++We Are Y O U N G++ [ Nightshade & Iver ]

[Destiny]

I hear the hate in all your words...
.....So we march to the drums of the damned as we come..

Sweet, sun-kissed; the figure of a pup. Not a newborn, not a baby. Yet, not quite having reached neophyte age. Not having yet developed into a coat of many colors, pelt was a simple brown and gray, with hints of black here and there. Nearby, 'Mommy' was lying down. Brothers and sisters frolicked about her exhausted figure. But where was father wolf? Didn't he have one? The scorch of sunlight filtered down through tall, old pine trees. Nearby, a crystal blue body of water, known only as The Mirror Lake, shimmered beneath the rays. Wandering away from family, and safety, the youngster weaved around through the high stalks of grass. Front paws dipping lightly into the edge, the cool sending a little shiver down pup's spine.

Far off, on the other side of the lake, two wolves fought. No, not 'two' wolves, twenty wolves. Fourty wolves. Maybe more. Over there, on the dark side, it was night. But no moon shone in the sky. A Moonless Meeting? But fighting didn't happen at those! Little brute wanted to turn, run back to mommy - tell her what was happening. But he couldn't. Paws wouldn't move now. To horrified by the images across the way to run for cover. Screeching, and howling, cries of agony and pain. He should 'ave been hearing these things, and if not, the sounds of his kin playing nearby. But no. There was nothing. Nothing but a deathly silence.

Eyes glued to the gory scene, a miniature Iver watch as pack leaders ripped other wolves apart. Yozora, Sheera, Destiny, Siveria... Was that Lupus? Death? Rhain? Hell, was that Verlust? What did a pup know, though. They were all wolves. They all looked the same. Just one big, ugly, mangled face. One went flying into the lake. No, wait. Two. Red and black, in coloration. Yin and yang, one could say. As pup turned to run, he found he was not able. Head whipped around with a 'crack'; shocked stare falling upon his family. Who crumbled to bones before eyes. In fact, they almost seemed to rot. From the inside out. Little fella tried to scream, let out all his terror. But he couldn't. Body was slowly being dragged backward, down, down, down.. Into the lake.. Into the bloody, red, lake...... Into Hellfire. Worse. Tartarus.

We burn in the sun,
We are young.

"WAKE UP!" Large brute of a male flung himself upward. Skull cracking audibly against the rocky roof of the cavern. No, wait, it was just some random rock behind his head. Purplish tinted ears were bolt upright; twisting with head as tried to discover the owner of such loud, harsh words. Although, that voice had sounded eerily familiar. To familiar, as a matter of fact. Oh. It was his own. Seeing as no other scent could be registered in the area, other then the faint of Yozoran, and Siverian, as he wasn't on his own territory. Again. Of course, he wasn't on Siverian either. More like loner land. But whatever; a border patrol, if the packs actually did them still, would spot him soon enough.

The good old bastard of a Yozoran alpha had been gone for quite a while, now hadn't he? In truth, Iver had run away. Why? Because not being able to look at her every morning of his life, and having to deal with the damned duties of the pack had driven him to near insanity. It'd been time to get away before someone really got hurt. So Iver had got up one morning, and walked out. Of course, it was likely none of his pack-mates had even realized 'is absence. Why? Well, quite simple really. Pernille, dearest daughter, had taken up all duties of an alpha long before Iver trotted off. And she'd probably given up on him too. It was true; no one cared.

Muttering soft curse words to self, muscled grouch rolled painfully on the ground. Cracking many a bone as he did so. "Nightshade..." Laying there, between a rock, and a pile of trees, with mountains stretched out not to far behind, Iver could've been any old loner. But he wasn't. And he never would be.

...You take away the innocence of our hearts..
......Kneel before the alter as you tear us apart..
SO WE MARCH TO THE DRUMS OF THE DAMNED AS WE COME..

[Sivoncé™]

(This title makes me think of "Love is a Battlefield" xD Which is ironic 'cause that's so not the tone here...)

^{Where are we?
What the hell...is going on?}

How many days? How many moons? How many moons of days? How many moons of weeks? Weeks of days? Hours? Minutes? Seconds? Or...years? Had it really been years? No, just one year. Six moons. Six moons of weeks, of days, of hours, of minutes, of seconds, of heartbeats. Or was time, as they say, all relative? Relative to a train of thought, whether it be blazing by on the tracks, speeding away with steams trails as the only remainder, or sluggishly sauntering into the ether, the puffs of white collecting until you couldn't see the clocks turning at all, because they really weren't turning anymore...
Turning....seasons, how many seasons were involved here?
Again, does this matter?
No...no, of course it doesn't.
Time. That was the only word. There had been time between this lupine and the lupine she'd come to place next to her.

Paws wound through the borderlands now, dangerous in their journey to foreign lands. They marked their voyage in pumping pawsteps, too fast and too deliberate to be without a purpose. The femme Nightshade was carried on tall, agile limbs and supported with her lean, swaying bodice. She was curiously colored the hues of a brilliant sunsent, the mingling hint of silver-blue colliding with the fiery splashes of russet and red. Her eyes was a lavender sharp with fine-cut clarity. They brimmed with hot wetness, tears that had yet to fall.

How wide are these terras spread apart, anyway? My Lupus---wait, wait, no, that doesn't makes sense. I'm no Yozoran, why should I pray to Lupus? Okay...not GoldenWolf, either, we threw him out a long way back, though maybe he's feeling like a come back today...hm, not feelin' like a Goldie-Locks at the moment, nope. How about Wind? No, that's the Destinian dude. Destiny? Sheera? Light? Mist? Rain? No, that's not right. Wait, what.....Siv. I guess I could use her. I don't think we usually use her with cusses, though. Kinda funny, 'cause she had a rather intense vocabulary herself.....
Space. There is space between here and there. That's all that matters.
Is this what I've come to? Ongoing ramblings in my mind, pieces that don't make sense, yet I put them together anyway?

Am I really that old?

^{The dust has just begun
to form crop circles in the carpet}

Time and space, uncontrollable elements of nature that tortured her so, with their lashing whips of wind and grass and forest and dirt, came to an agreement with her moving paws as they reached the farthest stretch of Yozoran terra, the stretch that lightly carressed the borders of her own lands. They came together in an embrace made for estranged friends, closing the gap for Nightshade to cross.

What am I doing here?
The thought hadn't really crossed the femme's mind until now. Sure, she used to make excursions here all of the time. But that was when Iver was still around. She'd stopped looking for him after he'd stopped coming to the Moonless Meetings. What business did she have, conducting her searches in his terra?
What business do I have to love him at all?

She carried on, shaking the disconcerting thoughts away, and following his scent to the mouth of a cave.
"Iver?"

^{sinking....feeling...}

[Destiny]

So they went down and they sat on the pier..
He said "I betcha got a boyfriend but I don't care I got no one..
...T' send a letter to-ooo... Would y' mind if I sent one back here t'
Youuu-uuuu?"

The shapes danced in front of tired, glazed, oddly colored eyes. You would almost say blue, if not for that magical hint of green, and that essence of gray. Almost an aquamarine in shade, it would most clearly seem. Though those gray swirls throughout the eye's made one wonder exactly what this could be called. On the wall opposite Iver, images danced, yes indeed they did. How did they do the waltz and the tango, one might ask? The firelight, my darlings, the firelight. No. Iver did not light a fire. The scent of non wolven creatures lingered over there, and here, and everywhere inside this bloody cavern. The horrid aroma of humans. Yes, that was it. But they were gone now. Well. Not so much gone, as dead. Although a few had managed to escape there killer. Iver? Sweet, old, tired Iver? A slaughterer of kind not his own? Of course not! That was Loni's doing. But Loni was long gone, and his scent masked by that of Iver and the fire.

Truth be told looked father bedraggled at this particular time. Silken coat of grays, black, deep Autumn leaf reds and dirty shades of brown, with those little hints of snowy white, and dashes of fish silver. That was not so silken anymore, as it was dirtied and dusty, holding the occasional blood stain around wounds, and was partially matted. Clearly he hadn't groomed in a few days. And no one had done it for him. Wounds, though, didn't we point out. Yes. A few scratches mostly; on his legs and sides. But naturally, there was a gash somewhere on 'is person, and even more obviously, twas on his shoulder area. Lengthy claw mark dragged from shoulder blade far as back o' left ear, were it abruptly cut off. What animal had given this annoying blow? Perhaps some annoying strayed off fox, or loner wolf, or some other animal of the violent and annoying nature. No matter, really. Whats done has been done, and cannot be 'fixed' or changed properly once it has past.

....We are young, we have heart,
Born in this world as it all falls apart..
We are strong,
We don't belong,
Born in this world as it all falls a-paaa-aaaa-aaart.

Jerking quite wildly about, brute's body almost seemed to be seizing, or convulsing, as if he were in some sort of great internal agony. Perhaps that was all in his head. Or, perhaps, he was just one of those wolves who eventually turned great emotional and mental pain into a series of horrible physical agonies. This was more likely so, it would seem, with Iver's past and current life. "S-S-S-Sw-Sweet C-C-Crown of-f L-Lup-L-Lupus!" Words were stammered, screamed, and coughed out all at the same time as figure thrashed about inside the cave. Skull, and various other body parts striking against rocks and stalagmites, and stalactites too, as he flailed about. The bright red-orange glow of the flames flickered far to close to his body, and he wailed frightfully, unable to control how he was moving about. Thus, not capable of being wary nor careful of the fire that danced all to close to his mess-ied up coat of fur.

Something in the very deepest, darkest, abysmal depths of his brain Iver was remembering something. Perhaps a way to control these motions, or how to put out a fire without being near water; possibly even ways to put out those flames which had kept him warm for the past few days. Though he wished this last one to not do, for the warmth kept him very much alive in this dark, cool, shaded cave. But no! None of these things even so much as crossed the threshold into importance to Iver. Not as his ears captured a sound, and pulled it inward. Not as he registered this sound to be a word, a name, his name. And, most certainly, not as he was now realizing who's voice this had been. For he'd been trying to remember it exactly ever so hard. But yes. This was her. That was her. That was his beautiful Nightshade, with her voice that, no matter how it actually sounded, was always a velvet rubbing across his heart.

How dreadful for such a one as herself to find him in this state. "N-N-N-N-Ni-Night-Nigh-" But he couldn't get the word out. Sweet, simple, deliciously rolled across the time when spoken, name as it was. For Iver was shaking and rolling, and crashing into things to quickly. To hard. To painfully.

Oh shit on a stick. What now?

You-uuu found me, when no one else was lookin',
Yeah how did you know just where I would be-ee?
You broke through,
All of my confusion.
The ups and the downs and you still wouldn't leave.
I guess that you saw what nobody could see.
Yeah you found me-eeeeee, you found me-eeee.

[Sivoncé™]

^{hide and seek}

She saw him. His smudge of a pelt fighting for a place in her vision, but too late -- she saw the fire. Her eyes moved to it, dancing the devil's frenzy with its tails of orange, golden, crimson, yellow. Her maw slowly opened, a strangled cry from the femme Nightshade. Her pawsteps tumbled backwards, water droplets collecting in the corners of her eyes. The lids slid shut, her head moving towards Iver, and gradually, they peeled back once more. She shook her head miserably, watching him as he crouched agains the back of the den. Oh, Iver...love, how did you get yourself into a mess like this?

^{trains and sewing machines}

Deep breaths. Calm down. It'll be all right. We'll get through this, we will. You always do, Nightshade. You always have. From the deaths that have grieved you to the love that blessed and cursed you, to the abscences and wanderings...you always survive. You knew he was dead or dying. You can't help him now. You can't walk on water. You can't bend through fire. You can't shine the stars through the daylight. You're not invincible to this. Turn away. Turn away somewhere where you can wallow in your misery and fight for you pack like the beta you are. Walk away so you can help them fight Blood Mist and so you can retire, be a senior there when all of this is over, and it'll be over someday. Someday, it will be over. Nothing lasts forever.

^{all those years...}

And then his own maw opened. Her name on his tongue...
He's alive. I can save him.
The fire licked closed the path between him. There was no gap at all, not even for the lanky and long figure of herself. To reach him, she would have to--
"Damn you to Hellfire, conscience."
The female's muscles coiled and sorang apart, and she was flying over the tips of the golden manes,her underbelly catching in the plumes of heat. She came to a crashing cease on the backwalls of the den. Bones cracking under the pressure, she sank into a heap of sizzling fur, smoldering next to Iver's moth-eaten form.

^{...they were here first.}