I would like to adopt!Number: 25
Picture:
Name: Dilleachta (Irish for orphan)
Species: German Smili
Personality: Dilleachta is very shy. She always feels awkward or out of place. She tends to keep to herself, but hates the feeling of complete abandonment. She tends to watch others. She is kind to others and will stand up for ones smaller than she. She is fiercely protective of anyone close to her, but she gives them space. Only when they need her help is she constantly by their side. She is very much a “Good Samaritan”.
Likes: “Smili” watching, quiet, kindness, peace, helping others, and gently flowing water
Dislikes: Death, abandonment, fire, lightening, war, lies, humans, and bullies.
Background: Dilleachta was born at the worst possible time. It had been a long, hard winter, and all of the Smili’s in her tribe were bone thin. Her mother had barely survived the harshness. She built her den, scratching fiercely at the hard, frozen ground. The den was dug in orange coloured clay, and her parents knew that Dilleachta would have beautiful fur. They looked to each other; maybe this winter would end well for them.
Dilleachta’s mother looked at her cub happily. She was beautiful, just as she had thought. She was pulled from her happy thoughts as a crackling sound from outside. She turned as her mate ran in, terror in his eyes. Bright orange and yellow light flickered angrily behind him, filling the room with and ominous, eerie glow. “FIRE! Hurry, grab the cub and come with me. We might be able to out run it.”
Her mother acted immediately, grabbing Dilleachta gently in her mouth and ran into the flames with her mate.
~*~*~*~
Chineal surveyed the damage, apathy for all of the burnt Smilis scattered around her. She nuzzled one here and one there, but all were still. Tears threatened to over flow her eyes as she began to give up hope of finding any living ones.
Just as she was about to turn and go back to her empty den, she heard a small whimper. She turned to see a badly burned female, her paws covering something that had a black tail. She raced to her side. “Can I help-“ she began, but before she could finish the female spoke in the softest of voices.
“Take her,” was all that was said, before her head slumped and her paws loosened. Chineal gasped at what was revealed. The black tail thing was a newborn cub, whose fur was the colour of the rich clay in the area. A black mask around her face, as though smoke had snuck in and given her a mask, to remind her of how she could have died had it not been for her heroic parents.
“I will,” Chineal whispered, grabbing the cub from its lifeless mother’s paws, tears now streaming freely down her face as she carried it carefully back to her den.
~*~*~*~
Eight Years Later…
Dilleachta smiled up at Chineal. They had been travelling awhile, and her feet were sore. “Can we stop, Mom? I’m tired,” she whined, sitting down.
Chineal laughed lightly, sitting beside Dilleachta. She knew what had to be done today, and it killed her to let her adopted daughter go. She forced the tears back. She hoped desperately that Dilleachta, who she had taken to calling Dill, would understand. “Dill,” she sighed, “I have something I must tell you.”
Dill grew a bit worried now. Her mother had never said that and ended up telling her something good. Such as the time that she and Dill moved away from their tribe to find a new life in Chineal’s original home, Pompeii. Dill always felt strange when her mother talked of Pompeii, as if she didn’t belong there. She had felt like she had belonged in their old tribe, as though she was one of them.
Dill watched as Chineal sucked in a breath and sighed. “I’m not your real mother,” she said quickly. Before Dill could react, she was speaking again. “It was after a fire, I was looking for others to help. I was just about to go home, and I heard your mother. She whimpered to me, she told me to take you. Than she was gone...”
Dill was in shock. Tears fell from her eyes. Her whole life had been a giant lie. No wonder she had felt apart of the tribe when her mother was so clearly out of place.
“Dill, I’m sorry. I had always wanted cubs. I was about to give up when I found you. You wouldn’t have understood.”
Dill stood, Chineal still speaking, and began to walk away. “Dill, please. I couldn’t let you go. Do you understand this harder for me than it is you?”
Dill exploded, turning on Chineal and growling fiercely. “So, it’s hard to give up a daughter that was never yours, but it’s super easy finding out that my whole life has been a lie and that I’m really an orphan!” She snarled at Chineal. “You’re no better than a snake, slithering your way into people’s lives and deceiving them, only for your own benefit.”
“That’s not what I meant. Please, Dill, I love you more than anything. Don’t do this to me,” Chineal was begging now. If she had had hands and knees, she would have been on them at this point.
“So selfish!” Dill screamed, furious. “All you have ever thought about was yourself! If you knew what I was, than why did you lead me to think I was like you.” She snarled and began running. It was awkward and painful, since she was not built to run, but she could have cared less.
“If I was so selfish, than why did I save you?!” Chineal called, as she began sobbing. That was last Dill ever heard of her.
~*~*~*~
Dill collapsed after running for Spirit knows how long. She was panting heavily, lying on her side. She heard a noise and looked up. She sniffed at the air between pants, but to no avail, for she was down wind. She didn’t like this and stood, falling back to the ground again. All of her running had turned her legs to Jell-O. She heard the movement, this time much more deliberate and coming straight for her. She remained still. Her best defence would have to be silence.
She watched as a mouse scurried out of a bush. She laughed at herself for being frightened by a mouse. Than she was tackled from behind by a much stronger animal than a mouse.
“Who are you, and what where you running from?” a deep male voice snarled from behind her.
“I’m Dilleachta, and I’m running from the truth,” she managed to squeak out in her terror. “And do I have the honour of asking who is keeping me pinned to the ground?”
The deep male voice laughed and let Dill up. “You have a mouth on you. I like that,” he said before Dill had turned to look at him. She turned to see a handsome male, the little mouse that had distracted her seated neatly on his shoulder. The name’s Laidir. You’re pretty far off from the closest tribe, since I know you aren’t in mine.” He flashed his pearly whites in a dazzling smile to her.
“My mother, or at least who I thought was my mother, decided to leave our tribe and move back to where she was from, Pompeii,” Dill said, starting to bring her adrenaline level back down.
“Pompeii, huu. Well, you can come back to my tribe with me. That is, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, I’ll go with you.” Dill said standing and wobbling, her legs still a bit like jelly.
“Here, let me help you,” Laidir said, reaching his shoulder out to steady her. They began to walk towards the north-west, away from Pompeii, and towards the setting sun.
~*~*~*~
They reached the camp well after dark. She could hear activity ahead or her and could see about three white smilis milling about. “You allow your Snow-Touched ones to stay with you? Why? It is so dangerous.” Dill asked Laidir. Snow-Touched smilis always frightened her, and she would never go out with them, fearing they would draw attention and they would be found.
“Our tribe is close to the Autobahn, so all the humans who might see them are moving to fast. Plus, you’re looking at the best Caller in Germany,” Laidir smiled ruefully at Dill.
“You’re a Caller?” she asked, surprised that such a strong, attractive smili would devote his time to luring humans away from the tribe rather than hunting and impressing females.
“I kind of had to. I was captured when I was younger while out on a hunt. My tribe and I got on to this tribe’s land. They took us captive. Most of my original pack mates are still here, but a few died off from old age. This tribe taught me to Call, since their Caller at the time was old and near death, and I was only nine years old,” Laidir spoke as if he where recalling a fabulous memory, which Dill had no doubt that he was.
“So, how old are you now?” Dill inquired, walking slowly beside Laidir as he led her around.
“I’m about 16 now, getting up there, aren’t I?” He laughed, his eyes shining as if tiny suns were imbedded in them. “How about you?”
“I’m eight, almost nine,” Dill replied, her eyes on the ground. She didn’t want to think about it. She was told she would have to take a mate once she was ten. That is, if anyone would take her.
~*~*~*~
Dill and Laidir spent the next couple of months getting to know each other. She went with him on patrols, watched him call strange things like, “Hello”, “Come look at this!”, and “What are you doing?”. She took up helping the older females with watching the cubs.
She and Laidir grew close. She was closer to him than anyone else in her life had been, including Chineal, who had raised her. She followed him around like a lost puppy, but Laidir never seemed to mind. In fact, he enjoyed it. Dill was the first Smili not from his tribe that he had grown attached to.
Dill was approaching her ninth birthday when Laidir came and told her the news. “The Chief is going to allow us to be mates earlier than normal!” He blurted out one day excitedly. Upon seeing Dill’s look of shock, he add, “That is, if you want to.”
“Of course I do!” Dill squeaked, jumping up and down and nuzzling Laidir, who purred happily.
“Tomorrow, than?” he asked, excitement oozing out of all his pores, infecting Dill with it.
“Absolutely,” Dill said, licking his nose and smiling broadly. Maybe her life was taking a turn for the better after all.
~*~*~*~
Dill watched as Laidir went off on patrol the morning before their ceremony. She had wanted to go with him, but had been asked by one of the elder smili females to help here around the camp. Always a helper, she had said yes, biding Laidir a farewell until he returned and they would become one.
After a couple of hours, Dill began to grow worried. He doesn’t normally take this long to patrol the border, she thought. “I’ll be back,” she said to the female she was helping, and went to search for him.
She followed his paw prints around, following the familiar path as it wound around the camp and out towards what Laidir had called the Autobahn. She watched as his paw prints grew less fluid and seemed to drag on the ground, as if he were day dreaming. It worried her a bit, but she figured he was just thinking about things. He had had a lot on his mind for the past couple of days.
She smiled at her self as she came across little drawings, pictures of her surrounded by hearts. She laughed at a few of them where he had attempted to draw them together.
What she saw next broke her heart. Next to a half finished doodle, the dirt was carved out, as if there had been a huge struggle. Than, further down the path, huge strips of dirt were dug out as if someone had been dragged away against their will. The strips of missing dirt passed through what looked like human foot prints. The marks abruptly stopped, and a bit of blood was splattered on the ground among human foot prints. A long seringe, which was broken in half, jagged shards pointing out in all directions, lay next to the blood. A tiny puddle of misty looking liquid lay around it, most of it having already disolved into the ground.
Next came the worst of it all. As Dill looked past the bloody foot prints, she saw tire tracks that led to the Autobahn. She hissed, tears rolling down her face. She turned back to tell the others in the tribe the news. Laidir was gone, and the humans may know that their little society existed.
A picture you drew: I might have to since Khisea will trounce me with art of epicness.
