Blackfeather Woods I remember there was mist...

The young girl was healing. It would be slow, arduous, but it was happening. Her mother had removed her cobwebs, since the bleeding had stopped, and scabs had formed around her eye, where the clawmarks were. The Night Queen administered salves over her eye thrice daily, and the stickiness of the substance still covered her snow white fur.

But she needed to exercise and get used to her missing eye. She was not as heavily injured as her mother suspected, with her eye being the only injury. The princess poked her head out from the mouth of the tunnel, her single, sapphire eye gleaming in the light, the other dull and covered by a white film. She did not know what it looked like, for her mother had warned her away from seeing her own reflection for a long time.

The young girl sat by the entrance of the den, blinking and turning her head to get a look at her surroundings. It was awkward, and the young princess grew frustrated at having to repeat the motion time and time again. Eventually she snarled and tore at the ground. On the dirt below, she saw it again. The glowing eyes in the mist, the fangs. She hated this thing, whatever it was.

Cicero had just gone to retrieve some of Potema's favourite mushrooms. They would make her feel better again. They always did. He did not understand much of all that had happened, although he could think of only one wolf that would do such a thing. Only one wolf in the pack, that is. Apparently it was not a bad thing to hate others within the pack. Maybe it was not even a bad thing to hurt them. Cicero did not know. He did not fear or worry much for such things, for he did not feel in danger, himself. Potema, she was a princess. The plebs hated princesses, because they were better than them. Cicero... He was just Cicero. He was better than all of them, but aha - the trick was that the plebs did not know. So he was safe from their wrath.

When he arrived at the densite, Potema was having another one of her freak-outs. "Poor Potema," Cicero said as he walked around her, towards her bad side. Might as well learn to live without that eye some day. Might as well be today. "Cicero brought you this. Chew up." Cicero did not come near enough to be attacked in case she was really gone for the moment. He threw the mushrooms forward, aiming for her line of sight, so that she would stop tearing at the ground and would eat them and feel better. Less pain. Or maybe just high. Both would work well enough.

While her eye was blinded, her ears were not deafened. In fact, they seemed enhanced, as if to make up for her halved sight. The young girl turned towards the sound, until her right eye caught sight of him. Cicero. A smell wafted towards her a few seconds after, mushrooms. Her favorite in fact, king boletes. A smile tugged at her lips. "Thanks, Cic'." She pulled the mushrooms close to her, then taking a bite of one of them. It wasn't a psychedelic mushroom, her mother had warned her away from those, but it was strangely delicious when she first found it. Meaty, in a way. Mushrooms were strange. "Where's Damien? He hasn't visited me yet."

It was lucky that Potema had survived the assault, Cicero thought; it was perhaps that thought that made Potema so strong in overcoming the pain. It looked like she would be good, after careful healing. Cicero watched as his sister took the mushrooms and started eating them. It was convenient that their mother knew much of healing plants and mushrooms so that she could transfer her knowledge to her children, although the dark side of medicine was what interested Cicero most.

When Potema asked for Damien, Cicero smiled and rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "Who knows. Damien is always off doing things." Cicero could not empathise that it might make Potema sad that Damien hadn't visited, because he had never been in Potema's situation. Besides, Damien was Damien. Always late, always busy with his own stuff, but he didn't have a bad heart. He'd come round to visit sooner or later. "Damien will come round eventually. Until then Potema will have to do with Cicero." Cicero sat down while he watched Potema eat the mushrooms. Perhaps Damien had not visited because he knew Potema would be alright and until she was, she could not be the subject of playfights. Well... They were all getting a little old for playfights, in Cicero's opinion, anyway. But maybe that was because Damien was always the one beating him up.

She was still buttsore about Damien not coming to visit her, regardless of what he was doing. Meldresi came, and so did Burke and Cicero. Why not the last of her family?

Let your brother be, little one.

Here she was again, this strange, familiar voice that had pervaded her brain ever since the "accident".

You cannot inhibit his growth with such selfish reasons as yours.

She was right. She was being selfish, but no matter how selfish a reason it was, she wanted to see her brother at least once. See him be the comforting older brother he always was to her. If he didn't, she would bear that grudge on him forever, she thought.

But until then, she was stuck with Cicero, not that she minded. He was comforting in his own, strange, third-person way. "I don't mind, Cic."

Cicero watched as his sister just stared ahead, looking absorbed into herself. He gave her all the time she needed, even though Cicero did not know what Potema was doing. It did not matter.

"Does Potema want to look for mushrooms?" Cicero asked her. He was not sure if she was up to walking so far already, but maybe they could look for some near the den. With Cicero by her side, it would not be so dangerous to go looking around the area instead of staying confined to the den all day.

Potema thought of it for a while. Would Mother be fine with this? Her mother had been very worried the first few days, curled around her as she lapsed in and out of unconsciousness; but now that she was awake and moving, her surveillance was growing lax. Perhaps she would not mind her walking around the den; she was going to be with her brother after all. "Sure." She said, getting up. She felt like an old woman, her limbs stiff after laying down for so long. The princess shook her limbs one by one, putting pressure on each of them, before she felt ready. "Let's go then."

Cicero allowed Potema the time to unfold herself and get ready to move again. Looking for mushrooms was an easy way for her to take a stroll without getting into too much danger. She would unlikely get hurt, and there would be another wolf by her side who could protect or help her. After Potema had unfolded her stiff limbs, she said that she was ready to go, and Cicero nodded in acceptance of this.

"Has Potema ever visited other packs?" asked Cicero while they came into motion and started their search for mushrooms, curious for her experience, if any.

Potema kept Cicero on her good side; at this point she was too afraid of having someone lurking in the bitter darkness of her left half. It was a chilling feeling, despite what Burke said about her having to train to use her other senses. She was not ready for such a feat yet. Meanwhile, she kept her nose to the ground, searching for her favorite mushrooms, and some others that her mother could use.

"No." She had never bothered with seeing other packs, always too focused on her priestess and healer training to explore. She had met other wolves, however, and had ventured past pack borders many a time, but venturing towards a pack's territory had never intrigued her as much as it had with Cicero.

Cicero watched as Potema searched for mushrooms and answered his question with a curt 'no'. It intrigued Cicero that Damien nor Potema seemed very interested in other packs. Did they never wonder if the packs were like Blackfeather, or if there were different types of packs? Apparently they did not. He wondered to himself about it, wondered if all packs had dark wolves or if they were all different, though Cicero himself had not yet visited many packs -- only the Sunspire when he was smaller, and without contact with any of its wolves -- and did not share this with Potema. She was not interested, after all.

"Does Potema know who did it?" Cicero asked her -- not because he was truly curious, but mostly because he wondered how she was dealing with what had happened. Besides, surely she, too, knew who had done this? There was only one wolf that Cicero could think of.

Potema found a cluster of shelf mushrooms on a fallen log. The young princess wandered towards them, sniffing the mushrooms curiously. They weren't poisonous; it was an oyster mushroom, a species she was fond of, mostly because it was white like her. The girl sniffed the shelves, looking for any signs of bugs hiding in the crevices. She didn't find any, and thought it fit to take a few off for herself.

The princess paused and turned to Cicero, her one eye glittering. "No." She repeated. "I can't remember much." Two orange eyes glittered again behind Cicero, fangs glistening with saliva and blood. It was all she remembered.

When Potema found the mushrooms, Cicero sniffed them to ensure they were not poisonous. Not because he doubted Potema's abilities - she was very well capable of taking care of herself - but because he was interested in mushrooms and plantlife, too. Once they established it was not poisonous, Cicero left them alone, leaving it up to Potema whether or not she wanted to take them with her.

Potema said she did not remember much, and Cicero wondered if she really did not have a clue. There was only one wolf who could have done it. He was not about to tell Potema, however, as apparently it was okay for wolves to do these things within Blackfeather's confines. Cicero did not worry for his own skin. "Is something behind Cicero?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder into the darkness that Potema had been looking at moments before.

The eyes disappeared as quickly as it appeared behind her brother, and she simply shook her head. Potema was growing more annoyed of the visions than truly frightening her, as it had when they began. The girl peeled off the rest of the mushroom she wanted, and held them in her jaw. "Let's get some more. Momma might need some of them."

The girl walked away, leaving the eyes behind. She had to focus on reality now; not the past, despite its staggering effect on her.

Potema shook her head, and Cicero wondered what she had seen, but did not ask. If she wished to speak of it, she would surely let him know. Potema then suggested they take some more mushrooms for Mother, and Cicero nodded at her. Then he, too, started to pluck a couple mushrooms that he carefully held in his mouth.

When Potema walked off, so did Cicero, following her with the mushrooms in his mouth, presumably back home.

Fade here?

Potema wandered over to the next tree, dropping the mushrooms in her mouth and sniffing the ones on the tree, trying to distract herself from the trauma she experienced from the attack she forgot. Perhaps it was best that she did forget how it happened, who did it, how it felt. The mind was mercifully strange in choosing what it wanted to remember, and what it acquired in the presence of such trauma. Potema left those thoughts behind as she ripped off another shelf of mushroom and handed it to her brother. "We can bring this back to the infirmary." She said before walking off without a second thought. She had seen the eyes again, behind Cicero. Whether it was his own orange eye that triggered the memory, she did not know, and nor did she care.

yeah, that's fine :) i'll archive this :3

Cicero wondered if wolves always forgot this easily. If they forgot who threatened them, if they forgot who hurt them. He wondered for a split second if he could have done this, and she would still love him for the brother that he was, forgetting. If Damien would forget, were he to be hurt in the same way. If Cicero would forget, if another were to hurt him.

It would be convenient to know, Cicero thought, for a split second. It would be convenient to know if every wolf forgot that easily. If they would forget when he would...

Potema's words ripped Cicero from his thoughts. He looked at her with a cool expression on his face and nodded. Cicero took the mushrooms in his mouth and started to walk away, towards the infirmary, where they would store the mushrooms. Before he and Potema departed towards the infirmary, Cicero cast a quick glance over his shoulder. For a moment it was as though one orange eye gleamed in the distance, casting a shadow over the two pups.

Without looking back, Cicero continued towards the infirmary, silent, his mouth full and his mind laced with riddles and doubt.