Herbalists' Cache like the river runs

The world would wait on him no longer. The air grew more crisp by the day, the world slowly turned red. Winter was at the doorstep, waiting for an opening. Not only that but there was a foreboding presence looming over him. He didn't know what that was and he didn't wish to find out either. It was a shame he wouldn't be able to say patterning words to that dear doctor, but surely the flame colored soul would be at easthollow's doorstep again someday.

Onwards he traveled, becoming more and more wary as time he did so. There was something different about this snow. It scorched his lungs each time he sniffed at it. It was like the smoke that came with fire, only solid. No matter how far he went the poison still stained his paws.

This forest was littered in it. Everywhere he looked there were piles among piles of it. The sooner he got out of here the better.

the past month had been anything but kind to the ghost and yet, her heart still bet and her paws still moved. most importantly though, siding that day which she'd grown to accept would remain lost to her forever...her memories remained intact. not that they were the best ones to look back on, a lot of hunger, pain, shock...yet she'd seen such drastic beauty too. a little upside to the fact that the entire world seemed to have become one big downside but she would cling to what she could, so was the way of survival. the coast had been a risky guideline but with nothing else to aid her, the woman had travelled it for...countless weeks until eventually obeying nature's warnings and wandering inland after almost getting swallowed up by the waters that continued to eat away at the edges of the earth. it seemed to all lead up to one big master plan, drive them from the edges so that they all met in the middle and then, the earth could swallow them all. she'd long ago stopped asking why for fear that it could be the result of her own mind betraying her for the shadows that always pattered around tauntingly at the edges. she tried so deperately to ignore their increasing strength, much like the waves, they were closing in on her.

if she'd thought the sea drowning the earth was bad, each inhale here brought with it the gagging aroma of smoke and..burning. paws sifted through substances as soft as the sand she'd grown so accustomed to but there was something just so wrong about this. it fell softly from the sky, appearing to the eye as something as innocent as snow but her other senses would not be fooled. it smelled like burning, crumbled to nothing at a sweep of her paw and did not grant her the refreshing relief of frozen water on her tongue, no this would sear your lungs as it choked you. it was as if she were walking through death itself, never had she imagined the end of life as a physical form but this substance....this silent, deadly thing...when all living creatures were gone it was not hard to imagine this choking the land itself until there truly was nothing.

then, from the ashes came a flame..dark eyes narrowed against the form, he was the wolf embodiment of the fire she could smell on the breeze and for a moment her uneasy mind tripped and whispered warnings that this...flaming creature could be the cause of everything. yet then as quick as it came over her it was gone and he was but a wolf with an uncannily suiting pelt for their location. shaking her head sharply, she tries to focus against the bleariness associated with hunger..this was the first wolf she'd seen in forever. hesitantly she roams close, silent and ghostly until she reaches her splash of colour. "do you know.." there's no need to finish the soft exhale as dark eyes sweep once over the stuff that surrounded them. it was unlikely he'd have an answer for her but it seemed foolish not to attempt to ask.

At first the woman went unnoticed. Hono was much too keen on fleeing from this cursed woods. The longer he lingered, the more soot infiltrated his nostrils and made a home in his lungs. It was only a matter of time before he'd succumb to these tiny flakes of death. His breath quickened. He couldn't allow that to happen. His wounds were freshly healed, he had just convinced himself to leave the valley. He couldn't back down now.

Do you know...

Finally he halts. Crimson eyes swept over the surroundings and locked onto a light figure. She too examined the woods. Was she as urgent as him? He couldn't tell. Perhaps not, a wolf on the run had no time for questions.

No, he sighed. And he didn't wish to know the cause of it. I know the world has been bought to shambles but I never expected to run into anything like this.

'no'

expected to the point of no disappointment accompanying the uttering, just a resigned nod as a soft sigh billows from pale jaws. she does not really expect there to be anything after that but experiences the briefest flicker of something akin to relief when more words slip into the air. her mind latches onto them greedily, anxious to admit its reluctance to return to a lonesome existence after the last month of days blurring into each other until it was all just one indistinguishable blur of surviving. 

eyes of shifting shadows trail the path of his fiery orbs, wincing against the destruction despite herself. sometimes she believed herself immune to it by now yet at the oddest of moments it would strike her once more and pain would writhe up through her being to have to see the earth so damaged. running a tongue over dry lips, the woman shakes her head in echoed disbelief. "me neither" it's but a rasp, a pathetic mirror of the silky tones that used to slip so effortlessly from black lips but lack of use had made it a suiting touch to her current bedraggled demeanour. "it really is as if the world is angry, i'm quite practical i don't really believe in gods or what not but if ever there was a time for it..." she muses softly, a faraway look to eyes usually so sharp. shivering lightly despite the lack of any sort of breeze, she focuses back on the man and opens jaws hesitantly. "were you heading anywhere in particular? or just trying to escape this suffocating..." what? unable to find a suiting word to describe where they stood, she opts for trailing off glumly.

pride still shimmers about her, hungry and desperate as she may be there's a stubborn refusal to let it and yet, she hates herself for the level at which she wishes he might seek her to accompany him for should he not she'd surely find herself left to her own company once more. it wasn't the type of company she tended to enjoy as much anymore.