, and he wondered if perhaps this was a sibling of Aoife or something. The tusks weren't nearly as cool as her quill mohawk was, but Deus had no gifts of his own so he could appreciate them on another anyways. "I'm not an intruder!" He lied loudly and firm. "I'm Aoife's friend, and she'd invite me in if only she'd come to see me when I called her!" His frown deepened and he tried very hard to not be offended by her threatening words. "If you stick me with your tucks you're just going to get stuck in me and it will hurt, but then I'll be able to hit you and you won't be able to run away." Deus was older and wiser, so maybe she'd accept his good practically adult advice and back off so he could find his friend. "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

Kaija didn't really know what to do when she found an intruder here. Call for Aurielle, maybe? Or her mom? Her mom was often in a state of vague annoyance and the thought of bothering her wasn't pleasant, and she thought if she stopped to call for Aurielle - at least loud enough for her to hear her - might make the stranger flee altogether, and she didn't want that. "But you smell different. Intruder!" She stressed the word with no hint of hesitation. She'd yet to spend enough time with her father to understand his viewpoints on borders he would deem fictitious, and he would no doubt never encourage such behavior. But all little Kaija knew was love for her family, and she didn't want a stranger ruining that.

His words sounding convincing, but she couldn't be sure they weren't rehearsed. She was starting to learn to tell stories and she knew she could make them semi-believable. At least that was what she thought. "Well. My tusks have, uh, POISON on them, and if they stick you, you'll die," she lied after a moment of careful, serious thought. "So even if I get stuck and you hit me, you'll be dead so - hah!" In a show of force she swung her little tusks toward him threatening, letting out a little growl. "And if Aoife is your friend, why didn't she come? I think you're lying!" Her muzzle wrinkled as she stared him down, as threatening as a child her age could ever hope to be.

Asmodeus' brows furrowed in frustration as the other pup continued on. "I am not an intruder!" He repeated, his youthful voice cracking as he stressed it. "That'd make you a murderer and Aoife would be really mad at you for killing her best friend." He eyed her tusks suspiciously, wondering what sort of poison had been applied to mutations so close to her mouth. It took only a few beats before his curiosity overwhelmed him, and unable to help himself Deus started speaking his curiosity aloud. "So do you wear your poison like... all the time? What happens if you accidentally lick it when you're eating? When you go to drink, does it poison the water cause your tusks go first?" The more questions he asked, the more new ones appeared and his speech grew more rapid as they tumbled out. "What kind of poison is it? Does Aoife have some on her quills too? Does your mom know? My mom'd be mad, I think." "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

Kaija's nose wrinkled in skepticism as she watched him, hoping she sounded really tough and intimidating. She had no idea how to be either of those things, but her mom was definitely both of them so she tried to pretend to be her. She probably wouldn't make up lies about poisoning herself though... but oh well, Kaija had to roll with it now. "Well, I'm not gonna murder you. I mean... unless you come any further!" She'd never really thought about hurting anyone, let alone murder and that kind of thing. It sounded like a lot of work, but she did want to protect her family and her pack, didn't she? She tried to feign a little growl, but Asmodeus was suddenly asking questions and her brain was struggling to come up with answers.

"Uh.. no. Only when I'm... patrolling!" She paused, as if searching for an excuse, and nearly shouted the word 'patrolling' once it came to her. That was what her mom did sometimes, she knew that! "So um... it doesn't get in my food or anything. I have to wash it off." What kind was it? God, this guy asked a lot of questions. That was almost as annoying as the fact that he walked up here like he lived here. "It's.. poop," was what she came up with in her child brain. It made sense. Poop was gross and not something you wanted to touch because it could make you sick. Imagine being stabbed with it? Gross! She nearly winced at the very thought. "Yeah, it's just poop and if you get stabbed with it, you'll get so sick and die, and I don't know about Aoife," and she was now completely sick of his questions, so what better to do than call Aurielle? Swiftly she lifted her head to the sky and let loose a little cry for her, not very long though as she didn't want to take her eyes off this very bad intruder.

Aoife was trotting purposefully towards the cache where she'd buried a bone to hide it from her siblings when harsh words made her ears flick forward, and she snuffed curiously at the air to see who could possibly be arguing out here. One of the scents belonged to one of Justice's always-wayward pups, while the other... Wait, was that... Deus? Uh oh.

A puppyish yowl calling for Aoife's mother put Aoife's quills up in alarm. Double uh oh. She needed to get him out of here before her mom showed up expecting a trespasser and he got in trouble. She'd probably drag him home and tell his parents and then someone would probably find out that it wasn't the first time one of them had crossed the others border, and then they'd both be in trouble.

Aoife bounded forward as fast as she could, zooming up to Deus and the younger girl and barely skidding to a stop. "Uhhhh hi Kaija! Bye, Kaija!" she chirped, taking a firm grip on Deus' wrist with her paw-hand and tugging on him in an attempt to drag his much-larger form along with her at a run. "Good job protecting the borders! You're a very fierce warrior and I appreciate you!" She tugged harder on Deus to hurry him as she spoke over her shoulder to the younger, tusked pup. She needed to get Deus to the border - but maybe not his border because he came looking for her here for a reason, so she changed her angle slightly. "Deus, come on, run," she hissed at him urgently.

[A little jumbled, hope you don't mind me yeeting her in now, Koa <3]

Aurielle Adravendi

She’d been patrolling herself when the sound of voices, young voices, caught her ear. One, she knew was Kaija, but the other wasn’t one of the Valhallan children. She now sat out of sight behind a tall stand of heather that had grown on a ride in the ground. While an observant adult would probably have picked her right out, pups could be quite… intensely focused. She lost count of the times she’d been bowled over in the last season by Ardyn barreling after a rabbit. One breath the rabbit pelted in front of her, and before she’d been able to react, her own son had crashed into her, and then broke in to profuse groveling and apologizing. She had a deeply amused grin on her features at the exchange, and, finally, even before Kaija’s muzzle shot up and she finally howled for Aurielle. Aoife shot out of the mists, and Aurielle’s head cocked, eyes glinting as she watched, before she finally sighed and decided to move. Aurielle stepped from behind the heather and out of the mists, features wiped clean of all but a mild curiosity. But gods her sides wanted to split with the effort of keeping a straight face and the urge to giggle contained. She studied Asmodeus, searching for his name in her memory. “Asmodeus? Why are you so far into Valhallan lands? And Aoife, darling, stay here, please.” It was a good question. He was more than old enough to know the basic rules of any pack, and she was pretty sure even an Abraxas-led pack would have the same rules of ‘If you don’t own it, don’t walk on it.’ However, he was a pup, and he did seem desperate and insistent on seeing her daughter, and she knew he was indeed a friend of Aoife’s. The tiny girl wasn’t nearly as sneaky as she thought. So, she waited patiently to hear what he had to say, eyes slanting to the side to eye her daughter. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Labhair an Sean-Teanga." ---- "Hear" ---- Think

Asmodeus had regrettably let his guard down as his new tusked friend (at least he thought she was a new friend) first explained that she wasn't looking to become a murderess, then dutifully answered his questions which Deus' curiosity definitely appreciated, and thirdly tipped her head back and called for her alpha. Crap. The pups' ears airplaned and he shot towards the girl a frown that could only be described as deeply betrayed. He supposed he didn't want to be friends with anyone who smeared poop all over themselves anyways, even though he did wonder how she got it to lose it's rank smell on application. It was a question he didn't have time to ask, as his best friend in all the universe came thundering in to rescue him. Her odd paw grasped him and he spared only a moment of wonder at the oddly primate feeling before he was being towed away. "Aoife!" It was more a sigh of relief then a greeting, now everything was going to be okay and he could forget about the poopy tattletale. She hissed at him to run and Deus planted his feet a moment, needing first to explain why he'd intruded in the first place so she'd not get the wrong idea. All the emotions he'd held back from Aureus' death were bubbling forward, threatening to spill out into a very I-need-a-hug-right-now sort of sob. "I'm sorry I just -" The approach of another slammed his words back down into his throat and his head dropped low between his shoulders. Who was this lady and how did she know his name? Deus wracked his memory as fast as he could, but could not pull to the forefront who this stranger was when he'd met so many adults briefly in live. He turned his head towards the tusked tattletale and cried out, "This is all your fault!" If she'd just believed him and called for Aoife, none of this would have happened. Whomever this adult was chances were she did not look kindly upon trespassers. Aoife seemed to know better too; after all, she had cautioned him to run. Was it too late now? He knew he'd screwed up, but there was no way the obedient Abraxas boy would dare bring more upset down upon his grieving family. They could never know about this, and the only way to guarantee it was to run. He shot a panicked expression towards his friend and then back to the glowing alpha. "Come find me in our spot, okay?" He whispered under his breath. Would she remember the area between their borders where they'd battled under the full moon? God, he hoped so. Without another word Deus turned and bolted away as fast as his legs could carry him. [Uhhh, an all official-like attempt to flee from enemy territory here!] "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

Flee Attempt

Asmodeus has attempted to flee!

His attempt was unsuccessful.