Arcturus picked up the bracers that he had made what felt like ages ago and walked out of the den they had been staying in for a while now, moving a short distance away till he reached a tree and settled under it in the shade. He got it in his head that he ought to improve these somehow or at least give them a better fit now that he had grown some and they surely wouldn't fit as well as they once had. If he was being honest with himself he couldn't remember the last time he put them on. With how long it had been since they were made in his mind he had expect there to be some wear and tear to fix, maybe a spike that had shifted out of place or one of the holes that the laces fed through was starting to get worn down. Anything that might have shown the use he had wanted to get out of them.

When he got settled down with the bracers between his white-dipped paws he started inspecting them, turning them over between his paws and searching for any kind of flaws. He didn't find any. They pretty much looked exactly as they did the day that he made them with their grandfather and that blacksmith back in Armada. His gray ears flicked at the revelation and he frowned as he pushed them away for a moment. He remembered when he was a pup, which in reality wasn't all that long ago even though it felt like it was, and how eager he had been to train and learn, all the fighting lessons he had done with his father... And now what was he doing with it? His armor was collecting dust, completely unused and unworn, and he couldn't remember the last time he had fount anything or gotten into a spar.

A frown pulled across his features as he realized he did remember the last time he had fought something at least—it was the polar bear that killed his father. With a huff he picked up one of the bracers and started unlacing its bindings just to have something to do with his paws, telling himself he might as well try them on to make sure they still fit properly so that he could say he had done something today. That seemed to be his goal each and every day—just do something so that he didn't feel like his day was completely pointless. Fixing and working on pieces of armor that didn't need fixing or working probably shouldn't count, but now here he was with no other plans and he didn't know what else to do with his time.

WC: 453/1500

"Arcturus Citlali Indarra"

Satira had been spending more and more time off adventuring on her own and away from the family as of late. It hadn't been born from a disdain of her family or anything, she just didn't like being cooped up in one area for very long feeling like she wasn't doing anything. Mom had reunited with Uncle Indigo, and she was also spending a lot of her time with those other two adults she'd brought along on their travels, so for the most part, she and Arcturus were left to their own devices. Part of growing up in the wild lands, she supposed. Were they still in the Armada, they would no doubt be put on a strict training regiment and workload by their grandfather. Out here, they were the masters of their own destiny. They charted and walked their own path. Life was theirs to make of it as they would. For her, that meant a lot of roaming and exploring. She'd even made a new friend—although she supposed she used that term loosely for the girl who taught her to kiss back on the mountain.

Wandering around the camp their family had set up, Satira spotted her brother stalking off to go lie beneath a tree with something. Standing on her tiptoes to peer over the lush grasses and bushes, she saw it was his bracers he was working on. But more importantly, she noticed that he was doing it all on his own. The fawn-colored girl breathed a sad sigh; her brother broke her heart. She wanted so badly to help him, to make him feel better and go back to the way things were before everything went wrong, but every time she tried to cheer him up, it didn't seem to make any difference. Arcturus would seem happy for a bit, and then fall back into his depressive state. She worried for her brother but she didn't know how else to help him. Floppy speckled ears folded back to her head—until Tira drew in a deep, determined breath and steeled her will. No, she had to try again! She couldn't just give up on her brother, not when he needed her the most.

Hurrying into their temporary den, Satira dug out her own bladed bracer she'd built with Grandpa Seer and that blacksmith guy back in the Armada and grabbed a swatch of fur. She didn't think she needed to tune up her weapon, but she could always polish it and pretend just to spend time with her big brother. Carrying her bracer out to the tree he was lying beneath, Tira approached from the front so he'd see her coming. "Mind if I join you?" she asked, moving to settle in beside him without waiting for him to agree. He didn't need to be alone as much as he was. Tira set her bracer down between her paws, turning it over to inspect the metal spring lock mechanism that controlled the hidden blade portion of her weapon. She tried hard to remember what Grandpa and the blacksmith had shown her about maintaining her weapon when they'd given it to her as a wee pup. "So whatcha been up to lately?" she asked him in idle chitchat while she manually extended the blade, using the fur to wipe down the blade and remove any grime or residue from it.

WC: 563
Total: 1016 / 1500

"Satira Star Fatalis"

As he was pulling apart the laces on his bracers so he could lay them flat, he heard the sound of paws moving through the grass and he looked up to see his sister walking toward him, carrying her own bladed bracer with her. With all the wandering around and traveling Satira had been doing as of late it felt like he was seeing less and less of her, but he couldn't really blame her. Their mother was spending a lot of time with their uncle and her friends and he wasn't exactly the best company so he imagined she was probably enjoying herself much more doing her bouts of exploration and traveling. He did miss all the time they used to spend together and he often thought about the memories of days he'd spend chasing her around or dragging her out on adventures just to give him some happy memories to reminisce on. He didn't have any resentment or feelings about her being more distant. He didn't enjoy spending time with himself so why would she? "Sure," he replied when she asked if she could join him, not that she really waited for a response before she settled in across from him and started opening up the blade on her bracers to clean it.

He looked back down at his work and finished laying out his bracers and took some time just straightening out the lacing, tightening some of the spikes that might not have been put on properly before since he had been so young at the time, and using one of his claws to fix a couple of the lacing holes that weren't quite as wide as the others. It was minimal and ultimately not necessary work, but it was something and it kept his paws busy which was always appreciated. When he had a task or a job to do it helped him keep his mind on that rather than letting it wander and fester in its own issues. That was probably the biggest problem and why he was still stuck in such a state. He kept distracting himself or finding momentary fixes for this darkness that kept trying to swallow him hole instead of finding any kind of real solution or purpose for himself, but he didn't know how to do anything else. He just kept walking in circles and repeating the same things over and over.

Arcturus started feeding the leather laces back through the holes in his bracers to stitch them back together when his sister asked him what he had been up to. His expression didn't really change, but his gray ears flicked and he couldn't bring himself to look up at her. "Oh... you know... just the same old stuff," he replied after a moment with a shrug. He hadn't done anything really of note and it was easier to just deflect her question than admit that he hadn't gone much farther than this from their den in a while besides the occasional outing to hunt. "What about you?" he asked curiously, giving her a small glance before looking back down at his work while he braced himself to hear about her travels and all the things she had seen, all the things that he should be doing that he wasn't.

WC: 1566 / 1500

"Arcturus Citlali Indarra"

Satira carefully cleaned off both sides of the blade with the fur until the silver steel shone in the bright sunlight. She checked it over meticulously, and once satisfied with her work, retracted the blade back into the spring lock mechanism. Then she began to wipe down the actual leather bracer, both inside and out. She really needed to find some oil or something to apply to the leather and the blade to keep them smooth and supple, and keep the mechanics working the way they should. Part of her missed the availability of resources back in the Armada, but there was no use crying over what she didn't have access to anymore. She'd just have to be innovative and creative with her solution. Maybe some of those weird ruins would have things she could use if she went looking around in them.

Arcturus gave a nonchalant comment about just doing the "same old stuff" he'd been doing—which in Tira's mind meant moping about and being miserable. She decided not to pursue it further, though the tiny frown on her face did deepen in empathy for her brother. When he asked what she had been up to, Satira also gave a blasé shrug of her shoulders. "Been doing a lot of exploring. Checking out places that sound cool." A little smirk crept across Tira's lips when she thought about her most recent trip to the southern fjord and how that had gone. "I met a cute girl the other day. We kissed and she taught me how to make out. It was fun." Casually avoiding her brother's gaze after dropping that news bomb on him, Satira began to adjust the leather laces on her bracer as well to fit better around her foreleg now that she'd grown to what would likely be her approximate adult height. She wondered what Arc would make of her promiscuity. Maybe it'd distract him from his own depression for a few minutes.

"Satira Star Fatalis"

Arcturus nodded without looking up from his work as he finished feeding the laces through the holes on one bracer and moved on to the other, listening as Tira told him about the exploration she had been doing. That wasn't really a surprise. He didn't know where all she had been going, but she hadn't been hanging around here all that much so that checked out. He supposed he was glad that she wasn't just sitting around like he was and he certainly wouldn't wish these emotions and struggle to find any kind of motivation that he was dealing with on anyone else. If anything he was more just jealous of his sister. Neither of them had really had it easy by any means over the last couple of seasons, but she had kept going and enduring somehow and he envied her for it.

She added another little bit about her adventures that made him stop in the middle of lacing up the second bracer, blinking with surprise down at his paws before he managed to turn his shocked up to peek at his sister curiously. "You, uh... You did?" he questioned in disbelief. In his mind Tira was still the same as she had been when he was hugging her during a thunderstorm after she woke up from a nightmare, but now she was off going on adventures, finding cute girls, making out with them... His ears flicked and his face flushed at the thought and he quickly looked down at the bracers in front of him again, clearing his throat a bit as he made himself go back to working on finishing up his little project. "I'm... Uh... I'm glad you're having a good time, I guess," he replied awkwardly, fidgeting with his pieces of armor and starting to pull them on to make sure the fit was still good.

"Arcturus Citlali Indarra"

Satira didn't need to look up to feel her brother's gaze on her after she mentioned her escapades with Azzurra. It brought a little bit of a proud, sultry smirk to her lips knowing she'd caught him off guard with that. The way he stammered out a response gave her all the answer she needed as to what her brother thought about what she'd been up to and she was reveling in flustering him. "Mhmm, it was lots of fun," she replied, finishing fitting her bracer to the size of her foreleg. With careful paws and teeth, she began to lace up the bracer around her leg once more, making it snug enough that it wouldn't come off, but not too tight that she couldn't slip it off with ease. She wasn't telling him these things to brag, of course. She was trying to show him what life outside their little group and beyond his misery could be like. It was bright, it was beautiful, and it tasted sweet like strawberries or honey.

With her work on her bracer finished, Satira wiggled it back into place comfortably on her foreleg, then rose back to her paws. She padded around to sit directly in front of her brother, giving him a resolute stare. "Come adventuring with me sometime," she said with firm insistence in her sweet voice. "We can go explore cool places together and meet new wolves. Maybe they'll make out with you too. Just... don't stay here being alone all the time. I want my brother back. Please." Tira didn't want to say it out loud, but she was very worried about Arcturus' wellbeing. Sticking around the den moping all the time couldn't have been healthy, and the deeper his depression got, the more she feared they'd never be able to bring him out of it. She just wanted her brother back with her, the way things were before everything turned bad.

"Satira Star Fatalis"

Arcturus had just finished putting on his bracers when Satira suddenly stood up and walked around so that she was facing him, making him blink with surprise as she sat directly in front of him and forced him to look at her right in the eye. His gray ears flicked uncertainly as he was confronted by his smaller sister with a firmness that wasn't completely out of character for her, but it certainly wasn't a side of her he had experienced in a while. Her insistence that he come adventuring with her confused him a bit since he couldn't immediately figure out why she was being so direct about wanting him to go somewhere with her—not at least until she went on to say how she wanted her brother back, pleading with him for him to not stay here alone all the time. His ears folded guiltily and it was hard to continue meeting her gaze, but he managed.

He didn't really have a good grasp on just how long it had been since his father was killed. He kept thinking that eventually the hurt of it would fade and he'd be able to get back to where he was, but that clearly wasn't happening on its own. Sometimes he felt a little better, sometimes he was distracted enough that he didn't think about it, but then sometimes he'd have a nightmare about it or see something that reminded him of his dad or the life they used to have and he'd slip. Either way, he didn't want to disappoint her. He didn't want to worry her. Satira and their mother had been the only constants in his life and he knew he probably depended on them a little more heavily than he wanted to admit, but he didn't want to keep feeling useless and helpless to them. He was supposed to be protecting and helping them and instead he just sank deeper and deeper into a hole.

After a few moments of silence he tipped his head forward to lightly bump his forehead into hers, replying, "Okay." He couldn't promise a lot without feeling like he might let her down again, but he could at least agree to going exploring with her. Little steps, small improvements. "I... I don't want to be like this," he admitted softly, frowning as he turned his gaze down from hers to look at his paws. It was hard to explain that he didn't choose to just lay around and do nothing all day or how even when he wanted to go do some of the things he used to be passionate about it just never really felt the same. "I'll try for you," he promised, gently tapping her much smaller paw with his own.

"Arcturus Citlali Indarra"

Satira saw Arcturus begin to sink into himself when she demanded they hang out and do something to take his mind off of his loss and she responded by immediately huffing and storming her way right up to her brother and bonking her forehead gently into his until her vision was filled with nothing but sapphire eyes and gold fur. "No, don't do that. Don't keep beating yourself up, please," she said, trying to remain firm to show him she was serious, but a little quiver coming to her voice as she fought back her emotions. She wanted so badly for her brother to stop being upset, but she was powerless to do anything about it. It was just like how she felt with her parents—a spectator on the sidelines of the disaster that was the life she knew falling down around her. She hated feeling like she had no power or control over the situation. She hated standing to the side and feeling useless to help the ones she loved the most. It wasn't fair, to them or to her! Eventually, Arcturus reluctantly agreed to let her try to help him, then spoke sadly about how he didn't want to be like this. He broke her heart, but she held herself together for her brother's sake.

"I know you don't want to," said Satira, voice gentle and melancholy, but loving and soothing. A tiny speckled paw lifted from his to touch his cheek while she pressed her forehead to Arc's, letting her eyes close while she tried to comfort him to the best of her abilities. "And that's why I want to help make you better. Because you're my brother. And I love you so much." With her eyes still closed, Tira lifted her muzzle up to place a tender kiss to her sibling's temple. Then she pulled back to open her eyes and give him a small smile. "We're gonna make you better, okay? I won't stop until you're better again." It was a lofty promise, but one Tira intended to keep, no matter the cost.

"Satira Star Fatalis"