Falls of the Hinterlands let's go up in flames, pretty lady

It was snowing.  Snowing.  The sky overhead was a frore, desolate shade of grey, and when she looked up the bare tree limbs seemed to extend on forever.  It was a little disorienting.

She didn't know how long she had been away from home now, but at least she thought she knew where she was.  This was where she had last met @Llewellyn, and if she was right there would be water nearby.  She was still parched, although Rosalie had taken care of her the best she could.

And she was still smeared with blood, both that of her own and her opponent's.  She wondered what she looked like.  Part of her didn't want to know.  She knew her neck was torn up, and her shoulder too.

God, it was cold.  When she arrived at the falls, the edge of the water had already begun to freeze.  It was almost nightfall, and she was alone, and it was freezing.  There was no way she'd be able to wash all of this off of her tonight unless she felt like dying after all this effort she made to, well, not do that... so she bent to take a drink instead, and hoo boy that was bliss.

The snow is here frightfully early. He thinks of Speedy, worry settling deep in his stomach. She has not yet come to Moonspear's borders; he hopes for her sake that she has found a home elsewhere, although the envy he feels at that idea cannot be denied. Envy and anger, too. He warned her of this, repeatedly, but the girl was stubborn. . .

He returns to the spot where he met Ceara, hoping to see the fire-kissed wolf again. He has stopped by once or twice, to no avail, but the third time proves to be the charm when he spots her russet form by the water, drinking--and covered in blood, just like last time.

Llewellyn approaches with a bark, intending to make some wisecrack about her hunting habits, when his nostrils flare and the knowledge that it is her blood--at least in part--hits him in the chest like a stone. He pulls to a halt beside her, breathing a little quicker, sapphire gaze raking over the relatively fresh wounds that mar her flesh. This was no quarrel with prey; this was a fight with another predator: by the smell of it, another wolf.

"What happened?" he asks sharply, voice dulled slightly by the roar of the falls. "Who did this?" His hackles raise and his pelt begins to bristle at the thought of enemies nearby. He thinks of Blackfeather Woods and the atrocities they have committed, and a growl gurgles in his throat.

She is startled by his arrival.  She pulls her head up from the water too quick, and the blackness begins to encompass her vision.  She closes her eyes for a moment, ears faltering to the sides.  When she opens them again, the blackness has dissolved.  

Llewellyn is the same as he was last time.  Quick to ask questions, and rather demanding about it.  The smile does not come to her face as it did the last time they had met, and she is not as charmed by his demeanor as she had once been.  She's tired, and she's incapable of playing games.

She takes a moment before she answers him, passing it off as her disorientation.  Part of her will always love @Siarut, and part of her will always want to protect him, despite his sister's unfortunate decisions.  She cannot tell this man about IkKanattut — even if she wanted to, she did not know its name or its location.

So she falls back on the easy enemy.  Blackfeather.  It was not wholly untrue; the Northerners had been part of Blackfeather once.  If push came to shove, she could play ignorant.  She was far from home.  I was by the coast when this happened to me.  I didn't know where I was for a while.  But I recognized this place.

Which meant she could make it home.

Blackfeather. The name sizzles through his psyche like a match suddenly struck; the rage intensifies, and he looks away, fuming. Weakened as they are from the war, it seems that the pack is not done with their old tricks just yet. Mind moving quickly, he turns back to Ceara, caught between action and empathy.

"You're hurt," he says gruffly, opting for the latter but doing a poor job at showing it. "Are you still bleeding, or just messy? I can try to slow the bleeding with moss, if you are." As with the situation involving Speedy, he draws on his limited experience with battlefield medicine. He knows not the names of herbs, nor what most of them do--but he can heal pain and stop blood, if need be.

There comes the smile.  She brandishes her wounds to him to show him the thin paste that coats them thanks to the care she had received from Lee.  I ran into someone yesterday, and I helped her take care of me.  I'm just messy.  

As time has worn on she's become more desensitized to the feeling of dried blood on her pelt.  It still bothers her, but the memory bothers her more.  She's worried about the kind of person she's becoming.. but if she dwells on that, she'll never make it home.  I'm sure it couldn't hurt to re-apply, though.

She glances around and becomes suddenly thankful for the presence of water and the resilience of moss.  Do you know what you're doing?  Medicine was what she was best at, but if he didn't need her help she wouldn't emasculate him.

Llewellyn breathes a sigh of relief that she has been tended to. Thank God for small blessings. He shakes his head, not out of an unwillingness to help but of a knowledge that whatever he does might only undo the work of the previous healer. "No need, if the bleeding has stopped," he responds. "Please do let me know if the wounds reopen while you bathe."

He bends his head to take a lap of cool water, made even crisper by the presence of snow in the air. The flurries dust his pelt, silver against gold, and he shivers slightly. Winter is coming, and he is loath to welcome it.

"What happened?" he asked again, once his thirst was slaked. "Did you know this woman? Did she attack you unprovoked?" He would not insert himself into a personal quarrel, but then again, this was a wolf of a pack he'd vowed to destroy. Morals warred with necessity as he waited for her response with bated breath, gimlet stare boring into her.

Well, she has to face the water now.  Her pelt is thin; she does not don the thick winter pelt that allows others to fare well in these lands.  She wants to bitch out.. but she's not about to in front of him.  She is thoughtful enough to trail into thw water after he has finished drinking and her fur stands on end as she quivers.  It's colder than she expected.

The answer to his query is complicated.  No, I didn't know her.  I knew her brother.  We were.. she trails off, not sure how to continue.  She had been nothing to Siarut.  We were never together.  But we could have been.  I didn't know he was Blackfeather for a long time.

She focuses on bathing as she continues her story, too embarrassed to meet his gaze.  We spent a night together that I can't remember before I knew.  He had a bunch of fun pretending he'd — well, been with me.  And I'd never been with anyone.  I found him again before I met you for the first time, and he held it over my head.  The frigid water soothes the swelling of her wounds.  

Just before I saw him, there was a boy who gave me mushrooms.  And for the first time, I gave it up.  If I had been sober, I.. wouldn't have done anything with him.  What he said hurt me because it reminded me of that boy.  And then he tried to comfort me afterwards, like he hadn't just said the thing that hurt me.  So I hurt him.  She sucks in a breath, remembering that this is a stranger who doesn't care about her and she should probably get to the point.

I had never met the woman who did this to me.  She didn't say anything to me.  When I told her my name, she just attacked me.  But I hurt her worse than she hurt me, so.  She rolls her shoulders.  Whatever, right? 

Ah, so it was a personal quarrel. And with a personal quarrel came a personal story. He holds in a sigh, settling back on his haunches as she rambled on, trying to make sense of it all.

Llewellyn is smart when it comes to many things, but sex and romance are beyond him. He doesn't understand much of this, these games, these feelings. Blood and loyalty, he can comprehend. Allies and enemies, he knows. The nuances of love? Ceara might as well be speaking in a foreign tongue. His mouth twitches; he is uncomfortable here. He would have rather the woman just attacked her for no reason at all.

"Good," he responds to her final statement, something he can finally get behind. "That is good, especially considering how torn up you are." Llewellyn looks over the water, glancing up at the snow, then back to her. "So there is history behind this attack. This was not. . .Blackfeather up to their old tricks."

She tightens, still unable to meet his gaze.  She doesn't know how she feels — she's not a mindreader — but it isn't impossible to get the gist.  She feels like such a lousy fucking moron.  She should've spared him the story.  Why does she keep doing this?  It's not like anyone cares anyway, especially not someone who is essentially still a stranger.

Yeah, she provides, trying not to sound as broken as she feels.  Sorry.

He expects much more than two words, and his eyes widen when that is all that comes, her tone defeated. "Sorry?" he asks, cocking his head slightly to one side. "Why do you apologize, Ceara? You've spared me from shedding blood, exciting as that may have been," he adds with a wry smile. He shakes his head, coming the barest bit closer to her, willing her to find the sincerity in his gaze.

"We will find them and kill them," Llewellyn vows, voice grave. "It won't be for this--it is in total, all that they have done--but I promise you, Ceara, revenge will be yours. I swear it." Perhaps this will make her feel better. Again, Llewellyn is not the best with romance. What he can offer, though, is loyalty and brute strength, and whatever she needs from him, he can provide, so long as it does not interfere with his position and duties at Moonspear.

There is a wrinkle that appears between her brow as he moves closer.  From here she's able to see clearer the sharp sapphire of his gaze, and her own immediately falls to the water.  She doesn't need to be thinking about that, not right now.  Probably not ever again, if she was smart.  Letting people in was stupid, and all it ever did was get her hurt.  There would never be another Bruges or Siarut in her life.  The only exception would be Raven.

"Sorry?  Why do you apologize, Ceara?"  Because she feels like a child.  What does this stranger — or anyone, for that matter — care about who she's had sex with?  All she'd done was make things uncomfortable.  She focuses on cleaning the rest of the blood from her pelt — at least, what she can reach — before she responds.  

Ours, she corrects belatedly.  Revenge will be ours.  She couldn't — wouldn't! — do this on her own.  She'd need his help whether she wanted it or not, and for now she was in camp "wanting it".  She didn't know how he would feel about this kind of weird extension, but she hoped it'd give him something to look forward to because this guy seemed to really like killing people.

She trailed out of the water and shook off, then, shivering, made to move somewhere that looked the warmest.

Is it really his revenge, though? As a tactician, he knows Blackfeather needs to be eliminated. As a member of Moonspear, he understands that the pack presents a very real threat to his kingdom. But the kind of burning desire that sits in your stomach, your loins, that thirst to even the scales. . .that is not here, now. Not like it is when he thinks of Ioan.

It is her revenge, and he will help her achieve it. He doesn't want to contradict her, though, and so he nods, smiling faintly.

"So what is our next move?" he asks, following her as she dries off. Snow flurries land on the bridge of his nose, flutter into his eyes; he shakes the precipitation from his mane like a lion worried by flies, his gaze narrowed. "Do we take the fight to them--infiltrate their forest--or wait for them to come back? Will this man or his sister be back anytime soon?"

Her lips flatten.  I'm not sure.  We'd have to scope them out first.  I don't know how many of them still remain in the forest, and there are only two of us.  Their warriors are strong.  How else could they have survived the onslaught of Redhawk and Drageda forces?  

Striking them one by one out in the open would be easier, like they do with everyone else.

Oh, and Siarut and his sister?  I hope not.  They live far over the mountains, I'm surprised they were out here.

Llewellyn does not like to play the waiting game. He frowns in contemplation of this information and begins to pace, tail lashing back and forth. "Then I will go and stake them out," he decides, trying to figure out just how exactly a giant golden wolf blends into his surroundings. Perhaps he could use his conspicuousness to his advantage. . .but how?

"I will go spy, and tell you what I see," the prince says, turning back to Ceara. "Shall we meet at the next new moon? It is waning, now." Not much time between then and now. Hopefully, though, he can gather some credible evidence--a strong lead. While the desire for revenge did not burn in his belly, this did give him a goal. . .something to do.

Llewellyn has always loathed feeling useless; he feels much the opposite, now. He is smiling without his volition, a newfound glint to his eyes.

She offers a final nod.  I should get home, she says, I've been gone longer than I intended.  They're probably worried.  Hopefully.  If anything ever happened to her, she didn't know if they'd come looking or assume she'd abandoned them.  She hoped that they trusted her enough to send out a search party.

Still.  I'll see you then.