King Elk Forest sepulchrum

medical aid should have been sought in muat-riya, he knew now. germancius had rallied before the eyes of @Valiria and @Aquillius long enough to state he would seek a long patrol.

he did not state he meant to be alone, the eagle hoped only that the longevity of the trek would deter followers.

at sunrise he set out, still impassive despite the fact that his breath was coming harder and with a difficulty he had not anticipated. it forced the man to temper himself, to pause, to rest more than he might have sought at any other time.

and his thoughts! how they reeled with contemplations of editum and mereo and akashingo alike.

a suckling boy given to the barracks, where hard men weaned him and harder men taught him. a life of their harsh voices in his ears and their musk in his nose, of trampled young limbs on battlefields and the way a man sounded when his death rattle summoned the end.

a man who had succeeded in creation but never as a husband, a man who excelled at what demanded the mind, but never what commanded the heart.

a man unmade.

a crow cried as germanicus found himself in the sacred forest where the elkwoman had given him the first purpose of his life after the legion.

in silence did he traverse each part of the world once known long ago as kingslend. germanicus found the places he had laid his head, the areas long mossed over where the déorwine clan had clashed with one another in savage intrigue.

and how in all of it he had been bound to their herald, their archangel. célnes.

how odd now to return to this quiet place of newfallen snow and no proud elk glinting among the shadows, nor the talk of eldritch worshippers not yet gone to madness.

how odd to walk now with the crunch of drifts beneath his feet and the sound of his breath the only sounds in the weald.

he hoped @Mírwen would not find him here; he wanted only goodness for her, not the sight of death. not when her dulcet words had done so much for him in the end.

the tree he chose to lay beneath was of no account, no significant sort. he only must rest.

but the thoughts came unabated. of fennec, whom he had wronged so harshly. she who had meant to help him build mereo, she who had been prepared to give him her devotion in a way he could never return, of her lithe body in his arms and the warmth of her embrace in the den of roots.

of ruenna, the only woman he felt he had come close to loving, of how she had come to find him a second time and with that had begun the shifting of a nation, of her tawny eyes and the soft laughter she gave.

of little alivia, who had only been a child when she left but still not forgotten by her father, who found he could only summon her young features and babyish voice to his mind.

of @Cornelius, who had found his home in akashingo and to whom his father wished only goodwill, even if his son had chosen the enemy in the end. it was a regret not to see what sort of man he became beneath the gentle influence of @Toula.

he paused to consider the young pharaoh herself, finding only esteem and hope in his soul for she and her reign, her land, her people. may no shade of ramesses find its way into her court.

behind his back, the tree was warm and good.

germanicus considered @Aquillius with a pang, his faithful son, his tormented boy. surely this would not bring him any peace, but the eagle wished for closure. perhaps aquillius might now find a home of his own rather than remain at his father’s tortured side.

and @Valiria, whom he had only just been getting to know. he still could not read her well, the only daughter left to him. this she would bear in stride, as she did all things, and yet germanicus lamented that he had no time to truly reach beneath her surface.

the snow softly fell.

and crowfeather, crowfeather, the sum of his soul, his heart, his mind. he who had been everything entire even when germanicus did not accept such love. they had traversed through so many places together; he recalled the sunlight and flowerglow of each place, the way that the shadow had looked at him.

always looked. forever, in a way that the roman had never deserved.

the wind lifted his chin.

was this an ignoble end? he smiled sharply to himself.

no. it only fit what his life had been.

the canopies wavered in the forest, and when they at last stopped their stirring, all the shame and regret and self-hate which germanicus julius caesar had carried was ended, proverbial burdens scattered around his still form at the base of the tree.

from behind the tree; a long, jagged limb.

then, on a long neck, a small head.

and a bulging red eye.

the madwoman.

looking down at the roots from a columbine angle.

the flint-stone man had been pondered for a time. her wide-eyed watch had lasted as the sun sunk, and his stillness lasted just as long, if not longer than she'd been there, in the trees opposite him, sneaking nearer on pinprick limbs.

dead? asleep? alive?

with quickness, her nose dipped low to brush his nape, which were black and safe to touch, then - retreated.

and waited.

dead.

the madwoman licked her whiskers.

she pondered anew. the flint-stone man was dark, which was good, but lightness crept through him, like an infection. she considered removal, which she was skilled in, but then discarded the thought, as his blood, if tainted, could taint her too - and she'd so grown weary from her own surgery.

the madwoman paced around him, studying the make of his muscle, the look upon his face, the marks on his coat.

her interest ebbed as the sun sunk. in the dark, she'd found, father-mother svart did good, and made all wolves jet and hard to see. good time to rest one's eyes from the assault of impure lightness.

so the madwoman split.

( yet, she'd committed his face and body to memory, and if in the coming seasons any came looking for the scattered bones, she'd known the man by account only )