#sondor

XDD

Okay lemme see what I can come up with.

-Sondor doesn't technically need to eat or drink, but he likes to do so once in a while. He has a *very specific* favorite food that he will gleefully do almost anything for. It's some kind of flavored jerky that is known for being near unchewable.

-Sondor: *happy crunchy chewing noises*

-This pup will happily claw open a bag and dump the entire thing in his mouth do not test him.

-Sondor likes to prank people sometimes. He's long since learned that when it's "dark" or "night" (not that he can really tell those very well since he's conventionally blind), people have trouble seeing him unless they're close. So sometimes he likes to sit in a dark corner and just- stay there. Looming. Until someone turns around and sees his mask in the darkness.

-The *screech* Roman gives the first time makes Sondor laugh.

-If Sondor goes out anywhere, he's usually with Neo since Neo can use her Semblance to make him look like a really big dog instead of a Grimm, Sondor is fascinated by being able to trundle around human inhabited locations without people running and screaming.

-Lots of people have cooed over the sight of Oscar riding around on the back of the illusion covered Sondor, which makes Oscar snicker slightly at times.

-The HCs are nebulous so this isn't necessarily canon but I do want Qrow and Sondor to meet? Likely when Qrow is a birb and is looking for Oscar. Probably *after* whatever the first Oscar sighting was for Oz and co. But the thing is, Sondor doesn't "see" conventionally. He sees Auras, and Dust, and the faint light of magic welling up from the ground.

-So when he looks up at Qrow in bird form he can see Qrow's human Aura. And he knows who Qrow is, he remembers him from Before, but it's still puzzling to him that this human can turn into a bird shape.

-So I can see him spotting Qrow at one point and reaching out with his stretchy arm to catch the birb and gently pin him down to inspect him.

(Oh Sondor, you have no idea... XD)

...

     He growled darkly to the colder night air as he tucked himself against the thrumming bark of an old tree. Finding his pups was going to take longer than he’d thought, and searching blindly would only make it longer. He needed some kind of … plan. A way to hunt them. He’d never had to track something so far away before. So … he had to think. Where would his pups most likely be if they weren’t with him?

     …Human places. The nests and dens of Man. They would shelter in those places, away from the other Grimm. He rubbed a paw over his skull again, trying to focus on the memories of the Just-Before, the ones that had led up to him breaking free of the Dark long before he should have. There had been … a plan. Yes. A plan to go back. To find people. To fix things. Neo Pup had been adamant about going to her Roman, and while Sondor couldn’t quite recall what a “Roman” was, he knew that it was important to Neo Pup and it was in a Man place called Vale. Neo Pup was the oldest, she would collect the other pups and take them with her, so that meant he had to find this … this “Vale” and Neo Pup’s “Roman”, and those would lead him to his pups.

     …That would be much more helpful if he had any idea where he was in relation to this the Man place called Vale. But still! She had always spoken with contempt of Man and their few places of safety, so surely there weren’t that many Man places. If he searched them all, he was bound to find Vale soon enough. Plan made, Sondor nodded to himself and curled up, allowing his mind to drift through old, faded impulses and half-memory that were as close as he ever got to the thing Emerald Pup had described as “dreams”. He would begin his search for Vale when he awoke, and hopefully find his pups within a few more moon-rises.

...

     So.

(I’m having fun with Sondor’s POV, but it’s so harrddd)

...

     Other Grimm spotted him as they crawled out of the pools of darkness, he could hear them pull free of the liquid with confident-hungry-angry growls only to quiet and scrabble away in fear as he passed. The pair of Beowolves noticed it eventually, Beowolves gathered in packs, and even newly hatched ones knew that it was strange that no others had joined them on their journey yet. They looked around, and if there were places to hide himself, Sondor couldn’t see them, he had enough trouble just walking silently over the broken ground. They bolted and he snarled as he gave chase, but they were already too far away, and he couldn’t judge his surroundings well enough to run them down. He needed a guide and nothing would keep him from his pups. Certainly not this.

     He detoured to one of the pools and waited despite the aches just being near the liquid darkness gave him. He could hear the gurgling of it, the bubbling pain-anger-hunger that meant another Grimm was going to drag itself free soon. The moment he heard the new Grimm’s head and claws emerge, he reached out with a paw that cracked-hurt-changed and grabbed its neck. He hauled it onto the shore, pinning it down as it yowled in terror. Leaning close, he rumbled at it, jaws slightly parted to show off his individual teeth, “Quiet-still-obey-submit.”

     It stilled immediately, too afraid not to. It shuddered faintly under his grip, then chirped a meek, “Submission-quiet-obedience.”

     He shook it’s neck angrily with his paw, a warning that trying to run would end badly, then growled, “Hunting-finding-Light-world-where?”

     “Knowledge-fear-submission.”

     “Lead-slow-obey-don’t-run-show.”

     A final chirp of meek obedience and he let it up. The Beowolf scrabbled to its paws and crawled ahead of him, slinking low across the broken ground as it led Sondor to where he needed to go. If he had been in the pool longer, then he could have found it himself. The dark would have put the knowledge in his head like it once had, an instinctive pull toward the hidden places where Grimm left their hatching grounds and instead spread out to the world of Auras and life and men. But he was here early, aching and stubborn and searching for his pups, and while he knew that he had once known where the hidden places were, he could no longer feel them. He needed a guide.

     The Beowolf led him to one hidden place, but a careful sniff at it and the trails of Grimm that passed through it and he knew it was the Cold Place —what was its human name. Manit? Mans? He couldn’t remember, that part of his memory was so fuzzy—. The one of snow and blood and war. His pup would never go there willingly. He swatted the Beowolf to the ground when it tried to sneak away and demanded it show him another one. This one was tucked on the top of a broken hill, and Sondor had to tread warily to avoid tumbling down the edges he could barely sense. This hidden place smelled like green things and old stone and the Grimm trails were of Grimm that liked to hunt in the warmer places. There was no way to tell if his pups were on the other side, but … it was better than the Cold Place, and it was better than here. It would do.

Photographer: @anthonysondor Model: @ka_ilani