Risks & Old Glory || Shiloh-Ellis
The beast moved while his friend continued to deny him the answer he wanted, though they both knew he was here in the first place because Ellis had just known the wolf would leave. Shiloh felt a tad guilty he had placed such stress upon his friends who had thought something more permanent had happened to him a few months ago, but he had prevailed. And he couldnât continue to dwell on thingsâ he needed to act, to hunt for answers, to fill holes in his history that he was obviously missing. Everyone told him to look ahead, and this one time he was his dear friend was set on convincing him not too. It was warming regardless in the dense chest of the beast that almost purred his contentment to hearing his friends worries. He patted Ellisâ shoulder in passing with a small chuckle.
Pushing open the bright blue door to his house, he started about packing his bags. Even taking the liberties to pack Ellis a few clothes he had spare in a trunk from when he traveled here for trade purposes a few times a year.Â
âTak is going, we can go with the pirate. We will be more than safe, he wouldnât ever let anything happen to cause you such peril as your last trip,â he said with hint that there wouldnât have ever been a chance such a horrible experience to have happened if Shiloh had been with Ellis when he decided to leave him in England without a goodbye. He bristled at the reminder that his friend could have died to the ocean and he never would have known had he still been in the forest.
âI know this is risky,â He said with an attempted smile, testing the edge of his favored sword while he looked over to his friend. Debating about how much he wanted to fill him in on. If it even mattered being so honest about his intentions there. What Cenric and him talked about while he was here had stirred things in him. The appearance of Silasâ wolves in the Ports to take Edgar had maybe surprised them both. Shiloh had his theories about why Cenric was in Athoria. And he knew deep down that he wanted to kill the boy himself just to avoid all that happened. But Shiloh had turned him, he hadnât listened, and he was ultimately the one who had to murder him. Nothing between Cenric and Shiloh was what it seemed, and the wolf couldnât risk telling anyone anything.
âWill you please trust me?â he said placing the blade away, and grabbing a bow and a quiver of arrows to add to the small growing pile. âYou trusted your instincts coming here. And I know you think itâs to convince me from going, but itâs really an opportunity for the both of us isnât it? Both times we left England a right mess, horrible things happened to us. But weâre together now. You and me. Letâs do this how it should have happened, make peace with some shit and come home.â He rolled a growl to the final word. The importance of his friend understanding that he was both determined to come back. That Athoria was their home and maybe, additionally hiding the fact that things would probably go horribly wrong there. Ellisâ instincts were dead on regardless of what Shiloh was saying, but at the root of it. Shiloh knew what to expect, he would rather not go alone for once.
Ellis, for perhaps the first time he could remember, hesitated for a moment at the threshold of Shilohâs home. It was just a split second of pause, memories of the wolfâs disappearance and the state of the place he left behind still fresh, still seared into his most recent of memories. Dark eyes blinked away such things, inky depths taking in with reassurance how everything had been set right again instead, though such a sight did little to assuage his current worries,
âNah, yâdonâ need to pack anythinâ forââ The darkling hovered, not sure what to do with his too-hot hands other than find more itchy skin to scratch as if the sea had already infiltrated his very pores, not interested in helping even though he could already see which way the wind was blowing.
ââaw, shyte.â Narrow shoulders sagged as he slowly gave up, swallowing ash. The wolf was trying to be reassuring, smiling at him and promising him that some crazy pirateâs ship was somehow safer than any of his other options for traveling the sea. There were just some horrible, irrational fears that Ellis couldnât understand, some internal weakness woven into his very being as a darkling of fire and as being a creature wrapped in mortal, human flesh. He had no desire of ever extinguishing his existence by water, the very thought beyond horrible.
âItâs noâ âbout trustinâ yer fur-brained self, anâ ye knowât.â The blacksmith smirked, dark eyes straying to Shilohâs weapon choices, unable to keep himself from making a chiding noise as he glanced at the hilt, as if he disapproved of the wear it had endured, as if he simply couldnât stand the sight of the thing, âItâs all thâunpredictable shyte I donâ trust, everyone else. Everyone there.â
Family ties were hard for Ellis, though he valued the close friendships he had almost above anything he could call familial. He certainly had never been able to wrap his mind around pack life, around pack mentality, but heâd convinced himself in England that the pack that Shiloh once belonged to was somehow wrong, broken, or at least misdirected. He could trust one wolf, it was true, and he did, but those other wolves? No. Never.
âI werenât a mess.â The darkling laughed, somewhat defensively, âAll those decades ago, âsides yerself, England jusâ didnât hold anythinâ for me. So I left. Anâ it werenât like I could tell ye nothinâ. I couldnât send letters into the Forest oâDean.â Is that something Shiloh wanted to hear? Did he hold a grudge for Ellis leaving him? There was nothing for him to fix there; all that he had broken or all that had broken him was dead and buried. Heâd definitely made Athoria his home, made Leeds his isolated sanctuary,
âThereâs no keepinâ ye here, but yer noâ goinâ by yerself. I donâ know how much backup I can be âround yer kind should there be troubleââ Ellis paused, finally moving from his unmoving stance in the threshold of his friendâs home. Ignoring all the packing that was going on, he began to wander in search of some way to start the drinking that would be entirely necessary to both motivate him to get on a ship and for him to forgive himself for giving into something so terribly foolish and dangerous, snooping through all of Shilohâs things and making it obvious what he was looking for, ââbut I got work lined up for some âo spring, so weâre noâ dyinâ there. Ye hear me?â









