{ may flowers : lost }

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    Shep blinked his eyes open. The world opened before his golden gaze: a deep green haze, permeated with fresh spring sunlight. It spun slightly, and unpleasantly, and the grizzled tomcat stayed very still, wiling his vision to clear. In time, it did, though it took several minutes, and he rolled over onto his stomach with a feeling of gratitude. He forced himself upright and gazed around at his surroundings. The scents were vaguely familiar, but in the morning sunlight, it looked different than he had expected. "What kind of trees are these?" he muttered questioningly, squinting and extending one questioning paw. He prodded one of the nearest bamboo trunks and huffed at its slight movement. "Flimsy little things." the loner's voice was heavy with disapproval, but he set it aside: it didn't really matter. This was just another place to rest, another place to spend the night.


    He had spent plenty of time in places he did not especially like. In fact, hadn't that been the case for the better part of six years? It had been a long time since he had been somewhere he'd liked. But that was why he was doing this, he supposed: finally putting an end to it all. The roaming. The long nights of uneasy sleep. The scrounging for resources. The constant, pressing loneliness. The heavy weight of those who he could remember who he had lost ... and the heavier weight of those he had loved who he knew he had forgotten. Shepherdscrook squared his shoulders and walked deeper into the forest, following a well-worn path redolent with the scent of whichever group inhabited this weird little forest. He hoped they would not be hostile ... though he had plenty of scars to indicate his competence at hostile encounters, he just...didn't have the energy.


    All he wanted was to go home. The problem was he had no idea where that was supposed to be.


    The son of Yellowstar and Wanfur walked on, closer and closer to the Dynasty's camp. He was taller than the average tomcat, with a trim, narrow build, muscular in the shoulders and long in the limbs and tail. His fur was short and soft, and marbled with rich brown from every end of the spectrum, splashed with cloud white at random intervals. His eyes were commanding deep gold. All this could have combined to make him impressive-looking, if he was in better health - but alas. Six years of loner life was not kind to one's body, and certainly not conducive to good looks - his fur was grimy and matted, and his ribs showed through the knots and the dirt. His face frequently bore an expression of suspicion and exhausted resignation, and his frame was littered with scars - nicked ears, bite marks in his left hind leg, a worrying large gash down one shoulder, a claw-scrape over his back...


    Whoever this intruder was, one thing was clear: he was a survivor, with experience at bending his circumstances into a shape he liked better.

    [ IS THIS A WILD SAM I SEE? ]


    If only there were memories that could relate him to such things, that could relate him to people. "There's nothing I see but the darkness that surrounds me. It's a blanket, surreal in itself, extraordinarily pitch and never ending. Hm, not often poetic am I? I just... don't remember." All he remembered was waking up here in the bamboo forests, blue gaze drawn to the first thing in sight: a new home. And so as he stayed here, the longer he grew used to its life and its customs, and the more protective he got over the land and residents within such. Naturally, when the hunter scented its prey, it grew wary.


    "Might I ask who you are?" The stranger looked worse for wear it seemed, and as the Eurasian lynx rounded a bend through the territory, his gaze snapped to the figure. "What are you doing here on Dynasty territory?" It felt unnatural for him to be so commandeering, always likening to simpler, much more amiable sides of conversation. But the prospect of someone, of an unknown origin, appearing within their grounds without a word... it was difficult to be polite in this situation. Stoic and impossibly impassive, he waited for their response, eyes unflinching from their body as he scanned every portion, and prepared for every step.

    softvelvet could relate to wanting a home and a place to live and thrive in. the dark dynasty had been that for him for a while now and he hadn't ever the intention of living on his own volition. his family, which was the korin empire and the hamriks, mattered little to him when he had the dark dynasty, his child, and his boyfriend.


    a bit after blitz confronts the stranger who had wandered forth onto their lands does the porcelain catsune appear in all of his regal glory, his gait even and poised, and his expression carefully crafted guarded intrigue. the lynx's voice had garnered his attention from nearby and thus approached to see what was happening. he comes up on blitz's right side, his vermilion gaze trained upon the loner before him and resisted the urge to cringe at the state he seemed to be in. it was clear to softvelvet that life had not treated this man too kindly.


    for now, the patriarch remains silent and attentive, waiting for this stranger to give them his name and such.


    [ welcome !!! ]

    Zeppelin had really forgotten the meaning of the word "home" since he had decided to take up dual residence and become a prominent member of two Clans with a whole lot of distance between them. He stopped counting the number of hours he lost each day to traveling from Orcadia to Delos, from the bamboo forests to the humid marshes. Sometimes it even felt like he lost all the time mentally, as if he had simply teleported across the world between his Clans. He had joined the Dynasty first, but he felt more comfortable, more casual with the people of Valhalla. So where was his home, really? This was his mother's home, so was it then by association his as well?

    The feline padded over not far behind Softvelvet, feathery tail swaying behind him as he walked. He regarded the male's unkempt fur and tired eyes, and he felt some kind of empathy for him. This was almost how he had been when he first showed up in the Dynasty, tired and alone and just wanting to feel like he had an identity somewhere. Well, it turns out that he did, so hopefully the tides would turn in favor of this stranger as well. For now, the deputy waited in silence.


    "speaking"

    ✧ \ STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD IS GIVING ME THE CHILLS \ TAGS

    Footsteps sounded through the quiet bamboo forest. Shepherdscrook stopped, wary, his ears pricking and his deep gold eyes immediately mapping the nearest escape route. It was an immediate habit, reflexive after his many years of loner life - his defensive procedures were written deep below the skin. And he felt well glad for them as Blitz came into view: a lynx, nothing unfamiliar to him but still an unwelcome sight. Lynxes, in his experience, were elusive and generally not inclined to chat, often little more than hungry shadows in the night; fluffing himself up and making some noise was usually enough to scare them off. This one, however, spoke, and Shep tensed as he listened to the authoritative, Russian voice.


    "This is Clan land." he said, in a rough voice; it was a statement, not a question. "Good." he had been hoping; far better a Clan than a band of rogues. The grimy figure surveyed Blitz, moving mistrustfully over his blue eyes and tidy spotted fur, before fixing on his face. "Shepherdscrook." he said, finding that the name tasted strange in his mouth. It was not the name he had been born with - he could not remember what that was, not after all these years. "The Dynasty?" he didn't know it - he had not kept up with Clan politics. In fact, he had not kept up with Clans at all; he had lived as scrounging, solitary specter at the fringes of their preoccupied, organized lives. This was the first Clan he had chosen to interact with in a very long time.


    What had changed? A fair question, and one that Shep was not quite sure how to answer. In some way, nothing; in another, everything. He was getting older. He was getting tired. The shift to Agrelos had about done him in; the prospect of exploring a whole new world was desperately overwhelming. He had spent much of the time since then huddled up within the Arcane Mountains. He was seventy-two months old; he did not want to live the rest of his life malnourished, dirty, and alone. He had to face his fears and grapple with his grief and seek out a home, even though the one place he wanted to go back to - his youth - was long since gone. "I'm looking for DarkCan." he said cautiously; what if DarkClan was an enemy of this Dynasty? What if it didn't exist anymore?


    He hadn't thought of that.


    Shepherdscrook had just opened his mouth to say something else when something appeared. He let out a sharp hiss of shock at the elegant-furred, many-tailed, majesty-enrobed Patriarch. Something about him was profoundly unsettling - the wings, the tails, the angelic aura; he was too sleek, too saintly, and most of all too...weird. Shep didn't trust it: he had learned the hard way that life rarely permitted such unblemished beauty. Besides, what even was this? Was it a fox? Why did it have extra body parts? "What are you, silent one?" asked Wanfur's son in harsh tones, his copper-gold eyes darting from side to side, seeking physical weaknesses in Softvelvet's body; where to land a strike with his claws, where to sink in with his teeth, where to kick with his muscled hind legs ... but before he could make much progress another appeared, and this one was far more appealing-looking; a domestic cat just like himself (as it should be, murmured his inner voice).


    Ginger-and-white, this one was, and as silent as whatever heavenly abomination had come before him; Shep nodded brusquely but thankfully at Zeppelin, unsure what to say but grateful for his mere existence.

    "What are you, silent one?"


    The question imposed on him initially drew forth the slightest of expression shifts, a raise of brows and a huff of air that exited his mouth suggested he seemed decently amused even with the harsh tones that accompanied this one's voice. "The leader of this clan," The slim-figured hybrid would say in response, his rose colored lips curling upwards in a saccharine smile though amidst the mischievous grin he offered, it was clear his response was not to be taken as offensive— he is the leader. "And a catsune— a hybrid crossed between a cat and a kitsune." Shepherdscrook was right to be unsettled by Softvelvet. His prettied features and velvety smooth voice was a force to be reckoned with and if his doll-like appearance didn't keep you on your toes, then the way he moved about on the battlefield will certainly make you aware that you should not second-guess the princely male.


    Wings tucked close to his sides, the Patriarch would lean onto his haunches and settle his eight tails at his side. He sits up straight and tall, like royalty, with golden marked shoulders rolled back. "My name is Softvelvet, and to answer your question— this is DarkClan, just under a different name." He thought it were obvious but it came to him that Blitz hadn't used the distinguishing adjective that was a crucial part of their name. "We're called the Dark Dynasty now." Informed the leader, the son of a warmongering King and an traitorous Queen. His ears flicker forth, his unnaturally colored eyes bright with curiosity now. The fellow had said he was looking for DarkClan, right? He'd found it, not as it had been left, but he'd found it. "You've found us, Shepherdscrook. What is it that you're looking for here?" A home, perhaps? He knows a place to call home is just as important as anything else in this world— yes, he knew that for a fact. One cannot find themselves without finding a home to belong to first.