Stone Circle and I know the love you showed me came

Backdating this to the 11th! For an explicit list of injuries, refer to previous thread here, tagging @Gunnar and @Bjarna for visibility, let’s get cracking

Also, Aquillius is alone! He’s just hallucinating/paranoid!

Two days.

He had run for two days, not sleeping, desperation burning into fever, exhaustion bleeding into delusion, his face matted with tears and saliva alike.

It was less running, he would admit later, and more of a frenetic shuffle, like a wounded deer, like a creature being hunted. Aquillius had burned so bright but, like all stars, eventually they burned out. He was little more than feral, barely anything but shaken, burning prey as he tried to outrun the demon and the spider.

They dogged at his heels. With every step he made, they made two, they toyed with him, laughing ghoulishly in his ears, taunting him, but never hurting him. He screamed at them to stop following him, begged them to, but they never did. They just kept pursuing, that non-wolf and that spider, pursuing him, driving him onward, laughing laughing laughing please stop!

The sun had just barely begun to rise when he stood, exhausted and lean with hunger, burning with fever, shaking with the effort it took to remain standing. His eyes were huge and rolling, and he skittered like a spooked colt as the spider came closer, whispering of divinity.

Leave me be-! He bellowed at the spindly creature, shaking, shaking, shaking. The demon clattered closer, clacking its ivory teeth. Aquillius took a wild swing of teeth at the twisted reflection, but it only cackled and weaseled from his strike.

Tears, again, streaked down his cheeks. He couldn’t land a single hit on the demon or the spider. He could barely even take another step, fueled only by a single, all consuming panic, the same panic that causes a cornered rat to bite. The knowledge that to stop would be to die, that to die you must go out fighting.

Aquillius gulped in air like it was a finite resource, shaking shaking shaking as he took a step back from the demon and the spider.

quick posty before bed

The youth was barely alive. Held together with spit and spite. There was a wildness to him and look in his eyes that said I've seen the world end and it left me wanting. Gunnar knew this look and if that boy didn't make it to Valhalla by nightfall it'd be a miracle.

Crazed and feverish for that was all it could be. Gunnar couldn't even catalog all the injuries. Scrapes and bites and scratches an ankle that looked ten times to big, probably broken. If they couldn't set it, they'd be lucky to save it. This was beyond his realm of expertise and not for the first time even as an old man he wanted his mom. A longing so painful it set his teeth on edge.

He'd send Inkeri to Riverclan for a healer, but he'd do the best he could for now. But first getting the boy to break from his feverish daze.

Hey. he said quietly, kindly, calmly. But he kept himself in check, wound tight and ready, in case the boy lunged in his feverish stupor.

The voice made him spook, but he could barely offer more than a twist to the side and an agonized noise that seemed to claw out of his very chest.

He heaved for every breath, shaking so badly he could barely see the approaching figure, could barely taste the scent on the breeze. Pack.

He sobbed a quick sound of relief.

Safety. The spider and demon wouldn’t follow him onto pack grounds, they weren’t bold enough.

Pleasepleaseplease you have to help me! T-They won’t stop chasing me! He whipped around to stare into the dark.

They chased me and chased me and chased me and they won’t stop laughing and I wish I stayed home and-! He was babbling, half trying to justify himself, half trying to ensure that the man knew what was coming, what was going to happen. 

The demon clacked its teeth and cackled. Aquillius stared with his one seeing eye and panted, little shaky whimpering cries leaving him.

The screams lead her to a rustling agony of a stranger in the long grass. Gunnar is hovered near the writhing, and from his lips a  of murmur meant to soothe as she is coming to understand is his penchant. But it’s of little use here. The figure thrashes, infection hangs heavy in the air. His body contorts and she stares shell-shocked for so long that when she looks away his pained face is pressed upon her vision still.

He speaks of being chased and she knows of no way to help this creature, she wants to flee! Instead she forces herself to her Faðir’s side, “Gunnar! what can I do?” Desperation.

Gunnar meets her gaze. In my den there are some furs, and some herbs. Any of the herbs will help with infection it doesn't matter which one you bring. I'm going to need you to bring me some herbs, and one of the heavier furs deer or goat. Then we need to get some moss near the water's edge, dip it in the cold water. We will lay that upon his head and his leg. Then I need a runner to go to Riverclan. Inkeri can if you aren't sure where it is..

Then he looked back over to the boy, though he longed to pull him into his paws, and soothe with a hug. He wasn't sure if the boy would take to it. So instead, he moved closer and if allowed would brush fur from the boys face.

Can you stand enough to lean on me? I'll take you into the pack lands. And we will post a guard to watch for what was chasing you.

He knew it was probably feverish dreams that had made the boy run, but he would not agitate him further by stating they weren't real. Not yet.

He was shivering, but he gratefully moved to lean against the man, head drooping. His ears fell to the sides, the picture of exhaustion.

A demon and a spider. With two color eyes. He murmured. He could still hear them, but it was quieter now with the fatherly presence beside him.

Father. 

Father!

…Germanicus? He asked into the open air, forgoing the rest of the question as the world spun into a dizzy array of colors. For a moment, if he closed his eye, he could imagine this was his father, helping him along toward Aquene’s healing den.

But the illusion was shattered by the smell, the grass under his feet, everything. But Aquillius could still dream of it, could still taste it on his tongue. Even if he couldn’t remember it happening.

He couldn’t remember much of anything.

She vaults for Gunnar’s den, eyes taking rapid blinks yet seeing nothing but the shape of the boy’s mouth as he screams. She hears the rustle of grass and the tortured cries at her hocks. The winds pick up above her in mournful repose until they blend with the howls. She sends up a quivering call of her own for Inkeri to send for Riverclan.

Inside, Faðir’s den is eerily quiet. Her tail lashes in rapid succession and for a moment she panics- what was she meant to fetch? 

She slings a grizzled goat-hide as best she can upon her back, weary legs stiffening beneath the extra weight. There were a few herb staches here- how would she know what was best? Her eyes thread between them in shaking resolve before a distant wail chooses for her- she grabs a mouthful of silver-budded strands and flies out of the hollow.

Not sure which plant you chose, but i'm going to guess that it's good <3

Gunnar did what he could to hold the boy. Soothing and calming he spoke. Rubbing forepaws along the boy's head and back. Trying to see all the wounds.

Once Tauris would arrive, he grasp the plants and make sure they were ones that would not hurt and with a nod he would give them to the boy.

Eat these young one. Please. Then he'd help the boy to a nearby den that was empty. Draping the goat skin overtop of him.

Inkeri would be on her way to Riverclan and Gunnar would do what he could.

He offered a tired smile to Tauris. Thank you lovely girl.

It was easy to fall back into the part of him that only followed orders.

Where the edges of the world began to blur, he found himself there. His body moved, chewed the plants, feeling the shoestring muscles moving with his twitching jaw. But the pain was far away, the demon and the spider skuttled in his shadow, and he was away.

Held like a child by the tender choir, who whispered platitudes to him in their gentle, choral hum.

Oh Brutus, oh Brutus, brought so low.

Who will you be? Where will you go?

Oh Brutus, if only you knew,

We are as stars, and we weep for you too.

He lingered in the halfway point, the lulling dark of water lapping at the edges of his mind. Aquillius stood on that endless shore, closing his eyes and taking a breath, then striding out into the darkness with the discipline of a soldier.

He went silent and far away, carted by the dark into unconsciousness, a blessing for the pain, the choir humming overtaking the mad laughter of the demon.

After retrieving the loch-dampened moss, she lingers obediently behind Gunnar, out of the way but close enough to act should he call on her. Her stomach churns with the severity of the wolf’s wounds and odorous ulcers suffocates the stale burrow air. With every impulse she resists the urge to bolt.

If he is bothered, Gunnar does well to hide it. He is set to work over the shivering patient, a warrior’s body with a fatherly touch. Time passes and eventually the agonized screams allay. She leans a little closer to look upon his face, only to realize he is just a boy.

She traces the lesions with her eyes and asks Gunnar, “What could have done this?”

He had finally fallen to sleep and Gunnar took a moment to breathe. Just breathe. But he blinked and looked him over again at the gentle question.

He motioned at the shoulder. Cat of some sort. Probably mountain lion, cougar, maybe a bobcat, the ankle probably from a fall and then running made it worse. There's some bites in there from either coyotes or wolves. Maybe fox. It's hard to tell. The boys seen this side of hell and all we can hope is he comes out on the other side without burns.