Ankyra Sound best served cold

He decided to try and test his physical limits, even though he knew that his body would protest. Every inch of him had been torn up and pieced back together by the witches in the lost wood — and he could hear them now, as he worked his way up from the beach and towards the eerie forest. Willow telling him to take it easy, and her brother Nettle demanding that he be treated like a warrior! For he is a man, and a knight! They were often fighting, but not seriously. Different takes on the same problem.

The forest rose in great spires, casting immense shadows along the ridge where he stood. The voices of his friends dwindled to nothing in his mind; he felt a fondness for them, a nostalgia, despite only having left them a couple of weeks ago. Firefly stared at the deep shadows of the forest as if deliberating his next move — push himself and investigate the forest that would soon belong to the woman and her son, or turn tail and head back to the beach for the rest of the evening. He couldn't make up his mind immediately, and stood there fixated.

a healthy amount of fish - some tastier than others - had been added to the cache in the last few hours. standing back to inspect her work, caiaphas decided a break from the brine was needed, and made for the sparsely populated helm of trees that flanked the coast. she was not far along before she caught the strident form of firefly -- either in thought, or uneasy to be standing among giants.

she slowed as she met him, her tail canted in a slight wave. "immense, right?" long ago the forest and its leviathans had been bled of its strangeness for the sylph, but she could still stop and appreciate when it cowed the egos of others.

His mind showed him flashes of red-on-black, of crumpled ferns accompanied by a rising din of screeches, of the feeling that he was being stalked in the dark — and as he winced away from the sound that only he could hear, shutting his eyes and turning away as if he had been struck, he heard Immense, right?

As Firefly blinked away the messy memory, he could hear his pulse pounding in his ears and taste a sour note in his own saliva, like he'd been running too hard. His eyes - or, his good eye anyway - focused on Caiaphas as the thought melted away. He allowed himself a small glance at the giant trees and lingering shadows, and nodded.

They're bigger than I've seen, he commented tonelessly, and side-stepped around her so that she was between himself and the forest, as if that would ease his anxiety. I was.. Going to check them out. But they're giant, dark, and deep, he thought. What monsters lurked among those trees?

At a slow canter, Svalinn came up from the beach, moving with intent towards the atmospheric warmth of the forest ahead. He liked it better up here, where he could smell more inland smells and break up the bleak, coastal-winter monotony with an entire kingdom of earth-bred monoliths and the creatures they housed from root to tallest limb. He slowed as he noticed a figure ahead of him, but after determining that it wasn't someone he knew, he returned to an even quicker pace so that he might investigate.

He didn't recognize the charred and torn male, but he noticed Caiaphas was there too, and as she wasn't any kind of hostile, Svalinn was only a little huffy when he came up to greet them. "Hey," he came to stand next to Caiaphas, nudging her slightly. "Who are you?" he asked of the unknown, straightforward but not yet unkind.

her arrival appeared to chase away phantoms in the battered wolf's mind -- she observed, unsympathetic, as the male flinched from her arrival. perhaps he recalled past demons -- possibly even the very demon that had etched in his hide a canvas of splattered brush-strokes. they shared a moment of admiration for the trees before he spoke, causing caiaphas to look at the stern faces of the immovable trees.

they were joined by the surging form of svalinn, who quickly breasted between them and nudged the flank of his dam. she pressed back as if in reassurance, but did little else. remaining silent, she looked to firefly for answer - expecting fully that he was capable of making his own introductions.

The oncoming shape of another wolf was, briefly, unseen. He couldn't focus for what felt like a handful of minutes (when really it was a couple of seconds). When he could focus his mind, he glanced up to see Svalin on approach but for some reason or another - for a flash - he saw something bigger, something dangerous, and ducked away as if the boy was about to charge in and lay ruin to him.

Then he spoke, and the flash of memory shifted away. He saw the kid and breathed a deep sigh, trying to shrug off the momentary lapse before either of the wolves thought he was losing his mind. The kid called out to him and, with one look from Caiaphas, the man answered: Firefly. Who're you?

When the wolf flinched away suddenly, Svalinn looked reasonably confounded with his enlarged eyes and collapsing ears. He glanced at Caiaphas, knowing that he was supposed to be on his best behavior for new and potential recruits, and he worried he'd already done something wrong. Did I come up too strong? his distressed gaze conveyed briefly, before he noticed the sablewood male start to recover.

Ears pressed forward, nose twitching with concern, Svalinn looked over the newly introduced Firefly in a prurient fashion. "Svalinn," he confirmed, giving the male a quick wag of his thick tail. Then - trying to ignore what had transpired beforehand - he ventured further: "you two headed anywhere?"

similar to svalinn, the wretch was taken aback by the flinch. dissimilar to her waxy-pelted son, her expression was not one of self-doubt. she supposed that given the mauled male’s history, that the wounds on his psyche had yet to heal.. and in the sylph’s experience, mental trauma took much longer to heal than the visible repair of flesh. 

with the exchanges over with (and svalinn quite perfunctory in his perfect behavior) she motioned for the woods. care for a hunt? it had been some time since she had hunted among the sequoias — and today she had a mighty hankering for doe.

When the boy asked about their plans, Firefly glanced at Caiaphas - then beyond her. She was already blurry in his gaze but as he fixed his eyes on the dark forest, she became a black-capped smudge. Then she spoke, and he alerted to her voice and focused as best he could on her — a hunt? A short burst of a fell wind blustered through the trees and he thought he felt the chill of winter sting at his scars; he looked to the boy next, but didn't say anything. If he was going to prove useful to anyone, Firefly knew he would have to face his anxiety and the monsters in the shadows -- so he moved around both of them on an untercept course with the nearest gap in the trees.

At his mother's invitation, Firefly took the initiative to lead them forward - a marked improvement from the moments before. Svalinn took up an easy gait after him, and noted that that seemingly random selection of trajectory was a bit familiar to him. "I found a spot up ahead where the rabbits were grazing yesterday," Svalinn suggested, pointing with his muzzle due west, further into the winterworn monoliths. He was unaware that his mother had venison on the brain, and more used to hunting for himself, it was small prey that he thought of when hunting came to mind. "Probably a warren near there."

firefly's trepidation about entering the heavily shaded bosk was noted by the siren queen, though she said little and simply observed as he reluctantly stepped under the tall arch of ancient sequoias. svalinn easily fell in step behind, and caiaphas tailed them both with an almost distant expression to her sharp face.

she was thinking of something besides rabbits for a meal, but svalinn's suggestion was met with a nod -- she would not shoot down the thoughts or suggestions of her blessed angelic golden child; far as the siren was concerned, she would fashion and temper him into a powerful individual, and belittling his suggestion of a lesser fare was not the way in which to sculpt him into a demi-phas.

"rabbit sounds fine -- good nose."

If all they found in the darkness of the trees were some mindless rabbits, he would consider himself quite fortunate. The man led the way through the trees until he heard the commentary between the two wolves, and then he paused. The golden boy knew where to look, so it was to him that Firefly would defer. He glanced at Svalinn and then side-stepped, ushering him to the lead position with a motion of his snout, as if to say after you. Once they were stalking along again, Firefly became more vigilant of the surroundings and the multifaceted shadows, as if he expected something more dangerous than a few rabbits to come bursting on to the scene at any moment.

slight PP to wrap up - hope that is ok <3

rabbit it was -- they followed svalinn's lead, the two adults watching him keenly and instructing him where his instincts or actions were soft. he possessed a good basic instinct - caiaphas watched him with an appraising eye, knowing that for all of the hardships saddled on svalinn's shoulder, he was still doing better than most.

after an hour the trio had scored three of their own hares to bring home; not a bad haul, considering it was midwinter, and food was scarce. sharing what tips they could on the way home, caiaphas felt for the first time a contentment -- that this is what it felt like perhaps, to know you were among those in which you belonged.