Silvertip Mountain holy holy

Very rarely did Olive know why she did the things she did — the tiny woman had always paid far too much unquestioning attention to her whims and whimsies — but without the tethers of a pack, without the safety belt that was the great knight Dakarai, she fed these impulses guiltlessly and while it may sound and appear and feel to be free and unfettered, it was more truthfully a prison to her.

— for it was some unknown corner of her heart that had led her back to that hell-place, the forest of trees weeping crimson and wailing woeful songs; where perhaps there were once happy memories, but there were no longer.  The fae had not wished to glimpse the stained arbors, standing strong and stout to face the shrill winter brine, but she was as powerless to stop her wanderer’s feet as she was to stall the hand of fate. 

Too soon, Ravensblood Forest was before her. It was a looming, heavy mass that began to gnaw at her conscious without delay. Olive stood in wait despite the gripping within, as lofty and light and mindless as if she were just another winter snowflake — internally, she had shifted from thinking and doing to simply feeling and she knew why she had come the moment she recognized that sweet, familiar, sorrowful hitch in her heart. 

There it was. 

She could still feel. Even if she only ever felt bad, it reminded her that she was alive. Feeling bad was better than feeling nothing at all, she supposed. It was one of the things she did not question.

It was not long for the scent of others to reach her nares, and when it did, Olive was quick to reel against this too; against the realization that the whole earth kept on spinning, and life kept playing its funny little games, the kaleidoscope of humanity kept turning itself on its head and rains drained from the mountaintops only to become rainfall one more and all of life’s cycles continued, all the rhythms of the planet churning as evenly as ever and how everything — everyone — had moved on without her. Without a moment to spare, the shrouded sylph seized and skittered from the fringes of ravensblood’s society and did not stop moving until she finally felt cleansed, run clean, of the place. With the suddenly elevation her lungs felt expansive and Olive breathed deep, gulping, heaving breaths not because she was spent from her exertions but from the sweetness of the alpine air. Silvertip, she knew this place well. The tempest finally stilled her body, but her attention was alive, beseeching and easily captured by a glinting, opalescent pool where the mountain’s meltwater had coalesced but not yet frozen over. Olive drifted closer and made to kiss the water and slake her thirst — and she would have, if not for the eau-de-nil gaze she found on her descent. 

At first, she did not even recognize the reflection as herself.

And then, for a moment, she stared and wondered what and who this wolf in the water was. What was her story? This small woman of ash and bone, she could be anything — anything she’d ever wanted to be — in that moment, and for all the moments yet to come. Olive knew almost nothing about this shewolf, and considered her the luckiest to live entirely unencumbered by the faults of the past. 

With a sudden flash of jealousy, Olive dashed her reflection with a strike of a featherlight paw —and the lucky wolfess was obfuscated. Perhaps others could forget the past, but she was unfortunately herself and that part to of herself seemed to be broken. Her children had forgotten. The coast had forgotten. The world had forgotten… but why couldn’t she?

She'd felt inclined to leave the territory again, wandering farther this time. Perhaps it was the constant worry of war, the haunting emptiness of the territory, the feeling that somehow she didn't quite fit with the rest of them. Whatever the case, she'd patrolled hastily, to at least feel as if she'd contributed in some way, before slipping back out of the borders. It was not along the coast that she meandered today; rather, the turned inland. She slipped betwixt the rocky crags and foothills of the mountain, a kind of serenity alone with the snow-dusted rocks. 

The cry of an erne had the sylph pause, falling still to watch the bird as it angled above the rocks, circling once before twisting to glide towards the sea. When it had vanished into the bleached-white sky, she hoisted herself up a steep ridge and continued her gradual climb upward and onward. What she wouldn't give to see the world as the erne saw it, so small and insignificant, and yet complex and vast. She supposed she could only imagine it, or, she could scale the mountain before her and see the coast spread out as the eagle did. 

Glimmer of excitement in her chest, the girl gained experience traversing the rocks, steps growing quicker, ascent rapid. Trees, gnarled and rugged, began to poke from the rocky earth, and soon the steepness turned somewhat level, the ascent easy now. Slipping through the barren trees, twisting back once to see the view obscured - she'd have to go higher - the girl was distracted only by the faintest splash in the otherwise silent mountainside. Altering her course, Dalia moved across the incline rather than up it, slipping betwixt the trees until the woman was revealed. She was beautiful; made of ash and bone, earthy. The girl made to approach a few more steps before falling still, tail wafting at her hocks in appeasement, ears pressed forward atop her crown.    

Though her paws were nimble and surefooted, Eirlys’ lungs were burning by the time she reached the summit spiced with wolfscent. Her glacial, pleochroic eyes seemed more green than blue as she traversed through the unfamiliar terrain, panting lightly despite the chill in the air. She didn’t share Olive’s grief or Dalia’s wish to see the world from a bird’s eye view — she simply succumbed to the itch in her paws that urged her further and further from the forest where her godmother, littermate, and half-siblings slept. Small, triangular ears perked with interest as she crested a small ridge and espied at last the bearers of the scents she’d caught. She was thirsty, but too awkward in the company of strangers to shoulder her way through the brush and take her own place at the river. One ear fanned out and to the side, betraying her uneasiness.

Unlike Ceallach, whose tapered features and streamlined build were made in papa’s image, Eirlys was drawn with a heavy hand. Her plush fur and more boldly etched musculature mirrored the sturdy northern stock of the Enok Tundra, and in a few short months she would be as tall as Lotte had been. Already she was quite clearly the biggest girl in the room in both height and girth. The freckle-faced female with bewitching bicolored eyes and the gamine, mist-shrouded sylph who stood riverside were sketched with even finer lines than Ceallach — perhaps as exquisitely-fashioned as Hemlock. Because of her familiarity with Hemlock and Reed, though, Eirlys didn’t feel bad about how large she was. She was simply mindful of it. Most of her insecurities came from within.

Eirlys sat, mindful of her white-capped paws and the sweep of her cocoa-dusted tail. When she caught her breath, she sought to break the silence — but she wasn’t a great conversationalist, and the best she could muster was a rather blunt, “Are you friends already?” in her lilting brogue.

Olive found a certain serenity in the moments following her kittenish outburst. Because the woman was hedonistic as best, it felt good to sometimes indulge in, linger in, her badness. That had been her subconscious’s goal in driving her to Ravensbood Forest, hadn’t it?  A little bit of badness had gotten her many things in her life; and if she was hedonistic at best, then at her worst she was tempestuous and demanding of those who she loved — but it was never with ill reasonings, and never stemmed from a karmic center of evil as did some other wolves’ badness — evil that a younger Olive dared not believe in but the Olive of today knew far too much about. She now took measures to protect herself from it. 

To protect herself, the fae knew she knew she must hide her baddness, no matter how innocuous as it may be, and could not let others see because they did not understand it. Olive had been somewhat successful in this endeavor, as she understood most people to regard her as a soft and demure being — and while that was not untrue, very few others knew the true squalling of her mind. In fact, only two came to mind: Dakarai and Carina, both of whom loved her in spite of it. Neither were with her at that moment, but this she knew. 

lf any approaching wolves were waiting for Olive to notice their presence on her own accord, they would be disappointed. The misted druid was too withdrawn in that moment to notice anything that was not in her immediate vicinity; anything that was not a fluttering thought in the confines of her mind, really. She watched as the crystalline water’s surface return to a state of calm and she pressed her eyes closed in order to finally take her cool drink, undisturbed — and then began to preen her silken collarbone. 

A voice eventually was intrusive enough to draw her attentions. Olive had not known she shared this promontory with others, so when she lifted her gaze to see not one, but two feminine creatures, she was surprised — but not unhappy about it. 

Olive picked up her body from the cool earth, gave her pelt a succinct shake and strode closer to the two others. Both youthsome, both beautiful and both filled with a curious energy. The seraph gave a muted dip of her narrow, milky maw and regarded both beings kindly. “Not yet,” came her reply, cool and rife with suggestion. It had come to be something of a long time since she last spoke to others and her voice was nearly as foreign as her reflection had been just moments before. Olive rolled her tongue against the roof of her mouth, tasting her next words before choosing to speak them. “Are you?” She questioned in return, looking at one girl, then the other, and her tail swept low and wide between her twiggy hocks [one of which would always bear the scars of her past transgressions]. Olive guessed she already knew the answer, but it was still a valid question. The two had both made their appearance at the same time, after all. 

       

so sorry for the wait!

The gathering only grew, and another girl came to join them on the mountainside she'd thought to be lonely and empty. Her gaze turned now to the newcomer, gaze tracing her cream and chocolate coat, her pelt plush and rather extraordinary looking. She was the first to speak, and to her question Dalia merely shook her head a fraction, old shyness returning as her gaze flickered between the two, finally settling on the woman when she spoke next. 

She found her voice then, murmuring only, "no" For a moment she hesitated, before breaking the silence once more with a slightly uncertain introduction.  "I am dalia." The girl tried for a slight smile, attempting to push away her uncertainty; for surely it would only hinder her and serve only to present a greater chance for failure. Instead, she quelled her slightly nervous shifting, glancing at the pair with greater ease with her silence broached.

Eirlys shook her head mutely — and vehemently! — when the question was reflected back to her, her glacial gaze darting furtively toward Dalia. Though she had no logical reason to suspect this, she feared the other girl would be disgusted at the very thought. Eirlys was nine months old, and she realized as she flipped through her memories that she didn’t have a single friend.

Family was everything to the snowdrop, but in this case, they just didn’t count.

She added this flaw to the list, reasoning that it must be something wrong with her — when it came blame she was far from rational — and mumbled dumbly, “I’m Eirlys Dagny Fearghal.” She didn’t extend the offer to use Ceallach and Hemlock’s nickname for her, but only because she didn’t think either of the vastly more attractive and poised females would want to.

“What’s your name?” she asked of Olive. Her struggle to meet the woman’s eyes was visible: suddenly dark with dismay, her pleochroic eyes shifted between the woman’s twiggy forelimbs and eau-de-nil gaze erratically before settling with painful shyness on one snowy cheek.

  The two girls, who so brazenly walked upon a woman in repose, suddenly seemed to shrink and grow smaller. The was one who looked very similar to how she did, all petite and milky and slight of frame, and another with a beautiful, buxom coat and a build that spoke strength — but they both spoke softly and with few words. Meekly, they negotiated the situation and established that all three of them were, indeed, strangers — but not for much longer. Dalia. Olive gave the girl a succinct nod, committing it to memory. Eirlys. Olive gave another shake of her head, but stopped abruptly in her half-nod. Eirly’s last name immediately registered in her memory. 

“Fearghal….?”

There was a lurch of her stomach initially, but Olive knew better than to jump to any conclusions here. She was not in any place to alienate a potential friends, and there might be a million reasons why this girl carried the Fearghal name — and, no matter the reason, not all members of that family wished harm upon her. This girl, who so innocently approached her, clearly did not know who she was or wished her harm! But would Eirlys’s opinion change once she had shared her name…? 

“I’m Olive.” she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, waiting for recognition to bloom upon the toffee colored girl’s visage, for certainly Arturo had spoken of her to his family — albeit, unkindly. The druid waited for her past misgivings to ruin yet another relationship… this time, before it even had a chance to blossom. Olive turned to Dalia, giving her a look as if to say can you believe such a coincidence?     

Skipping Dalia with permission!

“Fearghal…?”

There was recognition in the way the woman said that name, and it overwhelmed the snowdrop to a point that she didn’t quite catch the trepidation that lurked behind it. She nodded mutely, barely registering the woman’s name — Olive — but observing keenly the look that was shot to Dalia. “My papa,” she choked, low and urgent. “Did you know my papa? Did — do you — have you seen him? My papa…” There was no rancor in her tone. Arturo would not have spoken ill of Olive to his children — he would not have spoken of her at all. Olive and Dakarai had been banished from Teaghlaigh before Eirlys had ever been born, and Lotte and Hemlock had only mentioned them to Sirius — and always with an appropriate amount of decorum and diplomacy.

Oh, she sounded really stupid now.

It felt like something was rising up to choke her — like something was gripping her guts and twisting hard — and Eirlys began to breathe heavily, her glacial eyes going wide and embarrassed as she gasped for breath. Utterly embarrassed, she began to back away. “S-Sorry,” she wheezed out, “have to go.” Though they were likely more concerned than anything, her anxiety transmuted the faces of her audience to derisive, gawking stares — and without another word, she whipped around and bounded down the mountainside, back to Ceallach and Hemlock, running for her life.

gonna close up here ♡

 
The extreme happiness that Olive had felt upon meeting the two women greatly diminished as Eirlys first did not recognize her, then turned to run. For a moment, Olive wondered if the young girl had been lying, and was so terrified by Olive’s awful-ness that she could not help but flee. Did she know her papa? Oh, yes! and if Olive ever knew him again, she was not entirely sure what she would do. Perhaps it was for the best that the young fearghal had fled, for that was a chapter of her life that the sylph hoped would remain forever closed. Olive had moved on as best she could, despite how truly pathetic her attempts might seem and how often she caved to the extreme sorrow, but it was over and now she looked towards the future.

Now alone with Dalia, Olive wondered in the girl might be more at ease. Carefully, Olive struck up conversation and tried to steer attention away from their third’s unceremonious departure. After a fulfilling chat, the two parted ways and Olive returned to gazing at her reflection once more and marveling at the plush-ness of her winter pelt.