Runaway Bride

[rainstar]

Athabasca's ears perked slightly as the older wolf scrambled up onto the boulder with her, hostility still surging through her like waves on a stormy ocean shore. To her surprise, the elder made it to the top quite swiftly without falling, as if he'd done this many times before. Her blue eyes flashed with silent rage as the male sat down on the rock before her, causing her ears flick back in agitation. As she was about to growl at him to leave her alone, he opened his grayed maw and spoke, his face showing that 'haven't-I-seen-you-before?' kind of look.

No, sir, you haven't.. Leave me..

"Athabasca. Last I saw you, you were in the company of Sir Exodus and the Salen pack. Why do you hide here now, sulking about like a thief?" he prompted, his head cocked to one side curiously. His eyes met hers and she gasped angrily at the last few words, but as she was about to spit back a nasty retort her own words suddenly would not come. A small choking sound was emitted from her throat and she frowned suddenly, her brow furrowing and the fury passing from her face, replaced with awe. "How did you-" Atha began, frowning again and looking down at her paws guiltily, and sighed long and deep. Memories came flooding back to her, reminding her that not all life had stopped in the world around her since she had arrived here. She remembered her first encounter with Exodus and the Salen, and her accident in the mines. Taurus. Thalia. She thought of Koli, and wondered with a painful sadness what he was doing now. What had he done when he saw that she had abandoned him? Perhaps, she thought, this wolf did have a right to ridicule her. "I stole someone's heart and ran away." she murmered, almost inaudibly, the fur along her neck beginning to lower gently. "So I guess you could call me a thief."

[jiminiminy]

At the confirmation that he had been, in fact, correct, Siscarm couldn't help but feel a little proud of himself. He'd never been good with names, and the fact that he'd remembered one as hard to pronounce as Athabasca made him feel nice inside. With this emotion of pride more prominent in his mind, his frown evened out, and he watched the reaction. Anger, which had been bubbling at the femme's surface anyways, dissolved away, replaced by a look of awe, which then disappeared as Athabasca let her head drop, looking down at the stone beneath them.

Keeping his head cocked, Siscarm seemed a bit fuddled. "How did I what?" He inquired, pondering her words. He couldn't think of what she might have been starting to stay, and he didn't know how he could answer a question that hadn't been finished. Before the elder could think about this more, the femme spoke again.

"I stole someone's heart and ran away. So I guess you could call me a thief."

His frown returned to his face. Though she appeared to trust him much more than she did previously, he never liked lack of confidence. "Now then, I never meant to call you a thief. It's just that thieves slink about in the dark, and you were doing as such. And a heart is a terrible thing to steal. I know, I had mine go through a similar process. Why did you choose to do this though? Why did you steal a wolf's heart?"

Once more, Siscarm cocked his head. If he kept doing that, it might just stay that way, as his mother had always told him.

[rainstar]

Athabasca wearily lifted her head as the wolf spoke, her empty blue eyes, now seeming a dull gray instead of a brilliant azure, gazing off into the fog somewhere.
"Why did you steal a wolf's heart?" The older wolf's voice seemed distant and muffled as the femme wandered listlessly through the memories and silly reasonings in her troubled mind, feeling herself grow soft again. Slowly a dull anger rose up from inside of her, and she pushed all of her tender feelings aside like an unwanted, broken plaything. Her brow furrowed and the fur began to bristle along the line of her back, her sorrowful frown forming into a half-snarl, half-grimace. "It doesn't matter now, it's a thing of the past." she spat without glancing back at the other. Athabasca rose to her paws and turned away, muttering. "What does it mean to you anyway?"

Without another word, the black dame leapt from the boulder into the mists below, ignoring the pain that was now a dull ache in her limbs as she touched silently down onto the ground, and she stalked away into the fog, her head low and her thick black tail dragging in the mud. She kept walking, taking no notice as the brambles and thorns caught in her fur and dragged her back, looking at her paws as each made its way in front of the other, sending up little drops of muddy water into her face. Atha trudged on for what seemed like forever, eventually letting her eyes slip close as she padded along into nowhere.

~*~

splesh plish!

Athabasca jolted into consciousness as water engulfed her front paws, realizing dumbly that she must have fallen asleep while she was walking. She stood on the shore now, looking out across the fog-concealed Drarynough and into the shadows of the forest beyond, far in the distance. The water was still except for the ripples her clumsy paws had disturbed, but they too were beginning to dissappear, and eventually the dark waters were dead still once more. The night-coloured femme gazed, eyes half-closed in something like exhaustion.

I'm so lost.

With a sigh that seemed to echo through the dead world, the silent earth, she listened to her heartbeats and the waves gently nibbling at the muddy shorline. Far away on the mainland, she thought she saw a dark shape flit through the trees, darting in and out of the canopies of darkness. Maybe it was a deer, running away. Maybe it was Sir Exodus, angry that she had trespassed onto his land once more. Maybe it was Koli, coming to find her. Half-dazed, she shouted angrily across the water, "I'll never come back!" and again, echo upon echo, "I'll never come back! I'm dead! Do you hear me? DEAD."

The figure in the forest did not reappear again.

[ooc: Atha out :3 I'm starting a new thread and mini-mini-plot with her that I've been thinking up for a long time.]