You are haunting me.
She sprang upwards within the cramped hollow, Kavik's name falling from her lips. The walls disoriented her at first for they were not the familiar stone of The Door but the tangled roots of a rotting tree she had sheltered in for the night.
Even with the dead leaves piled around her, it was dreadfully cold - seemingly more so without Kavik's bulk beside her. A lump rose in the healer's pale throat, which she attempted to swallow as she clambered clumsily from the makeshift den. The sprite wasn't yet accustomed to the complete loss of her leg.
Stumbling to the edge of the inviting brook, she collapsed on its edge in exhaustion. Her gaze was drawn to the water as it bubbled merrily, seemingly oblivious to the broken-hearted she-wolf on its banks. The ripples spilled like spun silver over the stones in the moonlight, an enchanting sight.
Stars twinkled overhead, though Liri could not bring herself to look at them. It would only be a reminder to what a relief the spirit realm would seem - to leave this world behind for the blissful ignorance of death.
Most days it didn't seem like such a bad option. Her sister was there, as were her children.
Liri was a soft, kind-hearted creature but she was not accustomed to giving up. She had an iron core - she was made of survival, persistence, resilience. The abandoned wife had suffered worse, on more than one occasion.
This was not half as bad, her optimistic side argued.
Half as bad is more than good enough.
The thought came unbidden as her eyes lifted across the welcoming glade - frosted white under the moon.
Liri wondered, if she were to howl her grief to the night - would it reach the Creek?
Hope its alright for me to hop in here.
Sorin had wandered northeast from the fox filled wood, with no real destination, only a vague feeling of rightness in the action. The wood was inviting, but it was too close to pack lands for him. He had no intention of being discovered, of playing the delicate dance of spurring an invitation to join. He knew that joining a pack was probably a sensible option, considering the heart of winter was upon this land. But he was not one to give into such desires, he had made that decision long ago. More accurately, the decision had been made for him.
Eventually, the rugged male wandered out into an open plain, one that he recognized with almost painful familiarity. This was where he had met Clary, the night he had almost let his guard fall. He sighed deeply at the memory. All his carefully constructed walls had almost collapsed from a little greif and a discussion about what he held most dear. He snorted, berating himself for his weakness, for letting a perfect stranger get under his fur. And deep in his mind,
she whispered poison more deadly than his own.
He glanced upward, the stars shining bright in the clear night sky. Another sigh escaped him as he looked up, his gaze beseeching and broken. His will to go on had always been strong, but some nights, when she got the better of the constant battle in his head, he wondered if it was all worth it. Was living worth all the pain, all the suffering and mistrust that ate away at his heart. Was he even really living anymore, or was he just surviving? It was a question Sorin had battled with since the day
she had scared him.
The glint of moonlight on water broke his train of thought, and Sorin walked over the edge of a small stream, preparing to drink. As he lowered his gaze from the stars however, he caught sight of a stranger on the opposite shore. Her pelt was marred with scars, and her frame was gaunt with ill health. A tremor of shock and sympathy ran through Sorin as he caught sight of her missing limb, although he did his best to mask his reaction. Despite himself, sorin was deeply curious. What horrors could she have possibly gone through? He chuffed softly to make his presence known, not wanting to startle her, for she seemed contemplative as well.
Ah yes!! I've wanted a thread with Sorin for some time now :)
Liri might have heard the soft crunch of a paw against snow or smelt him coming but her focus was centered within. Her thoughts had wandered to Kavik as they so often did lately.
It all just seemed so...so wrong. She belonged beside Kavik. Every instinct screamed she was going the wrong way, that her mate resided in the Creek. Surviving winter alone, not to mention while recovering from whitecough, did not hold many positive outcomes for the young healer. It was quite possible she would perish before spring - if she wasn't taken captive by a sketchy male once her heat was upon her. It wasn't an uncommon occurence in the north.
That scared her more than anything and Liri tried hard not to think about it.
Her fearful train of thought was derailed. As if conjured by her thoughts, there he was.
The three-limbed hunter struggled for a moment, as if she meant to rise to her feet and rush towards him. Yet, as the wind shifted and brought his scent to the healer - Liri realized that the dark male was not quite as tall, different in conformation, scarred where Kavik was whole.
Liri slumped back to the ground, a tingle of fear rolling down her spine. Unfamiliar males always brought forth that skittish, panicked side of her; perhaps on account of Hadraniel's rape. Liri pushed it down, swallowing her nerves as her ears flattened nervously. She attempted a small smile.
Her tail beat against the ground in welcome - once, twice, too despondent to wag long.
"I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else," she murmured as her gaze fell to the ground, unable to stare at him any longer. There were differences between the stranger and her husband, Liri knew that now upon closer inspection, but it still pained her to look upon Sorin.
"I'm Liri," she introduced after a moment, hoping not to frighten him off with her moroseness. "Liri...Liri Blackfoot," she managed, the words sending a lance of pain through her chest.
Sorin watched her intently as she rose, seeming to want to greet him. He saw an eagerness is her gaze, an expression only brought about by the sight of loved ones. Apparently, she mistook him for someone else, for he had never met her before. He would have remembered someone so strong willed, a will that he discerned in the depths of her gaze. The eyes were windows to the soul, and in the brief moment their eyes met he saw a women who had suffered terribly and yet still fought on, a women who had been forged by the fires of incredible hardship and still had enough grit to live on, to not lose her purpose. He didn't know her, had never met her, but he already had a wealth of respect for her. He was certain, even maimed, that she was a formidable survivor.
Sorin relaxed his posture as she shrinked away from him, seeming to fear him when she realized he was not whomever she knew. He did not mean to scare her, nor did he hold any deranged wants from her. She had suffered enough. Instead, he wagged his tail briefly and smiled, mirroring her own actions and hoping to put her at ease.
"No need to worry," he responded lowly when she apologized. He understood, more the concept as opposed to the practice but he understood the mistake in her eagerness. "Sorin," he said softly as she gave her own name. He kept his eyes on her, his gaze more relaxed and open then it had been in a long time. "Tell me Liri, what brings you out on a cold night such as this. Are you looking for someone, or expecting to meet someone?" He thought it might be the case, based on her initial reaction to his appearance, but one couldn't assume.
She finds it hard to meet his gaze save for in discrete glances - as if the knowing glint in his jade optics will read too deeply beneath the surface of her composure.
The smile seems genuine and when his voice reaches her submissively-pinned ears it's filled with undertones of warmth. Tension slowly flees her taut frame which was held in suspicious suspension, as if the fae were ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. Perhaps if Liri were not so utterly broken, she might even manage a friendly conversation with the dark stranger.
"Sorin," she mimics, accidentally pronouncing the title in the inflections of her mother tongue. She nods, subconsciously thinking that the elders would have approved of such a name - it was strong, northern, regardless of his origin.
Her lips part at the question, but no answer is forthcoming. Falling silent as she chewed anxiously at a split lip, Liri found it easier to direct her gaze at the stream rather than Sorin's patient features.
"The nights are the hardest," the healer whispers forlornly, almost to herself as oak eyes lift in the direction of the Creek's borders.
She can still see Kavik, dark features arranged in remorse as the pale girl fled from the truth.
He didn't love her. Maybe he never had if it was so easy to forget her - his wife.
Liri's eyes closed in pain as she drew in a deep breath, attempting to collect herself. "Forgive me," she whispers, too numb to care if he will. "I don't believe I make very good company."
But perhaps the raven-coated male before her understands being haunted by the past, Liri considers as her gaze finds him. The scars coating his frame spoke of violence, of war, where Liri's hinted at abuse. Still, understanding filled her mahogany optics and she hoped that perhaps the raven might not find her so odd after all.
Sorin's gaze searches hers when he can, trying to figure out just who this woman is, what she has been through. Her scars tell a tale of violence, but it is not the scars on her pelt he is interested in. He knows that scars on the heart are the worst, that scars on the heart are what truly shape character. And so he searches for those scars, deep within her gaze. Sorin knows his own gaze also contains those same heart scars, that if she is observant she will see them. But the fear of revealing those scars, fear that had dictated his actions for some time now, was not as strong as it was before. Perhaps it was because he sensed someone who could truly understand the depth of how broken he was. So as he searched her for her pain, he made little effort to mask his own.
"Yes, they often are," he responds softly when she laments about the night. Nights, especially nights when no stars shown, had been tortuous on occasion for the shadowed man. The battle that raged constantly in his head seemed to reach its peak as he remembered that all the nights she lay beside him had been a lie. And as he thought of her, his mind betrayed him, and she whispered her poison, reaffirming the lie she had strung him on. He shook his head, growling imperceptibly to himself, but he couldn't force her to retreat.
"Well, I suppose that makes two of us," he said lowly, still somewhat shaken by his mild mental struggle. He struggled to keep his tone friendly, as she tried to anger him, to drive the fear he had held so dear for so long to the fore. He knew that his subtle shift in attitude might be terribly confusing for Liri, and hoped it would not drive her away.
His answering phrases only confirm what she had suspected - there was a story beneath the wounds inflicted upon his hide, loss behind that knowledgeable gleam that seemed to read the pain in her soul.
Liri is the first to look away as he growls, uncertain if she had done something.
Acceptance floods her veins. The Blackfoot offers no further submission in response to the soft rumble, only waits to see if a blow is coming.
If another intended to destroy her, they were far too late. Kavik had seen to that.
The healer seeks his gaze hesitantly after he speaks - the beginning of a kind smile lighting her features with forlorn beauty. It's always easier to focus on another's pain than her own.
"We could be bad company together." One misfit to another, she was so tired of being alone.
Sorin continues to struggle with the demon in his head, desperately trying to rid her from the fore. He doesn't want to lose the opportunity that he sees before him, so close yet potentially so far as well. His expression is screwed with concentration and pain as the battle rages on in his head. He'll be damned if he lets her ruin him once more.
Eventually he forces her the the recces of his mind, where she waits for another opportunity. His gaze clears as the battle ends, and he returns to reality in time to catch the ending of her reaction to his growls. A pang of guilt and fear shoots through him, for he doesn't want her to leave. It seems strange and foreign to him, but the feeling of wanting to be in her company persists. "It isn't you," he says softly, a wry grin briefly touching his lips as he remembered when he spoke those same words upon this plain only a few months prior. A smile, a genuine smile, seemed to come across her face, and Sorin couldn't help but lose himself ever so briefly. Not only did it make her face lit up, but it showed how strong willed she was. To still display such an emotion, after all she had presumably been through, was impressive to the rugged male.
His own expression lit up hopefully as Liri spoke, offering her company. She tried to turn him away, but Sorin slammed her back to the depths of his mind; he wasn't going to let her interfere now. "If you want the company, I'll give it," he says solemnly.
He appears to be battling with something though the girl couldn't begin to guess what. Her brow furrows, or where her eyebrows would be if she were human, watching as he struggles to overcome whatever demon holds him captive.
It isn't you, he assures with a brief grin that raises her own lips with the fond remembrance in it.
Something tugs at her - something shining through his gaze that seems so like Kavik's.
Liri chooses to ignore it as her gaze drops shyly. She's done reading into emotions, finished with piecing herself into other's lives. The healer wasn't looking for a fling and the ebony male who had stirred up conflicting emotions within her would likely be gone with the morning's arrival.
She's oddly disheartened by this thought but chalks it up to the loneliness that plagues her waking hours and even creeps into her dreams.
Thus, Liri gestures to the place at her side with an inclination of her freckled crown.
"Please."
As she asks for his company, his first reaction is joy that, while masked, is still evident in his expression. Then, his heart and head curl inward, and he hesitates. He had spent so long creating barriers, being cut off from others, not allowing anyone to get close enough to hurt if they turned their back on him. Although he sensed that she was different, that she understood, those ingrained fears came rushing to the fore when he began to step towards her. Accepting her offer would be the closest he had come to someone since Viggo's pack, since her. And while his heart cried desperately to accept, to give into the comfort that he craved as much as any of his kin, his head simply balked at the idea. It didn't help that she had decided to whisper again, trying to turn him away.
But even as his head turned away, it also turned towards the woman before him. He knew that she seemed to need the company as much as he did, that she had suffered as much, if not more, than he had. And he knew, logically, that it would make little sense for such a soul to betray him.
Eventually, the heart won out, and Sorin crossed the stream to her side, trotting over and laying down beside her in the cold night, his body pressed against hers. And as he turned his gaze towards her once again, he made a promise to himself, that he would not leave her unless she asked him too, or she seemed to not need him. He had an innate feeling that she needed someone who could understand her hardships, understand the pain of betrayed love. And while such a promise would create an inevitable connection, Sorin knew she was worth the risk.
Again, he hesitates.
Liri watches - solemn eyes unreadable - with head cocked as if searching for some hint of answers beneath the calm exterior. She could not be aware of just how similar they are but even she can sense the momentous occasion of his decision - even if she's not entirely sure what it means.
Stay, she wants to beg as his heads turns.
Please. I don't want to be alone.
Yet, as familiar as he might feel - Sorin is a stranger. Liri keeps her pleas locked behind wary lips, waiting with bated breath to see what he will choose.
With a soft splash, the shadow crosses the distance to settle by her side. She's acutely aware of the length of his body against her. It feels wrong - as if somehow she is betraying Kavik even in this innocent act of staying warm. Pale ears droop sadly at the thought and a bitter laugh threatens to escape.
He could tear her heart out, replace her, sire the children she had thought would be her own with another and yet, in her heart, the northron was still his wife.
With a heavy swallow, Liri tries to replace the grief that threatens to crush her with the numbness that is just as deadly, if easier to bear.
She tries hard to focus on the man at her side, turning to him with averted eyes for fear he might see the pain lingering within them.
"Where were you headed? Before?" She murmurs, referring to the moment he had arrived - seemingly on his way to some unknown destination before Liri had stopped him.
She seems content enough, or perhaps just desperate enough to allow him to come so close. And perhaps he feels the same way. His mind is still wracked with doubt, consumed with worry and tinged with fear. He simply cannot trust anyone so easily, even someone like the women at his side. He had trusted easy once, had been a naive fool who gave in to love, and it had ripped his soul to shreds, leaving him a broken drifter struggling to find purpose, to find meaning. And he had sworn not to trust easy again, to never give his heart up.
But then, this wasn't exactly trusting easy. He knew, from what he had discerned from her gaze and expressions, that Liri too was suffering in some way, and had suffered before. He figured that she was as broken as him, and thus he was drawn to her more than anyone else as of late. And so he trusted that she would not cause him undue or vicious pain, because, having felt it herself, she wouldn't want to inflict upon him. At least, he hoped it was the case. He felt that he had judged her properly, but one could never be totally sure. After all, he had judged her wrongly, and thus he had been destroyed.
"I didn't really have a destination in mind. Just going where the wind takes me really." he said. He was simply wandering, trying to figure out what he could about thus valley that he had decided to call home, at least for now. The best prey, where other packs where, those things. All of this he told her, before pausing briefly. "Just letting the stars guide me," he said in a low whisper, more to himself than her.
She nods slightly, for it's not so dissimilar from her own travel route - by which, she meant the one she did not have.
She could have gone north - to the seas or even further. An urge to leave Teekon entirely had taken hold of her, to seek the secluded valley where she had lived alone after her son's death. But the seas were cold and the north she hailed from was even colder. Liri wasn't sure she could survive alone, not with her mental capacities intact - not with the memories haunting her.
East to the Hinterlands, west to the Taiga, south to some unknown land - it didn't matter. There was nothing there for her.
Pale ears flickered minutely at the words, an indrawn breath filling her lungs. The words are soft, perhaps not even directed at her, but summoning her courage with a deep breath - Liri dared to lean closer, gesturing to the starry heavens with her peppered muzzle.
"The elders believed that the stars possess great power. They can guide you home, to a new life. It is said that each star is a spirit, a living entity." Liri's gaze softened as it remained on the silver specks, seemingly so far away. She could not look at the stars without remembering her lost pups - praying to the ancestors that they knew how much she loved them still.
Sorin struggles briefly to not flinch away as she leans into him. Soon enough though, he leans slightly into her as well. The feeling of being so close is oddly comforting, but the shadow doesn't think much of it. She then speaks of the stars, and Sorin is again reminded of his last encounter, when the stars had driven him away. He steals his nerves for a moment, not wanting to lose control as he almost did last time.
"My mentor said much the same. He said each star was an ancestor, a guide, a silent guardian and that all great warriors lived among them. That from those who have fallen, I can draw strength." He turned his gaze skyward as he spoke, as if searching for Viggo. He knew it was foolish, that he could not pick out one star, one spirit, among millions, but it gave him a measure of comfort nonetheless, that his mentor watched over him. Although, it was comfort filled with sadness as well. He had failed to hold Viggo's pack together after Bane, had failed to stay true to Viggo's ideals of being open. He sighed deeply, his gaze turning terribly solem as he watched the stars shine overhead.
"I'm sorry,"
Tension crackles and Liri struggles not to withdraw. Fearing she has upset him somehow, the fae freezes by his side - pallid shoulder afire where it lightly presses against Sorin's side.
After a moment she feels a return in weight as if the raven has decided to rest against her in return. The healer doesn't read too deeply into it - it's easiest to accept that it's mere friendship, companionship. The wintry nights are cold, particularly when you're suffering from pneumonia.
"Your mentor sounds wise. Nagka would have liked him, " a smile of fondness dimples upon her pale face - memories of gathering herbs, building stone cairns, of hours spent in the communal den studying dried bits of plant with the elderly spiritualist cross her mind. It had been Nagka who vouched for Liri's talents at the coming of age ceremony when she was but 6 months old. Nagka who insisted even as an outsider, Liri would be educated in the healing arts or they would find a new shaman. "She was something like a mother to me."
"I don't know much about strength. It's comforting though, to think of those lost as being in such a beautiful place. Surely, they're happy there." A crease forms between her dark eyes, maternal concern for the younglings she had lost.
"I'm sorry."
Liri turns curiously - a soft, questioning look directed at the solemn raven.
"That he was," Sorin replies, smiling briefly as memories of Viggo flash across his mind. Being taught how to hunt large prey, learning the delicate art of stalking pheasants. Be trained in the arts of war, and being tempered, to fight for honor, for defense or respectful causes. Viggo had insisted on teaching Sorin personally, even though the shadowed male had been young at the time, and Viggo had the responsibility of the whole pack. "Just as Viggo was a second father to me," It was the first time he had confided the name of his mentor in another.
He turned to look at her, surprise written on his face when she spoke of not knowing about strength. Although he did not know her well, she seemed to be one of the strongest characters he had come across. She had to be, if her scars, both on her body and heart, were anything to judge by. "I find it hard to believe you don't, when you posses a great deal of strength. Strength doesn't necessarily mean a strong body. It's more about a strong mind, a strong will."
He sees the question in her gaze, and he freezes at the sight of it. In that one moment, all of his fears come rushing back, and he simply is overwhelmed. He can't speak, can hardly breathe, as he remembers his personal vow to not reveal the weakness of his past. He cannot give it, even to her, for it would give her too great an advantage if she bore him any ill will. He shakes his head rapidly, even as the demon in his mind returns, laughing at his plight.
sorry for the wait!
A fond smile plays across her features in agreement. Liri didn't yet know Sorin very well but she could sense that this Viggo was important - he had perhaps had helped to shape the identity of the dark, troubled young man she saw before her now.
Surprise reflects in the muddied pools of her eyes like mirrored glass. It was a general opinion that the healer shared, of there being two kinds of strength. The elders spoke of those who had the strength of body - those who became warriors - and those who were strong of heart. It was just a bit difficult to include herself in that group.
She didn't quite see herself as strong, just as someone who had really bad luck with families.
"I...well, thanks, " she mutters after a moment, cheeks aflame beneath her fur.
Alarm creased her brow as he freezes, green eyes wide with tangible fright. Gooseflesh raises beneath her pale fur, wondering what could cause such a panic, as the northron reaches hesitantly for him. The fae nearly leaps backward as Sorin's dark crown shakes vigorously to and fro.
"It's alright, " she soothes as her paw falls atop his own, light against dark, the promise that he needn't speak about it hanging unsaid between them.
Its fine. I've had a blast with this thread, and look forward to more between these two.
Sorin continues his attempt to shake off his demon, a battle that has proven to futile for the longest time. He simply cannot cast the traitor from his heart, cannot block out
her poisonous whisperings. The fight rages on, a desperate struggle that he knows he will never win. He is almost immune to the women beside him, as
she has claimed his sense of reality. Still, he knows the feeling of a paw on his when it happens.
He whips his head around, but unlike before, his gaze does not contain the deep rage for the women at his side, for she who tries to comfort him. Instead, it contains a grief and sorrow so raw as to swallow any who look upon it. In that moment, he knows how exposed he is, how easily he could be read, but it doesn't matter. All that matters is the fight.
Suddenly, as he catches the comforting expression of Liri, his mind clears. The demon, inexplicably, falls back from the fore, and he is returned to reality. And with it comes his guard, slammed up in an incredibly quick protest to his brief moment of vulnerability. However, he is not so guarded as to be heartless to the women at his side.
"I can't, not yet." he mutters in explanation. He cannot reveal just who he has been fighting, for he knows it will only give
her more power over him. And he doesn't want to entrust his vulnerabilities in another either, lest she turn against him as well. Still, his neutral expression cannot fully mask the pain in his heart.
"we should get some sleep" he says lowly, for the night is progressing and the cold slips ever closer. Sorin hesitates for a moment before leaning against the ivory female, hoping to both provide and receive comfort and warmth at her side. He closes his eyes as his head falls to the snowy ground, but before he succumbs to slumber, he mumbles one last thing to her.
"thank you."
Panic flutters within the cage of her chest, a small bird flapping useless wings. Copper floods over her tongue - the taste of fear.
She is wrong, urges some hidden part. He is a stranger, a rogue, dangerous.
The fae flinches as Sorin's skull twists, shrinking as if her pale curves can melt into the frozen ground beneath. Liri's hesitant to raise her eyes to his - too frightened to do anything that might be considered an aggressive or dominant display - but when she does, the healer is frozen by the weight of his pain.
Grief pools in the verdant orbs rather than the blaze of fury she had expected. An endless abyss of sorrow threatens to drag her beneath the weight of its waves as she stares openly, unable to look away.
She's seen it before - in the rare glimpses she'd caught of her own reflection.
Before the tundrian can find the words to express her kinship with him in this, he's gone.
Her pale paw falls to the ground, thumping softly against the earth. Even that noise seems thunderous in the quiet that has settled, broken by Sorin's soft refusal.
"Alright, then, " the hunter answers, not pushing him. It's not as if she's eager to spill her own secrets.
Liri almost asks if he will stay, the question shining in her dark eyes as she watches him draw near. There are no expectations lingering there. The shadowed titan is as free to go as she is, though she can't deny that she's pleased when he decides to stay - stretching out by her side.
The Blackfoot holds herself stiff, self-conscious of disturbing him as he slips into unconsciousness. Her ear flicks towards him though she says nothing, uncertain if she deserves his gratitude.
Sometime later as Sorin slept peacefully, Liri would turn her head slightly enabling her introspective gaze to fall on his silhouette.
"Thank you, Sorin, " the whisper of her voice hardly audible as it rasped through the dark. "For not leaving me alone."