Dragoncrest Cliffs that's how i get mine, that's how i get it

He didn't really deal well with bodies. Usually, it was kill and split. They smelled, and rigor mortis was creepy as fuck, and honestly--

They reminded him too much of his own mortality, which was a subject he didn't really like to meditate on.

Verx let out a sigh, peering down. It was the mouthy dude that had harassed Heda the other day, the one she'd turned away. Looks like he'd gotten his wish--his remains would live here on the cliffs forever, at least in some form. He hadn't wished him well then, but Vercingetorix hoped he'd find peace in the great beyond. If there even was one.

With a grunt, he dragged the corpse as close to the edge as possible, and then gave it a strong nudge with the top of his head. It rolled ever-closer. Another nudge, and it lurched forward and down, tumbling down the cliffs with a sickening series of thumps.

"So long, asshole," Verx muttered, stepping back, face inscrutable. He took a moment to wonder whether his body would share a similar fate one day. Tossed into his territory by the enemy. It wasn't altogether

hard to imagine. Hopefully Eurycrates had died quicker than this. He limped along to Drageda territory, half-dragging himself, unsure of where he got the strength to go on. His entire broad chest was slick and hot with blood, and more came with each step. His breathing was labored, wet. His eyelids drooped.

He hadn't ever meditated on his own mortality. Vercingetorix was accustomed to flinging himself into battles with no thought for his own fate, only the outcome as a whole. Maybe this was another symptom of getting old, thinking about the great beyond and shit. And everything that he would leave behind.

Fuck. His kids. He wasn't ever gonna get to see his kids.

Who would he see first? Heda? Mom and Dad? All his buddies cut down in conflict? He hoped there would be a big fucking crowd, and he hoped they were down with sparring, because he was goddamn pissed.

Of all the wolves to fuckin' end him, it was Blackhead?! Verx made a note to stay alive long enough to tell Blixen to toss his guts onto her stupid face. Then again, she probably would like that. Sick fucking freaky woman.

Aure. Had Vonn got her away? He hoped the twins would go far. Drageda, too. Fuck these Rusalkan maggots. Get back to Trigeda, regroup, get more warriors, wipe their asses off the fucking map forever.

Fuck it hurt. That was good, right? Everyone he'd watched die had told him it didn't hurt. But this hurt a lot.

He couldn't breathe.

Just a little bit farther. There's the redwoods. Hougeda beyond.

He hoped he saw Heda first.

Can't fucking breathe.

He gagged and stumbled, tumbling over in a heap of dark flesh.

Cnt brth.

He took a

moment to
wonder

whether
his body would
share a similar fate

today.

Tossed into his territory
by the Enemy (him. me.)
.

it wasnt altogether

hard to imagine

In her time at the cliffs, Aure was now familiar enough with blood — the scent, the taste — to have dreamed of it before. It was a frequent rouge to her lips and throat and breast, as it was now, daubed up to the scarred chin as she toiled over Vercingetorix; crescented like a harvesting-moon. Everything before this moment had been wrested aside; her escape from Vonnaruil's vigilance had been something writhing and strident; her arrival had been a hastening, threaded along by the fragments of her beloved's smothering scent. She'd sent up a piercing, airy howl of urgency, of command — and they had better heed her. She could not do this alone.

It was what she did in these moments that would set the foundations for the entirety of this operation. In the mouth, blood mixed with saliva welled up and overflowed; in the dark column of his neck, the tender beneath the square of his jaw had been lain open; the wound was deep, from which blood steadily oozed. There was a good chance of stopping it, and Aure knew it'd been good of her to bring what oak leaves along that she'd scrounged up before her flurry. She was anything but cold; she was hot with agitation and fury. She was grown from the silver roots of Rhaesuial, and she would do everything within her prowess — an heiress, but ever the healer, always —

”Hoist him up,” the argent warbled, her voice snarling-low and letting no room for arguement whatsoever. The words seared themselves over her delicate shoulder to anyone who heard her. Someone had to. Needed to, because she did not have the bodily strength to chariot him on her own. Where in the name of heaven IS everyone?! The herbalist turned his head aside, so that the injury was hers to tend until they moved him; she didn’t need him choking on his own spittle, either.

Bounkola, the moment she'd sighted his devastation and this fall, had departed from all that she was from emotion — from father-of-my-children and love-of-my-life. He was a tenant, first and foremost and for-ever how long he needed these attentions. Damned if he would die before he saw their children. The skayona began to nose and sniff and pressurize what wounds she could reach as she waited without patience for assistance.

Pressure, staunch, clean. Pressure, staunch, clean. One laving of her tongue over the other, her silver brow drawn into feverished, driven concentration. Pressure, staunch, clean; pressure, staunch, clean; pressure, staunch, clean until her jaw ached. Tatters, he was in tatters — ”We need him UP! Clear a path to ze apothecary!” Her throat and breast blushed red, terrible red, as she looked to those who’d gathered; hoping her commands would rattle them out of shock or into action. He needed to be moved to someplace sanitary and she could not do this alone —

The opkepa had grown to expect and prepare for times of urgency at any moment they might come her way so, when the cry of Aure reached her ears, Rose instinctively grabbed what supplies she could and was on her way to the scene. Truth be told when she first arrived and the bloodied body of Verx appeared in her vision her first thoughts were along the lines of why the hell is this so urgent if he's fucking dead? I mean how could he be alive with all that blood? It was impossible - or so she thought.

Aure on the other hand seemed to believe he still had a fighting chancing seeing as she desperately tried to tend to his wounds and yell out commands filled with more emotion than Rose could ever dream of. He's dead. It was as simple as that. Her mouth parted to speak but hesitation held her back, not because she didn't know what to say, but rather the opposite really. "Aure" she called out, though assumed the frantic skayona had not heard a single syllable of her name.

"AURE!" she called out once more, this time louder and more direct as she moved to block the pale woman from the body of her lover. "He's gone" she announced with little room for sympathy as she glanced back to the bloodied form of Drageda's cheka. "Look at his chest, he's not breathing and there's nothing you or I can do to make him." If he had any chance of living it was likely gone before either of them had reached him and at this point, as cruel as it may sound, he was just a waste of their supplies.

While the two healers argued, Verx continued to bleed out like a jug of V8 you just dropped on the kitchen floor. If you pick it up right now and put the lid on, it'll be okay, but wait too long and you're gonna be all out of fucking V8, man.

Except unlike a rapidly depleting jug of V8, Vercingetorix was, as a matter of fact, breathing, though so imperceptibly as to support Rose's observation.

But, as the oft-quoted but little-known Old Man once said,

Every single shudder of this heartbeat she knew so well mattered. Counted, with the ticks of his trip-hammer pulse. And when she was obstructed from her patient — when Rose tore her from her submersion of intent and of what-to-dos — shouldered her back back back from noapte — made to reason with her in the cruelest of ways —

The ivory skin shivered thin as parchment, so that all those scars as a bairn embellished themselves like the finest of ruby-inked calligraphy upon a once-lovely facade. ”Opkepa,” Bounkola went as white as cold wax, her mouth a quivery, marred cut beneath a glaring pink nose. And her eyes... ”You get ze ever-loving hell away from my mate.”

Vercingetorix would never call her his mate, his wife, his moon-and-stars. It’d been instilled in her from the moment she cradled him, sick with fever, and he had turned from her. It had been held to her aching heart as the name of Dragomir became the only only only in her dimming world of every every every. But she loved him; and even that in itself was an understatement.

She loved him with every breath he took. And his breaths were the most precious sound.

She was the blood of Rhaesuial — of the far and uncharted and blistering, unforgiving North, the true North. Her Nordlys. Heiress, healer; healer, heiress. And she unfurled towards Rose in all sense of the latter, rising to her fragile, petite height; her voice a heavy, strained lowing:

“I did not drown in those waters only to lose this male in them. I did not drown in those waters to birth fatherless children. I did not drown in those waters so my opkepa tells me that ze love of my life is dead. I stayed when ze raid on ze cliffs happened; I stayed when my hunter sought to end me; and I will stay in this. His blood may stain the soil, but I will be everything I may to ensure that another drop is not lost in vain. Now, opkepa, do your duty—“ The heiress lingered close, eyes wrathful and ruinous and silver, ”—and get me my goddamned properties.”

And though her gesture of move aside was naught but a gentle nudge of her shoulder to Rose’s own, she crescented right back over Verx, warbling, pressurizing, ”We will have to operate on him here, and then move him if any more kru decide to show up. I need marigold; webs, for dressing; leaves; moss — anything that can staunch this, be put into a poultice. Go!”

the urgency of aure's call alerts blodreina who's return home was as swift as she could make it. she hadn't wanted to dwell upon what happened during her time in isolation with the stranger. maybe if she didn't think about it nothing would come to fruition. the smell of blood if strong and pungent and it gives her a flash back to the wars. it smells like a massacre as she draws nearer. what the fuck — blurts out of her mouth in common as she looks upon the ravaged form of verx and aure's bloodstained state. it's shock — because what in the hell tore verx's throat apart like that? — that is followed quickly by a vicious roil of blodreina's stomach and a mighty effort to hold back the gag that was creeping up on her. stubbornly, she doesn't think about it or what it could mean for her. she doesn't want to think about when the smell of blood and the sight of gore had made her squeamish. ( plot twist: it didn't ).

blodreina was no medic but verx looked like he was on the cusp of death ( maybe he was ) and she's in agreement with rose — of whom she casts a worried look to as aure barks her commands — a fact that blodreina was trying not to get riled about because the pale woman was obviously in distress. you want to move him? she demands. wouldn't that waste whatever precious time he has left? wouldn't that cause him to lose more blood? but, again, she's no medic.

Rose's skinned crawled with a burning fire like none other when the sudden commands were hurled her way, the very tone of her pale companion being enough to rouse a sour frown upon her lips. The Opkepa could not blame Aure for her outburst, especially not when she knew she'd likely react in a similar fashion if it was Mallaidh lying here in a pool of her own blood. But if there ever came a time when that happened, she'd hope someone would have the strength to tell her what lied beyond her emotionally clouded judgment before she wasted all that time and effort only to fail in the end.

So, if Rose being the bad guy meant she could spare her friend from further heartbreak, for she truly believed Verx was beyond repair, well then so be it.

"No" came her response after the demands and gentle shove to her shoulder. "I will not waste my resources on a man who is beyond saving" she announced as she turned back around to face what she could only assume to be a devastated Aure. "Especially not when those resources will be needed when you birth the children you're carrying. Think about them, they have a fighting chance at life..." she lets out as she turns to glimpse at the still motionless form of Drageda's cheka. "He does not."

And with that she offers only a weak "I'm sorry" to both of the women before departing from the scene. Perhaps if winter and the war had not depleted her stores to nearly nothing then she'd do what she could to try and help but, as fate would have it, that wasn't the case. If he died or by some miracle managed to pull through, Rose would not be there to see it.

When an urgent call rose to rally the kru, Dacio did not hesitate to go. He abandoned his post, veering swiftly along the lake's edge before disappearing in a silver blur amongst Drageda's familiar redwoods.

His gaze found those to arrive before him, but it was not their raised voices that caused his hackles to lift. A familiar metallic tang hung heavy over them and the Skayona's alabaster pelt was smeared with crimson, a sight that unearthed the anxiety that came with memories of an invasion he longed to forget.

Dacio held back, uncertain with how to approach the two bickering healers. He blinked between them, raven ears flicking awkwardly atop his sterling crown before his widened stare found the crumpled heap of a dark wolf on the ground at their paws.

Breath held, the boy watched the broken body of his comrade in silent despair. While the trio argued over wether this life was worth saving, all that Dacio could think was what would my mother do?

He didn't know. He was a warrior, not a medic, and did not share Portia's patience or ability to take charge of a situation such as this. What he did know, however, was that she would try - no Drageda wolf would ever be seen as a waste of resources.

Brow furrowed, he regained focus and curled his lip in a disapproving flash of fangs as Rose turned her back on the scene. There was no time to dwell on the matter though, as too much precious time had already slipped away. "I'll help you," he announced, taking a careful stride toward tge remaining two she-wolves as his eyes sought Aure's, "tell me how"

aur’s last post for this thread!
also writing vonn into this for the sake of flow

Any other time, Aure would have seen the reason to which the opkepa defied her commands. She would have understood Rose in her entirety; there was a part of her that wasn’t shivering with furious, fraying tears that did. Tremors of wrath and devastation worked the crude waxen muscles of Aurëwen’s back, which she kept resolutely turned to the russet deviant. Bit her lips to the point of scarring once more; but she did not acknowledge Rose’s departure, nor forgive her apology.

It would be the second and last time in her life in which Aure would ever be so unforgiving.

Intoarce-te la mine. Then there was Blodreina, who’d protested such earlier. Keeping her void eyes on her beloved, she rasped, “Gona,” she lowed, venting her fear and irritation onto the next oppressor, ”Every second argued with me is a second lost to your cheka. Do you want him to live, or bleed out here like some damned—“ Her mouth pressed tight into a hard, quivering line, and her coiled shoulders rose and fell; muscles so taut and strained that they would ache for days after. Muscles that didn’t relax, even when Vonnaruil arrived — toting what he’d known she’d needed before she’d escaped him.

Intoarce-te la mine. A wisping, deep inhale rattled her whole being, and she met the star-dusted gaze of her brother in exhausted relief — a gaze that alit on Dacio’s own arrival, which she almost wilted at then and there. But she was leading the charge of this, and she couldn’t waver. So, Aure instead faded from herself, letting her silver roots overwhelm her every call and command.

After assuring that there would be no further overflow of red, she instructed @Dacio to realign the skin of Verx’s throat. Flitting about the smoke-colored paws, Aure’s first passage along the cheka’s neck was to snip any loose bits of fur and skin that would only hinder later healing. On her tongue she tasted marigold, she thinks — but it was just another poultice that she was laving up the column of Verx’s neck. Once, twice, thrice, thrice-and-half she layered again and again; wounding cobwebs with the help of Dacio.

It would have to hold for now; she prayed it would, until a more exacting, breathable remedy could be made. Lips smeared with bits of bloodied herbs, Aure withdrew, and turned to Blodreina and Vonn — assuming the both of them had stayed. Intoarce-te la mine. ”We must get him to my apothecary,” she panted, curving down once more to make sure everything was nudged securely. ”Can ze two of you carry him?”

To Dacio, she said, ”I will need you with me until evening — just until all ze bleeding stops and we can get him properly cleaned.” With that, she scoured over the cheka one last, quivering time before drawing away so that Verx may be hoisted up. Face set with overwrought resolution, she turned on her heel and stalked, all stilted and stiff, for her apothecary.

Rose believed that Verx wasn’t meant to live — but Aure knew that he was, and those who aided her in the days to come knew this, too. And so he would.

Come back to me.