Haunted Wood what do we say to the god of death? not today

for @Astrid; tagging for reference; also i think i broke my own heart. ;-;

Roarke is lost. This is not a particularly new development as he’s been lost for some days now. If curiosity had killed the cat then …disillusions of the world outside of the Strath’s safety and innocence and confidence would be the winter’s bane undoing. He had ignored Arturo’s warnings: that the world outside of the Strath was an unwelcome and harsh world; or perhaps the tundrian thought that such things could not surely apply to him. He is tundrian! He is Fearghal! He has heard his father praise their resilience (though such a large word goes over the boy’s head) and admiring their strength in quiet moments when the coywolf thinks all his children are asleep. He is lucky to be alive. Childhood innocence and purity put Roarke’s faith and trust in a moonbeam silver colored stranger whom promised to take him back to the Strath when in fact the man escorted Roarke further from his home though his home resided only in the neighboring territory as he’d told the man, even gesturing in the direction of the Strath from the ravine that Roarke had wondered into.

The stranger kept him fed on their journey what meager meals he has managed to hunt …that is until the stranger disappeared. Roarke stays put in his shelter, pudgy body tucked into a hollowed log that is supple enough to accommodate him but sturdy enough to offer him protection from predators that would seek to kill him as The Stranger suggested. Roarke is smart, if not inexperienced and knows he is far from home. He has been a day without The Stranger (whom had promised swift return in gravelly voice that is neither comforting or familiar) and he has stayed in his shelter, heart aching for familiarity, to hear Eirlys’ heartbeat a soothing comfort to him as he nestles against his svelte twin to sleep. As night begins to settle over the lands, darkening the already dark forest there is no sign of The Stranger and Roarke falls into an uneasy sleep. He does not want to be afraid — he is a lion! He is Winter’s Bane! And lions were not afraid.

Yet, he cannot help but call out for @Lotte in his sleep. “Mama? Mama!” Because in his slumber his fear is not so easily disregarded nor does it offer him mercy from returning tenfold as he turns from it in waking hours, pretending as if it does not exist and that he cannot feel it to take it's retribution.