sweat and tears swept under the rug ✧ memories & scavenging

[ARVID R.]

The scent of rot was not one that Arvid was used to, and not one that he enjoyed. Most of the time, the smell of death and rotting brought back memories of the various labs that he had been passed back and forth from, before he got dumped onto the island. While he had lived through his experiences within the lab, others very much hadn't. He could remember the sight of their bodies as he had been dragged along, and the scene tof their blood, staining the cages that they had once been held within. Seeing the corpses had always filled him with fear, terrified that he wouldn't actually make it out of the labs alive. That all of the poking and prodding wouldn't eventually lead to freedom, but instead to death. Even now, the smell of something rotting filled him with some amount of fear, almost enough to keep him frozen on the spot. However, the stronger smell of the Coalition was what ultimately made him move forward. It reminded him that he was no longer alone, and no longer stuck in a horrifying lab where he was nothing but a curiosity. Instead, he was within the boundaries of the place that he now called home. The group that had accepted him.

Filled with a new sense of confidence, the dire wolf moved slowly and carefully through the trees and the snow, occasionally pausing to flick mud and plant bits from his paws. His short trek eventually brought him to where Laeglin was standing, along with a limp body draped carelessly across the earth. The lack of any sort of wounds or blood on Laeglin told Arvid that the other hadn't been the reason for the serval's death, although he certainly seemed affected by it. The trembling in the other's form set the pup on edge, his ears flattening down against his skull before he spoke up, "Laeglin? Are you alright? You look like someone killed your puppy. Or... well, serval, in this case." He drew a bit closer as he spoke, mainly to inspect the body further. The armor that the corpse wore was certainly intricate, and if the scent of death hadn't thoroughly permeated throughout it, Arvid might've grabbed it for himself. As it stood, however, the canine simply found himself wondering if it would be worth it to bury the body, or just leave it on the ground to decompose.

He wouldn't really be able to relate to the flashbacks that Laeglin was experiencing, but this wasn't because the young male was heartless, or cruel. Rather, he had never really known his family, torn away from them incredibly soon after his birth with little chance of remembering any details about them. He couldn't feel grief over their loss, or what might've happened to them afterwards, simply because he just didn't know them. And while most of his memories from before the Coalition weren't exactly stellar, there weren't many things that triggered them. The utter lack of humans on the island was a big reason for this, and something that Arvid was eternally grateful for. He didn't exactly want to reminisce about the human scientists that had essentially tortured him, or the human family that had took him in, only to toss him away when he grew too large. He preferred to focus solely on the present, since at least if he ended up getting hurt now, it was probably as a result of his own stupidity, or some mistake he had made. It wasn't just because he was being dragged around from place to place by fate, like some puppet on a string.

Arvid had been so focused on the body itself that he momentarily forgot about Laeglin's presence, as well as the other's strange shaking. Looking back up at his rather new groupmate, the male hesitated before asking, "Uh... we can bury the body, if you want. Not sure if that's what's making you so upset..." If Laeglin got this unnerved by the sight of death, then the Coalition of the Condemned probably wasn't for him, at least in Arvid's opinion. Most of the group had made it very clear that they had no qualms about killing, especially if it was to protect the Coalition in some way.

i wanna be the sand inside that hourglass