Fantasy New Dawn, New Troubles

[Autumn_Leaf]

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  The New Tides grounds.
  

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code by opaline

Yeva Petryk

❛ The Legacy Bearer ❜

The air was crisp, sharp, and biting, but Yeva welcomed the chill. It settled against her skin like an old friend—cold, tempting, a reminder that she was still here. Still breathing. Steam curled from the mug of black coffee in her hands, rising into the early morning light. The dark liquid was bitter, grounding, a quiet comfort against the storm in her chest. 8 AM. The sun was finally cresting over the mountains that cradled the land, golden light spilling across the snow-draped clearing. It caught the edge of her face, forcing her to wince. She exhaled slowly, watching her breath fade into the frozen morning. From the porch, she took in everything. The house. The forest beyond it. The world that had changed in a matter of days.
Grieving time was over.

Today, she would address the pack. Today, she would decide what came next.

And that meant justice.

---

The snow gave under her boots as she stepped down from the porch, her frame wrapped in a heavy, dark shawl, the fabric draped over her head like a veil. Each step felt weighted, dragging with it the full weight of what she was walking toward. Her father’s grave.

The lone tree in the field stood tall, its bare branches swaying against the pale sky. Beneath it, half-buried in fresh snow, stood the wooden grave marker. A crude thing. Temporary.
She crouched down, brushing the snow away with careful fingers, revealing the engraved wood beneath.

"What would you have done… Father?" The words came out softer than she meant, barely above a whisper. There was no answer. Only the soft sigh of wind through the trees.
Her fingers tightened around the mug in her hands, swirling the coffee, watching the liquid spin in slow, lazy circles. "I’m not even sure they’ll listen to me."

A leader who no one chose. A pack divided. A father left in the dirt.

Her jaw clenched. Her teeth ground together as a deep, festering anger coiled its way up her spine. Then, her face twisted. "You fucking asshole…" Her voice broke, sharp with frustration, raw with something deeper. "Leaving this all to me." Yeva shot up to her feet, one hand digging into her pocket, fingers finding the familiar carton of cigarettes. The motion was automatic—pull, flick, inhale. Smoke curled between her lips, filling her lungs, the rush of nicotine burning away the tension for a fleeting moment.

She exhaled through her nose, smoke ghosting into the morning air. The cabin loomed in the distance—her pack inside, still sleeping, unaware of the storm brewing in her chest.
For now, she was alone. But not for long. They’d wake soon. And when they did—they would be expecting answers.

 

[Lycanious]

Arthur Miligan.

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  Mournful, pensive
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Warm, simple clothes, a few layers
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Outside the cabin
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Yeva
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

Making a slow shuffle through the trees of the forest a lone figure, Arthur, left the imprint of heavy boots along the snow as he ventured forward. His walk was aimless. A lost sort of shamble through the snow as Arthur skimmed the perimeter of where field met forest, unwilling to venture deeper into the heart of the latter while the rest of their pack still slumbered within the cabin. Every decision already felt so much more heavily weighted without Viktor around. Arthur had wanted nothing more than to run deep into the forest last night, snarling and howling at the moon who, as usual, would be his only witness to such vulnerability. But no longer did it feel safe. No longer did it feel like he could get up and wander an entire night from the cabin and then return to it without the threat of more disappearances or bloodshed.

It wasn't just protectiveness. Some of it was, certainly, in as much as anyone his age would naturally care for a gaggle of young adults looking for guidance in the world and a roof over their heads. Hell, some of them Arthur had practically raised as his own, and in some ways he regarded them as such even if he held his doubts on whether the concept was a mutual one. He worried. A lot. All the time. But to the same token, he knew their pack to be full of strong and steel-minded voices. If push came to shove, and Skjoldr were to suddenly swarm out from the forest tree line and make for the cabin, Arthur held little doubt that they would all rush out to meet them head on and go down fighting.

"Bloody hell, Vicky."

It was a tired sort of sigh, pointed at nowhere in particular. A single green eye glazed as Arthur starred out from the cluster of trees he was shuffling through to regard the cabin across the field. His stance shifted, coming to a stop, as instead he leaned against the trunk of the nearest tree and crossed his arms in a pensive manner. "I don't think I'm going to be able to hold them back this time." He continued, voicing his thoughts to this unseen entity in a dejected mumble. "If Skjoldr is on their way..." Arthur let the thought trail off, not daring yet to complete it. Not knowing whether he could still hope to maintain the truce they had respected for all these years or if it was but a fool's errand to think that the rival pack wouldn't take immediate advantage of the loss of their leader to finally finish them off.

Movement caught his attention before he could continue to monologue. Arthur tilted his head, tracing the walking path of a silhouette he could now recognise as Yeva leaving the cabin. He watched her path for a moment, curious as to where she was heading this early in the morning, until he registered her intended destination. Oh. Of course. Arthur lowered his head once more upon the realisation, eyes now trailing to the ground with a grimace. For several minutes he stood there, silent, and tried to offer the other werewolf some semblance of a private conversation with the gravestone. It was only when he glanced upwards, and spotted her smoking, did Arthur finally ease away from the tree he'd been leaning on and start to make a slow amble over to her direction.

"I see one of you found the coffee beans I brought back from the store." Hummed Arthur as he approached the shorter werewolf, a curious eye peering into the contents of the coffee cup. A light tone, testing the waters. Trying to gauge whether she was in the mood for idle chatter or if he was about to be snapped at for such an inane comment to start the day with. "....Did I get the right ones?" He then added, more pensive, as his eyes flickered from Yeva, to the crude grave, then back to Yeva. The additional line of 'because Viktor usually picked up the coffee everyone wanted' went unvoiced, but Arthur had little doubt that it was still heard between them all the same.

He sighed, audibly, and rolled his bad shoulder to distract from the thought with a series of sharp clicks. "Do you feel ready to talk to them all?" He enquired, head tilting aside in a curious manner. "Dare I ask for the early draft?"

cry for love

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♡coded by uxie♡

 

[First Rose]

Zon

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  Dirtied and tattered apparel w/ Ushanka on top
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Approaching Yeva from the forest line/Opposing end of Arthur
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
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  Yeva
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

Worn muscles lugged forward the bag of flesh, leaden by chopped lumber and dead game. Her hoarse, panting breath mingled with profanity disrupted the sanguine hymn of the overhead birdsong. Labored by the timber’s weight digging raw trenches into her ebony skin. The side of her face weaved a corkscrew at the scent of blood meshed with dead cervid, hogs, and her own. Her knees ached; legs throbbed, betraying her ankles with staggered footfalls through tangled underbrush. Yet it left her stride undeterred, despite each ragged inhale piercing her throat, despite her cold-freezing sweat and blood painting her shirt in damp strokes; her pace may have slowed in increments, but never ceased. Not when her gaze, frayed at its edges, burning inside their sockets with strain and insomnia, made out the old oak of the cabin’s rooftop.

Her eyes dipped, glazing over to the ripped cargos stripped of dignity and allure..
She scowled.
As if her disappointment would fade the drumming soreness clutching her bones. After making these trips every dusk and dawn for the past two weeks, battled alongside her classes and work schedule in the city..
One would think this got easier.

Once upon a time she believed this body was no greater tool to adapt and overcome, needing all but a determined push past its threshold. No, it took a cruel week and a half to snip such faith in two. Feeling a struggle not unlike that rabbit she’d caught limping back to its hole, leg mangled.
Poor thing.

Poor her. Tossing some vodka on an open wound like the moron she was. Tired, hungry, slightly nauseous, and moody.. Shaming no one but her damn self.

A blink tore her focus from the tight webbings of her subconscious, rolling her shoulders against the ache gnawing at them. The pack needed food, water, wood— routine. Zon wasn’t about to let that all fall away just because ‘ol daddy decided to take a dirt nap for no good reason. Grief was just another feeling, consuming only what one allows it to consume. Sure, she’d allow the rest of them, their time to mourn, hell she’d hardly spoken much of a word to anyone as of late in respect of their space. But drag her to depths of hell should anyone find her moping.

If she stopped, if she stalled for even a second…
Well—Zon feared what she’d devolve into, quite frankly.

She told that bastard…
Now look at them..
Damned fools.

And set to supposedly lead them all into fame and glory — her figure awkwardly broke through the snow peppered pines to lay sight upon the familiar female hunched before his mound — was the rock-faced, daughter of a bitch, herself. Practiced restraint merely allowed the line of her lips to thin as she made her way through the clearing. Sparing neither of them a glance, not him, not her, nor their general direction; much alike any other exchange they’d had in the past month. A non-existent one.

“Shit.”

The violent rip of fabric and torn flesh marked her foot, splitting through a wayward log biting into her leg. Jostling her step just enough to toppled one of the dead boars from her back. A sharp exhale pursed the edge of Zon’s cheek. For the first time in about a dozen years, it felt, her voice regarded the woman just a few yards away.

“Bring that back with you whenever, if you’d please..”

Her stare held forward.

“—maybe make something productive of yourself.”

She then trudged on, slumping forward to re-adjust her cargo.

“..or don’t. Wouldn’t make much difference.”

Not too long after, the fire pit made its approach, finally allowing her to drop the weight from her shoulders in an unceremonious heap. With a fit of theater, she too slumped to the side, lazily tossing soft patches of snow over her blistered shoulder. The cold bit deep, prompting her teeth to grit, but she welcomed it. For a moment, she allowed the cold to reach through her, kneading her aching muscles with a blanketing numbness. The young lycan flared her nostrils, flexed her fingers, itching for the flask in her pocket, but she didn’t move. Not yet.

Two weeks..
It felt like a day.

Zon blinked, aching honey-shot hues tracing the faint wisps flaking off the clouds above. If she closed them, she might see him. Hear him. Her jaw tightened.
The rim of her flask was pressed against her bottom lip before she had time to further entertain her dreading headspace. A few deep gulps of whiskey was all it took to replace any blazing furnace.

She only let herself lie helplessly for 2 minutes, maybe less, before she threw herself over her knees. Back on the move. Stoking up the beginnings of a fire to make breakfast for the early risers, albeit, she left an elk or two for the more feral mother-effers among them. Humoring the thought with a scoff as she tossed the set of logs back over her shoulder to stow away behind the cabin, only to catch in peripheral the sight of Arthur’s mass enshrouding Yeva’s own. Her brows met at her nose, despite herself, the image tethering the full shift of her head.

Surely, he’d take up the mantle, wouldn’t he? At least until the brunette could prove reliable.. The tight constriction of muscle beneath her open wound pried her vision back to priority.

Who. Cared—her stride resumed with purpose —at the end of the day, some of them had work to do, things to prepare. It’d be preferable that the lot of them not forget the tide of war was only rising. And no one's going to follow behind a coward unable to get over themselves.

Fire

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♡coded by uxie♡