Kichi had spent more time than expected away from Alastor.  He’d seen his parents graves, then gone to see his original home as a small child.  There was only one wolf he could think of besides Alastor he’d be willing to help so it was rather a surprise when he’d run into Relm and helped her with her sickness.  A puppy also had needed rescuing which took up even more time.   Eventually, Relm had gotten better and the puppy back to his brother so that Kichi could make his way to the island.

Kichi had looked at it for a while with an assumption he’d be swimming for it. After only a minute in the water, he spotted the secret under the surface and waded back to land.  Patience was a virtue Kichi had learned well on his own. Admittedly, it was harder this time as many questions tickled his mind about the future. He waited on the low tide and crossed the ocean, pausing at the end of the sand bridge, howling out a call to let Alastor know he had arrived.  He hadn’t asked Alastor how many wolves were in the band.  Were they all family? A mate and kids or was it a mate and other wolves of no similar bloodline?  He’d know soon enough.  The only important fact was that Alastor was in the band and that Kichi had a home with someone he trusted.

Kichi glanced to the side where Torch, his little water deer, had his own ideas.  The little deer was skirting the edge of where ocean and sand met.  Its hooves in the water, invisible in the sand that had floated up at the deer’s steps on it.  “Don’t go in too deep, that’s not a lake to go swimming in.”  Kichi honestly had no clue if Torch would be fine swimming in the ocean or not.  The silver and white wolf had no desire to have to go rescue him if he got swept away though.

Talk

Alastor was busying himself helping Manea and Irilyth gather up their belongings in preparation to start moving their band to newer territory. As much as he wished they could have stayed on the island as a permanent home, he knew they had work to do in preparation for building Manea's pack and that required them to travel for a bit. The dire brute itched at his short fur, barely an inch in length grown back since he'd lost it all after the bath bomb—though he did have to admit his fur felt infinitely more soft and silky now as it was growing back. Avacyn and Saracyn were playing about in the den under Irilyth's watchful gaze. He smiled to watch his little angels living life happy and carefree now that the eternal night had ended. The call that came for him in Kichi's voice caught Alastor's attention and lifted the dark wolf's spirits. When Kichi hadn't returned at the onset of the cursed night, Al feared the worst, but hadn't been able to go out looking for his surrogate brother without leaving his family unprotected. Hearing his voice gave him the solace of knowing Kichi had survived.

"Kichi's here, darling!" said Alastor to Manea while dropping the furs he was rolling up to go sprinting out of their cave and down the mountain path towards the land bridge. Spotting the monochromatic form of Kichi amongst the greenery of the evergreen forest was easy; he stood out much like Alastor's pure black form did. "Kichi!" Alastor called out with jubilation, rushing to greet the young wolf with a friendly nuzzle. From what he could see, Kichi was healthy and whole, no worse for wear from the apocalypse that had swallowed the earth for a season. Torch also seemed healthy as well! "I knew no cataclysm would stop you, haha! Welcome home." He gestured for Kichi to follow him and began to lead the way up from the rocky shore through the woods towards the caves the band had set up as dens. "Manea, my mate, is very eager to meet you!"


"Alastor"

Warning: Alastor is an explicitly mature character for violent and sexual content. Read his threads with caution.
As his mate, Manea may enter any of Alastor's threads not marked Private.
____________________

Manea smiled as she gave Saracyn a nudge as he rolled a bit too close to the pile of supplies she was gathering, pushing him back into the fray as he tumbled around with his sister. Seeing Avacyn back to her normal self again relieved her more than she could possibly express. She had been worried to death for her and Alastor both, but seeing her little darling daughter, her future matriarch, suffer and teeter far closer to death than she ever wanted to imagine tore her apart in a way that she hadn't been sure she'd be able to recover from. She had always imagined what it would be like to be a mother, what it would be like to have children of her own, and their beautiful miracle children had blown her expectations out of the water. It made her wonder what had made her own mother value her second mate and the child they made together over her legitimate children, but that was an answer she would never have...

A howl interrupted her wayward thoughts and she lifted her gaze away from their playing children, looking to Alastor as he exclaimed how Kichi was here at least. He had told her about the boy from his past and the invitation he had been given to join their collective band, but the cataclysm they lived through had clearly derailed everyone's plans. She was relieved that the boy had finally made it to them mostly because she knew it meant a lot to her husband and because they were just about to leave the island and it was good that he joined them now rather than having to track them down later. Alastor went on ahead of her and she quickly finished up what she was doing and stepped over her rough housing children to follow suit.

Soon enough she found her mate with a gray and white young man at his side, leading the smaller male toward the dens that had been their home for a while now. She met them half way, offering Kichi a smile as she gave him an appraising look. He was noticeably shorter than her and Alastor both and didn't have any interesting markings or gifts to note, but she had come to realize in her time since coming to Boreas that those things weren't the make or break of any wolf's value. Imperia and Irilyth had more than proven that loyalty and effort meant more than physical attributes—though she did still hold true to some of her beliefs of the strength of one's soul outwardly showing itself in that way. "You must be the Kichi I've heard so much about," she said as she reached the pair of males, offering the younger man a grin. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Manea | Temno | Ciemny

With Alastor in sight, Kichi took that as fine to cross over to the land.  “C’mon Torch,”  It was only a few strides until Al was right there and Kichi lifted his own finding that strange warmth of physical contact with someone he trusted and cared for.

“Nope never had a problem,” Kichi replied thinking of the darkness and all the prey he’d seen with it.  Since Kichi avoided wolves most of the time he only knew of Relm getting it so was unsure if it had affected many others.  “You seem to um,” come to think of it, “Al, what happened to your fur?”  He didn’t seem injured nor did Al act sick or anything but his coat seemed a lot shorter than Kichi recalled!  Considering last time he met they’d embraced Kichi was quite sure it had been denser.

Torch, pranced forward pressing his head into Alastor like a play-bump in greeting then a comical bark sound.
Kichi walked along with Alastor, the silvery coat contrasting against the inky blackness.  “So, how many are there here anyway?”  Kichi had lived with Al and Lurid so a band seemed a pretty large number in his mind.  How large was the actual number though?

Apparently, his mate hadn’t been too far behind as Kichi had to assume the female wolf coming towards them was Manea.  Like Alastor, she was a giant in size but there the appearances seemed to end.  The purple hues, the white lines around her one eye, and what were those sticking out of her face?  Horns or something else?  Huh.  She was pretty though, there was no denying that.

Her greeting was a surprise though.  Kichi she’d heard so much about?  The silver wolf tried to imagine what Alastor might have shared about him.  Kichi had always been closed off and formal in practice outside of those naïve days of youth, at least what he labeled naïve.  This was Alastor’s mate and someone to be open with, to trust, but that went against everything Kichi did by instinct.  He was curious about who Alastor had decided to hook up with.  His last relationship hadn’t gone very well so what was his second attempt like?

“Hi, Manea,” Kichi’s mind scrounged for something nice to say in return.  He’d been really curious to meet her and see Alastor’s band but hell if he knew what to say. “I’m glad to meet you also.  I admit I was curious since Al mentioned you.”  The words came out with a hesitant but curious interest.  Being open was dangerous but he could trust who Al trusted.

Torch had no problem.  The tiny water deer glanced up at the wolf and gave another little bark of greeting, its fanged teeth just adding to the comedy of its boldness.  Really, the deer would die without Kichi it had no concept of running on sight of wolves.

"Speech"

Alastor cringed inwardly when Kichi asked about what happened to his fur. Sure, it had started to grow back in its usual colors and patterns, but it was still noticeably shorter than the dense coat he'd had before. "It's a long story, but in short, I took a bath with something that didn't agree with my fur," he remarked with a hollow chuckle. Fucking firefly demon thing... Kichi asked about the band, and Alastor's expression visibly lightened up at the change of subject. "There's nine of us currently. You'll be our tenth member of the family. Myself, Manea, our two children, our servant, a close friend of mine, and an assortment of Manea's relatives." In time, Kichi would meet with them all, so he felt no need to go into details about each and every single one of them.

On their way back, Manea intercepted them, clearly having been not far behind Alastor himself. The dark brute greeted his mate with a wide grin and a chipper, "Hello, darling!" Then he stepped to sit beside Manea while his wife greeted and spoke to Kichi for the first time. Being so close to Alastor, Kichi's arrival had already come with a good word from the second-in-command, but Kichi would still need to make a decent impression on Manea. Of this, Alastor had no worries. Kichi was rough around the edges when it came to social interactions—a side effect of living in solitude for so long—but he had a good heart and a sharp brain. He'd do fine.

Just as he predicted, Kichi spoke with courteous manners to Manea, doing well. Alastor felt no need to interject; Kichi could handle his own. Instead, he contented himself to watch his surrogate brother and his mate interact, glancing down to Torch when the tiny deer gave a bleating bark. He smirked and raised a paw to his lips in a shushing motion to the small deer. He'd have to make sure no one in the band tried to eat Kichi's beloved pet.


"Alastor"

Warning: Alastor is an explicitly mature character for violent and sexual content. Read his threads with caution.
As his mate, Manea may enter any of Alastor's threads not marked Private.
____________________

She grinned at Alastor as he greeted her and leaned over to nuzzle his cheek as he came to stand by her. In all honesty she fully trusted her husband and his judgement so if Alastor said Kichi was someone they could trust and was someone he cared for enough to invite him to their band then she had no problem trusting the silvery young man as well. She still appreciated Kichi's polite, if not a bit reserved, response though. She wasn't a difficult wolf to get along with as long as whoever she was speaking to was equally amicable and respectful. "The feeling is mutual," she said in response when Kichi mentioned how curious he had been to meet her after Alastor had spoken about her. It wasn't that often that Alastor brought someone to her to join. First it had been Seraphina and now Kichi. Considering a good majority of their numbers were made up of wolves that were her relatives it felt only right that Alastor be given some free rein when it came to filling the rest of their ranks.

She was about to say something else when a strange little bark pulled her attention down with a blink of surprise, her aqua gaze landing on a little deer-like creature with rounded ears and very noticeable fangs. She looked at it with confusion for a moment but noticed with a glance toward Alastor that her husband was shushing the little creature so it very clearly wasn't something new to him. "A friend of yours?" she asked with a chuckle, looking back up to Kichi again. She was no stranger to keeping companions around her. Her two ravens had been constant fixtures in her life for quite a while now. She had never considered keeping something like a deer around, but at least this little deer did have quite vicious looking fangs.

Manea gave a nod toward the caves behind her and told him, "Come on, we'll show you around." She turned and started to walk toward the main area where the band had been staying for the last season or two. It was hard to determine how long they had really been here when the constant darkness had made time feel like it was both passing so quickly and not at all at the same time. "We'll be moving locations soon," she informed Kichi, walking between the two males and keeping her gaze mostly on the new comer while her opposite side lightly brushed Alastor's. "I have plans to reconnect with some of the packs in the southern portions of Boreas and then continue moving into Auster next season. We'll be traveling and training for a while until an opportunity arrises to expand our group into a full fledged pack." She wasn't sure how many details Alastor had told Kichi last time they saw each other so she felt like it was best to at least give him an idea of what life with them would be like.

"I don't have many laws for our band. Simply take care of each other and respect our values. You can do whatever you wish, but any consequences of your actions are your own. Make sense?" With that cleared up she came to a stop in the clearing by the lake where they had done some of their gatherings and trainings in the shadow of the mountains where they had made their dens in the caves just above them. She turned to face Kichi a bit more properly, giving him a curious look. "Will you be staying with us permanently then?"

Manea | Temno | Ciemny

Nine wolves? Kichi imagined being surrounded with a bunch of wolves staring at him, not a pleasant thought.  It also wasn’t realistic when he imagined it.  There was no reason to think a bunch of wolves in a band would encircle and stare at him.  Kichi’s first response to danger these days was to fight and if he couldn’t win to escape.  Being in a new sort of setting and both of those options not working was facing something Kichi was unsure about.  Regardless, what he did know is until now he hadn’t found any point in existence other than surviving to prove he could, to spite death, and for Torch.  No great reasons.

Kichi gave Torch a clear glare thinking ‘not now!’ before nodding to Manea, a twitch of a lip, “Torch, sorry.” A second of hesitation before adding meaningfully, “He’s my friend.”  Not just a little pet to sigh about if it died.  That was his friend to fight for should anyone try to harm him.  Torch had stuck by Kichi no matter how little fun the wolf had been at points and no matter how silly it seemed his little deer had earned his protective care.

Torch had looked back at Alastor’s shush, ears flicking before his head lowered to sniff in boredom at the ground.
Kichi was happy to follow Manea at the offer to show him around.  Taking action, moving about and getting information was easier to know how to respond to than idle chatter with a stranger.  Kichi’s head turned curiously about as he listened to her.  Just listening for a bit let Kichi lower his guard and not worry about saying something stupid.  When she mentioned to a ‘full-fledged pack’ Kichi imagined the number of wolves in his mind grow even more.  It was going to take time to get used to sharing his life with so many.  How often did they interact?  

“What are the pack’s values?” He knows how Al generally felt about things unless he’d changed in the last year but so far it didn’t seem that way.  What were her values?  Kichi could guess at what they were but clearly, he was ignorant on enough things might a swell sound like an idiot for a moment before ha made any bigger mistakes.  Kichi lacked any moral code to worry about the answer though, it was just needing to know what he was respecting.  The last question was easy though, “Yes,” then adding as an afterthought “please.  I want to stay here.”  ‘Please’ was a word he hadn’t used in a long long time nor many times at that.


"Speech"