I AM NOT THE ONE // JOINING

[BUCK]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1.4;"]Would it be any easier of Blue knew what he was missing? It's a question that haunts Buck at times, whether or not it would be easier to forget. He knows well enough that he would never take the option if it was presented to him, perhaps for reasons similar to why Blue is so upset about not knowing. The missing holes, the emptiness, being so unsure of who he was, where he belonged, or who he belonged to. No, he would rather ache with knowledge than emptiness. At least he has memories to ponder over. He used to have their dreams, but those had left him months ago. Buck would never fully adjust to their absence, just as he had never fully adjusted to the absence just before it. His list of possessions and people, already dangerously short, had been whittled down further since he had left home. Aside from the leather strap around his paw and the lucky rabbit's foot dangling around his throat, he owns nothing. The only person to know him closely was buried both inside his mind and out.

Being here was a fresh start, but nothing could ever be a fresh start until the slate was entirely wiped clean. Seeing what's happened to Blue might have him hesitating on whether or not he wants it, and again, he supposes that he doesn't. He would take whatever the future sent his way with a head held high. There wasn't any point in being the cliff face that the ocean wears against for an eternity. Instead, the dire wolf is something like the piece of driftwood the snow leopard shows up on. He'll go where the world takes him, and today that's here.

He'd been spending a few hours getting lazily acquainted with the area. There would be time for a more intense study later, but for now Buck focuses on the sensations more than mapping everything. He takes note of the breeze as it ruffles the fur on his cheeks, of the shift of fine sand underneath his paws and the prickle of coarse grass before that point. It was a beautiful place, certainly, and he supposes that he's lucky to have been allowed to stay. The people here were nice, and although he's not much a fan of the questions they asked — he was a deeply private person, at least when it comes to the things they seemed curious about — he had answered them without too much of a fuss. They must have deemed him at least relatively safe, if he's allowed where he is now. He could leave at any time he liked, standing this close to the shoreline (it seems that the radiation doesn't bother him as it does the others; Buck doesn't much care for the reasoning behind that, but he assumes it's something to do with the mutations that made others grow wings and horns — he simply has one that allows him to never do such a thing). Instead, at least today, he finds himself greeting someone new.

Buck clears his throat, watching the ever-so-slightly unbalanced walk of a creature freshly back on land — he knows the feeling — with a distantly amused smile that shows itself more in his eyes than his mouth. Maybe he's not the only one looking for something familiar in every new detail. "Not the most efficient way to get here, I would say."