Moonspear neresā

set an hour after this. staying vague & paging @Hydra but any others from MSP welcome!
( tagging @Isi and @Dragomir for reference )

Opportunity had been seen in near-obliteration;
not even a full bell had passed, but the stricken had flit from the Heartswood all the same, striding surely from the mists and into ashfall as she arrowed for the Moonspire and its harrowing queen. Perchance to call was unnecessary — but Andraste let a beckoning lilt from the pale halls of her throat all the same; airy and eidolic as ever, yet strained with all that she had learnt of, listened to.

She could no longer meander over her Court's idling in the Wilderness any more than she could diminish the inscrutable vehemence that thrummed within a disturbed breast. Features were shiftless, hollowed, however; as oft they had been when she had first been kept to Hydra's mountain. 

What to give tell of first, then?

He hadn't been far off when the call raised.

For a place that had once again grown quiet at its borders, it was both surprising and foreboding that someone else would raise a clamor for attention. But there had been enough in the comings and goings as of late to warrant potential for something else—perhaps someone had come with word of Vela, or maybe it was one of their so-called allies with information.

What he did not anticipate seeing at their borders was the pale sight of Andraste; his hackles prickled uncomfortably from where he first viewed her, though he quieted them and his demeanor by the time he had strode down to meet her head on. Despite baring composure, his gaze lingered on her harshly, and his tongue offered a terse exchange.

"Why have you come?"

hope this is coherent, sorry if there's confusion ;a;

“Your queen understands that I ponder our allegiance. I have arrived to discuss my affirmation upon such. I believed these first tidings to be more prudent in relaying, however.”  And so Andraste deigned to speak as plain as he, putting aside whatever misgivings from the days past aside: 

“She who has first rent Vercingetorixs’ throat and he who has cast Dragomir himself are near. Nearer than perhaps would be favorable.”  A fluttering of some muscle, therein a shorn cheek; the only estimation of how presently unsettled she was and for all that she refused to let surface.  “They hunt for Isilmë,”  a fidgeting flicker of a thin ear,  “and, from what I have gleaned, are headed to feast on her father.”  An errant quiver of lashes; but the silver assumed herself to poise with whatever decency had not been diminished during her eavesdrop.  “But, I scented Rusalka. I scented Nightwalker. I took flight as they sundered to ze chaos of another.”

A lull; then, at the harshness writ into the lord's guise:
“I cannot hope to again be ze mother that I could not become in their time of need. I cannot hope to hunt for them, as Vercingetorix once did. Damn me, then, if you wish to — damn me, and be done with it."  Words were wisping, low; undertones of propriety for those she still yet loved:  "But I have brought this news in ze hope that you will protect his children, and in ze hope that you would sunder those who would slay them.”

If none here would understand why she had delved in her own departure, then, at least, she would beseech them in understanding this.

Hydra arrived in time to listen, settling just above and behind her mate as she did so, ears pricked forward; Andraste spoke of the dead mercenary, and of her once-son, and the beginnings of her tidings were revealed with frustrating vagueness; she and he? Who, Hydra demanded. He and She were not enough for Hydra’s bloodthirst; such beings were everywhere. One he beside here, one she before her—that same she aquiver for but a moment with her feelings on the matter. Feast on the father? Soon; there was precious little time to spare, then, and one ear turned toward Dirge as she moved alongside him. Feast on a wolf? It seemed wrong, but then… when times were desperate, perhaps they might need to do the same—

The Queen nearly scoffed as Andraste continued; she would not protect what had once been hers, even now! Even in knowing what she knew, she would end her search and be content with her abandonment! Hydra, ever still, spoke: you are damned, Andraste. We need not be the ones to proclaim it for you to know it. It was one thing to leave in your pursuit of self; it is another to abandon when you know how near those that would harm, have harmed are. Your fang is one with theirs if they suffer again by them, her words were low and cold; but Hydra knew by now that maternal instinct was not something within her… it had been confirmed the day she had not lingered to protect Dragomir in the fray where Dirge and Arcturus would. 

Not that they would have allowed it.

But these children were not Andraste’s any longer. They were hers. Hydra’s desire for Andraste to rise to the occasion was fruitless; mother was Aurewen, it seemed, not Andraste. Damned, though—that was something that carried over. I would kill them, Hydra confirmed, but you have given me no one to kill. What did their voices sound like? Did you see them? What does the woman look like; who is he? Hydra pressed now, taking another step forward. 

You will come with us to the Lake before you depart. Confirm their voices, if you do not know their faces. We will do the rest, Hydra’s muzzle wrinkled, voice thick with her contempt; Andraste need hunt no more, as she had said, but this final thing she would do—or her eternal damnation would come here and now.

She wasted no time speaking, her words peppered with an accent he could not place had he wanted to. Somewhere in that span he became aware of Hydra coming to him—this being the one time his gaze broke with Andraste—but thereafter, his attention was held raptly on their company.

He didn't think she needed damning by anyone; it had already happened and first by her own hand alone. Yet it was Hydra who took charge of things and rendered him into silence in a brusque manner. He could feel the taut chord of simmering emotions in her tone and knew that the very situation stoked a fire deep and primordial within her as it did him. He thought certain they had proven their capabilities to go above and beyond over the elk for the errant children in their lot; the fact a threat loitered close to their doorstep did little but incite them to set teeth to bone.

That said, he tried not to think of the possibilities of things awry regarding that. A threat to Dragomir and Isilmë meant one for them, and one for theirs; the hackles along his spine had long prickled and rose at the premise of such grim designs laid before them. Hydra's derision wound him too, though the antipathy which he held Andraste was far less bold and keening.

"We should have @Arcturus and @Lyra round up the children," he intoned blasé, only to add firmer, "just in case we have any guests while we're gone." Just in case this proved to be some elaborate ruse; the thought of being led out to the lake on a fool's errand did not sit well with him, and it would certainly drive any final nails into the coffin that hadn't already found their mark.

A gentled Mming at the queen’s condemning, hollow-eyed;
there was precious, too precious time for her traitorous heart to stumble to its knees before the hewn forgery of her tongue. Too little to be had for her shorn spine to arc angular. No, she would no more make the lady lune-loper to fathom her any more than she herself would deign to hiss at those barbed, frigid words. No, no — it would be better for her to be unthinkable as mother, if confrontation were to be had. Might as well let it be the assumption of cowardice to them than attempt to dissuade these preachings:

“She who tore into his throat is a harpy named Caiaphas. Pale with a pitch crown. Ze giant who went for her, and ze boy who ended Vercingetorix, sought to end Dragomir ... I do not know their names. Only that they are dark, that their eyes are emberous, and they smell of rot. Last I sighted them, ze witch and ze giant were ripping ze limbs from another.”

As for the quip of attending the lake, the commencement of Hydra’s snarl, the subject of their allegiance to the Nightwalkers—
( O, she had she not fought for them, however foolishly of herself? )
—not yet. Not here. So she only gave a birdlike cant of her rubied brow, thusly unruffled, but affirmative of the queen’s orders and the lord’s thoughts given voice. Whatever wrath within her went aslumber still. It would not awaken for the glint of an apparent allies’ unveiled threat and fang. And perhaps it would remain so, until— 

“Her voice bites. Ze boy’s ... lurks,”  no doubt it might remain within the head of Dragomir,  “and ze Nightwalker’s ... he did not seem to take interest in ze hunt of my— your children. He set himself wholly on Caiaphas.”  And with this, she began to crescent herself away.

Impassivity writ in the gentled desolation upon the ruined features; a madness, perhaps, only fashioned further by the sword in the sky and the forger responsible for her previous tending.

Hydra's ears flicked as the woman was named, given a face; she committed the words to memory. It seemed Andraste would not heed her command, but then the woman ruled by herself was not hers to. In this alone did Hydra see the woman's worth when it came to allegiances: none at all! So furious was she that she surged forward to prevent Andraste from leaving, creating a moon as she circled to Andraste's opposing side to be nearer to her face... though it was only to ask this in an icy breath:

His eyes. Was there only one? 

Had he returned? Not here—but now here. Did he think he had pushed her son from great heights? Did he think— 

She should have killed him, she thought. She would kill him now, she knew. His mistake had been in his return; it did not bode well for him. Boy—he had always looked like a boy, stunted and small with his fear. He had lurked, had he not? And skulked away, and pissed himself—but had still killed Galaxy. And now the mercenary father of... 

Dragomir would know, would he not? She could confirm with him if she did not find him at the lake. Whoever was there, unless it was Vengeance—who had fought the woman who was now enemy—would surely pay the price of going against those that were now hers... but her belief in this moment, her horror come to life, was that he hunted her family. 

If that was so, she would need to hunt him—bring this all to an end. 

Hydra's ear twitched toward Dirge; she agreed with him, and the other one that cupped backward too was her beckoning of him doing so so they could move out.

The way Hydra moved on thereafter was something not quite seen by Dirge. At least not with the full conviction behind it, not with the glimmer of something dredged up deep from her past that he only recalled and inkling of. And he had been there—imagine that. Her start forward only implored him to follow but without the malice that she carved as she halted Andraste; it would have been to stop her rather than let her render flesh from bone right there, even as she commanded differently of him.

But he had long shown that he did not heel easily, if at all, and he watched the two she-wolves silently. In spite of knowing enough to piece together the finer details into the bigger picture, he did not, and instead caught himself racking his own memory to find just who it was that she knew with only one eye. Charon flickered to life in his mind's eye, but then he was gone. A fool her father may have been, not a murderer Dirge did not paint him, even now.

Then who?

There was little time to put it all into consideration—he still had a job to do.

He summoned for Arcturus and Lyra, to inform them of what would be occurring, of where they would be going, and what to do once he had met with them. Thinking the women would be off, he would catch up with Hydra and Andraste as they went along, wholly invested in what would unfold from there.

you guys are welcome to dirge skip over the next round or two or so for continuity purposes.

“Yes.”

Moonbeam eyes studied the greater she-wolf  (much greater)  with a guarded gleam. Had she known who had precisely made such so, she would be— “One-eyed, with a burnished ruff.” As it was, she did not have said inkling as to the reason behind the loss of full vision. Andraste herself still struggled with the aftermath, both the realism and the abstract. But, were his wicked words true, then ... she ...

“He is witlessly full of wit, should you know. And ze crone, well ...”  She turned aside, thin ears swept back from marred guise.  “They would seem to be invincible, together,”  lashes hooded low over halfsight,  “but they are not immortal.”  Her gaze lingered upon Hydra, longer than she might have favored and yet looked through her, listless. But, yes; she would draw the queen and the lord to the place where the Dragedan had fallen.

The eldritch sigil writ upon spine simmered, and something unearthly within her churrs—settles.

She could not remember whether or not he had ever had a burnished ruff; she only remembered that singular eye. 

Hydra imagined she would know him when the scent of him came to her—she would waste no more time. Better to answer the threat herself. Tail lashing behind her, Hydra listened to Andraste describe the loathsome duo. She could hardly think of the woman when thinking of her one-eyed companion; any familiarity that might have been was discarded in the violent undertow of her savage desires. 

Should I find them, they will soon learn they are neither of those things, came her vehement rumble, the sound of it reminiscent of thunder rolling in on the horizon. Shifting her weight, she continued: we will wash before we arrive; and we will reveal to none of your childrens whereabouts. For all you know, she drawled, they are still with Kaistleoki. And I advise you tell them this, too—and your Mahler. The manner of wolves we deal with... they must be warned. Hydra searches the gaze of Aurewen for understanding, ears pricked forward. 

Hydra turned to Dirge to be sure he heard this, too, before she shifts forward to depart with Andraste. She knew she would not be without him for long, or any others he summoned. But they had no time to waste.

Though imperious as ever, Hydra seemed half-entrenched in a ferocity that did not have to do with the orders which she hissed; those that the stricken recieved with frigid nods of her own crown.

Heart dulled with dread delighted at mention of Mahler — features shifting only a fraction — and promptly dulled once more. His wolves and her own Court above all else ... yes, they must be warned. All, all; somehow, somehow.

Yet still; nowhere was safe for the children of her womb.

As she made away with Hydra to do as she bid, a sensation not unlike being coaxed from sands to seas made a mantle of itself upon the tattered fury upon her spine; simmering.

archiving! time to boogie ((8