Broken Antler Fen there's no place like home

Tagged AW but I'm hoping for a @Skwol

There was something peculiar about having left your home for a long period of time. The gnaw of nostalgia could act as a crippling reminder of a past life. For Lucy, the taste of the air that she had believed to be lost, was the only thing that fueled her to return. It had been a year, and the girl had grown into a lean, wild shadow; long enough that she scarcely remembered what the woods used to feel like when she was young. Fleeting memories of fireflies and the companionship of two boys filled her mind was fantasies and before she knew it, she was there.

The length of her strides slowed. Lucy peered upward with brilliant blue eyes and she breathed a shaky breath. A ratty piece of rope hung from around her neck, torn and damaged from her travels, but still marking her with a foreign claim. One paw was lifted delicately, her nostrils flaring with each heavy pant for air, for familiarity. She had truly never been to that portion of the woods, and she was still a stretch from her original home, but she knew. Instinct told the inky wisp that she had finally arrived back home.

Snow blanketed the trees overhead. The fen was wrapped in a serene – almost supernatural – silence. The shadow took a few shaky steps forward, ears propped tall on her crown. She could hear herself breathing, and the faint sound of her own heart beating rapidly in her chest. Each step brought the crunch of snow, but she paid it no mind. Lucy had found home and all that she had left behind.

Skwol's breath hitched in his throat as he spied the inky figure. His paw hung in the air in suspended animation and his ears pitched forward. Gold eyes, wide, stared with abandon — afraid to blink the apparition away. He knew it was not her. He knew that with utmost certainty, but he could not neither draw his eyes away nor move and his heart thumped against his ribs in spite of his efforts to shake it off.

He thought he might come undone when her scent swept through the trees and wreathed his nose. There was a faint smell that clung to her that he could not mistake and could not miss. It lent an element of enchantment to this encounter that made him doubt, if only for a moment, that he was awake.

Skwol felt a tremble crawl along his sturdy limbs. There was only way to ground himself. To prove that he was not imprisoned in some nightmare and to rid himself of these unbidden feelings. Of the doubt, and the hope, that this was anything more than he knew it to be: a stranger who looked like her, and who had maybe encountered the same devils he had.

The white wolf set his jaw and forced himself to relax, to hide the stirrings in his chest and the maddening swirl of recollections in his head. Tail swaying calmly behind him, and posture nonchalant, he woofed gently to her, hoping that she might come to him while he was still too rattled to approach himself.

The pallid brute might have gone unnoticed, had he not verbally announced his presence. His ghostly form would blend well with the snow that littered the ground. Lucy was far too enraptured with the discovery of home to have taken note of the stranger. As his bark traveled through the trees, her ears swiveled and she locked her eyes to his shape in the wood. 

Immediately, the inky wisp stiffened. Her limbs locked in place and her eyes met his, unblinking. Cosmic blue latched tightly to burning gold. The hair along her neck began to rise and her hocks buckled slightly, readying her to spring away should this encounter turn sour. He hadn’t moved yet, and his posture did not suggest that he was aiming to cause harm to the dark girl. Fear still gripped her like a tight leash. She could not find the strength to loosen her figure. Relaxation was a foreign concept to the child. She had grown so used to trauma that she believed it waited around every corner, eager to pull her from her life. Still, logic and reason told her to wait. See what this brute could want before darting to the shadows. 

A single tentative step is all that her body would allow. Her paw sunk into the snow and she tucked her tail against her rump. Lucy attempted to swallow the lump that had risen in her throat. Her eyes remained wide and she clung to her alertness with sharp claws. Quickly, she huffed inward through her nares and captured his scent. He was as unfamiliar as her home. 

To his surprise she was as unnerved by him as he had been unravelled by her. For different reasons he assumed — if only to force his mind to think something other than she was her, that she shared his disbelief that ever they could see each other again. But it was not working well. His heart desperately wanted to go there, to be lost in a moment he knew could never be for real. He longed for just one more day, knowing full well that if he was granted that wish he'd beg for another, and then another again.

"I'm Skwol," he said, his name spoken with an almost meek quietness that was not typical of him or of usual his strong, bass voice. He took a step forward, aware that she looked flighty, but needing to be nearer. To know her as anything but her.

He anchored himself to his kin's traditional greeting, finding security, finding ground, in it.

"Have you eaten?"

The two stood – yin and yang – still and wary. She could not quite understand why her appearance would startle this male as much as it seemed to. His face flashed with disbelief, and she found her mind spinning wildly out of control in an attempt to recall if she had ever met this brute before. His stark white was something she did not recollect well enough. Yet, his eyes burned with familiarity and Lucy would have sworn solemnly that he knew her. Gritting her teeth, she fought the stinging of fear that was rising in her chest. She was furious with herself. How could she not know him?

”I'm Skwol,” his quiet words drifted through the fen. Suddenly, she breathed deeply – not having realized that she had been holding her breath all that time. Her form softened and she blinked. The shadow was not familiar with this pale wanderer after all. This was relieving to the young girl. She retained some grasp of reality for a while longer.

The man then inquired if she had eaten. This question took her aback and she looked to him with a slightly gaping mouth. “I... no, I haven't,” she muttered after a prolonged silence. She wondered why a stranger would inquire this in the midst of a winter chill. Prey would certainly be scarce and it would not be uncommon for wolves to go some time without having eaten. Somehow, his single probing question had struck her as having been issued with only concern. Still fearful, she allowed him to step closer without fleeing. In turn, she took a few crunching steps closer to the wolf with sun-lit eyes.

“I'm Lucy.”

Lucy.

He felt the illusion seep out of his heart, out of his mind, and out of the air. It left him forlorn and wanting, and his heart resumed its normal cadence, the white wolf felt cold. It was relief and disappointment all it once. He inwardly chided himself. How foolish of him, to have allowed himself to be so entangled in that knot of coincidences.

The pair gradually came together. She was so similar and yet he could see she so different too. Lucy was smaller, and her eyes were not a young-leaf green but pale blue like a mountain stream. Captivating, but he did not allow his gold to hold them long before his gaze fell to the rope that hung from her slender neck.

Skwol's brows knitted. There was the source of the scent that had struck him; no amount of time or contamination could hide it — the devils' reek was woven tightly into those strange fibers. He had seen them before. The white wolf swallowed a growl.

"Lucy," he murmured, rooting himself to the present with her name. So powerful were his memories, was all that her presence stirred, that he needed to continue to take such measures if he were to maintain his composure. This was the danger in running, in burying one's pains and demons rather than facing them.

"Let me take that off you. Then let's find something to eat."

She watched as the familiarity fell from his eyes and he roamed her figure with a searching gaze. The shadow child stood with her frame on display, allowing him to take in the pieces that he wanted. She wasn't much; in the cold, even her ribs pressed against her sides. Lucy was thin, limber in appearance, and smaller than most. She was easily hidden and easily forgotten, but she preferred it this way. It was all that she had ever known.

Life seemed as though it had not been kind to this fellow Skwol, but Lucy knew that pain and was very aware of the harsh realities that faced her. Still, he seemed kind enough, and the sound of her name against his tongue was unfamiliar, but not altogether hostile. She reveled in it for only a moment before the large male made mention of the rope that dangled around her neck.

Instinctively, the shadow shrunk and flattened her ears to her skull. Her eyes were glued to his face, trying to read it for signs of aggression or the hint of tricks. She could not see this on Skwol's features. With a soft breath, the inky girl felt tears prick at the backs of her eyes. She fought the stinging in her throat and shook her head slightly.

“You can? You can take this off of me?” she said breathlessly. As hungry as she might have been, she had never felt more excitement than to know that this man could remove the taint from her body. He could wipe away the remnants of a life that had all but ruined her. For this, she would be eternally grateful.

"Mm-hmm." Skwol affirmed with a single nod.

He did not know the thing as a rope. He knew it only as one of the devil's artifacts — one that his teeth could damage. Unlike some of the others which he had tried his fangs on. The white wolf had seen rope in several places, but the first time he watched it hurled around the neck of a lumbering, horned beast, thrown from a devil sitting on the back of another strange, hoofed animal. He knew then it was trouble: that beast, snorting in protest, was dragged away.

"Stay still," he bade her as he moved closer. She was keen to have it gone and that seemed to encourage her to trust him further, but he monitored her from the corner of his eye and took care to not move too fast. He sniffed at the rope, his breath rustling the soft furs on the side of her neck. He hated to be near it, but without the devil's paw to grip it there was no trickery to it; it was as hostile as a dead snake.

Skwol pressed in and slipped his fangs over the coil. He tugged at it and paused, giving the girl a chance to understand what he intended to do and himself a moment to ensure that she would let him do it.

The murmur of his voice was soft, and though she shuddered away from it, she wanted the rope removed from her neck more than anything. She had carried it from her prison across miles of woodland until she had arrived in the Teekon wilds. Now, she stared at the face of the man who claimed he could remove it from her body. She carefully picked over the details, like they were questions she would attempt to remember at a later time. Dark patches of grey near his eyes and nose, and – of course – the sunlit burn of his eyes. Perhaps it was fate that she should cross paths with this Skwol. She could have happened across anyone. Lucy knew the population of the wilds was more than she could possibly ever acquaint herself with. Still, she could not help but to feel afraid.

The fear was not enough to cause her to turn away from Skwol, and so she bent her head and exposed the top of her neck. The fur stood there, but she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. He instructed her to hold still, so her limbs reacted accordingly. Each leg stiffened under his words and she felt her shoulders lock herself to the ground, anchoring her body there. Heart thumping, she felt his whiskers against the scruff of her neck and she gritted her fangs sharply.

Her visitor tugged lightly at the rope to offer her some understanding of what he would hope to accomplish. She exhaled sharply and nodded her head once. Lucy would permit him to do what he needed to free her from the tassel. Something whispered to her – told her that this wolf may very well know what it meant to be held captive. This was not something that she could speak to, and so she didn't. It was, however, the only reason that she remained there while he worked to free her.

She did not move away. The alone was all he needed but she confirmed with a nod that she understood and would allow him to do what he had to.

Skwol's lower jaw pressed into her neck as he worked it under the rope. He felt the coarse fibres scrape at his tongue and the edge of his lips as he worked it back to his carnassials — to the teeth designed for rending flesh. This to them was no more than a tough and tasteless bit of sinew. The click of teeth and crunch of jaw surrounded them both as he harried the rope, until at last it was cleaved in two and dropped free of her neck and piled at her feet.

He stepped back then, daring not to linger in such an intimate space when he had been invited only for this task. His head lowered so that he could leer at the rope more closely, before he aimed a derisive snort at it and settled back into a loose stance.

"How's that feel?"

It seemed to take no time at all for the male to shred through the rope around her neck. She felt a small tug, pressure against her throat, and then it was gone. The tassel slunk down to her feet and she opened her eyes with an expression of disbelief. Immediately, the inky girl shook her pelt. It was as if she was attempting to rid her body of any signs that she had been held prisoner. It had not been the first time, though, and while Skwol had given her a moment of reprieve... the memories were still there. Lucy knew that she had been born a prisoner and that she had only clawed her way to freedom a small handful of times. She also knew that it was likely to happen again.

The pallid knight inquired on how she felt. Lucy looked up to him with a timid but thankful expression. Her eyes roamed his face again and she found herself trying to memorize his features so that she would not feel so lost when she was on her own again. The thought shot a pang through her heart and she pushed the thought away for the moment.

“It feels like freedom,” she said with a sigh. As her thoughts began to eat away at the statement, her eyes darted to the left and her ears flickered down. Do you really know what freedom feels like, Lucy?

Skwol nodded his head. He understood. He had never felt the choke of a rope around his neck but he had felt that the devils stole his freedom when they made it so treacherous to move around. Then they took from him his heart and his future and made it so that he could not bear the rugged slopes he was born on or the meandering rivers below them; so that he could not stand the hurt. They took everything he knew and more than he would have the chance to know.

"How far away?" He asked, his question more ambiguous than he intended as his thoughts were interrupted by the glare of flesh where the rope had been. "The devils, I mean." His eyes scrutinized the wound from where he stood. It appeared neither deep nor threatening. Sore, raw, in need of a tender tongue at least, and a bit of medicine would not hurt, but he did not think it would trouble her much.

His mind shifted back to the subject at hand and his gaze lifted to the girl's face. Consternation was subtle but nonetheless present in the tautness of his mouth and the uncertain splay of his ears. The white wolf would not hesitate to press further south if he had to in search of some respite from the two-legged menaces.

Skwol nodded and she felt again that he understood on a deeper level. Lucy was still reeling at the thought that she was free from the leash. Her neck had been rubbed raw, but it would not take long to heal. It was not long, though, before the girl was pulled from her thoughts by a question from the pale brute. Her eyes darted to his and she squinted at the first inquiry. How far away? she thought back to herself, nervousness growing with every repeat of the question in her mind. How far away what? How far away did she wander? How far away did she intend to get? Skwol was quick to follow it was a more definitive addition: the devils.

Lucy shuddered a bit against the chill. Her neck craned so that she could face behind her, peering over her shoulder with a soft exhale. “Far enough,” she stated quietly. And though it seemed as if the young shadow was always running from a devil of some sort, she knew that he was referring to the two-legged creatures that had captured her. “I've been crossing land for at least two weeks,” she then added, swinging her muzzle back around to face him. She did not expect that the strange creatures would be able to find them in the wilds.

“You've,” she began but then shook her head softly and restarted, “you know them?” Lucy had not wanted to pry into her companion's life, but the question was eating at her.

In the brief moment between his question and answer his muscles had stiffened and a sense had dread had lodged like cold stone in his gut. The white wolf was strong and in good health, and accustom to being on his feet and moving. He could travel much further before he would be forced to yield. But he did not want to. Skwol was tired.

He sank onto his haunches with a long sigh as she replied — relieved that he would not be forced to gather his paws and keep going. She asked him if he knew them and he nodded. "Too well." He paused and searched her face, as if he would find something there. In actuality his search was more inward. He debated what if anything he wanted to tell her. He was a private wolf but their shared pains were compelling.

"I have come far to be rid of them," he shared. "Several moons, erh.." His brows knitted and his mouth shifted. His sense of the passage of time was unclear; clouded by grief. "Sometime before the leaves fell." He shrugged.

It will never feel far enough."

For him; and likely for her too.

The ghoul watched him stiffen at her question and all at once, she felt a pang of regret for having asked it. Somehow, knowing that he had faced the two-legged monsters did not help to calm her or bring any ounce of comfort to her shivering limbs. His larger frame sank as he lowered himself into a sitting position. Lucy followed, inching herself only a little closer to the male. His kindness had done well to bring her to a small level of trust. Their shared trauma was never something she would want to bond over, but she was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Skwol spoke of how he had traveled since before the fall. She thought back to where she had been during the golden months, clenching her jaw at the reminder of the two-legged encampment. She had been surrounded by all sorts of animals – all of them sharing the same fear. Lucy wondered how long they had held him captive and how they had managed to hold such a powerful brute. He seemed so strong; such a stark contrast to her thin and spider-like frame.

“I do not think that they will follow you here,” she finally returned. Her voice was shy, barely above a whisper, but she continued. “I-I was born here.” The admittance of this was akin to drowning. She could hardly breathe as she thought about her home and all that had been left behind. The sweet smile of Rannoch and the calming drawl of Cypress. She ached with how much she missed those two boys, but she also feared ever seeing them again after the turmoil that she had brought into their lives. “There have never been two-legged creatures in the wilds,” she added with a small nod.

“But that does not mean these lands are without monsters of their own.”

That she inched closer was not missed. Skwol greeted her trust with a small half smile.

She said she was born here and the white wolf's ears lifted. It came as a surprise to him though he could not figure why it should have. Obviously, he had made a subconscious assumption in thinking that she was in some foreign place too. He wondered how long she had been gone — she was a yearling yet — and how sure she was that there had never been two-legged creatures here, and that there never would be. It was not a question he was inclined to ask but another sprang almost unbidden from his tongue.

"Monsters?" Devils and the natural dangers of the wild were one thing — but monsters? "You have been through a lot, haven't you?"

His ears quickly splayed to the sides, apologetic.

"You don't have to answer that."

Skwol returned her remark on monsters in the form of a question and she winced at what followed. She liked to imagine that she was not quite as fragile as she was. Lucy daydreamed of being stronger than her past and sharper than the memories that terrorized her, but she knew that they were just as much a part of her as the ink in her cloak. The ghoul only wished that she knew how to overcome them. She had thought by leaving – but that had only ended in a fresh, new terror. For a fraction of a second, she wished she could tell Skwol. She wished that she could unburden herself of all the chaos that had ruled her young life and share it with the stalwart ghost; but she wouldn't.

It didn't take him long to retract the inquiry. A creeping smile moved the corners of her lips and she looked up at him with a studying expression. She almost did not want to respond, but she believed that she owed him at least that much. He was, after all, the only peace of mind that had found her in several long months.

“Yes... I have,” she breathed quietly. The fur along her neck pricked and she shuddered softly to lower the goosebumps that had formed on the pink of her flesh. “But some have been through more,” she added after a moment. Lucy had tried using this to ground herself for weeks, telling herself that it could always be worse. It worked well enough.

Realizing that she was getting lost in her own thoughts, the ghoul turned back to Skwol and offered a ghostly little smile. “Where are you staying? In the fen here?”

He hoped she would not answer and felt worse that she did. She was a strong wolf. Few could be so young and experience what he could only imagine she experienced, and come out of it with all four feet still seemingly planted on the ground. He was thankful when she steered the conversation down a different trail.

Skwol stalled to answer but disguised his hesitance with a sweep of his gaze around the fen. It was a charming place. It offered aromatic cover among the stately cedars and rich fertile ground for hunting and collecting medicinal plants. That moose favored the place was the most attractive aspect of it. Of all the large game he had hunted, he preferred the taste of moose. Not even the fat-strewn and rich flesh of the devils' hoofed beasts could compare. Still, that was not enough to make him stay here.

"Not staying anywhere... I guess I haven't stopped running." He admitted with a shrug, after a few moments of quiet observation. He had told her that nowhere would ever feel far enough. It was getting to the time when he needed to take his own wisdom serious and stop. He was accomplishing nothing by continuing to trek and trek and trek.

"Is this where you're staying?"

She liked him. Lucy didn't want to, but she couldn't help herself for being drawn to the kind honesty that was being expressed before her. She knew well enough that she had never gotten anything good out of her attachments to others. Just as he had spent his life running, she followed – hiding in the shadows from anything that might cause her harm. It was hypnotizing to be near someone like Skwol, though. She had been without that of a comforting companion for so long that she did not want their time to end, but the shadow knew that he would part eventually and leave her to herself.

The pale beast stated that he would not be staying in the fen; that he wasn't staying anywhere. She wondered with a pang of fear if he would continue running until he had disappeared from the wilds altogether. Then he asked if this was where Lucy would be staying. She shook her head softly and glanced through the trees. “No, I don't think so. I'm looking for two boys that I used to know,” she explained, feeling almost as though she had told a secret that had never been uttered before.

“Are you traveling alone?” the ink wisp then asked, wondering if he would humor her with an answer.

Skwol was betrayed by an upward twitch of his brows and a brief half-smirk at the corner of his mouth, as he held a teasing comment or two on his tongue about her search for two boys.

The white wolf nodded his head when asked if he was travelling alone. "But," Skwol pursed his lips and hummed in a deep, half-growl that was characteristic of him when he was thinking about something seriously. Several times he made to speak, his expression animating and mouth opening each time he thought he had found the proper articulation for what he wanted to say before he decided against it.

"Eh, I was just thinking..." he started and then paused again. Skwol shrugged, terminating his rumination in a whatever, the heck with it fashion and continued again freely. "I was just thinking we could find something to eat and then go look for them boys of yours." She did not need the help, he did not think. But he could use the direction and purpose.

Lucy watched the corners of his mouth curl in a smirk and she felt her cheeks flush. She realized that it must have sounded a little absurd that she was searching for two boys on her own. The ghoul was not certain she had the time or the strength to explain to Skwol why she needed to find them. Perhaps if he decided to stay, she could offer him better insight. He nodded his head in response to her question and she felt herself shrinking at the thought of parting with this steady fellow. She had never crossed paths with someone who had shared so many life experiences with her. He countered it with a 'but...' and she held her breath.

The words that followed found her heart soaring within her chest. Her smile spread quickly and she looked at him with wide eyes, unsure if he was being serious or if Skwol was playing a joke on her. The pale brute seemed well enough committed to the plan. Lucy's tail flagged as she rose from her position.

“I'd like that.”

The two found themselves trekking forward. They ate together and Lucy found herself drawn to the level voice that fell from the man's lips. She explained that she had another traveler who was in search of a pack after having found his old one abandoned. Lucy told Skwol that she had promised to lead Nevouku to a nearby pack so that he could seek answers or family. Either way, their plan was still set; find Rannoch and Cypress.