// you dont have to match the length ofc and all you really need is the last sentence of the first paragraph and everything after it

It was not uncommon for Danny to stray away from the safety of the bay on his own, albeit a less than smart decision given his own attack and near murder, but he truly could not help it. He had to, his legs ached with each moment he spent laying in the temple, and while Roan was seeming more stressed with each new patient, it was not the intimidation that the Soothsayer struck into Danny's heart that forced him out. It was no fault of the man's own that the Privateer simply needed to get out almost daily, and wander about until he reached the edges of the territory that the borders of the ocean allowed. He never crossed the railroad either, that would have been too far with no real reason to justify himself. Although something echoed distantly in his subconscious to wander ever farther, he could easily repress it with the overturning decision that it simply was not safe, and that alone kept his wandering thoughts at bay and prevented wandering paws. He wondered if that had even the slightest connection to the brutally vivid visions that played out while he was both bleeding out and while unconscious. Things he could not explain, things he had never once seen in person, and yet it was as if he was remembering something he laid eyes upon enough to recollect it with such fine detail, all the way down to the overlapping of wildflowers and each individual sparkle of fallen snow. The glint of metal and a lake that reflected the stars, faces both familiar and unfamiliar. A sense of emptiness whenever soft brown eyes trailed over the necklaces upon Harland and Diya's necks, a feeling he since blamed on a new budding interest in geology and the previous lack of the golden hoop now nestled securely through his ear. Too often that did not put the emptiness to rest, and as always, he was moving on autopilot to get fresh air. The ocean provided no answers for him, unbeknownst to him, Harland had wandered the same path, a trail that ended where it all began and where his blood used to dye the sand a darkened red. Instead of walking straight into the water, he walked along the edge of the beach until his paws stood in the wet space between the metal bars of the railroad, staring distantly at the mainland that lied at the end of the distance. The scent of salt and sea carried a new scent with it, a scent he had only caught a hint of when Ravenwood had been taken hostage, quite foolishly, by Roxanne.

The Coalition of the Condemned.

Another attack could have been waiting for him, and he could not afford to be injured once more and perhaps even meet the fatality that Caesar had missed. But that was not actually the case, he was not in any danger. As the ocean roared beside him, fur ruffled and his eyes tiredly observing the once alive, now dead feline, draped over the railroad as if they had agitated the mambas that lied in wait below the gate. A bag half off the body claimed his interest, carefully pulling it from the assumed runaway with a sense of self awareness that this was rather strange.

There was a soft clink as he dropped it upon the sand, having carried it back to the bay with a frown. He'd disposed of the body, sending it away in a mini sea burial that was...less than professional, leaving the corpse for the sharks to chew on. He wasn't sure what else to do, and panicked, and sent the deserter off to sea. But that was in the past, he tried not to think about it. His focus was constantly pulling itself back to the roughed up leather bag he had, to his sudden disgust and nervousness, taken from a corpse. Danny kicked it, drawing his paw back when something brought about a sharp pain upon contact, like kicking a stone. A sliver of old metal emerged from a gap. A morbidly curious pull slid the rest out, silvery chain glinting in the sunlight and dragged by the weight of carved spheres not unlike those of Harland's necklace. Danny squinted at the dark grey against transparent and gold, a long and drawn out shiver raising the fur along his spine. He suddenly felt very, very cold, despite what was carved into the rock shard was the sun itself among the clouds.

The Coalition of the Condemned. It wasn't a group that Lumia knew a great deal about, except for what she had learned through secondhand information. While traveling with her father, she had often been told about the group by loners, with most of them warning her to stay far, far away. It hadn't been lost on her that, every time the group was brought up, Caesar seemed to grimace or growl, obviously annoyed by the mention of them. Mia never bothered asking Caesar more about the subject, not wanting him to get aggravated and end up lashing out at her. Alongside the warnings and her father's general disapproval, the young Cipher had eventually been able to properly identify the scent of the Coalition, and she was glad for that fact. Made it easier to avoid them, after all. Not only that, but none other than her sister, Aphra, had bore the scent upon her pelt when she had shown up on the border, looking for Vayne. That had been the final nail in the coffin for Lumia, who had sworn afterwards that she would never trust anyone who had come from the Coalition. At least, not without a lot of interrogation beforehand. Any place that was willing to take her sister in was a bad one, at least in Lumia's opinion. After all, Aphra's reputation was nearly as bad as her father's, and that was really saying something.

She knew that the group was a sore subject throughout The Typhoon, and the threat of an attack hung over all their heads quite often. It was part of the reason why she wanted to become a better fighter – so that she could help to protect her new home. While her fighting skills weren't absolutely stellar just yet, she still made a habit of patrolling around the territory, making sure to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. She had been out on one of these patrols when she reached near the railroad, recoiling slightly when the scent of death reached her. Yet, she couldn't see any kind of body in sight. This, along with the smell of Danny, was enough to set Lumia on edge, her heart pounding a bit too quickly in her chest. Was Danny alright? Had something happened to him? Had Caesar come back to finish the job that he had failed last time? That thought alone was enough to fill her with rage, her jaw clenching and her short tail lashing as she urgently glanced around her. Thankfully, the scent of the canine didn't seem to linger solely around the railroad. Instead, it seemed to be moving away, a fact that filled Mia with no small amount of relief. She quickly turned, heading off after Danny's scent – although it didn't help that the smell of death still remained intertwined with said scent.

Eventually, Lumia found where the other was sitting by the bay, a sigh of relief leaving her as she saw that Danny seemed to be alright. Or well, he at least wasn't dead. Whether he was alright or not remained to be seen, considering how he seemed to be frozen in place, staring down at a necklace. The smell of death still seemed to be clinging to the bag nearby, and Mia no effort to hide the slight disgust and worry on her face as she approached, staring down at it momentarily. She then looked towards Danny, muttering out a soft question, "Danny...? Where did you get this bag? You had me so worried. I thought that somebody was... dead." It still seemed as though someone had died, but evidently no one all that important. Or perhaps it was somebody important, and that's why Danny seemed so incredibly out of it. Had he lost another member of his family? That didn't seem all that likely, considering the wolf hadn't mentioned anyone besides his mother, at least to Lumia's knowledge. Perhaps Vayne knew more than she did – that wouldn't exactly surprise her, considering how close the pair were.

Sitting down in the sand near Danny's side, Lumia lowered her head a little so that she could look at the necklace more closely. Her green gaze seemed to gleam as she looked down at the little carvings, although they didn't bring anything out in her. They didn't fill her with the same cold chill that they seemed to fill Danny with. Instead, it just looked like a pretty necklace to her – nothing worry of such close inspection. Tilting her head to one side, the wheat colored feline questioned softly, "Are you... okay? The necklace seems pretty, but... you look like you've seen a ghost, or something." It was almost funny how close she had gotten to the truth, even while only half-joking around.

In such a dazed state, he had missed the arrival of Lumia until she sat down beside him, the sound of shifting sand causing him to flinch sharply. An invisible hand grabbing hold of him and pulling him back to reality in a less than gentle manner, the wolf blinked as his eyes were allowed to focus once again. "I...right, the..." He motioned to the abandoned bag with a paw, voice tapering off until he was merely muttering incoherently, like he could not simply just put together the words for what he wanted to say. Which wasn't too uncommon, but it was already past the point where the girl had realized something was off, long before he had come to the realization that he was acting strangely. How would he explain this, and with a brain that was acting as if he'd been hit in the skull at that? Danny frowned, tail smacking against the ground a few times as he frustratingly tried to make the words happen. "Runaway. Agitated the bucket snakes. They had it." The mambas. The mambas, Danny. He could overthink about how he formed that sentence later, and gods knew he would, but right now what mattered to him was if he got his point across at all. He lifted the chain up with a paw, letting the carved rock shards dangle down, catching the light and reflecting off his dark fur. It was indeed pretty, he couldn't argue there, but he still felt uncomfortable. Sick. Confused. Normally if something disturbed one, they would abandon it, get rid of it, solve the problem. And yet, despite the feeling in his gut, Danny didn't want to get rid of it nor part with it in any way. As if an invisible connection had been formed, but he didn't like that either. What was it, grief? Nostalgia? Nostalgia. "They stole it, I think. It scares me, but it's just...a necklace. Not scary." Danny sighed, ears loosely lowering until they were level with his temples, less out of the fear he just spoke of but more tired, miserable. And there was still no explanation. He couldn't even muster up the energy to recover when Vayne joined the duo, turning his head to acknowledge her presence with a small smile. "Doesn't your mom have one of these?" He inquired, spinning the necklace around his paw a few times to make his point. And by mom he of course meant Diya, her biological mother could choke for all he cared.

The necklace... it was interesting, but it held no significant meaning to Lumia. Clearly, the same couldn't be said of Danny. The other seemed dazed and out of it, and it honestly made Mia feel a bit uneasy. It was almost as if someone had come and drugged Danny, or dumped exhaustion into him in droves. She slowly nodded as she listened to the other's tale, wincing slightly as she muttered, "Right... the mambas. I honestly wasn't expecting anybody to get... you know, killed. By them." The bucket of snakes was no doubt intimidating when one first joined, but they only really got annoyed and dangerous if one annoyed them. And the telltale way to do that was just to go ringing the bell over and over again, awakening them from their slumber and causing them to strike. In the back of her mind, the young Cipher silently thanked her lucky stars that she hadn't done such a thing when she had first joined. What an awful way to go out... she had to assume that it was the venom that had killed them, rather than the force of the bites. Had it at least been quick?

Not wanting to focus on that any longer, Mia quickly shook her head from side to side, a sigh leaving her. The subject of the necklace emerged once again, and the feline was surprised to hear that Diya had a similar necklace, as well. After a moment of silence, Lumia muttered in her niece's direction, "Don't you think you would've known if she was missing a necklace? I mean, it seems like the kind of thing she'd tell people to keep an eye out for..." While it wasn't the most unique necklace in the world, it was at least distinct enough to identify quickly. Just telling people to keep an eye out for it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. As her green gaze continued to linger on the necklace, Lumia found herself asking Vayne, "Although... do you have any idea where your mom got her own necklace? Was it just a random piece of jewelry?" If the necklace held such significance for Danny, then Lu wanted to figure out why. And the first step of that would be figuring out where the necklace – or necklaces – came from. Maybe it was a long-shot to think that Vayne new, but it also didn't seem unreasonable for Diya to share stories about her trinkets with her family.

At some point, everything began to gradually blend together and fade away into the distance, neither voice of the girls breaking through his hazy mind nor were they longer identified individually, as the wolf just sat there and on occasion moved his paws to play around with the chain and shards attached, leaving them to their own conversation almost. He hadn't thought to put it on, but something in the mental fog suddenly ordered him to do so. He wouldn't, he was too afraid, but it felt sort of like something else was calling the shots, insisting that it was part of a normal routine to do just that. His breath hitched in his throat, leaning forward slightly as if he had been dealt a blow to the gut, though the ache was not in his abdomen at all, but rather his chest. Buried deep within his ribcage.

Diya, Diya, Diya. It wasn't hers, he knew it wasn't, partially because they were right, weren't they? She'd want it to be found and returned safely, if it was hers there would already be a search party. Roxanne would be holding interrogations. Something else swore it wasn't hers either, it didn't look like hers it said. It belonged to someone else. No one else carried such a thing, and so that seemed like an obvious enough answer that he went along with it as fact. Prior discussion of such things lead to Michael discussing the Elysium, which drew curiosity from him but no more and no less, but once Harland arrived and spoke the name of the group prior to the merge and change, something truly struck him in his core in a manner that caused physical pain. Unsurprisingly to no one he imagined, the boy began to shake, not particularly violently but incredibly noticeable. Like he was freezing once more. There had been a strangely familiar feeling during his strange mental exploits while still unconscious for that period of time, following his attack, that echoed once more under the rising anxiety attack that threatened to crawl up and out towards the surface.

"S-Someone else h-had it, I...I don't know who they, th...they were." An exhale came out as a soft wheezing, breathing suddenly becoming a little bit of a chore, as if something was pressing the sides of his ribcage together until it threatened to snap. He shook his head at the bombay, corners of his soft brown eyes dotted with beads of water he was just barely managing to control. A steady fear gripped him, the notion that he though Harland would think he took it from somewhere, and he still wasn't even entirely sure "where" was. "I...I d-didn't steal it! I swear!" Danny's voice cracked, which in any other situation could have been humorous. Right now? Not particularly.