Broken Boulder [m] Wishes

Private for @Waawaashkeshi and Atlas (me). Other tags for ref!

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: A whole kidnapping so y'know

His father would have arrived by now, Acheron thought, and found his suspicions proven when he crossed the weak perimeter of their paltry claim. The grasslands surrounding the giant split boulder were still a quiet place for now. @Cassius had been roaming as Acheron had; scouting. Now he caught the scents of his parents and perhaps one of his mother's servants — did he remember the girl? @Saede, maybe.

He wanted to see @Morticia at once — but he knew better than that. Acheron hadn't been there to greet them, and it would serve him better to show his father the reason for his absence. Instead he found himself idling a bit in his search for a soft place to set the girl, perusing the outskirts of the territory in the manner of a first-time furniture shopper. His efforts were well-rewarded in time.

Finding a place which might have been a garden in the springtime, he laid the gilded girl upon the wilted corpses of some ferns covered only lightly in frost and called for his father.

She had been in and out of consciousness for some time now, her body limp and her voice silenced. She did not know where she was or how she had gotten here. She was far too tired to care.

Her eyes were shut once again as he laid her upon the bed of wilting plants. Waawaashkeshi could only be glad that her weight was settled, no longer being dragged along scratching her legs and bruising her skin.

The man halted, his already-frowning features twitching into a deeper scowl. Atlas had been pacing, deep in thought, when the familiar voice of his dilatory son cracked across the little moor. He hesitated. How long now had he and his wife been kept waiting? How many nights?

But perhaps it was important. He straightened and moved to meet Acheron, expression settling into neutrality as he allowed his thoughts to wander. Before the departure of @Aelius, his second son had shown little initiative. He'd been a sullen boy, soft, the first to cry out for his mother and the slowest to obey his father's commands. Atlas had long accepted that there was a price for the brilliance of a bloodline. Genius, after all, was only a very certain sort of oddity. An aberration, by some miracle tuned to the exact degree at which it would be lauded rather than scorned.

So his children were scorned by the world, most of them. Sickly creatures, lost souls. Was it any surprise that Acheron should be another?

His boy had changed after Aelius left, but even so, it was hard to say what he might become. Who could say what shadows lurked in a young man's heart? At Acheron's age the boy hardly knew his own heart, still caught in the era of taking direction from his loins. Atlas had seen how he looked at that other boy. Cassius. He would need to correct it soon, more gently this time in memory of his beautiful broken Tybault.

Or perhaps not; there was a gilded woman in the frostbitten ferns, beside his son. Atlas turned sharp eyes on the boy at once. Too lazy to win a wife, so you steal one like some savage? And - His lip curled in disgust as he shot another glance at the feminine figure, the limp angles of her recline and the battered look to her. You nearly kill her in the process. No, I don't want to hear it.

Atlas waved off his son's stammered attempt at an explanation. As if this girl could pass for one of his granddaughters.

There isn't a hint of Medeiros in her, and besides; I see the way you look at her, boy. I'm not blind.

He turned away from his son's shame, toward the girl. Atlas stepped closer, assessing the girl's state. Are you awake, girl? He nudged her shoulder once.

Her mind feels like mush. She struggles to understand as she listens in to the two men, both speaking in what is her second language. They are arguing, the man who took her stammering while the other scolds.

A word cuts through; wife. Her eyes shoot open.

Waawaashkeshi is no wife to her captor.

The older wolf approaches, she does not know his intentions - only that she has heard a word she does not care for. He speaks, and she spits at his paws.

Wiiwan? Gaa wiikaa. For her tired and hissed tone, her eyes communicate all the aggression she needs. Where is Nasamiituuq?