Furry Birthday Wishes

[Xavier]

A harsh welcome. He should have known. The barriers that Cealla had set around herself were inpenetrable. You had to really knock 'em down to get through. Still, Xavier was very upset at Cealla. He knew she was going through a difficult time, and he knew that she felt betrayed that Xavier had been bringing in newcomers. But this was for their own good.

"Cealla, why don't you understand? I'm doing this for us! For all of us! I'm sorry for yelling at you, but you have to listen to me! The world outside of these walls is harsh, cold, and unforgiving. Shutting yourself up inside here, closing off all friendly contact with anyone new will NEVER work!"

Xavier walked over to his granddaughter and stroked a hand over her cheek.

"You're my granddaughter, and you have the fire and spirit of your mother and grandmother deep inside you. I know that because every time I look at you, I can see their influence. Their attitudes. Their emotions. I know you because I knew them. You may hate me forever for this, you may never acknowledge their existence, but Mikayla and Sealla will both become members of this pack, whether you like it or not. It's their choice, but I have a strong feeling that they won't turn down the opportunity to be among comrades. With the war that is brewing between us and the vampires, it's only a matter of time before the slaughter that happened here will happen again. Next time, we might not be so lucky. There's strength in numbers, Cealla. You know that as well as anyone. But now is not the time to be stubborn like your predecessors and shut these two out. You're growing up, Cealla, and you're growing up fast. Maybe too fast. And I don't like it one bit. Tomorrow, you and I are leaving the Tunnels for a few days. We need to find your childhood again."

Xavier gave his granddaughter a hard stare, then turned to Mikayla and spoke quietly.

"Stay here, Mikayla. You're safe within these walls. I won't be long. I'll be back in the morning."

Giving another look at his granddaughter, Xavier spun around, his cape billowing behind him as he sprinted out the Tunnel entrance. He had to find Sealla, and he had to find her now.

Soon after leaving, Xavier sensed Rogue nearby, a little distance away from the newcomer. He passed her silently, nodding in her direction and giving a small smile before continuing on towards the forest. Soon he found Sealla's scarred form, curled up in the roots of a fallen tree. She was frightened, scared of the new world she had stumbled into. Xavier knew that. He felt exactly the same way when he had first arrived among the Lycans. He looked at her form from a distance, his eyes studying her scarred body and heavy winter coat. She was so beaten, so mutilated by her past. What had they done to her? Xavier felt his fists ball in rage. Whoever had done this to Sealla, they had no right. How could someone so sweet and innocent be beaten so much? Xavier shook his head sadly, then thought to himself again. She never shed her winter coat. Was she frightened of people seeing what she looked like? Did she hide herself under that heavy coat? What had scared her so badly that her fur never shed again? So may questions, with so may answers waiting to be revealed.

Xavier knelt down outside the roots and knocked on the wood.

"Mind if I come in?"

[† Cealla †]

The young pup snorted- she knew that her tounge had grown sharp over the past few months, but didn't care. She didn't want any new lycans in the Tunnels. She didn't care if the vampires attacked again- Xavier could defend them. By then, maybe she'd be old enough to fight by herself. Just the thought raised a smile to her face. She would be able to get revenge on them for what they did to Alissa and all the other pups.

"I'm not disrespectful." She replied, her voice harsh and annoyed. "I'm honest." Her words were blunt and hurtful, and she knew it. But what else was there? It was how she had been raised, how she had known and learned. Through pain, that was how everything came about. Her mother was gone. Her father had disappeared, along with her sister. What else was a pup to do?

Her features were hardly suprised when Rouge appeared on the scene, obviously hostile towards the new "Sealla" as well. The pup's blue eyes followed the two lycans, anticipating a fight that never came. Tension hung strong in the air as Sealla stood up to Rouge. My my- and she talked of being respectful.

But Xavier's words... they stung. Who was he to speak of friendly contact? She wanted none of it. Only the shelter of her own room and a fire to sit by, along with her family. Her real family. Not the fakes he tried to replace them with. Her mother could never be replaced.

"I don't want to! I don't want this, any of it!" She replied, almost reaching up to push his hand away as he reached for her cheek. "And I won't go; you can't make me! I will never see them as 'one of the pack', never!"

And as soon as he turned his back to speak to Mikayla, she changed swiftly into a black wolf, her pelt as unmarred by scars as the new Sealla's was filled with them. Her paws led her quickly back to her own bedroom, a lonely place it was, and allowed her to collapse upon the soft bed.

[Mikayla (back <3)]

Mikayla felt a hand rest on her head through a red haze, a blanket of fire, blood, and pain. A voice spoke to her, soothed her, dragged her one small step at a time from hysteria. She still saw in reds, violent hues, but her sobbing was decreasing. She couldn't understand the words, but they were bringing her back. A voice from the present. The hand left, the voice said something, but as Mikayla looked up she could only see a hazy form with the background of her old tunnel. A new shape stepped out, stampeded over by children who were met by claws and fangs on the other side. A third came to be and Mikayla whimpered, as in her eyes it had dark hair, dark eyes, and two pointed fangs. Angry words, words without meaning were exchanged, a battleground was built from speech alone, and the two transformed. They bounded away, Mika staring after them, seeing not wolves but monstrous bears, the bears who attacked her home.

The soothing one wasn't happy. She could sense it, feel it. He was her connection to the world of before. The other, the girl she just noticed in that second, was like a second grasp to reality. He said something, the first word Mikayla understood. Safe. Stay to be safe. Yes, safe sounded good. Better than good, it sounded great. And now she looked at the girl, alone with just the young one beside her. Yelling erupted, confusing Mikayla, the emotions battering at her. She stood shakily and looked where the girl went, then moved after her, knocking on the barrier between them. Blood, she was covered in blood. The realization was swift, the memories swifter, and Mikayla staggered. "Please," she called through the door, her voice sounding strange even to herself. "Come, talk to me. You are upset young one, and you should get that blood off you. If you would like, we can go to the lake nearby." There is a lake nearby? Mikayla wondered.

Mikayla was feeling a bit upset herself, still walking through the pudding of her past, blindly making her way to the present. The child, she knew for certain was real. The man too. But the others? Figments of her imagination. They had to be. They held no new or old recognition, just stepping out of the banks of nowhere into her visions. "Please come to the lake with me," Mikayla's voice was a pleading to understand, a pleading for friendship, a pleading to help and be helped.

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

Snarling. Stabbing. Biting. Growling. Howling. Bloody. Wet. Snow-covered. Attacks.

Her own safety barrier had been torn to shreds years ago. Memories that were held by body and mind still stung and bit into her soul and heart. For only a few years the she-wolf had felt safe, with her own family. Who was she to impose on this new one? Not once did she seem welcomed other than the two males, the black one seeming a little less permanent around the others. She was a stranger. A horrible stranger with a terrible past. Why should she show it to the other Lycans, of whom some she had only known for just a few moments?

Her form shook from a shiver of non-existent sobs, suppressing the tears back instead of shedding them. Just as much as her coat, but that wasn't her doing. She wasn't like them. The battered she-wolf was much more like the white one who had grown understandably angry with her. And once again, after many years of the same thing, she felt alone. Unwanted. Tossed aside. But what did it matter? She was better off alone any way. A lone Lycan. A nomad was far better off without any attachments. A discovery she had made the hard way.

The tree that held itself up tall, despite the gap between the roots and the ground, would keep her slightly warm for a few days before she would leave again. Not once had she ever stayed in one place for over a month, and this surely wouldn't last as long as that. But were there more Lycans than the small pack in the tunnels? Surely there would be. The only thing that held her in that same spot of a shivering, tight ball of fur was the male that had caught her slightly red eyes. Still with her muzzle tucked under the shelter of her tail, she gazed up at the man.

Why? asked Sealla with a slight whimper. If he'd attack, she would be a sure fight for him, scars or no scars.

[Rogue]

Rogue kept her eyes fixed ahead, and briefly caught a smile on Xavier's mouth as he brushed past her, walking on toward the other girl. Rogue's emotion stopped short of surprise, she had expected the male to at least growl at her, or show some form of anger toward her actions. She remained silent.

Once he'd reached the other female, Rogue's mind flipped back to the old Sealla, her soulmate, dead. A loud snarl slipped from her deadly jaws and she jumped up to all fours, shooting a cold look in the direction of the newcomer, before swishing her thick tail up behind her and turning her back on them to return to the Tunnels.

Trotting back down inside the abode, Rogue's dark lilac eyes skimmed the fireplace, before rounding on Mikayla. A look of no less resentment entered her dangerous glare, and she continued on toward Cealla's room, pushing past the clearly distraught girl who was now speaking to Xavier's grandaughter, despite the younger pup's swift words.

Padding quietly into Cealla's den, Rogue's ears lifted off her skull and her growling faded to the occasional heated breath. Keeping her position near the doorway, as not to provoke a defense on territory from Cealla, Rogue spoke to the pup with her surprisingly soft, motherly tone. The tone she'd only used to her own pups when they'd been alive. The tone that one often had to earn; a tone of respect.

Cealla, are you alright?

And the white she-wolf left it at that for the moment, settling back on her haunches to collect her emotions and wait for any answer the pup may have wished to give. This was a horrible atmosphere the girl had had to grow up in, tragedy after tragedy, but from the corner of her clever eyes, Rogue had seen Cealla take these tragedies as strength after strength. She was a valuble lycaness if there ever was, whether she ended up belonging to a pack or whether she simply ended up as a friend.

[† Cealla †]

Furiously, she licked at the blood on her paws as she lay upon the bed, not worried about the stained sheets. The room was empty, though she could smell 'Lissa's scents still lingering on the bed they used to share. Her father's scent was faint- he hadn't been home in so many days. He used to be home all the time when her mother was alive. It wasn't fair. Now it seemed like he was never, ever around. Never there when she needed him. It was only Xavier who she had to turn to, and now he seemed cross with her. Why? What had she ever done wrong other than wanted things to be right? That was no crime.

She could sense Mikayla was there even before she spoke, sounding sad and almost pleading at the same time. The first thought that crossed her mind was that the she-wolf cared too much and tried too hard; she could have just gone back to the school without any trouble at all, but she would have rather come to check on her. Naturally, her first instinct was to growl- no, no... she didn't want any help. Her pink tounge raked furiously over her fur, but it was quickly becoming obvious that it would need a bit of soap and water.

'I don't think so.' She answered, suddenly realizing that she had forgotten to lock the door. Afraid that Mikayla might just come in anyway, she clambored off the bed and hurled herself against the door. Using her teeth, she fastened the chain lock and then leaned back against the door.

But she could suddenly smell that Rouge was returning, obviously finished with whatever was going on with Xavier and "Sealla". The pup paused for a moment- what should she do? She hadn't seen the lycaness in at least a month, but she was the only female in the pack still alive who had know Cealla nearly her whole life. Silently, she unlocked the door and made another running leap back to the bed, then buried herself in the bedsheets.

'Do I look it?' She sent bitterly, knawing idily on the sheets that lay around her. 'I bit a man last night. Bit him!' Perhaps Xavier had mopped it up, all the blood and bits of flesh that were left in the Tunnel's entrance. Some of it was still on the young pup, while some of it was all over the floor and furnishings. She was so deeply ashamed of it, and so mad... so mad at Xavier for bringing in so many new lycans. No. She would never accept it.

[Mikayla (back <3)]

Mikayla couldn't help it, a tear slid its way down her cheek, the last for tonight and forever. "So be it," she whispered, moving past the other new, yet old lycan as if each step hurt her. She should have seen this coming, it was the story of her life. But never like this...never in red. Her vision had not returned to normal, her reality still her imagination gone wild. "Better luck to you than I had," Mikayla uttered under her breath. It was done. On her birthday. With none around her. No celebration, her voice the only one singing in a room lit only by fire. With a black birthday cake. It was her life, her path.

Mikayla's body was on fire, imagined flames encircling her. She'd be alone this night if it was the last thing she did, away from people who were not enemies, but not friends either. The male, the one who had invited her back, was gone, run to save the other he invited. Mikayla snorted. "Good luck to her too," she muttered, halfway through the tunnels and not even knowing it. She had come back as he asked, had even come back on her birthday, willing to make peace. They had fumbled. She paid the price. She would not return again.

The cool night air rushed to meet her in a hot rush. Rather than do as a lycan would and Change, running as a wolf, feeling the earth fresh beneath paws and the freedom of life in speed, she ambled, still human, stumbling over obstacles that were not there. Safety. He told her safety existed in that place. Well, if that was safe, she didn't even want to see danger. All hostility and no friendship, nothing to bind. Goodbye to that. Welcome to the wilderness. He wouldn't even notice her gone-he said he wasn't returning til well after nightfall, and the sun had barely set. The new one wouldn't bother herself over a newcomer, and the Child wished her gone. She could escape in peace to...wherever. The last thing Mikayla whispered, on the open ledge of a rock, open to attacks and without her proper senses was a soft, barely audible, "Thank you. If only for hours." Nightmares overcame her in a cool rush, leaving her whimpering atop her rock, chilled, and even possibly lost for the next day. The story of her life.

[Sealla (not so retiredness)]

( ooc: Xavier, reply to this in the Lake. I'll just copy and paste my post there. It'll be easier on these lovely three Lycans)

[Rogue]

Rogue watched Cealla dive off the bed and push the door closed hard, locking it and leaning against it in a loudly defensive manner. Rogue then heard the harsh reply in her mind, and she inwardly sighed. So another pup had been scarred with hate for change and new beginnings, although the snowy she-wolf didn't blame her in the slightest. Who ever needed change when one was supposed to have a perfect family?

From tucked inside the doorway, Rogue observed quietly as Cealla bit into the sheets of the bed. Then one large reason for Cealla's behaviour came clear, she's turned a male, and at such a young age too. Rogue's ears tilted forward and she smiled inwardly, trotting forward and raising her muzzle until it rested by Cealla on the bed sheets.

This was why the scent of new blood stained the furniture, and the black pup before her. Rogue took a chance and ran her leathery tongue down Cealla's scruff, tasting the old blood of her 'turned' victim and attempting poorly to clean the she-wolf's mucked pelt.

Outside, Rogue knew Mikayla was still sobbing, and the poor dear. At such an early age she felt the need to belong, just as Rogue had done once upon a time. The pale she-wolf couldn't ignore her...

Running her tongue over Cealla's side once more, silently pausing to step back incase she was out of her place with the pup - god how she missed her own - she turned to the door. Gesturing to Cealla to wait a moment, Rogue pulled the door open with her paw and stepped out, only a few pads of her delicate paws led the arch of her spine to curl around Mikayla's mortal legs and halt her.

Although she may have been a little large for Rogue t carry, though not at all out of proportion, the snow-white she-wolf nudged Mikayla's arm as she lay on the rock, trying to wake her immediately before she fell into a deep sleep. Rogue's wolfish orbs glowed with a fierce urge for her to return to the Tunnels. Gesturing with a jerk of her head, Rogue padded halfway between the Tunnel entrance and Mikayla, stopping to stare at the tormented woman through silver-dappled eyes, waiting?

[† Cealla †]

Sighing, she shivered involuntarily as Rouge ran her tounge down her own pelt. All this blood would have to be washed off somehow, though she didn't know the best way to do it. Just laying there was slowly calming her and allowing her to slowly drift back to sanity. She had been rude and incosiderate, but couldn't anyone see things her way? She had her own reasoning behind her actions, though most blamed how she had been raised. The loss of her mother and the real Sealla had been a harsh blow to her.

Her eyes slowly zipped around the room after Rouge departed, probably off to comfort Mikayla. All the beds except her own had begun to collect dust from a lack of use, and the only scent that consistantly lingered was her own. Alone. Occasionally she even dared to wonder how life would be if she had another brother or sister- or would they have even lived past the vampire slaughter?

There was simply too much to think about. Sighing, she closed her eyes to rest for just a second but found that she was drifting away, falling asleep for the second time while wearing a coating of blood that was not her own.

[Mikayla (back <3)]

Mikayla had settled down on the rock comfortably, ready to sleep there for as long as it took to....something. Something pushed at her a bit, something with a slightly wet nose. The girl growled, vocal chords moving as if they were that of the animal next to her. A deep breath told her it was a lycan, one of the ones she didn't know. Why was she following? Trying to continue haunting a distressed soul? Mikayla's eyes snapped open, blue fire bright as she snarled, low and deep. By that time, however, the she wolf was already half way back to the caves. She looked at Mikayla expectantly, as if telling her to follow.

"I will not go back there!" Mikayla called. In her own mind it was the old tunnel, before it got burnt down. The wolf was her mother, stark white with fallen snow, staring at her with the match to her own eyes, only paler. "If you think you can force me to be part of your little broken home with the wretcheds that hate me, you are sadly mistaken." It didn't matter that she was looking back in her childhood, although that did make her realize she was seeing her 'mother' for the first time in years. Hot tears slid down her cheek, probably leaving burnt skin in their wake. "You're dead," she whispered. "I watched you die. They forced me to."

"Why can't you just leave me be? Don't you think its bad enough that I've been thrown from the only hope of home I had after one year of that terrible attack?" It had to be a ghost. Always a ghost before her. "I am alone, forsaken, half-dead, and you come to torment me further. Blast the soul that left your body when you died, you're not my mother." Last statement had Mikayla threw her hands up to catch the tears as they fell, cradling her head in her hands. She hummed to herself, a soft lulluby she once heard upon the lips of her glorious mother. So lost.

[Rogue]

Rogue took aboard the urge to charge at the woman and lunge at her throat, the cold growl and comment about Rogue's wretched family sent her mind soaring with anger. Realizing the girl before her was obviously swimming in memories and visions of her childhood, Rogue's ears flattened to her head and she unleashed a vicious snarl, attempting first with noise to snap the girl back to reality.

How dare she...

Suddenly the snowy she-wolf leapt forward, melting into the wildly beautiful form of a woman, her rugged white hair fell in matted waves by her neck and shoulders, her eyes still the shocking violet they had been moments before, only now a shade darker. Wearing nothing more than a torn grey dress, Rogue fell to her knees infront of the rock the girl was settled on, silver tears welling in her own eyes.

"How dare you." She spat, clenching her jaws and fighting a burning desire to run, not back to the tunnels, but to the forest. Forever. "Thank christ you can even remember your home, your mother, and whatever else is so horrible in your past." She cried loudly. "Thank christ you can still picture your mothers face." At this, Rogue snapped, and choked on her own words, tears overflowing her cheeks as she caught her face in her hands, collapsing and letting a wave of sobs overtake her.

She hadn't broken like this in years.

Regaining as much of her emotional strength as she could, the lycaness-at-heart raised her saddened, hurt eyes at Mikayla, her lips quivering. "You were just given a chance never to be alone again. You were given a chance to join a family, play daughter even to myself had you wished for a comforting paw." More tears escaped her insides. "You're right, I'm not your mother. I'm a hopeless mother, my pups were murdered, because I never knew how to protect them. Do you know why, girl?" She yelled, now no doubt catching the attention of Xavier, Sealla, and possibly even Cealla down in the Tunnels.

Her voice erupted. "I had no mother! I had no father! I had no childhood!" And with that, she couldn't help but fade into the form of her true identity once more, the identity she chose to hide within since she had never known her mortal side. Tears slid off the muzzle of the powder-white she-wolf and she fled, turning toward to forest and howling an apology back to Cealla.

Would she come back this time?

[Mikayla (back <3)]

Mikayla! Why don't you keep your stupid little daydreams to yourself and leave us be?

[/center]

Yelled at. Mikayla was being yelled at. And the voice was definately not that of her mother. She was screaming words, battering at Mikayla until she saw a woman with stark white hair and not the original ice blue eyes of her mother, but a violet so soft it was nearly silver. The last words hit her, and she knew she was the cause of the pain so apparent in the woman's eyes. The woman transformed and tore off with a howl, and Mikayla jumped to her feet. "NO WAIT!" She was crying again and she didn't know why.

The Change came swiftly, tearing a pained sound from Mikayla as she was thrown into her wolf form. She shook off, then began a chase after the woman. Why did this seem so familiar? "I didn't know you were there!" Mikayla called, finally connecting the ghost to the woman she had seen before her. "Please, my mother...my family. Thank everything you had no childhood." Stalling...she was stalling. But damn, that other wolf was fast. Mikayla gave a howl of her own, an apology also given, but this one was dripping urgency. A 'listen to me, please' element that she hoped would bring the woman to a halt.

Mikayla remembered something else the woman said, and decided to go after that angle. "Your pups' deaths couldn't have been your fault," Mikayla murmured, soothing. "I would know. I grew up in a den where I saw my sire and mother possibly once a year, usually not even on the memory of this day." Mikayla shook her head, running blindly after just a scent, just the soft, barely audible sound of paws. A howl bubbled up to Mikayla's lips and it was loud, a cry for a second chance, a cry to stop the woman and bring her back.

[Xavier]

OOC: *sniffles and wipes away a tear* So sad...great posts, you two. Keep it up.



-X