How I Met Your Mother ; [Beleth]

[Lethe]

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[attr="class","pltxt"]Lethe had lived most of her young life in the jungle. It was an unforgiving place, albeit beautiful, but today was her time to leave. She itched to see what was beyond her wooded home, and as she ascended that day to the top of the Ridge of Vesirtin. the scenery slowly changed from tropical to deciduous, the twisting, gnarled trees of the Waryk mingling and morphing to pines and oaks. The wooded area smelled wonderful, like earthen sap, and as the silvery femme walked carefully through the needles and leaves dotting the ground, she almost gasped aloud when she reached the end of claimed Valyn territory.

The area she knew as R’imdar opened up like a curtain as the trees parted and revealed an open landscape. Far overhead, Oracle exploded from the leaves like a bullet, able to stretch her wings fully without the trunks of the woods in her way. As she banked and soared in the open afternoon air, Lethe couldn’t help but laugh happily. She was free. For the day, in that moment, they were both completely free. With a burst of yellow happiness exploding behind her eyes, she tried her best to project her own feelings to her companion. Fly, she thought, squinting her eyes in concentration. I’ll see you back at home later.

With a calm determination, she descended the shallow ridge into the Delia Basin of R’imdar. To her left were the geysers, spewing hot smoke into the air and tiny jets of boiling water. Lethe had heard rumors of Mint having her tail removed by a mountain-esque wolf there, and for her own safety, she chose to avoid it. There was nowhere to hide along the Basin, and she found comfort in it.

For a moment, she wondered if her brother, the Boy, had come this way. He had been gone for weeks now, and it made her a little sad. She wondered if he had died, or if he’d joined another pack, or even simply went off on his own—but to Lethe, there was no home outside of Tas’alea. She knew of the mainland Anikira, but despite her urges to explore her own home, she cared little for the goings-on in the larger continent. What could they have that she did not here?

She waded through the outskirts of the water for hours, catching small fish in her teeth and watching tiny crabs as they skittered away, sideways, from her gentle pawsteps. As colorful fish darted through her legs, she thought back to her time with Micah. They’d learned to fish together, and he was nice. The grey mottled fae smiled absentmindedly as she walked. Besides the fish, there were prints from other, larger prey, but in the heat of the swelling sun, they were nowhere to be seen. And after walking for hours across the territory, midday turned to afternoon and Lethe found herself staring at an impassable mountain range.

Trees dripped lazily off of the size of the craggy peaks, and she found refuge underneath one of them. Nearby to her, she saw a beaten path—but the scent markers of an unfamiliar pack, two distinctly similar yet different scents, barred her way. She was not so foolish to wander into another pack’s territory—and the mixed she-wolf rested, watching her owl companion still far in the distance, dropping occasionally onto the land for prey.

tags: @beleth
words: 568
muse: great but post was poo, sorry. xD
notes: IT BEGINS. <3 For clarification, she's just outside the border of Kydifi's Pass. I figure they can meet, then I'll toss the NPC in.

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Sleeping, killing to eat, moving, and surviving. It was the routine that Beleth had encountered for a month now, and each passing second proved to be torturous for the young giant. Every day that passed made him miss his family more, but his mouth couldn't open to express it. He was now more silent than ever, more alert, almost always on the edge--but still feeling vulnerable. Heavy paws left pawprints on the dirt as he made his way to R'imdar's Delia Basin to drink something, as he was tired and weary, and his body demanded water.

He made his way throughout the various pools before finding one that seemed nice to the eyes. He bended his body and rested on top of the ground as his tongue began to scoop up the water he craved so much. He felt the thirst be quenched quickly, but he couldn't stop drinking of the sweet-tasting water. His head lifted quickly, however, when his nose picked up a scent of a stranger. His neck fur stood up rapidly and he snarled and looked around to hide himself from the approaching intruder.

However, he stopped in his tracks when he saw the small figure of a grey and white female approaching. She was alone, and for a moment, Beleth stood still. He saw her in the distance, and she went into the nearby trees that surrounded the Basin. Lowering his head, he began to stalk her from afar until he reached close enough to watch her quietly, hiding behind the trunk of the tree that was sheltering her small frame. She was... fascinating. Small, and so vulnerable. They were polar opposites but there was something about her that made him want to speak for the first time to a stranger.

He observed her quietly for what seemed hours, until he gathered the courage to reveal himself and speak. He made way throughout the varied terrain that surrounded her until he finally reached her and saw her face to face. He spoke nothing as he stood there quietly, observing her. She had beautiful orange eyes, and she was even more lovely in person. He took a deep breath before speaking. "I won't hurt you," he said bluntly before falling quiet once more. "What are you doing here? You'll get hurt out here if you're alone." 

Lethe

[Cían Ethlend]

They moved like derechos, toiling against one another in complex, unspoken, unfulfilled violence. As the massive white clouds rolled across the landscape, they ripped flowers from their roots in their wake. When the wind blew harder, it cut living things apart, spatters of blood left to be washed away by a gentler storm. They began as wind and rain, but the farther they walked, the more obvious the drought became.

The ground dried under their paws. Death followed them like a cloud of sleeping sickness, daring them to close their eyes, lighting matches in their mouths.

When things started to burn, plants and trees and mortals and promises turned to ash without protest. Their bodies felt the warmth and embraced it, caring not when it began to sting, feeling not when their leaves and bark and skin and words began peeling apart at the seams, fearing not when their meaningless husks floated and fell and melted and shattered into the earth. The fire was all-consuming, and as such, burning was all the young brute ever knew.

Embers fell from the teeth of his father. As Ethlend began to fall back into his own wake of flame and ashes, Cían learned only fireproofing.

It was pathetic. “Soon,” his father muttered. He was always muttering, as if he said the word enough times, his futile hopes would come to fruition. Ethlend wished only to find others like them, with fur that sparkled like snow on mountaintops, with black capes worn like flags, with ebony masks over eyes that shone like amber or emerald. Deviation was impure, and purity was all that mattered.

What was law for a father was petty ignorance to a son. Arguing with a statue is without purpose, and Cían rarely acted without purpose. It was clear to him that statues hold no value in a world that is not a museum, still and standing, never changing. Things shifted in the world every day. Minds moved. He did not act upon his father’s uselessness for self-preservation, but immobility would mean burning to death. His father’s end would be his own. Active patricide was not an option, but the young male would be passive in the face of threat.

It was in this frame that two Bernard wolves walked through the scrub of R’imdar, son far behind father, watching and waiting for the next explosion.

A silver-toned she-wolf with eyes carved from moonstones smiled at a mottled behemoth. He won’t hurt her. What is she doing? She could be hurt. Any wolf that was not deaf to the world would hear him speak. Any wolf that was not blind to reality would notice the curve of her lips, the tilt of her head, the warmth in her eyes, all clearly directed at another being. The curve of her neck was not absent minded. She was deliberate.

But his father, whose physical form functioned without defect, was deaf and blind with rage. The storm lunged at the female, landing on her back as teeth sunk into her flesh. Her spine screamed, bone grazing bone in heartless cacophony; her body crashed to the ground under his weight like sticks snapping under a misplaced paw. She yelped with guttural fear. Ethlend pressed into her, threatening rape, threatening death, threatening anything to feel charge surge through a powerless husk. He pressed her throat to the ground, crushing it into the rocks. She could no longer protest.

Her eyes lost their warmth as she locked them with the mottled male his father hadn’t bothered to notice. Cían kept pace steadily towards them as he moved through the brush like the shadow of a brilliant dove.

He smiled.

tags: @beleth
words: 624
muse: getting there!
notes: FINALLY OOPS. Lethe's reaction is in this post so I don't have to go back and forth on accounts more than totally necessary. xD

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Like a lightning that strikes the horizon with no storm clouds on the firmament, a white wolf with black markings and rage in his eyes emerged from what seemed to be shadows and attacked the delicate femme in front of Beleth. The creature was relentless and apparently infuriated, starved and blinded by hunger that he turned against one of his own. Beleth immediately felt his body propel him forward, seafoam eyes locked on the male's neck as he opened his mouth to reveal sharp, pearly white fangs that were aimed to the vulnerable, exposed neck of the stranger.

Growling with all of his strength, Beleth felt how his mouth caught the savage's neck, his pupils small and focused on his target; the hot, metallic taste of the blood that began to splatter and stain his pale fur and the snowy pelt of the male. With the momentum of the impact, Beleth had managed to push away the wolf and knocked him to the ground, not letting him go as the adrenaline was now on full mode, making his body tremble and his heart rate accelerate at speeds unimaginable; his tail was up in the air and all of his fur was standing on its end.

The coughing and wheezing that the male was making should have made him react, but all it did was fuel him more, making him grip tighter as the seconds passed by, choking the life out of him until the male stopped breathing. And still, Beleth was there, standing still, with his head lowered and his face filled with blood, until he made sure that the fiend was dead.

He then let go as the adrenaline began to wear off. Beleth took a few steps back and saw the carcass in front of him, with its neck exposed and the blood pooling around it. His body remained still, his posture stiff as a rock, and his eyes did not blink. His heart began to accelerate, and his mind began to fill itself with guilt and questions that had no answer. Looking back at the female, he saw a distant figure of a wolf that looked just like the one he had just killed, and apparently it was his son.

Walking away from the body, his stomach began to twist inside of him, making him throw away his last meal on its entirety. Coughing and wheezing, his body began to tremble and shake, his eyes were widely open and his maw retreated in a snarl. Tears began to fall from his eyes as a nervous laughter broke from his insides as he then began to cry. 

Why did he do this? Why did he kill someone? He looked back in the midst of his tears and saw her, laid down, and he was not sure if she had lived. He began to scream, to the top of his lungs as he collapsed in exhaustion, his body going into shock due to the amounts of stress he had. But... something in his heart had shut down. He felt numb, and he now had to live with the fact that he was a murderer. He knew that he did it to defend the innocent, but he would have to live with the fact that he had killed someone. As the grip of exhaustion began to kick in his body, everything began to turn black.

Just like his mind, he now had shut down forever. He was no longer Beleth...

He was now a monster.

Lethe / Cían Ethlend Wow this was a ride lol

[Lethe]

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[attr="class","pltxt"]They say that sometimes, rarely, when adrenaline pours through the veins of a body and the brain saturates with cortisol, time passes in slow motion. A brief moment might feel like hours, an hour might feel like a day. They say that you feel each second pass in absolute clarity, processing events in a way that a resting mind cannot.

This was not one of those times. Not for Lethe.

The light-and-dark male came from nowhere, charging her with horrific speed. He pinned her, and her neck pricked and she felt blood run down her shoulders, and then she felt the teeth ripped out. It was lightning, a bolt that struck down at its target and then retracted into the sky, pulled back by the god who wielded it like a boomerang. It took her a moment to process before she turned around.

The wolf, the young male she’d met only moments earlier, was wrestling with his behemoth counterpart. They were matched in size, but it was obvious that this wolf- the Northerner, was stronger. He was larger. His muscular frame rippled like the wind in the waves over the basin, and as his maw released her dead attacker with blood dripping from his maw, she should have been disgusted.

But she couldn’t stop staring. She couldn’t speak. Lethe felt utterly useless in that moment, laying on the ground in a pathetic heap, her body shaking involuntarily. This wolf had saved her life. The silvery femme tried to feel for her legs, numb and wobbling, and knew they would not support her if she were to attempt to stand. Lethe’s vibrant, firey irises locked on the Northerner. And then he looked at her.

It was like the first time they’d made eye contact, before she was attacked. His were stunning and electric, hard and soft and cold and warm all at once. Her heart stirred, and she cocked her head in a smile and with a lilt in her neck, her voice almost caught in her throat. She should have been scared. She should have been annoyed with him for chiding her, insinuating that she was weak. But she melted into the ice of his gaze then, and could only smile. “Hi,” she’d said, before she regained her composure. “Who are you?”

Lethe didn’t hear his answer over the sound of snarling, and her own weight hitting the earth.

And now, here they were, eyes locked again. It made her heart flutter in her chest... until she saw the tears, and it shattered. He screamed, and her own eyes sprung hot with tears as she called to him. “No, no,” she cried, unapologetically empathetic in the moment. He turned and began to walk away, each step seeming harder for him than the last. “Don’t go! It’s okay!”

Something powerful lifted her to her paws, her body still numb and in shock. As she tried to take a step, Lethe toppled to her right—until something caught her.

A white male, seemingly identical to the one who’d just attacked her, was now propping her weight against his. He wore a dark chocolate mask across his eyes, and the darkness of his marking spread along his entire back and down his tail, drooping over his shoulder blades. He was wearing a tiny grin, and something in his golden eyes was... she couldn’t put her paw on it. Happy? Dangerous?

Was this wolf a lunatic?

Lethe sprung away from him, completely startled by his appearance. “Get the fuck away from me! Who do you think you are?” she snarled with wild eyes, leaping to the side and taking several steady steps towards the Northerner who’d saved her life. She had no intention of getting attacked again, but as the white wolf sat on his haunches in stoic reverie, her face distorted in confusion and disgust.

“You’re not hurt.” The comment dripped from his mouth like gin from a bottle, smooth and stately. It was not a question—it was a statement. Lethe opened her mouth to protest, eyes darting between the two hulking males, but the masked brute cut her off. “My father attacked you. He deserved to die. Make sure he knows that,” the male said, tilting his head in the mottled Kenai’s direction.

“I’ll be going now, then.” His voice was like ice, and as he took his father—his FATHER?—by the leg and drug him towards the basin, Lethe could only let her mouth fall agape and utter a sound of disgust.

As the wolf she’d met walked further away, screaming at nothing in particular, she had no choice but to ignore the disturbing emotionlessness she’d just witnessed. It seemed that that wolf was less upset about his father dying than this one was for killing him. It was revolting.

Trying her hardest to keep up, she called again to the Kenai mix, her legs faltering beneath her, tears still streaming down her silvery-white cheeks. “Please, wait!” She felt herself tripping, and she knew he would be out of reach first. “You saved my life,” she cried, though her voice was softening, the quiet, bell-like tone returning despite her tears. “And I don't even know your name.”

tags: @beleth, Cían Ethlend
words: 966
muse: MUSESPLOSION!
notes: D; (p.s. to be clear, Cian will stalk Beleth back later- for now he's out of the thread. :>)

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[Deleted]

Everything was black for what seemed to be an eternity.

Drip, drop. Oh, how he wished to be inside of the cavern he grow up in, where everything was so simple. He would spend days on end just listening to the drip, drop of the water droplets falling to the ground. He missed the magical glow worms that sometimes appeared on the ceiling; his mother's warmth, his sibling's endless bickering... how he missed it all. For a moment or two, he questioned if he should be mad with his father for pushing them into growing up and becoming soldiers. He questioned, for a second, about how he felt about everything. But... he couldn't say he felt anything. There was nothing there. The only feeling he could perceive was guilt, and it was overwhelming him. But... still, everything he did and will do, was for him. For Kairos, for the greater good of the pack--and that was something he was prepared to carry on his shoulders, as heavy as the burden was.

Opening his eyes faintly, he saw a grey and white figure talk to him. She was filled with tears, making him confused for a moment. Lifting his head up a little, he tried to gather his strength to lift himself up, but all he did was sit down rather clumsily in front of the female. She asked her name, wanting to know who he was, the one who saved her life. He sighed and lifted his head to meet her gaze, observing her autumn colored eyes in silence. "Beleth," he said softly, trying to gather the strength he had lost due to the fight. He began to look for the body with his eyes, but all he saw was a trail of blood, as if it had been dragged away. He then looked back at the diminutive femme before sighing. "Did he hurt you? I thought he had." He gathered his strength and stood up, not wanting to be so vulnerable for so long, quickly looking around his surroundings to make sure that they were both safe.

--
Lethe *u*

[Lethe]

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By the grace of the Goddess, he slowed and sat before she could lose him. Lethe limped slightly, unhurt in the grand scheme of things but certainly sore. “Beleth,” she repeated, his soft voice resonating in a deep vibration down to the core of her soul. A smile tugged at her lips absentmindedly, but it wiped off of her maw before he could meet her gaze.

“I’m okay. Just... yeah,” she mumbled, her voice almost a whisper. The silvery femme was struck by a sense of weakness suddenly, shifting on her paws almost foolishly.

She was raised to believe that females were strong. She lived in a land where females were supreme, where they did not need protecting, where they were the pinnacles of existence. To suddenly feel weak and unprotected—needy, even—was so foreign to her. Lethe wondered if Jaienyx would think less of her if she were here to see it. With downcast eyes, she knew that her aunt would. Her mother would be furious to smell not one, but three males on her fur.

Her saving grace, she knew, would be Willow. Her dearest sister would always listen to her story, and maybe she would understand. Her open mind was something Lethe held so dear, and at once, she wished so badly that her sister were here. She also wished that Oracle would find her way back. She’d told the owl to meet her back in Valyn territory—she only hoped she made it back to her soul-bird now.

“I’m sorry you had to rescue me,” the grey female started slowly, her confidence shaken. Readying herself to say goodbye, the words caught in her throat. You don’t have to, her inner monologue told her. She’d felt this way in her heart once before, when she met Micah. She wanted to be friends with him, and something about him drew her towards him. It wasn’t romance—Lethe didn’t understand that concept yet, and her pride kept her far from it. But there was something that made her heart stir about being friends with a male. And despite his platonic nature, something about Beleth made her want to see him again.

“Do you need to leave?” she asked cautiously. “I can leave, if—well, I should leave...” her voice trailed off when she met his gaze again. Hidden behind his eyes was a kind of nervous pain, and guilt dripped from his pupils like tar. Lethe took a deep breath and and her vocal chords tightened. “That wolf was his son,” she stated in a sharp exhale. She felt awkward and warm all at once. It was disarming, and the silvery wolf had no idea how to act in such a grotesque situation. In doubt, she tried to keep strong, tried to keep her pride. “He said that he deserved it. You know... uh, pulling him off me. And stuff.”

tags: @beleth
words: 538
muse: decently good
notes: omg D: also oops she never told him her name xD

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Silence took over the pale one's mind as he heard her repeat his name. He only observed her, looking at her bright orange eyes and the way her timid voice broke the silence between the two. He saw her--she had something in her eyes he certainly lacked, and he could not figure out what it was. But in that moment, something, like some sort of force, began to take over Beleth--the need to protect her. It was as if this foreign feeling was taking over his body almost sending him in a panic state, but everything he felt was masked behind the cold eyes of the pale brute. She told him she was okay, to which Beleth softly nodded in reply. She then apologized after a few moments of silence, making Beleth seem confused for a second or two.

She was so... vulnerable. So insecure, so... frail. She could not be alone and survive for long. He had no idea how on Earth she had survived for so long. She then questioned if he had to leave, and Beleth moved his head side to side softly as a way to say no. His eyes were fixated on hers, but not in a harsh or intimidating way--he was looking at her softly, observing her, wanting to understand why she was out in the open all alone. She then mentioned that the other wolf was the attacker's son, and that the son said that he deserved what came upon him. Beleth then decided to finally speak after a few seconds of silence.

"Let's look for a place to stay for the night," he said matter-of-factly as he, for the first time, made a soft smile, "you will not survive the night alone out here." Standing still, he drifted his sight away from the small female and looked around, spotting some trees in the distance. He then returned his attention back to her before asking the question that was turning around in his head since they met. "What is your name?"

Lethe :3