Neverwinter Forest you're a child of the cosmos, a ruler of the skies

When the sun comes up, Mallaidh does not realize it. Having gotten so far from her home, she’s easily become an early riser while at the same time staying up just as late. The few hours she does sleep are fitful at best and she’s often plagued with dreams she can’t wake herself up fast enough from. The cover the forest brings her gives her an extra hour of sleep and while she struggles through hazy memories in her sleep, she’s able to rest a little while longer. By the time her eyes finally flutter open, the illusion of morning has settled into tight knit trees. The air of day surrounds her but true sunlight is broken and scattered in the distance, leaving her to believe it’s probably later than usually.

The girl takes in a long breath, her stomach protesting against anything that isn’t hunting, and she slowly untwines herself from a tangle of gangly legs only just now starting to fit into her gangly body. Her ribs are prominent and her stomach is tucked into a high waist. The skin around her face is sunken behind her eyes and she’s a little worse for wear.

Today is the day she thinks first, yawning and stretching out her long legs before she hoists herself unto all fours, trotting away from her sleeping spot and using her nose to search for scent of prey.

tagging for reference!

It is early in the morning when Eske wanders away from her squad gang, waking @Étoille, @Cecil and @Shalon up only long enough to let them know she’s going to do a little reconnoissance in the next territory over, to make sure they are well fed and ready to move again when she returns in a few hours. The Wanlida doesn’t mind leading — in fact now that she’s had a taste for it she actually is surprised to realize that she enjoys it — but she also likes her solitary time. She is used to working alone, her patrols are often taken alone and she, always early to rise and eager to jump right into action realizes that she needs to give the three others with her time to rest. Just because she has never been able to sit still doesn’t mean that everyone else is like her. She is fortunate enough to come across a plump fox’s trail and takes it down with relative ease, but scoops it in her mouth to carry it to a more secluded place to eat not wanting to attract unwanted scavengers to her kill.

Besides some time to work off the worst of her restlessness it gives her an opportunity to mull over the possibilities of what they might find in privacy. Eske is pragmatic and she has a sinking feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that they will not like what they will come to find. Wildfire and Arlo had been gone too long, far, far too long for a master scout and seasoned guardian.

Eske does not anticipate stumbling across a girl. Her pelage is dark in coloration, her rib cage visible and cheeks gaunt, eyes sunken …malnourished. Something Eske can tell even from the distance between them. Likely on her own. It would be easy to keep going, easy to pretend she never noticed the youth. It would be easy but Eske doesn’t. “Hey!” Eske calls out to the girl after she’s set her kill down at her paws, licking the blood from her jowls. Eske is unable to place that tugging feeling beneath her breast, the urge to do something ( alas the unveiling of some sort of maternal instinct as foreign to Eske as diplomacy is ). Eske isn’t sure what to do now that she’s called for the girl’s attention, aside from, at the very least offer her some food. She doesn’t bother asking where her parents are, likely gone if the youth’s state is anything to judge by. “Here, come eat.” She offers, nudging the plump corpse away from her paws and taking a few steps back to communicate that she means no harm. Nevermind that she is a total stranger and would the tables have been reversed that she, personally, would have rather starved to death than trust a stranger.

Today is the day.

She smells blood. Her nose twitches, ear swivels forward, and her tail straightens out behind her. She flares her nostrils and leans forward, and her posture shifts as if she's a pointer the first day of hunting season. Her mouth looks with saliva, pouring over her teeth and from between her lips. The scent that accompanies it sets her on guard as it overpowers that truth behind the blood. Blood equals weakness, she has come to realize, and she's given an advantage over the stranger. Mallaidh takes a handful of steps forward, wishing to find the origin before it finds her. 

Hey!

Mallaidh flinches when she hears the voice, spinning to see another wolf and the overwhelming smell of blood gives her her answers. Her feels fall back upon her head and she shrinks back a little, glancing down to see the blood had never originated from another wolf but a kill. She's seen a fox a few times, here and there, but they've never been apart of the menu. Pale green eyes stare at the befallen fox, licking her lips eagerly in the few seconds before she's offered the kill. Before the words even leave her mouth, Mallaidh has already launched herself forward. The risk the other may lash out never crosses her mind and she doesn't even hear the kill become a gift. With eyes and intent focused on the dead fox, Mallaidh buries herself to the hilt and breaks through flesh and bone and inhales as much as she can at once.

If Eske was at all worried about the girl turning down the offer a warm meal her worries were quickly dashed. Before the Wanlida can even finish getting the words out of her mouth the girl is rushing forward and sinks her teeth into the corpse’s flesh without any reservations. It is while the girl devours the meal that Eske’s sea blue-green eyes study her, taking advantage of the opportunity now that she is up close. It is one thing, the Drakru realizes, to call yourself feral but to actually be feral is a whole different thing. This girl strikes her as feral, or at the very least, starved. Eske has never known that kind of hunger but she’s been extremely fortunate as families go. Her littermates may have disappointed her beyond repair but her parents never left her hungry and Drageda has always been stable for her even when other things were not. She’s has solid support, always had a solid foundation.

Eske does not let her guard down, despite that the youth is likely half starved. It does not mean that she cannot put up a fight, nor that she would not attack after she finishes her meal. Wanlida remains standing, her gaze studious and cautious. Her own stomach grumbles but her needs are easily shifted to the side as she focuses her attention upon the girl. “My name is Eske,” The warrior princess introduces herself. “What is your name?” She asks in the hopes that the youth might converse with her so she can figure out ( or try to at least ) where she is from and what to do with her ...because Eske isn't about to just let her out here alone to die of starvation.

Her hunger is split in two. One lives in her stomach and the other in the mind. One tells her to stop and the other tells her to keep going. She only listens to one.
 
Blood smears across her face as she takes as much into her mouth at once, swallowing most things in whole, or the very least in chunks, and by the time she’s done, there’s barely a scrap left. The fox, maybe half her size, is nothing but limbs and head and back and now on display as a livestock ravished by a wild beast. Her nose continues to dig around to find any last bit left over despite her stomach’s protest and the now grotesque shape of her abdomen but when was her last meal? When will her next one be?
 
She misses the words the stranger says to her—she almost forgets her entirely—and pulls back when she realizes she’s been spoken to. Her muzzle, and most of her face, is soaked with blood and pieces of flesh that no amount of tongue swiping will clear off. She tries anyway, licking at her chops several times and clearing what’s left in her teeth to bide sometime. Her jaw tightens and sets into place a beat later and she takes a step back, looking to what’s left of the kill and the stranger on the other side of it. Her stomach rumbles in discomfort but her mind urges her to take what is left and go to pick through without the watchful eye of the other.
 
Mallaidh takes a step forward, her eyes focused intently on the pair of seafoam—as if to challenge her chances—and lowers her head without breaking the eye contact, carefully latching on to the hind leg of the dead fox, and begins to pull it away.

Eske watches, surprised but satisfied, as the girl eats the fox, though she is tempted to advise her to slow down in the pace that she eats lest she throw it back up. For the sake of not sounding like an overbearing parent ( haha ) Eske bites her tongue. As much as she doesn’t want to see the youth upchuck what is probably her first real meal in days Eske isn’t her mother and sometimes children need to learn things the hard way. The girl’s gaze meets Eske’s and the Wanlida watches as she takes a step forward, grasps the kill — all without breaking their eye contact — and begins to pull it away. Would the situation not have felt dire to Eske and would she have known the girl better the Drakru might have laughed: not because a starving child is particularly funny ( no, for reasons Eske doesn’t understand …or perhaps doesn’t want to understand she is mutely horrified to see a child malnourished ) but because she slow grasp of the corpse’s leg and the effort to tug it away as he she is a child whose hand is in the cookie jar and thinks that if she moves slow enough Eske might not notice. Or, Eske thinks on a much more serious note with a terse flick of her tail, the girl is afraid that Eske might try to snatch back the remains …not that there is all that much remaining.

“You don’t have to go.” Eske calls out to her and steps forward. In point of fact, Eske doesn’t want her to go. She hadn’t intended on bringing home a youth but she refuses to let the girl out here to the Wilds. Not when Drageda could offer her home, offer her nourishment and stability. Perhaps, Eske considers, the girl may not want those things but Eske is prepared to offer them nevertheless despite that it’s not really in her power any longer. “I can provide for you. Food, a home. I can teach you how to hunt and how to fight.” Eske pleads her case, taking slow, ghosting steps forward with the intent of not spooking the girl into flight. "You don't have to be alone." Being alone is a horrible thing, Eske knows.

Mallaidh does not stop when the other speaks up again but her stare has softened, acknowledging the words as if she were considering them. Her tail lashes once as she realizes the wolf is closing the distance between them with slow, calculated steps. Her eyes drop as she watches the way she moves. She speaks again, offering her something no one else has—not that she has seen many in her time alone—and this time she comes to a stop. Her grip on the hind leg only tightens. She has no reason to believe the stranger and yet she doesn't want to be alone anymore. She misses the home the strath had provided for her and what she has without them will not be the same but going back seems like a chance she had a lifetime ago.

Light green eyes flicker back and forth for some kind of out but she doesn't make a move, even if one way is wide open. Instead, she tightens her grip on the fox and remains in place with the only indication of friendliness she offers with a few shakes of her tail.

The girl doesn’t stop but then again, neither does Eske. Eske has the sneaking suspicion that if she lets the girl go that the girl will eventually perish. It is evidenced before her in the girl’s malnourished body. A lone fox was not enough to sustain her. Perhaps prolong it for a short while but …Eske knows that she wouldn’t be able to live with herself knowing that the girl would likely die of starvation if she leave her here. She just can’t. The girl finally stops as do Eske’s answering steps towards her, and though it brings with it a rush of relief Eske is never quick to let her guard down, to believe that things are in the clear. “I’m on a scouting mission with a few others from my pack, you’ll have to tag along with us but I promise you’ll be safe and well fed on the trip and in Drageda.” Eske would kill them herself if they so much as looked at the girl the wrong way — the acknowledgement of such a fierce feeling, of a thought was strange to the warrior princess but she does not take the time to examine it and what it has the potential to mean at the moment. Later, perhaps. Eske herself would take the girl under her wing, look after her, train her …if she wanted it. As horrible as the idea of leaving her here made Eske feel, in the end, Eske wasn’t the girl’s mother and had no right to make decisions for her. Even Gyda, whom had been Eske’s mother, had never forced anything upon her and Eske did not deign to do it to another.

Mallaidh doesn’t want to let the fox go but Eske keeps her distance once she’s stopped. She’s not tried to take it back away from her. She’d given it to her in the first place, out of the blue, and even if her stomach rumbled its upset, she doesn’t feel the long stretch of hunger anymore. While it may be discomfort, it’s something different, and surely the feeling will go away. And if it doesn’t, or it does and hunger is once more replaced, she’s offered a place to stay among others. A scouting mission. She quietly thinks of the wolf she met near the borders of her own home, realizing that’s the last place she’d been close to her family. Her eyes flicker to the ground and slowly, she drops the fox, licks her lips, and expectantly looks to the older woman for further guidance.Mallaidh doesn’t want to let the fox go but Eske keeps her distance once she’s stopped. She’s not tried to take it back away from her. She’d given it to her in the first place, out of the blue, and even if her stomach rumbled its upset, she doesn’t feel the long stretch of hunger anymore. While it may be discomfort, it’s something different, and surely the feeling will go away. And if it doesn’t, or it does and hunger is once more replaced, she’s offered a place to stay among others. A scouting mission. She quietly thinks of the wolf she met near the borders of her own home, realizing that’s the last place she’d been close to her family. Her eyes flicker to the ground and slowly, she drops the fox, licks her lips, and expectantly looks to the older woman for further guidance.

wrapping this thread up with a small conclusion post. :-)

Eske watches as the girl devours the meal she’s given her, knowing that its a small step forward and a little bit of progress is better than no progress at all. Eske waits patiently for an answer to her offer but in a familiar fashion the girl clings to her silence. That’s ok, Eske thinks. She can talk when she wants to …or not at all if that suits her better. The girl has sat her fox corpse down and looks to Eske with an expectancy in her gaze and the Wanlida smiles. “Come,” Eske encourages with a gesture of her muzzle in the direction of her scouting party. “I will introduce you to the others.” And escorts the girl ( with or without what’s left of the fox corpse ) back to where the small group awaits her.