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+--- Thread: AW Sucks because I love you for real (/showthread.php?tid=13232)
Sucks because I love you for real - KIVA. - 8/12/2026
( ooc: hoping to get some interaction with both Tianlong and Dusk Oasis wolves, she’s just lonely. Can be positive or negative! )
The ocean was considerably less impressive the second time around.
Not unimpressive, exactly. Kiva wasn’t sure anything that large could ever become entirely ordinary, but Dreamsend Shores had already given her ample opportunity to stare at an unreasonable amount of water. She had learned the rhythm of waves rolling toward land, the sharpness of salt carried upon the wind, and, through one regrettable experiment, that seawater tasted absolutely terrible.
The cliffs, however, were new. Kiva slowed as the ground ahead of her disappeared. “Oh.”
Far below, waves battered themselves against jagged boulders, white water curling violently between them before being dragged back toward the open sea. In several places the water seemed to twist upon itself, forming patterns Kiva couldn’t quite make sense of from above.
A pebble shifted beneath her forepaw. She stepped backward immediately. “Nope.”
There were plenty of things Kiva was willing to die for; strangely enough, curiosity had never made the list. She gave the edge a considerably wider berth after that, continuing along the coastline with the drop safely several lengths away.
Traveling like this should have felt familiar. Sometimes it did. There were mornings in Mythris when Kiva woke beneath an unfamiliar tree and, for those first hazy moments between sleep and consciousness, nothing seemed particularly wrong. She had slept away from Wind Haven countless times before. A messenger could hardly insist upon returning to her own den every evening.
Back then, she would wake, shake the leaves from her coat, determine which direction she needed to travel and continue on.
There had always been somewhere to go, and, eventually, somewhere to return. Kiva hadn’t appreciated how much of her life in Wind Haven had been built from such painfully ordinary things.
Someone was always awake before she wanted to be. Patrols came and went. Hunting parties formed. Wolves argued over things that seemed terribly important for approximately half an hour and were forgotten by dinner. Someone inevitably needed a message carried, herbs collected, another set of paws for some irritating task, or simply company because they were bored. Kiva had been particularly useful for that last one.
She remembered returning from long routes and recognizing home before she ever saw it. The scents came first.
Wolves she knew. Patrol trails she’d crossed hundreds of times. Then landmarks appeared one by one: a crooked tree, a familiar clearing, the stretch of ground that became an absolute disaster whenever it rained. Eventually someone would notice her. Sometimes, she received nothing more than a greeting. Sometimes she was immediately informed of everything she’d missed as though Wind Haven had nearly collapsed during her absence. And sometimes there was someone she had been hoping to see. Kiva had never thought much about any of it. Why would she?
You didn’t memorize ordinary days while you were living them. You didn’t wake every morning grateful that the same wolves were still making the same noises outside.
You didn’t memorize every stupid conversation because someday you might desperately want to hear it again. You simply lived. That had been Wind Haven.
Not Ev’s landslide. Not Alu’s flood. Not even the fire.
Those things had happened there, certainly. They had divided Kiva’s life into pieces she could never quite fit together again. Before Alu, after Alu. Before Ev, after Ev. Before the fire, after. But Wind Haven had existed between those moments. Years of it, to be exact.
Warm afternoons spent sprawled somewhere she absolutely should have been doing something useful. Rainy mornings when leaving shelter felt like a personal insult. Returning from a journey hungry enough to contemplate eating whatever unfortunate creature crossed her path first. Learning exactly who would tolerate being bothered when she was bored and who absolutely would not. Listening to Ev speak, arguing with Ev, pretending she wasn’t listening to Ev and then remembering the advice years later anyway.
Her steps slowed. The wind had changed. Salt remained strongest, but something else traveled beneath it: Wolf. Kiva stopped, eyes narrowing. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Her head lifted automatically, nostrils flaring as an instinct she’d spent years developing slipped neatly back into place. Not one wolf, many.
“Well, hello.” she murmured softly. She turned slightly inland and tested the breeze again.
The scents overlapped, but not completely. Some trails seemed to disappear toward the lush terrain farther ahead while others pulled elsewhere. Different ages, different directions, enough repetition that this clearly wasn’t the work of travelers merely passing through.
Established wolves. Possibly more than one group. For the first time since arriving in Mythris, Kiva felt something remarkably close to professional competence. This she understood. Wind Haven had possessed neighbors, allies, strangers, and territories where one misplaced paw could create the sort of diplomatic headache nobody wanted. As a messenger, Kiva had learned to read boundaries that existed without walls, marked trees, repeated trails, patrol routes, places where one collection of scents weakened and another began. Once, she had known exactly where those invisible lines were. Now she knew absolutely nothing.
Which was, admittedly, becoming something of a theme. Kiva lowered her nose toward one of the trails and considered following it, then stopped.
She had already managed to wander onto occupied land once because she’d been distracted by pretty flowers. Apparently several years of experience did not protect against being an idiot.
“We’re learning,” she murmured lightly. Rather than continue, Kiva backed away from the trail. Neutral ground seemed considerably wiser. If there truly were established groups nearby, someone would eventually pass through. Patrols still needed to happen. Wolves still hunted. Travelers came and went. They would have routines.
The thought stirred something unexpectedly tender.
Somewhere beyond those unfamiliar scents, wolves were living perfectly ordinary lives. Someone was being woken earlier than they wanted, someone was coming home hungry, someone knew which paths flooded after rain and where to find shade when the day became too warm, someone would leave in the morning and be expected back later.
Once, Wind Haven had been nothing more than unfamiliar scents beyond a border to someone else. To Kiva, it had been everything. She missed it so much. She swallowed and turned her attention firmly back toward the cliffs.
Nope. That thought could remain exactly where it was. There were memories worth examining, and there were others best handled through aggressive avoidance and perhaps a rabbit.
Kiva found herself a reasonably flat patch of earth, safely removed from both the cliff’s edge and whatever invisible boundaries might lie ahead, and settled onto her haunches. The ocean roared below. The wind tugged through her coat. Somewhere nearby, strangers went about lives she knew nothing about.
Kiva waited. After all, there was one thing she remembered particularly well about living near a border. If you sat around looking suspicious for long enough, eventually somebody came to ask what the hell you were doing.