Sawtooth Spire vormundschaft

if u have time! <3

how many days had it been? the man thought only of thade and the last he had seen of the boy. only now of phaedra and her ailing. lips trembled from where they stretched around his split jaws; the gargoyle gave a final grunt and dragged the lamb up the last inches of stone to his ledge.
blood stained the edges of the plinth as he sat to catch his breath; red-tinged droplets flicked from his tongue, but mahler swallowed without tasting, and stared without hunger toward the falling edge of the sun, the visage of @Praimfaya entering unbidden his mind as he remained still.

i always have time for an ebony thread! ♥

her patrols takes her with a duplicitous fearlessness; traversing the towering spires of sawtooth with an ease she does not necessarily feel. she does not forget the sight of blodreina crushed beneath the unyielding weight of loosened boulder and rock but it no longer haunts her as it once has. she has neared death by tooth and claw twice now and she does not fear the thrum and thrill of battle in her veins. thus, she will not fear the sawtooth, facing these idle and inherited fears as she faces her enemies: head on.

the sun slinks lower and lower in the horizon, casting a golden glow over the world. it is a breathtaking sight and the scarred commander takes it in with a soft stir beneath her breath. she lingers there for a few moments, admiring, before she pushes onward, intent to finish her patrol.

it is as she is heading to a cache to grab something quick before retreating to whatever corner she will claim for the night that she catches the scent of blood intermingled with the scent of mahler. her pace slows upon her approach, relieved to see the scent of blood was not his own but his meal's as she draws nearer. hei. she greets him with a submissive bow of her head.

praimfaya was a hard girl, undeniably young, though with an experienced, scarred bearing older than her age. mahler watched her approach and swayed his tail in answer, nodding with his heavy crown toward the lamb. "eat, if you are inclined." 
he glanced toward the horizon and its darkening gold; he thought of phaedra; of wylla; of stag. of nyx. of elke and ciri. of wintersbane. how his family and expectations of such had shifted, become inexorably tied to endless amounts of labour.
none of this was fit talk for praimfaya, by distance and age alike. and yet mahler had recalled her icewrought mother, of verx. wolves carved from the stone of sea-cliffs. and the elf — 
he drew in his breath, cleared his throat. "ve must search outside sagtannet for thade."

mahler offers her a bite of his meal and though first instinct is to decline the generous offer, she considers and relents drawing nearer to take a small chunk before recalling herself a respectable distance away to chew on the meat. thank you. she murmurs between bites, salmon pink tongue drawing across her jowls to clean the bits of carrion and speckled blood from the fresh kill. her ears cup forth as he speaks of thade — his missing son, praimfaya reminds herself — and of searching outside of sagtannet.

for a long moment, frostbound gaze studies mahler, pondering what it is like to lose a child, to live in the inbetween of not knowing whether they were alive or dead.

at least she had known blodreina was dead. she watched it with her own two eyes and though it hadn't made it easier it had given her closure.

a sharp pang resounds beneath her breast for him; mourning for the missing-in-action child and his unsure and worried parents despite not knowing thade nor her leaders that well.

subtle confusion knits her brows, for while she is apart of sagtannet and they are her kru she isn't sure why exactly he's telling her this, lest he means for her to search ...which she would, if asked. how far? she inquires. wondering if there was a limit to how far a parent would go for their children. praimfaya likes to think that she would go to the very ends of the earth ...if she were to have children in the future.

mahler was silent, considering the young woman's question. when he had come upon her, it was with the acceptance that he would be the one to depart. but his daughters were here, and young, and in need of his presence. and he did not wish to leave sagtannet solely to wylla in her grief.
neither did he wish to ask praimfaya to go out for him, to look for a child she perhaps only remembered in passing. he considered sending she and stag, but was concerned for the boy's reticent nature. had he known praimfaya at all? filled with a sudden blistering consternation, mahler's ruff bunched about his shoulders like the annoyed ruffle of an owl.
"i — cannot leave." a pensive moment. "vould you go, in my place? it vas my plan to go as far as moonspear, to ask hydra for the eyes of her volves, and to see how she has fared." rambling, now; he did not know the true feeling of the steinmädchen's heart toward moonspear, and so focused was he upon thade that he did not know what he asked.

while praimfaya is honored that she is being given the chance to be sent out to search for thade ...the honor brings with it its own concerns. would thade trust her should she happen to find him? the concern deepens to a physical furrowing of her brow when he mentions as far as moonspear. of course i will go, though there were a fair few packs she would have to check with before getting to moonspear. although, i have to be very candid and tell you that i'm not sure if hydra will tell me anything ...even if she's found thade. it was better to be honest, regardless of how it might make her look in her leader's eyes.

she has a history of withholding information, the whole dragomir and isi hunt flashed in her mind. and while i had made it clear i never intended to stay in moonspear for long, the death of one of my close kru accelerated my leaving and i left the pack without word. and though the situation wasn't about her and what she did — it was bigger and more urgent than praimfaya's dispersal and moonspear's grudges — that didn't mean anything would change with how it could go down all the same.

mahler nodded, too preoccupied with thoughts of his son to consider what might befall his messenger. "she vill tell you," he determined, having no iota of conception that hydra might be not what she considered herself. wintersbane had warned him, had he not? spoken of war. but mahler found himself between anguish and rage, and desperately saw the queen of moonspear as his only ally, and means to an end.
but praimfaya was not finished; the gargoyle lethargically returned to himself, brow furrowed. what did the girl mean by such things? and inside him, an unraveling of the barest hope he had only thus gathered. part of mahler wanted to order her off all the same, to close his ears, but it was a gentle, tormented voice that followed her own: "do you think it is vorthvhile to go?"

she vill tell you

praimfaya realizes that the eisen is desperate. no she won't. praimfaya counters with the grim tone of someone who knows. she wouldn't even tell me that my family was safe in moonspear when i was on a search for them. she will not tell me about thade. and that was the truth as praimfaya had it, drawn from previous experience with the moonspear matriarch. not before but especially not now. which begs the question to praimfaya: how much did the matriarch actually care about anything besides herself and her blood? or even just herself? if family was so important why, so long ago, had she withheld information from a cub desperate to find her family?

tucking those thoughts away, praimfaya focuses on the present: i'm sorry mahler, but i don't. i think going to hydra will waste time better spent searching elsewhere. to say that praimfaya understands the extent of desperation would be a lie; childless as she is herself. maybe one day she might ...might understand the lengths a parent would go for their offspring. the empires they would tear apart brick by brick. if you absolutely have to search moonspear, someone else is going. they may stand a chance but even then it's very small.

she doesn't necessarily mean to be so insubordinate but in this matter she will not budge. she will check with any pack he asks her to: just not moonspear.

that was the end of that, he supposed. reneian empire was the next best, but he had nothing to offer at this time.  a nod to all praimfaya had said, and it signalled the end of their discussion upon moonspear. whatever fondness he bore the savage ruler there could be explored another time; he would not have a wolf of sagtannet travel so far in a fruitless journey.
reminded of how he had once sent sarcastic gifts back and forth between he and the last queen of the vale, mahler straightened. "i vould like you to go down into the steppes to search. there is a pack called the nightvalkers tovard that mountain range," he indicated, gesturing with his broad muzzle. "ask of them, please."
a breath. "i do not think his trail vill have gone far," for where might such a small boy go? and his heart cried that he must be realistic. "there is a great lake midvay betveen us. look there. but do not squander your strength, praimfaya."
he could not send her to climb stone ledges in search of thade, and he ached to accompany the honed yearling upon her quest. "do all in my name."

glad that the topic of moonspear was put to rest, she gives a solemn nod to her leader as he speaks of nightwalkers and that he would like her to check with them. i know of them. though she isn't very sure who held the title of 'warlord' between them now. regardless, despite dirge's warnings of them so long ago praimfaya'd never had any issue with them that she could remember. or, at the very least, with their leadership. i used to deal with them when roangeda was standing. she assures him, feeling confident that she would not be turned away from inquiring.

it does seem awfully far for thade to travel, at least on his own, but if asking around would help give some sort of peace to wylla and mahler than she would do it.

i'll set out at first light. spend the rest of my time here resting so i'm ready. she could hunt on the journey, she figures and does not bother with trying to add to her already sated stomach. i'll be as swift as i can. keeping the promise of finding him off of her tongue. she doesn't feel very confident that she will find him, for the boy vanished and feels a bit like a myth to her than an actual boy, despite seeing him a few times with her own eyes.

is there anything else? she inquires, figuring now was as good a time as any to ask about any last minute things before she headed off to get some sleep in preparation for her journey.

he did not know roangeda; had he more energy, mahler might have asked after it. as it were, despite the unfairness to praimfaya in the face of what she had agreed to do, the gargoyle only shook his head. "nothing more. thank you." and he held her eyes a moment, seeing less a child there and more the cold warrior's-way that blodreina had always carried.
he did not mention this, however, for he had not know the woman well. terrible, after a fashion, that he should have existed when praimfaya was born, but have nothing thereafter to offer.
bonded, and yet not at all.
"take vhat you need from the caches," the gargoyle suggested, knowing that pausing for a hunt would dwindle her energies and delay her. she meant to be quick, and already he worried for the yearling on her coming journey.

there is nothing else to be discussed, it seems, for she is dismissed and encouraged to take what she needs from their caches. though she appreciates it, praimfaya won't, especially considering she won't be around to replace what she takes. at least, not for a while. she isn't sure how long it'll take her. if the weather is favorable along her journey and back then hopefully not much more than a week. still, she gives a firm nod to mahler and departs, scrounging up a quick meal of rabbit before she beds down hoping to get as much sleep as she can for her trip.