Whitewater Gorge we have no evidence it wasn't

for @Aurëwenn ; pp was approved/allowed

Once more he roamed. The land wasn't welcoming here but he did not mind. There were certainly worse places to be caught at. Early on in his trek the path for the Gorge seemed narrow, deadly to keep trekking. He ignored the warning though and was given a small reward of a wider path. Admittedly it made him feel better about being here.

The feeling was not to last though. No good feelings ever lasted long.

Someone was up ahead looking for something — or someone. Here, of all places, he had hoped to not catch a roadblock. There was no easy way to move around them without one (or both) of them tumbling into the gorge. MISS. He rumbled with a low swish of his tail following. WHAT COULD YOU BE LOOKING FOR HERE? Kalganov had to imagine that anything lost here, was gone for good.

Tendered by the past thoughtless, drowsy days that left her drifting as she was, the evening torments of her mind had left Aurëwen quick to bristle, even quicker to spit. So engrossed in today’s foraging was she that the wanderer’s words fell on ears numbed to all but her own thoughts — until she sniffed primly, to herself and into the late summer air.

With an uncharacteristically savage snarl, the silver spun in place; argent half-sight burning bright and cold and condemning whoever had so invasively grown in her presence. ...But then, it’d been she who had been unawares — so ridiculously unawares, as she often was — and when she saw the pale, limber masculine before her, she settled.

And soured.
“Anything that grows,” she warbled, the heat of her shrike of a daughter billowing through her own accented words. “And you?” 

He took a step back, prepared to pull away from an oncoming attack. The snarl was all the warning he had needed. Then as quickly as it had happen it melted and fizzled out to nothing. Sourness was present but not outright anger. He hesitated to reply to her sharply returned words but eventually his brain worked to move his mouth.

NOTHING... He admitted with a subtle shrug of his shoulders. Why did he feel almost like a youth caught misbehaving? To be scorned by the scarred ivory dove like a mother reprimanding a child, it didn't settle well with him. Such things could not be dwelt on for too long unless he was to become bitter himself.

WHAT COULD GROW HERE? Another question rolled off his tongue, genuine curiosity lacing it as he tried to peer over her form. As if it might reveal what wonders could grow in the gorge.

Marred half-sight narrowed at his apparent admittance; and so perhaps he was simply meandering along by.

Still—
what audacity that stirred within him, to ask whatever there was to find here! 
“There is much to find here. Bloodwort, stonecrop, ironweeds. On ze cracks and ze crevices and in hidden nooks. Have you never foraged a gorge before?” The herbalist looked the specter before her with a critical, half-blind assession; tail aquiver at her hocks as an irritant feline’s might.

Yet, with a stature so diminutive as hers, it was more like a stubborn feather being mollified that the wing it’d rooted in now meant to shed it. 
The silver still held the hope of shooing her distractor away, though, despite his proclamations and demeanor that showed he’d done nothing wrong at all. What a... a... “You burr,” she hissed, attempting to find some way to knife her insult between the ribs of his intrusion.

He had been — still was really — interested in learning despite her pointed words. Accented words, sharp and jabbing to his mind. Briefly his nose crinkled before smoothing out as he aimed to respond. BITTER DOVE, He addressed her with a wipe of his tongue over antsy lips. WHY WOULD I ASK IF I HAD DONE SUCH BEFORE? The question easily escaped him as a brow arched over pale green eyes.

It was obvious that despite their dance of sharp words, he was not keen to flee the scene just yet. There was still much he wanted to know. He'd push his luck further with his begrudging teacher. THESE THINGS...WHAT IS THEIR PURPOSE?

His retaliation, in whatever tongue he issued it by, almost had her frothing at the fangs and fluffing up just like the  (embittered)  dove he’d claimed her to be — not that she’d ever know, just the way she would never know that many another thought her to be such. His own enquiry made her scowl in a way that had her old scars writhe like revived vipers; 

“Ze first relieves toofth pains and aids in ze emptying of one’s stomach or bowels. Ze second is for coughs, or applied as a property to open wounds, namely burns. Ze third is a blood tonic, and for whelping pains.” 

The thin tail of the even-thinner, presently-stingy greenseer whipcracked through the balmy air. It didn’t occur to her that she had unwillingly, unconsciously acquired a pupil; he was still a burr, and for once the curiosity of another only gave her further cause to snap. It didn’t occur to her that he might have more questions, either—

Without waiting another heartbeat, the light-boned hind turned and flit from what she believed was, in her frustrations and ebbing anguish, another soul who needn’t be in her life:
fleet steps took her from him and towards the lips of the gorge, and she eventually started an adamant march down down down to the roaring waters below; snarling when there were lacks of footholds.

The male was genuinely surprised that he even received an answer. Bloodwort for toothaches and emptying stomachs (such an odd combination). Stonecrop for coughs and open woods. Finally there was ironweeds for...blood tonic? Whelping pains too he supposed but that wasn't nearly as interesting. He was already cracking his jaws to ask another question as she turned away to stride into the dangerous gorge.

Eyes blinked wildly as she so boldly took off, growing closer to the edge of rushing waters. For a moment he considered his options. He was not done with learning though. Selfishly he called out to her again. WAIT! WAIT! He called out before pausing into silence. Then hesitantly he followed after her just a few steps, making sure to give a wide berth should she turn to snap. WAIT! He gave a final cry in case his first two hollers had not reached her attention well enough.

When was the last time anyone had called out for her? Needed her?
Stupidly, her eyes began to burn and she blamed it on the ridiculous sun, the deafening rush of waters, the pebbles that bit into her pink pads — blamed it on anything other 

“Chit?!” She demanded of her haunt, ruff shivering to life, “Chit dula op—?” before her Trigedasleng faltered, reminded her of another, and reiterating in Common, fangs flashing to hide the quaver in her throat, “What more could you possibly want? To shove me into ze damn waters, too?”
Some quieter part within Aurëwen knew that she was taking her own fury out upon such an undeserving shambler, but the stubborn goat within her refused to let up, refused to apologize, refused to ask for forgiveness.

And though there was an even meeker fragment within her that didn’t want him to go like it seemed all others had done in her life so far, so recently, that Aurëwen promptly hated herself for that bit of longing. “M-milya,” she hissed for herself, turning from the grey warden. “Nányë san milya.”

Perhaps that was why so many thought her dovelike, but, again, she would never know even that.
Voice simmering down to a frail croak, she glared sidelong through brimming  (but stoppered)  tears and forged on ahead. “I am assuming you have a name?”

It seemed they were fated to pass back and forth words that neither one could understand. Her reply was still pointed but the meaning to the words might as well have fallen on deaf ears. Then she spoke in that accented tongue, common words he could get. IT'D BE FUTILE. Mumbled words were followed with a small shake of his head. What could he stand to gain from pushing her into the water? Absolutely nothing. NO. He answered again, a touch gentler than previous words.

KALGANOV. He replied smoothly, hoping to keep whatever calmness had fallen for a few seconds more. The male needed this — the calmness, the knowledge, her. Whether she knew it or not, she was important to him now. THE PLANTS. . .DO THEY ONLY GROW IN GORGES? The words fell off his tongue with hesitancy as he wondered just how much he was pushing his luck.

By the time his name made its entrance through numbed veils of hearing to her ears, her cut chin was wobbling, and her tissuey lips, too; so she snagged a tooth into the lower one, brow creasing as her willed her wavering mind to commit this name to memory. Had she known his own foreign utterance, Aure would’ve gladly  (read: not)  informed him of all the benefits  (read: there’s none)  of holding one beneath the currents.
...Fortunately, though, his query snared upon the more readied parts of her mind; her tone a huffy drawl:

“Bloodwort is more commonly found in rich woodland. Stonecrop is discoverable in more arid places than these; they are succulents, and their root systems are shallow. Ironweed...” That’d been the name of it, right?... “Ironweed can be found in meadows, and are most fertile in dampened environments.”

Once more, she fell quiet, thin shoulders weighing away from her wisping neck like ivory, too-fine anchors. And once more, the silver rose, and began to trek her way down at a much slower pace than before; as if all that’d ignited her this day had simply... gone out.

Perhaps had he not been behind her, been more attentive to the emotions of others, he would have noticed the shift in her face or the way her eyes might have been glassy with tears. Who could say those things would have mattered even if he could see, though? He'd never been particularly good with the more emotional ones.

He soaked in the knowledge she shared, trying to organize it all for later use. THERE HAS TO BE A SAFER PATH. . . The words lingered in the air, more of a suggestion than anything else. Truthfully he had no clue if there was a safer path. He was not experienced enough with this place to know. Was she leading them to safety or had he followed her blind rage to a watery grave? I WISH TO APPLY WHAT YOU TEACH ME OUTSIDE OF THE GORGE, IDEALLY. He rumbled softly as he attempted to find a better way out of here.

His quip only earned a thin-lipped glance from over the crude spire of her shoulder; and then, without warning, veered away and low, darting to one of the little crevices of water-limned crag. Her first quarry, her warden  (of sorts?)  would find, was the so-named bloodwort — “Bloodroot,” Aure quietly amended, cursing herself — turning to her for-now-pupil with a pale-petaled sprig cinched carefully between her foremost fangs.
She only let herself linger for a moment-and-half, so he may gaze upon her finding and mark it down into the tome of his own recesses. 

And then she was flitting away once more; only in short pulses, of course, but nonetheless never a she-wolf to tarry about. Once she’d sought “Stonecrop”  (nudging absently at the blushed, flowering succulents)  and “Ironweed”  (likewise with the purpling, minute fronds)  and demonstrating them in much the same manner, it was then, and only then, that the greenseer decided it was finally time to return to level lands.

And though the ascent was much more quieter and less harried than their initial departure, Aurëwen continued to keep the remnants of all that she felt to her own person. She needn’t lie her trails upon another yet again; there was the kind-faced Speedy and the stolid Ira for that, she thinks. And even then, she... couldn’t be sure whether their presences were a balm-to-be or no.

With a thin sigh, the critical hind regarded Kalganov once more — presumably, for the last time. Her tongue was leaden with such reluctance, but her words were just as adamant towards her as she was to all around her: “Should you need to find me for more study, I reside within ze riverlands of Kaisteloki... for now. It is northerly, and by ze deer-plateau.” An inscrutable blink. “Do you have any more questions?”

Bloodroot.

He had half a mind to ask what had been bloodwort then but the memory of her look over a sharp shoulder suggested he not quip. Not for now, at least. Kalganov acknowledged that she was kind enough to not shove him into the waters that rushed by their side for all of his selfish inquiries.

Next came the stonecrop, flowered succulent that it was. He had half a mind to pluck it for himself but there was no use. Kalganov was not ill nor did he have some sort of herb cache to stow away the things she showed him. So everything would be stored into his mind until the time came for the knowledge. If the time came.

Finally was the ironweed with its purpling fronds. There wasn't much time for him to admire it before they cut across and moved to safer paths. It eased some of the worries that had unexpectedly built up in the pit of his stomach. She left him with the final knowledge of where to find her. An invitation of sorts should he desire further lessons.

Newsflash, he likely would.

WHO DO I ASK FOR. . .? A brow raised softly as he waited. “OR DO I MERELY ASK FOR BITTER DOVE?”

She’d been about to leave the argent entirely and without further word; every bit of her burned with sullen, miserable mortification, for herbs had not been all that she’d demonstrated today, much less to a stranger.
And yet, it wasn’t as if she'd never shown such vulnerability to those she’d only just become acquainted with in the past. But now, she— she would need to be more careful, yes. More cautious, to not let her damnable tenderness  (so prone to push all from her)  push through the permafrost, now.

But then he asked for her name, she thinks, and the silver only halted in place; svelte spine turned to the Volga-born. It seemed she wouldn’t answer for the longest time, until she wisped, surrendering with a despondent breath, “Aurëwen.”

And as the herbalist made a skulking departure, she prayed that this Kalganov wouldn’t ever grace the riverlands.
Pray he finds a more forgiving mentor.

Never her.

last from me. feel free to archive?