i will stand my ground || ALL

[Longear]

She had found the coyote.

That was something. That was something to hold onto and clutch to her chest. She could look to him and find hope, because it had become errant and unwieldy the moment her mother left for the wild.

Woodrow.

And, of course, their girls. Those two leggy and wide-eyed fillies who now tottered at her hips, ever observant and mischievous. They had come to her in a frenzy. Her first time, though when her body rattled and called for the hardest labour of all she knew it like she once knew her mother’s nose. She is a rugged, natural thing, Longear. Of earth, of grass and bark, but so is she a separated and incomplete thing.

It had been messy and as intended, but they were meant to be together when Gardenia and Mauve came – that other soul and she – it had been a painfully lonely task, instead. (She had tried to make it to that Mountain, though the climb would have been an impossibility. At least she could say she had tried.)

“Stay close,” she says, but she knows they won’t. Not enough. They will tumble outwards like two raucous, rolling puppies. And then, in a single moment of clarity, they will rebound against her safe side. The ‘away’ is the hard part. She watches them out of the corner of her eye as she joins the group, alway vigilant.

She had followed Magnus here, because before she found Woodrow and her girls, she had found him. And for a time, he had been everything. That stranger, so familiar to her because he was her father and brother. Her eyes gravitate to him, now, because their shadows are on his yellow skin and dark hair, and there is comfort in that, at least. He speaks of home, and it does not ring gloriously to her (yet), but it is the closest she has.

The Gates. But for mere days, and by the grace of the history that tied her to the once-was.

The Jungle… a deeper wound. Her birthplace and her mother’s birthplace and her grandmother’s haunt.

Gone. So there is Tephra, and its sulfur air and volcanic folds (more like the Jungle, she thinks, with its sticking heat), and mother had always taught her to love everything the goddess-Mother made. The forests and oceans; this land, built around the roots of something living and dangerous. Besides, home is a many-headed thing, never something rigid (at least, not to her – perhaps because she had never had the opportunity to form attachments, so she sought them out in horsehair and hearts more than landmarks). “My name is Longear. From... well, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore,” she says finally, and she feels out of her depth, so she says little more.

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OOC, because IC, I’m not sure Longear would have too, too much to say on this ATM: I am 100% in agreement that it would be soo cool if we all smashed heads together and tried to think up castes that are not 100% standard, boring, ARMY   -   PEACE. I'll have a think and PM anyone if I have an brainchild.

We’ve done that, over and over, and I’m sure there are soo many other creative set-ups if we think outside the box. Ones that inspire and have subtly, like other have said. Like, kingdoms in the past have had espionage castes and scholarly castes as well as the two standards, so it’s not like there hasn’t been that before. I need ranks, though. And for those castes to hold activities and stuff. I’m sure we can get creative with that too.

I am also in for a council of sorts! Maybe odd numbered so there is always a tie breaker/swing vote if need be? IDK, I love something non-standard and I personally am totally okay with there being no ‘head guy’. 100%.