What poses as a verdant, rolling field ends abruptly with the rearranging of white paws at the edge of a sheer cliff. The outrider might've kept walking, oblivious to the danger over the next rise, but she spots the glint of the sun on the waves just in time to slow her momentum. She pricks her ears forward, unable to hide the alarum from her face as her heart speeds up in her chest and she faces the openness of air in front of her, with nothing to catch her should she fall. A pebble crumbles away beneath her toes and she takes three steps back, poised to run as if the entire cliff face could crack away at any moment.
But it holds solid without even a sound, and Saena breathes out a relieved sigh. The relaxation of her muscles and hackles is such that her figure visibly deflates. That would be one way to go, she thinks. Reek would never forgive her if she fell to her death from here. As far as her mate knows, Saena is on a trip to survey Redtail Rise and how it fares since the fire. Phoenix Maplewood is home to both of them now, comfortable and safe, but the alpha female still yearns for the ridge.
She had gone there, initially, but the sight of the still-charred mount proved too much for her and she rearranged her course to end up here. Now, she licks her chops nervously and casts around herself, seeking any familiar sight, but there are none. She's never walked along the cliffs before, and this area is completely new to her. Being an outrider, this is exciting to Saena, but being an alpha female with every intent of returning home without incident, it's nerve-wracking as well.
@Casmir
Present tense challenge.
Cas strikes out from the plateau with a soured expression. the boy has grown much in the past months, but he has also discovered a world of hurt when it comes to girls. he creates a beeline for the coast, ignoring the fact that he has been instructed to visit his mother at the dark forest. it could wait -- he makes an executive decision not to go and trots up the beach a ways, heading not toward the sentinel but directly toward the ocean.
a stony outcropping of cliffs distracts him - the boy cuts off his path to veer toward them and peers curiously upward. the inquisitive voice overtakes the more logical tones, and soon Cas has climbed gingerly upon the first ledge, and then another. soon he is atop the cliff face and fighting not to look down, pleading with himself.
the Mayfair child chooses careful footholds, but his eyes are caught by a familiar flash of white fur -- there, not far upon her own trek, was the woman he once tried to save from that brute in the meadow. the aspiring outrider is tempted to hurry his steps and catch up with her, but the intelligent brain kicks in and told him NO, and so Cas only raises his voice in a chuff, hoping to catch her attention.
Even the air smells unfamiliar here. Saena cants her muzzle upward, sniffs deeply the salt on the breeze. She's been to the ocean before, but it's been a while. An errant wind off the coast ruffles her fur and intensifies the salty tang to something almost unbearable; she scrunches her nose and makes to turn away, and that's when Casmir's voice reaches her.
For a moment, she doesn't recognize him. Her hackles ripple with uncertainty. But then his face, somewhat more filled out than she remembers, with its deep gold-orange eyes, triggers familiarity and she is reminded of that day with Burke. He'd been younger then—but so had she. Time hadn't changed Casmir much, she notes as she begins to pick her way toward him. He's thicker now, but much the same as well. She places her feet carefully, mindful of the precarious edge she treads along. There's no telling where the cliff might weaken, and she doesn't wish to traumatize him by falling. She also wants to live, of course, and so she walks slowly but deliberately.
For now, Saena holds her tongue. She's curious what the boy wants with her and why he drew attention to himself, but she assumes he'll say something when she's nearer. His hesitance doesn't register with Saena, who knows nothing about the boy except that he's younger than her and wouldn't understand it anyway. Besides, she isn't always very perceptive, and has no issue going to him without knowing he's specifically chosen to stay where he is.
Cas actually has nothing to say -- his brain functions upon seeing the pale creature were limited to 'there's that pretty girl i saw one day -- ' but he travels toward her nevertheless, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other style, feeling his pawpads touch rounded edges and jagged crags by turn. the going is slow but he is happy to do it, if not to share a brief camaraderie with the woman about how high up they are and how amazingly sweet that is.
because, he assumes, as he moves toward her with all the speed of two mating snails stuck in a sea of blackstrap, his sentiments were shared by the strange-but-familiar woman. if they weren't, why was she up here? was it to look at the waves? that was easily done by going to the beach. the ocean was literally right there. was it to hunt? there was nothing to hunt up here, unless you liked to eat rocks and weird barnacles.
a darker possibility suddenly occurred to him; his throat constricts with horror, and Cas stumbles as he tries to take a larger step toward the pale woman. "don't --!" he chokes out, before his stomach lurches into his throat and he flattens himself against the cliff face briefly, heart pounding at his very narrow escape from a plunge to his death. the pale woman is forgotten for now; the Mayfair child feels the ground beneath his body, the coolness of it, and concentrates on regulating his breath.
She places her paws carefully, but her eyes remain on Casmir. Something about him is familiar but she doesn't remember the boy from Blacktail Deer Plateau. She remembers only that Lasher and Blue Willow have children, but their appearances have since grown so hazy in her mind that she doesn't make a connection. He is simply the strange boy that tried to stop Burke to her, and that's likely all he'll remain unless they draw closer to one another. And then, who knows, maybe they'd find they have something in common.
It's not to be, though. Casmir must sense something that Saena doesn't, for her calls out in a strangled voice to he and she pauses, but not soon enough. Where her foot lands, the cliff edge is unstable, and before she knows it it crumbles and her leg slips into the abyss. She barely has time to gurgle out an alarmed yelp before her body follows, made unsteady by the sudden change in balance. She attempts to grip the cliff with her back paws, but the pitch of her front half sends her tumbling into open air with no chance of saving herself from falling.
the woman turns toward him, and Cas lifts his chin from where it's been pressed into the rocky shards beneath him. yet she does not speak, only slips, and windmills helplessly in the cold, open air. horror floods his body -- he believes he has startled her into the mishap, and so gathers himself quickly from where he lays, rushing haphazardly along the cliffline, aware that with each step he too could fall.
as he races, he exhorts himself to greater speed -- the Mayfair child slips once, and his stomach lurches into his throat. bile burns the back of his mouth, but he does not allow himself to hurl -- not now! he is needed, and if he succeeds, he will have hopefully saved his companion. the long muzzle reaches, jaws snapping for her pale ruff -- he does not know if he will succeed, or stand aghast above her, watching the halfway familiar woman plummet to what may very well be her death below.
There's a delay between the fall and her comprehension of it where her mouth is stretched open in silent horror, but then a frightened scream rips from her throat and her stomach leaps. She's unable to see Casmir, but in a split second he's closed the distance. He reaches out and she feels him grab hold of her ruff, but gravity coupled with his distance is enough that he rips a tuft of hair free but doesn't stop her. She plummets and in so doing, squeezes shut her eyes in anticipation for pain.
It comes. She hits the ground with a sickening thud and feels pain slice through her side, but it's not the impact she was expecting. The rocky beach was so far below that impact should've immediately killed her. This impact has certainly broken a rib or two, but thankfully only that; she hit with her side and though her shoulder smarts and her hip is on fire, Saena is free from any terribly immobilizing breaks besides a cracked rib. She slowly blinks open one eye to find the world spinning as pain wells up and overwhelms her, but she keeps it open long enough to see Casmir on a ledge above.
She is lucky to have landed on a ledge rather than on the beach below. Her hindleg dangles over the lip of this ledge, and between it and the beach, there is nothing but air. A couple steps further and Saena would have missed this ledge entirely. She tries to breathe a sigh of relief, but her consciousness is slipping as adrenaline, fear and shock begin to set in, and soon her open eye rolls back and she passes out.
time seems to slide into a horrid halt as Casmir's jaws take the better part of a century to close, snagging not the woman but a tuft of pearly white fur from her nape. She careers into open air; he sees the flash of her bright eyes once before she closes them tightly. For a millenia she free-falls into empty air; Cas stares in hugely growing horror, his paws gripping the edge of the cliff, a cry of terror and shock ripping from his throat to follow her. The image will forever be etched into his memory, as will the horror of the event.
The sickening smack of her body against a rock shelf a fair distance below them causes the boy to wince, to bite off his shout and whimper. Her gaze meets his own, then blinks out like a snuffed lamp. Panting in shock, adrenaline pounding through his body, the boy can only stand and stare down at her pale and crumpled form.
All at once time finds itself and he does the same, and Lasher's clear and resolute nature fills his mind. Cas calms himself and begins to search for a way down to the woman; there is a tiny series of precarious footholds to his left, and without hesitating any longer the boy traverses the side of the cliff, letting himself breathe only when his forelegs are planted on either side of her shoulders along the ledge.
He lowers his muzzle to nose her chin and lick her eyes, hoping to wake her, for now that he has achieved his goal he is unsure of what to do, what to say.
When next she opens her eyes, it's the result of Casmir's careful ministrations. She doesn't remember what happened or where she is until she attempts to stir and a sharp pain stabs through her side. She sucks in a breath, lets her head fall back to the cold stone, and tries to hold onto her sanity even though she wants to scream and throw a fit. Her grip is tenuous, though, and soon she says in a sharp voice, "what the fuck?"
Somehow she knows it's not Casmir who pushed her—it was the cliff that had crumbled away—but in her prone state she's still nervous about his nearness. He could too easily inflict a lot of pain and damage with nothing more than the placement of a broad paw on her side and a bit of pressure. The thought makes her heart pound harder and soon she's bordering hyperventilation, with each breath sending agony spiking through her system. She's feeling light-headed. Soon enough she'll pass out again, but presently her exposed eye, clouded with panic and pain, remains fixed on Casmir's face.
soon she rouses, spitting an epithet up at him, and the boy blinks, unsure of how to respond. "the cliff fell out from under you. i tried to grab you, but i was too slow," the Mayfair child explains, looking down at her. it feels odd, because he is looking at the woman and their eyes are meeting in a weird, upside-down way, but then again, the whole thing is surreal. he has been sure she was going to die, falling out into open space like that, but here she is, and if anything in her body is untouched, it is her voice.
the woman begins to pant short breaths, her side heaving, pelt juddering with the violence of her movements, and Casmir is besieged by a panic himself. he is afraid to touch her, terrified that whatever affliction crept into her body and is now making her shake could rub off on him. some small, cool, logical part of the boy knows that isn't possible, but his consciousness shouts for him to get away! "d-do ... should i call someone?" Casmir asks hesitantly, because he is young and foolish and lacks the know-how that would have led him to do this already. he needs to be guided, and as wounded and riddled with panting as she is, the woman is older, and therefore an automatic mentor.
You can fade! Casmir can stay or go, doesn't matter to Saena since she's unconscious! If he stays, feel free to powerplay her a little bit to fade out.
Air whooshes rapidly into her lungs attempts to calm herself, unwittingly making the problem worse. Every breath sends a stabbing pain through her side, but somehow it only makes her breath even faster. It's like she's in another world, for Casmir's question hits her ears but is not registered and she stares vacantly at him. Before long, Saena's eyelids flutter, her eyes roll back and she slumps into unconsciousness once more.
Only now does her broken rib get a reprieve from her panicked breaths, for soon her breathing is slow and steady, but catches at the end with subconscious knowledge of the pain that comes with breathing too deeply.
she passes out, and Cas reels from a mixture of confusion and shock. and yet the boy forces himself to recover, to gaze down at her still face until his breathing becomes controlled and logic refloods his brain. his father. while he is loathe to leave her, Cas understands that she is in need of medical attention, at least to be monitored by his mother, and so he backs slowly along the ledge, glancing down several times as he climbs the footpath again.
checking once more that she remains, Cas speeds off in the direction of home. at the borders, it is not Lasher he finds, but Regulus, and after a breathless synopsis of what has occurred, the two darkfurred younglings return in time to the cliffs where the woman fell.
but she is no longer there.