Moonstone Quarry gatekeeper of an endless war

hello. it's me. i have no self control. lol.

spiderwebbed memory, fissured and missing pieces like a broken windshield, had spurred the flight from asterium grove despite their kindness to take him in during that tumultuous time. still, as per usual he felt no real guilt over it. it was overwhelming as it came rushing back at him like an unstoppable tidal wave intent to crush and drown. it almost had. relmyna — his first love! vellamo — his daughter! how could he, even in a ghost state have forgotten them?

he remembers now, his memory having patched itself back together in one unpleasant melding that had made him sick and reclusive for weeks; and like the wilds were a siren whose song wintersbane could never resist he is lured back. over and over. this is where he belongs, he knows. this soil he was born to, these wilds that witnessed his birth, his almost death, his wins and losses. these wilds that stole his mother from him much too early, that saw the upheaval of his father's mental stability. this soil that saw him fight with his sister near to the death — her death. he has too much history here and thus it only makes sense to him that this is where his future should be too.

he's not overly fond of high places, given the circumstances but the quarry — despite the upheaval these wilds have seen ( if the smoke, ash and glowing, molten streams spilling from sleeping dragon was of any indication ) — seems stable enough. he is interested in the crystalline water at its bottom and the glimmer of moonstones winking at him from near the water source. he descends the last bit of limestone wall and lets out the breath he didn't realize he's been holding and draws in a smaller, albeit no less greedy breath, tasting the far off metallic sting of ash and smoke, chilled with the biting air of teekon autumns and makes his way towards the water.

tired posr bloop idk words

Twice now Andraste wonders if her own memory should have fractured;
and though faraway her new masque may seem, at times, she has not been able to help feeling such a fumbling fury with herself. Could the sword in the sky not have favored her mem'ry beneath that fated cleaving, rather than that of her very soul? Could she not still return — be! — Aurëwen, she who loved her brood, would have most certainly returned, comforted, kept, held, all all all rather haunt this vessel of what-ever she had once tried to be, could not ever be again?

Emotion has become so vague! Even the most depthful, the most true! Why had a phenomena such as that eluded her?

Nevermind that she has known this male in some manner—
the stricken steps from the uneasy foothills of the quarry with a faint chirrup; cloudthick eyes adrift upon the clustered elbows of moonstone therein and around water's edges.

The roughened planes upon moonmaid's face remain so; yet the vague turmoil beneath fades and fades and fades before she is left blinking at the woad figure who too has come again from her past.

faint chirrup that otherwise might've went unheard stirs acute hearing that picks it up with a swivel of velveteen ear. for a moment, wintersbane almost deigns to let it go ignored, unsure whether he wishes for companionship this early morn. the wisps of candyfloss colors: citrine orange, sugared blue, bubblegum pink layering before a cut of candyapple red, brought to life by the ascension of the sun yet to crack and chase away the shadows of night. but something in him says to indulge — the owner of the chirrup or his stirring curiosity remains unknown — and he turns the unscarred half of his face towards the ...

well...

stranger isn't quite the word he'd use for the sylph of moonbeam given life. they've met ...twice? before. once when he acted as her sentinel and a second time in which they enjoyed the pleasures of each other's flesh. aurë. though she does not move with the same lofty elegance that he remembered. there is something hidden beneath her steps, something that he cannot place ...and there is a faint pink scar he detects with a sweep of his glacial gaze against her pallid spine that he does not remember. or perhaps it is his imagination? there is still plenty of distance between them that this remains plausible.

even if he is right, wintersbane is not the same either. he doesn't speak, doesn't deign to call out in the distance that yet remains between them — because he is not confident that he can. gravelly voice has become quieted: a hushed rasp of smoke that must carry the weight he would usually pack between a loud baritone. his body language must emphasize his words, chained and controlled as they are now.

instead, wintersbane settles for a slight curl of his lips into a smirk and invites her nearer with his posture, deciding that if she decides she wishes for his wretched company he will speak to her once she is nearer.

Gauzy gaze alights upon the rougish quirk of dark lips;
were she Aurëwen, she might have — would have! — swept to him with silly salt in her eyes, put her mouth upon his and lamented, longingly, how severely she had missed his damnable presence ... But she is Andraste, and she had again given her heart to a male who could not be present. Still:
it is not the only reason she remains held back from him. As with many before the snitch, she does not know how he will react when presented with her fractured figure and plighted persona; she does not know how he will look upon her when, if, she should tell him all that she has told many others. All those she has gone from to shamelessly pursue a figment she is certain is selfless.

Then again, she supposes that she does not need to know. After all, he had been one of those very few who had truly understood her before her downfall.

The stricken is drawn nearer to who she knows with sureity is Wintersbane, and with an incoherent murmur of rememberence; deemed again to share in the flesh of him. And yet, this moment was other; the melding of her tattered hide against the harvestfull woad of his own was for acknowledgement, of amenity. Shorn cheek pressed now into broad, blue shoulder and lashes veiled faraway halfsight; quiet, save for the a trilling, tranquil croon of easement. Málo; @Guildenstern had been this, too.

Would this swindler still ken her soul?

his eyesight does not fail him — alas, distance and the swarthy blanket of nightshade chased by the radiance of the golden sun enjoys playing tricks to even the most keen of eyes — for as the woman draws nearer wintersbane can plainly see the splintering scar left along the elegant curvature of her spine. it bothers him little. how can it? when vanity has been struck from his ownself with the marring of neck and throat and ugly scars down his face. new scar, princess? he murmurs in honeyed rasp and low, breathy chuckle rumbling within the depths of his marred throat.

he holds still for her, muscle in his hip twitching and a slow noise of contentment drawing from his chest as she presses against his side — her cheek against his shoulder. he always enjoyed her company previously, and his plight for water and one of those shimmering moonstones — though he isn't certain what he would do with it ...gift it to vellamo, perhaps ( as if a sparkling stone could make up for being a shit dad ) — put on hold for the time being.

Laughter, however gentled;
it thrums through the foyer of his deep breast and sweeps through the pillars of her ribs, and the stricken allows the sacchirine melody of it to sway her against her momentary anchor-made-flesh. Preen the dark withers as she would like, she cannot; and so settles for scything her fangs soft through tufts nearer to her that have gone awry; smoothing over with modest, meek lavings of tongue. Wintersbane, yes; good, safe; necessary to the fragments left behind. 

"Yes,"  is what she muses, voice gone just as vague; notes the tremble within his hip with a misted eye, but does not meander to kiss it as she once might have -- might still, had she never been romanced in the manner she had never thought possible for her person, ever. And yet:  "Wintersbane."  Not Panther, nor any other epithet he might have gathered when his eyes had once been as fogged her own were now, would always be.

"You near my claim,"  once again resting herself along him, chords almost chiding; all before drawing away away away to peer up into that marred face,  "but ze earths shiver. There is ... ash from earthembers. How were you able to travel all this way?"  And why? Even as she enquired after him, Andraste once again felt the stirrings of an impending doubt. North, north ... not here, not in the Wilderness ... Missed him she had, and yet there were no herds, no hunting; all had fled north.