The gentle repetition of rain on stone became a symphony, untainted, as night began to descend behind the overly round clouds that blocked the sky from sight. Only the merely outline of minute light was all that was visible, feebly tracing its ageless fingers along edges of clouds. Beneath all of this, hidden in a crevice between rock faces that led into a hollowed out den big enough to accommodate herself and her pups, lay a figure of evidently canine heritage. Lengthy fur ruffled along her form, coating her in a tawny shade with only black points to contrast with it. Her eyes were only opened a crack and her breathing was steady and even, her body curved and her head making certain her two pups were tucked into the curve of her shape.

They're only hours old,' she thought to herself, pride brimming in her lax and tired mauve eyes, 'A son and a daughter. Their father would be proud.' Needless to say, Ovan wouldn't be here to see them. Even good things come to an end, but what they had was merely an illusion. A disillusionment, she admitted, at the end, but it had been nice while it lasted. No matter what existed, or ceased to exist as the case may be, between their father and her, Eve refused to let that affect her children. No. They would be given more than adequate love and they'd lead perfect -- spectacular -- lives. They had her and that was enough. It had to be.

She fell into a fitful slumber, listening to the bedding rustle as a result of eager paws fumbling along, and to the almost muted squeaks her infants emitted. Tomorrow, she decided while she drifted into sleep, I'll tell the clan they have arrived. Indeed, beyond the rock face she chose to bring these pups into the world in, beyond this small piece of land, there was a large clan of individuals just like her. They roamed this mountain, they PROTECTED this mountain. With teeth, claw, and sorcery.

But I don't WANT to stay in here." The pup pouted back at his mother and gave a conspiring glance back at his sister, digging for her support on the argument. The she-pup opened her mouth but no words fell in time to support her brother. "It's really much better after you get used to it," Eve assured her son and pushed him closer to her with a forepaw, bringing his side and cheek to her ribcage, comfortingly dropping her nose to nuzzle his face with maternal affection, "They're going to teach you glorious things, things you'll need to know later. I promise I'll be back later today." Confident now, he nodded and licked the side of his mother's muzzle before trotting off toward the assembled wolves. "Go on now," Eve urged her daughter after Blair had wandered off. The pink and tawny she-pup looked up at her mother warily before giving her a skittish half-smile and following her brother's actions.

Eve watched them go and disappeared through the cave entrance. All of them were orb-enchanters and orb-enchantresses, each and every soul within this tribe. Wardens, some called them. They protected the natural realm and were closely knit with their supernatural figures, which they believed to be the benefactors that had bestowed the glorious abilities, and every fortune they reaped, upon them. The pups inside that cave were being taught the ways of the tribe, the beliefs of the tribe, and how to respect and refine their orb-enchanting prowess. Eve caught a glance at Ovan from across the clearing and forced a smile on her face. 'We're only friends now,' she thought to herself, but then regretfully repeated, 'We're only friends…

How was it?" she asked them with a grin when she returned to the cave that 'schooled' the pups. "Oh, it was amazing, momma! Really, it was!" the male said avidly. He then went on in exaggerated, opinionated detail to recap his first day. When necessary, the she-pup gave her commentary on the subject. "Now, Yri, surely you have more to say about your day other than 'it was something new'," Eve teased her daughter, eyes warm as they met with Yri's, mauve looking deep into mauve, as though a mirror. "Well… It WAS pretty awesome. That orb he created out of that leaf… it was so big! And so SHINY. I didn't think such a thing was possible," she said, tail wagging slowly as she remembered, "I want to be able to do that!" Her eyes were brimming with pride once more, Eve knew, as she analyzed the obvious excitement, promise, and most of all, capability that she saw in her two offspring. They would excel… they would not falter. They were to be excellent masters of this art. She knew it, she just knew it.

She couldn't help but smile, tears threatening to fall, as she awaited to see her children perform their first enchantment. Their first exams… The recap of the past five months. Yri was tense and uneased, but Blair was standing tall with that charming smile of his plastered across his face. Oh, he was proud. So very proud, and so very skillful at enchanting. And he knew it. Perhaps that's why he was so proud, Eve thought as she shook her head, hoping to shake the tears away as well. But they refused to leave and left damp trails on her cheeks as she looked on from the accumulated crowd of kin.

Yriiz, would you please step to the front?" Had there not been for the fur, she would have been pale as the blood drained from her face and her stomach plummeted. Obediently, however, she stood and tread easily to the front on her thin, yet capable, limbs. Her forelock fell leisurely over half her face, but she hastily brushed it back further so that the majority of her face became visible. She never had been tidy about her forelock, which with some pride, she had allowed to grow into a lengthy patch, usually fixed at an angle. Eve thought on that topic as she watched her daughter. Even for such an occasion, she hadn't made much fuss over her appearance.

A few elements were laid before Yri's, a montage of odd and end items. Leaves, bark, water soaked into moss, blades of emerald grass, and a thin sliver of rough rock. "Make of these what you are capable of," the wolf in the front of the raised rock platform said, voice booming and loud. Yri could only imagine how far his voice could be heard. She avoided making such thoughts vocal and turned her concentration to the items at her disposal. Leaves… She placed the leaf on her paw as she raised one before her, tilting it at an angle so that she wasn't pressuring her muscles and wouldn't drop the leaf.

Her eyes closed and she let her mind swing lax, comfortable oblivion inhabiting her mind as she took even breaths in preparation. Trickling into her thought space, slowly and like a painting in motion, leafy canopies formed in her vision, an ant's eye-view, and the bright, vibrant sunlight shining through small spaces and into her mind's eyes. The force of the life exhibited in her image almost took her breath, had her blood chilled yet vitalized, and she could feel a tingling sensation on her paw. She concentrated more, more on condensing the leaf into a preserved form. In accordance to her will, the leaf turned into a small, marble-sized ball that shined many shades of green. There were numerous faces to the condensed leaf, as though it had once been a mosaic of glass and had been pieces together bit by bit. She was stunned. Yri had never been able to do such a neat job of it before. Usually, the ball came out somewhat irregular in pattern, or the leaf merely shriveled up. But, this time…

A hushed silence fell over the crowd, the wolf at the head of the platform being the most obviously astounded one of them all. He certainly hadn't expected her to succeed. He was her teacher, after all, and she hadn't been too great at orb-enchanting all at once. "Excellent job," he praised her, taking the orb from her and placing it beside his paw. Piercing it gently with a claw, he burst the orb. Mist flowed out rapidly, swathing the air nearby the orb in pale green, translucent smoke. Beneath the smoke, now lay a leaf, as green and as vibrant as it had been before. As if to voice their approval, the clan fell into congratulatory chatter. The wolf leading the proceeding waved a paw to silence them, dipping his head to Yri, and gave her the gesture to return to the roster of students.

Blair," he rumbled in his monotonous, loud voice, "Please rise and move yourself to the front of the platform." Proud as usual, the male puffed his chest out and tread to the head of the platform as instructed. His eyes lowered to the things before him and he swallowed before folding his haunches and honing in on the ability that lay dormant only half a year before. Magic flowed through his body in threads of amber as he placed a paw gently over the piece of rock he intended to enchant. Liquid electricity singed his blood and left him feeling alive yet relaxed, hyperactive yet immobilized. Only when the hot zip of friction and magic had disappeared from beneath his paw an replaced the rock with a beautiful orb, did he feel the mixture of sensations dissolve into nothingness. He blinked into the bright light of mid-day and observed his success, smiling broadly as the crowd of brethren fell into a chorus of approval, voices raised, but he heard one voice individual louder than any of the others. His green eyes raised and met with his mother's mauve set, pride and genuine affection shining in them.

Lowering his head, Blair humbly accepted the compliment as his teacher burst the orb, once more into a rock, and praised him.

Blair settled back in beside Yri and shot her a side-ways glance, smiling like he usually was. "I was great, wasn't I?" he asked her. She watched him for a moment, shaking her head as though in disbelief. He was so conceited. "Building your ego up like that is just ASKING for someone to break it down. And you know I'd gladly do so in a heartbeat," she responded and jabbed him in the side with an elbow. This earned her a mock-scornful look from Blair as he stiffly sat taller and pretended to ignore her. "Well, it still amounts to the fact that I was great!" he said in a voice that Yri would have believed to be ruffled and insulted, had she not known him. She brushed her muzzle against his shoulder and couldn't stop the smile that crept onto her lips. "Yes, yes, you were great," she praised him at last and then turned her attention to the teacher. Their last day… this was their last day. Would they still be capable enough, despite the small amount of training they had received? Yri couldn't be so sure, but she didn't voice such concerns.

She folded herself around both of her children, forelegs spread in a very human-like manner as she held them both hostage simultaneously in as much of a hug as she could physically manage. Blair grunted slightly at the much unexpected, and much unwanted, strangulation -- as he often called it -- and finally just stood lax and didn't fight back. Yri, however, pressed her cheek to her mother's and raised a single forepaw to sling it across her mother's shoulders, as though returning the hug. "You two were great! Your father was so proud, I could just tell, by how he kept looking at you two," Eve praised them heartily. The last sentence made Eve stop dead in her words and she stood rigid for a moment. She could feel Blair's jaw stiffen against her neck and also feel that Yri had allowed her grip to slacken to the point that her paw fell back beside its mate. Yri ducked out of her mother's grip and looked her in the face, eyes overly shiny and her brows curved in confusion.

You told us Dad was dead and that's why we had never known him," Yri said slowly, eyes searching her mother's face, "He's not really dead, is he?" Blair had also slipped out of Eve's hold and came to stand beside Yri, his flank against hers in sibling reassurance. Eve opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. No words came to her aid as she looked into the obviously injured faces of her two offspring. She swallowed nervously, jerkily casting a glance back toward the crowd. "The thing is," she said in a shaky tone, "Is that he and I simply split up. It would be better that we discuss this in private." With no further word, Yri flicked her tail gently against her mother's shoulder and gestured toward the cave the three of them shared. "Let's discuss it in there," she invited, though her eyes made it appear more of a polite command than a friendly offer. Eve nodded and followed beside Yri and Blair, suddenly engulfed by misery.

She took a deep breath as she sat in front of them all, her back to the opening of the cave. "Your father -- Ovan -- and I were perfectly at the time that we knew you two were to come into the picture," Eve told them slowly, deliberately, "but, in the next month that followed, our matters just… unraveled. We were constantly at odds and when we weren't, we slept as far from one another as is possible in this cave or sat in silence. We never talked anymore, we COULDN'T. Each of us had grown to be so different from the individuals we had once known. We… couldn't love each other any longer. It was only torture, to us and to you two once you had arrived, to see us and experience our cross-fire like this. So, we thought it better if we went our separate ways. At least, as separate as you can be in a clan to which both of you belong." Yri listened intently to her mother, noting the regretful gleam in her eyes and the slight tremble of her frame. This was hard for her and she knew it. "You don't need to explain anymore," she whispered and pressed her flank affectionately and comfortingly against her mother's, "But, we both want to meet him. We want to meet our father." Eve looked up, eyes glazed by both her misery and miff, "Yes. He would like that.

Yri saw to it that her mother was contentedly asleep before she and Blair set out to pay their father a visit. They found the white wolf in question still among the lingering throng of wolves around the meeting place of earlier. Blair flicked the male's shoulder with his tail to gain his attention. When Ovan glanced around, he noticed the individuals and his gut sank, ice crawling over his skin and his mouth was held pursed as he looked from his daughter's curious face to his son's somewhat begrudging one. "Oh," he managed after a few moments, "Do you need to--" Blair didn't let him finish before giving him a curt, affirmative nod and padding toward the skirt of the pack's camp. Ovan uneasily settled himself beside his children and cleared his throat. "You two found out, by my guess?" he asked, eyes only curious. Honestly, he had always wanted to know them. Eve, however, had been relentless in her insistence that they not know him. It hurt, you know, for the one you had thought you loved, to veto you over and over to the right to know your offspring. He regretted giving up, he truly did.

We want to get to know you… Dad," Yri said softly, somewhat awkwardly, and offered him an easy smile, "Mother always told us you were dead. So, we never really questioned her about it… I think we should have taken curiosity in it sooner, but we trusted her word. It's not too late for us to spend time with you, is it?" Ovan was stunned by this. He had half-way expected them to be angry with him. Well, Blair was, but Yri was more accepting. Looking from one to the other, he realized Blair was feeding off his sister's gentler ways somewhat, finally beginning to soften and seem less agitated with him. "It's never too late," he told Yri, eyes warm as he smiled broadly. She returned his smile somewhat before nodding. "First, though, explain why you didn't come to us before we had come to you.

He furrowed his brow slightly, thoughtfully, and selectively chose his words, careful not to tread on any feet. A bad word said about another was a bad word earned against yourself. "Your mother just thought it would be best, and less turbulent, and obviously less difficult on you two if neither of you knew about me. You see, it may or may not have led you two to pick sides, per se, but it would make you two feel torn, in a way. So, we both agreed that it was best that I wasn't even in the picture," he explained as thoroughly as he could and was rewarded when Yri nodded, understanding. "Since we're here, why not start off with telling us some childhood stories like every father does?" she asked him, cracking a somewhat jesting grin. With a laugh, Ovan obliged and set into telling them the tale of how his father, which led to catastrophe, taught him how to hunt.

Her head was pounding and she cracked her eyes open, pupils contracting as light filled them. Blair nudged her again with a paw. "We're going to be late, you lazy, you," he said, urging her to rise. With a groan of reluctance, Yri got to her paws as her muscles screamed with the effort. It was too early! How was she expected to work like this as soon as the darn sun rose? Surely the pack wouldn't starve if they waited a few hours longer to begin hunting parties. They were wardens, magicians, not brutish hunters. "Alright, alright, I'm up," Yri mumbled as she heavily sat on her haunches, shoulders hunched forward and her head drooping as she gradually began to wake her entire body up. Flexing each paw, arching her back, turning her neck at angles, she finally forced the friction and aches to subside. Blair led her on as they approached the waiting canines just outside their cave.

About time," the leader of the party, Abe, scolded, "You two took longer than the moon does to disappear." Yri wondered if he said that because the moon will still in vision. She snorted, bridling a sarcastic comment she had the acute temptation to say. "G'morning!" a voice said from behind her and Yri swiveled around to see a male. He was somewhere around her age, from the size of his frame and the still-visible effects of adolescence making some body parts seem short in comparison to others. "Good morning," she said slowly, committing his silver and white fur to memory. "I'm Tucker," he introduced himself, dipping his head ceremoniously. Yri almost laughed at his regal manner, but forced herself to only give him a grin, "I'm Yriiz." He nodded, "I saw you and your brother at the graduation two months ago. I never really got around to congratulating you two in person. You two are brilliant! I doubt I could do any better." The praise was unexpected and Yri blinked in surprise, but she laughed the shock off. "We'll see if you can do any better," she said, noticing all too late how warm her words sounded. 'Can't send wrong signals…' she thought to herself and shook her head a bit. Tucker, however, seemed to have ignored what others may have considered a flirtatious remark. "I swear I can't do any better!" he announced and fell into step beside Yri as the party headed out.

As the case may be, Tucker really COULDN'T do any better. His enchanting abilities bordered on horrific and Yri found herself wondering what she could even say when he presented the misshapen orb to her, the result of his own work. "I… really didn't think it could be this bad," she said, blinking multiple times. Tucker's eyes became too shiny, she noticed, and she opened her mouth to repair the sentence, but he talked before she could. "It was a gift. But if you don't like it, you don't have to keep it," he told her with a dejected smile, as though he were trying to make himself feel better, "I understand if you don't like it, it is really ugly." He stared down at the dark blue orb he had cradled in his forepaws, on the verge of tears. Yri swallowed hard and sat down beside Tucker, folding her tail around him in companionable comfort. "I'll gladly accept it," she said with convincing warmth, "It's not the most beautiful thing in the world, but I bet if I stare at it long enough, I can convince myself otherwise." Tucker looked up at her, seeing the playful jest in her eyes and he was once at ease, reassured. She meant it. "Then it's yours, to stare at as you please!" Tucker handed over the flower orb and then gestured toward the direction in which the party had gone. "We should go follow them.

She really couldn't figure out what to do with the freak of nature orb. No amount of staring had morphed it, physically or psychologically, into a more beautiful object. Yri sat on the rock floor of the den for who knows what time now, staring at the orb she held in her paw. "What are you looking at?" Blair asked as he peeked over her shoulder and down at the orb. "Really, what are you looking at? I've never seen anything so… odd before," he remarked. Yri, for some reason, was provoked by this. "It's an ORB, in case you haven't noticed. And it's a FLOWER orb that Tucker gave me," she retorted sharply. Only after she had said it, did Yri notice what it might suggest. Blair had already latched onto the idea and a grin spread across his face, smug amusement playing in his eyes. "Oh, so, Tucker's your new love buddy~?" he sing-songed, quirking a brow in that taunting way he did. Yri heaved an irritable sigh and rushed out of the cave, avoiding question and trying not to say or do something she might regret.

Thoughts became listless as Yri idled about at the mouth of the cave, eyes wandering down to the orb here and there. Why did she care so much about it? It really wasn't all that attractive, and it wouldn't make a pretty piece of jewelry by any means. She sighed outwardly, frustrated as well as on the verge of indecision. To cast the ugly thing out of her sight and into the forest, or to keep it as a token of friendship? So many decisions, so many emotions, and too many things to think about. Her eyes lifted to the sky and she watched the blue relenting to black, star-studded blankets of night. Sometimes, she wished things were as easy as day or night. It was either one or the other, no real controversy. Of course, there was evening and others medians, but night and day were definite. It was then that she knew what she was going to do. The melting of blue into black gave her the suggestion and she grasped it: she would meld the orb into something fantastic. She WOULD make it look better. There had to be a way, and she knew what it might be.

What do you mean infuse two elements?" the elderly lupe asked her, miffed, as he looked Yri over with caution. Another crazy youngin', he thought. "Yes, infuse two elements. By means of enchanting, to bond the two together. I want to infuse this flower orb with that of a drop of water. Do you think you can do that, Marty?" she asked, eyes somewhat begging in their size and their desperation. Marty sighed and shook his dark grey head. "I should be paid for this type of thing," he said with a smile, "but I can do it." She handed the misshapen orb over to him and the drop of water along the top of a leaf.

Be sure to keep your paws away while I do this, you know?" Marty warned her as he began to focus his enchanting abilities. Yri only nodded as she curiously watched him at work. If she had heard what the sagely canine had said, she gave little sign. And it showed as she extended a paw forward to experimentally touch the materials, middle of the top of her left forepaw falling under the drop of water just as it landed. Pain, burning and insistent, tore through her paw and she could only cry in agony and tumbled side-ways as the orb bit into her flesh and roosted itself there. Marty jumped up and yelled words she couldn't hear, much less understand, and blacked out as the pain grew and grew.

She woke with the stale and bitter flavor of vomit on her tongue and covering her mouth like a thick film. Her eyes cracked open painfully, sending additional waves of pain through her retinas. She groaned almost mutedly as she rotated her shoulders a single time and then sat straight. Her fur was ruffled and irregular in pattern, no surprise to her or anyone else, but she felt increasingly grungy and dirty. 'I'll bathe in the river later', she decided and slowly blinked. "That was stupid of ya'," Marty scolded her from his seat several tail-lengths away. Yri turned her head toward him and offered a weak, humiliated smile, "I know." He snorted and approached her, lifting her paw with one of his own. "That orb is stuck there," he told her as he examined the beautiful cerulean orb now stuck in the flesh on the top of her paw. She winced visibly as he poked at with an adept paw.

She looked down at the orb, somewhat in awe after the initial shock had worn off, and wondered what Tucker would think about it. I'll show him later, she decided, and after receiving the okay to leave, Yri exited the spacious den that belonged to the sage and padded into the clearing. Light was still somewhat excruciating to look into and she found herself squinting against the harsh illumination. However, she weaved through the camp to look for Tucker, searching the faces for his amber-eyed one.

Yri was rewarded for her efforts when she finally found him napping outside the den his family occupied. "Tucker!" she raised her voice, jabbing him in the side with a forepaw to rouse him, "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." He raised his head, blinking slowly into the sunlight before registering her face. "Oh! Yri! Hi! I didn't expect to, uhm, see you here," he said sheepishly, tending to his fur self-consciously. She grinned at his antics and then extended the forepaw studded with the orb. "This WAS the orb you gave me infused with a water drop," she explained as he gaze became curious looking down at the orb, "I meant to make it into an ordinary orb, but I did something stupid and now I've got a permanent orb on my paw." Tucker grinned, shaking his head slightly. "It really is beautiful," he said, looking up at her instead of the orb. Yri's mouth went dry and she met his gaze, eyes cautious and guarded. "I need to go," she said abruptly, softly. She stood and headed in the direction of the den, but Tucker stopped her short as he padded quickly behind her. "We're… ?" he trailed off, questioning her. Yri's eyes met his and she searched for who knows what there and finished his sentence, "Friends. We're only friends." Tucker's tail fell as she stepped past him and continued along her way.

Eve noted, with some amusement, that her daughter seemed somewhat off the days following the meeting with Tucker. 'Love-struck pups these days', she thought as she watched her yearling daughter drift along day after day. Her gaze always seemed to drag back to the entrance of the cave, as though she expected Tucker to appear at any given second. However, he never came, and Eve felt some pity for Yri. However, she knew it had to run its course and she butted out. She flicked her tail somewhat as Yri strode out of the den and headed for the small, trickling river than ran through the edge of the contour of the camp, wondering just what was on her daughter's mind, but never bothering to ask.

Yri's jaws were held rigid as she stared down at the gigantic fall that led down the incline of the mountain. This mountain, so rugged, so… tough. Looking down at herself in the shallow stream, Yri realized her body was just as rugged as the mountain she looked down from. Her muscles weren't tenuous, as would be customary to one who lived in a softer, less demanding environment. She flexed a paw, watching each digit set bones in motion with each movement. Yes, she thought, she was more muscular than one could assume for a female. But she wasn't any less feminine, was she? More importantly, why the self-conscious thoughts all of a sudden? Her mind wandered for a moment, reaching back to the scene in which she had declined Tucker's advances. Was her denial of them being anything more than friends what had made her mind wonder? As far as she knew, he was the only one who had taken any interest in her at all. Yri's throat constricted and she turned away from the water and lifted her gaze. Let what happen may, she thought to herself, hoping for an invigorating lift of spirits, as she slowly loped back to the camp.

***

She couldn't get her head around him, she couldn't even catch a rabbit due to thinking about him. If it were up to Yri to feed the entire pack, they'd be doomed to starvation for months on end. Abe had eventually gotten annoyed at her lack of consciousness and had ordered she return to her den until she could get her head out of the clouds and concentrate enough to catch a legless mouse. The only one who had dared even argue that she stay was Tucker, but he closed his mouth after he had drawn in a breath. His eyes followed her form, she knew, as she slipped between her brethren to go toward her home. She was so ashamed, so ashamed to be like this. Humiliated before her peers, and why? Because she couldn't organize her thoughts. Well, she would ease this problem, and she would ease it now.

Her gaze lifted and Yri allowed her mauve eyes to lock with Tucker's amber ones. She blinked slowly, warmly, and gestured her head away from the accumulated party. Tucker hesitated for several heart-beats, allowing the party to drift onward_ before he mustered up the courage to pad toward her. "Yes, Yriiz?" he questioned, voice stiff and awkward all at the same time. Yri felt her stomach twist due to this formal tone, as though they only met each other. "Cut the formal crap," she said sharply, yet knew at once she was too harsh, "I'm sorry. Just… don't sound like that." She awkwardly scraped the dirt with a single forepaw, eyes cast downward, as she thought over how to carry on. "If it's not too late…" she trailed off, "I'd like to give you a chance." Tucker tensed in front of her, his brows drawing low and his head tipped to one side, questioning. Yri glanced up, looking into his face, trying to read his face as she confidently plodded on, "I've been thinking a lot lately. And it's all been about you. I can't seem to think about anything else… I think, if we put some effort into it, we could make it work." She swallowed as he gained a look she wasn't familiar with, but her tension melted as he tucked her muzzle underneath his and drew her near enough to feel his pulse, fleeting and at a rapid pitch, underneath all of his fur. "It's never too late," he assured her in a gentle, deep tone, "You'll not need to give me another chance. I'll make sure I'm the best thing you ever gave a chance." She smiled, drawing in his scent, and allowed herself to remain in this position until Abe called from several yards away. Only then did she ruefully allow Tucker to draw away and trot to catch up with the party.

She felt as though she were in a daze the time after, some emotion she had never felt buzzing in her head and making her heart speed up its pace. Drunken by this stupor, she felt lighter than she was in actuality and more capable of anything than she had ever been. Reality was leagues and galaxies, cleverly hidden beneath the folds of illusion, and she hadn't welcomed anything more. Yri's gaze finally fell from Tuck's fading form and she ventured toward the suddenly-attractive beacon of home.

Morning dawned in its usual tones, but to her, they were more vibrant than they'd ever been. The air tasted different, the bedding of moss and the leather hides of deer who had died months ago even felt more comfortable than usual; everything had taken on a different shade these past few months, she knew, and she was quickly becoming conscious of the source of such bliss: Tucker. Once withdrawn, she was now more open to social junctions, and wasn't quite as dismal as her disposition had been before. She had transformed, she realized, into an entirely different being.

Her mother was probably even happier with this development than her, for Eve beamed every time she saw the two of them, and it was all she talked about. Yri would have believed it in a heartbeat if the pack were to exile her for chattering more than a whole flock of magpies. Her father, however, was more reluctant to accept her choice and often impressed upon Yri that Tuck wasn't exactly 'suitable' due to his inability in just about every facet of imaginable life. The one thing he really excelled at, however, was hunting and that was what Yri concentrated on when it came to him. She took note of not his weaknesses or shortcomings, but his one stronghold. Despite this, her father's opinion meant so much to her, she realized; all she wanted was to impress him, and this was a devastating blow to her ambitions. Her only hope now was that Ovan would gradually condone her decision and discover that it was her life to live.

Blair, however, had perhaps taken this the worst of the family. Before Tuck had arrived, the two siblings had been inseparable. They had had no one else within their group of comfort around their age, and therefore found companionship in their common connection. This new, and unforeseen, change made a huge impact on Blair, and Yri was fully aware of it. She had come to think of it as weaning an infant from milk, but as she looked at her brother from the other side of the cave, she realized he looked so desolate and distant, so much so that a wave of guild crashed down to quench her mirthful mood. Yri gathered her paws beneath herself and strode to her brother's side, lowering her skull so that the side of her face and muzzle pressed into his side, craning up as she brought her shoulders even with his. "Good morning, Blair," she said with a hopeful smile, aware of the fact that he seemed to brighten up a bit at this notion. "Good morning, Yri," he responded and dipped his head. But he wasn't quite hisself and she could taste copper on her tongue at the slight inclination that she might not be able to fix this. She couldn't have possibly expected it to be a quick-fix, could she? "Why don't you come with me on the hunting party today? You've been shirking work for weeks now, always weaseling your way into the sorcery cave, doing whatever it is you do there. It'd be good for you to get out and flex those muscles of yours," she offered, tilting her head to one side and giving him her best taunting façade. Blair, however, was unfazed. "But you have Tucker now, Yri. You needn't worry about me," he told her with the slightest blade of pure ice as he stood and then strode from the cave, which Yri would recall as the last time she ever saw him.

She sighed, shaking her head in distress. Why couldn't he understand? Family was so separate from love… While she thought so much of her family, her affections for Tucker were different than that: it was as though they were two different things entirely, which she should think they were. Shrugging such depressing matters off, she padded swiftly from the cave and on toward the hunting party that she knew would hold Tucker within its confines.

We can't find him anywhere," the guard told them emphatically, looking from one face to the other in hopes of finally expressing unto them the sole fact that he couldn't find the family's child. His fur was slick with rain, hugging his rugged and shapely form and weighing him down like cement. How could they keep making him look all over the place for their son, when he had searched with little sleep for the past week? Eve's wail expressly followed his sentence, and she fell into a fit of sobbing, head burrowed into Yri's shoulder as the younger lupine bore her gaze into the ground betwixt her forepaws. Levity, she supposed, was not her forte. Tucker offered her comfort at her side, however, allowing her to lean against him for balance. That helped more than he could imagine, but her face remained strained with grief and she dared not talk for fear of breaking down all in one shot. How could Blair do this? How could he leave them? More importantly, how could he hurt them this much? It was then that she decided, whenever she found him -- after she had thrown him all over the globe for this -- she would ask him why he did this, and urge him to come back, to stay with their mother if nothing else.

After being given several herbs to serve as a sedative, Eve was led back to their cave, her tail dragging behind her slowly-diminishing hips. The sight of the curve of her pelv!c bones extruding underneath her skin stuck Yri with a tremor of fear for her mother's health. This entire ordeal… it had worn them all down. She looked up at Tucker, catching his gaze, but said not a word as she slipped her muzzle under the crook of his neck and allowed the tears to finally become evident, no longer caring to suppress the shaking that enveloped her and this grand show of weakness as her emotional state quickly became sea-level.

Throughout the night, she never once fell into slumber. She only stared sightlessly out of the cave she called home. Tucker had agreed to stay there that night, and was curled around her asleep. He had been less impacted by this, of course, for he had little familiarization with the male than the other two individuals involved. She wouldn't, and couldn't, expect him to be so depressed as she. Unconsciously, she shifted her head and placed it between his shoulder blades, nose pointing toward the gaping mouth of the cave leading outside. He moved somewhat in reaction, then gradually awakened. "You're up early," he said in a voice saturated with sleep's influences. Yri's only response with a simple shrug of her shoulders, not even bothering to verbalize a response. Tucker frowned at this and lowered his voice as to not allowed her heavily-sedated mother to overhear their conversation, "I could help you through this if you would talk to me, Yri… You've got to tell me everything that's on your mind, and I can surely ferry you to a better disposition than this." Yri gazed into his face, so concerned, and shook her head. "You can't even craft an ORB right, Tucker. How can you possibly expect to ease this pain?" she said, almost without thinking, and her heart sank as he drew away from her. Her chin nearly popped the ground, and she quickly and sharply drew her skull back to avoid that outcome. His eyes had gone from concerned to injured, and he narrowed them to withhold what she would assume to be tears. "You're right. I can't do anything for you, can I? I can't do a darned thing right, suppose your father was right," he said with a broken voice, turning away from her with his words hanging in the air, leaving the den. And her. For the second time, she was alone. Only difference was, this time, it was her fault.

Her grief increased tenfold as the realization of it all sank in and she sullenly glanced around to her mother. Eve had been lying at the back of the cave, mumbling illegibly, and obviously torn apart by everything that had happened over the course of the last week or so. She knew her mother would lament more as she noticed she was gone, but Yri disregarded this and rose to her paws, wings shuffling and then folding, and departed the den and headed in a path that she had not yet planned.

The self-produced path she followed had been arduous, and she acknowledged now that she had lived a sheltered life as compared to the hardships that lay outside their cozy hide-away of a pack within the folds of the valley. How ignorant she had been to expect anything different, she had told herself many a time, as she ventured down stretches of sheer mountainside and sought shelter in little more than indentations in the rocks. The journey had been punishing, and her muscles were tired and screaming their agony in the slim chance that her brain would finally take in full the realization of what she was doing, and consequently force her to give herself a break. But no, she refused. She refused to stop traveling until she was at the base of the mountain, in the very least.

In the final stretch of this two-week-long journey, she had become considerably weak, but her body was building a tolerance to the hunger pains and her paws had grown thick calluses due to the torture of the rocks underfoot. However, she felt a great surge of hopefulness when her paws fell on level ground at the base of this mountain, and as though she had conquered the hugest feat of her entire life. This was short-lived, nevertheless, and she made it only to a lake before her body finally collapsed with exhaustion.

Yri awoke to wrenching pain in numerous places, and yelped as her eyes sprang open. From the water, had come four or so snapping turtles. They had now hinged their jaws around some of her paws' digits, her tail, and just about any body part they could grasp decently. Lips drawing back in a weak attempt to defy these reptiles, she began to pull them away from her body, ripping them -- and some of her skin, flesh, and fur in the same instance -- free and throwing them far from her. She winced in the aftermath, in which she could feel one forepaw's digit displaced by the turtles' ambush. Yri shook off the events and began to lap up water that she had failed to receive before passing into unconsciousness and then went about popping her forepaw's digit back into place.

After several days, Yri was now in a state to travel once again. She didn't ache so much anymore, and she could walk fairly normal and support her weight on the formerly dislocated toe. The scenery had changed considerably, and the fabled fields of beautiful grass and gracefully-built trees were even more charming than she could have imagined. She became so enraptured by all of this, that she failed to realize she had entered another pack's lands.

By the time she fully realized she had ventured into the packlands, she ran straight into the alpha male himself. She had not noticed before, but she felt lighter away from her previous lands, and her demeanor reflected such as she introduced herself with this individual, of whom she came to know was named Blink. He was a male that she assumed had seen some dank and sinister things in his time, and the silver, featherless expansions that arched from his shoulder blades as a pair of wings might was testimony to her theory. Yri had quickly become an annoyance to Blink in her short stay in this male's pack, which he had titled as Awakening for reasons all his own. Despite this, she seemed to hold her place as a member, and as a companion of his.

Over time, the two of them somehow parted ways and Yri found herself drawn to a region known as Twilight. It was here that she would wander along the thin borderline between Twilight and Harusame, two packs who were peaceful with one another for the most part. She held no alliance to either, claiming the title of vagrant; likewise, she made no friends or acquaintances in this time. In other words, she kept to herself and wandered 'til her heart's content.

Her solitude was not long-lived, as she would have thought it would be, as she stumbled upon Blink on one of her many joy-driven treks through the forest that she faintly referred to as home. She was surprised, surely, to see Blink -- and Sec, his flightless avian companion, and surprised even moreso when she discovered him as he crashed into a tree. With unbridled mirth, she had ribbed him with teases related and directly-linked to his inability to land the correct way. After this chance reunion, she spent several more months in his constant companionship.

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Yri's ears rotated forward as she listened to the forest surrounding her, listening to nothing else but this melody she had grown to love. It, like Blink, had become a source of comfort. The likes of which she had not encountered for a long length of time. This night, however, held a slight tremor to it, and she couldn't be so sure she liked this vibe she was getting. Nevertheless, she faced the night and tread lightly as she traveled her usual path around the forest. Suddenly, the air rushed from her lungs and she felt razors dig into her ribs and chest, throwing her feet from underneath her as they impacted with her. Her side collided with a tree and she winced, feeling the sharp pain of bark wedge into her skin and flesh. That pain was dwarfed in comparison to the claws of the black and shapeless form that pinned her now between the tree and itself. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she realized it was vaguely canine, skinless and with a viper writhing from the duct in which its tail should have been. The hiss of the reptile filled the air as Yri fought against her captor, though she was heavily aware that her struggles only deepened the hold those foreboding claws had on her flesh. Growls, howls, and yelping filled the air as the two tussled, fighting to the death of one or both participants in this match of brawn and outmaneuvering.

The months of being parted from the mountains she once called her sanctuary had softened her muscles, making them tenuous and insubstantial to fight against her foe for too long. Exhaustion became a large factor and Yri could feel her body beginning to drain of vitality, and her limbs weighed tons. Nevertheless, she sent ill-aimed snap and prod at her adversary until the unidentified creature finally brought her struggles to an end with a sharp bite to her neck. Images flashed before her eyes and the last thing she saw before she died, was the orb she had made in demonstration for Blink roll from the confines in which she had held it and rest just inches from her body.

Cold, alone, and greatly incoherent of her location were the earliest memories she had at this time. She had not a clue who she was, had not the vaguest idea of where she was… On top of that, she couldn't see… The space of skin that should have held her eyes, held no said eyes -- it was as though she had been made without them. As she stumbled along the border between Harusame and Twilight, she inadvertently traveled alone a path long-carved into the Tegata mountains that formed the tangible borderline. The only acknowledgment that she made of the treacherous territory she had now happened upon, was that she realized this place was cold… Oh so cold… And the wind was relentless, lashing at her with ice-studded talons. Still, as she attempted to find her way out of this place, she failed time and time again. Until eventually, she half-fell, half-walked into a cave that had been used once upon a time by some other individuals. It was here that she fell asleep, destined to freeze to death under the quickly-growing amount of snow and ice.

She's awake!" a clearly feminine voice just to her right cried, gleeful as the individual prodded Yri's shoulder with a paw. She stirred, swiveling her head in each direction, but was distinctly aware that she couldn't see a thing. Now, she realized, there was some type of… fabric, of sorts around the patch of eye-less skin. Of course, she couldn't have told anyone what it was, since she lacked the ability to see it, but it was close enough to fabric to the touch. "Where… am I?" Yri asked numbly, shifting her sightless face toward the direction that she hoped the other individual was. She heard the scraping of claws and numerous more smells filled the cave she was now in, and she assumed that the wolves the female beside her had beckoned were now here. "You're in the Quetzcoatl Tribelands. We found you on the mountains when one of young ones was traveling across it to track some of the prey... He thought you to be dead, but you weren't, though you were most certainly on Death's doorstep," the gentle wolf explained. Yri had never heard of this place. She hadn't heard of ANY place... "Where are you from?" the wolf asked. Her ears swiveled and she slowly lowered her muzzle to her paws. "I don't know," she replied after several moments' hesitation, "I don't remember anything." The healer seemed startled by this revelation and sent a beseeching look over her shoulder at one of the others at the mouth of the cave. "What about your name? Surely you remember your name?" she asked, voice urgent. Yri furrowed her brows and slowly shook her head, racking her brain for this piece of crucial information. "I don't... Yriiz. My name is Yriiz," she said, though she had no idea what had possessed her to say this name. Was it her own? Was it someone else's? The healer seemed somewhat relieved by this and nodded. "Get some sleep, Yriiz. You need to recover," she said gently and set to work parting and storing herbs, leaving Yri to sleep.