Noctisardor Bypass einweichen

when he left the children, mahler collected medicines at the pharmacy, greeting malila and speedy there before he carried them to the fern-wrapped den where @Wylla lived. for now. it was a pleasant place, but set apart from the other denning places. he smelled of them, of green things; he hoped that she would not grow angry. 
wylla knew of their existence and that he had not fathered them. he meant to inform her of the recent goings-on, and stopped outside the denmouth, chuffing lightly for her to join him if she was awake.
settling onto his haunches to wait, mahler straightened his tousled fur and prepared his report. it had become intriguing to him, to share with her the inner details of rivenwood's happening.

Wylla dozed, stepping gently in the realm of in-between, of half-formed dreams and muzzy contemplations. The wires crossed more often than not, so she couldn't untangle whether her thoughts about Thade in the wild were real, or the dream that he had come home. They always seemed to miss one another, mother and son, one always present whenever the other was away. She never thought of him with disappointment, though Wylla felt certain the reverse was not true.

The low chug of Mahler's voice lifted her from the threshold of dreams back to full wakefulness. She lifted her head, blinked blearily, then curled her tongue in a wide yawn before finding her paws and stumping out into the sunlight. Her shoulder protested every movement, stiff and sore, but at least she was able to walk a little ways. Soon she would be able to get around the valley proper.

She didn't know if she would bother to do so. It was easy to pretend they did not exist. Much harder to face them. At least here, in this cave, she could tell herself she was living the life she'd wanted to lead, and not a life where her interests perpetually seemed to come second to whatever else was happening.

Wylla said nothing as she poked her head from the ferns, only regarded Mahler with something like warmth and came to stand dimunitive before him, where she gathered her assumptions about her: he must want to take a stroll to test her leg, or wanted to examine it in the light, apply another cooling poultice.

wylla materialized before mahler, and for a moment he only took in the sight of her: lightly aglow with fresh health despite the fact that she would swiftly be able to leave this place. but mahler was not certain what might transpire once she had been among the wolves of rivenwood. suppose she hated it all? he could not ask her to stay, and had assured her that he would not.
"praimfaya has not come back. and calcifer has left, meaning to go out into the vorld and find his own vay." would it be of note for wylla to know, that, as he stood upon the precipice of full healing, the only remnants of sagtannet were now departed from her sight?
"praimfaya — she has left her children behind. sequoia has taken them on," he stopped, feeling as if he was rambling. 
"ciri has come home."
the bauble of it on his tongue like a thorn.
"i had not expected to see her alive again," mahler breathed, before sliding into an abbreviated account of the harsh snows in mid-winter and the destruction of moonspear that followed, with the few pieces he had gathered.

Praimfaya and Calcifer, gone.

Wylla had come to enjoy these glimpses into Rivenwood, the effortless knowledge of wolves to whose names she could place no face. She knew Calcifer and Praimfaya, of course. She remembered little about Star's son, but recalled the yearling Praimfaya's arrogance, mostly. To say it came as any sort of surprise that such a self-involved wolf might leave her children behind would be a lie — and she would have said as much if she wasn't aware of the mirror she would stare into while doing so. She had left her children, too.

So she kept her mouth shut, and was glad she did when Mahler mentioned Ciri. The very name of the girl sent something unpleasant slithering through Wylla's belly, even though Ciri herself had never done anything wrong. It was solely the connection to Nyx, but it presented as unfair loathing regardless. Wylla had hoped she might never have to see any of them again.

But Ciri was here, alive, without mother or sister, who presumably had died on Moonspear. It was difficult for Wylla to clench back the words she had about this. Twice, she almost stopped him to point out that she really did not give a shit. She couldn't care less. If they had all died in the snow, it would have suited her perfectly. But Wylla was wise enough to bite that back, for it mattered to Mahler, and she was trying to be better.

Nonetheless, when he finished, she replied with a slow and drawn out, okaaay. Why are you telling me this? Secret glimpses into Rivenwood were fun, she realized, until they involved things she did not want to know about, and then she didn't really want to hear it.

mahler was not prepared to feel rather scolded; he recovered with a small smile that veiled his earlier vulnerability. "i thought it pertinent that you know ciri has returned," he pointed out more somberly. "she knows you are here."
"i mean to tell you everything, vylla. from the things that affect us all to those only between us." 
she could not chastise him for that, surely;
mahler willed himself out of wounded emotion and gained a bit of his earlier confidence.
"vould you like to come out into the forest?"
stride out as a pair, so that those they passed at least held some manner of recognition. mahler would forge ahead with this new robust, bullish plan; to focus wylla in all ways considerable until he had come close to her first estimation of him.
he hardly remembered that man.
"on my arm," the gargoyle added dryly, a good providence sparkling him now with stoic humour. determined for his sake, for their own, to do well in every moment they might possibly share.

To Mahler's credit, he reacted with more grace than he ought to, given how obvious it was that Wylla simply did not care about his returned daughter. No doubt he was filled with relief to know she was alive, and was incredibly happy to have her back with him — surely anyone who truly loved him would share in his feelings, for his sake, if no other reason — but Wylla despised the Ostregas more than she loved Mahler, even Ciri and Elke, who had never done anything wrong, and could find only dread in his relief, for it was only a matter of time before she once again would be set aside.

She would never tell him that, and she hoped she would never have to come close to it, either. If Mahler was wise, he would understand and respect that nothing would ever bridge the gap between his two families, and informing Wylla of Ciri was only so that she would not grow angry if they ever came face to face. She hoped it was not a misguided effort to start bringing the two together, but only time would tell. Mahler would find that Wylla could chastise him for a great many things, if she wanted to.

She had nothing much to say about it now, however, and luckily, Mahler changed the subject to a walk. She moved as though to accompany him, but paused abruptly with a smirk when he indicated she wanted her on his arm. Don't think your arm can handle it, she quipped, since you're so old and all, it might break under the pressure.

Yet she did, with a little hesitation that she felt somewhat guilty for — none of this could last, she was sure of it, and what if the returned Ciri happened upon them — press her shoulder to his gingerly to step alongside him, trying to enjoy the moment as it happened and ignore all the paranoid fluttering of her thoughts.

it would be a lie to say that mahler had not, in fact, entertained some vague notion of wylla and ciri discovering a common ground. but the shadowpriest was not so naive as to mention this, or to even truly believe it possible. 
insofar as mahler knew, he himself was the only common ground that both beloved wolves might have.
the sly little look that lit wylla's features did much to restore his own good humour, and he set a slow traipse through the trees. 
"your vittiness never left you, i see," the man observed with his usual moistless rebuttal, watching the path before them curve and widen into a clearing of wide-set birch trees. a cardinal pair had once used this for a nesting ground; here and there he saw the brilliant scarlet feathers upon the ground.
ahead, rabbits lifted their heads as they saw the wolves, but for now did not bob away.
mahler turned back to wylla. "vill you tell me more about your mother?" his own was only a dim recollection, and he hoped she would not ask after his family. the man had been too long from home to remember, not bonded to either of them in the way a good son should be.

It's about the only thing that's survived, Wylla replied, without noticing the full extent of her words. It was true: so much of her was stripped away over the past few years that all Wylla had left was her jealousy and her wit, and the latter was in sore need of whetting. When she was younger, she had verve and vigor to spare, enough confidence to lay nearly any wolf low, the grand ambition of youth, and few cares.

It was remarkable how thoroughly life could break the spirit of even a spitfire like Wylla, but here she was, a shell of who she had been when she led Grimnismal, when Mahler had bowed his head to her and become one of very few wolves who treated her with a modicum of respect. She failed to realize the accusation in speaking it aloud. Mahler was not the only one who had contributed but she could draw a lot of it back to him, unfair or otherwise.

Mahler asked about her mother. She gave him a sidelong searching glance, then rolled her shoulders, wincing a little when the healing one twinged. Not much to tell. She's a perpetual single mom and could flay a bear with a look. I don't know if Caiaphas took her prisoner before or after she got knocked up, or how that even happened, but she managed to flee that witch when we were born. She could only carry two of us. My dad pretty much abandoned her and she never saw him again. That's how my brother ended up separated and raised by Caiaphas.

A contemptuous grimace twisted her lips before she added, my mom's the strongest wolf I've ever met. If I could be half as strong as her... Lusca would likely scoff at the sad thing her daughter had become, if not for the love she bore her children. Maybe even then.

wylla spoke of her mother. secondhand, mahler began to gather how she had come to be the vital and fierce woman of today. they walked easily together, the gargoyle with his head inclined toward her, listening. "she lives on in her daughter," he remarked, meaning it to be a steady praise, but memories of the sea-hag sickened him with a remembered fear. "caiaphas. i vas terrified of her, and not in a good vay." not respect, but horror; it had led him willingly inland to find swiftcurrent once the bear had come.
still, he wondered where the sour old woman had gotten to, as she was the type of sea-wrapped crone to remain alive all these years ago.
but she had not been wylla. 
and so grimnismal had ceased to be home.
"you are strong, vylla," mahler murmured, giving her a pointed look. do not forget this.
pushing on, lest he fall into a place that neither of them wished to be!
"vhat vas the name of your brother?" he inquired, watching a marienkafer inch happily along the heavy nodding head of a sunflower.

She's vile, Wylla agreed, and that was about the only thing she could say about Caiaphas. More than once, she had considered using the old bat as a terrifying tale to curl the ears of her cubs when they were misbehaving, but she couldn't bring herself to ascribe any sort of power to the Eyjolfur witch. Stealing Lycaon sufficiently demonstrated what debased values Caiaphas held. She didn't need stories to make her sound horrible. She was the epitome of it.

Wylla was more like Caiaphas than she would ever care to admit when it came to seeing the world for the dreary place it really was, but luckily, she was not aware of that.

She said nothing in response to Mahler's assertion that she was strong. She wished she could believe it, but she was too easily swayed by her emotions lately to even pretend at such a thing. She was strong, once. Now? Now she felt pathetic, but there was no sense confiding in him about that. He would deny it while never giving her any tangible reason to believe that he was right, like any other time he tried to reassure her and fell short.

Wylla could feel herself growing tense in her thoughts, and willed herself to let out a slow, calming breath. He asked about her brother, earning a slightly perplexed look. Ah, but that had been years ago. Maybe he'd never really interacted with them.

I have two, she said. Ingram was the one I grew up with. Lycaon was the one Caiaphas stole. Both of them, lost to her now. Ingram dead at the paws of a bear, and Lycaon was god knows where. Probably dead, too. You don't remember them from Grimnismal? Lycaon was the brother Nyx fucked without my permission as leader, she almost added, but let the thought sour on her tongue. She was not in any sort of mood to butt heads with Mahler over that.

mahler did not think back upon those days. he had only stayed in the coastal realm for wylla, and when she was no longer there, he had no reason to remain. he took his chance to run — ah, he had done too much of this in his youth! — and found himself elsewhere.
the rest of this history she knew.
but ingram —
he blinked with a sudden realization, pausing in his steps to look at wylla. "i remember the first time ingram and i met. he said you and i, ve looked alike." a smile tugging at his lips, then smoothed beneath thoughtfulness. many years to pass, and then stigmata. the sunspire. "i hunted vith lycaon, vonce or tvice."
drageda;
it came back to him now, a pent slipstream now flashing forth.
"two years, i think it vas, after i left grimnismal and began diaspora, a band came to us. from drageda, they said, driven out by an enemy. vone among them vas pregnant. blodreina."
mahler began to walk again, the cursory stride of one lost to memories. "and not long after, a man called ... ingram — he came to us. he vas the father of her children."
"i think — i think i am only now just realizing who he vas."
and —
"her daughter. just the vone. praimfaya."
mahler looked with wonder at wylla, then sadness filled the crags of his dark face. "there vas an earthquake. blodreina — did not return. after this, praimfaya and ingram left diaspora."
her children; brow furrowed, and he was silent, stunned.

In a way, Ingram was a cornerstone of Wylla’s foundation. He’d been with her since birth, and her foundation became irreversibly unstable the day he was lost to her. She wished she could say the same about Lycaon, but she simply didn’t know him like she knew Ingram. Ingram was an extension of herself. She believed she knew all there was to know about her brother.

Which was why Wylla was certain, when Mahler finished speaking, that it was a case of mistaken identity. She shook her head fervently. Not possible, she countered, despite the uncertain flutter of her heart. What if he was alive? Ingram was killed by a bear in Swiftcurrent Creek, and even if he wasn’t, he would never lay with a Drageda dog.

Nor, Wylla believed, would any Dragedan choose him to sire her pups. It simply could not be so. A different Ingram, perhaps … She strengthened her notion by thinking of Praimfaya, twisting her lips at the thought. Her brother would never raise such an entitled, arrogant daughter.

Yet, in some ways, Praimfaya and Wylla were very alike, down to that very arrogance. The latter simply chose to gloss over her own faults, always.

mahler stared at wylla, not with any particular sort of expression, only observant. so swift she was to throw off the details of his story for what she knew. "i remember," the gargoyle said softly, turning back to their path, "that he vas a tall man. dark-furred. yellow eyes. he vas very kind, loyal to diaspora."
not pressing wylla, though perhaps she might take it to be so; only giving to her more that she might not have had before;
praimfaya —!
"by the time that these volves came to us, they vere no longer drageda. they vere injured. broken."
the lavender eyes remained gentle, but he spoke no more, wanting her only to consider this. and yet the hurt of it must be great, and he travelled somewhat closer to her ashfall shoulder in sympathy.

Once a dog, always a dog, Wylla stubbornly muttered. She would never forgive Drageda the way they lorded over everyone and harmed her brothers for no good reason. If she discovered one of their ilk, even if they had long since shed the title, she wouldn't hesitate to seek vengeance for them.

It rankled that Mahler's description of her brother was bang on; was it possible that he had survived and never sought her out? Was it possible he had sired Praimfaya with a Drageda wolf, producing such an entitled child that even Wylla glowed in an angelic light in comparison? Both struggled with authority, but at least Wylla never claimed to be some god-given "commander" of everyone and everything.

If that's true, she said, then he was no longer the brother I knew. He would never have raised a daughter who goes on like she has some ridiculous birthright to command anyone, much less spit on authority every chance she gets. More Drageda delusion, no doubt. A more emotionally mature wolf than Wylla might have even pitied Praimfaya for the weight placed upon her by such ridiculous claims, but Wylla had never known Praimfaya to be anything but insubordinate, and she doubted very much that that had changed.

At least, she thought, rather cruelly, her children will be spared her grand delusions in her absence.

it amused mahler, though he would never say it, that wylla thought herself so much more different than praimfaya. both wore hotheadness as a mantle, and both could not be budged from their path once it had been determined. 
wylla even went so far as to denounce ingram if he had indeed taken a drageda woman to his heart. 
"skaigona and worripa have not inherited that," he pointed out, now watching his own beloved a bit more openly. "and praimfaya is gone."
his voice was soft, but surely even wylla did not truly have anyone here in rivenwood against which to hold that grudge?

So, what's your point, is what a younger version of Wylla might have asked next. But she was learning to hold her tongue when there was no personal offense to spark her anger, and this was that exactly. Besides, Mahler was right: Praimfaya was gone, and her children were better off without that in their lives.

She imagined he felt that way, too, to have mentioned it at all, even though he did not say so outright. But unlike her frank admission when he announced before that Nyx had left, Wylla had learned, and again held her tongue from uttering a single word against Praimfaya. She knew full well the entitled little "commander" was meant to inherit Rivenwood and she doubted he would appreciate knowing how supremely glad she was that it would not come to pass.

So instead she nodded once and said, somewhat noncommittally nor should they have to, and fell to silence, at a loss for any other topic to turn them from this tense one. If what Mahler said was true, they were her grand niece and great nephew, but they already had a caretaker, so no point offering. Besides, she suspected he found her unfit for any sort of parenting after Astraeus. This was very different from that in her eyes, but still.

he supposed there was nothing more to be said on that front, and decided to leave it where it lay. he tilted his eye toward the sky, measuring the place of the sun. their stroll had not been long, and mahler might have walked with her more. 
but behind the medical reasoning that they should make an about-face, and return to the fern-cave; behind this there was a hurt pride, wounded only in the sort of lacerations wylla was able to deal.
suppose she now had more family in rivenwood than she realized. would this not soften her a little?
"could you eat?" the graf inquired delicately, though with a sidelong teasing look in wylla's direction.

What softness remained to Wylla was reserved almost exclusively for her daughter. In the early days of her injury, she extended the same to Mahler, but already those edges were beginning to taper. It was no real fault of his, and no real fault of her own, either — she was simply so accustomed to the other shoe dropping when it came to him that being guarded before it happened was now second nature.

This, she was not even aware of, only the tension that always blossomed between them when one or the other pushed too far. She would never concede that Ingram could have had any hand in raising Praimfaya, but perhaps it was her mother's delusions that ruled her. Perhaps her brother had no room to teach his own ways. Ingram had always been selfless, loyal but not ambitious. Grateful for the life he had, and not the life he wished for. Better than her, by far.

Sure, said Wylla. She wasn't in fit hunting condition with her shoulder the way it was, but maybe he meant to treat her on their stroll. It was a nice thought, and far removed from any realization that she had stung once more. What were you thinking?

"perhaps muskrat. very gamey," mahler teased. "in truth, i had nothing in mind. i vas only prepared to satisfy your whim." an attempt made, a delving into what had once been. he still remained unsure on the subject of praimfaya, and hoped to avoid it in the future.
rivenwood was a beautiful sight, verdant and rolling, with the stout mountains all around. he saw the forests plainly, and the waterways. he smelled the good earth of the bypass, and knew that he had been right to take and renew this world.
"i did not know i could love this land more," the gargoyle commented, having paused for a moment to drink in the sights.
he wanted to tell her that he was relieved she could find some sort of home in the place he had chosen;
but instead mahler smiled and they continued on.

Muskrat sounds fine, she replied, distractedly. It was difficult to let go of her earlier affront, but she thought also of Praimfaya's two cubs, and how they were possibly her kin, and how she might be able to have a hand in shaping them away from that heinous way of life.

She would have to seek them out.

Mahler's next comment pulled Wylla back from her thoughts, but she had nothing to say in response to that. Rivenwood was nice, but Nova Peak had been nice as well, and the hollow before that. It was nothing special in Wylla's eyes, leaving her to wonder what it was to him, and why he had not brought Sagtannet here if it was so wonderful to him.

To Wylla, it was just another land. Another place to feel like she didn't belong. That was what always happened.

There, she said, stopping abruptly to indicate that she'd found a muskrat's trail. Off they went in pursuit, or more specifically, off Mahler went; Wylla was no use in a hunt now, but followed close behind, attempting all the while to tamp down her uncertainty so that they might share a pleasant meal when he returned with his quarry, if not pleasant company.