Stavanger Bay When it's one need

@Aduin 

Osprey knew that once Charon's pack - Stavanger bay - had lived on the coast, but up until now she had not realized, how very close the Donnelaith was to the actual place. Though her sight failed to provide her with a detailed images, her memory was very good and, when - during one of the few wanders outside the territory - she reached a place on the coast that seemed very familiar, she stopped to try and recall, why was it so. 

A year had passed since she had stayed here and met the little fluffy bundle of joy Charon here for the first time and, how they had become fast friends. At one point she had shown her a waterfall. So the waterfall is called Shield Maiden's Falls... Her friend's words echoed in her mind. Things had been so much different at that time. 

Osprey sighed, pushing away the memories of their last meeting away, and deciding that perhaps taking an action was the best way of not letting the saddness overcome her. So she left the coast, to enter the forest and find the waterfall. 

This place brought back memories to the shattered wolf. It brought memories of his home, with the waterfalls there. Although, none of them were good. All were with the fire. The searing heat. He could suddenly feel the same heat, and believed himself to be on fire. His face became panic stricken as he began rolling around and bouncing from here to there.

He dove into the wall of water, cooling himself down. It gave him relief, to feel the cold of the water. To any viewer, it must have been weird to see a wolf on fire, especially if there was no fire to begin with. He looked around quickly, in case there was a bystander. What an embarrassment he must have seemed like.

Some things are meant to happen - the path to the waterfall was not that hard to find. After a bit of wandering, Osprey heard the unmistakeable sound of the rushing water and soon she found not only the stream, but the exact place Charon had shown to her those many months ago. Though the view she saw lacked details and looked more like an impressionist painting, a little melancholic against the winter landscape and dull gray sky, the fond memories came flooding back, adding colors and beauty to it. 

As she neared the waterfall, trying hard not to let the emotions flow over and cry, she realized that she was not exactly alone here. What first had seemed just like a shadow formed by the water and light, turned out to be a wolf. Under normal circumstances she would have felt afraid and suspicious, but now Osprey's curiosity won over. She stopped in her tracks and called out to the other lost soul: "What are you doing?"

As it turned out, there was another nearby who most likely had just viewed what fear can do to one's self. Making them go crazy. When he heard their voice, he ducked into the water, turning as he ducked down so only the top of his head showed. 

Once he was brave enough, he lifted the rest of his head out and spoke. "Y-you saw that?" he asked. How stupid of him to not notice another nearby. "That was..." he paused, thinking up an excuse. And the most random of all answers came up. "Practicing to d-dance." What an excuse that was.

"Dancing?" Osprey repeated, sitting down and preparing for a very odd, yet interesting conversation. It was not too cold, yet the very idea of being in the other's place under the streams of icy water made a shiver run down her spine. She had done her share of crazy things in her youth, but it had never involved something so reckless as this. How did the man imagine to get dry again?

"Why so?" this seemed like the next most logical thing to ask, until a moment later another thing occurred to her. "Aren't you cold?"

Aduin nodded, his head a little more out of the water so the surface was halfway up his neck. His ears drooped down, heavy with water, as was his fur coat. And he didn't like being wet too much, so stepped out and shook off as much as he could. He couldn't exactly believe that the wolfess believed he was actually dancing. But he was too ashamed to say the truth. "Um...I'd rather not t-talk about it."

Once dry, he stood upright, looking himself up and down. Yes, he was cold. Although he had enough self control to cease any shaking that threatened to show itself. But his eyes were instilled with fear from the sudden 'imagination attack'. "Y-yes I am. But it won't b-bother me. Much" he stated. Then he quirked his eye curiously. "H-H-How much did you see?"

"Alright," Osprey nodded, though she was very inclined to push the matter forward and find out more about this curious character. For a moment she considered that he might not be a wolf at all, but a spirit or a ghost or even a minor deity in disguise. That would probably make a lot better explanation than the quite obvious fact that this guy lacked some screws. 

She drew her ears back and wrinkled her muzzle, when some of the cold droplets of water landed on her face, then she sneezed too. "Of what?" Osprey did not understand, what he had meant by "seeing". As far as she was concerned there was an odd wolf, who was swimming in the middle of winter and didn't seem to be bothered by cold.

Aduin was confused. Normally, when he did something this crazy, they would either walk away or question his actions. But all she did was accept it. As if it were a normal occurrence, or at least he thought that. He looked away bashfully. He guessed she had seen quite a bit of it. 

But when she asked her question, he was more surprised. Had she not seen his 'dance' after all? "Um, my dance." He answered with a low and shaky voice. Now he felt the cold of the water. What a stupid move he made. Shivers ran up and down his spine, shaking his fur pelt.

The dance - of course. Osprey gave a strained smile, while she tried to find a better topic for their odd conversation that was going down the "nowhere" road. It was a bit strange, that while the stranger did not want to talk about it (as he had put it in his previous answer), he still wanted to know about, how much she had seen. 

"Not much," she shrugged. "So - where are you from and where are you heading to?" She changed the subject.

Aduin let out a thankful, shaky sigh. So she had not seen too much, after all. But, as always, one problem was replaced by another. Now, she wished to know where he was from, and where he was headed. As he mostly did, he gave only part of the truth. His fur shook a little while he answered the question. 

"Well, I..um...I come f-from a burned home...And I am l-l-looking for my, uh, sisters" he replied quietly. His fur shook some more, this time part of it was out of fear. For them. Why did they have to disappear? That same question repeated many times, every day.

"Burned home," Osprey repeated and looked away, remembering her last encounter with fire and how badly it had ended. Now and then she would still have nightmares about flames that ate away and destroyed everything. She shuddered and, when she cast glance at the young male, she felt very sorry for him. It was unfortunate enough to lose one's family. It was even worse, if it happened because of something you could not fight with.

"Your sisters - did you find any trace of them after the fire?" she asked, naturally assuming that this was the way he had lost his family. "What did they look like? Perhaps there is a way I can help you?" she did not know, if there was much of anything she could actually do, but asking would not hurt, would it?

Aduin sighed, turning his head with his ears falling to the sides of his head. Only just then had he forgotten the fire, then the thought came back up. But when he watched her from the corner of his eye, she shuddered. Either she knew how bad fires could be, or had experienced one herself. If it were the latter, he would feel very sorry for her, as he could relate to her.

He moved his head up, shaking his head. "Oh, they weren't l-lost by the fire. I found t-them not too long ago...But..they left. And I d-don't know where." He went on, answering her next questions. "One of them i-is grey with a white face, and w-white underside. The other has b-brown fur, a grey face, a white u-underbelly and reddish ears." He hesitated. Was it the right thing to tell someone he did not know? But he was desperate. "Please, if you see them, c-come by the cliffs and tells us. Please" he pleaded.

Why would they leave? The first impression of the story was that they had not cared for the brother enough to take him with them, but she bit her tongue before the question slipped, because it would make the guy feel even worse than he did now. If he had been a family member or even packmate, she would have closed the distance between them and consoled him, told that everything was going to be alright, cheer up with something positive. But he was a stranger and from the brief conversation they had had - it was hard to make any judgements about his character. In the worst case scenario he could be a perfectly functioning sociopath in disguise. 

She listened to the descriptions of the said wolves and memorized them for time being. Once she was out of the forest, she would probably forgot all about them. Just the same way this stranger would not remember her anymore after a while. "What are her names and where can I find you, if I run into them?" she asked.

"Cliffs. I think they are called Dragoncrest Cliffs...Though, we may not remain there. Y-you can look for someone named Aduin, or Sebastian. We are both searching for them." he said sadly. What if this kind wolf could never find him after finding his sisters? He needed all the help he could get to find them. Though, he didn't want to bother everyone he met. "I-If it is too much to ask, then you don't have to."


He remembered how long he had been away, and believed Seb would be very worried about him. "I-I need to leave." He started running off, but stopped, glancing back at her. "Thank you." Then he was off, away from the waterfall.

Aduin never gave the names of his sisters and suddenly seemed to be in such a hurry to leave, that Osprey didn't know what more to say or reply. Usually she didn't have to look for words, but this guy was so hard to understand that - as the conversation drew on, she felt more and more confused. "Have a safe journey!" Osprey called after him and gave a sigh of relief. She sat by the waterfall for a while, watching the flowing water and trying to recall the day she had spent here with Charon in details, but it was no easy task to do, since her mind kept returning to the mysterious stranger and, what had been the real reason for him to take a mid-winter "swim". So... after a while she gave up an effort and left for home. As she padded back to Donnelaith she thought it would be amusing to know, what Dante would think about this story and what his guess would be.