Paradise

It wasn't long before the suddenly quiet jungle foretold the arrival of another equine. I kept my gaze fixated on the direction the sound had come from, but Wulfric's eyes wandered upward, scanning across the canopy branches until a huddled pair of parrots caught his eye. They were quiet, yes, but the cocking of their heads and the way they fluffed their feathers told him this was someone familiar to them. Someone not dangerous, or well, he seemed to amend with a silent press of his lips, not dangerous to the feathered creatures.

My grin widened as Annubis sauntered into view, and I tipped my head. Even if we hadn't already gotten the information that it was family that ruled this storied jungle, I might have assumed we were kin. Or, well, half-kin. Most of my blood siblings had scattered to the far winds so far as Vanya had understood, but she hadn't exactly stuck around long enough for me to learn much about them. All of her attention had been focused on shaping me, since I was the only one she still had at her side.

"Just a little family reunion," I offer, the smile crinkling at the edges of my green eyes. "You probably don't remember me, considering I got the short end of the childhood home stick and grew up on Salem, but we're related." From beside me, Wulfric made a soft sound of irritation that I had gotten rather familiar with. "Rougaru's our dad, Vanya's our mom, blah, blah, blah."

I cocked a hip as I watched Annubis' face, wondering how he was going to take all of this. Vanya had been one of Rougaru's most... polarizing mares, so far as I understood it and I wasn't sure how much - if at all - her legacy as his queen would hold weight. In truth, this was kind of my last resort before I just said fuck it and picked a direction to swim into the ocean, but I didn't really want to reveal that card. I glanced at Wulfric, knowing that his options weren't much better, but he met neither of our eyes and instead peered quietly into the greenery, his brow perpetually furrowed.

"I heard a brother of mine held Paradise and came to see for myself." As I finished this comment, I brought my gaze back to my brothers and did not lift it again as I made my play. "Besides, I need a place to stay and while he's functionally useless -" the comment was mean and I knew it, but I'd grown tired of Wulfric's cryptic comments and refusal to give a straight answer to any question I'd asked, "I can hold my own."

After all, weren't we one pack or some such other nonsense?