A misty and late afternoon was caroused with the noise of a stampede, as a deer herd scattered from the reckless charging of a hunger-pained wolf. Inexperience and impatience made him a poor hunter, and flinging himself after anything he thought was near enough to run down was only one of his many mistakes as an adult meant to care for himself. He kept fairly good pace with the herd, though he was realizing in his tiring pursuit that he wouldn't have the strength to bring any of these fit deer down by himself. Any would-be young or injured herbivores had already broken away from him, which left him desperately chasing a group of the herd that had kept together. His loss officially came when they reached Otter Creek.
The ungulates bounded through with barely any slack in their pace, but Rickon's speed was entirely bogged down trying to get through the water. By the time he had reached the opposing bank, the deer were at a distance too great to make up. Rickon slowed, dripping and panting as he watched them go; and as an unhelpful reminder, his stomach growled in lament.
He had woken from his nightmare to find it had not ended. His skin burned, his face felt flush, his eyes were red-rimmed. It felt as if the hairs across his body were trembling and trying to crawl out of his very skin, but was likely a remnant of the sensation of the ants which had caked across his limbs in his slumber. Crescent was not alright. The piperidine within his system was at a ridiculous level and the boy, eager to find a remedy, had stumbled his way through the deep and dark forest until he could find something to ease his suffering. It was not an unbearable experience, just an unfortunate one — unexplainable, and terrifying.
His mind was spinning, and his body was feverish. All that Crescent could think as he paced between the trees was, water! I need water! So towards the scent of water he did go, but he did not make it very far. Just as the river was coming in to view beyond a stand of strangely curving trees, he thought he heard the crack of thunder. The boy lifted his head and looked skyward, stumbling and swaying as he tried to keep himself balanced and up on his feet, but there was nothing but the big open blueness of summer's ending. Then, as he resumed his awkward roaming towards the water, he thought he heard more and more booms, as if rain had begun to fall and each drop was a war drum; but it was only his heart, and an oncoming rush of deer.
Deer?
Crescent was standing on one side of the creek when the herd came ploughing through it. Their limbs drew up the water and their hooves clattered on the river stones, while their bleating and panicked cries drifted around him. They saw him easily, as he stuck out so plainly upon the bank with his platinum pelt, but seemed to eddie around him like a river around a rock.
It was failure he felt burning in his chest, and not a lack of oxygen. He turned back towards the water, dejected and slightly more hungry than before, only to be completely surprised by a figure standing numbly on the bank he had just crossed. He couldn't remember noticing the young wolf there before, but he was plain as day now, and Rickon wondered how he had ever missed the sterling, disheveled boy. Trying to rein in his heavy breathing, the inky yearling drew a in a deep breath so that he could speak without needing to break for air. "Saw that disaster, huh?" he huffed, moving on stilted limbs back to the Creek. "M'not much of a hunter," he murmured self-deprecatingly, crouching to lap briefly at the water.
Every time I post with Crescent its directly after work, so I'm exhausted, and he never makes sense lmao.
When the last of the creatures drifted around him (a young thing like himself, sniffing curiously until he shifted his snout towards it, and it bolted the rest of the way to safety) Crescent was left feeling more mystified than before. Had he been more with it, he might've considered the cacophonous moment to be something akin to a religious experience; rather, he was perplexed by it, bearing witness to the herd as if he were miles away, because mentally he wasn't there at all. His skin still burned. Water soaked in to his toes but he didn't feel its chill until much later — nor did he hear the voice of another wolf until an unhealthy silence had dawned upon them both.
Slowly - drunkenly - Crescent turned his attention to the shadow that sifted before him. The edges of the boy's vision remained blurred somewhat (watering from the heat of his skin perhaps?) and he opened his mouth to make a reply, but only managed a small exhalation before finding that his lips were dry. He tried licking them, and swallowing, but there was no saliva. He gave up for a minute, and turned to watch where he had last seen a deer - or what he thought had been a deer - and in finding that space empty, his brow furrowed. The air is.. cold here,
he murmured cryptically, and then seemed to relax.
"Hm?" Rickon picked up his head, mouth dripping with fat drops of water as he turned his gaze on the spidery silver wolf. Had he heard him correctly? "Are you cold?" he asked, taking a tentative step closer. He sniffed the air, searching for something more unusual than his warm, bedraggled appearance. Though if there was sickness to him, the trench-born bastard wouldn't truly know. He'd been exposed to so few things in his threadbare life that he was lucky so far to have not unwittingly walked into trouble yet. Yet.
"Y'look like you could use a dip," he offered with a casual toss of his head towards the river and an equally casual smile.