Emberwood kigon

staying vague about the @Judah & @John thread thats ongoing! <3 tags for ref or joining

mountains in their stony elegance fell away at last behind she and @Ezra. 
their time in such a place did not need to be extended longer. skaigona regretted leaving the bypass — she regretted going back.
a pack was nearby, a massive show of strength and many guardians. reluctant for now to leave the shadows, skaigona prepared nevertheless to go and ask about gideon before they headed back to rivenwood and whatever lay there.

ezra is not saddened to leave the mountains behind.

he does not even cast a look behind him.

in fact, he is all too eager to keep fueling his obsession with finding his brother and father. to ezra, staying in one general area felt a little bit like giving up.

relief buoys him as he follows alongside his mother.

vhere are ve going from here? he asks, trusting that she had a plan.

"there's a pack nearby. we'll ask there. and then — back to rivenwood," she said. "i shouldn't have left." her chest hurt for a moment; she shut her eyes in apology. "i don't regret taking you and running. but i — gideon. we have to go back and look for him first."
then the others?
druid? her mind asked plaintively, and she tried not to dwell. "if he's not there, we'll head toward the glacier. it used to be called duskfire when i was a kid."
silence then, heavy, lapsing. skaigona glanced around and began to set a perimeter for tonight's camp.

his mother speaks of returning to rivenwood and panic sets in. it is not a slow stalking but a rush that floods his nervous system and overloads him. ezra's breath goes shallow, pupils blowing wide, ears flattening against his skull as his thoughts race:

she wants to go back there after druid attacked her ... back to him —

no. ezra's steps stop and a war of panic and defiance wage in his golden gaze as he watches her set the perimeter for camp. it is not like ezra, this rebellion. he would do anything for her ... kill for her, die for her ... anything expect go back to that cursed place. vhy vould ve backtrack? ve do not know gideon is there ... and he and father vent missing on the same day ... he is trying to articulate his thought process but it is disjointed, panic holding logic beneath the waters.

it vould make sense that they are together. he is reaching but he desperately does not want to return to rivenwood.

i am not going back. i do not vant to be anyvhere near amadeo, he spits the name, distaste heavy on his tongue. the man had always felt like oilslick to ezra, and the boy doesn't care what amadeo said about who started the fight: he had hurt his father and that was enough to solidify distrust and anger. he is a typhoon of unholy feelings, but he is not apologetic for them and that, perhaps, only worsens his panic that coils in his stomach like the serpent of eden.

...or druid. if he was being honest, he might as well be honest. if you go back ... vho is to say they'll let you leave?

skaigona had not know ezra's mistrust for amadeo, and now she was seized with guilt to know she had overlooked this thing. of course; she had been consumed, and if she was honest, she would have offered herself back after flight. her son was consumed by terror; her arms opened helplessly to him.
all the chaos in her mind had been soothed by amadeo, muted by it. and now, faced with her son's righteous refusal, she was shamed.
in silence she watched her boy, saw how he had grown tall and honed by their journeys. he had wanted for nothing until they had left rivenwood; now they subsisted on birds and eggs as cold weather set in.
her lip, worried;
"i think druid is dead, ezra," skaigona heard herself saying, distantly, strangely distant. 
"they disappeared the same day, i — i just have to see, ezra." but had not dinah stood hard for this? had not she not refused to go back to the island?
and once more, the mother did not know how to make her own choice. "if we — if we didn't go back, we should at least search there, right? or — head deeper into the taiga."

ezra is selfish in his thinking. he refuses to return to the only home he's ever known in a twisted heroic quest to search for his missing father and brother ... all the while refusing to see his mother's point of view. he refuses because he harbors a burning dislike and mistrust of amadeo ... of whom his mother had been getting close to — because he wasn't anselm.

and yet, ezra feels no guilt for it.

his racing thoughts still a bit as his mother admits that she thought druid was dead. for a moment, there is only the lingering of those words that then marry his memory of the attack: that his mother had screamed that she was sick and to not touch her.

oh, is all he offers on the matter. still, that left amadeo and ezra feels something within him pushing violently against the idea of going back. even just to search.

she seems uncertain of their path now that he's refused to return to rivenwood; and ezra is fine with choosing their path ... even if he is wrong.

i don't think it would be vise to backtrack. ve've already made it this far. ve should keep looking in this region and the taiga ... he trails off, not wanting to say that only then, they could circle back. forcing himself to feels like swallowing rocks. if ve don't find them ... ve can circle back. i vill stay nearby in case you need me but i vill not go into rivenvood.

certainly she had broken something in ezra when she had grabbed him and dragged him out of rivenwood. and now skaigona found herself annoyed at the very stubbornness he had developed to save himself.
and she was bereft in her own stubbornness, unable to call upon god for soothing any longer. she must do this alone, figure it out by herself. and ezra — he was right not to go back.
"stay below rivenwood when i go to visit," she said at last, quiet in her acceptance of her son's growing mind. "i'll go there last. then we'll keep on. circle back, like you said. maybe head for the sea."
skaigona was looking for all of them; she needed some sign that further successes could be had. "let's go to this pack and ask. we can see if there are others. and then we'll keep going. if we end up back in the mountains, let's stay further up or down, not where we were before," rambling.

satisfied with the plan his mother has made, ezra can feel the tension that had been coiling in his shoulders lessen. while he didn't exactly like the idea of his mother going back to rivenwood by herself, he was content knowing he would be close enough to help her if she needed it. it was the only way he'd step foot into rivenwood now: if he needed to help her. save her.

ok, it was a compromise that ezra could live with. then that is vhat ve vill do.

<3

ezra, dear ezra. she wished they could have been a family —  a family with secrets unuttered, but filled with love all the same.
skaigona was unable to remember the woman she had been only some months ago; she was a hardbit, grinding creature now, and for some reason it was familiar.
they set off once more.