Silver Moraine Sitting here in the afternoon,

@Ilse @Yikaas <3

The next day his eyes open, accompanied by the furnace blast of a fever. Anselm straddled the world of fretful sleep and wakeful terror, miserable in both. 

He’d come to enough to know a man was tending to him? Amadeo? Not Amadeo? Each time he woke he had to remember anew; where was he, who was he with, what had happened?

His mind was a fuzzy recollection of half-stored thoughts — like letters haphazardly stored in too thin mail slots. What he did remember didn’t fit — and what he didn’t remember loomed like a great shadow just out of his peripheral, burgeoning and pregnant with threat. 

Presently, Anselm brought his head to his belly, his spine curved in the helpless pose of an infant. Pain and suffering was his lot now, and he waded this gelid sea at a dying man’s pace. All he could think was his tongue felt like the shriveled edge of a parched leaf.

yikaas kept his eyes upon the sea. red leaf was there. ghelan was there. and with each day, hour, minute of time spent away from them, he lost more of himself. he tried to imagine his wife as she had been, but each image of her was spiked by the contemplation of one man or another, sharing her laugh. maybe she was in an ugly seal hunter lodge even now.

a muscle leapt in his jaw. the sun clan wolf turned back to the man curled on the ground, scowling as he inspected the herbal binding. it held. "get up." the stranger would vomit. he would shake. but he would be upright.

yikaas moved to help him roughly.

Ilse follows the river to the north of the bypass, up and around some other mountain. It is the cold dew of morning that drives her to seek shelter and the blood that drives her to the cave. Something troubled wanted to be found here.  She approached the main hall and stopped neatly before its entrance.

She was not the first one to appear at the altar, though it was the smell of sickness that would be first to greet her. Next, a rough-tongued voice. The fur at her nape stands on end as the absolutely fucked vibes of this place settled nicely in her stomach. She turned quickly to flee but cast a glance over her shoulder and it is then she sees him — it is there she finds trouble.

Fleeting familiarity gives her pause where recognition fails to take hold. She knew someone like him once, though the memory is just as distant and shadow-straddled as those of the unknown brother across the room.

She would be seen if she had not been already. She must address this, or she must run — now.

skipping anselm with permission!

before his jaws could drag the injured stranger to his addled feet, yikaas saw a charcoal flicker. he released whatever hold he did have, grimacing at the heat of fever on his tongue, and pulled away from his charge. 

the caribou hunter noted the passing resemblance but no more; from the shadows he peeled suddenly, slamming an arm for her ribcage.

he was an exile with the taiga as his refuge. yikaas did not plan to move on until he had what he wanted; he moved with the cunning elegance of a lanzadoii hunter to eliminate any threat. anyone who could expose where he had gone.

As he moved in slow motion, dropping the pale body at his feet, she considered bidding for his approval, though it was quickly made abundantly clear that there would be no talking her way out of this.

Ilse was a skilled mercenary — or so she had thought.

Wylla had passed down everything she knew, but there was only so much that Ilse could take in without having experienced the threat of fate unknown. Her life had never been in danger in her mother's hands.

The shadow's power went uncontested. The heft of his weight fell upon her while what training she had been graciously gifted evaporated from her skull. She turned every ounce of survivalist violence she had against the leg that bore down on her ribcage, teeth flashing desperately in the darkness of the cave.

down; collapsed. she cut into his wrist with hard jaws and yikaas gritted his teeth against the pain. shoving his weight hard down upon her struggling form, he began to dole a beating.
the scent of his blood filled the air. yikaas aimed his hard paws for her head, hoping to knock the senses from her head before she slashed him to the bone.
and all the while he was grimly silent. focused, his blows growing heavier. for once, not in anger but in self preservation.

On her way down, she caught sight of the bandage on Anselm's head. Had he committed this senseless violence upon that other wolf, too? Is that why his body now slumped wordless and whimpering on the floor? After the third blow, she lost count. She closed her eyes to protect them from wayward claws and clasped unwavering around what little purchase she had found, holding tight to whatever hope might be on the other side of his bones.

Life had a way of being truly ironic — soon, she knew she would lay unconscious on the stone floor alongside this unknown kin. For now, she fought blindly, waiting for an unlikely opportunity to gain the upper hand.

the interloper weakened. yikaas struck her a few more times and then dragged her to where the man still lay curled on the dirt. if she still fought then, a handful of lighter cuffs would send her down into oblivion.

yikaas wondered idly who she was even as his own panic rose: she could be a pack wolf, part of a family clan even now searching for her. and now, with one stranger senseless and the other soon to be, the caribou hunter found himself unsure of what to do with either of them.

his blows spoke for him.

Please feel free to archive - if you want, I can start another where she's conscious but subdued.

Unbeknownst to either of them, the shadow had made his situation worse. The only wolves that loved her were far from the wilds, and the only stakes she'd been concered with were for her own survival. Ilse knew not his name or his fists when she stepped foot in this cave, but now she had experienced the latter firsthand.

Just before the fingers of oblivion dragged her to their murky realm, the venom yellow of her eye seared open if only for a moment. She would commit his face to memory. Were she ever to wake, she would find a way out of this — and then, she'd find a way to make him pay.