@Awinita
He had intended to travel Northward, to see what ventures he could find along the coast, for he had glimpsed the sea while travelling the mountains, and decided it might be something of worth. Yet instead, he found himself in the East again, a long way from the way he'd meant to go. The trek over the mountains left him weary, and as the bruise of the night began to fade, Wirt considered turning in.
The first forest he'd passed through had been nothing but cinder, husks of trees that once stood glorious, yet now bent over dark and razed by fire. Thankfully, a little way further found him basking in a quaint sprawl of healthy trees and underbrush. Though burdened by snow, their naked boughs provided adequate shelter and, with a water source nearby, seemed an ample place to settle for the morning. With nothing more than sleep in mind, Wirt began to prod at the larger boughs of evergreens in search of a suitable shelter.
It had been a few days since she had ran from the Misty hell where she was raped and beaten by a blackfeather. After the deed she had ran and her body had been tended to by a nice lady but her mind...her mind patched itself in it's own way by completely blocking the memory of what happened. She didn't even know how to explain the wounds all over her back or why her rear end hurt so badly. The wounds on her back were infected and causing a fever that would make her delerious if not tended to. She ran until the pain nearly got to her but even then she pushed on.
The pain got to her finally and though she pushed herself she ended up collapsed by the waters edge. A few hours later she was having a nightmare except her subconscious instantly knew it was real. A shadowy man on top of her forcing himself inside her as she screamed and pleaded, pain tearing her back, the stench of blood. In her sleep she screamed and whined but she remained asleep the fever making her too exhausted to wake up from this memory.
Finally as the memory came to an end she woke up, jumping to her feet with a shrill cry of panic "Don't touch me!" The words came roaring from her mouth before she took a look around and realized she was alone in the night and she wasn't sure that made her feel any better.
Wirt dipped and shimmied underneath the evergreen, the branches tickling his face. The boughs formed arched to provide a roomier hideaway than he could have guessed from the outside, and snow packed to insulate the interior from the wind and cold. With a turn of his head this way and that, Wirt back out and shook the needles from his snout. Prime real estate. This would do wonderfully. The lack of birds was a bonus - he had the utmost confidence this time, he wouldn't be hunted as a grouse.
With his sleeping quarters settled and his throat quenched, he obliged the deep rumble of his stomach and dropped his snout to pick up any signs of prey. The forest didn't immediately swarm with options - yet his brow pinched. Wolf. Normal enough - but he gathered a familiar scent, and something sinister...
A cry rent the night, and Wirt felt every hair on his body rise. His breath caught, and his blood froze. He stood as a statue, melded at once with the shadows - a practised art that had saved him many times. His only movement came in the turn of his ear. The voice had come from the shore - distorted, pained, in trouble. He waited a second more, but it did not rise again.
Many thoughts presented themselves for him to assess, many reasons and worries of what could have provoked such a scream. He was no fighter, and was not prepared to ward off evil with his teeth, but the cry had been a woman's cry, and her distress spurred him forward. Fear reared inside, dark and ugly. He prayed. I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Wirt pushed through the bushes dividing him and the shore, and squinted, hoping he was not too late. But she was alone. Her silhouette cut a bright patch against the darkness, yet through the dim shadows of dawn, he could not recognize her, though she seemed somehow familiar to him. "Who's there?" his voice trembled. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
It had taken a few moments for the panic to fade into simple fear. She no longer quaked so hard that she could fall over but she still hunkered down on the ground, trembling with wide eyes that stared blankly into the air. She hadn't heard his approach and so when his voice rang out she yelped again and turned over onto her back, submitting instinctively "Awinita...I'm Awinita please don't hurt me!" She pleaded in a small voice, eyes peering at him. In the darkness and her delirium he was a shadowy brute and a choked sob left her maw. She rolled back over and backed up, promptly falling backward and into the icy water.
She sputtered and coughed as she resurfaced the shock of the frigid water clearing her mind instantly. She scampered out onto the shore and pressed herself to the ground, shivering and coughing. She looked back up at him with miserable eyes "S..sorry. I'm sick and not quite right in the head right now..I thought you were... someone else" she said. After looking at him a bit longer she recognized him "W.. Wilhelm right?" She asked again before beginning to shiver as the wind began to blow.
His throat caught as she crashed to the ground, the air ripe with the stench of her fear, and he backed up a pace as though holding up his hands to show he meant no harm to her. Awinita? The resemblance clicked, but if she hadn’t given a name, he’d have thought her a stranger still. Scared, shivering, and clearly not right - whatever had transpired in the short time he'd left her, this was not the same girl he’d met mere suns before.
"Yes, yes, it's me. It's Wilhelm." He took a weary step forward, and stopped. She lay sodden on the shoreline, caked in a dry ooze of blood, and in the drench of icy water from the shattered lake. The breeze did not favour them, and he watched helpless as she began shake against the bitter wind. “It's Wirt.” She herself said her mind was not sound, and he hoped the double moniker would secure her trust that this was really him. He needed to get her dry and warm - but would she let him come any closer? "I promise, you are safe with me. I will not hurt you." But someone had, that much was clear - and though the question loomed like shadows, he sought to address her immediate need. "We need to get you out of the wind and away from the chill of the lake. Even just a few steps. The forest will guard you from the cold." Though gentle, there was an underlying urgency to his voice he couldn't expell.
She kept her eyes upon him despite the desire to just curl up into herself against the wind and fall asleep. That's all she really wanted, to escape to the land of dreams where she could be anywhere right now, even home again with momma and Pappa and Nikan. The thought of Nikan brought both warmth and fear to her chest and she gave a strangled moan. Her deignated husband. Her best friend. The one who admitted he thought he owned her. He had never gone as far as the shadowed brute had but there was still always this underlying darkness about Nikan, something wrong with him beneath the surface. Maybe that's why she really left home...
Realizing she had slipped into her memories and been staring into the open air, she caught him say his nickname. Wirt. The hesitation in his voice made her wonder if he was scared of her. Why would he be frightened of her? But as he continued to speak promising that she was safe, she realized he might be scared for her. She pushed herself up from the ground slightly and belly crawled toward him, sinking low beneath him in instinctual submission "I'll come to the forest but his pack is so close by...I'm scared he'll come for me again" she whispered staring at the ground between both of their paws.
For a moment she seemed to lose herself, and Wirt lowered his head to gauge whether or not she was responsive. His outward demeanour remained calm, save for the apprehension in the distance he kept, but inwardly he wrestled with questions, worries, concerns. Something had obviously happened to the girl to damage her this terribly, and it was hard for him to keep from guessing at what. He tried not to linger on any one assumption before Awinita had a chance to speak.
The way she approached him twisted his heart with a strike of anger - no woman, nor any wolf, for that matter, should feel the need to cower for fear of what lurked in the dark. And there she went - mentioned a lead, a clue. A man. The wounds on her back. The pieces began to click, though vague, and mainly guesswork. For the moment Wirt pulled his eyes away from the damage and focused on Awinita's downturned face. "Hey, now listen," he kept his voice gentle and soft, and lowered himself to the ground so he could be eye-level with the shivering girl. "I've been around the forest tonight, and I promise you, it's safe here. Once you're dry and your wounds are clean, and you're able to walk again, I will do whatever it takes to bring you somewhere better, somewhere far from whoever did this to you." He quirked his mouth, and tried to meet his grey eyes with hers. "There's a spot not far from here that can shelter us. So long as you're with me, nobody will hurt you. I promise."
As he crouched down to level with her she looked up into his eyes. Something about the gesture spoke of kindness and safety and she found herself wanting to trust him. He said he'd been around the forest that night and it was safe and she almost whined. What had happened was days behind her but it still was so fresh in her mind it only felt like hours. Despite the doubt she nodded again, after he swore she'd be safe as long as she was with him. "Please...don't leave me" she whispered. She didn't know where the words came from, he was practically a stranger to her but all this fear and vulnerability left her feeling like a pup who needed sheltering from the world again. After all...it was illogical to believe that he'd stay with her forever. but it was also just illogical to believe there was no such thing as evil.
thee thought brought a bitter snort from her nose and she closed her eyes taking a deep breath. How had her family ever believed that evil didn't exist? That man had done this to her without having a reason to justify it at all. Nothing could ever justify that. Finally she got herself settled down enough and slowly stood up again "I trust you wirt...I'll come with you" she spoke softly again, swaying on her paws as the fever and sheer exhaustion caused the world to sway for a few moments.