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+--- Thread: Greatwater Lake high in the sky, we can see the whole world down below (/showthread.php?tid=25976)
high in the sky, we can see the whole world down below - Andalusia - March 03, 2018
Backdated to just after the BF/RHC/DG war.
Together they had fled by way of Otter Creek - if fleeing could be the word. @Sebastian's increasing black-outs had put them further and further behind the guiding trails of Elwood and Whip, who charted their course well ahead. Andalusia resolved to stay by Sebastian until they touched the familiar ground of the Caldera, but she would not risk her packmates staying in the line of danger while they waited for the Rochester to recover enough to move quicker. They'd moved far enough from Blackfeather its acrid scent swelled only in lingering waves from their blood-stained fur, but the height of danger fell in the shadows behind them. All that was left for Andalusia was to ensure she returned her friend to the Caldera alive.
Stars filled the heavens and reflected off the still water by the time they reached Greatwater Lake. It had taken three times as long than it should have for them to reach the water, and she could tell from the way Sebastian dragged himself that they wouldn't move any further tonight. He had been unusually quiet - pain clouded his eyes, and he seemed almost vacant. Her brow pinched, and Andalusia nudged her friend with a prod of encouragement. They would find shelter along the lake's Northern edge. The water would serve as a buffer between them and the wolves of Blackfeather.
They found rest beneath the thick boughs of an evergreen in a copse near the fast flowing river that fed the lake. A shelter like this had worked for them once before, and this time she tucked close to Sebastian, unafraid of sharing his touch. But when she drew near, his heat rolled off in waves, though his body wracked with shivers. Fevered - and closer now, she could smell the ooze of infection setting into his wounds.
Reaching out, she tried to clean them with a rasp of her tongue, but already her thoughts worried. She wasn't prepared for this - she needed herbs - she needed Raven - but Sebastian had her, and as long as it took for him to recover, she would do what she could, with both their knowledge, to heal him. But first, she had to get him through the night.
--
She awoke to the sound of scuffling, and the sweet sting of medicine. Three nights had passed, and though the mixture of herbs quelled his infection, Sebastian couldn't move much further than the stream and back without compromising his wound. Nor could she leave him to fetch help, and she wondered if in the madness, the Caldera would even notice their absence enough to send a party to find them.
Andalusia rose from where they lay entangled and nosed through the branches to meet the chill of the forest. The chirp of crickets lent an ill-fitting calm, and she drank in her surroundings. A taste of the air brought no sign of Blackfeather - a good thing - yet bright eyes flashed in the darkness, haunting and gold.
Coyotes.
Sebastian's blood had drawn the scavengers.
Her fur bristled, and her lip peeled with a snarl as they advance upon her. A duo, rangy and wild, with eyes flicking briefly to her before settling on the shelter she blocked.
Their motion stilled, and she steeled herself, fluffed out to her fullest in an effort to ward them off - to tell them she was dangerous. But they hardly cared, and the chaos erupted.
She had little time to think; her movements fell to instinct as she parried and sparred between the two, her main focus to force them back. The further she could lead the beasts from Sebastian, the better his odds. Soon, she found them both upon her - her maw having clutched the throat of the younger and stilling it to the ground - and the older, drawn away from Sebastian with a rage she could only nail as the fury of a mother.
Andalusia met the other in a flurry of fur and teeth. They both bled with the wounds of the fight - Andalusia, with more than the woman she wrestled now. But they snapped and clawed and wrestled with matched resolve - the Ostrega, for a loved one she'd sworn to protect, and the coyote, for a loved one she had felled.
Yet with every strike her energy sapped. Blood stained the ground - hers, and her aggressors - and she found her movements slow, her breathing laboured, her mind unready for the attacks of the other. She could feel herself lagging, and could see the increasing glow in the other's eyes.
They both knew it. Andalusia was on the losing side - but Sebastian would not die today.
The torrent of the river raged beneath the precipice where the coyote perched, chest heaving. Sebastian lay safe, far in the woods behind her. Andalusia had drawn the beast away, but she could barely keep herself upright. She saw how the coyote's eye fell to trace a line upon her throat. If she stayed, she would die - and if she turned now she could escape the beast alive - but either way, two would die today.
And she ran, with the final stretch of energy she could summon - but not away. The pitch of her body brought her crashing against the grieved and startled mother, and they toppled off-balance. Andalusia felt the press of fur against her and the tangle of legs, but she didn't feel the ground again - only the rush of air as they fell, and the crash of the river as the ice broke beneath them and plunged them both into the dark and swirling deep.
The lights flickered with the sudden shock and she felt herself swept away. Her eyes flashed with a blinding darkness, and she thought she caught a glimpse of gold - warm and gentle, and painfully yearned for, reaching for her to carry her home.
And the world went black.
Exit Andalusia.