Jack’s home, were not along the jungle edge, nor deep within the recess of the pitt’s jungle. He found solace in the quite: where there were little need for masks and allowed his own exhaustion to show along his features in a place most would consider a grave yard. His scent carried the hint’s to his home’s true whereabouts. Tinged with ash. There was no fresh water here, and the faces of the mourned and solemn living: jack’s features fit the bill: he passed without many thought along the other members of the Pitt- seldom as they were- that gathered here.

His home was solem, being small he made his home in the edge of a tunnel that had long collapsed, either to the panic that once set this place ablaze or the harsh drums of war that constantly rung here: in a raid or preparation for one eons ago. It was long, spiraling, but he made his place with it. In the dark den Jack made a luxury, building a large reservoir of water underground and a dry nest of scraps of leather or hide. There were no trophies to hang along the interior, no herbs to tend, just the pool of water and the nest to the far left.

It was the taste of ice that Jack went towards home in the want for rest. It was an unsaid agreement, to be doomed together or apart when he joined the Pitt. Jack had fell for the simplicity of it. Knew on a subconscious level that his siblings would in time find the place to settle outside of their adventures: relocate either to the Pitt or- elsewhere. All four of them lived together, traveled together for quite a while: Jack missed it, that open reliance and companionship- sure he missed the traveling but for a place so large there was plenty to find here in the Pitt. Plenty of people to meet and stimulation for the kodkod to engorge himself upon. He needed a place to call home, or his family back: and his family was scattered, so he settled for the next best.

Yet, that wasn’t much true anymore: was it?

It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Either he would one day face his own brother in combat or he would leave the Pitt and forsake what he had claimed as his- calling to question all that he stood honor bound to protect and watch prosper- the thought was alarming: he couldn’t- couldn’t simply just leave. Even the mere prospects of it left him feeling sick and scum, a shake to his head.

Ice burrowed under his skin, chilled his blood: Jack felt the fear- the unconscious pressure he weighed against himself. His brother or his clan? His family or his friends? Why wasn’t there an option for both? Was there? He needed- he needed an out: he wanted to escape- to leave to-

Leaving meant forsaking all he had built here. His allegiance was to the Pitt, and he would not revoke what he had said before: a name is just a name, the meaning was family didn’t matter to the Pitt. What mattered where the creatures that called it home: but what if he had to fight them? Fight his brother’s clanmates? Would he hate him? Would he turn the other way when it was eventual that Jack look towards his brother in need? In some meager comfort?

It was a tundra, brewing under his fur. Water sapped from the air froze along the ground in hairline fractures towards Jack’s home. an open hole big enough for him to slip inside touched with a winter that was out of place in such heat. Ash caught inside making parts of it smeared into an ebony-grey.

Jack felt that it [glow=black,2,300]wasn’t enough.[/glow]

Emotions that Jack hid so cleverly, bottled, and buried so well- shattered against the sands of the pressure. From the raid, from Salem, from that simple little argument that started: a bickering that lead to Summer’s snapping tone and Jack, wandering off- alone.

It was no wonder

wonder what ?

He joined the Pitt: he lay claim to it, and Salem wouldn’t ruin that, what he built here. It was enough worrying, with a lashing tail and a snarl curled from his lips: the usually so controlled Marauder showed emotions unbefitting of a gentleman through the night, those who wondered inside the ashen city to a particular burrow of ice and soot would note the sound of ice shifting. A sound so like glaciers splitting apart from one another: a great fissure that marred what once was a whole. The chill under their paws becoming more than the desert chill and a thing that harbored on a foreshadow to a harsh winter. The city was scant a life when Jack stumbled free: eyes blazing a trail of ice blue. When bones creaked and fur fell to the sands and scales grew. When he quite sigh of night was met with the sound of ice and blood dripping. A wild growth of limbs that stained red and the silence from the creature- from the unholy winter that was created out of the Marader of the Pitt. In the light of a waning moon did Jack finally open his eyes for the first time since the night previous ( that he remembers ) and feel a bone deep ache, and a form that was not his own.

Silent had often made the trip to patrol the burnt and broken remains of the ashen city.

The Pitt aired its open wounds with pride here, still festering under the sun - a seething hatred for the cause that lay deep in its bones.

A fanciful notion perhaps, but he could hear it in the land.

So when frozen ice intruded on the ashen city, like a cold sore on the festering sun bleached and blackened ruins - he took notice,

And when jack tumbled out a tad newer than before, he might have raised a brow had he possessed any.

Instead the creature cocked his head

”built yourself a chrysalis I see”