Two Rivers Isle Kaleidoscope mind

The last thing Apple remembered quite clearly, was falling asleep next to a waterfall, having a pleasant dream, where she had relived some events from her past and by the something strange had happened. As if someone had shattered her mind into several pieces, put them all in a jar and shaken it heartily, with everything getting jumbled together into a colourful mass of no substance and meaning.

After this she had woken up to nothing. 

The old wolf still knew her name, her instincts, learned behaviours and reflexes were intact, whereas her mind was like an empty and clear pool of water, where random snippets of thoughts and memories simmered as lonely islands and had a tendency to disappear. Utterly confused and having not the slightest idea of, where she was, how she had ended up there and where should she go from there, the lady had wandered in the same area for around two weeks. There were wakeful moments and there were a lot of blanks, where she would be startled to find herself in an entirely different place than earlier, without having any knowledge of moving. 

And now she had found herself sitting on a blanket of earth that lay between two rivers. Her plush, thick coat was drenched with water, indicating that she had swum at some point. She sat, looking at the place, where the lands, claimed by Redhawks lied, her eyes empty and confused.

Ooo... thanks for the tap! :D

As much as she wanted to be near Tegan all the damn time, Bat also knew she needed to get away for a bit and think. She needed to hash out what this crush meant, how she should behave and whether she should ever let Tegan know how she felt. Bat wished she could talk to someone about it—preferably someone female—but she wasn't yet close enough to any of the Redhawks outside of Tegan himself.

(When her mind whispered something about mothers, sisters and confidantes, Bat quickly shut down that thought, throwing up the mental equivalent of a concrete wall. She was now actively repressing all memories of Drageda in the hopes that she could simply forget them—and all the painfully mixed emotions tied to them—and move on with her life in blissful ignorance.)

She meandered today, paying no attention to her surroundings, caught up inside her own head. Bat only "came to" when she reached the riverbank forming one border of Two Rivers Isle. She stared across the water without expectation, then started when she saw a familiar figure sitting there and staring back. As soon as she recognized Apple, she felt a jolt of guilt.

"Apple, hey!" Bat called out to her, glad for the distraction, really. "I'm sorry about bailing on you last time! I, uh..." She trailed off in part because she didn't know what to say but also because something suddenly seemed a little off here... "Apple?"

Here it was again, not only Apple could not keep track of her movement across the map, there were also people suddenly appearing (and probably later disappearing) without a warning in her fragile world. She broke out from her confusion, now focusing her gaze on the girl, clad in grey and white. The features seem familiar and realization that she has met her before, knocks against the thick glass sphere her mind has locked itself inside. But try as hard as she might, she could not recall the name or the circumstances. Completely blank canvas. 

"Oh, hey... how... how did you appear there?" she asked, her brow furrowed at the effort it took to put the words together and form a logical sentence from myriad of thoughts that were buzzing in her head as a beehive. "You were not there earlier. You are real, aren't you?"

She couldn't figure out what seemed amiss, just that something didn't feel quite right. Perhaps it was the lack of recognition on Apple's face, which Bat could see even from here. The youth squinted, watching as familiarity—or at least acknowledgement—snapped into place on the older woman's features. Somehow, this development wasn't as reassuring as it should've been, especially when it was followed by a string of words that made the Redhawk feel suddenly very uneasy.

But she wasn't afraid of Apple, she was afraid for her. "Hang on," Bat said sort of perfunctorily right before sucking in a breath to brace herself and plunging into the water. It was shallow and easy to ford, yet by the time she arrived on the bank where the stout she-wolf stood, Bat was frigid all the way down in her bones. Shaking the excess water from her pelt, her teeth chattered as she shivered closer to Apple.

"Hey, are you okay?" Bat swallowed, remembering the exact question posed. "I'm def real. I'm Rorancy, remember?" Why did she have a sinking feeling that Apple didn't?

"Rorancy..." Apple's brow furrowed, while her mind tried to figure out, whether she was supposed to know this wet and shivering teenager, clad in grey pelt, or maybe it was just a ruse and she was being convinced to believe the truth of the other's words? At least one thing was cleared and true - the girl was very alive and real, because Apple's imagination would not be able to come up with such a detailed solution, even if she had tried very hard. No. The confusing things she had seen so far, had been abstract shapes and colors. Nothing like she had seen before. 

"You are not one of my own, are you?" she asked, looking at the girl. "I have many children, I think..." She had spoken about them on many, many occasions and, even if the exact number or facts did not come back to her, there was a very firm sense of familiarity, when she said this. True. Maybe. "I was supposed to do something," she explained after a long pause, during which she had spaced out again. "Do you know, what it was?"

Apple's next question made Bat's stomach sink. There was definitely something the matter with her, with her memory, specifically. The youth had the presence of mind to step back a bit and inspect Apple, looking for a head wound or some other obvious explanation. But she saw nothing. And she froze, thinking about Tegan's recent concussion. He didn't have any physical signs either, and though his symptoms were not nearly this bad, Bat couldn't help but wonder...

"Do you think you have a concussion or something, Apple? Does your head hurt?" Bat realized she'd failed to answer any of the woman's quite frankly alarming questions, so she backtracked a little and said gently, "No, I'm not one of your kids. But we're connected, kinda, because you're a Blackthorn, and..."

Apple could easily read Rory - the girl did not particularly hide the fact that something was unsettling her. This confirmed her suspicions that all was not right with her, even though, despite confusion and the thick fog that was clouding her mind, she did not feel bad at all. No sadness, anger, frustration on one end of the emotional spectrum, no joy, excitement, cheerfulness on the other. Just a default calm and content mode. Like tepid water. 

"My head, let me think," Apple found that it was a lot easier to work on current issue than trying to recall the past. Here the absent rooms inside her brain aided the thinking process. Did her head hurt? No, not really, though there was a bit of numbness on one side of her face and, though she could not see, one of the ears had slightly drooped downwards. "No, I do not think so," she denied, "does it look alright to you?" Perhaps, there was something that she could not see for herself.

"I am a Blackthorn - that is a lovely name," she said and again the name felt familiar, but she could not say that she recognized it right away. "You are a Blackthorn too then, right? And you live there," she beckoned to Redhawk home across the river. "And I live there too, right?"

"Your head looks fine," Bat reported, then shook her own head slowly. "No, I'm not a Blackthorn." She paused when Apple pointed to the plateau and asked if they lived there. "Yeah, I live there, but... I don't know where you live, honestly. We ran into each other the other night—do you remember that at all...?—but..." Here she trailed off again, thrown quite off kilter by this whole situation.

Perhaps another wolf would've thought then to take Apple to the plateau, especially because she did have family there. But Bat was a little afraid of moving the woman, particularly forcing her across the river. So she looked around herself and said, "Why don't we find someplace warm and dry to rest? Maybe that'll help." She had no idea, but rest couldn't hurt, could it?

"That's the problem, really," Apple laughed sadly, "I don't know, where I live either." To her waking up, seeing no one around, meeting no one for days and having no idea, how she had ended up at that particular place or way, was the same as being stranded on a foreign planet. You got on by, but it was not easy to get past the stage, where you were utterly baffled, to the one, where you started to adapt to the new conditions. But the old lady was tough and in time she would be able to do so.

Not today though, therefore she was happy that for a moment she did not have to think for herself and focus on, what Rory had offered. "Some place warm, yeah, that is a good idea," she nodded, looking at the drenched puppy with a pitiful gaze and later realizing that she too was wet and cold. As this came to her mind, she turned to look at her feet, which - as she noticed - were numb too. "Do you know such place?" she asked, casting glance around the island they were located at and seeing nothing but the same landscape in all four directions, save for the plateau across the river, where there were trees.

Apple readily agreed with her and Bat felt slightly more at ease, despite this puzzling predicament. She was a scout, an aspiring ranger, and the task of locating somewhere suitable for Apple to rest gave her a sense of purpose in an otherwise confusing situation. She pursed her lips and glanced at the old she-wolf, still concerned about too much movement, and then motioned toward a forest growing toward the river-locked isle's southern point.

"I haven't explored here much, but that looks like our best bet. C'mon," the youth encouraged, breaking into an easy trot so as not to jar Apple's possibly broken brain too much. "Maybe you're just over-tired and it'll all come back to you after a nice, long nap, huh?" She shot her companion an uncertain smile.

It wasn't long before they were picking through a woodland, bare tree limbs providing at least more shelter than the open hillocks and plains. Bat led Apple toward a rather large tree—an ancient red cedar, as a matter of fact—and, specifically, to a pile of leaves heaped up around its broad base. They were a little damp, as was the earth beneath when Bat dug out a small shallow, but it was the best option. She stepped back and gestured for Apple to make herself comfortable.

Little did Rory know that she could not damage Apple's brain any more than it already had been and that the old lady was quite happy to be doing something and not being required to think for herself. She followed the aspiring scout obediently, doing her share of the work by looking around and trying to spot anything suitable as well, but the girl was quicker. A soft bed of leaves was waiting for them under a tall tree. It was not the best in terms of dryness, but, if the old wolf did a little more digging, maybe even covered herself in leaves completely, it would all work out. 

"It's nice," she smiled at the girl, before taking the offered spot and curling up in a ball. Only now did she realize that she was tired and could not remember, when was the last time she had slept. Maybe Rory was right, maybe a good sleep would do the trick and she would wake up feeling like her old self again. "Will you stay here with me, while I rest? So that I know, where I am, when I wake up?" she asked.

You can either fade in your next post or we can go on for a while. The choice is yours.

Seemed like a good place to wrap! Just tap me if you mind the implication at the end and I'll change it. :)

"Yeah," Bat replied, "I'll hang out here." She was still a little damp, so she could use the warm-up. Motioning for Apple to scoot over a bit, she flopped down beside her. She hadn't slept beside anyone in Tegan in so long. It was kind of strange but not unpleasant.

While Apple presumably powered down for a rest, Bat stayed wide awake, thinking about Tegan and all manner of things. Eventually, she not only dried off, she grew overly warm. She rose carefully, trying not to rouse her sleeping companion, and stretched her legs. While she was up and moving, she thought it might be nice if she snatched a bite of something to eat for Apple when she awoke.

By the time the youth managed to strike a trail, catch her game and return to the spot where she'd left Apple, the shadows were lengthening. At first, she thought the darkness was cloaking Apple's figure at the foot of the cedar or that the leaves had drifted over her. She dropped the dead vole and sniffed around, nosing aside some leaf litter, but there was no sign of her. Apple was gone.