The Heartwood Why does thou sit upon my grave

Set right after this thread!

When the hellhounds eyes blink open, still blurry with a restless sleep, he swears he’s still dreaming. Banesteppe is gone for some reason and the bleary eyes beast even looks around for him too. To no avail of course. He brushes it off though, feeling groggy because a few hours sleep and not getting any nights prior. 

Until instantly, he remembers the dream he had. No wonder his head is throbbing — it was fucking weird. It felt too real and he’s had many other dreams to compare it to. Ultimately, he concludes that there was something different about it. 

And then there’s the clues…she told him to follow the clues. What clues? Should he really be thinking this hard into this? No, probably not, but something is practically forcing him to investigate.

So he does. 

Getting up with a huff of breath rushing from his nose, he gazes around tiredly. Where would he even start? He doesn’t know, so he just begins walking. Head hanging between wide shoulders, his eyes absentmindedly drift to the ground and he catches smaller paw prints only a fair two meters from where he was laying curled up beneath a tree. 

Bloody eyes squint as they focus in on the paw prints as he lowers his upper body to sniff them. Dirt puffs up around his face and his breath stirs the earth and he determines that they’re possibly only a few hours old, but there is a scent there nonetheless. 

Was someone watching me? He thinks.

All the while eyes never leave the prints in the dirt. They’re smaller than his, so he doesn’t feel threatened per say, but it doesn’t exactly make him feel comfortable with the situation. So, leaving his head at ground level, he follows the scent. It’s displaced and spotty at best, hardly there at all and completely gone at some points. 

Some ways away when he’s sure he’s lost the scent, the bright green color of moss catches his eyes. He lumbers closer and inspects it, finding a burnt, ashen branch. 

His body and mind still.

A place of ash and soot — find it. 

Follow the clues…

His first though is that this can’t be real. His second thought is that this is so fucking weird, but honestly, he speaks to a the ghost of some alien being so can it really get any worse than that?

He continues an about two hours later a scent hits his nose — elk, blood, flesh. Yet, when he follows it he finds nothing but a tattered and worn crown from that of an older bull. It has the same scent just barely mixed in with it. They’re full, an impressive set of antlers and Alduin finds the need to keep them. So tipping them onto an angle that allows him to slip his head beneath and balance them on his neck. 

He moves forward, antlers in tow, until he spots a black forest mostly devoid of life and vegetation. 

A place of ash and soot. Find it.

This is it, he knows it is. And that becomes much clearer when he begins tiptoeing along the borders and smells the very obvious scent of urine — a female wolf. 

He follows the scent further into the ashen forest, stepping casually over fallen, burnt trees and paws imprinting in the packed in soot below. Now, he wanders once more. Why did that woman in his dream lead him here? His mind is reeling at possibilities, but another part of him thinks he’s crazy for even entertaining her. But that thought flops really fucking fast because he knows he is crazy.

And he wouldn’t have it any other way.