Blackfoot Forest i'm always chasing time

forward-dated to tomorrow

His journey calls him over the mountains, names whispered faintly on the wind that he swears he can hear just a bit better as he gets closer. Closer to what, he wonders again, slowly winding his way between darkened trees. The forest is thick with shadow; it's been some time since the sun set, but he hardly minds. He can almost hear what's being said — no, sung to him.
It's everything he's lost, warm and alive and carried within the soft sound on the breeze, and he'll follow it until he dies. His steps slow until he comes to a stop, and he lifts his muzzle, eyes closed. The singing is louder now; it keeps getting louder until it's deafening — but it's stuck on one note, one name, one piece of the puzzle he so desperately needs to piece together.
@Mona, it shrieks, and dies to a whisper all at once.

the call rose from the forest where the strange and violent man had been, but it was not a call mona could ignore. she was not within bearclaw; she was out with the others, searching for the round little boy. and from time to time, at the very conception lucas would not be found, mona felt her cheeks run wet with tears.
and now cortland, a veritable, proverbial phoenix. she called back to him, a high-pitched and desperate sound as her scarlet paws found the path that would carry her forth to bridge the distance between them.

A scarlet girl appears from the trees, and he knows — her face is achingly unfamiliar to him, her scent foreign, but there's something about her presence. He knows it. He moves closer to her, heart racing inexplicably, and opens his mouth to say something — her name, perhaps. Too late he remembers that he can't; speech has been taken from him too, and he can't even ask the questions that burn in the back of his throat.
He closes his mouth, tries not to gag as he remembers the mutilation within, and gazes at her questioningly. Who are you to me? his eyes ask; his skin prickles with frustration. He can't voice it — never again. Perhaps he'll never get his answers.

she came to him, and he to her — mona drew close with a grin dying fast upon her lips.
"cortland?"
her voice was small, tremulous; she searched in his expression for the recognition that did not come. and he did not speak. mona's breath came faster; she glanced to the ground, then to her brother's soundless lips, and to the gaze that struggled to know her. what had happened to him? why had ... she had —
"cortland tobias, it's your sister. i'm your sister, mona. mona antha." surely these names would break him from whatever reverie clouded now his eyes. but the girl could not hide the dull ache in her chest, and now all the old guilt of how she had not kept him close arose, and threatened to choke her. "cort, please!"

His name spills from the girl's lips and time seems to slow and warp around them for a moment. Cortland Tobias — it sounds right, but it's missing something. His ears pull forward as she continues; his sister. He has a sister. Mona.
And he's never loved her more than he does now, even if he still doesn't quite recognize her. It feels right, and he knows the name Mona — so it must be. The despair in her expression sends a surge of guilt through him — for allowing himself to become this, however it'd happened. For hurting another with his own failure. He draws tentatively nearer, touching his nose to her cheek if he's allowed so close, and lingers. It's all he can offer her now.

mona stood, stunned, within her brother's embrace. his breath warm against her cheek, the gentle sound of it, brought alight the primal memories of infancy with him. he was someone remembered in her bones, the blood that now beat with a vaguely horrified sorrow through her veins. how could he not remember? "what —" came the involuntary blurt of her voice, before the firebird recalled he could not answer, recalled that he did not answer her, could not could not could not.
presently mona sniffed back her tears with a grim resolution settling onto the scarlet planes of her face. "i failed you once, cortland. i am not doing it again." the tremble of her lips cut away her words; for a moment mona was left whirling into the silent grip of self-loathing for not having sought cortland out, not followed him or tracked him soon after their last meeting. perhaps none of this would have happened if she had only been a proper sister.
"you're coming home with me, to bearclaw," the carmine child decided in her next breath. "come on, cort." her murkwater eyes searched the gently hazy expression in that of her brother, noting the love that still shimmered uncertainly in its depths. it was enough to set her cheeks to salt again; she jerked her head in the direction of the valley and moved off slowly, struck dumb and unable to look at him lest her guilt rise up and utterly consume her.