The Sentinels donnelaith

smelly is with her, so beware her humongo guard doge

she had dreamt of this place, and she saw it now as it was then—

the burnt and fallen trees were tall, taller than anything she had ever remembered seeing, reaching up and up and up, but at the sight of her they seemed to lower, to observe, to greet. she felt the whispers of memory, and her emerald eyes gleamed at the world that surrounded her. a blink, and the curtain fell—what surrounded her was death. the witch could have wept at the sight, but her eyes fell to a trace of greenery, and at once she moved to it, whispering a remembered spell to encourage it. relief was plain upon her soft features as she looked over her shoulder to her husband.

the place looked gravely wounded, but as she turned to the wood once more she sang a song of rebirth and resurrection, moving inward, standing tall and proud despite the pain she felt to see the hurt wrought upon this place. the wildlife had quieted, but had begun to sing with her, and when her melody ceased she stood before a familiar ring.

deirdre paused before it, marveling. the flames had not licked the sacred place, and the wisps had led her here. there was a terribly familiar feeling, and when she looked across from her she saw blue, she saw emerald—she knew this, she had dreamt of this, too, and a name unwittingly fell from her lips as she closed her eyes and summoned: emaleth. that name! it was a name that belonged to her, a name the wind wrapped around and carried. deirdre had come to find what she had lost, and here it was.

the queen lifted her head and beyond the ash and blooming flora, she breathed in emaleth.

The chilling wind wrapped around the length of fur in his neck and shoulders, causing the dark hairs to dance there. Snow still lay flecked across the earth in shaded areas, splotching the terrain in muddy whites. The frigid winter was not what had latched his attention, though; it was the disaster that had fallen the forest of her birth. His dark gaze roamed over the devastation of the sentinels and he breathed a troubled sigh. His pale wife had wandered further up ahead, and he watched as she delicately stepped over each fallen log and blackened brush. Even from there, he could smell the scents of the bay and the ocean that stretched beyond it. A humming in his chest drew him toward the sea, but he waited for her as she called into the darkness of the forest, for a sister.
 
Skellige pulled up beside her and trailed his nose along her flank without a word. The wraith did not have anything to say regarding the death of her home; it was not his place and had never been his place. There was a twinge of regret in the thought that his alliance had fallen so swiftly and that the wolves of the wood had vanished to their own respective homes. Beyond that, he felt only a closeness to his mate – the witch of the wild.

She had claimed this place as her own, knowing somehow that it had always belonged to her— and she felt a kinship with it, for the blackened trees mirrored the remains of her own heart and memories. Once, a forest stood stall and proud, filled with life and song; but it had been razed, forgotten and abandoned. Emaleth tried to imagine a life before, surrounded by family and magic and light. She knew not how close to the truth her imaginings were. But that life had been swallowed by darkness, and so had she.

Emaleth had found a den at the forest's heart, filled with herbs and trinkets she knew had been used for rituals of magick— light and dark. It felt familiar and homely, filling her with a peace she hadn't known before. She slept, then, deeper and more soundly than she had in some times— and Emaleth dreamed.

She chased the white shape through the tall wood, their laughter ringing up through the trees to tangle and echo amongst the canopy of leaves. They danced and wove through the trunks, chanting and singing, and Emaleth could feel the magick swell and fill her soul. This was their place, always; the forest had birthed them, and they fed the trees with an energy source more valuable than water and air in return. Their relationship with Donnelaith was symbiotic. They could feel the trees, and the trees could feel them.

But the witch could not catch the white shape before her, and as she fell further and further behind, the mood shifted. A wrongness settled in her bones, and she ran desperately to no avail as the white shape disappeared and the laughter became screams as the forest began to burn.

“Emaleth,” the trees cried out, but she was unable to save them.

The dark she-wolf awoke with a start, her name burning in her ears. Seeking comfort— the once welcoming den now feeling rather nefarious in the wake of her nightmare— Emaleth wound her way through the fallen wood to return to the fairy ring. But as she approached two figures materialized from the mist, and the dark witch kept silently to the shadows. A possessiveness still bloomed in her chest, but the reverence that seem to hang around the pair stilled her; it was a sacred place, and so long as they were respectful, she would not interrupt their private devotion.

Neither would she retreat. From the safety of the shadows, the wraith of the wood watched.

she felt him there, but her eyes did not remove themselves from what they held, because a shape was gathering—

it was no specter, this time. a true shape formed in the shadows. ocean blue, emerald green—

the outpouring of her name was a euphoric, elated i love you—her summoning had been heard, her dreams had been granted—emaleth! time had separated them, and disaster; they knew terrible turmoil, had forgotten it only to remember it again. but if that road led to this moment, to here, deirdre could not know regret or anger anymore.

a gentle breeze stirred the wilds to life, the forests exhale of relief. their magick lived with them, and the forest seemed to quiver in its own delight of knowing.

Her name on the air felt like a bell clanging in her heart; a summons that she must respond to. And so she emerged from the shadows, her form coalescing within the clearing to stand, solid, before them both.

Emaleth, too, recognized the she-wolf before her— but not as her sister, only as the white wolf that was a light in her dreams. Those emerald eyes that were the soul of Donnelaith; the white fur that so often caught flowers within its tangles; the maternal glow as sunlight backlit her form in a stunning halo.

She did not know what to say, and so she stood— breath held, waiting.