The perky violet-tinted ebony girl wove her way around dead, ashen trees with the same cheerful delight she may have moved through a beautifully flowered glade. Why not? The flowers would die someday too just like the trees in this forest had, and someday the trees would grow back. One was no different than the other, really, and who was to say which was better? And despite her happy exterior, the gloomy surroundings matched her inner feelings pretty well. She was bored since Neios and Nausica had disappeared. Sure she'd found a little bit of amusement with Drashiel and Valentine but now they each had their own pack and they weren't nearly as accessible as before unless she planned to join one or the other, and she was still not sure she wanted to put herself under the authority of someone no matter how fascinatingly on-the-edge they were. She tossed her head, effortlessly cloaking her inner scowl with a habitual half-smile and twinkling eyes. She'd spent half her life trying to find these lands again just to be with her littermates and yet here she was, alone. Didn't that just figure?

The endless rain still pounded in his ears. Even if that storm was long ago, the memory of himself by the cliff side was unforgettable. He would wince each time he thought about that stupid risk he took to save that lady's life. Perhaps he needed silence and time to rethink what the hell he was going to do for the rest of his days. If any pretty girls thought he was going to save them in drastic storms, they were wrong. Life on the edge just wasn't for him. It was a lifeless and grey forest that grabbed hold of his faint curiosity. Out of all the other shores, thickets and woodlands he had travelled through, they all contained color, wonder and creatures. This forest, on the other hand, was nothing more but a falling, colorless, uninhabited world. But it suited his needs, as long as he held the solitariness that he always wanted. Like an ominous and mysterious soul, the dark man would slink through the landscape, no words escaping his maw. No birds chirped and no frogs croaked. It was silent, just an onyx pelt lumbering through. Ash flecked his fur like delicate petals like he was in a glorious ceremony with rejoicing howls sounding as far as the distant lands. It wasn't a festival. It was just himself in a dead world...or so it seemed. Bronze eyes scanned the premiseses, spotting a violent ebony pelt withering through the trees. He wasn't in the mood to yell out to that other creature, notifying his own presence. "Speech"

Something broke through her irritable inner monologue, some sound maybe or just a feeling, but the ebony girl glanced up to capture the sight of a silent, black coated male slinking through the trees. Mismatched eyes bore through the air between them in distraction. She considered calling out, but there was a perverse desire within her to be alone despite the overwhelming boredom. She angled herself to fade back into the trees away from his path, hoping for a similar intractable behavior from the male. With luck she'd avoid any unnecessary socializing today and be able to continue her brood without interruption.

- exit Cascade -