(OOC: yesss, character development)
One side of him was thankful for any distraction to the puppet-ghost. That side was happy some people showed up, taking his mind off his childhood fear that he really should have let go off when he was like, a month old or something. In fact, this side made his grin a bit more as he spun himself around to greet the newcomer.
Then she started questioning him and his thievery. Poor soul's family...Shallow hearts... He watched the words fly from her mouth with his open in shock. The words were daggers coated in the deadliest of poisons. They were knives that were slitting his throat. They struck him both physically and mentally; an invisible blow to the gut and a missile to the brain. From those words, he took a step back, hands curling in to fists. From those words, he bit back on his tongue. From those very words rose a separate part of him, the part that wanted to rip her to shreds.
It wasn't as if he wasn't talked like this before. Usually, he would just shrug it off with a matching mischievous grin. But not this time. The words she said got him, filled him with such a rage that he wanted to rip his clothes off.
Velgrux was a thief, yes that was true. Even in the waking world he liked to take things. But he did it not just for the reason of doing it, just to see the faces of those he stole from as he may have just ruined their lives. He did it to survive. A certain memory flashed in front of his eyes, making him take a deep breath as he viewed his relived his early life.
Nestled in his mother's den, two pups, one 12 months, the other 9, were curled up, waiting for their mother to come back. One was resting her head on her paws, a bored and irritated look on her face, while the other was tapping his tail on the ground, impatient. The den was mostly silent, save for the light noise of the brother's tail. This was until the female signed and growled at him.
"Velgrux, would you be ever so kind enough-" she started, sarcasm dripping from her every word. "-to stop doing that!" It was not a question but a demand, a loud one at that.
The other one only grinned, flicking his ear. "Why, dear sister, it sounds as if you're annoyed with my wondrous background music." With a laugh, he pushed her shoulder lightly with a paw, earning him a nasty look. "Oh calm down, Malina. I'm simply waiting for our 'mother dearest' to come home." Those last words were filled with the same sarcasm she had.
Velgrux and Malina were not proper siblings. They were half-siblings, same father, different mother. He was even older than a her by a couple months. He loved her very much though, and he was careful to protect her. When his mother had died of natural causes when he was younger, he was sent to his sister's to live. He was to be adopted by his sister's mother, Tina. On his first day, Tina paid hardly paid him any attention, it was like he wasn't even there. Vel didn't like that. He instantly developed a certain dislike for their mother, a dislike his sister shared because she, too, wanted attention, attention clearly not giver to her.
Tina was always absent for hours on end, only returning when they were near staved. Sometimes she was out only for the day, sometimes it was a week. She was never interested in training them much, so he and Malina were always late in their skills. "It's like she never wants us to leave!" he muttered, golden eyes looking at the river entrance of their home. But that certainly couldn't be, she wasn't even here to care for them in the first place.
This time, she had been gone for two days. Hunger was eating its way out of their bellies, clear from the harsh growls. With a sigh, the otter moved towards the river entrance, where Malina promptly blocked his way.
"Where do you think you're going?" she asked briskly.
"Out to get food. Unless you want to starve in here, of course." Vel's face was blank and tired.
"No." was her steady reply, shaking her head so much Vel thought it would come off. "Last time you left you had wounds all over you! Mom even said that you weren't allowed outside without her anymore."
With those words, Velgrux was not so pleasantly reminded of being struck in the face and being commanded to clean his wounds. At least Tina talked to him right?
The two stared at each other, a battle of their eyes, gold versus brown. Vel's eyes were speaking to hers, thinking about how they didn't even get to eat for two days straight. That time he went out, he went out to hunt. Although coming back from a fight with another otter who invaded their territory, he came back with a good amount of fish. Eventually, Malina gave in and bowed her head. She crawled back to her spot and sat down. "Just be careful out there, big brother."
With a nod, he scampered out through the tunnel into another chamber. The chamber was basically an air bubble, a pool of water on one corner that attached to the river of Tina's territory. With a breath of air, the otter dived in, paddling his way to the top. As his head broke the water's rushing surface, he noticed that it was already getting dark. "Oh great," he muttered as he dunked his head in once more, alert to any fish. Although otters of his kind were night-hunters, he was not so skilled in that. Every time he had went out, the sun was still shining and visibility was still high. This time, there was not much light for his untrained eyes to use.
It was dark out by the time he caught enough fish for the both of them, it was dark out. The moon was high in the sky and he was sure the predators were out already. With an annoyed growl, he carried the fish he currently had in his paws towards the shore where he placed his catch, only to be shocked that none of the other three fish he caught earlier were there any more. "What!" he exclaimed, hissing in anger, dropping the fish. All his hard work, all the food they were supposed to eat, was gone, taken by another otter probably. He lashed out at the ground, paws digging into the sandy shore.
It was a couple minutes before he calmed down and realized he couldn't hunt for any more. He wasn't sure how to hunt properly in this darkness. Even the fish that now lay on the ground was caught out of a spot of luck. He contemplated hunting for insects, like those grasshoppers Tina brought home once. He was all in for hunting those but he didn't know how and where to find them.
With a distraught sigh, he picked up the fish and started to head home, planning to take the main entrance.
As he walked, his sense of smell alerted him to another otter. It was a female. Otter territories around here weren't to overlap with the same gender. If this was actually his territory, he would have allowed her to continue with her business, but it wasn't his. It was Tina's and he was pretty darn sure she was a girl.
With hushed steps, he sneaked over to a bush to observe what the female was doing on his adopted mother's territory. What he saw filled with with rage. She was eating three perfectly lovely fish. He didn't need to be a mathematician to put 2 and 2 together to guess that those were the exact same fish he caught earlier.
As he was about to go ahead and charge at her, he noticed one pup along with her, much younger than him and his sister. He stopped, on paw frozen in the air. He couldn't do anything now. She had a pup! But it was only that one pup and she looked perfectly capable of catching another some more fish or maybe a bird. There was a scale on his shoulder, weighing his virtues to assess the situation. Eventually, days of hunger came over the feeling of being good.
He dropped his fish and buried it, not wanting it to fall into another's paws like those three. He knew charging head on would do no good, so he had to go for a more sneaky approach. He picked up a pebble and crawled over to the other side of the female. He threw it at a tree, creating a loud noise. He even threw in a bunch of angry calls, his own rage fueling him. With a smile, he noticed the mother otter had turned her head and whispered something to her pup. She then ran over to his direction. Before she could reach him, he ran back quietly, thanking the heavens that he was fast.
Soon he reached the young otter pup, still unseen. Here, he felt a great weight on his shoulders. Would he really steal from a pup and its mother? He was nervous. His time was running out. Then he moved.
His breath hitched as he ran forwards, shocking the pup as he came up to it and pushed it down with a gentle swipe of his tail. The pup tumbled over, unhurt, as he swiped all three fish, one of them half-eaten, and ran for the bush he hid before. There he quickly dug out his last fish and he rushed off towards the den.
This was his first act of thievery. The one that would lead to a lifetime of it.
When he arrived at the entrance of the den, a burrow under a hollow log, he took a deep breath to arrange his thoughts. He just stole from someone- well, stole back. But still. Adrenaline was still rushing through his veins and he felt like he could run around the world. He felt oddly happy. He got his prey back, sort of. But there was a nagging feeling in the back of his head, a feeling he pushed back to the deepest pits of his mind. He had a sister to feed, he thought as he came in the den with a smile plastered onto his face.
The male recalled they ate like royalty. He didn't tell Malina what he had to go through. They were fully fed when Tina came back and she wasn't even suspicious since there were no marks on the two. The once hunger-driven act became a habit to the male. He stole more and more. Stealing from others had kept them alive. He still hunted but when times were tough, there were others with much to 'share'. He became a thief to survive. And survive he shall.
He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and staring straight into Queensly's eyes. "Listen here, missy," he breathed out, words cold. "You. Don't. Know. Me." Each of those words were laced with enough venom to kill five men. His golden eyes, which looked murderous, were examining her, looking as if he was thinking what she was worth if he sold her. "You don't know what I've been through. I like shiny stuff, enough said. That dude I stole from? Yeah, I don't care. You call me shallow? Well I am, if you haven't noticed." He talked on quietly but he was slowly looming over her. "I steal. That's what I am, a thief. You call me out on something that's plain to see." The ground around his feet had started smoking, as if his burning anger was enough to heat his surroundings. "You look at me from the dude I stole from's point of view. Don't you stop to think about what goes on at the other side? Do you ever think what it's like to be a thief?" And at this, he ended his words, backing away from the female and leaning back on the same tree. His tail flicked from side to side, unknowingly tapping on the ground like what he used to do when he was a kid.
