Lost Creek Hollow It was in Vienna

Meant to take place after this thread. Looking for @Ambra, but @Antonia also welcome! All the ladies.

Amadeus bounded into the hollow with blood dried to his fur. His shoulder was torn, but otherwise all he had was scrapes and bruises from his scuffle with the strange old woman.

Lifting his head, he called for Ambra with a low howl. She would need to tend to him now if he wished to avoid scarring.

Sitting down with a scowl souring the sharp features that might make him handsome on a regular day, he hissed silent curses and licked his wounds in silent defeat. No matter how he twisted it, that was what it had been. Father would have refused to look at him for days after such a poor fight.

Ambra is at his side within moments, hissing softly at the sight of his open flesh. No matter what she does, this will scar. The edges of the wounds are ragged.

She says nothing as she urges Amadeus into the relative shelter of an old windthrow. Then reaching roots of the fallen tree look a hundred arrows piercing a carcass.

She cleans the wound, pressing mouthfuls of snow against the flesh and letting it melt. Fur is licked flat so that it does not stick when the pink meat begins to weep. There is no pharmacy to speak of, but she has spent the morning stripping willow bark - something she chews into a rough paste now, working so fast that sharp splinters bruise her gums and palette. The rudimentary poultice is pressed into Amadeus' shoulder as he rests on his side.

"A shameful and cretinous man did this," she says, putting weight on the paw that rests on her brother. "He will surely be struck down."

Ambra comes running to him like a loyal dog. Amadeus follows her in near silence, too ashamed of himself to speak for fear that he will admit what has happened. He lets her work uninterrupted; this is a woman's area of expertise, and he has no say in the methods.

Yes, the law of the Paragon will make it so. He promises, the words slipping from his tongue as easily as any well practiced phrase. I must tell you what I saw, Ambra. Our little sister. He refuses to speak Milana's name, Amadeus knows it will feel like venom on his tongue.

She is here, close by. Law says I must punish her for her crimes, but she is not alone. He can no longer claim that she has had children out of wedlock, but it does not change the fact that Milan abandoned her home. She is a traitor.

"Praise be," Ambra mutters automatically upon hearing this news. The flow of blood is stemmed, and she steps away from Amadeus, bidding he stay on his side for a moment longer.

"For my soul, how far has she strayed?" She wants to know if Milan has produced children (and effectively cut her chances of survival down to nothing). She pretends it is because she wants to revel in how pious and good they are by contrast.

Amadeus is silent for a moment, laying his head on the ground. She really has grown to look exactly like mother. Same small build, nearly the same coat if not for the charcoal points. Even that same fearful look mother used to get before the change. Then again, Milan had always been her twin.

It was a hint of sentimentality slipping through, one that Amadeus was quick to put behind him.

She has taken up shelter with an old woman and a yearling boy. A brutish old woman at that! There are young pups, but they do not belong to Milan. She shows no sign of motherhoods gift. The gift being bald, saggy tits of course. They truly did look like children from their own family line, though. It was strange. The fat one he had grabbed almost reminded him of cousin Beau before he grew into himself.

Amadeus eyes his sister; he knows that she must want to save Milan. Women were always weak to the sins of others. She abandoned us, and when I came to her she sent claws and teeth after me. There is not even a true man there to speak of. Not that he hadn't put up a very good fight, of course! She has strayed far from the light.

Exactly like mother.

Ambra says nothing. Her own relationship with Amara had been complicated, particularly since her family had shown their true Paragon colors on that one summer evening in her youth. Amara's had been a washed-out, muddy yellow. Complacency. Weakness. She had tended to surface wounds and let the hole in her daughter's heart bleed freely.

Many years later, a shell of a wolf sits in the snow, nodding along as her brother accuses Milan of crimes that could just as easily have been her own.

"Swearing fealty to outsiders," Ambra summarizes with a shake of her head, then, with a tremble in her voice. "Was.. was it fated that the stranger's children should live this day? To face their end when they understand why it must be so." Did you kill them?

Amadeus did not answer right away. It was no mans place to decide when a child should die; they held too much value for that. But in truth, he didn't know what he had truly intended. He would tell himself that he planned to flee with the child, raise him the right way, but he knew that he just as easily could have crushed it in his jaws.

The children live, but I worry for them. He decides to tell her. To be raised around such beasts, the universe will surely punish them all. It wasn't fair, they all knew that, but it was the way of the world. Parents who refused to live the right way damned their own offspring.

But what is there to do? Amadeus is only one man.

Ambra, tell me. When do you think your husband will come?

Ambra nods. Of course, so sad, a tragedy. She thanks the stars that Amadeus is not quite as literally cut-throat as other members of the family.

At his question, she wilts a little. "He did not tell me his plans and I did not press."

At her response, the brow of Amadeus furrows. To have left you on your own, he is cruel. What if she had been hurt while so far from his watch, or worse, what if she had been tempted? Amadeus supposed he was biased given he never liked Serge, not like his father or brother who could laugh with the man and pretend they did not see his imperfections — because he could do what was necessary, because he wouldn't flinch. Amadeus had long decided that he was too good to ignore others downfalls.

Maybe it was selfish then that Ambra's words planted a seed of glee deep in his chest. The law was his word here, and if he decided that Serge had abandoned his sister that would be his authority. She would be able to take a new husband, and what better way to attract lonely men?

Though, she was getting a bit old.

I'd like to rest now.

Ambra said nothing - to agree was to be disloyal to her husband, and to disagree was to suggest that Amadeus was wrong about Serge.

She wasn't sure who she feared more. Serge was straightforward in his cruelty. Amadeus was a snake. Unpredictable. Difficult to read. Conniving behind his good manners, but that was unfair to snakes.

Ambra bid her brother rest well, and scurried back to her make-shift camp under the dead ferns.