Blackfeather Woods buns! there's so much love and magic in rapture, hearts will be captured!

Euron awoke with a long, drawn out groan. He curled into himself, folding his forepaws over his skull in agony. It did nothing to relieve the throb in his head and he shoved his face into the snow and cried, pressing his muzzle in deeper as if there was some hole he could crawl down into to escape the pain accosting him. There was not, and he laid like this for a long time, before the pounding torment simmered and left him in an exhausted stupor.

The boy rose on shaky legs, immediately sitting back down. He wore a grimace and blinked as he glanced around the glen. His head still hurt but it was manageable. His eyes were blurry, and he felt like he had been sleeping for days but never rested. Confused, hurting, and in need of comfort and explanation, he got up and stumbled forward.

"Mae—" He coughed. His throat, thick with slime, had to be cleared. "Maegs? Rams?" It took a while for him to regain some semblence of grace and balance as he searched for one of his littermates; one of his pillars.

He is looking for @Maegi or @Ramsay but anyone is welcome :)

The dwarf always stuck close to one, if not both, of his siblings. Today it happened to be Euron, although his brother was asleep when he first found him. The boy threaded away some distance, pushing through heavy snowdrifts that had blown up between the trees, all the while mindful of Euron's approximate position. He was hoping to find Maegi now, though with this most recent accumulation of snow, she was harder than ever to spot even in their dark woods. After spiraling out for roughly forty minutes with the slumbering Euron as his epicenter, Ramsay quit his quest and turned around in his own trail to head back, in case he had missed her.

When he returned to the point that he started, it was to find his brother awake. A pleased wag of his short tail spurred Ramsay onward, but he stopped in his tracks and gave an apprehensive sniff when Euron staggered. That wasn't something that he ever did; his brother's grace was matched only by Cicero and swift cats. Ramsay had never seen him trip or fall since he was old enough to remember events, so for Euron to stumble was an unexpected and unwelcome change of events. It unnerved him in the same way that news of a beloved family member developing a terminal disease did, and he didn't like it.

Ramsay's ears flared forward and he asked across the distance, with trepidation, "Eur?"

His brother had been here — his tracks were pressed into the snow around him. Euron dipped a paw into one of the indentations and found that it was wider than his own foot. He spared his paw a peculiar glance and then refocused on the task at hand. Or tried to. His muddied mind made tracking difficult even when the track was laid bare in front of him. He felt a demanding need to simply curl up and go back to sleep. Then suddenly...

"Rams!" Euron answered back excitedly, wincing as another throb struck him in the head. But in that moment he did not care. He spun to see his inky littermate not far off. The sudden movement dizzied him briefly and he swayed, before bounding through the snow to meet his brother with a wagging tail and a stupid grin brought on by sheer relief. He sat down in front of Ramsay. Still wagging. Still grinning.

"...Hi!"

His short figured stutter-stepped forward when Euron called out to him, pulled by an inexorable connection to his siblings—what would happen, he briefly wondered, to him if Euron and Maegi stood on opposite sides of the glen and each called out to him?—but he paused again when Euron's body wobbled once more. A quiet whine pierced the air between them as he gathered both ears above his head in a silent question, but it was put aside for a moment when Euron next spoke.

"Hi," he answered automatically, but his voice came out subdued and strained with confusion. Somewhere in there, maybe there was even a trace of fear. "S'wrong?" he wondered, giving voice to his concern even as he lifted one ankle out of the snow and set it forward in a half-stride that was reined back by his unease.

"Head hurting," Euron replied, lifting his paw to scrub his ankle against his temple as he made a bit of a face. It hurt more when he thought about it and when he wasn't busying his mind with something else. "It's ok." He added. "I am being fine." Euron scooted forward and then took his paw and reached forward to pat his brother tenderly on the snout. "You are good, Ramsay." Euron was not an overly warm or affectionate creature — he more often expressed his fondness through play and brief touches. That was the case even here but his pat, his smile and his mismatched eyes held a little bit more — a deeper endearment, and sincere gratitude for his sibling.

"I am wondering something," he announced a beat later.

Ramsay nodded slowly, or he would have, if he was capable of such a thing. His neck hindered him and it ended up as a few nearly imperceptible bobs of his head, not a truly defined nod but enough that his keenest litter mate was sure to pick up on it and understand. His dark blues crossed momentarily as Euron lifted a smoky paw toward his face, and there was a momentary apprehensive flick of both ears when he thought that his brother was going to swat him like Maegi often did, so the soft pat came unexpected.

As did his brother's words. Being told he was good was tantamount to telling a small boy that he could have cupcakes and ice cream sandwiches for dinner. His stub tail wagged wildly in response, but his expression remained confused and unsure, like he was expecting his brother to melt right in front of him. "You are good too," he insisted, and prepared to try to forget all of the weird stumbling and stuff from earlier, but then all of him faltered when Euron posed a question, or something like a question. After a long pause, Ramsay asked, "what?"

"I am wondering..." Euron took a deep breath and held it as his silver and indigo eyes searched his brother's face. Moments later he released it all at once, in a big sigh akin to a balloon deflating. "I am not knowing what I am wondering." He screwed his eyes shut and hum-grumbled as he touched his sore temple again. He had not found an answer on Ramsay's face so he looked around the glen as if there might be one there somewhere. There was not exactly, but it did give him a starting point.

"I was not here." He started. "I was... somewhere else." Euron bit his lip and his ears fanned backwards as he started to feel a bit stupid, especially since his recollection was fragmented at best and his understanding extremely minimal. "I woke up here but I feel like I did not sleep and I am sure I was not here anyway!" Toward the end his voice rose in frustration, but he cast his brother an apologetic look after wincing from another throb. "Sorries... maybe... maybe I just dream."

Euron slumped in defeat and looked at the ground.

Expectation loomed over Ramsay's face for one hot second before, like his brother, he deflated. Curiosity would continue to gnaw at his mind for several hours after this until it would turn into irritation, and then he would need to burn it off on something. Probably a tree root or clump of moss. It would never surface when Euron was present—but he did desperately want to know what fleeting thought had possessed his sibling.

His curiosity only grew as Euron recounted his strange experience. Ramsay didn't have an explanation for it. He'd never woken up somewhere else before, but it explained some of Euron's previous odd mannerisms. He was still unnerved by his brother's shaky equilibrium, but he pressed closer and sought to touch his nose to the same spot Euron had touched earlier, right near the ear.

"Just a dream," he assured him. Surely that was all it was, since he couldn't think of any other explanation for it.

He did not move as Ramsay touched his nose to his temple. He did not mind affection from his brother and the cooler flesh was almost soothing.

It took a while but at last Euron conceded that it was just a dream. "Hm. Must have been." He said, drawing in a deep breath and releasing it steadily through his nose. He had regained his composure even if the ache in his temple was still there.

"I dream about eating mother." Euron laid this statement down completely nonchalantly, without a twitch in his neutral expression to indicate that he felt anything about it.

Because he didn't.

The dwarf drew back, examining his sibling's face as he spoke of his dream, and Ramsay was relieved to find no remorse there. He felt their mother deserved nothing less than to be devoured by her own unloved spawn. Granted, he didn't dream of eating Potema and would never have thought of it before Euron mentioned it, but her death had crossed his mind often. He knew he would not bury her when she died, to show he didn't love her, but he also thought of how she might die.

And hoped, in his little monster heart, that it would be the doing of one of his siblings.

"Good," he said with his version of a nod. "Mother is dead." Well, eventually. Hopefully. Metaphorically, yes, but physically, it would take some time. That's what Ramsay ultimately wanted anyway. Perhaps if she had shown them some love, some respect or acceptance, then all of her children would not be the monsters they were. But Potema had done them wrong in too many ways, and forgiveness was off the table.

His brother thought his dream was a good thing and Euron grinned wickedly, with his mouth splitting from ear to ear and little fangs gleaming. On that note:

"I'm hungry. Finding something to eat now. Come."

He lead his brother from the glen to check for meat in the caches. There was a hunk of deer meat in one and Euron ate slowly and thoughtfully, letting his mind drift to some dark place.

Where he imagined he was chewing on his mother's flesh.