Ravensblood Forest serenity

referencing the forecast when clicking the weather widget! let me know if any details aren't okay <3
technically set for like somewhere around 3-5am tomorrow

he had told @Heda in the late morning that he planned for them to leave in the late afternoon. expecting them to arrive come morning time. he figured she would not mind traveling through the night. the journey was but a short one. up the river, really.

this would also give her time to finish up her own business before they left. although he would not deny he felt a certain eagerness to depart.

only so that they could come home.

but as they neared the forests, and snow dusted down from the sky, he realized...the woods were beyond silent.

the world seemed untouched here.

<3!

"it's been so long since i was away from sweetharbor," she commented. traveling by night had not phased the girl. she was reminded of last winter's caribou hunt on the taiga, and told bartholomew about the stars she had seen in those weeks.
snow was here again. she felt the cold touch of it and peered toward the forest. it was empty.

i hope you know you are free to travel, heda.

his voice was warm, unlike the air around them. the air that was as silent as it was cold. the woods held not a single scent marker of those who had been there.

he would be a liar if he said he did not feel a swell of relief.

they are gone.

despite his relief, he remained softly surprised.

"i traveled so much. i like to be home." but she left that subject for the one at hand: the disappearance of sacrarium. carefully she picked over what was once a border, finding nothing but the scent of prey and strangers who had passed.
she sniffed the air. "i kinda want to see what they left behind. is that bad?" she looked at him with a grin.

waste not want not.

this spoken in a shepherd way. he motioned for her to continue her search, following closely alongside. nearly prepared for that brash barbarian leader to lunge from the shadows. perhaps they would get lucky and find one of the kinder children she had seemed to somehow create.

but the fact of the matter was clear. nobody was here. nobody of their kind, anyway.

i wish them well, but this bodes better for us, heda. especially with the coming of winter.

he wondered if meat had been left behind. fresh enough to be brought back, or kept such by the cold.

encouraged, heda trotted into the the shadows and began to pull caches open. the first two held nothing. the third held a pigeon gone high by now. she covered it and headed for the densites.
"i never knew them," she said agreeably. if he didn't want them here, there was a reason. she felt it had to do with more than hunting. "glad they've moved on though!"
rabbit in the next larder, and fresher besides.

i don't believe their leader liked me much...

his voice trailed off, looking for signs that they might still be here. somehow. someway. not a single sound besides them as heda dug up dusted caches.

the snow came down slow, but steady.

it seemed like only a family here. they tried to claim both the river and the ridge next to here for hunting grounds. i wouldn't be surprised if they had wanted the island too.

he moved to press alongside her and examine the next cache together.

"seems like that was a her problem! you're so easy to get along with." heda fished the rabbit haunch out of the cache and checked it over. "you can have that, if you want."
the forest was silent. beautiful. "wonder what made them so daring."
she poked her head into each den, and on the fourth she entered and reemerged with dried greenery. "do you know anything about herbs?" heda asked when she had set the mouthful down in front of bartholomew.

he felt flattered.

given more credit than was due. perhaps because he had not spoken of how he had first met her. although she had hardly seemed willing to move beyond that first time. her husband had been more agreeable.

but none of it mattered when they all vanished.

he slowly picked at the rabbit haunch. heda spoke and work. eventually she emerged with another find. this time presenting it to him with a question!

only those of the island. he confessed with a soft shine of humor. i have thought of learning more. that way i may be better equipped for those who wash ashore or that i drag home. he laughed. warm and welcoming.

suddenly he thought of spring, of midwives.

there was a flustered look upon his face and returned at once to picking apart what little was left of the rabbit.

heda nodded, but her eyes were on his face. was he thinking of kacia right now? shocked at her boldness, she retreated back into her own thoughts, focused on pawing through the fragrant leaves and sorting them.
"i'll bring these back with us. maybe — maybe it's time we found a healer. we can both learn."
heda felt faraway, and tried to bring herself back to the present by moving to investigate one of the striking trees.

his mind drifted, wandered and weaved. he thought many things of the future at once. nothing could be predicted until they made it through winter, he reminded himself. still he spoke of warmer times.

i'd like to find one before spring. although i would not be surprised if they are all in high demand for the winter...

he fell in line alongside her.

eyes followed her own to the tree. the bark seemed to have something red and glossy frozen upon it.

heda tried to turn her mind to healers. but she was distracted. the mention of spring made her moreso.
the young wolf was grateful for the sight they spotted, red sap stuck to the bole of the tree. she dipped her tongue out impulsively to taste it. "sweet!" heda exulted. "and very — very sticky," she ventured on, looking at where she had smeared some to her paw.

he watched as she seemed to test the sap without second thought.

heda! breathless shock. worry and humor, mingled with one another. do you even know what that is? his long limbs ate up the ground as they seemed to carry on.

his dark coat began to softly pale with the continued collection of snow.

"it's sap!" heda laughed. "ma — a man i knew, he was a healer. you can use sap to close wounds."
and like those sutured edges, heda closed, having almost spoken of mahler.
of fathers.
heda blended the more the snow fell, save for the cerise blaze along her spine. "what will we do if they come back? the ones who were here?"

she had known a healer.

he wondered if that had been a man they had seen at her former home. he hardly remembered those faces now. only concerned with those of sweetharbor.

speaking of —

then i suppose it's our turn to negotiate and set terms. somehow he did not know what she would make of this and so he turned his gold gaze heavy upon her.

tell me what you would ask of them, heda.

he wished to hear a diplomatic side of her.

she straightened. "i would say sweetharbor will not respect their claim to both the river and the ridge. i want the river. that's non-negotiable," she joked, only it wasn't really a jest. but she grinned anyway; flicked her tail and continued on, frisking in the snow.
"but seriously," heda continued, returning to bartholomew's calmer side, "if i wanted to be truly gracious, i'd let them pick."

she became fire. rigid and strong, taking a grasp of their God given land in the face of others. then she smoothed into something softer. like the snow.

an olive branch, as opposed to holy war.

he smiled, warm and proud.

do you wish to know what i would tell them?

her gilded eyes moved to him again. "tell me!" heda urged, tongue lolling. 
he was an ambassador. and she was learning. her gaze shifted back to the sap, which now seemed to drip from every tree.

i would tell them we shall share the river. that they may hunt there and we may fish there. that we will share the land as fishers together.

his voice paused for but a moment. idle thought in a mind overflowing with stories and knowledge.

God's son was a fisher. words that she had likely heard plenty times by now. perhaps our act of kindness is spreading that knowledge of fishing, hm?

heda grinned. "fishers of rivers. and fishers of hearts." she liked these communions with bartholomew, revisiting what they had already been taught together.
"i wonder where jasmine went," she said with a small sigh. "perhaps she'll be back."
but what heda wanted to ask was if the man meant to be married in the springtime.

fisher of hearts!

something about such words caused a flush beneath his dark fur.

perhaps she means to winter somewhere warmer. he laughed. absent minded and distracted. it was in his voice. unable to hide from his own advisor, for such a thing was not good in the day-to-day!

does the winter worry you?

his voice grew soft, hushed.

"no, i remember the last winter." didn't she? heda looked into the contemplative and knowing eyes of her mentor. 
"i'm more worried about the spring, i guess. well, not worried. wondering." it was hard to say, to parse. and so she looked off.

he was so stupidly smacked into his own mind, that he thought not of what might hide in her words. what he might set free by merely asking such a simple thing.

wondering what, heda?

he missed the lavender field greatly right now.

if you're going to marry her. if you're going to be a father again. if you're going to have time for m —
"nothing. well. the storms get worse winter through spring," heda rushed on lamely. "wonder if we're ready for that ice, is all."
but there was tension in her eyes, which she attempted to hide.

if this isn't okay, i can edit <3

rush.

tension.

he only managed to break beyond his own haze for that. he had seen her anguished. he had seen her sad, at peace, joyful. they had been through more together than he had realized. of course he knew she had grown so much. it was what made her his advisor.

yet she was more than that, wasn't she? she was heda. heda who he had grown to know so well and she him.

which was perhaps why he looked at her with his own stretch of tense worry.

i have not heard you worry so much about the weather. still he gave her an out, still he would accept it if she wished to say no more.

still he opened his ears and heart to her as he had done before. again and again.