Dark Cave of Wonders

Dark Cave of Wonders
Date of Scene:	27 May 2013
Location:	Cave of Wonders
Synopsis:	The wolf catches the hunter! ...for some long overdue catching up.
Cast of Characters:	Avira, Hati

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Avira has posed:
The 'World Tour' of sorts continues. After her ride with the VALKYRI upon Argider's airship, Avira had requested a bit of alone time to hone her various skills. With no real teacher available, she felt the need to look within to improve herself, challenging herself in ways she's never before breached.

It was a dangerous thing to do, no doubt, for a lone adventurer that didn't have the breadth of experience those from the World of Ruin did. But without risks, there would be no growth. Without trials by fire, she would never become sharp and strong.

Still, the Cave of Wonders was a fantastically dangerous place. Traps lay within for those who would try to plunder the treasure within and Heartless lurked in the shadows. It was enough to make Avira wonder if there was something far more valuable than gold hidden here-something, perhaps, such as a world heart.

Currently, she's in an area where sand lines the floor and large pillars of carved stone jut upwards, forming uneven and dangerous platforms. The setup had made Avira suspicious and she works carefully to avoid touching the sand on the ground, hopping from platform to platform with caution.

Hati has posed:
As unusual as Hati's random appearances might be, there is always some reason behind them. Much like Avira, the girl is the sort who tends to always be up for an adventure, and a delve into the Cave of Wonders just so happens to have two of her favorite things: challenge, and treasure. Oh, she might not be as wide-eyed about such things as Katyna, but that doesn't mean she'll miss out on a chance to test her skills.

It just so happens that random chance puts these two women in this place at the same time. Certainly, Hati could have come to see Avira earlier, but things seemed to keep getting in the way. At least now there is an opportuntiy for a nice, pleasant conversation... while surrounded by traps, heartless, and other unknown dangers. Hrm.

Getting back to her 'thiefing' roots, Hati actually isn't taking the easy route. Instead, she's actually repelling down from one wall, looking more like a spider than a wolf, complete in gear that would make Lara Croft jealous. She's dangling with her feet against one wall when she spots Avira working her way up the platforms. The wolf shifts her grip, then leans outward to get a better look.

"Watch out on the next platform. There's a triggerplate just to the right." Hati calls out, trying to aim for a time when she wouldn't totally blow the poor huntress's concentration. Then, she continues on her own path downward, aiming to land on one of the higher platforms. Sooner or later, they'll be crossing paths, so long as Avira doesn't trigger that trap, anyways.

Avira has posed:
Avira balances precariously upon a wobbly brick in a three-point crouch. Her weapon is out, not only because she has already had to dispatch a weak 'Shadow' type heartless or two on the way in, but because she swears that she is not alone in these caves today. It was really hard for her to confirm this because it was none other than Hati, a well-seasoned thief who definitely had more experience in moving silently. When the wolf calls out, Avira does not become startled enough to lose her balance but the tensing of her back muscles is obvious.

"Thanks!" Avira calls back over her shoulder before looking to the platform ahead. From her vantage point, she cannot see the aforementioned pressure plate, but jumps anyway, sailing through the air with practiced grace and landing accordingly. From where Hati is, she can see the scarred woman suddenly twist in the air before landing oddly with her legs spread and her hand far out in front of her in a sprawl. "W..whoah, this is a /big/ pressure plate." she tilts her head down, peering at Hati upside-down between her outstretched legs. "Good to see you, Hati. It's been a while."

Hati has posed:
It's easy to watch Avira's leap from the corner of her eye as she repells down along the wall, an appraising nod of her head given to the display of acrobatics that it takes to avoid triggering the trap. With one hand, she offers a bit of a salute as she makes her way down further, landing on the larger platform and unhooking herself from the equipment. It's a simple harness setup, and she's already working to pull the cords free from whatever they are hooked on up above.

"They're all over the place in here." She tugs, and a spool of rope comes raining down on her, which Hati starts to spool it around her arm. "There's one up in the ductwork that you pretty much have to be a spider to avoid setting your tail on fire." She's even got some singed fur to show for it. The whole loop of rope is slung over her shoulder as she waits.

"Yeah. Kind of had a bit of a busy spell. Heard you had a bit of the same. My brother said something about a trip to the underworld." Hati leans against the wall for now, her eyes scoping out the expansive room, "Sorry I couldn't make it, I was a little... indisposed." In fact, she'd been dying at the time, herself, but for now, the wolf keeps that tidbit to herself.

Avira has posed:
"I've noticed. This place is booby trapped up to kingdom come!" Avira exclaims, carefully slipping her weapon back into the sheath latched to the small of her back. Her second hand finally drops down and with a shove, Avira manages to stand with her legs straddling far over the pressure pad.

There's a faint scent of burned fur on the air and Avira realizes that Hati's reference to the duct trap was definitely the real deal. Avira hangs out there for a few seconds, stretching out her neck and getting comfortable despite her position. "Yeah that...that whole ordeal was something else. But something good came out of it all. Manhattan came back. As for you...I actually did hear a thing or two about the trouble you found yourself in, though after the fact."

Long after she could have helped. "Mind filling me in on what went down?"

Hati has posed:
"My guess is, the treasure has to be something amazing. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth the time for all these defenses." The wolf rubs her hands together, tugging the fingerless gloves down slightly. There's probably multiple ways out of this chamber alone, and her mind is already working on figuring out what might be the next best place to explore.

Her booted feet tap on the rock floor, the urge to keep moving is a fairly strong one, but for now she resists the urge and just keeps herself still except for those minor twitches of tail, ears, and feet. "The man who took me in after our world was destroyed is dead. His daughter was turned into an unsent, who tried to kill me with some sort of poison. Faruja, Skoll, Katyna and I sent her back to the dead, and discovered the whole messy plot was some concoction of that red-haired witch that attacked us back at the church in Traverse town."

She does have a way of making a long story short, but after it's told, her ears tuck back against the blue highlighted strands of her hair. "Sorry I couldn't have been much help with the Manhattan business. I couldn't walk, much less fight for a few weeks after that." Admitting anything had kept her down is difficult, but she's not an unlimited like her brother, and knocking on death's door is something that one doesn't bounce back from immediately.

"I would have liked to, though. Maybe it would have helped make up for the past."

Avira has posed:
"I agree. I suspect it's much more than gold and jewels though." She doesn't say more, about her own private theory in particular. Though she was told that Hati was a Shadow Lord, there was still that doubt in the back of her mind that such might still be the case. "One second."

Crouching as much as she can, which actually isn't much because Avira has short legs and she had to keep them straight in her position, she leaps sideways to another platform, this one a circular deal. She nearly misses, catching the edge and dangling above the suspicious sand by mere inches.

A rattling noise echos through the chamber and lumps can be seen moving beneath the sand. Avira peers downwards, her eyes widening, and in short order she is scrambling up the side of the pillar. Just as she does, a creature with jaws that split open in four directions emerges from the sand, snapping after her. "Holy <goosehonk>!"

Hauling herself up on the pillar, Avira scrambles to the center, breathing hard, taking in Hati's story. It takes a moment to process, but her eyes widen, "That woman...her name was...Katherine, right? Katrina? It started with a K...but why? Why did she want to kill you?"

Hati apologizes and Avira looks down. "It's alright. That whole mess...not my finest moments." she still remembers what she put Skoll through during that. Continues to put Skoll through, in fact.

Carefully, she peers over the edge of the pillar, only to find more lumps now moving about the sand, circling like sharks. "For the past of being a Shadow Lord? There's...always opportunities..." she thinks back to Katyna and her aid when Angantyr attacked VALKYRI.

Hati has posed:
The fact that creatures lie beneath the sand seems unsurprising to Hati, although she is quick to go from a relaxed posture to one of action. Unslinging what looks like a crossbow from her back, the wolf arranges a few things, and then seems to aim right in Avira's direction. Is this the point where the evil girl turns on the daughter of Manhattan? Could it be what the wolf has been biding her time for?

When Hati pulls the trigger, a metal spear shoots from the end, trailing the rope behind it. The metal end sinks itself into the pillar just above Avira, leaving the rope to dangle underneath it. On the other end, the wolf is already bracing the rope against a similar pillar above. "Climb!" It's half order, half suggestion, but it's probably better than being eaten alive by whatever those creatures are. Then again, it does require putting a bit of trust into the girl holding the rope.

With a grunt, Hati grits her teeth. "Because I'm someone Katyna cares about, and she wants to hurt her, I would guess." It's a hard pill to swollow, that her father was killed, her half-sister ressurected, and herself poisoned, just as some petty way of getting back at someone /else/. "It's a tactic I don't care for. If I want to hurt someone, I'll hurt them myself. It's stupid to get others involved. It only makes for more enemies." It's one among many of the things that Hati disagreed with when it came to Katyna's behavior while trying to curry favor with the Shadow Lords.

Of course, then the real issue has to come up. It would be foolish to expect that it wouldn't. Hati growls under her breath. "My brother needs to get his facts straight." She mutters, irritation showing in a quick flick-flick of her furred tail. "Neither of us were ever Shadow Lords. We were apprentices." For some, there might not be much of a distinction, but for Hati, there certainly is. She could have become a true Shadow Lord had she wanted to, but she chose a different path. "I haven't been working for them for the entire time you've know me. So no, that's not why."

Avira has posed:
Betrayal!?

No, not at all. With a loud THUNK, the spear embeds itself into the pillar. Avira peers up at it, then over to the direction the rope extends into. Seeing her chance, she takes it, grasping onto the rope and swinging her legs up to wrap around it. She dangles, like a sloth, from the line and starts to climb her way up, hand over hand, dragging herself along.

The creatures breach the sand again and start to leap, snapping at the dangling huntress but missing each time. Their bodies are long and snakelike, but covered in a sort of armor that makes them almost look like living spinal cords. Though they seem like they would be capable, they never try to climb the pillar, confined to just the sand itself.

A frown crosses her face and a swear escapes her. "How cowardly. Striking at her through her friends." she says, agreeing with Hati's assessment of the tactic. "She'll reap what she sows, meaning not only Katyna's rage, but yours, and Faruja's and Skoll's." And Avira's own, should she ever find this woman again.

She scales the length of the rope and drops down at the base of the other pillar it was embedded in. "You...both weren't? Though this explains why Katyna was trying so hard. I always sensed that about her...she wanted to prove herself, even though I'm pretty sure she was stronger than I was." It's likely still the case since Katyna had years of experience on her. "Tell me more about this apprenticeship thing, I didn't know there were really levels of Shadow Lord." Though Angantyr had his mentorship thing going with Garland. Had. "And what do you feel you need to make up for?"

Hati has posed:
Once Avira had made her way across the rope and come to land on solid ground again, Hati saws through it with one of her wicked looking daggers, letting the loose length fall back down towards the platform below. It's from that vantage point that she gets a good look at the strange little monsters, who seem to try to eat the rope as an invader. Unfortunately, her rescue has left her with significantly less rope for future climbing endevors. Hrm. Looking at the deminished length of cord, she shakes her head, loops it to her belt, and ties it off.

"Oh, she's going to pay, trust me on that." Though Hati may have made significant efforts to get away from her darker tendencies, revenge is still one of those emotions that runs hot in her blood. "But I think Katyna has far more to pay her back for than I do." The wolf who was wronged deserves the chance for revenge, and as much as she has been hurt, it seems to Hati that Katyna has been wronged more-so.

"There were a few of the Shadow Lords who thought it would serve them well to take in lost little lambs. Young girls who had no place to go back to. No home, no family." Hati explains as she walks back, her voice losing some of it's edge, but her mismatched eyes have their usual intensity. "Some came willingly, some not, but they had ways of keeping us there. For me, it was a memory spell. I couldn't remember anything else. Not until I met Skoll a few days after the fall of Manhattan."

She pauses, rubbing at the side of her head as if some fleeting bits of that magic still lingered, and still fought back against the influences trying to return her to her right mind. "For Katyna... she wanted to find a way not to be weak. She sought strength, power, the ability to never have to watch, powerless, as her friends and loved ones died. She thought the only way to that was through the darkness." Hati shakes her head then, "I tried to tell her otherwise, and I tried to watch over her when I could." Which certainly explains her strange habit of appearing now and again.

There are still a few more platforms to go before this chamber gives way into a tunnel that leads elsewhere. The wolf takes the chance to leap up onto the next platform, grabbing on with her claws and scrambling up over the ledge. From there, she looks down towards Avira, offering the woman a hand. "What do I need to make up for?" She smirks a little. "Remeber what I said about not remembering?" Hati smirks, showing a hint of fanged teeth. "I didn't cause your world to fall, but I did protect LEXUS when he attacked the Empire State building. Not knowing any better isn't an excuse. What's done is done."

Avira has posed:
Avira watches those weird monsters from afar (maybe 'Sand spines' would be a good name for them, given their bone-like exoskeleton) as they snap at the rope piece that dangles against the sand. A thought that, maybe, she could have talked these creatures down finally occurs to her. They weren't Heartless...oh well.

"Well clearly. Especially after what she did with that gauntlet." Avira narrows her eyes at the memory and the thought she had of lopping off Katyna's arm to prevent her from killing them all. "Has there been any sign of the witch? Katyna has made herself scarce...though more likely, she is avoiding me and my VALKYRI."

There's a brief disgusted look on her face at the thought of Shadow Lords taking in abandoned children like that. Though this look may be missed as she follows behind Hati. "...so that's when..." she murmurs, "I told Skoll you still lived a long time ago. Locating you again seemed to be the biggest barrier. But I see now...you were involved in a battle there I wasn't present at, but heard about."

In spite of this revelation, she takes hte offered hand and pulls herself up. Avira's a bit heavier than she looks, mostly due to all the gear she carries on her. "The past is the past." Avira agrees, "What matters now is what you do to make up for it."

The huntress climbs into the tunnel. "I do have some...well, related news for you. If you recall that collar around his neck, placed there by the Gaudium Lords. It has been removed. He is free."

Hati has posed:
"I haven't seen any sign of her." Hati Explains as she pulls Avira up onto the platform. The small wolf girl is certainly stronger than she looks, as she manages the feat with one arm. "I haven't seen much sign of Katyna, either, though." Her own expression shifts to one of worry, ears slicked back, tail drooped behind her. "If she's avoiding you and your VALKYRI, she might be avoiding me as well. Trying not to drag me down with her, perhaps?" The wolf shrugs, but it doesn't remove the frustration.

The wolf nods once, "As you know, I've been walking a different path since then." Her nose twitches, staying away from a pile of sand on this particular platform, not wanting to upset any more of those strange creatures. "I never hid that I worked for them once, but it's just that much harder to deal with people when they think you're going to slit their throats the first chance you get." With a roll of her mismatched eyes, the wolfgirl walks to the edge of the platform, looking at the jump to the next one.

"You've made mistakes." It's not a question, but a statement. Hati probably has caught wind of a few things through her brother and Faruja by now. "Imagine not having to make up for it once, but over and over again because it isn't just one person who distrusts you now, but everyone." She growls, taking a few steps back and then taking a running leap over the next chasm, landing in a skid that keeps her from running into another pile of sand.

Taking a couple of quick breaths, she gets to her feet, shaking a bit of dust from her trousers. "I love my brother, but he's an idiot sometimes." The news that comes afterward about her brother does cause Hati to stop, and this time the breath she lets out is one of relief. As annoyed as she might be at her brother for making her life that much harder, she still loves him and it is quite welcome news. "I hadn't heard from him in a few days. Maybe I'll have to give him a call. Guess I owe you one for that."

Avira has posed:
"I would hope there's nothing for her to drag you down into." Avira sighs, "Katyna's expressed the desire to separate from her past as a shadow lord apprentice and all the things she's done while one. I'm hoping she at least knows you've cut your ties as well."

She rubs her chin, "Though maybe that's why she would avoid you. In her case, she betrayed the Shadow Lords quite openly and now they want her crushed. As a friend, I could see her avoiding you so you aren't pulled into that. Being the target of Shadow Lords is not a good place to be." She walks to stand next to Hati, also observing the platforms ahead. There are more of them here but the surface areas are much smaller.

"I wish I could imagine that, Hati...but I'm not in that position." Avira admits truthfully, knowing that's where Katyna stands right now. She takes a moment to clear her head, then makes her own running leap, though to a different platform. Her landing is actually pretty silent. "Give him a call." she encourages. "It's funny, much like you, he too had his memories taken from him by the Gaudium Lords. To..an extent it seems. Tch...I'm owed nothing. I would do it all for him again if I had the chance."

Hati has posed:
"She knows." Hati seems certain of that. "But you're right. The way she cut ties with the Shadow Lords meant that she earned their ire. She betrayed them, where as I just walked away." With a tug on her gloves, the wolf steps around the platform, watching Avira's own leap for a moment. "They lose underlings all the time, and I'm sure they don't miss me much." Without Serrak there, few of the Shadow Lords care about one scrawny looking girl. They never realized just how useful she could be.

"It's a position I don't want to be in either." Hati continues, leaning against one of the pillars as she tugs on a set of climbing spikes, strapping the leather around her hands and tugging it off with her teeth. "Katyna will figure out her own way. I can only help her if she asks for it. as for me... I've never mislead you, or betrayed you and your people. So you either trust me, or you don't." With that, she shrugs, then turns and begins to climb up the pillar, the climbing claws sinking in with heavy thunks as she pulls herself up like a spider, rather than trying to hop between platforms.

"Skoll's stronger than I am." She shouts down behind her. "He's never run from his memories. But the Gaudium Lords are going to regret making him as an enemy." The wolf pauses though, something in the other woman's words catching her by surprise. "Something happened between you two, didn't it? He hasn't talked about it, not to me anyways, but it's different now." She give a grunt of effort, then continues to climb. "Would have laid good money on you being the Golden Wolf, you know? You're like us." It's hard to tell what the wolf might mean by that.

Avira has posed:
"In a way, walking away would be the safer choice...but circumstances involving what Katyna did spurred her to do otherwise. I am...grateful for all the help she gave us in the Underworld. So hopefully she's staying safe." Evenly, Avira nods, appreciating each choice for what it was. She couldn't judge one as better than the other, knowing both had avantages.

"You're honest. Brutally so. I respect that because I really dislike being betrayed and mislead. Something about traitors really grinds my gears." Though she couldn't really pinpoint why. She wanted to say it was due to the games her ex-boyfriend had played with her but it felt that there was something else. Some other betrayal with higher stakes she was missing that happened a long time ago.

Avira opts to hop. Though as she hops to one pillar she discovers it rapidly tilting over, the bricks becoming lose beneath her feet. With a startled yelp, she immediately leaps to the next. "...whew."

She pauses. Embarassment quickly overcomes her , "He might not have wanted to talk about it. Near as I can tell, it still hurts him a little that we didn't get together. We're still friends..and...I still hope he finds his Golden Wolf one day." That last comment, though, earns Hati a confused head-tilt.

"You mean...like you in spirit?" she asks because of course Avira isn't a werewolf.

Hati has posed:
"The thing about Katyna is she doesn't do anything halfway. Unfortunately, that when she makes the wrong choices, they blow up in her face spectacularly." Hati's climbing gear latches onto a ledge and she yanks herself up over it, not bothering to look down. She has at least that much trust in her own abilities. Taking a moment to catch her breath, the wolf kneels and takes off the climbing claws, stretching her fingers. "She's probably the most stubborn person I know, and I'm dating Faruja, so that's saying something."

Seeing the other woman having trouble, the wolf gets halfway to her feet before she sees that Avira has it dutifully in hand. "Not much further." She notes, pointing up to a few remaining platforms before the final ledge leads off into two tunnels, one heading in each direction through the cave. It's a subtle sort of encouragement, as if she knew that the VALKYRI leader didn't need much in the way of pep-talks.

The next jump is easy enough, enough so that Hati doesn't have to put in much effort for it. Unfortunately, that platform isn't in the best of shape, and she has to edge around a part that looks as if it's about to give way. "Exactly. You have a wolf's spirit. Though I have to admit, you made a pretty fine looking wolf, yourself." The girl winks with her blue eye, taking a moment to be amused as she tight-rope walks along the far edge of the platform.

"When you've got a fate like ours hanging over you, you've got to play your cards and chance the odds. At least he gave it a shot." Which, of course, had been advice from a certain female werewolf thief currently balancing over a chasm a couple hundred feet up. "I don't know if the mouse is my White Wolf, and right now, it doesn't matter. I'm having far too much fun corrupting him to give it up now." The wolf grins, then takes a running jump off of the platform, just before it crumbles away underneath her.

Avira has posed:
She can't help herself. Avira laughs. "Ain't that the truth! I've seen numerous demonstrations of that." She watches Hati from afar, looking at that ledge that doesn't appear to be very study. A worried look brews in her eyes, "Huh, so you and Faruja. Interesting...! Well, if you can get him to loosen up a little, that would be great."

After catching her breath from her near-fall, she takes off again, leaping to the next platform and landing on it well. Sand and gravel crinkle off the stones from the impact but the pillar holds.

The next jump again goes without a hitch. "Haha, thanks." she says, though inwardly feeling a little bad since she actively worked towards removing that form. "He did. We even went on a little date." she pauses, "It doesn't matter? Skoll seems to think that his Golden Wolf will definitely be his mate." Before saying much more, she makes another leap, but like before, when she lands on the pillar it starts crumbling beneath her feet. She jumps again, but her second pillar does the same thing. In an instant she seems to switch into some kind of deep concentration to keep moving until she finally lands upon one that isn't trapped to fall.

Hati has posed:
Every once in a while, in any RPG, someone decides to throw in a platforming level, and it seems like Avira and Hati are both having their troubles with various parts of this particular place. Hati's hands just barely catch the lip of a ledge, clinging on as she dangles for a moment, legs swinging. Gritting her teeth, the wolf drags herself up and over the edge, panting for breath and using an arm to wipe sweat off of her brow. "It's part of my intentions, I assure you. But it's fun to break his brain every now and again, anyways." She chuckles between heavy breaths.

Slowly, Hati gets to her feet again, eyeing the last few platforms with a wary eye. There's a couple of paths to the top, and it seems as if none of them look particularly stable. "Hrm." The topic of the wolves distracts her though, and one ear flicks in Avira's direction. "Our mother believed that the wolves were meant to be our soulmates. Of course, having a soulmate doesn't always mean love in the romantic sense."

Hati hesitates, then runs a hand through her hair. "Odin, the wolf who sired us, he believed that the tale was meant as a sign that he should marry Skoll to a wolfess in a neighboring pack with golden fur. He believed that it would bring him greater fortune." She shrugs then. "Odin never believed my part in the stories, at all."

She decides to risk the next jump, and much like the ones beneath Avira's feet, it gives way, leaving Hati to grab on to the pillar with her claws, gritting her teeth as it sends jarring pain up her arm. Without the climbing claws, it's significantly harder to move, but the wolf manages to find handholds and footholds as she goes along. "Skoll will outlive all of us. Maybe his Golden Wolf isn't even born yet. Or maybe both wolves died when our world fell. Who knows. Better to live, and love and enjoy what you have, than search forever for something that might be out of reach."

Avira has posed:
It's alright, platforming levels build character! (And AGI and DEX scores, no doubt.) "Well don't break him too much! I like his spirit quite a bit!" She breathes out, catching her breath on the only stable pillar she's found in the last few hops. "Seems we're both going to have to make runs for it. Get through it fast and we won't fall."

Ah, days like this she misses being able to fly!

"Really? They always felt like one and the same in my mind." Avira remarks, then falls silent as Odin is mentioned. The stories that Hati has told about Odin have stuck quite firmly in her mind. "That seems like a very short-sighted interpretation in his part." Avira disparages.

She starts leaping again and much like the previous pillars, these also crumble. She had to wonder if this was the right path at all, but as she hops along, she makes one final leap and goes tumbling into the area with the two splitting paths. Rather than getting up, she lies there, breathing hard. "...yeah...yeah he will..." she says sadly, "It's upsetting to think that...I mean, not that he might search forever, but that one day he'll lose us."

Hati has posed:
"Hah! I wouldn't dream of it." Hati quips back, "If anything, he needs to let that spirit free more often." Though it would be hard to imagine the wolf and the mouse as a couple, there are aspects of each that complement each other. It may not last forever, but for now, it's good for both of them. "I plan on taking him hunting, that should be entertaining."

Reaching the top of the pillar, Hati soon realizes that there is no platform there to latch on to. Instead, she crawls up onto what's left of the top, balancing on a small area with an uneven surface. It seems an impossible jump lies ahead of her, but rather than try to do it by physical prowess alone, Hati takes one of the daggers from her belt and begins to draw a rune in the air. The rune takes shape into a dark form of a wolf. "I need your help." She speaks to the floating image of the wolf.

A moment later, she launches herself forward, wrapping her hands around the wolf's neck. Somehow, her arms don't pass through it, and the wolf drags her across, bouncing on it's back, until it comes to drop her roughly on the ground not far from Avira. "Hey! A bit nicer on the landing next time!" The dark wolf just stares at the girl, sprawled on her butt, and then vanishes.

Wincing, Hati rubs her rear end, "I've heard people say that their soulmate is their best friend, or their sibling, or all sorts of things." For a time, she just sits there, looking at the two options. "Maybe love finds us, or we find it, and it doesn't matter if the Wolves exist or not." Then, the wolf gets to her feet, sheathing her dagger.

"No one really knows much about what he is. His lifespan, his power, if he can be killed... it's all guesswork. But..." Hati hooks her hands into her belt. "I plan on sticking around and playing the part of the kid sister as long as I can. Seems that's all any of us can do." With that, the wolf gives a sort of fanged smile. "So, flip you for it?" Apparently, this is how treasure hunters choose which direction to go. "Call it." Hati takes out a gold coin, likely snatched from elsewhere in the cave, and flips it in the air.

Avira has posed:
It IS hard to imagine those two together, at least in Avira's mind. The two couldn't be any more different! Not only that but there was a definite predator-prey thing going on. Didn't they have instincts to deal with there?

Avira hears Hati say 'I need your help' and she quickly sits up, thinking that she was talking to her. Instead, she spies the strange wolf-summoning magic that Hati seems to have and watches curiously. It wasn't a straight, offical summon...maybe more of a magic shaping? Like she does with her ice magic?

"How'd you do that?" she asks once Hati's safely over.

Solemly, she nods, "Be what we can to him is the only thing we can do. I have no desire for immortality. Well...not the physical kind." she smirks, "I want to live on in legends. The girl from Brooklyn that made something of herself! Clawing her way out of what would have been a grave! Ahem. Well.."

She looks at the coin. "Heads, left, tails, right."

Hati has posed:
"Hrm?" Hati looks over, taking a moment to realize what it is that Avira is even talking about. "The magic?" The wolf presses her lips together thoughtfully, trying to figure out how to describe it. "Old rune spells. It takes the darkness and gives it a physical form. I'm sure it works for other elements, but darkness has been the only one to ever come naturally to me." Taking out her dagger again, Hati motions in the air. The same glyph appears as it had a few moments ago. "This is the rune, for wolf."

The demonstration over, Hati sets the dagger back in it's sheath, "Well, good luck on your quest for immortality then. I'd say you're well on your way. Leader of a powerful clan, afterall." The wolf-girl bows with some exaggerated show of respect, but her expression is a feral grin. "Let me know if VALKYRI ever needs a hand. Besides, I still owe Minerva an apology." With that, she gives a more serious bow of her head, one that does show some measure of actual respect.

Then, her eyes follow the coin, catching it out of mid-air and revealing the symbol of some sultan's headdress on one side. "The left is yours then, lady VALKYRI. May your quest for treasure be fruitful." Pocketing the coin, Hati turns towards her determined passage.

Avira has posed:
"The magic." she confirms, standing and dusting her shorts off. "A rune spell?" Nothing Avira's heard of before, she realizes, and she watches Hati scrawl the rune in the air, memorizing it, "Is that a form of magic that werewolves use? I've never heard of it before."

"Haha, well-" Avira feigns a bit of modesty since she's actually pretty proud of VALKYRI. "Not for lack of trying. It's a eam effort, by the way. And I'll keep you in mind, next time we have a big hunt."

Avira grins and lifts a hand, giving Hati a two-fingered salute. "Stay safe. And give your brother a visit, I bet he misses you."