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 Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:25 pm
Insert Uncerted Image Here! It was funny how the angrier he got, the more his smile grew. That automatic impulse to simply grin like nothing was wrong when it was quite the contrary, when he felt most likely to lunge and rip out a throat or tear at a limb or gouge the eyes with his antlers; it was preposterous to want to smile when so furious. Ailden hated it, hated himself, for this and many other reasons. Yet his mouth disobeyed and curled up at the ends into a rebellious grin as he sat before one of many iced over rivers, pondering a simple question: how could he break such a thick layer on his own? The Hellhound began with his claws and, quickly getting nothing done, moved on to trying with his antlers, which was equally fruitless. Not even breathing hot air upon it did the trick.
Ailden cursed the fact that his family had before they could teach him necessary skills of survival. He had struck it out on his own since he was a young adolescent and had - up to this point - plenty of trouble staying alive as it was. Growling a sigh the fiery-haired canine began to move upstream in hopes of thinner ice - possibly even an already mad hole if he was lucky.What was the use of all these fire symbols on him if he couldn't even deal with the simple mater of getting water from a frozen lake? It was a frosty early morning and already Ailden was wishing it were late so that he could sleep once more; maybe it would be more fitful than last night's nightmare.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 7:39 pm
Linnen grinned happily, in pure bliss. There was snow. She loved snow. She lounged in a snow bank happily. The snow coated her fur, covering the spots of darker blue and making her look even icier than she normally was. The river ran by a bit to her right, covered with a thin layer of ice, but not impossible to break through... Linnen decided to do the thing she'd been contemplating all morning.
Linnen got to her feet, her motions fluid, and ambled over to the riverbank. Just where the ice met the ground, she spotted a small niche; a weak spot. She lowered her horns and easily got the leverage needed to pull up quite a large chunk of the frozen water. She scrabbled at it with her paws until she could push it to one side, then continued, making a larger and larger area of clear water. She surveyed the river, and decided that it wasn't moving fast enough to be a danger; she was a strong swimmer, after all.
This decided, she gracefully lowered herself into the ice-cold water, her body giving a slight tremor as it found itself surrounded by cold. The chill was excruciating, and quite enjoyable. Linnen paddled out a bit closer to the middle of the river, enjoying her little swim.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:03 pm
Sure enough, the Hellhound spied flowing water up ahead and, to his disgruntled frustration, a girl swimming about the frigid fluid as though it were nothing. Why was it she got to get in so easily when he toiled and got nothing done? The grin twitched wider by a small increment as he made his way closer, intent to get a drink now whether the other hound cared or not. Already Ailden could feel his fur beginning to bristle in anticipation, already envisioning a fight breaking out because he was somehow stepping on someone else's territory or the like, already feeling torn flesh beneath his paws . . . It was comforting in a twisted way to imagine all that pent up hatred, sorrow, grief, pain, and otherwise excess energy to be put to some use besides walking to nowhere like he always was.
Without a word, the hound grunted, lowered his head atthe water's edge, and began to splruge on his thirst, nearly choking as he downed gulp after gulp of that numbing cold water. He always felt too hot; now, he could cool off if only momentarily. Not once did Ailden look up at the girl, not having any intention to interact with her if possible. He wanted a fight, but there was enough sense to not engage a female out of sheer politeness: one of the only dang things he was ever taught.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 11:35 am
Linnen came up to the surface after a small plunge underwater and saw in surprise that another hound was standing on the riverbank. Water was streaming off her fur, into her eyes, so she couldn't see him very well, but she could tell that he was a male of reddish hues; he stood out brilliantly against the snow. From where she was swimming, she could see his wide grin. Oh, good, he must be friendly.
Making towards the shore, Linnen smiled as well, happy to finally see another hound after weeks of being alone.
"Hello!" she called cheerily.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:08 pm
And there it was a clear voice rang across the river as she waded towards him. Typical. What made every other hound think that just because he approached close to them that it merited a conversation? And yet the grin refused to fall as he lifted his head and meet the icy female's eyes, dully noting the strange things in her ear. Must be a tagged one; stupid humans, stupid elves, stupid daemons, but moreso stupid girl for letting herself get caught at all. "Hi," Ailden replied brusquely, his tone contradicting the grin so very much. "This your territory? Just about to leave." He kept his answers short.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:26 pm
"Oh," Linnen blinked in surprise at his tone. Didn't match his face at all... She blinked some water from her eyes and noticed that his grin had something... fixed about it. It wasn't entirely natural... "No, that's fine. I have no territory, I just... roam. Feel free to stay as long as you like."
That said, Linnen decided to... maybe not go all the way onto the shore... in case this male was actually hostile... She paddled in the middle of the river, trying not to stare at him.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 8:03 pm
Roam, huh? Didn't everyone do that nowadays? So many wandering hounds, so little packlife to be had. Ailden snorted audibly at how the once mighty Hellhounds had somehow become like scattered rats in this strange realm. "If you say so," the ginger one replied with a shrug, allowing himself a small reprieve if only to fully enjoy the cool water falling down his throat to rest in a cushion of cold within his stomach. A small breath of relief escaped him, even accompanied by a little smoke; too hot for his own good indeed. Since he was just by the water's edge, Ailden had no trouble dipping in one paw at a time, letting his roughened pawpads be soothed by the current. He shut his eyes and the hidden anger inside him was quelled for the moment, his face's features softening under the calming sensation. Decorated with fire as he was, it didn't mean that he didn't appreciate times like this when water came in handy.
"You aren't frozen in there?" Ailden inquired without opening his eyes. He hated silences and noted without surprise that she seemed to be a bit wary of him. Smart girl.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 8:09 pm
Linnen watched the male out of the corner of her eye as he ventured into the water. He seemed to relax a bit as the water touched him... Maybe he liked the cold, too? She started a bit when he asked her a question out of the blue.
"No, I like the cold," she answered simply, treading water easily. "My name's Linnen," she called out abruptly, just feeling as if he should know this.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:05 pm
"Linnen." It was almost a bust of breath than a word. Ailden sometimes had trouble remembering names and, though he doubted he'd ever would meet this girl again after today, he decided to try and commit to memory anyway. If nothing else, it'd stimulate his brain off the track of pure survival and isolation momentarily. He entertained the notion of making some chit-chat while he rested. Funny, he should have guessed someone with a pelt like hers would enjoy the cold; then again, he had his own strange story with the marking of a camp fire on his body. "Ailden. You live near here?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 2:29 pm
Linnen shivered as he repeated her name. Was it the cold? Or was it the way he said it? She filed the reaction away in her mind, in case it meant something later.
"Ailden. That's a nice name," she smiled in a friendly way. Maybe he's not so bad... maybe he just needs to loosen up a little..."and, as I said before, I just roam. For now I've been staying in a den nearby, but I'll probably move on. Most likely when the snow melts... I usually look for cool places, and then move on when things heat up." She shrugged carelessly and continued to paddle, edging a bit closer to shore. It didn't seem right to have a conversation by yelling across the water...
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Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 2:49 pm
So she migrated to colder places as well? The male nodded to himself vaguely, shivers running up his spine as he realized how long he had left his paws in the water. Reluctantly Ailden withdrew from the river's edge and stood on the bank, eyes open now as he watched Linnen wade closer. The earlier impulse for violence had been satisfied for now, though the Hellhound still held hismelf stiffly as was normal for him when in the presence of most anyone. "Same. Know which way I should go next then?" He would hate to have wandered in the wrong direction again and end up in someplace sweltering this time of year; well, close enough at least.
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Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:43 pm
"Well..." Linnen gave a small frown, looking around a bit, "I can't be sure right now... But I'm... I'm thinking I'm going to be going that way when the snow melts," She nodded up-river, "I usually have a pretty good instinct about such things... But I'm better at telling where the cold places will be when the snow has melted. Right now everything around me is cold, so it messes with my head a little bit."
Abruptly, the female hound submerged herself, letting herself float in the ice-cold fluid for a moment before erupting at the surface. She decided that she'd had enough and wanted to go talk to the male face to face, so Linnen headed toward the shore, paddling casually. She wasn't in any hurry to leave the cold water.
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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 5:36 pm
He could use a cold radar like that; yet dependency like that made him all the more wanting to will bitterness back into his tone, to push back that weakness by pushing away the percieved helpful - even long before she could have an inkling of what went through his strange and often befuddled mind! Making assumptions, notions, musings before he got to know someone: people would call that being overly suspicious, but one had to make quick and sometimes changing decisions about the when and now. Or maybe he was just going slowly nuts. "Is that so," Ailden stated more than asked, more to himself than Linnen, purposefully stepping back despite there being plenty of room between him and her as she began to casually wade out. Again the strange ornaments in her ears caught glints of the water which snagged his eyes. "And those?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:29 pm
Linnen shrugged her head, and the ear ornaments chinked together faintly.
"I forget," she said simply, "I've had them ever since I was young... I don't remember much from that time in my life... and I forget how I got these."
It was really scary actually, how little she did remember about her past... Up until the last year or so, Linnen only had very vague memories... If she tried to dredge back further into her history... She came up with nothing at all. Her first distinct memory was looking up into the sky, snowflakes falling softly onto her fur.
It was almost as if she could've been formed from the snow. But... Snow had a habit of disappearing suddenly, especially when in the heat... Maybe this was why Linnen felt a strange desire for the cold; fear of melting away and being forgotten. Just another snowflake in the midst of oblivion.
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Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:16 pm
Were the items tainted? Are two-leggers capable of wiping the memory? Or perhaps he was dealing with a hound that had the shortest attention span in the history of Oblivion. But that didn't seem likely considering her calm mannerisms thus far . . . Or maybe that was simply a side effect of amnesia. Sometiems Ailden wished he could suffer a thick enough rock to the head to forget himself instead of having to deal with this inner burning cage he could not control. It was far luckier for Linnen to be near such cold water, else his volcanic temper would have exploded earlier into the conversation, tired, hungered, pained as he was then - that he still was for that matter, too, but the soothing river helped.
"How frightening." Ailden murmured those two words as he side stepped back into the shallow waters of the bank, severe chills running up his spine once more as the pleasurable sensation enraptured him: like a nice brain freeze. "Was your family distraught with your new look?"
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