( LOYALTIES ) — open, joining

[MINGAN]

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pack above all.

that is what she was raised to believe. pack above blood. pack above friends. pack above yourself. she could recall being a pup and reciting those words, sitting in the dark of the night with the other young. "pack. pack. pack." she could remember the training, the beatings, the sparring. she could remember running until her paw pads bled and working until she fainted from exhaustion, all in the name of the pack. it was torture, it was brainwashing, it was training.

pack above all.

that was all she knew. it was ingrained in her dna, to put the many before the one, before herself. they were her people, they were her world. the sun rose and set with them, she had never known anything beyond them. beyond the small, studious eyes and the smell of pine and dirt. as far as she knew, there was nothing beyond the borders but enemy.

pack above all.

at least, until pack decides you are not pack anymore. pack above all until pack tells you to go, until pack says a mistake cannot be forgiven. she'd dedicated her life to the pack. she could remember her loyalty ceremony, when the alpha looked down at her and said she was strong, she could make a good successor. she could remember the mate she'd been assigned, remember the look on kovu's face as she was exiled. he said nothing, just stared at her like a stranger. she was glad she'd never made the mistake of loving him, because contrary to what he said, he didn't love her. he put the pack above her.

mingan above all.

that was who she was now. one paw in front of the other as she approached the border, stopping stiffly in front of it, the dark furred wolf stared forward, features devoid of emotion as she waited, counting the seconds for future reference. one, two, three... she kept going, kept counting. not moving, stiff and stoic, noting the numbers as they passed. if they'd have her, she wanted to make sure that the next person she found at the border didn't wait any longer than she had. it was that sharp, calculating nature that had nearly made her the next alpha.

typhoon above all.

the thought was odd, sort of foreign, but she figured she could get used to it with time.

[ hsjsjs hey dudes i joined with mingan a while a go but like died and now i’m back and i’m definitely just pasting her old joining thread here kay ]

[Grey]

In his world, his sanguine eyes, there is no such thing as a pack. He doesn't even know if he holds an unconditional loyalty to himself. Bakugou is alone. He watches and acts independently. His emotions are his and his alone. That part of him is the only thing that seems to be holding still, rooting and clinging to him. It is in his nature to be by himself, a lonesome wanderer, an observer. While there may be others who wish to be by his side, to try and protect him, he feels an overwhelming sense of disconnection. No matter the universe, it is all the same. Detachment descends over him like a looming predator - a prey mantis in wait, weapons hovering in anticipation. Nature is deathly quiet. She is afraid of breaking the isolation, too cowardly to act. Perhaps it may be considered a sin to disrupt the peace that leeches the heart, the deceiving calmness that envelops the young Quartermaster's body, a sweet strangulation of his neck. There is an ache that latches to him, a gentle but poisonous hum. Bakugou has taught himself all this time that he is alone, that he feels alone. While there may be those willing to extend their grasp, embody the very heart of salvation, his mind is closed. He sees no freedom in yearning for others. The idea reaps only the sensation of vulnerability.

He himself had once trusted another. Killed, removed, perished. That was where it had got him. He let his guard down around someone who had cared about. The worse thing about it was that it hadn't been his friend who had betrayed him. It was his own heart that let him die. He was retracted from that world, thrown into an abyss, left to free fall. Nothingness filled his empty soul. It probed his memories until it was bored, launching him back into a new body, ready to breathe again. After some time, Bakugou has wished that the memories would cease by dilapidation. It brings him comfort to think that maybe, just maybe, there will come to be a day where he won't even remember a time where he had been human. Then again, he is unsure if the thoughts frighten him. Bakugou bites his tongue, tasting the ashes of his body's flames before drawing his attention to the blurred figure at the border. Slowly but surely her form begins to sharpen - crystalline as the ragdoll approaches, whiskers twitching before he stops in front of her. He keeps his distance, quickly skimming over the wolf's appearance before asking: "What do you want here?"

[adomania]

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Pack above all.

The sentiment had been shared, in some twisted way, by Desperado once upon a time. It had been different wording and a different fate that had befallen him, but the message was still the same in the end. Your life was dispensable in the name of the group you worked for. His life had been dispensable, as had his body, soul, and mind.

The canine had never been groomed into anything, too old to be naive but too young to make for a good candidate for anything but a punching bag for others to use as they deemed fit. His skill was the only thing that kept him alive most days, as it was the only reason that the gang had ever decided to keep him and fix him up to begin with, but there were days that they would push him to the very limits of what he could call sanity, until he was nothing but a broken shell of who he had once been. He had been flesh, bones, tendons... held together by nothing but a seething hatred that festered inside of him like the plague. Thoughts of murder and arson were what kept him alive... and one day, he had enough.

The pack had never abandoned him. His parents had, but the pack had been determined to keep him even if it meant killing him so that others would not share his skill. The powers he once held were vast and powerful, even if they were now forgotten until the pretext of self-preservation. His mind had shut off that part of him, shoving it away into a little box labeled 'trauma,' and left him with nothing but tough paws and a tougher heart, no matter how light his disposition seemed to be.

No. He had abandoned the pack after one too many nights spent under the false pretext of 'safety,' when the warm body sleeping next to him was anything but. It had been warm when it had gone to sleep, pulse beating in tune with Des' heart until it overcame him and only one thought became clear among the pain. He had to get out. And he did. The blood had rushed beneath his fangs, spine cracking with one of the most satisfying sounds that still haunted him to this day.

Those who dared stand in his way got to know what the wrath of the void meant.

Now, it was different. There was no 'Desperado above all.' There wasn't any chant of 'The Typhoon above all.' There was nothing but a hollowness as he tried to find something to give meaning to the life he had led, his mind silent save for the one primal need to survive. The scars had healed over, but they still remained to remind him what had happened, and he was not a man who could simply forget. It was hard enough to try to get him to forgive, impossible to have him pretend like it never happened and try to build a new life beyond his history. It was what had shaped him, and all he could hope for was that someday he'd find meaning to move forward once more.

But the Typhoon gave him temporary refuge, as any other group probably could have. The others, though, didn't fit him. Other clans were no better than the gang he had left, murdering for the thrill of it more than anything else. Des was no murderer, no matter what he had done in the past to survive, so any of those places were out of the question... and as much as he had wanted to arrive at the doorstep of some benevolent group where he could finally try and restore his name... the guilt was too strong. He didn't deserve anything better than what he had gotten previously, and so... he had taken the same path that Mingan had, following the railroad seemingly to nowhere until the gate came into view and the fated bell seemed to mark his path.

It seemed a lot of wayward souls made the same journey as he did.

It was good for her that his hut was settled right next to the sea that bordered the Typhoon, for it seemed like she either didn't see or didn't want to ring the bell that announced the presence of newcomers. He was the first face most of them saw as a result, and often they didn't have to wait long unless he was gone doing some other arbitrary task outside of his usual 'patrolling' (if you could count sitting outside his house patrolling.) That was the benefit of having only one true place where others could appear. The chances of someone appearing on boat were rather slim, and he couldn't blame them. Drowning was, in his mind, the worst way to go.

This time he wasn't the first to arrive, though, Bakugou ever-vigilant and beating him to what he usually came forward to first. It didn't trouble him much, though, as it meant that others cared just as much as he did, and an easy smile graced his scarred muzzle despite her desolate look as he approached soon behind the other. It was one he was used to, however, the emptiness resonating with him in a way that he'd had preferred not to deal with, but much like with the other joiners who had come to this land looking like they had been through hell one way or another... he was determined to help in whatever way he could. "Hey there," his low drawl was purposefully toned to soothe, heterochromic gaze carefully warm as well to offer her some sort of solace. There wasn't much else for him to say at the moment, though, as the most important question had been asked already. Instead he fell silent, waiting for some sort of further comment from the stranger.