It was a place of warmth and lavender in Chrys' experience, but she remained weary during her visits. Perhaps it was from a place of intrinsic wisdom, but whatever the source it cautioned her severely against the repercussions of wandering too far from reality.
Groaning fitfully as she wretched herself back once again, this time Chrys' head actually bucked up from the ground as her eyes struggled to find their unison in opening. A crust had already begun to form over the concave wound effecting her right eye, but so too did a yellowing puss dribble from between its larger fissures. Straining her left eye to make up for the affliction, Chrys could still see little more than the most generic of contrasts.
Dismal, was a choice word that came to mind, but like the haze Chrysanthemum was not consumed by it. For in all of her agony, she was alone -and blessedly so. Releasing a shuddering sigh Chrysanthemum fell limp and disappeared into herself once again -overwhelmed by the mere memory of the monster who had so destroyed her.
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| After a third wolf had decided to trespass inside his borders, though luckily for the Isle girl now Bay captive it had been Thistle, Beric and Junior that had apprehended her and not Ragnar who without little doubt would have outright attacked her not just for trespassing but because she was apart of the Isle pack. He had, had enough of them. If whomever lead them couldn’t keep a tighter leash on them he would start picking them off, one by one. He had moved his pack so they would leave him and his alone and still they found him and blatantly disregarded his borders. Ragnar had no intentions of being merciful when he got around to speaking to their newest captive just as he had no intentions of letting whomever lead the Isle wolves now since Majesty’s departure go unaware of it. Granted, three of his wolves had deflected from the Isle pack but they were different. They had not trespassed and thus far he had not seen any sense of wavering loyalty from either of them. Still, he considered flaunting their newest captive to the Isle wolves as a dead pan warning. Eventually, he was going to reach a point where he was done being diplomatic and that was not a point in which he wanted to reach. It was a blood thirsty and feral point, a semblance of himself that normally did not make an appearance except on the battle field when it was blood he craved like oxygen. It had been a relatively normal border patrol up until the point when the scent of a lone wolf not too far from his borders caught his nostrils. Overpowering the scent of lone wolf was …infection. Illness of some kind and his hackles bristled. No call rose into the air, and with four children and the potential that Julooke might be pregnant soon he was not certain he wanted to allow anything sickly within his borders. Stavanger Bay wasn’t an infirmary, after all. The scarred Northman’s pace slowed when the child (about the age of his sister Hati) came into view, first nothing more than a shape. His heart froze for a second thinking it was Hati, looking pathetic and weak on the ground where she lay (or had collapsed, he wasn’t sure). Except this girl was not the right colorations to be Hati. He kept a distance between them even as he approached, eyes of Caribbean ice studying her intently, finding the source of infectious smell he had caught. Her eye was crusted with it and looked…like someone had intentionally damaged it; from what he could see of it anyway. He was still too far away to study it in any measure of detail. The child looked bad and the feral Scandinavian understood that if he did not take her in and have Thistle tend to her eye that she would die. He did not care about wolves that were not his …but she could be his, and he could care because he was a father and she …she was someone’s daughter. Idly, Ragnar stared at her stoically for now, wondering if she was even remotely lucid. "Can you hear me child?" He asked her his voice soft but uplifted so it would carry across the distance to her, and accented heavily with the accent he bore. |
Guided by the trail of her rotten stench, a small congregation of black and emerald flies soon arrived in the space over Chrysanthemum's head. Without harassment from their would be host, the diminutive scavengers paraded around her freely. Perching on different parts of her face before whirling up and into the air again, it was evident in their unison drone of 'zzzz' that the funeral creatures had not gathered as her cheerleaders. It was an altogether macabre scene; their premature celebration of death along with her intermitted revivals, but once again the little zombie made her way back around to the realm of the living.
Murmuring something unintelligible while lapping her mouth open and close, Chrys seemed to search for some tangible thing that was just outside of her reach. Shaking with the strenuous effort of keeping her head upright, her nose tottered in the air as she attempted to smell past her own rotting face. It was immensely crucial that she remained well away from the demon Bughuul, and vice versa, lest he make good on his promise to cripple her further.
Dizzied by the thought, Chrysanthemum landed her head a little too roughly, and as the flies ascended so too did a scream of gutteral pain from the youth. Attempting in vain to flick her tongue towards the open sore, she was eventually forced to give in by fatigue and again went into a spell of disheartening quiet on the floor.
All of this time Chrysanthemum had been unaware of the male and his evident concern -too; deaf, blind, and dumb in her own situation. However, as she settled her remaining senses naturally focused, and in due time she made the truly startling realization. Shifting her head in his general direction as uneven breaths rattled her shoulders, she spoke only a single word with eyes clasped shut,[size=large]"Bughuul...?"[/size]
Nerian heard the scream and could not help herself, she had hard the scream before from her 'sister' not a sister by blood but one of the cleric hood She darted to the garden to fresh to take this abuse but there was no time to search elsewhere, her feet pounded the ground and she darted toward the sound only having hear fit once she moved in the direction her memory served her.
She brooke the bur ash and nearly slammed into Ragnar, but her attention was not on ragnar she simply leaped sideways and landed gracefully even in surprise Nerian moved to the females head. If Ragnar commanded her to stop she would regretfully for he was more to her then just an alpha even if she wanted to be the furthest place from him right now, her embarrassment still fresh in my mind even as the lingerings of mother nature's touch were fading fast.
Nerian had grabbed Rocky Mountian Beeplant she tore off leaves and began to chew them into a poultice. She glanced at Ragnar as if just noticing him there and spit the poultice she had keen making onto a rock then she nosed the other leaves at Ragnar, chew this don't swallow please!!
Nerian picked out her bergamot and placed it on a flat rock just began picking up a rock in her mouth and began repeatedly dropping it crushing the leaving and a clear fluid began to form around the leaves she work tirelessly, repeatedly grabbing the rock and dropping it until the flat rock was coated in the clear fluid, after which she drug the rock to the females side with great effort and with a soft leaf began to touch the leaf to the oil then the wounds, it was sting horrendously but it would clean the wounds and kill any eggs laid by the flies. I need the poultice Ranger Nerian begged without looking at him, she continued to clean the wounds on the poor girls face.
| For a silent, ghosting moment Ragnar simply stared, the tell-tale buzzing of flies heard before they were seen by the scarred Northman flying around the child’s face. Her face. Ragnar didn’t look away from the wounds, having seen, quite literally much worse but knowing that didn’t exactly make this situation any easier for the stoic Viking. As it was the Savage had seen and, admittedly, done much worse but never to a child. Never to a child; though Ragnar was hardly nauseous he felt sick that something that someone had done this to her. He took a deep breath, inhaling her putrid scent mixed with the sickly sweet scent of death. No, not death. Decay. She smelled like decaying flesh of something that was still living and suffering. The feral Scandinavian ghosted forward wondering, reasoning if it would be kinder if he just took her life. If anyone was equipped and willing to deal death it was Ragnar; he did not kill children but if it was putting them out of misery? Out of agony? He could do it, he knew he could. Breath hitched in his throat, a quick short rasp of breath taken as he ghosted forward another step, muscles tightening beneath his platinum coat of iced moonlight as he prepared.
The child let out an agonized scream causing the Northman to freeze in his tracks, his blood pulsing as cold as the ice that encased the river that had ran through the Cove every winter. Thick and deep, creaking with strenuous effort as it tried to move but couldn’t. His blood wasn’t ice, however; and now as he suffered from a unplanned and unexplained flashback it ran hot like fire in his veins. The female Priestess’ screamed as his ilk had their way with them before they killed them, slowly, but not before each had had their fill of her and she of them. Ragnar hadn’t stopped them. He never stopped them. He did not partake in their activities but he had no reason to stop them from taking their prizes. He only smirked as the women screamed to their God, his attention focused on his own captive Priestess who had lived, unsullied by any male to become his slave. He blinked rapidly as his eyes refocused upon the girl. He hadn’t touched her, wasn’t even really within touching distance of her and yet her scream had might have insinuated that he had to any who was near enough to hear it. Her head after a few moments moved towards him though to Ragnar the task looked arduous and with her eyes clinched tight, in between her rattling breaths she called out to him, a foreign word …or a name perhaps. "Ragnar," He corrected her in a softened, strong voice. "I am Ragnar." Despite that he was uncertain if she could comprehend what he was saying to her.
He ghosted forward yet another step contemplating summoning Thistle knowing that the girl likely needed medical attention. The wounds looked deliberate upon her, being so well versed as deliberate wounds himself he knew the look of precision. It was cleaner, less frantic than a wound inflicted in a fight. Just as he recoiled, a snort pushing from his flared, leathery black nostrils, ears slicking back to his scarred skull he had been about to call for Thistle as Nerian came tearing onto the scene, lulled by the child’s piercing cry, nearly slamming into him in her haste. She simply side stepped him as his teeth raked the air having been aiming for her fur to yank her back. She seemed determined to ignore him and though her heat hormones were a little more bearable — was it just because of the stench of decay in the air? — the Jarl had not forgotten their last altercation and what she had begged of him and how he had ached to give her what she wanted from him, how he still did to a degree but shook those thoughts from his mind because there was a more pressing concern. "No," It seemed to be his favorite word to her, if only because he wasn’t pleased at her telling him what to do …and because he had not decided what was the kinder fate for this girl.
"Even if you can heal those festering wounds, they are deliberate Nerian, are you going to heal her emotional scars with your God, hmm?" He hadn’t even realized that he had used her name instead of ‘Priestess’. His brief irritation had faded as quickly as it had came at being ordered around and reluctantly the Jarl took the leaves into his mouth and chewed them and trotted to her little rock palate and spit his on top of hers, his muscles in his flank twitching from the unintentional closeness to her. "The maggots would eat away the decaying flesh. I can smell it. Do you not?" He asked the Priestess in his usual cocky and coy manner, though his eyes were trained upon the girl studying her from up close. Perhaps he could smell death only because he was very well acquainted with it. Death and Ragnar were practically life long buddies, after all. "Child would you like some water?" He asked her figuring he could put some in the cranium of a skull for her if she was even able to drink. Likely, she needed food, too, but he figured one step at a time was the best way to tackle this because in truth, he had no idea what to do. This fell so far out of the normal border meet and greet and the Viking was a Berserker. Not a healer, and certainly no Seer. |
In this lowest of states she waited for even worse from him, but instead was startled by the intonation of -a stranger? Not immediately suspecting that she had been incorrect in her original assumption of identity Chrysanthemum remained perfectly still. Mostly because she lacked the verve to do much more, but also because she had so very little with which to distinguish normal wolves from the hellhound she so feared. Certainty would require her absolute focus. Erecting her ears so that she might focus them on the sound, it was with expert slight that she also flapped her nostrils to gather in the male's specific aroma.
No -it wasn't Bughuul. Yet, before Chrysanthemum could gather her subsequent thoughts, the moment was bombarded by the sound -and smell of another. Instinctively the youth shifted her head in the female's direction and even attempted to open her eyes. As before though, the effort was useless and only brought her closer to her next episode of involuntary syncope.
Unable to defend herself against whatever unknowns the wolves had planned, the little prisoner resolved to simply focus on her breathing. Squinting her face in spite of the blistering pain, she did her best to ward off the fuzzy edges that were beginning to tinge her reality. Helpless or not she had no desire to fall asleep in front of the mysterious wolves. It was the very last of the rapidly deteriorating dignity. Ironically though, the youth's endeavor was to be unexpectedly aided by the second to arrive.
Still entirely new to her disability Chrysanthemum was uneducated in evening out the differences between her senses. She had never really relied on her sense of hearing or smell before to calibrate proximity and so as unaware when the feminine wolf approached her with the finished concoction. In fact, the small zombie had begun another tumble into the void when the first of the medicine was applied and she was suddenly yanked from her dreaming like never before -and not by the male's kindly offer water.
At first she could only wriggle helplessly on the ground, too pained to even make a sound although her mouth had flown open. Instead, when her moan did finally begin it was just a croak in the back of her throat and then a disjointed high pitch screech to be heard miles around. Riled by the added agony in a way she would have imagined impossible, her body jittered automatically before flopping to the side with her paws turning weakly in the air. It was likely a very cruel thing to have to witness, but as the tears poured from her own surviving eye, Chrysanthemum was hardly concerned with the potentially faint hearted tendencies of her audience. Finally coming to a rest when her energies were truly all gone. She dragged in a low and slow breath, held it, and then exhaled a mess of vomit and tongue.
Unconsciousness was a sure thing now -for which the puppy was morbidly grateful- but before she went, she rolled open her left eye and stared. Surprisingly the look although hard was not without intelligence as it came to rest upon her would be nurse. And although she could not and did not utter a single word, she held onto one through the terribleness of her delusion, Mom-? It was a small but blessed comfort to the girl as she dipped back beneath the surface of the world.
Nerian winced as he said No, but did he say no to the poultice or to her ministrations upon the wolf?
She chose to see it as toward the poultice making. So she gruffed her discontent of his lack of help but kept at it.
Nerian continued her nursing, dipping the leaf in the crude oil antiseptic and rubbing it gently on the wounds, the female screamed then then lost consciousness which made this part much much easier Nerian nibbled very very gently at the wounds until fresh blood poured forth. The smell of decay disappearing under the smell of plant and blood.
Don't be foolish, she's been alone to long and the wounds, what ever they are from were untended, it dosn't mean she's a lost cause, there is no lost cause as far as god is concerned. The irony of her words toward her own case and her opinions of her god upon herself was lost upon her as she was focused only on the child,
Since she was not given her own and her heat just barely past, her mothering instincts were just that much stronger, Though in the right mind she felt she was not quite ready to be a mother she couldn't stop herself in this moment. Nerian wasn't going to give in without a direct order.
She picked up the leaves at Ragnar's feet and continued her poultice making,
Nerain sighed softly finding the poultice made, and knew now she did not anger him even though he questioned her motives, like he always had, in a way his questions were comforting. It was only now she began to feel that he was to close and she was feeling hot under her pelt for a wholly new reason beyond 'heat' was it shame? embarrassment? something else all together? she couldn't decide and then made sure to push the thought's from her mind, like she was trained to in meditation. She licked up the fresh poultice applying it with her numb and mostly sterile tongue thanks to the oil she had nibbled up from the wounds.
In the past she might have prayed powerful healing upon the poultice she she prayed less and less often now...
Nerian stood up and faced Ragnar, tears threatening to fall from her eyes, pain hurt and fear held within her face, her stoic expression lost to her as it had been all these past few weeks of mother nature's kiss, Look she will be fine given time, those wounds will heal with proper tending. She drew a shaky breath and the stared at the ground unable to look to him anymore.
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| The child did not seem to be able to hear him, or if she had she was in no fit state to respond to him as Nerian slathered the medicine upon the girl’s wounds. The girl thrashed and screamed again and then fell into what Ragnar suspected was unconsciousness. Though it left him with a severely injured girl at his borders, passed out and utterly useless at least for the time being he was, in some part glad that she had succumbed to her unconsciousness. Her stillness would be easier on Nerian and likely it was a kindness to the girl. A temporary reprieve from the pain in which she had endured up to this point. The pain of the wounds being inflicted and the pain of them festering. She told him ‘not to be silly’ and yet she had not been there when the girl had called out to him using a name. A name he determined if only because the child’s ears had slicked back and the appeasing whine that had slipped from her lips had been a fearful sounding plea. For what, the Viking didn’t know, but he had enough puzzle pieces to put together that being associated with ‘Bughuul’ whomever it was, was not a good thing.
"She remembers something," He snapped at Nerian’s blatant dismissal of his assertion that she’d have emotional scars. "You know as well as I do Priestess that it is the tragedies we remember well." Good memories faded, they always faded but it was the horrific memories that they clung too, subconsciously. He remembered watching Björn slaughter Eitri in single combat, and likewise remembered the plea from Björn’s lips seconds before Ragnar had granted him death, the vivid show of his elder brother’s life fading from his eyes until the torn and bloody corpse was just that: a corpse.
"Only Frigg knows if the child will be able to be healed," Frigg, the Queen of Valkyries, wife of Odinn, and Goddess of matrimony, expecting women and healing; he trusted in her to decide the Fate of this girl if the Norn had not already done so. He believed heavily that their Fates were set and it could, following that logic, that just like Junior this girl was Fated to show up here. The feral Scandinavian knew he was facing a decision and only as Nerian pulled back from the girl for the time being, the mixture of her plants and blood assaulting his black, leathery nostrils. To a more compassionate creature the decision would have been an easy one, perhaps one with no contest, but Ragnar wasn’t compassionate and he was extremely careful. He knew nothing of the girl, nothing of her personality, nothing of how she had gotten those injuries. He could not, in not knowing, induct her into the pack. He didn’t know, even, if she’d want to stay or what skills she had. He just didn’t know. Yet, he realized that if he did not grant her, at least, temporarily shelter until she healed she would die out here.
The past week had been an interesting one for Ragnar Loðbrók. Three trespassers - now- captives, a gift of the Gods in the form of an orphaned child, and now this. Nerian turned to face him and he made the mistake of looking at her face clearly identifying the pain and fear she didn’t even bother to hide there. Pain of his rejection, still? He had told her once he had a wife and that he loved Thistle - something that could not be claimed for the previous ones - and yet she had still pushed. Though his irritation and anger now was nothing compared to what it would have been if he would have actually given in, he only sought to move on. He didn’t like lingering in the past which was probably why he tended not to hold grudges. "We will see," The Jarl spoke coolly, looking away from Nerian to the girl, his lips a terse and stiff line. "I cannot make a decision on what to do with her until she heals and is lucid. For now, you will tend to her. I will check on her progress when I can." Ragnar commanded of her, not giving her a chance to speak against him because he wasn’t negotiating anything. He was simply telling her with the expectation that it wouldn’t be a problem.
He let out a sigh unsure what else to do at the current point. They couldn’t move her, and until they assessed what other damage she might have had it was a good idea to just let her there; and Ragnar didn’t have the luxury to stand there with her and Nerian until she awoke and was lucid enough for conversation. With four children, a wife, three captives, patrols to make and a pack to run he was an extremely busy man. He liked it that way, liked having plenty of things to fill up his time. "I have patrols to finish," The Jarl spoke dismissively, sensing that Nerian probably wanted to talk about them not that there was a ‘them’ beyond Jarl and Subordinate, Master and Slave and this wasn’t the time; and as far as Ragnar was concerned there was nothing to talk about. He wasn’t the libertine man he had been in the Cove and that was all there was too it. "Call for me if anything happens." And with those words he turned and headed back on his patrols. |
Okay, that's fine by me! If you want we can have Nerian and Chrysanthemum fade here, and I'll start another thread where Chrys has come around in whatever location Nerian was planning on moving her to...? Then Ragnar x Chrys thread after.
As she tumbled away from the present, Chrysanthemum encountered a series of blurred memories. Home, Deadenberry, Bughuul -all of the images were in silent still motion, but nevertheless managed to invoke a bitter swell of emotions. Washing over her entirety like the bitterest ointment, they forced Chrys to remember the things that her adrenaline had temporarily diluted. This was real, it was all really happening -her seemingly insignificant life was now officially following the plotline of a nightmare.
As she was drawn deeper into the numbing blackness, Chrys was soon pursued by the distant whisper of his voice. It reminded her of many terrible things just for the sake of torment, but also Bughuul chided that it was best she not neglect her purpose. Miserable injury and overwhelming fatigue aside -there was simply no rest for the wicked.
[size=large]Wicked-?[/size] she questioned the unending space. She wasn't 'wicked', she was still the victim in all of this right-? The idea was much too much, and in spite of knowing better Chrysanthemum drove herself further into the thick -wanting to finally just get away from it all.
Somehow though she ended back just below the surface, where she found a weak connection to the wolves and the happenings that were just outside her world. Hovering there with a questioning look about her, the female tried her best to piece together her current situation. She still couldn't see them, but she could hear them -in that underwater muffle sort of way, and their conversation seemed unexpectedly favorable to her. Focusing specifically on the words of the female, Chrys couldn't help but to be bothered by her own automatic feelings which at her age still brazenly pined for some sort of tenderness. However, considering all of the miserable things that had happened to her it was difficult for the puppy to accept that their help was genuine. So she would keep her skepticism about her going forward until proven otherwise. Then again though -perhaps the distance was ultimately for the best, all things considered....
On the actual outside though, there was no sign of the wolf's inner turmoil. Instead she actually appeared at peace -if only for a precious little while.
Nerian managed to half drag and half carry the young pup to her rock den by herself the girl was of little help to her, the travel so long and hard on Nerian; tiring out the femme. But she did not give up, somehow gaining a renewed strength and determination from deep within.