Half Hearted Hunting (Open House)

[Njack]

A bird chirped as it fled into the charred pine tree above. Ligua stared after it, then let out a puff of air, blowing the smoke around his face into disarray. His eyes stung.

He was beginning to think this was hopeless, trying to find food in this smoke. He sniffed the air. Smoke. Smoke. And... yep. More smoke.

And so it was that Ligua sat down for a little while under a pine tree that still had a few branches left on it. So far, no big alarm about Yozorans in the loner lands, so he was safe for now...

For now being the operative words.

[Sivoncé™]

"STUPID. LITTLE......URGHHH!!!!" The fiery little fae snapped at a random hummingbird, a poor creature with a broken wing that absolutely did not deserve anymore crap from anybody in the remainer of its short life. These little birds enchanted Amoret on a daily basis -- now, the fact that they were fighting their inhibitions and she could not only made her green and ugly with jealousy.
"WHY?! HOW could that little.....there are no words. NO WORDS!" She nosed a charred, crumbling, prickly twig and picked it up in her jaws, chucking it out in the swirls of gray around her.
"Screw this. I'm lost. I don't know where I am. For all I know I'm in Destinian territory and Mom thinks I left them too. That bitch Akaira probably thinks I'm here to beg her to come back! Ha! We don't need traitorous cows like her around --- she gave us enough trouble! Because of her....because of her my freaking brother is DEAD!"
She sat down on a blackened rock, cursing.

[Njack]

"W-what?" Ligua peeked around the charred tree. Nothing. Hmm.

He returned back to his sitting position, but the cursing continued. He peeked around the tree again. Still nothing. Weird...

Oh wait. The sound came from in front of me. Feeling embarassed, even though no one would ever know, Ligua padded forward. Don't tell me that your hearing is being impaired by the smo-

"Wha- Amoret?"

[Sivoncé™]

Amoret whirled around, the sound of her name drawing her only partially from her raging stint.
"AKAIRA YOU FREAKING--Ligua?!"
She paused, shock and embarresment playing across her face as she froze with realization and recognition. Her tail swished slightly and she gradually began to relax, taking a few deep breaths and eventually managing to speak.
"Er...what are you doing here? Probably more importantly -- where are we?" She woofed, feeling increasingly unintelligent as seconds ticked by.
Ah, well. He's just a packwolf. Doesn't matter what they think anyway.

[Njack]

Ligua was blasted back a few steps from the force of Amoret's rage. It was only when he realized she wasn't shouting at him, specifically, that he gathered his wits, just in time to hear her next words.

"Er... What am I doing here?" Ligua repeated. "I'm... hunting. Sort of. What are you doing here? You're in the Yozoran territories..." He glanced around the burnt forest around him. There didn't seem to be any wolves around.

"What's going on?" He made furrows in the ash below with his paws. "You don't need to tell me if you don't want to."

[Sivoncé™]

Amoret opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, shocked.
"Er....Yozoran territories? Geeze, I wandered farther than I thought....I was just looking for some place nice and quiet to tear apart and make not so quiet -- some place where nobody would really care if I took out a log or maimed a tree or something. I've got a lot on my plate, that's all, I guess....I'll just find somewhere else, then...probably not a good idea to be too involved with packs and stuff...."
She was about to turn around, but her ears twitched when he asked her what was going on.
"What's going on? A lot of things are going on right now, in this valley, please be more specific," she woofed.

[Njack]

"Well, I think you know what I mean, but... eh... What's going on with you? I heard cursing and stuff, so..."

Ligua shifted to the right a little bit, watching Amoret intently. "Again, I said you don't have to tell me."

He glanced around the forest again. "As for maiming a tree... it won't make much difference, will it?" He scratched the pine tree that he had been resting under a few minutes before. Blackened bark crumbled off it, disappearing into the ash below. "I don't think anyone's going to notice you here, anyway. Not many wolves are foolish enough to go hunting in this smoke."

[Sivoncé™]

Amoret shrugged at his last comment, a conteplation in her eyes. "Well, yes, it would be foolish and perhaps fruitless to go out and try and hunt in this, but if nobody did....you would all starve." She shrugged again, turning back to his first question.

"Ah, it's nothing I guess. Just some trouble with a stupid, two-faced packwolf -- I think she was a Destinian, though, so no worries," she woofed, diplomatic. After all, she was trespassing on Yozoran territory. Even if she had met Ligua before, she should not be here and if she somehow offended him or his pack, she would probably be in deep trouble, or worse -- get her family in trouble.

[Njack]

(OOC: I noticed that the other thread, "Rehabilitation of the Entire Nation" or something [can't spell it], is sorta tied with the conflict discussed in this thread. Hopefully that doesn't split this thread into multiple universes )

Ligua just nodded, taking in her words for a moment.

"You know," he started, "pack wolves really aren't all that bad..." He hesitated for a moment.

"I was a loner once..." What drove him to say that? He probably would never know. "And the Yozorans took me in, after I had had a... family conflict."

Ligua gazed off into the distance. "Sometimes I think that I should have stayed in the loner lands, but most of the time, I am content. With all the tension building up now between the packs, though, I am beginning to doubt my decision again..."

[Sivoncé™]

(( Amoret's probably not gonna say much about what's going on there, so I don't think it will be much of a problem, hopefully =p ))

Amoret eyed him curiously, clearly surprised at this. "But...when you joined your pack, you knew it was never going to be all rainbows and butterflies, right? There have to be some bad times, otherwise the good times wouldn't be good....just plain, normal, whatever....same goes with families, I guess," she woofed, thoughtful again.

[Njack]

"Maybe I said it wrong," Ligua murmured softly, still staring into the distance. "I'm not doubting my decision to join because being with the pack is causing trouble for me. I'm just worried, because I fear that I am causing trouble for the pack."

Ligua made another furrow in the dirt with his paw. "Like families, as you said, sometimes one member can cause trouble for the rest. And I don't want to be that member. Most of the time, all is forgiven, but... Even in families, wolves can be disowned. In packs, they may be exiled."

[Sivoncé™]

Amoret tilted her head slightly and looked up at him, a highly doubtful and critical gaze. "You, cause the trouble? What, like when you were out in the loner lands earlier today? Pshh, you SO did not cause that! That one was all on Kippy, and whatever drew up hostilities between your packs. Sometimes, you can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, if it was that Saskia chick instead of you who had been there the whole time.....she looked like she wanted to tear Kippy to bits as much as he wanted to tear you to bits!" Amoret snickered, shaking her head. "The only ones who are disowned are the ones who knowingly disrupt the peace -- or see an oppourtunity to try and put themselves, the singular, above the rest of the family, the whole."

[Njack]

Ligua met her eyes for a second, then gazed upward at the sky. Gray clouds swirled above, whether of smoke or mist it was impossible to tell. "Thanks. I wish I was that confident."

He dropped his gaze from the sky. "You know, you're not all that bad." Awkward moment, though Ligua barely noticed it. He was pretty desensitized to awkwardness by now. "Well, I mean, when I was a loner, I used to avoid other wolves. You never know who'll attack who..."

A little grin appeared at the corner of Ligua's mouth. "Actually, I'm not so sure it's any different in the packs."

[Sivoncé™]

Amoret shrugged -- a favorite gesture of hers, apparently -- and flicked her ears oddly under Ligua's slight compliment.
"It's always more fun to do what you shouldn't be doing -- my family stays away from most wolves, but we have a small pack of friends, and we all hang around in the same region for the most part, so it usually works out fine....I haven't really met any other loners except for these two that attack us from time to time. And, hey -- packwolves are highly amusing things! It would be a shame to ignore such open enjoyment!" She snickered, rolling her eyes.
"So what do you guys do for fun around here?"

[Njack]

Packwolves are amusing things?

"Er... I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or..." Ligua raised an eyebrow. "...Yeah..."

"Well," he started, returning to full seriousness, "what we do for fun? It really depends... Hunting is sort of fun sometimes. Well, not in this smoke, but I think you know what I mean. Sometimes talking, especially with random wolves that could attack me at any moment." He coughed, remembering the incident with Kippy. However, his face was completely straight. "Anything else?... Oh yeah, and ripping each other apart."

A little grin slipped onto his face again. "I think I pretty much covered everything. How about you?"