whenever you have time! <3
garait called for
@Venextos.
a wind rose then, whipping the nearby banks into a blinding frenzy; the gaul tucked his chin into the plush hairs of his chest, closing his eyes against the ice-edged onslaught until it had passed. the meadow was barren of ruminants; he had followed the spoor as far as it would lead him, and now lapped at his jaws with a hungry tongue.
it was time to depart; it was not a decision garait would make without the opinion of his pale brother, and he waited along the snowdrifted rise for the ranging wolf. wanderlust called, sparked by the resurgence of grief in his heart.
a call rose in the thin air and venextos paused from his scouting to oblige it. he picked up a steady lope, moving with much more fluidity than he had in the weeks before. the tincture of time had been what he and garait needed to recover from their wounds -- and while the grief in their hearts was still fresh, their legs were limber and ready for travel.
garait stood along a snow-clad rise and venextos trotted towards him, tail loosely wagging as he greeted his brother with adoring kisses. he would go -- wherever garait commanded -- for all he had left in this wicked world was his brother.
garait did not wait for many heartbeats before venextos paced to his side. his brother was greeted with rough affection and it quelled the bitterness in the gaul's heart, if just for a moment. venextos was the last pillar of blood possessed by garait, one he treasured above all.
"i asked skwol to join us," the
brennus murmured in their guttural tongue. however, he did not finish; that the great snowy wolf was not with them now was proof of skwol's answer.
"tuth?" garait suggested with a gesture of his muzzle in
aforementioned direction. however, his plush ears cupped for venextos' answer; they would come to an agreement before they set off.
venextos did not take the news sourly; he had met the wolf, and their exchange had been neutral -- but not warm. perhaps the fault was in his reaction to the stranger -- if there was one thing venextos had learned, it was to trust no one save his brother.
he did not regret keeping his guard up, though it was true three was often better than two when it came to traveling in numbers. a shame for them perhaps, though if fate was kind perhaps some day their paths would cross again. his gaze followed the diretion garait indicated and he dipped his muzzle in affirmation. "lead the way."
garait would lead this time; he nudged venextos with playful adoration once more before setting off at a wolf's-trot across the snowy land. may the gods bless each step; with any luck, they would find the promise of new hope somewhere north. always north.
enter 80s montage here
it was at once both bitterly slow going and quickly paced; the gaulish brothers passed a glen reeking of fox-scent, a small pool overlaid with ice, a marsh still burgeoning with life despite the bitter cold. snowdrifts threatened to swallow the pair; a never-ending expanse of white spread before them. twice were they forced to leave their path and seek shelter as some befouled wind rose and stormed through the winter-banked land. small game was what they felled as they marched, and garait did not know if they would be allowed to continue.
days bled into nights bled into days. no decipherable length of time had passed before garait licked his snow-dry lips and turned toward venextos, breathing warm air o'ertop his brother's poor assailed ears. and here new ridges spread out before them, peaks to their right and before them, and a great maplewood forest studded with stands of birch, rich with the hot scent of greater prey.
they set off; two souls against an incomprehensible and uncaring world. the days may well have been hours or years -- venextos did not keep track. all he knew was each mile sharpened his will for survival, each kill whetted his taste for vengeance -- and overtime, the passing days balmed his wounded heart at a glacial pace.
when they stopped at the foot of a forest flanked by high stone ridges, venextos drank in the expanse of the sky's rim and the way the mountains faded into cold fog. he turned to his brother with an encouraging shoulder and picked up a trot, following the heavy scent with a hungry quickness to his step.
venextos was eager to begin, and garait envied his brother's quiet enthusiasm. what drove his brother was not necessarily what motivated the quiet brute, but he knew that their thoughts of home oft overlapped, and dipped away in the same fashion — both of them carried the burden of dark anger, and both of them did not want to think of it. so garait assumed, and felt he was correct in such.
he lengthened his stride to fit his brother's own — venextos would lead now, and garait was content to follow. two ranging warriors in the snow, surmounters of the murder of their parents and pagi — he sensed rebuilding in the confidence of venextos' lope.
venextos found his vigor return to him as he focused on more primal things: eat, sleep, travel -- these tasks were hard, arduous even -- they tried his mental stamina and kept the wickedness of his thoughts at bay. perhaps it was better garait was unaware of his quiet troubles - the two brothers may have contrasted each other, but venextos knew he was but a cog without garait -- no more useful to a bird than a singular wing.
they coursed through fir dotted bosks, traversed a raw and tumbling granite landscape -- and at last came across a shadowed plains that sat beneath the eminent rise of a mountain. venextos knew when he came across this pallid landscape, that it was their frontier -- the refashioned home they had been looking for. he looked to his brother in silence -- his expression saying it all.
garait knew the words his brother spoke in silent tones. he sat to gaze at the mountain, and in it he saw the greatness that they shared between them. here was rebirth, reawakening, stone dawn. the man shook out his ruff, ran salmon tongue along his jaws, lifted his nares to scent the air. even beneath the snowfall, shot through with veins of ice, garait knew the peak housed fecund life, a quiet druid among her rocky bedfellows. venextos had chosen well, though garait chose not to comment on that, nor the possibility of prosperity the mountain held.
instead, in the tongue shared only by the pair of them, the gaul gave the dry mutter it is not very beautiful, is it? he sought to tease venextos in their own way, his ability to joke severely compromised by the very nature of his being.