Horizon Ridge all your letters in the sand

set after this thread

he took off from the border, and didn't stop. wanted to run until his legs gave out. everything had happened all at once. engel was gone, and he would not have children this season. the latter fact he knew already, but it had been drilled into his head today. the former. . .

aditya had scrabbled over the mountains and now looked out over a ridge comprised of many fragmented boulders that had once been united. the smell of the sea, so calming and familiar, hit him, a gust of cold salt, and he sobbed with relief at the smell of it, gulping huge breaths of air.

he thought of engel again, and flew into a rage. "kaminey!" he roared, words echoing over the waves. "chutiya! ja apna bajaa!" aditya hung his head, gasping, and struck the rock below with a paw, a few times until it began to hurt. scarlet blood oozed from a small cut in the pad, a dull stain on the dark surface.

he had lost nando, his best friend in the world, to the sea. the tawny wolf was almost certainly dead. engel had began to fill the gaping hole in his heart that nando had left, but now. . . now it was open again, gaping, bleeding, hollow.

this was almost worse. he had lost nando to the sea. he couldn't have prevented it.

but engel. . .engel was a fucking idiot. no more, no less.

She'd poised herself atop one of the tumbled boulders to air out her wet fur in the chilly breeze when a brown-furred stranger began to holler in tongues from above. Her dark ears snatched back toward her damp nape as Wylla squinted up at him, silhouetted in all his burly glory against a half-clouded sky. She observed for a short time as her impromptu company slammed his foot into the ground, and then she curled back lips and whiskers coyly and craned her neck.

"Oi," she called brusquely, then jabbed her thin snout abruptly toward the ocean. "If you drink your weight in that, it's guaranteed to exorcise demons. You should try it." What explanation could she drudge up aside from possession for his unusual behaviour? All the signs pointed to it. Self-harm, unexplained yelling, in an incomprehensible (to her) language, nonetheless... yep. Definitely demons.

I just... had to.

omg yes i love wylla

a voice from below caught his ear, and he looked down to find a girl, perhaps around pema's age, staring up at him. the meaning of her words took a moment to sink in, but when they finally did, he shook his head, looking rueful.

"what demons were there are surely gone, now," aditya called back. "i almost drowned, this past autumn."

he peered to get a closer look at her, face incredulous. who was this girl, to interrupt his mourning? it certainly wasn't anyone he had seen before. perhaps one of the ravensblood group. . .no, she didn't carry the scent of that bleeding-sap forest. "who are you?" he asked, his voice fairly unfriendly but not altogether unkind.

Well, shit, she was sure that ploy would work. How was she to know that he'd already drank half the sea? Wylla pulled her lips down into a thoughtful pout when Aditya revealed that his demons would have long since been expunged by his bad luck, and tried hard to think of a clever way to come back from that. For the moment an idea escaped her, which was all the better. He poised a question that quickly took her mind off it.

"Oh," she replied vaguely, crossing her thin ankles one over the other and gazing wistfully (she hoped) out to sea. "Just an everyday ocean witch." Wylla was neither ocean nor witch these days, although that had been her fate in another life, one where Caiaphas hadn't been removed from the picture by Lusca's daring escape. "Are you sure every demon is gone?" she wondered aloud, narrowly watching Aditya, who seemed perfectly well composed and fluent despite his seeming outrage just moments ago. "You didn't sound like it just then. Y'know... for the price of one rabbit leg, I could ensure the lingering spirits are put to rest."

Or, like, pour sand and salt down his throat and mumble some made-up bullshit for laughs, but who would be any the wiser?

he raised his eyebrows at her response, not saying anything more until she had shut her mouth for the time being. "no one can be sure of that," aditya said cryptically. he thought of the spirits in the woods down south. how was he to know one of them hadn't followed him here, stayed by his side?

"as for what i sounded like, it is my mother's tongue, not demonic gibberish," he informed her coolly. "maine apna mann nahin kholaa hai. yet," he amended, with a small sigh.

he thought of what she had said, though--the price of one rabbit leg. "for going to the trouble of a leg, i might as well give you a whole rabbit," he chuckled. after a beat, though, his face grew serious. "are you hungry?" she had no pack-scent attached; perhaps this shtick was a way to earn attention and food.

Mother tongue, demon tongue, same thing. At least it was to Wylla, who was about as sensitive and cultured as a dull rock on the ground. She had only one language and figured anything besides that one language was nothing but gibberish meant to confuse. Mostly she was just offended by the notion that someone could say something she didn't understand and sought reasons to vilify all who were capable of that. It was easy to blame it on demons.

"Sounds suspect," she insisted with a cool glance, black ears falling unconvinced to the sides. Yet she didn't make much of a renewed effort to sell her "magic" to him; he was already on to her and she knew it. Sometimes it was easier to cling to a lie by refusing to speak of it further, although she couldn't help herself when next Aditya spoke.

"Me? Not at all," she claimed with a spark in her yellow eyes. "I'll have you know I have many loyal clients who bring me legs for my services." Right on cue, her empty stomach grumbled loud enough that even a chittering gull flying overhead could hear it.

aditya chuckled, to hear her stomach growl despite her assurances she was well-fed by her, er, loyal clients, though the sympathy remained. he picked his way carefully down the face of the rocks to meet her, finally scrabbling to a halt next to her.

"legs that aren't big enough, it would seem," he said, his tone dry with a hint of kindness. aditya smiled. "an ocean witch shouldn't go hungry." his nose pointed to the waves. "the sea's your domain. the waters your bounty."

he looked at her once more, tail swaying in the wind. "do you have family nearby?" he asked gently. aditya had taken a liking to this girl, despite her brash nature. she reminded of him dawn in a way, though less refined. while dawn was the wild, cool mountain breeze, this girl was rough and coarse as the salt sea.

"Whadda you know," she scoffed, turning away from Aditya to hide the sour expression that betrayed how absolutely right he was. There were no legs at all. She was lucky to make a catch one in five times. She called herself a proficient hunter but without comrades, Wylla was really just a sad sack of wolf who got lucky often enough to stay alive.

He made good points about the sea. She hadn't been around it in such a long time that she'd forgotten the little tricks for getting seafare: the tide pools that collected when the ocean washed out on itself, the remains of whales and seals and other creatures that washed up on shore now and again. "I've been away from the ocean for quite some time," she admitted, and for once, she was at least telling true.

Glancing back at Aditya in time for his question, she frowned and tapped her tail on the rocks. "Once," she told him. "Someone told me they found my brothers recently, but they were lying. I don't know if they're alive anymore or not." Raptor probably hadn't meant anything bad by his assumption, but she could never forgive him for getting her hopes up, and her frown darkened when she thought of him. Despite Aditya's kindness, Wylla sniffed and asked, "whadda you care anyway?"

she maybe thought herself an enigma, but adi knew he had her figured out. he had once been like this, as a boy. orphaned and alone, wandering the shore, he had adopted a larger-than-life nature, becoming a weaver of tall tales, building himself up to be bigger than he was. it helped him survive. . .but more importantly, it distracted him from what that reality truly was for him--empty.

"i had no family for most of my life," aditya said softly. he pointed his nose out to the horizon, the soft gray sky nestled above the dark line of the sea. "was alone, traveling up and down the coast, with no purpose." his eyes rested on her once more. "i care because i know."

his mouth curved in a half-smile. "but you're destined for greatness. i see the spirit in you," he said. sometimes he had said variations of this phrase, merely to placate the one he was with. this time, though, he did not lie, and he hoped it showed on his face. "who are your brothers? i live nearby. i can keep my eyes and ears open for signs of them."

Wylla snorted, brushing away every effort Aditya made to reach out to her. It was the mark of a lonesome soul. Wylla's misfortune had damaged her psyche in more ways than she would ever admit to anyone, even a fellow wolf who knew the same trials. "You don't know anything," she protested, spine bristling slightly. "Your life sounds sad but I'm nothing like you. I have plenty of purpose, thanks." And she turned her snipy muzzle back out to sea, scoffing loudly when he claimed there was greatness in her.

Oh dear, sweet Aditya, how wrong you are.

The spry little coastal wolf stood suddenly and spent a great deal of time stretching her thin body on the rocks, then flipped her tail and said, "you won't find 'em anyway. Their names are Ingram and... Lichen or something. Never met him. Chances are they're both dead." Having by now tired of her continued failure to lie and growing tired of company in general, she began to pick her way nimbly down toward the shore proper, calling out a, "got other clients t'see, so best be going, nice to meetcha and all that jazz," as she went.

what had he expected? for her to agree, to find comfort in his words? perhaps his life had grown too idyllic on the plateau, for it stung when she threw words like barbs at him. the girl was lashing out, blanketing whatever pain or loneliness she held in her heart with fire. he understood. . .and he knew he couldn't reason with her, at this point.

adi called out a weak farewell, heaving a sigh as he fell silent once more, once again in solitude. the anger at engel's depravity still simmered beneath the surface, this time tinged with sorrow for the wiry girl padding along the beach.

the names she had given him rang in his head like the calls of songbirds. ingram. lichen. he hoped she'd find them, eventually. if he saw them, he'd point them in the right direction. for her sake, for theirs. . .and, in a small part, for his, to sleep peacefully at night knowing the girl had found her brothers.

no one should be alone. no one should feel abandoned.

after several minutes more of quietly looking at the sea, aditya rose, climbing back over the rocks toward the plateau. trying to figure out how to move on.