Dawnlark Plains you can call upon this family, you can call upon this day

@Wraen

standing atop the mountain high, imrathil's vision of the world had been cleared: down and away the tiaga spread, and down and away he went. he followed prey on their migratory routes, and unbeknownst to him, they took him ever south, closer and closer to where he had been born.

and here he was, standing in the ruins of a charred plains. despite the snow that blanketed dawnlark, the fire that raked through and sundered the quiet villa was still evident in the form of blackened, cinerous-leaved trees. imrathil eyed their barren forms mistrustfully, continuing south where the deer-trail wound through vacant forest land.

Wraen had made up her mind and set out to meet Sunny again, only to find his home empty and after a more thorough inspection a conclusion that it had been abandoned a while ago. She was baffled as to, what had made the Morningside wolves get up and leave. More importantly, where had they headed to? For a moment or so she felt insulted a bit too about, why her friend, who had poured such sweet compliments last time, had left without warning. Only to realize that time had passed, since their last encounter. A lot could have happened in the meanwhile.

Feeling slightly disappointed still the young hunter turned and headed back to the place, where she and Maia camped. It was a days-worth journey, maybe longer, that took her across grassy plains, which were frequented by deer and bison. And there in the distance she spotted another lone traveller, probably following the movement of the herds. And refusing to give up and consider her journey as a failure, she ran towards the dark pelted stranger in order to inquire about the missing Morningside wolves. It was a long shot, but he might know something.

"Hey!" she called out to the fellow, once she was within talking distance. "Do you have a moment?"

---

that the prey he was following did not linger here was no surprise to imrathil. the air, while clear and crisp as any on a wintry day, held a somber mood to it. he would be glad to be rid of it. hurrying along the escarpment, imrathil saw a dot of grey in the distance that was coming towards him at a rather determined clip.

he slowed, already feeling a pall of nervousness. he had not detected any markers that announced the razed kingdom claimed, yet the blackpelt quailed, for he himself knew most wolves to be territorial.

his ears folded and his tail was kept close to his hocks as wraen closed the distance; even with his eyes averted, he noted the stormy heather of her pelt and her inquisitive, open gaze. her tone was not hostile, and so imrathil's posture released its held in tension. "um.. sure." he was not usually approached in such a manner and it showed by his confused demeanor. "what do you need?"

Wraen stopped, keeping a polite number of yards between them, and smiled at him. At a first glance the fellow looked just like every other dark pelted wolf she had met in her life (with an exception of Terance, whose features would be forever distinguished and who would never belong to this grey, no, black crowd), but some time in the conversation she began to notice little details that set this guy apart from the rest. 

"Have you by any chance been familiar with Morningside family?" she asked, beckoning in the direction of Phoenix Maplewood, where she had met them last. "They resided in the vicinity few weeks back, but now it seems that they have abandoned their steading and moved elsewhere. I had a friend living there and wonder, if you know, where they might have gone?"

imrathil felt a little assured by the distance she politely kept between them -- the smile she gave was enough to slightly disarm his defenses; it did not occur to him that a long time ago, he had been here before -- when he was a puppy, of all things. even if he hadn't smacked his head horribly against a rock, that kind of formative memory would have been hard to recall -- and so, he was hard pressed to roll his shoulders in a gesture of defeat and shake his head in apology.

"i don't know who they were, or where they went, sorry.." he answered, his brow furrowed in a slightly apologetic look. "but it looks like they might have been forced to leave." he glanced over the charred remnants of the plains, the blackened limbs of trees still visible despite the blanket of snow that coated them.

"You are probably right about that," Wraen nodded in agreement. "I will have to look for them elsewhere," though with the winter conditions getting tough she would have to abandon this plan and in the next few weeks would find herself far away from where Sunny had once dwelt and so focused on getting to know her new family that she would hardly think about the almost-romantic encouter with her old acquaintance.

"My name is Wraen Redleaf," she introduced herself. "And judging by your looks you are a traveller just like myself. Any particular direction set in mind?"

imrathil was sorry to not be of more assistance, but there was no helping in languishing. he offered a threadbare smile as wraen accepted his lack of knowledge, agreeing with his assertion that the wolves that had once lived here had likely been forced to move on. he hoped that the fires here had been slow burning and that none had perished, but from the blackened gout of the earth, he knew such naive hope was fanciful at best.

he turned his attention to wraen as she introduced herself; like everything else, it triggered no jog of memory in the dark male. "oh, hi wraen. my friend calls me imrathil. we were traveling, but.. i am not sure where he went.. he was grey and older, with a big scar over his eyes. i'm.." he glanced downwards, hiding the distress that threatened to overcome his voice -- "i'm afraid it might have been his last winter. you have not seen him, have you?"

"Imrathil, pleasure to make your acquaintance," Wraen finished the introductory phase of their conversation with a more official choice of words than she should have. Probably she sounded a little silly, but she found that ever since she was not among the leaders, who had to leave a good impression on all, she was not that worried of making mistakes and being awkward. 

"Lots of people on the road, looking for something," she said more to herself than to the dark-pelted wolf and then continued. "I am afraid I have not. There was an older she-wolf on the coast, but I assume that your friend was a male."

imrathil's tail wagged gently in response to wraen's warm acceptance of his acquaintance; he felt his head dip ever so lightly in rejoinder.

it troubled him to hear of so many souls lost -- so many people unmoored from their kin. the road was a tiresome and dangerous place, and he a tired traveler wearily treading upon it.

someday, he hoped his bones would rest.

he shook his head quietly at the female's inquest -- for his own comrade had been male. "male, yes. his name was wardruna if.. you ever see him." from the tone of his voice, one could tell he feared no one would ever see his friend again. "thank you though."

Wardruna sounded like a female name and Wraen arched an eyebrow, when Ingram said that the person in question was of the opposite sex. Curious... then again her name was kind of "genderless" and she stopped the train of her thoughts there.

"Which way are you heading now?" she asked, wondering, if they were on the same path and whether she would keep him company for a while longer or not.

imrathil realized as wraen asked him which way he had been heading, that he had no real destination in mind. smiling guiltily, he gave a shrug and a brief smile. he had no clear directive, other than to find wardruna -- that had been his reason for climbing onto such a vantage in the first place.

"not sure..  i stay in an encampment with a few other wolves not to far from here, but hadn't thought that far ahead yet." he admitted this freely, having no problem with seeming like a bumpkin or lost soul. "what about you?"

"I am on my way to meet my sister by the coast. We travel together and the only reason we split up now and then is to cover more ground in the search of food," Wraen told readily. "It's definitely easier to be out here on your own, when there is someone else to share the loneliness with, but that does not make hunting and abundance of prey any lighter than it is," she explained, referring to a more recent lack in their luck. She was beginning to worry, what would come of them, if the black streak would continue.

the coast.

a long-laid to rest part of imrathil stirred just beyond his consciousness, much the way fog might roil into shapes in your peripherals, only to become indistinguishable mist as soon as you train your eye upon them. he groped haplessly in the receding corridors of his mind, trying to figure out what memory had briefly come blaringly to the surface, only to retreat as soon as it submerged the inky depths of his unclear mind.

he frowned, but focused instead on the rest of wraen's explanation. "it is hard alone." he admitted more to himself than anything, remembering the weeks following wardruna's disappearance. he had survived, of course -- but it did not make the burden of going on alone, without his mentor, any better. "but i guess hunting for two is also hard. well.. if you two ever get tired, i think the people i'm with are nice." it was a half-hearted invitation, but it was genuine.

"I do not see that happening soon," Wraen replied almost carelessly, without realizing that in the coming weeks the prey would be so scarce that the two sisters would be forced to put their vagabond lifestyle on hiatus. "But I will keep that in mind," she added, being polite. "What people are you talking about?" she asked him to elaborate a bit more on the matter.

wraen's quick response didn't douse imrathil's spirits - if anything, he hardly seemed affected by how careless her tone may have seemed. he gave a brief smile, happy to elaborate. "i'm with a handful of people - one, cyclone, is the leader. she's very nice - then there's dashiell and vynn. we're a small group, but we've been sticking together for the last few months."

imrathil didn't know if he could call them a pack - while they had picked a location, they hardly had the numbers to enforce their territory. maybe they were more like a transient band.

"I have a feeling that I have met a certain Cyclone at some point," Wraen noticed, though between that event and this she had met a bunch of other people and therefore was not sure. Had the lady had some more distinct features - such as horns, wings or even the ability of spitting fire - she would not have escaped her memory that easily.

"How did you find each other?" she asked then, curious to about all and everyone's reasons to become lone wolves and then form a band. "I mean, you did belong somewhere before that, didn't you?"

imrathil's eyes brightened as wraen casually mentioned she may have known cyclone -- but no further information was parted. he realized he had very little knowledge of cyclone outside of daily interactions - she had come from somewhere before she met him.. a frown worked across his features, darkening his muzzle as wraen asked the nature of how they had come together.

imrathil didn't like delving into the past much - mostly because any time he did so, he was met with a sheer wall of forgetfulness. it sucked having no memory, no history, to base ones' identity in -- who was he, even?

"well, i was traveling with wardruna when he disappeared." imrathil shared, skipping mention that he himself was a man with a fractured past. "and cyclone found me searching for him. i guess she was a lone wolf too. then there were a few others. maybe sick of their parents or their pack or something. i guess it never occurred to me to ask." maybe because the suspicious part of him had died so many months ago alongside with his memory.

"Well, maybe the past does not matter that much, if you wish to build something new," Wraen said after a thought-filled pause. In the same instant she said this, she realized that this was not entirely true for her. Her past was a significant part of, who she was today. And there were hardly any regrets, when she looked back at her life. 

"Have you ever dreamt of being able to fly?" she asked out of the blue.

wraen's words may not have held true for her, but for some reason, they struck a cord in imrathil. they resonated, even. why was he trying so hard to hold onto something that, in all honesty, had left him behind? no one had come looking for him, that he knew of. perhaps his past was better left dead.

wraen's words gave him hope.

and then she asked if he had dreamt of flying. imrathil hadn't done much dreaming at all. "i don't remember my dreams." he admitted, but then looked to the sky with some envy. "but i do think the birds have it better."

The fellow was not the first person she had met, who did not recall his dreams. Which made Wraen, who had the most colourful, vivid and crazy dreams most of the time, pity him a little. As illogical and odd the dream land was it was a world lost to those, who could not reach it. 

"Maybe they do," she looked up as well, caught sight of a sea-gull, followed it's flight with her gaze for a while and then went on. "That's one of the things I would ask from a Jinn, if I encountered one," she went on. "They are supernatural creatures that can fulfill wishes. Usually it's three of them," she explained. "What would you wish for, if you had a chance?"

imrathil caught wraen peering skyward; as he looked above, he caught the angular form of a gull cutting through the wind. oh -- to be a bird, high above the toils and the troubles of the terrestrial world..

he had not heard of a jinn before, so it was good that wraen elaborated. the question, however, was met with some disgruntlement. in a moment of raw honesty, imrathil answered -- but not without some misgiving. "i'd ask to have my memories back." one wish, he thought, would be enough.

but what if he didn't like what he learned about his old self? what if there was something awful he had done, and his clouded mind was his subconscious' natural way of protecting him? he shifted, and in afterthought added: "and i guess the following wishes would be dependent on what i learned. what about you, then? would you wish to fly? and do they just give the wishes away, or is there a catch?"

"Oh, there is always, always a catch," Wraen replied, smiling knowingly. "You see - the jinn does exactly, what you ask him to do, but not, what you think you told him to do. Say, if I asked to be able to fly - I would probably not be able to land," she elaborated on the subject. "If I asked for food to come easy to me, it is very likely I would run into different problems. Say... other people would abuse me."

"I think that if you asked for your memories... there would be some sort of unpleasantness associated to it. You never know until you get the wish fulfilled," Wraen finished. "I don't think there is a single story, where limitless wish fulfillment has led to anything good."

wraens explanation of the jinn's deviousness came as some amusement to imrathil; another part of the world that wasn't quite as it seemed. he snorted at the mention of being unable to land -- there was always a catch, wasn't there?

"if only life was simple." imrathil imparted, glancing beyond where they stood. overhead clouds had begun to drift across the sky, and the wind had picked up its pace. "but, even though i dont remember anything, i do know if it's too good to be true, it's probably untrue." he trailed off, realizing he was quite far away from their original topic.

"It would be a lot easier, if it was," Wraen agreed, but then again she loved life as it was - all hardship, dark moments, events she regretted included. If it were not for the shadow, how could you truly appreciate the light?

She was curious as to, what had caused the loss of memory in her companion, but decided that it would be pointless asking that. For the simple reason that he did not remember. Instead she tried to imagine, what would it be like, if she woke up one morning, her memory as a blank slate. But the idea that the colourful house of thoughts, ideas and time most of all that she had built over her three years of life would be gone one day, was horrible. No. She never wanted to be in Imrathil's place, no matter, how sorry she felt for him. 

"Jinn's are not the only ones, who can fulfil wishes. Fairy godmothers can too and there is a very old and well-known tale about the golden fish and three wishes," she continued the topic, eyes alight with excitement, while she was rummaging around the figurative book-shelves of her mind and looking through the covers of the stories she had stored there. "Do you want to hear it?"

imrathil had no idea if he had ever heard of the goldfish and the three wishes; he blinked, trying to dredge from his memory some semblance of recognition...

nope, none came.

giving a rather weak smile, imrathil nodded. a story would be nice -- who knows, perhaps he'd remember this one, this time.