Fairspell Meadow November skies

@Gavriel is with her in the background. LOCUSTS! :)

The ominous humming continued, growing louder by the hour. Several times, Wildfire thought about turning back and returning to the safety of Sleeping Dragon. But then she would have wasted not only her time and energy, but Gavriel's as well. And she really wanted to talk to her mother. Fox would be able to provide guidance the yearling wouldn't find anywhere else.

So they trekked onward, bypassing the mountains to the south before mutually agreeing to take a break and rest on the meadow. While her guard sprawled in the long grass, the yearling hunted, eventually returning with a fat rabbit. She dropped to her haunches beside Gavriel before tearing the carcass into halves, one for each of them. They ate in what would have been companionable silence if not for that awful white noise.

Abruptly, the sound rose in pitch and the sky darkened. Licking blood from her lips, Wildfire looked up again, uncomprehending, as what appeared to be a flock of small birds swooped overhead. They were so populous, they blotted out the afternoon sun. She quickly realized they were not birds when they descended on the open prairie, including on herself and Gavriel.

Bugs. Literally millions of bugs.

The swarms had come all at once and without any perceived warning that Kjalarr could recall. He simply remembered casting a glance at the greyscale sunset and entering The Grotto to his corner of the communal den and waking up to the thrum of their wings “humming” consistent and never ending in the drums of his ears. It was only after he watched, albeit dumbfounded, them consume an entire tree of the leaves did something horrible settle in his chest and dread pool like ice in his stomach. Food was already scarce for Saltwinter and with the locusts consuming everything in their path the threat of their survival had kicked into red alert within Kjalarr's mind.The viking allowed himself to be swallowed by the writhing mass of insects as he headed into the free territories, hoping to come across a territory left untouched by their destruction.

He did not encounter much luck, and the bare scrape of his large paws against land that few patches of grasses remained was taken as an ill omen to the Loðbrók. The sagas always claimed that it would be the great winter that heralded the twilight of the Gods ...but this had all the makes of Ragnarök to the young viking. Still, he kept pressing forward, stopping every so often to bite at them as they landed on him and hopped off his body as if he were a spring board and into flight. He could barely see …but it wasn't as if this realm of poor eyesight was exactly unknown to him. If anything, it was more or less a similar effect of direct sunlight: it hindered him but he did not stop. There had to be territories that were faring better ...there had to be something left. 

A sound caused his ears to stand alert atop his skull, for a short second before he flicked his left ear annoyed to dispel a stubborn bug as it landed upon it. He recognized a scent, and for a split second picked up his pace to close the distance between him and her, before he visibly hesitated, remembering what Floki had told him: that they'd broken up; but that was between the ex-lovers and it was not Kjalarr's grudge to hold. “Wifi!” He called out to her, raising his voice in the hopes it might carry to her. In the mass of insects he didn't even bother trying to truly rely on his sight. “Wildfire, is that you?”  There was chaos within the swarm and there wasn't much Kjalarr was sure of; still the viking held onto the slim hope.

Under normal circumstances, Wildfire didn't mind insects. She had once been a naturalist, after all. But the sheer enormity of the swarm made her freeze, slightly petrified as they cloaked the land and all that stood upon it, herself included. She traded a stricken glance with Gavriel, who looked studiously grim (and slightly comical) as locusts clung to the underside of his chin like some strange beard.

She felt them crawling and flying all around her, which made Wildfire itch something crazy. "What do we do?" she tried to ask her companion, only for the buzz of the swarm to drown out her voice entirely. "Holy crap—" she added as a small locust flew right at her face, striking her between the eyes. It didn't hurt, it just startled her.

Over the scuttling and droning, Wildfire heard something else. "Did you—?" She glanced at Gavriel again but he was clobbering a wave of bugs with his paw. The yearling turned away from him, squinting into the veritable cloud, amber eyes suddenly widening and breath vanishing from her chest when she saw a vision of Floki through the clicking hive.

Is this a nightmare? she caught herself thinking before the scars marring his familiar visage registered. Her heart squeezed with both relief and inexplicable disappointment. "Tevinter?" Wildfire called as loud as she could, which wasn't loud at all.

Continue to skip me. :)

It is as Gavriel blinked and the typically bright blue sky turned to night. An uncomfortable swell expands his chest and he glances back the way they've come and as if trying to decide the best course of action, remains largely uncertain. If he knew the land as well as his charge, he might urge her to return home, regardless of their progress to her birth place. Whatever is happening above them, he knows it's a matter of time before the dragon hears or sees what's going on.

He discards what's left of his half of the kill by the time the bugs pelt him. His appetite gone entirely, batting away the pests as they collect on his body, that he's distracted enough he doesn't notice the other wolf. Wildfire's words has already gone undetected so by the time he actually turns, he sees another figure nearby. Wildfire's body language doesn't give him the information he needs to determine his actions but she speaks to him as if she might know him. Of course, the words are lost in the buzzing so he's not entirely sure of his conclusion.

The wolf doesn't seem to notice him, either, so Gavriel's fur bristles and he comes within a few yard lengths from the pair. He doesn't impose just yet but watches the exchange between the two.

While darkness was a comfortable friend to Kjalarr this darkness was decidedly very different from the one he drew comfort from. He struggled, pausing to snap his teeth at the bugs that mussed his fur as they landed and took off, converging in around him ...at least they did not devour him as they devoured the plant life around him. This was no Ragnarok he'd ever been told about: his mother spoke of a wild hunt and the endless night not a plague of bugs; but he could not fathom what else it could be. This was kind of like an endless night, he supposed. Yet, where were the Gods? Kjalarr couldn't claim that he was scared but if this was truly the twilight of the gods, if Ragnarok had come then it was too soon and Kjalarr was not where he'd hoped to be. He wanted to be with Odin's warriors, fighting not left to suffer the devastation the Gods and their heathen army would no doubt leave in it's wake.

He thought he heard Wildfire's voice call out to him, but it wasn't until he drew nearer, two shapes began to form through the writhing mass of thousands of locust bodies — distinctly canine. The scent she bore was unfamiliar to the viking but beneath the new scents that she carried upon her pelt Kjalarr recognized her as his twin's ex wife. “Wildfire,” Her name left his lips in a relief but his gaze flickered to the strange male beside her. Kjalarr could not be sure but his body posture appeared tense. For a moment, he studied them quickly wondering if this was who Wildfire had left his brother for. His assumption made it was all that Kjalarr had not to be hostile towards him (never mind that he was dead wrong, lmao). “Are you okay, Wifi?” Kjalarr asked Wildfire, turning his attention purposefully to her intended to ignore the male near her to the very best of his efforts.

Kjalarr didn't extend the question to the male, simply for the fact that he truly couldn't have cared less.

She felt a little hysterical at his question. "Okay?" she echoed him dumbly, shaking her head rapidly when a locust pinged off the inside of her ear. "Uh, no? Do I look okay? Does any of this look okay?" Wildfire blinked owlishly at him, then abruptly noticed a tense Gavriel in her peripheral vision. "It's okay," she shouted to him, then realized how idiotic that all sounded. A laugh burst from her mouth despite herself.

"At least they're not biting!" she screamed to no one in particular before squinting against the onslaught and redirecting her attention upon Tevinter. "What are you doing here? Do you know what the heck is going on?" So far, the bugs didn't seem carnivorous or anything. But surely the sheer number of them couldn't bode well for, well, anything or anyone in the area.

Wildfire sounded as if she were on the verge of being hysterical Kjalarr contemplated, and he took a moment to glimpse around though the swarming mass of bodies as a writhing and living shadow did not offer him much in the form of sight. He understood her point, but it was almost so ridiculous that for a moment the Viking struggled with the idea that it wasn't even real at all and just one of his vivid dreams. Yet, surely it had to be real. He was very much awake and Wildfire appeared real enough as did her tense companion. Sometimes, the boundary of reality and fantasy blurred in the moments that followed his waking but he was confident that it didn't get more real than this. Besides, he usually dreamed of Ragnar or the Gods — never of wolves that he knew personally. “Ok,” The Viking amended, “I see your point.” He placated. “If I didn't know better I might have thought I was dreaming,” He spoke but he'd already deduced that this wasn't some nightmare of his subconscious; but rather a nightmare of reality.

The muscles in his back jumped to dispel the miniature beasts as they landed and walked around a bit before taking off into flight, buzzing past his head causing him to let out a loud huff of annoyance. “I watched them devour a whole tree, I wanted to see how far their reach extended, assess just how bad the damage is,” But so far it looked bad and Kjalarr was sure the swarm was far from done. Already, he was so far from what little to no hunting territories Saltwinter had and internally, he feared greatly for their survival, hoping only that the Sea would provide enough for them to live. He was not partial to the salty tang of most of it's creatures but he would suffer through it if it meant he would not starve to death.

“I don't know,” Kjalarr was not used to yelling but in the interest of not having his normally soft voice being swallowed by the constant hum he made do. Kjalarr wasn't sure if his suspicions would make things worse or ...better. It was hard to say: Ragnarok was survivable but many would die including the Gods and still he went back and forth upon it. He hadn't felt or seen the Wild Hunt which in the stories proceeded Ragnarok. Perhaps, he allowed, this was just a sign from the Gods; but a sign for what? That they were coming? “I fear the worst is yet to come.” Kjalarr concluded ominously, fixing Wildfire's monochrome form in his sharp gaze. 

Her ex's lookalike made several foreboding remarks that rendered Wildfire momentarily mute. She looked at him, fear and bewilderment on her face as she considered his words. Then a realization struck her and she momentarily forgot about the doom and gloom of Tevinter's statements. She hadn't so much as introduced him and Gavriel. She felt another wave of hysteria wash over her and, this time, it bubbled up in the form of a snort of laughter. It was all so ludicrous.

"Tevinter," she shouted over the cacophony, "this is my pack mate, Gavriel. We're trying to make our way to the caldera." Wildfire squinted, trying to remember if he knew about her birth pack and also because a locust had just come dangerously close to flying into her left eyeball. She didn't want to end up half-blind like her father, bless his heart. "How widespread are they?" she wondered aloud, then more pointedly asked, "Where'd you come from?" Where are you living these days? her expression clarified as her head canted.

Wildfire called to him again, in a name that Kjalarr had long ago shed but lost the urge to bother to correct — just as he allowed the Frostfurs to address him as “Jorunn” — figuring that his multiple name changes were annoying and confusing to everyone but him. She was introducing him to the tense male at her side, Kjalarr realized, and he tucked the name “Gavriel” back though he wasn't so sure it would be of any future use to him. Kjalarr acknowledged the male for a small second before he went back to studiously ignoring him. Since Wildfire said she was going to the Caldera, Kjalarr simply assumed that Wildfire had returned to her natal pack; and without knowing the scent of the Caldera wolves he had nothing to correct his wrong assumption. It didn't matter anyway, he told himself, it was her life and if she broke his twin's heart to go back home well that was her prerogative and it was her burden to bear.

“They seem pretty widespread to me,” He echoed (Captain Obvious & Vague to the rescue), but he could only go off of his assumptions, off of what he'd seen so far. Obviously, the Teekon Wilds were vast and without traversing them all he couldn't claim to know for sure. It was hard to imagine that this swarm was the only one, though, but perhaps he held out on the slim hope that it was. The hope that some region of the Teekon Wilds would remain untouched where the prey would migrate to when they realized that these territories were bare bones of their former glory. “From the West. Ankyra Sound was invaded by them as well.” Kjalarr told her solemnly.

She didn't know anything about Ankyra Sound, although the name itself inferred a coastal locale. Wildfire wondered what had drawn Tevinter there and why he had left Moonspear without so much as a goodbye. But now was really not the time for catching up on gossip. If they wanted to reconvene at a better time, at least she knew where he lived. And she could let him know where to find her too, although she hesitated, wondering if he would tell Floki. Did they still talk? Would Tevinter fill in his twin if they did? And did she care?

"Well," she said, once more raising her voice to be heard (just barely) over the droning, "I'd love to stay here and catch up with you but we'd better get a move on." Wildfire glanced at Gavriel, who nodded almost imperceptibly. "I'm living at Sleeping Dragon now, by the way," she decided to share after all. "It's pretty far to the northeast. If you're ever in the neighborhood, feel free to drop by or something." The yearling rolled a shoulder. As much as his resemblance to Floki left her mouth dry—and as complicated as the brothers' relationship was—she had always liked Tevinter well enough.

"Take care, Tevinter, and be safe," were her words of parting before she motioned for Gavriel to ford the river of locusts in the general direction of Redhawk Caldera.

It was hard to hear over the sound of the locusts, the buzzing that never ceased but he heard her enough to make out her words. “Yeah,” Kjalarr agreed. It was for the best that the two parties part ways and continue back onto their respective paths. She spoke of something called a Sleeping Dragon and that she lived there — surely the name of the pack that she fled to, he concluded — though Kjalarr found this information as a surprise. He had expected her to have gone back to the Caldera but it turned out she went to a territory and pack that he wasn't (even vaguely) familiar with. “Yeah, if I'm up that way I'll stop by,” He promised though he wasn't sure if he'd ever have a need to venture her way, aside from a social visit. It hadn't, at first, but now it felt kind of ...awkward to him. Speaking with his twin's ex ...the girl that had, probably, broken Floki's heart. Perhaps it wasn't his business but the truth was much more complicated than that, for Kjalarr as a twin who was cosmically in-tune with Floki without even trying and despite their distance.

It would have been easy to blame Wildfire for it all, even not knowing any of the situation but for the sake of their friendship he tucked any bitterness he might have been feeling about it away. Presently, Kjalarr wasn't so sure it was his own bitterness (perhaps it was, but it was hard to tell sometimes); and really he didn't have much room to talk though he (wrongly?) assumed that his leaving Moonspear hadn't hurt anyone either way. “Same to you.” He returned, watching the two of them disappear into the swarm before he turned with a low grunt and headed back the direction he'd came, wondering how long it would take him to get back to Saltwinter, while hoping that the swarm would thin by then.