Blast from the Past (Ohnar)

[attr="class","pltxt"]Ohnar was not used to feeling stifled by the presence of other wolves, even when he took blows from them he never felt odd. It was another part of him, every instinct told him what to do and every moment he had trained for. In other settings his nature allowed him to meld easily in with the crowd, but here he was clueless. He had departed from the meeting wanting to escape from the presence of others so that he could talk to someone he didn’t know was interested in even seeing him. For all of her cold actions he knew that she was not a truly ruthless creature, in the same way that he knew when he met a new wolf they would not hurt him, or he knew that the sparrow was happy as it sang. When she drifted away from the group he followed her at a distance, an echo of his former self, wanting to protect her in this strange land. He didn’t know if she had arrived here just as recently as he had, but he did not trust the terrain and even though the wolves he had met there had been nothing but friendly he did not know what sort of dangers may lay in wait for her.
He watched her walk the edge of the cliff with his breath stuck in his stomach, all sides battling themselves. He wanted to reach out and grab her by the scruff to drag her back to safety. He wanted to watch her walk that edge, because he knew that she had fangs and she wasn’t helpless. He wanted to spring forward and dance along that edge, in step with her because in his quest to find her and then his journey here he had not been able to move his muscles in those familiar but unplanned patterns in far too long. The smile on her face was such a small reflection of the grin that he usually wore but seeing it made his lips curve upwards from the frown they had fallen to at the sight of her on the ledge. When she began her descent he let her go. He would trace her path after, he would reveal himself to her of course, but following her…he didn’t want this to go poorly and he had no idea how such an action would be received.

Ohnar balanced his weight on his paws through the decent with all the grace of a dancer, because that was what he was, but the fact that he was bulkier than Adair remained and he struggled with the pathway she had chosen. Always making it difficult for me, the thought brought a soft smile to his face before it disappeared in exchange for concentration. When he reached the ingress of the cave he poked his head in before proceeding. He would not retaliate if she chose to drive him from her solace but he did not want her to drive him over the ledge. Entering his eyes adjusted to the dimness but the reprieve from the sun was not unwelcome. His smile was softer and more restrained when he greeted her, he tried to keep his paws from shuffling. For all that he had imagined meeting her, chased after this elusive moment when he could finally have a proper conversation with her…he had no idea what to say to her now that the moment had come he found nothing but the most stock phrases filling his mind. “I’m glad to see you here,” He paused, but he wouldn’t hide from her. He had hidden his passions from his father but his pride had never meant anything to Ohnar because it was all false. “I thought I would never see you again.” The male took his time to try and observe her. He did not know if the humans had taken her the same way, had they kept her longer? He vaguely remembered being held in a crate but it had only been a short time until all of his memories went black and he woke up on this land. She did not look so different, she looked different from other wolves, but that was what made her capture his attention. He couldn’t see anything wrong, but that didn’t meant that he would not gently press to make sure that she was truly well. Not at this second, not at first, but he had not journeyed a short distance to find her and he would not give up so easily unless she made it clear that his presence brought her a pain that he could not heal.

His eyes darted anywhere but where she was, part of it was the fact that he was a wolf and he was deferring to her in the way he had learned, but another was sheer nervousness. His entire body was trembling but also still, it felt as if every muscle was vibrating to sing a song but all he heard in that moment was resounding silence.

@adair
841
Salutations ! And he'll try, as long as she doesn't crack his head open first ;P

[attr="class","pltxt"]Ohnar observed her shifting with a moment of apprehension, none of her movements were hostile and there was no pain in them but he still worried. He didn’t mind the snarl in her words. Partly because he was expecting it but mostly because he was stubborn and he refused to let her drive him or his smile away. He stared at her a second, not knowing how to respond to her words. He had been taunted before plenty, but somehow standing here he knew he couldn’t simply absorb it and change the subject the same way he had with everything else in his life that he had found so unpleasant. I would, apparently, much rather run from it instead. He thought about it somewhat bitterly but shoved the idea out of his mind. Not fleeing, running towards something. And now he wasn’t. He wasn’t content however, the thought didn’t exactly surprise him but he observed it with a small amount of confusion. The chase was always exciting, but the kill was just as much so if not more so it was strange that he think otherwise. Not that he was going in for the kill, it was, thankfully, a metaphor but at least an applicable one.

Sitting down cautiously he have her a quizzical smile “I must not be a very good stalker then,” his tone deepened as he wondered aloud what he truly wanted to know “as I don’t know where you’ve been for the past few months.” He tilted his head at her, trying to appear friendly. Letting his gaze fixate right past her, not wanting to see through her but not wanting her to feel pinned down. He tried to gauge her expression through her tail. Her expressions fascinated him, he wanted to know what was thinking, what she was feeling. The male knew that he would know fairly quickly when he’d truly offended her or goodness forbid actually incurred her wrath he considered wryly, but it was a much harder job to see if she actually gained anything except for verbal target practice out of his little intrusion upon her privacy. He was fairly sure that she did not have a pack herself, that was part of the reason why it was so odd that his packmates attacked her for the apparent fun of it. He knew that she probably wasn’t as accustom to the constant presence of other wolves whether when she was sleeping as the warm bodies pressed up against each other and the scent hovered around you, or in most waking hours whether in work, hunt, or play. Ohnar was, though, the time away from his pack he had sought out company where he could find it, not desiring to spend the time alone and without the company of others. He was driven enough to complete the task he had set out for, even if before the very moment he had seen her he had lost most of his expectation to ever find her again. He should have considered it almost intrinsic to her at that point, that she would always be where he least expected her and take his breath away. But that wasn’t the sort of thing that he could get used to.

He knew better than to openly ask her about why she had really left, to withstand all of that and then all of the sudden leaving didn’t really make sense to him even if one more was the straw that broke the camel’s b ack. His ears flicked as his voice filled out into the lower notes that he found so much more natural “I was fighting with my pack, although I wouldn’t call the reason foolish. I wouldn’t have left on a whim.” It was true, she was more than just a passing fancy. In a way he wanted to push her, he was curious about her, but it was not a cruel fixation even if she didn’t see it as such. What he sought in her was everything he would normally desire from a stranger, friendship and companionship, whether in appreciating beauty or in easy laughter that he restrained as little as Adair contained her growls of frustration. There was something else that he wanted, some unnamable thought, it was not simply the thought of mounting her, though she was not all wolf she was still subject to heat cycles, it was something else and the thought confused him. At the end of his first year he had felt stirrings of what some would call lust but this was not undiluted instinct, but he wasn’t one to dwell on that overly much at that point. It was something like friendship, which was not unusual for him so the idea that he wanted a deeper friendship with her was not confusing or abhorring in any way as long as she would not resent his attempts so much.

He didn’t expect her to carry the conversation and yet he didn’t want to seem overly pushy. Stretching his front legs out he let himself lay his legs down on the side while his upper posture remained higher so he wasn’t completely laying, not to dwarf her but more intent upon making sure that he stayed relaxed. He didn’t’ want to give her room to criticize his apparent lack of interest, and any tendencies, that he didn’t really have, to sleep his days away. It helped that he actually was interested in what she had been doing and where she had been. Smiling he waited for her to answer. Trying to be a bit more obvious at where he wanted this conversation to go he asked with a bit more humor and less gravitas “How have you been?” He kept the direction open. He couldn’t gauge her expression very well, curled up as she was, but there were larger barriers than that and he didn’t let it bother him or shake his nature. He wasn’t going to barrel in and break them down, he was much more interested in watching them crumble at a gentle touch after he had worn down everything else about them. If he could. It was a big if. But at least there was nothing blocking his way from his side of it. He wasn’t sure if he could ever imagine keeping his own walls up like that, but he had to some degree. To his pack and his family, but he had never kept them up and now… well he may want to be on good terms with the wolves of this new place he was inhabiting but keeping them happy by giving up dance and song and joy? There was nothing to stop him anymore.

The sunlight seemed to sink into every crevice of the expanse below, he could make out the shapes of a few other caves. Glare filtered into his eyes making the grey seem lighter than it really was, nothing vibrant. It was rather ironic, but he had never given it much thought, whether he was handsome or even attractive. Those things had never seemed important to him, between him and the other males of his previous pack it was more important that you had large muscles and if you had scars they had a good story to them. Adair was…. he would have blushed if he could. His tail swept up dust for a second before he realized what he was doing and just how drafty it was in here. Wrinkling his nose he stilled the appendage next to keep the dust from further upsetting him. Still, Ohnar couldn’t help but imagine how the dust would look as he dragged his paws across it in circles as hues of red and orange and gold grasped at the space between it.

word count|| 1300
tagged|| @adair

[attr="class","pltxt"]He took in her words eagerly although his expression was dampened by the severity of the topic. Her words stung somewhat but they were nothing that he hadn’t thought of before, he had certainly had the time to. He refused to regret leaving, because it wasn’t just her. She was a catalyst, a drive, a motivation but she was just one of the many ways that forced him to realize that he stuck out like an oak in a forest of weeping willows. Adair was pushing him, and while he was usually a pacifist he had absolutely no problem with pushing back, he wasn’t passive or meek by any measure of the description and he would let her know that, gently, just like everyone else in his life that had tried to force him to a mold that didn’t fit.

He wasn’t alone at the moment though, he was with her and there were few places on earth that he would rather be. He would follow her anywhere, but he knew that she didn’t know that. He had never verbalized his feelings towards her, and he probably never would. There was too much expectation there, and there was chasm that he didn’t think he could cross. The bottom somewhere deep and dark and rock hard that he wasn’t sure he would survive if he fell down. Ohnar shut his eyes, trying not to let his thoughts wander, they were just thoughts after all. Passing fancies. Nothing real or tangible or… His mind whirled as he tried to think of an appropriate response. He wouldn’t let her words stand, on this he wouldn’t retreat with light humor and an easy smile that would beg her not to pick a fight and shoot thorns at him. Minor annoyances to what she would think of him if she thought he actually regretted leaving.

“Whether I left or stayed I have no doubt you’d still think me a fool,” Looking towards the setting sun he knew his next words were more hope than a reality “why not make the choice that would actually give me some happiness?” It was true, he wanted to make a choice that at least gave him a chance at happiness. He supposed his brother would have called him a coward at running away from the impending fight but he didn’t want to face him whether he won or lost. His brother would not be a gracious winner or loser and he hardly had a place with his mother or father after defending Adair. Besides, it was not his dream, perhaps it was hers to fit in and have a pack but his so called family had not provided that for him. Instead he learned to hide who he was and what he loved from them until he was ready to whither from the inside out.

“Being somewhat accepted wouldn’t be good enough for them, and I was not ready to become what I hated.” And while he didn’t hate his pack he could hate their malice and cruelty, he could resent them for their beliefs, and suffer their expectations. “Besides, I’m not alone” Ohnar tried to lighten the conversation slightly with a smile “you’re here with me.” Whether or not he had surprised her with his company didn’t matter as much. Even as a loner there was opportunity to meet other wolves, the impromptu gathering earlier proved that more than anything and it was in a group of wolves somewhat like that that he didn’t mind the company and missed the idea of a pack.

Her answer to his question felt flat, even for her. She was alive, and she seemed well, he could detect no lasting injuries which he was glad of, but it was a far cry from feeling joy or living. She was as morose as ever but it didn’t off put him, this was a challenge he didn’t shy away from. “Well for someone who seems to think of solitude as an affliction you don’t seem too keen on having company.” Tilting his head he asked jokingly “Or is it just me?” He had no doubt that she would make some sort of snarky remark but he didn’t care. Getting her, at least somewhat, engaging in banter with him was better than the heavy topics that she was so obviously avoiding like where she had been or how she was doing. While she wasn’t saying anything explicitly her bitterness towards him leaving his pack betray some of her thoughts and maybe she would reveal more to him as the conversation progressed. Time didn’t seem as much of a race as long as he was here with her and he let himself relax into the mindset. He wasn’t a high strung wolf to begin with but he could be driven when properly incentivized.

word count|| 807
notes|| sorry for the wait!