Moonspear why does everybody say it like that?

he's limited to his healing den for now among the foothills of the mountain, but AW for any visitors!

he had pushed himself too hard. he felt it in the constant aches, the unknowing that more damage had been done than he had begun with. the work of his mother had come undone in the weeks that had followed.

now the moonspear healers rotated work upon him.

the small doses of poppy often kept him in a sleepy state, away from the tidings of the worst of pain. but still there were times where he woke more than other times.

hey, he croaked tiredly, thinking (hoping) somebody might be near.

When Njord had heard the urgent calls of @Sialuk for Moonspear’s healers, @Alaric and @Elentari, the man did not hesitate to gather with them. Yet he was on the far side of the mountain… and only after had they settled their ward had Njord arrived.

In honest, he was agitated and defensive. The man thought of the recent dangers he, his family, and Sapphique had been through. How that woman had dragged her carcass across their borders… how their Roja invited danger into their hearth. Njord was prepared to immediately eject the foreigner if he detected even the smallest whiff of threat!

To his astonishment, it was no stranger – but Quennell!! @Meerkat gathered soon after, but Sialuk insisted he rested at the hollowed tree she marked for healing. Njord did not quite know what to feel… but it was something akin to a safe being pried open with a crowbar.

The seafather stood vigil by the den in deep, abstract contemplation until the weak sound of the young man’s voice caught his attention.

“Quennell,” the deep timber of Njord’s voice quaked like a pine in the wind.

quennell.

a voice in a seasmoked timber, rocking like waves crashing against a shoreline. for a moment he thought somehow, someway, shardik had come back. shardik had been given a voice just to taunt him even more.

but this voice was familiar in another way. haunting him in a way that pierced his very heart. maybe it was not shardik but a fever dream again. had he spiked again? had all the care of three healers not been enough? his mouth offered a soft smacking in its cottoned state.

did the man know that quennell was the reason swordfish was not here with them? did the man know quennell had become an ugly boy? marred in body and spirit. marred in ways that no healer could patch back up it felt.

bearcurse, he grunted back in return. sunken features offered a haunting pair of yellow eyes peering out from the den.

The moniker was like a swig of acid and Njord felt the immediate reflex to retort. Yet… only a long-winded sigh whistled from his nose.

How could he argue the dead look in Quennell’s once shimmering goldenrod eyes? The trauma of the attack affected them all in different ways. Njord, Meerkat, and Stingray found their footing despite it all. However, it appeared Quennell struggled with his own labyrinth and had become ensnared in an oubliette along the way.

The redtail recalled the words of other young men. Rhaegal had searched to find himself. Argent, too. Once upon a time, a younger Njord swam across the sea. Perhaps Quennell was on his own journey.

“Ah’m so happy tae see you alive, ruadh,” Njord said as he laid down with the boy. He would never utter the name bearcurse. “When ta bear came, we couldnae find ye... or Swordfish." Njord frowned, unaware of what transpired between the two boys. For all he knew, the fact that Swordfish was not with his family would be shocking news to Quennell. "Where did ye go?” The light color around his eyes knit together with concern.

the words were like a bear's wound over his flesh all over again.

swordfish has not made his way back to family. the once-seadweller had driven him off entirely. from the coast, from family.

he had shattered his own bear-brother. it must have been something beyond repair.

his lips twitched, quivered. somewhere between outing himself and shutting himself off wholly. to never let njord see how much blood he carried on his hands. to have brought a bear upon sapphique and to have sent one of the man's sons away.

dunno,

and in a way he meant it. somewhere near the rise, near leelee. yet it had all blurred together in agony, grieving and delusion. then there had been sialuk. come to save him, to restore his life.

sorry.

he pinched his tongue between his teeth now. the only sign that he was not sending njord away was a rather slow, soft shifting. angling his healing body to be a bit closer.

Sorry for the long wait! Hope you don’t mind that this is my last reply… gotta trim down my log!

Njord read the subtext of Quennell’s posture and moved a bit closer, sat beside where he lay. It was evident to the man that Quennell harbored strong emotions, just as he had before the bear had splintered them all.

“Tis alright, lad,” he assured genuinely. A silence fell over them as Njord’s sea-colored gaze scanned the state of the poor, young man. “Yer here now. Safe.” He touched Quennell’s red nape with his snout – a motion of encouragement.

The absence of Swordfish and the crater Sobo has left in his heart made something in the man suddenly shift. He felt responsible. As if Quennell was his own flesh and blood. A son.

Njord blinked as his spirit ached. Maybe he would never admit that sentiment to anyone.

“Rest easy. Ah’ll keep watch,” he instructed as Njord’s gaze shifted to the treeline and beyond, lost in his thoughts.