Northstar Vale ich bin nur in einer furcht

@Wintersbane

The stricken, rendered a hapless, misgiving boy, traversed the mountains with little ease, espically to his mind. It had been four risings and three sets of the sun since he had awoken in the thralls of the river. Blood had dried along wet, freezing cheeks, delicate like butterfly wings and dainty herbs. Easily crushed under the heel when no notice is paid. Ragged breating escapes faintly minced lips and glops of phelgm trial his throat. 

Where;
who;
​why?

Unkempt, his fur and health, and he showed it; thiner and thinner by the day survivng on nothing, nothing. It's not until he reaches the Vale he smells the fading presence of Courtfall wolves; unbeknowst to him. Wretched paws sketch the trees, misgiving eyes darting between tree and tree . . . He settles, unlike the grace of a seasoned swan, any onlooker would have confessed he'd collapsed, rather. He was expected to die here. 

The putrid smell of sickness and blood and cries bwtween desperate wheezes stalk the air and can be heard, softly, softly. 

what draws wintersbane back here, to this place where he rose and loved as melkor ...to the final resting place of the fey queen, is unknown. perhaps it is the same temptation that drew him to lotte's final resting place in the strath and relmyna's in the woods: a goodbye. still, as it ever is, it remains hard. hard to continue once he realizes where wandering paws have brought him. he should turn. he should return to the spire where he has begun life anew for the umpteenth time. he should return to his daughter.

how tired he is of losing those he adores in life; over and over like the strike of an unfortunate curse. it stirs with it a bit of unease over allowing q in his life but perhaps, borne of his own loins, she is the exception to the accursed life wintersbane's lived.

courtfall's scent is all but faded from the borders of the vale — he hates this place, the womb of the sunspire. the womb of death. as he finds himself hating the strath and the dark woods.

it is the scent of blood and sickness and the pitiful cries he hears that keeps him from actually turning around. curiosity mingled with idle concern drives him forward to find the collapsed male who has clearly, from assessment of the tundrian's sharp glacial gaze, seen better days. ❝hey,❞ wintersbane barks, slow and cautious in his approach. ❝can you hear me?❞ the tundrian asks in lieu of 'are you ok' because ...anyone looking at the man can tell he wasn't ok.

The ashen trembles momentarily, wishing of soothing water and warm breezes along his face whe he hears the bark of a gruff, silvering grey man. He chokes on a petit gasp, in wonder. It was the first voice he had heard in all his time . . . here. The womb of the mountains as they would call it, quieted with the expection of throaty breaths and sweltering bodies pressed 'gaisnt frost and ground. He wished to answer him with a title, but a misshapen memory had no dubbing to provide.

❝I . . . can hear. I hear,❞  he whispers between desperate cries, staring up into a vast expanse of blue nothings. Clouds arched against the sky, it felt dark. His mind began to darken with the sahdows of the eve . . .

the bloodcaked man whispers in a pained, paperthin voice that he can hear though if not for the fact that the tundrian looms nearby; breath held and steps ceased, he might not've heard it at all. there was only a small reassurance by the ragged rise and fall of the other's chest; a fluttering of lungs and heart. a persistence to keep prevailing despite the pain and what clearly ails him. in a strange moment that could only be described as 'out of body' wintersbane wonders if this is what he looked like to easy and reiko when they found him on the cusp of death.

❝what happened to you?❞ wintersbane asks tentatively, unsure if he would even get an answer. even if he did ...what did he plan to do with it? it wasn't like he knew the first thing about healing and they were too far from sagtannet for him to send out a summons for any of their healers.

His eyes were a flutter; everything seemed impossibly distant. Heat raged in below his pelt as the stranger loked at his battered state in awe. He struggled to compose himself mentally and physically, but emotions wrang his words like a noose. ❝I don't know . . . I had —,❞ he breathes in a long breath as his eyes water in pain, ❝. . . arisen in waters.❞  The frail frame faintly lift their dropping eyelids depite hardship and loss of breath,  the wrongly stricken illustrate the smooth face and powerful body of his perplexed onlooker. With delusional stupor, he realized he was like him. Greater and weathered, yes, but somewhat like him. That dulling sharptooth betrayed the portrait, making the stricken victim blink in semi-jaded awe.

❝You . . . are like me. We are one in the same, yes?❞  he muses to none yet the bane of winter hears it still. His chest dramatically rises and falls like velvet, crimson curtains, ribs etching his frame. It seemed as if the frail boy took another they impale him from the inside, protruding like the elder roots of an oak tree. He smooths over ruined lips with a little wet tongue as he continues, the edges of his vision tilting; failing:

❝ Do you know who I am? I . . . do not.❞

the wounded stranger doesn't know, stating that he only knows he woke in water and drug himself all the way here. perhaps in search of the fallen court laid to rest and ruin with it's stricken queen. an ally, perhaps. or one of her friends. or perhaps, wintersbane considers, it was little more than sheer coincidence that the stranger ended up here. not quite sure what exactly the stranger means by claiming they are one in the same, wintersbane is quiet for a moment before musing softly, ❝perhaps we are.❞ as if the affirmation was the stranger's dying wish.

❝i don't know who you are.❞ wintersbane admits apologetically, not even able to place the pack scent that lingers upon his pelage. ❝i'm sorry.❞ sorry i cannot be of more help.

The weakened son raises an eyebrow as the stranger's tones warble apologetically. The stricken failed o comprehend why they were so — impassioned by an innocent inquiry. he large male had been ridden with grief, sewed like lace like a seidenkleid. If the stricken wa meant to die, his remains would wade away in the rivers of the wilds. If he was destined to fall, he wouldn't have proudly toted the mark of cain, the four pointed star on a cold crest. His tones are as soothing and coherent as the benevolent doe:

❝ Don't be saddened,❞ he shyly smiled, something found rare in his old form. ❝ Repose is necessary. There's a void in . . . here,❞ he moans slowly, tilting the tip of the head towards the winter's bane; quietly, suggestively. Repurposing his eyes to notion the frail ribs that threatened to portrude his cold, heaving sides.

❝ You don't suppose, you know how to  . . . fill?❞ they contemplate on this; this handsome stranger. Perhaps they were had been lost as well. Forlorn and wishing for soemthing to be undone; grieiving a fallen fae and the title he had laid here to stay with her in the vale; the womb of the sun basking stone spires. Woe is me!, what his countenance sings as he traveres the vale with familiar sorrows. 

That is something that made them truly the same, yes.

❝i wouldn't call it sadness,❞ no, it was less of sorrow and more of empathy; coupled with wintersbane's own ability to sympathize because he, himself, had been there. forgotten memory, relying on the kindness of two strangers ( though easy hadn't been a stranger ). ❝i lost my memory once.❞ lucky has he been that it has not stayed lost.

you don't suppose, you know how to ...fill?

wintersbane is quiet for a long moment, knowing the answer and how cold it will sound. ❝no,❞ he rasps. it means admitting that he cannot help. he doesn't have the first clue how to deal with someone suffering from memory loss, despite having gone thru it himself; and in wintersbane's book honesty — brash and cruel as it could be at times — was better than the alternative.

He doesn't do sadness;
for a second, he breathed with him in tangent, hoping to feel as light as the livid colored male, as if breathing in the same pace would lift his body and place at his side, standing over the undergrowth. He had lost his memory too? As guilty as it was to be elated at the fact, he was sure he could help him nwo without hesitation, right? They were the same .  . . His fur spiked in warm suprise as the quick answer spilled of harsh lips. His breathing was as such. 
for one, he could not comprehend the stubborness of this man. Was to much of of a chore to lower himself to ail the man's growling pangs and pain and hunger? His ears frayed and he submitted to a worried whisper, on tenterhooks: ❝ Why?❞ as his mind curled around fake perceievings and misgivings he had about the exchange, he felt wrong, as if he had uncovered something, tainted. He felt smaller, colder as he drew his legs closer to him, in him in an attempt to preserve whatever warmth had been wasted of the falsely stricken.

No.

He had to find the words that tumbled and danced on his tongue but shyed from the bane of winter. 
❝ I'm mean — it's called . . . fud?❞  Toiling with misplaced common speak like a newborn, he desperately grappled for some sign that the other would bestow some form of aid on him. Maybe he was mistaken? why was this proving to be so faulty. His amber orbs cautioned to water his cheeks. 

He doesn't do sadness;
but he does. 

why?

a fair enough question; and one that brings with it an unexpected stab of guilt. ❝i'm not sure what you're looking for.❞ wintersbane clarifies. ❝i don't know you nor the pack who's scent you carry. i am no medic and we are too far away from my home to call for one. how can i possibly be of help?❞ perhaps he's just being thick ( something he's good at ) but he's not seeing what he's meant to do. he doesn't quite realize just how lucky he was that easy and reiko had found him. without them, he is beginning to understand, he would've died.

fud? the word draws with it little more than question marks but is followed by trepidation as wintersbane hesitantly wonders if he means food. hunting, however, wintersbane could do. there were plenty of small game around. ❝you mean food?❞ wintersbane asks. ❝i can hunt you something if you are hungry.❞

If that the situation was at all comical than what a wrecking effect it had on the young ashen's anxiety, then yes, he would certainly agree the male had acted very dense throughout his plea. ❝Yes,❞ he calms the quaking in his chest a little bit more, sparing a weak nod while his tongue fiddled with his ruined lips.

He grunts as the stricken's muscles lax. ​Was it not the plot of some rescue? But where would he go, even afetr he found the internal need to keep going? His fur was still in disarray and matted, he failed to realize, so he appeaed to be gruff sphere of fur in the eyes of the (dull) beholder.

❝fine,❞ the tundrian rasps. he almost says 'don't go anywhere' but a sweep of glacial gaze once more assures him that his ragged companion isn't going anywhere and he dispels the words before they can pass unnecessarily thru his lips. ❝i'll be back soon.❞ wintersbane settles for, instead.

---

about half an hour passes and wintersbane returns to where he left the stranger with a plump groundhog corpse clutched betwixt his jaws. assuming the stranger hadn't moved, he approaches the worse-for-wear man and sits the groundhog down, nosing it towards the other. ❝it's not much but it's something.❞ the tundrian offers, taking a few steps back to allow the other man to eat without his brooding looming.

 

last post for him!

The stricken rests his head lightly on his paws and shuts his eyes yet in wake, waiting for him to return. It eased to him to some avail that the staranger would could have chased him off willlingly hunted him quarry. Something else made him warm in the dipping purgatory of his his entrails, and it flitted along his skin like streaks of divine feeling . . .

When he had returned, he tilted his broken lips to thank him. He wants him closer, though. The brood at least is strong to shadow him from the harsh relaities of the winter. After finishing, he breathes and sinks into repose, forgetting that the man would be gone once he awoke.