Phantom Hollow brocktree

a child slept in the middle of a damned forest.
streaked with dirt, with mud, with blood from claws that had torn and bled, chickadee was all but discernable from the ground on which she lay.
only the faintest hint of brecheliant clung to her pelt, hardly recognizable under the fragrance of mud.
she slept on, limp in that complete surrender to darkness after terror.

He had run from Mother Temptress.

Run, until he had crossed mountain land and found his way to the darkest forest, where shadows cradled him and the silence between the branches smothered.

Yet the smell of cat welled thickly here, too. Feline, and a brethren’s blood.

Vaska hardly saw her beneath the mud and stains of ruddy dirt. A crumpled up rag, not much bigger or prettier than him.

The ravens settled in the trees. One landed on the ground near the girl’s face and hopped a few scuffs closer. Vaska knew the look in the corvid’s eye. That gleam of finding carrion.

But the girl’s chest rose and fell, if ever so slightly.

Vaska shooed the bird away with a flick of his paw, and the raven gave an angry caw. With a flurry it lifted away and settled on the ground a few steps away. Vaska bared his teeth at it, but it would do. He quieted, and turned his eyes on the girl with a curious stare.

Then, he reached out, and poked her.

can now be powerplayed exclusively <3

when the girl opened her eyes, it was as if snow had taken form and rose points; she heard the harsh jeering of a crow's voice.
that long, low toneless sound thrummed in her throat, less a moan than a muffled dirge. her eyes were blank and eventually stopped seeing what was in front of her.
chickadee continued to breathe, slipping into a silken catatonia.
there were no dreams here. there was nothing here. not ani. not the ruined, shredded body of the woman unfleshed by an animal larger than anything she had ever seen.
nothing.
chickadee preferred to be here.

<3 sounds good!! Poor girl ;_;

Her eyes opened, and she stared back at him, a foresty kind of green. She closed them just as slowly, her only words, a long and haunted groan.

She was not very long for this world.

If he waited this out, perhaps he could eat her. She had enough meat, about as much as him. She would certainly fill his belly. But he discarded that idea rather quickly; he hadn't even tried to taste her yet, but the notion made his mouth taste nasty. Perhaps he would simply let the ravens take her. They would thank him for it, too. They had followed him here, after all.

Her sides rose, as though asleep. He looked to the ravens, who eyed him for permission. And he thought of what they would look like, nipping, tearing into the girl.

If she had not opened her eyes, his life would have been easier.

Vaska bared his teeth at the birds again before he turned back to the girl and looked over her wounds. He had no idea how deep any of them were, only that they bled, and he didn't know a lick of how to heal them properly. He knew, however, by instinct that he had to make them clean.

The scavenger nosed his way under her until he felt her weight across his back. Heavy, dead-like. There had to be a stream nearby. He would take her there, to where the snow would help wash the dirt away.

<333

the thing about being nothing was that you could reform yourself.
the thing about being nothing was that your mind transmuted it into a reality you might more easily decipher.
and hers was a white box hovered where time nor space existed any longer, where there was odd black marking on the wall which her wolf eyes could not comprehend as the writing it was.
sorcha chickadee blackthorn.
she blinked an internal eye at it, body dimly registering movement before it slid her back beneath glossy raven blankets.
she slept.

Rolled to see if he would find water, and we got lucky!!

Vaska knew how to find water by digging beneath greens. He knew how to find water after the rush of an autumn rain. But in the dead of winter, when streams were frozen? Listening only got him stuck. And digging would get him enough to drink, but certainly not the kind to clean a wolf with.

Still, what choice did he have?

Vaska tipped his ears and listened.

Silence gave way to a distant babble.

His eyes widened - but it wasn’t even spring!

But who cares? The girl weighed on him like stone and cooled his back with the mud and the blood that still oozed from her opened wounds. He would need the river as much as she did at this point. She didn’t fight or argue when he moved towards the trees where the moss grew thicker. She simply slept. And he tried not to drop her.

Dwin had not expected that her journey would soon come full circle - up until today, when she came on the other side of the mountain range, she had not followed any specific route. Just gone, where she had desired and firmly believed that she would eventually arrive, where she was supposed to be. Speak about a holistic approach and interconnectivity of all things. 

The realization that she was once again on familiar grounds did not dawn upon her right away. Only by chance did she decide to move westwards and a familiar landmarks near the Greatwater lake and the distant crescent-shaped mountain ridge to the north gave her an idea, of where she had come. At first it was a little disappointing - the world with all its wonders hidden well within had turned out to be smaller than she had expected. Then she thought of all the good things that she missed and the harsh reality of her own state. She was thin as a stick and it was a miracle that a stronger gust of wind had not blown her away completely. 

After a little rest she was on her way to look for something edible in the nearby forest, when an odd sight caught her attention. Eager to see more details, she drew closer and then followed the odd-shapen creature quietly, trying to understand, what it was. From a distance it had appeared to be a creature straight of the medieval bestiary. Upon better inspection - it was a wolf, who appeared to half-carry/-drag a dirty and heavy pile of fur. 

"Oy, do you need any help?" she called out from afar, bounding towards the pair, not suspecting anything bad yet. But then the scent hit her. Dee might not have smelled anything like Brecheliant now, but Dwin had spent countless of hours sleeping next to her sister, with her face burrowed in that soft fur of hers. Dwin might have been bad at remembering facts and timelines, but her memory of scent was flawless. She knew every molecule, every trace and patteron of that particular signature that characterized Dee.

"DEE!" she yelled in horror, slowing her step and eventually stopping few feet from the stranger. Her frantic gaze darted from the man to the lifeless body of her sister and back, trying to comprehend, what had happened. "You- YOU did this?!" she yelled in fear, horror and anger. 

sorry he's a turd ;__; for the record I love Dwin

Vaska cast a long glance over his shoulder when someone else called out to him. Oh, great. Another. Bad enough he had an unconscious one on his paws, he didn't need one whose mouth still worked enough to chatter. But where there was one, there was always another, and another, and another.

So the way of wolves had been, so their way would always be.

But before he could say anything himself, the stranger shifted entirely from helpful denizen of the quiet forest to a downright banshee, and Vaska slicked his ears against his skull. Dee. So she had eyes and a name now, and now, he was really screwed. And who was this? Family, he guessed, but he spared no gentleness on her. Vaska scoffed and rolled his eyes at her seasoned words, and gave her a firm shake of his head no. Here he was, being a good samaritan instead of leaving this girl to rot for the ravens, and she accused him of hurting her?

Well, he supposed he couldn't blame her.

Supposed also he would have to dispose of the body, now that she was onto him.

He'd have laughed if he didn't think his life might be in trouble for laughing at something like that. Instead, Vaska gestured for the stranger to follow with a wave of his tail and continued forward, a point with his nose towards the water. A few more stretches and they could get to work on cleaning the girl, that is, if this stranger didn't rip into him first.

Dwin would have very much liked to relive one of her childhood dreams - of being that valiant princess, who saves the knight in trouble and who fears nothing and to whom nothing is an obstacle. Now faced with a moment, where she could have shone, she felt painfully aware of how very little she could do. While roughly the same age with the red-eyed wolf, who was dragging her sister away somewhere and who did not answer her questions, he was taller, better fed and stronger too. There was the young Blackthorn, who was as thin as a rail, suffered from near-constant sense of hunger. She did not have any magic or superpower to level this obvious weakness out. She could, of course, play with fate and snap at the man's ankles or try to drive him away from Dee, but then there was no guarantee of, what the consequences could be. 

Therefore - as much as she hated it, but having no other choice - she bit back her anger and horror and followed the man. She dared to come close enough to nuzzle her sister's face gently, whistpering to her - "Dee... Little Miss Dee - Dwin's here... You will be all right... I promise.... And at the same time she tried not to cry out of frustration and disappointment at her own helplessness in this situation. 

She didn’t fight him. Didn’t snap her teeth. She even gave up yelling.

Inwardly, Vaska sighed. Finally, someone sensible. You could never tell with wolves, especially emotional ones, like this chick seemed to be. But clearly not so much that she couldn’t reign herself in. From the way she sought to comfort the mangled girl, and from the age they clearly shared, Vaska decided these girls must have been sisters.

Hers was a funny promise to make. For all he knew, the girl was already slipping into whatever life came after this one. But Vaska held his tongue, despite the long glance he gave the stranger at his side.

He noticed, now, how thin she seemed. Surprising that the wind didn’t blow her over. A few more days and maybe she would have thoughts of eating carrion, too. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Other than the freckles on her face, he found her very ordinary. Perhaps her thoughts were ordinary, too.

Vaska hadn’t realized they’d reached the water until the ground shifted and ice cracked under his paw.

He blinked and took a swift step back, before he lowered himself to the ground so they could slide the mangled girl off.

Thought we’d use the water to wash her clean, he finally said, and his voice sounded quiet and raspy, even to his ears. Lower than he remembered, help me get her off me, will you? if they were to be saving her, he didn’t want to just drop her to the ground, after all.

Dwin would have very much preferred, if she had not needed to make an unlikely allience with this stranger. She still did not trust him and hated the fact that he had found Dee first and that both of the Blackthorns were at his mercy. Yet she still followed him diligently, touching her sister's face time and time again, hoping to see her open her eyes or respond in any other way. She was still alive - but the dreadful thought of that time being a brief one, entered her mind and she pushed it back angrily. 

They had finally arrived at a river and the man spoke for the first time. Dwin nodded and helped him to slide Dee's limp body off his shoulders and lied her to rest on the ground as gently as it was possible. She checked her over,  heart wrenching at the sight of wounds. Up until now the evil had only been a thing in the stories, an almost imaginary being in the same league as dragons, ghosts and witchcraft. Facing it now in such a brutal form made her belief in world order shatter. Bad things should not be happening to good people and yet they did. They had and Dee in her current state was a proof to that. 

"Could you go to our home and ask for help?" she looked up at the stranger. "You see that peak, over there? The one that looks as if the top has been cut off?" she beckoned to the caldera in the distance. It was mist-clad, but stood out against the flatlands.  "It is Brecheliant. My dad is a healer and there are others that will know, how to help Dee as well," that was the only option she saw, because it did not seem likely that even this helpful citizen knew much or anything about healing or treating wounded people. "Please?" she asked.

Together, the slid the unconscious girl to the ground.

Vaska eased away as the living sister sniffed around the almost-dead one’s body. Assessing wounds? He could only guess. But she dealt with her sister with such tenderness and care, and Vaska tipped his head. His brow flinched for a pained and fleeting moment.

By the time the stranger turned to him, he’d composed himself again.

Composed, as sloppy as that word described anything Vaska did. The girl pleaded, and his eyes grew wide and hard, bloodied fur spiking around his ruff.

Wha’d’you think I am, your messenger boy? He’d helped the girl, wasn’t that enough? If he’d known he’d be thrown to some pack for helping, he’d have let the stranger die.

Even if she had a name.

Even if he’d seen her eyes.

Even if he’d felt her breaths, slow but steady, all the way to the river.

Bloodydamn, he grumbled under breath and he turned a sharp heel towards that sawed off mountaim she gestured towards, fine. I’ll go, and he called over his shoulder, But you’d better stay here or someplace nearby. I ain’t lookin’ for you again.

Vaska out! <3 I’ll get a backdated thread up for him at Brecheliant <3

Dwin cringed a little, when her request was met with initial anger. She would have gladly gone on her own, but felt that Dee's chances of survival were higher with her present here than leaving her at the mercy of this guy. "I will be here," she promised. "Tell them that Dwin asked for you. That Dee is hurt. Ask for... Eljay and Bridget and... Bronco," she named three people she thought would be of most use here, but she did not expect him to keep all the names in his mind. 

She watched him go and then turned her full attention to her sister. First, cleaning her wounds meticulously and then lying down next to her, so to keep her warm. She rested her head on Dee's scruff, listened to her breathing and observed the surroundings carefully. At that moment the little, young and malnourished Blackthorn would fight anyone ferociously and to the death, should anyone attempt to hurt her little Dee again.