Angel and Demon [Raum]

[Castalia]

Castalia's tiny paws twitched in her sleep, wrists bending delicately with each movement. She held her limbs close to her body, her short tail tucked beneath her. The soft white pelt of her mother was all around her, smelling of comfort and milk. Castalia's fire-licked pelt contrasted with the pale ivory coat of her mother and siblings, like a flame surrounded in ice. The steady thump of Tala's heartbeat sounded through the young pup's dreamless mind like a drum, keeping time with her slow, sleepy breathing. The small family was close-knit, one pup's body molding into the next. There was only one missing: the darkest pup, Raum, was lying several feet away from the group, his head resting on his paws and eyes shut tight over yellow-green orbs. He lay there, almost motionless besides the carefully measured breath of sleep that was flowing in and out of his dark nostrils.

Talia woke gently, as if she were being lifted out of her slumber with a gentle nudge. When she opened her blue eyes, however, she found the rest of her family to be snoring softly all around her. She couldn’t help but smile at the closeness of them all. There was something about the feeling of being completely and utterly encased in love that could not be measured in any other way. In sleep, there was nothing to make the auburn colored pup wary or uncomfortable. With a yawn that sent her tiny auds flat against her head and her pink tongue curling, Talia stood on shaky, tired limbs. Even standing, she barely towered above her siblings. She had been cursed with being the smallest of their family. The weakest. The one most picked on. Just thinking about it made her want to retreat back into the peace of sleep.

I should take this chance to explore on my own. The thought of going off on her own both excited and frightened the young pup. She did not often wander off without being in the shadow of one of her sisters or mother. She liked the comfort of being unnoticed and quiet, following behind someone who knew where they were going or what they were off to do. Today, she was just going to have to be her own leader.

She danced around the sleeping bodies delicately and then trotted for the entrance of their den. Although the pups were free to explore without their mother, Tala still slept with them in the birthing den. Castalia wasn’t looking forward to the day Tala would return to the other adult wolves of Kairos and leave the pups to fend for themselves, but she knew the day would come nonetheless. Her ears drooped sadly as she picked her way through the twisting and winding passage of the cavern. The opening was just ahead, echoing with the dripping noises of the cavern’s moist stalactites and lit with the glow of morning. Beyond it, Talia could almost hear the shhh of the distant falls that sat close to their home.

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Count | 517
Tagged | Raum
Muse | Good
Notes | Here ya go!

[Raum]

[attr="class","plbase"]

[attr="class","pltxt"]The dark prince never slept in the pile with them. When he desired a feeding, he forced himself to crawl to his mother and accept her affections as he drank, greedy and forceful. Other times, he would imagine that he was simply resting around bodies that no longer moved, no longer breathed life, but were still warm. It only lasted for moments of his toleration before he recoiled from the group and slept on the side. He was not foolish enough to try and sleep outside the den—Tala would never allow it.

Raum was a light sleeper. Perhaps that wasn’t the correct way to say it—Raum sometimes believed that he never truly slept. The pup was dreamless, completely devoid of the nighttime alternative realities that his siblings described. When he closed his eyes, he only saw the darkness of his eyelids—and when he regained consciousness, he stared into the blackness behind his own skin and wondered when they would open, and when his pathetic, childlike visage would obey his commands.

As the smallest of his siblings rose to leave her mother’s side, Raum’s lids shot open wide, and he watched her leave, still as a gargoyle save for his eyes rolling in their sockets. When she was out of his sight line, his body rose to his paws, large and towering over the sleeping masses near to him. He did not stretch or hesitate in his abrupt movement. He did not move with motivation or ambition nor curiosity or zest for life. He simply moved out of the den and through the caverns because if the tiny Castalia was going to go outside, he would go as well. He deserved to see what lied beyond their cavernous home.

Truly, he was larger than his siblings far and away. Already, he had grown to half of his mother’s height—but as it seemed to him, it was not large enough and not nearly fast enough. Not that he needed either. He was by far the largest of his litter, but his siblings were daft and measly in body and mind. His own mother, try as she might to love him, seemed to be almost intimidated by his harsh tongue and violent persona.

His consciousness was like a guillotine, threatening to slice his soul from his body at the drop of a rope. He didn’t understand how to play like the others wanted, with giggles and licks. Something within him was only insidious. He was as malarial as the puddles that dotted the caves, an undrained pit of infection in contrast to his angelic siblings and soft mother.

Shredded rock pulled from the top of the caves and rose from the bottom, the morning sun glowing off of them like a hideous jaw. The sun burned his eyes as he drew near to his sister, though he did not lower his lids. He moved like a snake, silent and slithering, and his eyes darted about the landscape. No smile drew across his lips as he walked directly past his sister and underneath the rocky teeth of the cave.

Raum only uttered a simply phrase as he brushed passed her in a tone that seemed too gruff and sinister to come from a creature of his size. “It’s morning.”

tags: Castalia
words: 555
muse: good
notes: He's such an ass.

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[Castalia]

The constant, echoing drips of her cavern home were just enough to mask the sound of her brother as he padded up behind her. Raum always moved like that. Steady, calculated, almost menacingly. Or maybe that was just because of his size. Although he was no older than his siblings, he towered above all of them easily. He was double double Casi's height, and twice as serious as the rest of them. He did not play, or yip, or chase like his siblings. He was a watcher, always sitting off to the side as if calculating which one of them he was going to make his next meal, green orbs glowing from the shadows. Even their mother wasn't sure how to handle him sometimes.

When the pups first began to bond, Casi had hoped to become close with her brother. There was something about his dark russet and brown coat that had appealed to her, as if he were simply a larger, darker colored version of herself. Compared to her ivory siblings and light-colored mother, Raum had been the closest in appearance to the tiny ginger pup. When she looked around at her family, he was the one she related to immediately. But that's where the similarities had ended. Castalia soon realized that the larger male wanted nothing to do with any of them. Their presence seemed more of a bother to him than a flies; they were equally as insignificant as they were an annoyance.

As his pelt brushed against hers, she started, unaware that he had followed her out to the entrance of the cavern. His tail flicked against her nose, and she wrinkled her muzzle. ”It’s morning. The voice that came from his maw was not that of a pup’s. It was steadier, deeper in tone, and rough like a brute’s. Immediately, Casi stopped in her tracks. A shadow fell over her features as she watched him pad up to the pointed stones of the cavern entrance and step out into the dim dawn light. His pelt glowed at the tips as his brown coloration hit the growing sunlight and lit up.

Castalia wasn’t sure why his presence made her so uneasy. He would never hurt any of us, she always reasoned with herself. It isn’t like he’s dangerous. He’s just… moody.

With a few tentative steps forward, Casi followed her brother to the opening of the cavern. The island of Ina’mos stretched out before the two young wolves, a landscape of green and black, as chunks of volcanic rock littered the area. Casi dipped her head to the ground in front of her, silently scenting the strange dark bits of rock at the entrance of their home. To Casi, it smelled of something very old, almost ancient. She flicked her light blue eyes up, keeping Raum in her sight. She may not be terribly afraid of him, but that did not mean she was going to turn her back on her brother.

---

Count | 508
Tagged | Raum
Muse | Good
Notes | n/a

[Raum]

[attr="class","plbase"]

[attr="class","pltxt"]As his sister slowly approached him at the mouth of the cave, he did not turn to watch her. The longer their silence stood, the longer his stomach stewed and churned with the beginnings of pestilent anger. Castalia almost never spoke. It was something like a known fact among his siblings, and it frustrated him deeply. She was completely intolerable, her heart as big as the sky her eyes reflected, and yet she did not feel bothered to speak to her own brother. Her innocent nature confused him. He’d heard her speak, but it was almost never to him—perhaps out of fear, or arrogance, or something else entirely. Raum didn’t know, didn’t understand, and it burned his intestines like hot coals, searing and twisting and melting.

As he watched his sandy-hued sister sniff at the rocks, he suddenly felt a flash of frustration and need that warped quickly into manipulation. He could no longer hold his tongue.

“I spoke to you, didn’t I?” His speech was a whisper and a snarl, cold and unforgiving, and his eyes seemed to glow in their sickly color in the morning light. He didn’t look at her at first, turning his head slowly, his eyes trained on her as it moved. Raum liked the way they felt turning in his sockets, feeling their imperfect shape against his lids.

The youth almost never thought of his appearance, but in the shadows, he looked like he fit in with the landscape. Among the green laid half-covered rocks, ragged and dirty, the same mottled black that covered his nose. His dark muzzle was curled slightly, threatening to reveal his teeth. His sister must have thought he looked terrifying. He took note to wipe the expression from his face in favor of one more neutral.

Raum circled around her like a panther might circle prey, lithe and menacing, though he forced an emotion into his eyes. He wasn’t sure what the emotion was. “You’re my favorite sister, Castalia,” he crooned using her full name, his voice like dull knives on stone. He stopped just inches from her face, close enough to feel her breath on his nose. It smelled of their mother’s milk and morning dew. “You know that, right?”

He cocked his head at her, mustering the most innocent look he could manage, though it must have looked like a snake that had thought better than attacking, sheathing its fangs. He was still a snake, and hidden weapons did not mean that he was no longer poisonous.

tags: Castalia
words: 431
muse: average
notes: This nasty little fucker. xD

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[Castalia]

She knew—even as she attempted to mind her own business—that her brother would speak to her. There was no one else around to give him any attention, that was certain. The rest of their siblings still slept soundly in the belly of the stone cavern behind them. She was suddenly envious of them as anxiety curled around her internal organs like a vice. She longed for the shadow of one of her sisters to hide in, someone to tell her what to do. Then, her thoughts were interrupted as he spoke to her.

“I spoke to you, didn’t I?” His voice came out as a hiss, tickling the fine hairs on the inside of Casi’s tan ears. He turned to her slowly; his muzzle was pulled tight, barely covering his canines in a strange half-grin. The passive aggressive comment and smile would not fool the tiny pup, however. His dark coat and glowing eyes turned her blood cold. Frightened, Casi’s ears flattened against her head as she peered up at her larger sibling. Her light blue eyes wide in silent fright, and her throat seized up, making it impossible to answer him. She was barely able to give her brother a nod in reply, her body stiff with the instinct of flight. He was a little beast inside, it sometimes seemed. Half the time, she didn’t know whether he was angry or if he was speaking simply and truthfully.

As she cowered before him, he moved. His long legs towered around her like the trunks of trees it seemed, and he paced around her like a shark circles helpless prey in the ocean. She followed him with her glassy eyes, blinking away the wetness that had gathered in their corners. “You’re my favorite sister, Castalia. You know that, right?” 

His sudden attempt at sweetness was alomst more unnearving than his earlier snide comment. He was so close, she could smell his breath. Unlike her other siblings, he had a slightly tainted smell about him. Because he never slept by their sides, their family-scent was weak on his pelt. Replacing it was the slight tang of something rotten. Has he been eating meat?

Frightened, Casi managed to push a single word past her lips to apease her brother. "Yes," she said meekly. She peered up at him with two light blue orbs, her body rigid with fear, yet submissive to the frightening pup.

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Count | 411
Tagged | Raum
Muse | Decent
Notes | Sorry this post is so terrible. >.<