Duskfire Glacier And the walls keep tumbling down

Perhaps @Maera, if you have the time? Otherwise, all welcome (:

It had taken the boy a few days before he realized Njal Sveijarn was gone. The realization dawned on him when he passed a stale remnant of the stone man's scent and couldn't remember the last time the wind had carried it fresh. From there he'd scoured the territory, seeking out any sign of the father. But as the sun passed from east to west, the boy came up empty, and he slowly accepted that the patriarch was gone.

It surprised him how easily his thoughts accepted the conclusion. His heart felt little surprise, only a bitter disappointment. Malachi would neither pursue the man nor seek him out. He had given his advice, advice the boy had thought wise, and if Njal had spurned him then that was his decision. But he'd picked up on a different scent - fresh and present - that fuelled a small worry in his mind: if the winds did not play tricks on him now, Maera remained.

Njal had made it clear that when he left he intended to take Maera with him. If the man was truly gone for good, the girl's scent should have been as stale as her father's. But it wasn't. Lifting his head from the ground, he scanned the horizon before lowering his muzzle again, brushing across a parcel where her scent lingered still. He paused, hesitated, then paced forward to follow the trail.

:D jumping in!

Tuwawi, too, was on Maera's trail. The ember was eager to seek her daughter out, desiring to repent for time lost. Their timeline was incomplete and the holes were yearning to be filled. The haggard mother did not expect to run into Malachi, the Glacier's current chief and mason.

Her tired silver eyes watched him intently. Any anticipated joy in their reunion was seasoned by her endless, and bitter journey. Truly, Malachi was the only wolf left who had been there since the beginning. She approached slowly, towards her daughter's mark where the alpha stood, the collar around her neck suddenly hot.

Welcome, welcome! :D

His progress was cut short when another scent - or rather, the timid sound of approaching steps - drew him away. With a slow turn Malachi stole a glance at his approacher, and when his eyes met Tuwawi he repositioned himself to face her. Surprise stole the worry from his eyes, but he did not approach her as he had upon her first return, when he'd met her with delighted leaps and bounds. Her weary eyes were enough to make him still, and he lowered his gaze in respect for the once radiant queen.

"Hey," he greeted softly. He did not think it necessary to ask what she was looking for. Maera would be somewhere at the end of this trail, and he assumed she was the mother's pursuit. Instead he found his eyes drawn to that strange shape around her neck, and his gaze lingered there before he forced them away, unwilling to stare.

The air between them was stale, the conversation notably stunted. Their once joyous reunion was simply a memory - this having been the second time Tuwawi promised to remain. Malachi appeared equally tentative to her approach and adverted his glacial eyes towards the snow... perhaps out of sympathy. For a moment the two wolves stood quiet within the silent wood until the young man offered a placid, 'hey,' in acknowledgement.

Her flat gaze traced the youth's figure. Like Maera, he had aged. No longer was Malachi the yearling she remembered, but a man grown into his prime. His rich seasonal pelt of slate, amber, and white contrasted against winter's scrim, body well filled to combat the glacier's harsher lands. Without him, Duskfire would have certainty fallen into disrepair.

Her tattered muzzle dipped in a quiet greeting as the ember took a few paces forward to close the distance between them. "Malachi..." Tuwawi lipped. She then reached out to press her nose into his mane, intent to receive his touch and rekindle her bonds once lost.

He felt the burn of her gaze upon him, and was reminded of the morning they'd met, when plant life and sorrow had been his second skin. He'd felt out of place before the hardy mother then, whose mere presence had emanated strength and boundless love. Now, he felt the same. They were as foreign to one another as when they'd first met - the time of kindling bonds had been severed when her family had been destroyed, and when Tuwawi had become something of a ghost to the clinging remnants of the Glacier clan.

Within, Malachi feared she would disappear again, and a part of him was unwilling to put hope in her return. But when she reached to him, breathed his name, pressed the cool of her nose against his neck, his heart crumbled and he felt the weight in his stomach lift as he moved to nudge her back. His nose met first with the coolness of the band wound tight around her neck, but he did not jerk away, merely shifted until he could feel the natural warmth of her nape pressing against his snout. "I'm sorry." The words choked from his mouth before he could restrain them, and his ears fell sheepishly to the sides, but he did not seek to take them back.

This got really sad wicked fast :(

A warm feeling of acceptance swept across Tuwawi's spirit as Malachi drew near to console the scarlet waif, permitting her to comb through softer locks of ash mingled amidst his neck. Unlike Maera, Malachi didn't shy away from the unnatural collar, but rather chose to trace its edge until he discovered the ember's skin. His nudge was laced with empathy, posture visibly sedate in the wake of Tuwawi's refreshed grief. 'I'm sorry,' he managed to say despite the sorrow cut anew. Her heart clenched, wanting so badly to respond, 'it will be alright. Everything will be okay.' Yet, Tuwawi knew this err would never mend... and that she would never be whole again.

Her skin prickled when a cold sense of despair overtook the momentary comfort found in Malachi's presence, yet she slid her chin along his wither until it came to rest upon the small of his back. Tuwawi's thoughts turned to Njal at that moment... wondering where her stoic northerner had wandered. He had practically been her identity — her vivre d'être — for the majority of her life. Would her feelings ever fade? Would her sorrow carry on forever?

"Me too," was all she could mumble. The Sveijarn was sorry for many things. She pulled away and licked Malachi's cheek, finding solace in his shared poignancy. "We'll manage."

D:

They stood in silence for a long while, each resting in the comfort of the other and neither willing to pull away just yet. Malachi had forgotten the warmth of an embrace, even one as stricken as the one they shared now. He felt Tuwawi shift, running her touch along his spine, like a mother would her child. The boy would never know the magnitude of her grief, just as he had been unable to comprehend Njal's, and further still that which his own parents had shared. Malachi's heart twisted and he let his eyes close. Their grief had been raw as Tuwawi's, and he had only made their sorrows stronger.

'Me too,' the queen broke the silence and shook Malachi from the isolation of his thoughts. He tried to linger in her embrace a moment longer, wanting her comfort as much as he sought to give his own, but soon she withdrew her warmth and the place where she'd met him turned cold in the frozen air. He settled for the rasp of her tongue across his cheek, and he nudged her back. 'We'll manage.' she finished with an air of finality, and Malachi lowered his head. They were small words, not ones riddled with hope, and not ones blind to the sorrows that had befallen the family. But Malachi trusted there was a light somewhere in these murky waters, and day by day, they would find it. And to Malachi, Tuwawi's return - and her apparent resolve to stay - was the start. He lifted his gentle gaze to meet her, but diverted his eyes, respecting her for the queen she had been before. "Of course. We always do."

Tuwawi convinced herself of the lie that all would be well - for not even she could anticipate the waves of despair that would soon wrack her again. However, for the time being the Sveijarn experienced a small ray of peace in her friend's presence. "Njal's gone," she muttered abruptly, eyes drifting towards the snow. Her voice was flat and lacked the same emotion as before. Perhaps it was more a statement of confession than anything. A admittance.

Steeled eyes found Malachi once more, "and I don't think he's coming back." Her voice faded to almost a whisper and her eyes burned with the desire to water. Yet, her expression was sedentary in the face of adversity. It was all she could do to bear the weight.

"Have you seen my daughter? Maera?" Tuwawi hiccuped, changing the conversation's direction less she feared a breakdown.

He met her eyes for but a moment before casting his troubled gaze aside, certain the guilt he felt trembling within would show in their icy depths. His resolve faltered, and Malachi wondered if he should set to look for Njal as he had Larus over a moon before. But his scouting for Larus had turned up empty, and his only lead remained a wolf he could not find. The thought of why she did not return tied his stomach in knots, but he had not been able to find her by the sea, and the land had stretched too far and wide for him to search, and the scents were all but not beneath the overwhelming cover of sea salt and brine. He had not told a soul of Larus, and his tongue jarred him from speaking such words without tangible proof the Sveijarn lived. He wished to tell Tuwawi now, but to build her hope only to crush it again was something the man could not do.

But Maera was here, and in a most tangible form. She was a light he could offer the mother, and she was what Tuwawi needed now, as much as Maera needed the fire-kissed queen. "I haven't, but she's here. I was following her trail when you found me," he made a quick gesture with a nod of his snout in the direction he'd been headed, "and I figure she's at the end of it." He turned his eyes back upon Tuwawi, gaze softening once again. "You should go. She'll want to know you've returned."

Fade! :D

Malachi didn't comment on Njal's ansence - but perhaps that was for the best. The admission that he was truly gone was the first step toward the mother's recovery -- her energy not focused on the precious Maera. Tuwawi nodded, their brief and quiet meeting bittersweet, before turning towards the direction of Maera's scent, eager to rekindle her familial bond.