Sunbeam Lair lost is my four letter word

@Aurëwen <3

He seemed to have a knack for winding up in these...odd structures. Last time he had had a companion to wander with. This time? He was alone in the lair of the mountain. Yet it seemed less anxiety inducing this time. Was it because he had done this before or was it because, despite being in a cave-like system, life seemed to thrive here? Sometimes the ceiling of the lair seemed to have crumbled in the past and provided a window for spotty daylight. It made the stretches of darkness worth it.

Regardless of his fascination with all the caves, tunnels and dark corners of these lands, Konstanty was always looking for a way out. He wished for a forest or river. Something more familiar — comforting — to him.

It’d been about an entire moon since she encountered that ogre, @Redshank, in the tongue of this Lair. She’d met the languid, like-throated Athanasius here, as well. It was here, too, where she’d encountered Eastwood, and it was by a hesitant elation that she’d wanted to tell his uncle; had wanted to tell Blodreina, too. But that uncle, her night-of-life, had gone from her children, and she had stoppered in quietude once more.

Like most days since then, she’d been listless, her tidings and thoughts even more-so. She felt what came to her; went where she wished; and still yet tended to her babes as much as a mother possibly could. Though she wandered, Aurëwen took every moment she could to keep closer and closer to the heart of Stigmata’s claim and to her children as she could. It wouldn’t be long before she’d firmly tethered herself to Drago and Isi — neither would it be long before she could run and roam with them, too.

Now, though, she braved her way into the Lair; truly braved, for she knew that the heathen had taken leave from here, and would most certainly not be returning. Actually, it was more than likely she’d meant to scavenge something up to return to the thicket with; something like lavender, or poppy. Something to help her sleep.

The silver didn’t stop until she reached the hollow in the ferns where that old skirmish had ended. There was the rise where Goosie had intervened; there was the patch where she’d healed the fevered mother herself. Aurëwen decided then she’d take a bit of respite, with a faint, straining yawn that curled a cherry-pink tongue. She would return to the Falls within the next hour, she was sure...

It took a few moments too long for him to realize he was not alone. Not far from him was a ghostly figure. Feminine and tattered.

An injured dove.

Hesitantly he took a few slow steps forward before he thought that there might be a better way to announce his presence. A soft whuff escaped him as his body posture remained neutral and open. He had no intention to startle the stranger. He needed...help, despite his reluctance to come to terms with it. He was lost here. Needed a way out. Perhaps they had knowledge to spare.

Ahh...excuse me? He called out to the ghostly figure softly.

Winter-thin ears were lax and lolling, but it was after a few hard presses of lashes that they flickered about in a rare moment. Moonish eyes unveiled, and she looked about with a heady, whelpish unawareness as she tried to locate the source of that hesitant whuff. The tentative words guided her to what she sought; with a movement more doe than wolf, she turned, and an argent gaze fell upon the dark figure before her.

For a moment, a giant’s fist wrenched her heart from her pale breast and shook—but, no—it was not him. Those ears were tall, furled, and there was something other in his gait and figure and overall look. Bones worked at the ivory throat, wary and neutral, too, but lented just as quietly: ”Yes?” Eyes remained guarded, but not immediately unkind.

Her response was short but he was just pleased she had answered at all. Konstanty was not sure if he would have responded in the same situation. A strange lair with spotty lighting. A stranger calling out. Granted he assumed he had been close to the same situation not long ago. Leaving the meadow to explore a cave with a man he had just met. It seemed stranger danger had not be instilled in him enough.

I am...sorry if I bothered you. He finally admitted softly. I seem to be lost. His lips pulled downward, as if the tone of his voice wasn't enough to convey his displeasure with the situation. Do you know the way out?

The troubled guise was more blatant than the voice, in that moment. Brows knit not in refusal, but with a smattering of concern that seemed would never really leave her being; no matter if she aged and aged and never wilted. Her own expression was one of Nevermind that, what nonsense! at the prospect of her being bothered.

Where once she’d wished for nothing more to be kept with her own thoughts, now she found good distraction in the company of others. At least, for now. ”I do know ze way out, yes,” she chirruped, and despite her better judgement, stept tentatively forward. ”It... is easy to get turned about all sorts of ways, here.”

He could not deny the kindness of the stranger. There willingness to help soothed some frazzled nerves he had. His open, kind posture never wavered as she moved closer. Instinct told him to guard himself but he had so desperately been trying to break free of the teachings of his homeland. He needed to be social, to see what others did when they were not from the same forest as him. He was behind the curve more than most of his peers and it was time to play catch up.

His narrow head nodded softly to agree with her statement. I thought a quick trip in and out. I seemed to have been confused by the tunnels...lost time. He mused aloud with a huff soon following. You know this place well? Konstanty questioned gently. She seemed rather confident. Well, more confident than him which was not entirely a hard feat at this moment in time.

my muse walked out on me lmao sorry for the wait-

If the silver noticed his hesitancy, she either regarded it as weariness from the lost time he groused of but did otherwise not comment upon it. After weeks and weeks of her own hermecy, becoming social once again was an uneasy relief — but it was something she needed to do, nonetheless. ...She might have left the cliffs behind, but that was where most of her mingling had grown and flourished, hadn’t it?

The cliffs, the memory of the sea made her stomach clench; made a flush fall upon narrow shoulders at everything wonderful and terrible that’d happened there. But if she wouldn’t mingle for her own health, then for the sake of her children; where Aure dipped at socialization like a fine evening summerwine, Dragomir and Isilmë seemed to gobble it up by the heartbeat like a new milk-treat.

And there was a part of her  ( read: most of her )  that knew she... needed friends, though, outside the cloistered rises of Diaspora, the way it’d once been on her journey up to the sea itself. But how to be jovial, amiable, the way those she admired and respected were? God— ”It is easy to get lost here, prieten, for hours on end.”

She surrendered an apologetic, wavery smile, ”Ze cave seems to go rather deep, but I haven’t been able to explore how far it truly goes.” Tail feathered hesitantly at her hocks; had she always been such a scavenger when speaking? ”I am Aurëwen — well, Aure, if you’d like. But, ahm, this place is lovely for foraging, but I try to not linger for as long as I can help.”