Sunbeam Lair what would lizzie mcguire do?

Back dated a few days. After the last thread.

It wasn’t easy keeping @Tavi on track. She would wander off when he thinks he’s got a good pace going and he’d have to round her up and convince her to come along. His feet ached with the pacing and he just wants to go home and figure everything out, if he’s able to. The longer he’s with her, the more he’s certain something’s wrong that can’t be fix. He recalls the day he’d been out of sorta from eating something but this seems different, though he can’t be sure anyway. He’s not a medic, he never quite learned what he needed to in order to obtain the trade, and so he brings the woman he cares about to his mate to help fix her.

He tries to tell her to be quiet and to stay still, though he isn’t sure she can understand what he’s saying. Nonetheless, he leans into her, holding her close to try and reassure what he can, even if she doesn’t seem to need it.

He lifts his nose and chokes out a howl for @Asterr, urgency in his voice in hopes that she might get there quickly.

In the many hours that pass, Tavi changed yet again. It isn't a visible thing to Ukko, and she isn't entirely aware of it either; but the rambling nature of her tongue gradually ceases. Her words, when she is murmuring them, either slur together or are missing pieces, until she is glum and silent as she wanders. The silence is perhaps the most unnerving thing about their journey — where before she would talk to Ukko in fits and starts about Tambourine (without naming him), or close the gaps between them with haste and love as if he were the Reek of the Maplewood she once coveted, now Tavi was more withdrawn. Perhaps this was a good thing for Ukko, because he would have less chaos to deal with. Yet her wandering was endless too. Tavi repeatedly forgot where she was, or why they were moving through this foreign place, or sometimes would believe she needed to go a different direction because home is this way, except home was nowhere, and she had forgotten so much.

And then they were there, whatever that meant. The mountain had been difficult to traverse — dangerous at the best of times, made more precarious because of her own unpredictable body — but she was here, rooted to Ukko's side, and had only a few topical injuries to show for it, all of them cosmetic. She hummed softly to herself as he howled, and moved to mimic the motion of his chin lifting, then grinned at the air and fell back against his dark fur, finding comfort in the warmth and familiarity of it, although it was impossible for her to identify which tall, dark, and handsome man this was.

Perhaps she shouldn't have been doing so for the sake of just being safe, but Asterr had fallen back into her habits upon noticing the increase in plant life anyways. Many, if not all, were ones that she could name, the uses and negative effects of every one known being present within her mind. Ones that could cause harm to young within a womb had been avoided—a cautious act, despite not yet knowing if any of her ventures had proven successful—and left with nothing more than a mental note, a reminder to herself that she'd need to enlist another body to assist with the harvesting later on. Only a small portion of her mind had stayed conscious enough to insist that she do so, the rest of her senses having fallen into something of a trance. The need to stay focused was strong, but still had the howl been efficient in ushering her back to a more aware condition.

The vocals belonged not to a stranger, thus she'd grown curious of why it seemed critical. Something had happened, but the what was inconclusive. Information had not been given beforehand, and so she'd been left with no other choice but to inspect the situation, putting her previous task behind her whilst the borders were sought out. From there she'd been quick, having slowed only after two bodies had become visible; her interest was piqued by the presence of another, but the closer the dragoness had gotten, the more concerned she'd seemed to grow.

When distance existed no longer, silver eyes trailed the stranger's surface, only to drift back over to Ukko in a moment's passing. "Explain," was all the girl had said, and all she would say until details could be offered. For the time being she had no way of knowing for why she'd been summoned, which was a situation best remedied, lest her potential services go without being offered.

Ukko considers just searching the territory for Asterr, impatient to find help, but with how difficult it had been to bring the woman with him so he remains put. He turns his head to look at her, trying to keep her in place and with a little luck, she doesn’t go far from him. He nudges her shoulder encouragingly, as if to say everything would be fine, even if he knew they won’t be. The longer he spends with her, the less hope he has, and unless there’s some miracle Asterr knows, he isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do.

Soon, the dark dragon is approaching and he holds his breath. A woman he’d once held feelings for, no matter how small, now stands before his current mate that might be carrying his children, and he can’t be more thankful that Tavi doesn’t quite seem to be there.

“This is Tavi,” he begins upon her demand, casting a glance to the tawny girl. “We were… pack mates. A long time ago. She is—” he pauses, a breath caught in his throat—“she was my best friend and I don’t know what’s wrong but she’s… she’s not right and I don’t know what to do.” 

His voice cracks and he looks to the chieftess, trying to find an ounce of hope that the next words out of her mouth are I know exactly what to do, even though he knows they won’t be. Maybe she won’t help at all but all he knows is he can’t leave her in the wild, wandering alone and confused.

She stood in wait, sort of, with her head rising up the way Ukko's did, except sound did not come out of her mouth. It was like watching a mime trying to mimic someone in the middle of a park; as he called and sang for Asterr, Tavi tried to do the same, although she didn't know why there was noise coming out of the dark man — and then she promptly forgot what she was doing and idly watched the dust floating above her head. Her gaze traveled aimlessly to a stand of trees which trembled with the breeze, then to the ground and the dirt, and then to her own toes, which she wiggled.

Octavia was very childlike. It would have been cute for anyone nearer to Tambourine's age, but for an adult to be this unresponsive - even as a new dark stranger arrived and Ukko began to speak to them - well, it was downright unnerving. When Ukko said her name, Tavi turned her ears towards his voice. She burrowed deeper in to the thickness of his neck fur as if to hide there, and murmured sounds, until it got to be too warm and uncomfortable, at which point she sank away from him and sat down, leaning with her head and shoulders around him to peer blankly at the woman.

It took a second or two for her to register that there was, indeed, someone there. That this wasn't just her brain malfunctioning and presenting her with the same image twice; one to cuddle, and one to stare at. She did not recongize this dark woman, but that wasn't much of a stretch. Her brain tried to find something familiar. Out of the blue she blurted, S-ae-n-a, letting each bit of the name fall from her mouth (or maybe she just couldn't get her tongue to behave). Tavi's eyes went wide then, and she squished herself against Ukko, only to pull away almost as quick and stumble away from him by about a foot, and then gasped as she looked upon the two of them — Keee, keeee-p'im, he's no-good.

With the female that he'd brought to the borders, there was an obvious issue. Not in the sense that she knew what was wrong and how to fix her, just that something was amiss. There was an absence to the stranger, it seemed, almost as if her conscious self existed no longer—that, or she was but a simple being and the behavior displayed was just how she'd always been. Had that been the case, a course of action could have been determined and acted upon promptly, but the problem lied in the fact that it wasn't. It wasn't always that the woman had behaved in such a manner, Ukko's explanation having given her enough of information to conclude that much. Something had happened to turn her into a being that was capable of making the lair's Shogun—someone the chieftess had previously believed to possess a great strength, but now wasn't entirely sure about—seem almost as if he'd been defeated. It'd startled her when his voice had cracked, leaving her to stare at him out of concern.

Asterr's gaze was drawn away by a new voice, speaking a name she'd never heard before. The space between the duo lessened, but no more than a handful of seconds later and it'd been widened. More words, but nothing flowed as smoothly as it should have. From where the girl stood, no physical wounds could be seen, which ruled out delusions caused from an external infection. Whatever had caused a change in the other's behavior was an internal issue, which made diagnosing it all the more difficult. For that which she could not see was, at times, unable to be accurately treated. There were questions in need of being asked, a path made out of words that could be followed until a potential solution was discovered. It was with a slowed variation of her usual speech that the dragoness asked, "Have you eaten anything unusual recently?" Uncertain about how much information she might be able to get out of the woman, she'd looked to Ukko, too, wondering if he could have seen something. For the time being, she hypothesized that the change was a negative reaction to some sort of herb, but she had too little information to be certain of anything.

Skipping Ukko w/ permission. Might also spontaneously kick Tavi from the thread but we'll see how this goes.

The other dark figure was talking - to her? Maybe. To the boy? Also maybe. The question made no sense at first and so Tavi was staring blankly at Asterr, then tilting her head, and as she tilted she felt a wave of vertigo, which meant her shoulders moved next, and the woman careened away from Ukko and towards the dirt. By happenstance she did not land on her face, but it was with some shaky limbs Tavi half collapsed upon the soil; her head was still turned askew, like she was trying to listen to a voice from beneath her — maybe the rats that lived in her smile had escaped and now whispered things from the grass? 

Eeeet, eet, eet, the woman murmured passively. Liddle -- fff, fff, first, liddle firsss'un, she was trying to answer and seemed to understand the question for a minute, but her response was a drawl of sounds more than anything that made sense. She'd forgotten how to string together sounds in to proper words, and sounded more idiosyncratic the harder she tried. That, coupled with the strange dryness upon her tongue, led Tavi to go quiet. She scoffed a little, scowled, and mentally withdrew into herself — fading from the conversation and taking a keen interest in her toes.

Trying to keep himself from panicking, Ukko stands firmly in his spot. He wants to help, but there’s little he can currently do. If he were to run somewhere to get something Asterr might need, he’d be on it but for the moment he simply waits and watches and hopes for some answers. His eyes never leave Tavi once she’s moved away from him and trying to say something. Ears remain perked forward to catch something he might otherwise miss but she’s quiet soon enough, staring down at the ground instead.

As the stranger had started to fall, she'd done nothing more than watch the scene unfold. If it was an illness that had caused for the other to act in the manner that she did, then catching it—should it be contagious, anyways—would be an awful thing. Although she hadn't the slightest of clue as to what was happening, it wasn't something that the girl was willing to risk. Her tribe needed her to remain healthy, after all, as did Draco. And whilst naught a movement had been made to reach for the other, relief was still felt as she'd been witnessed collapsing, rather than flopping right over. Both weren't particularly pleasant experiences, but the former was, surely, preferred over the latter.

The position she'd taken to hadn't been corrected, which Asterr tried to ignore in favour of the words—sounds?—leaving her mouth. None of it made sense, the only true word that she'd been able to pluck from the jumble being first. Though, was liddle supposed to be, by any chance, little? First little... what? Brows furrowed as she'd eyed the stranger for a second, but had eventually handed her attention over to Ukko. "I do not understand her," she'd admitted. "I am unable to assist if I do not receive the necessary information." Having been exposed to the joys of learning from as early on as she could remember had proved to be helpful in life, but it'd not turned her into a miracle worker.