Searching the Ruins

[Rikka -Visiting Home-]

Raoul had not liked the idea of remaining in the village as Rikka made the trek towards the horrible past. Please, He had begged, just let him to come, for his own benefit. She had known he had meant by this, ‘So I can protect you’ but she hadn’t argued the point. In the end he had conceded. 150 years his senior and with formidable skill when not ailed by grief, Rikka was a woman in full control of her strength.

As she began to pass through the trees she knew to be the boards of the forest, familiarity riddled with unfamiliarity assaulted her senses. She paused, straightening her dresses, taking stock of herself. She was not the same woman that had left this forest, nor the same woman that had entered it. She was an entirely new woman, dressed in a brand new pale blue dress of an outdated fashion and this place simply could not harm her.

She repeated her mantra to herself, her voice accented from every small and secret country in Europe, “You are not death, sheathed in darkness and moonlight. You are not evil. You do not bathing in blood. You are simply Lycan, woman and wolf. Powerful, but earthly.” She inhaled deeply, wiping at her blue eyes and pulling her long cleaning tresses behind her.

“Go home, Raoul,” She thought, turning around. Though he was still beyond sight, Rikka could smell his approach. He was foreign in this place. “Rikka?” there was a silence between the two. Rikka knew she wished to beg him to come too, now she stood in this place she was not entirely she was free of that madness. “I love you, ” He said simply, then she could smell his scent diminish. He was retreating. She thanked him silently. This was her trip to make alone. She would bring him to this place one day, but not now.

Picking up her skirts her footfalls fell silent in the wood, despite her leather shoes but she did not move silently. In a quite voice she sung to herself, “It’s raining, it’s pouring. That cold man ain’t snoring. You bumped his head, put him back to bed. Can you hear the people mourning?” She was searching for a place, a person, what or who, she had no idea of but she had to find it!

This place held no horror for her now, only dismal regret that she let herself diminish in glory so far. “Where are you?”

ooc: Not entirely invite only, but I'd like the person to be a close aqutaince of Rikka, thanks.

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

Oh, such an air to the woman. The Lycan of age and grace, mingled into the one being that was stepping lightly through the wood. This creature made others watch from afar, it was obvious. But it seemed as though a rather large change had taken place before her arrival, along with the fact of the way she looked at every tree and canopy, every rock and shrub. It was as if she knew the place like the back of her hand.

A trait something the mottled she-wolf didn't hold, sadly.

The two places she had come to know, though only for a brief amount of time, was the Lake and the Tunnels; where a pack of Lycans took up residense. Both places weren't exactly a place she could call home, but then again, when was there ever a place? Not once had the Lycan stayed in one place for over a month. Her build ushered large bones and strong muscles; the daughter of the Leaders of her old pack, and the potential future leader.

With her deep blue eyes set on the older Lycan, within a few seconds in place of the brown and grey, scarred she-wolf there was a woman with long flowing black hair. Her hands brushed down the front of her tucked in white shirt, cascading down over her jeans. A usual attire. Should anyone have been watching the forest months before, they'd have thought a ghost had (once again) come back from the pits of hell.

To the left was where she stepped from, holding herself elegantly as she spoke, "Who might you be looking for?" The question was pointless, because it had been the first time that Sealla had come into the forest, and thus knew none of the inhabitants as of yet. But who knew what was to come?

[Rikka -Visiting Home-]

Rikka turned to the woman, looking her slowly up and down, “My, my, my, I have to admit you, Sealla dear, were not someone I had expected to find here, considering all things. I was looking for…” She shook her head, she didn’t know. Perhaps it was Chaylin she searched for; perhaps it was no one at all.

She walked slowly around the girl, keeping her in the corner of her sight. She could feel them, watching her. Would they come? Why had they let to strangers wander so far into their mist? Sealla did not walk with the air of someone who was in the forest often. In fact, if anything, she looked even more out of place than those months of war. The war did not seem to have blown in Sealla’s favour. Scars marred her entirely, but they must have been fierce fights. Sealla had always possessed formidable strength.

Rikka held out her open hands to the woman, “No animosity. I am longer a Forest Lycan, I am a free agent. I won’t harm you.” Rikka seemed much more stable as she took a step towards Sealla, looking into her eyes. They held a different quality than they used to. She thought of Raoul’s daily assurances that her eyes were entirely different to the day he had met her, maybe she was not the only one who had had an awakening.

“Who are you looking for?” Rikka asked back, smiling softly.

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

Well, it had seemed that she was known by a lot of Lycans, the Sealla that they had all mentioned. Why wasn't it common for the Sealla to be in the forest? Wasn't all Lycans allowed to roam free wherever their paws took them? Or was it that there was another pack... that would have explained the mingling scents that wafted past her nose. The way this woman gazed over her was almost like there was mutual respect between the two.

Perhaps that was what the old Sealla had recieved.

Acting indifferent towards the fact that the woman knew of her name, she replied in a deep tone, "I had gathered you weren't planning on an attack, because you would have done it by now." Even though she had no idea of who this ancient Lycan was, it was pure instinct that drove a Lycan to attack another, and it would usually happen instantaniously. A launched attack that would have rendered Sealla (possibly) at the tighter end of the chain.

"I'm not looking for anyone in particular. Just gathering my barings. I'm no longer with a pack myself." The way she spoke towards this woman was mimiking a friendship between the two, perhaps not the best of moves or words. This blonde Lycan held an air of strength, and would have been a Leader in her time at least once, or so Sealla guessed. It wouldn't have surprised her if the older Lycan had picked up on her own leader qualities.

[Rikka -Visiting Home-]

“Maybe I would have, maybe I am waiting until you are off guard. You have some strength in you. Mayhap I am waiting for the better moment?” Rikka however, didn’t seem threatening. Her tone was soft and even and a trace of a Russian accent was there.

Rikka continued to circle Sealla slowly. Sealla herself disassociated with the tunnel pack, now that was a development Rikka would never have guessed at. Sealla was strong, Rikka had always been surprised that she hadn’t won soul dominion over that pack long ago. Perhaps this is why she left, to set up her own little world.

Rikka tossed her blonde mane, “What happened that made you quit your allegiances with your brothers and sister, Sealla?” Rikka could not put her finger on it but there was something wrong with Sealla. Something had changed with the woman. Rikka could not deny that she herself had changed, but Sealla had never seemed to live on that precipice of inanity that Rikka had.

Rikka had often wondered who would land on top in a fight between Sealla and herself. They were so evenly matched; it would be a fabulous fight! Rikka smiled, stopping her circling. “I forget myself again,” She whispered.

She smiled again, “Share you troubles with me, Sealla dear.”

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

Now this was a new thing. Not. Perhaps there were Lycans that were less like their pureblood cousins. Maybe the old traditions and instincts were rarely kept; something that Sealla did possess. There. There it was. The slight oddness to the woman's voice. It was the accent that rounded her words when she spoke so delicately. What was the story behind the Sealla they all knew? It grew within the she-wolf like she was to vomit the question at everyone around.

As if she were oblivious to the fact that this woman thought her to be the other that almost all the Lycans she had met knew, Sealla raised a delicate coal brow. She could really tell that something was bothering the slightly younger Lycan? You'd have to hold many years under your belt to be able to tap into the troubles of another, and whether or not this woman knew the gift, she remained away from Sealla's memories.

"You really wish to know of what happened?" she asked with a slight hint of uncertainty. Maybe it was her own lack of socialisation, but her mind uttered the fact that strangers wouldn't usually want to talk to another stranger. Then it reminded her that this woman could assume Sealla to be the other. Not once in her years of running had she ever mentioned her tale to anyone other than her dreams.

Probably stirring up pain, had she done so. But could she now?

[Rikka -Visiting Home-]

Rikka smiled, speaking softly, “Well, I am not going to break into your head.” This was something Rikka had always abhorred, something that she had never even tolerated with either of her two mates. Not the either of them had been the sort of man to invade her privacy like that. “But I am interested, yes. You are not the Sealla I knew.”

Though Rikka had meant by these words that Sealla had changed, a radical idea dawned upon her. Maybe this wasn’t the Sealla she had known? She had heard stranger stories in the dark woods of Russia where she and Amadeus had lived before motorcycles and denim jeans. ’You’re not who they think you are you,” Rikka whispered in her silent voice, ’Are you?

Rikka was now entirely intrigued. Who was the girl who in plain looks seemed the same ages as her? Rikka knew though that her eyes betrayed her true age. She was ever nearing her 310th birthday, this winter in fact. She smiled reassuringly, but not patronisingly, “Please, share your story?”

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

A single nod would have accented the fact that she wasn't, indeed, the Lycaness that everyone had mistaken her for. At random times, it had become a little embarrassing, and in others, it was annoying. But it was something she had grown accustomed to, thus the lack of response towards the blonde Lycan's recognition. "You're right, I'm not the 'Sealla' that everyone seems to mistake me for. But I admit, I don't know anything of her, apart from the fact that she was well-known." It was true, that was all she had heard. More like figured out.

And though she had never revealed her story for once, it was bursting over the last few years to escape, and for once, Sealla had felt somewhat safe and relatively alright with letting this stranger know. Tell her where the scars came from. Tell her why Sealla did look around most corners in anticipation. Tell her why she hid her wolven form from most prying eyes in hideous shame. Tell her why she was alone.

Surely enough, as the memories flooded strongly through the gates of her mind, it stung like an infection in one's heart. The blood mingling with the snow, beside the tufts of fur and the body of another of her kin. One that had been welcomed, rather than born, into her pack. Pressing both her legs together, she lowered herself to the ground of the forest, resting to the side with one arm supporting her slanted body.

And once the pink lips of Sealla's opened, the whole story flowed through. How she was born into a large and tight pack of Lycans and wolves, her parents being the two elders of the clan. How she had three siblings and how they had envied Sealla since birth, and how the eldest of their pack had advised her parents to hand the clan over to her when she came of age. How by the age of fourteen she was assigned a mate by the elders who called it 'set in the stars'.

And how, with her rebellion to their strict rules and devastating disciplines, they had launched an attack on her, beginning with her siblings. At least fifteen of the wolves and Lycans had attacked at once, leaving it a miracle that she could have survived. Though there was supposed to be a casualty, they hadn't suspected it to be the assigned mate. It was a terrifying battle between the two, in the end. And how she had eventually out-ran the pack by masking her scent in the icy mountains of Romania (which they had all called Transylvania).

By the end of her tale, which had taken up at least an hour, the woman was shaking beyond belief with both her arms wrapped around her waist, glancing over her shoulder every now and again. A single tear strode down the length of her cheek to the corner of her mouth as the wind brushed away a few strands of hair, revealing two of the deepest scars from behind her ear and down her back.

[Rikka -Visiting Home-]

Rikka listened entranced. Sealla’s words of a pack that should have been hers brought Rikka’s thoughts pack to her own pack and she smiled sadly. Not too long ago she would have ripped out Sealla’s throat if she had cause Rikka to have these thoughts. Rikka had not followed Sealla’s lead, instead leaning against and old tree, her fingers savouring the feel of the bark beneath them. It was something to hold her in this world rather than slip into Sealla’s pain.

“Thank god I was let to choose my own mates,” Rikka whispered softly, thinking gladly of the kind, gentle two men she had chosen at such different points in her life. A Lycan born, like Rikka’s own children, now nothing more than dust in the earth, this girl’s tale stirred Rikka’s heart.

“Sealla, I…” She began softly, but she knew no words could consol the woman. She knew scars like those, both the deep ones that lined her flesh but even more so the deeper ones that cut her heart. Taking two slow steps towards the girl, she placed a hand upon her shoulder. This had not been what Rikka had expected on her journey to this place that could never really be a home.

“My second eldest son, Andrusha, his wife Marcella was very much like you. She was strong, exiled by the pack of dogs that gave her that gift. In a time when woman were expected to be seen and not heard, she was fighting in a revolution.” Rikka paused, she had always held the very greatest respect for Marcella and in fact she had loved her as much as her own daughter Hel, but she never had the opportunity to show it. “My point,” Rikka said after a deep sigh, “Is that she was one of the elders in our pack and when my time came, I was going to entrust it to her. Unfortunately, that chance was never given to me.

“You’re strong, I can see that. They didn’t beat you that night and you and I both know they never will, Sealla.” Rikka smirked; thinking of a battle that this new Sealla could not win seemed to be like trying to see God loose. Simply impossible.

“Come now,” Rikka said, stretching her hand out to Sealla. “There are friends in this forest who would be intrigued to meet you.”

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

But the feeling had passed much quicker than the Lycan had suspected. The wave of fear and hurt had gone on, back into its cage until another day when it would escape once more. And though the words were from a complete stranger, they comforted her in a way that she couldn't comprehend. Yet, the blonde woman seemed lost for them, unable to explain her thoughts. She seemed quite the welcoming Lycan, and Sealla knew if she put a paw out of line that the blonde would be quick enough to retaliate strongly.

A Lycan that fought in a revolution. Weren't they left for the humans to associate with? The way she had been brought up in the pack she had known for so long to be her home was that humans were the lower of the two species. And like she had in the entrance hall of the school, the many other times she'd met up with humans were brief. Not long enough to remember their names, should she ever be told them.

Sealla was a strong Lycan, from breeding, but also from spirit. The only thought that had driven her away from the pack who had attacked her was that there were better Lycans out there. Proud beings that she could entrust with her broken friendship. That was what sent her through the blistering winds and scorching heats (especially with a thick winter coat that she had never shed). The thought of a paradise willing to accept an outcast was blissful.

And it was almost like this woman was a part of that paradise. "Thank you, Miss, for your kind words. They mean a lot to me," was all that Sealla could think of saying in regards to the helping hand that was metaphorically given to her. Within a second, the woman was on her feet again, bare feet with dirt seeping between her toes, and an appreciative glow hinted her eyes.

[Rikka -Visiting Home-]

Rikka was glad that her soft liberal words after such a harsh long story had helped. Sealla seemed to perk up, lifting strongly into the air. She was of strong stuff, Rikka could tell that. They needed more like this among their kin, clean blood was a hard to find as fresh water.

“Please, Rikka.” She said, realising that in an hour of listening her had not yet volunteered her name. Rikka pulled her long blonde hair gracefully from her face again. Somehow it didn’t seem quite so horrible to be two strangers in the forest. With Raoul here, it would have been too hard to deal, to hard to explain. He had not known pain like this. But this woman, Sealla but not Sealla, would be one who understood.

“I will not bore you with my story,” Rikka said slowly as the two began to wander deeper into the forest. “But I have seen a pack slaughtered, my pack slaughtered. The sight, the blood, the pain,” Rikka paused, looking up into the canopy for the stars, but none were there revealing the word.

“Inconceivable,” she whispered, tossing her hair again as if to shake herself alive. “So, new to the area? I am bias but I’d stay away from the tunnels. A pack of dogs in there, nothing more,” Rikka smiled gently. She said these words not to denigrate them; it was just what they were to her. Circus freaks to amuse the school children as they came down to feed them from their hands.

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

Only almost too politely, the woman swept herself into a little bow upon hearing Rikka's name. Respect among the Lycan kind was hardly found often, Sealla had noticed in her travels between continents and countries, and so kept it well deep set in her morals. Respect kept you in other's good books, and almost definitely kept you out of their attack ones. Aside her old pack, that is. Pulling herself up and letting her long black hair fall behind her shoulders, "A pleasure, Rikka."

A pack slaughtered. Her whole pack. She seemed to have endured more pain than Sealla. But then, these were two different kinds of pain and anguish, and so from different points of view could be seen as equal. For a split moment, she could have sworn there was a deep, revived, hint of pain through the blue eyes of the older Lycan, which had passed on to Sealla like a virus. "Yes, I'm new. But I've already made the mistake of going to the Tunnels." It reminded her of the ending between her home and her. "Their welcome wasn't one of the most pleasantries of life."

Though one of them had invited her in, and begged her to join their pack, he seemed overruled by the remainder. Rogue wasn't of the Tunnels, she could see that, but she did hold up residence there. The white wolf was one of the most harsh, but later that evening she had taken back her words (and snarls), quite courteously too. This was something the Lycan held in high regard.

Each time a twig or leaf snapped or crinkled under the woman's bare feet as she stepped alongside Rikka it seemed to have called its last.

[Isaac]

OOC: Erm.... just say the word and I can be.... not here.


BIC:

"Who was it who 'welcomed you' in the Tunnels?"

The voice was soft, as if meant to be a whisper, yet not quite as soft. Up above, Isaac sat immobile upon a thick branch, clad completely in black. His black coat hung down over the branch on either side of him, giving him a somewhat impromptu cape.

His head moved fractionally as he considered a follow-up to his own question, "Because some of them are quite noble beings." He remarked.

[Rikka -Visiting Home-]

Rikka spoke with almost equal softness without looking up, “I see, demon boy, you have not found a new place to irritate.” After a pause Rikka lifted her intelligent eyes to the boy in the tree tops. “Noble? As noble as to try and disembowel a woman then disappear?” Rikka smiled sweetly, “You don’t think I’d forgotten that.”

Rikka approached the base of the tree slowly, a dangerous light in her eyes, “Because of you that child nearly died.” Rikka obviously had not forgiven this almost unprovoked attack. But her face dissolved into ambiguity and she turned back to Sealla.

“Made the same mistake when I first arrived in this place, but a friend showed me another path,” She pointed to the forest and the ‘path’ created by the trees.

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

There was some unseen battle going on between the two, Rikka and the Demon. Something Sealla wasn't going to get herself tucked into. It seemed that every creature in the forest, aside the Demon, didn't like the Tunnel Lycans. She could understand why, but there was something that would happen soon that would widen her eyes.

Not that she knew of it yet...

A friend. Something Sealla hadn't had for many years, nor let herself have...Perhaps things would change. But that all depended on whether or not she was to stay in the realm of the school. Instead of saying anything toward the Demon, the Lycaness remained silent, staring forward and keeping her pace, rather than stopping with Rikka to converse with him.