Lone Star Mountain my heart has sought a thing i cannot name

@Stigmata! Any other Diasporians welcome! :big eyes emoji:
Setting Somewhere in the Sunspire Mnts
Time Backdated to 1.5 months ago-arrived half a month earlier than Aure to the Wilds.
Summary Having survived the fall from the northern ice-fields (beyond Bracken Woods), Vonn finally collapses from exhaustion on the edges of Diaspora’s claim.

Exhaustion, sleep was insistent. Exhaustion, he’d collapsed from; sleep, murmuring at his lashes. A deep, unending Sleep that seemed more forgiving, more lenient than Death.

Death, that always knelt over him, whispering at his shoulder, his cheek, his ear. 

He was more terrified of an abysmal Slumber than the promise that Death brought. Unlike Aurëwen — beauteous, gleam-of-cold, terrifying Aurëwen — who had sought sanctuary with the heavens, he had slept.

And slept.

And slept.

Slept, until he’d been re-animated as such; had become Repose personified, just a more forgiving avatar than Death. From there on, he was velvet-voiced and just as heavy-lidded; an eccentric drowsiness nipped at his hocks; something more imminent mouthed at his marred chin, and caressed the marred of him.

He fell into it, between it, into all of it, on crumpling legs and arced spine. All he knew was that he was in the mountains—and dreamed of Rhaesuial. And then nothing.

stigmata did not see the fall, but he came upon the scene some time after, drawn in by a trickling scent of wolf-blood. he stood over the barrel-chested victim of the mountains, and took his time learning each trenchant detail of his crumpled body. his eyes raked across disheveled white fur, strewn with snow and smears of red from hidden lacerations, and he noticed that there were other scars too, older ones; tattoos from another life.

through the tender snowfall he noticed the downed white knight's shallow breathing, and out of morbid curiosity, he pressed his nose repeatedly to the male's shoulder in an attempt to stir him.

After a few heartbeats of insistent touching, the pale wanderer roused, blinking glazed eyes as a notch began to form in his muzzle -- but it melted away into a look of scrutiny and weariness when he saw the darker male above him. Thought better of greeting his... witness?... with a snarl, as he might know of hospice or such to rest himself.

His eyes shuttered again, brow furrowing in an attempt to gain his bearings, before he painstakingly arced his neck and tilted his head to look up at the sterling male. Unable to find his voice for a moment; which was unmistakably, foreignly worn from travel,  "Where am I?"

stigmata stood back as the snow-beaten male came to life, reanimating stiffly as he seemed to regain some of his bearings. the hound of iron wondered if anything was broken - if he would be able to make it. he wasn't against helping a fellow wolf, but only if they were capable of returning the favor sooner rather than later. he was likely not a wolf that would tend to the broken-limbed, because he didn't see the worth in it. sentimentality be damned. if it were him, he thought he'd rather be put down.

for now, the fallen wolf wasn't screaming in pain, so that was either a good sign, or a very, very bad one. "these are the diaspora's mountains," he said gravely. "you have fallen, from a great height, i presume. how injured are you, do you feel?" he asked, because priorities first.

How did he feel? "And I fell into your lands?" Vonn craned his neck even further, to the spires thrust up from the earth's bowels. His pale gaze a tad bleary as they attempted to discover the site from where he'd tumbled from. If he'd known this peppered stranger's inner musings, he might have agreed -- and for a moment, like so many other times, he wished and wondered how he hadn't died yet. And why. "As well as one could feel after plummeting to an incomplete death."

With a rasping breath, he haltingly, achingly began to rise to his thorn-tipped paws; pressing his weight into snow and ice, muscles straining in the column of his neck and shoulders. He felt light, too light; the effort made him tremble. Snarling at the frost as he pushed himself up, and up -- and with one last stagger, he'd risen. 

"I apologize for such an intrusion." Left with his heavy chest heaving, despite his stocky bearing, he was of middling height by male standards; nowhere near the height of this Diasporian... ambassador? who he cast a shadowed gaze up to. 

it appeared he had been misheard, or at least misunderstood. despite himself, stigmata smiled - something quite rare indeed - and he snorted a plume of hot air. "my apologies, wolf, but i was not asking how you feel," he explained, eyeing the male, who might otherwise be an impressive figure, as he began his struggle to rise. the ironwraith watched the painful process in dreary silence; admiring the male's shuddering plight with an assessing glance and no encouragement to speak of. he waited until the male stood hunched at a middling height, before speaking again.

"i was trying to ascertain if you had broken anything, but it seems you will make it." he lifted his chin at the meaningless apology - surely this wasn't what the wolf had wanted to do, and even if he had come across diaspora in hale conformation, he would have likely been greeted with diplomacy before savagery. "you should sit, or lie back down," he lazily advised the stranger without preamble. "i will help you recover."

For one, he appreciated the lack of praise; if any were have been spoken, it would've needed receiving. In Vonn's case, he didn't exactly feel like he'd lived up to anything worthy of admiration; the last thing he wished to do was giving thanks.

"Moi? S'allonger? Non, merci. I will sit." At the ambassador's next words, Vonn shook his head, more in disbelief than disobedience, for he'd begun to stiffly recline to his haunches while speaking. The plume of a tail tapping about his haunches, he continued, "I value your helping me, monsieur, but how will it be done? For me, I am in ze middle of nowhere." The fallen male gestured to the snowscape about them, to the smatterings of blood beneath his great paws - which he noticed only now.

"I suspect a concussion will creep upon me soon enough, however." He took the sight in of his own blood, faint across snow, with a flickering of some muscle near his jaw.

though his ears twitched faintly at the foreign language, he was able to let them pass him without seeming nonplussed. most wolves who spoke another tongue often used it to insult him, but that was not the vibe he was getting from this male's maudlin impression. he tipped his head as the wolf prattled on, concerned about more things than he seemed capable of fully puzzling through the at the moment. stigmata was patient, and could only hope the traveler would be whole again; else this would be a giant waste of his time.

"you will stay here, for now," he said in a way that wasn't to be questioned, or denied. to deny would be to offend. "i can help you clean yourself up, and i will bring you something to eat. the rest must come later." any questions? he looked at the bloodied male, prepared to leave him for a time so that he might better serve him.

The tone of voice that followed Vonn’s previous words made his ears flicker back; if he stumbled through the misty memories of his mind, he would’ve said that his lord-father only spoke to him in such a way. Soberingly, he realized the tone of this ambassador was completely justified—whether that or some other sort of representative of Diasporia, he’d fallen into their claims. And, it seemed, into their good graces; at least a little bit.

”You are a generous one,” he confessed, and for a fleeting, rare moment his own eyes creased into crescent moons. At the question in his eyes, the porcelain traveler merely acquiesced, ”When I am healed, allow me to repay you in some way. In a hunt, in a bargain.” In his bleary mind, this made sense, too; and yet, he had no clue what he was trying to say.

A dull ache had begun to creep behind his eyes, and a wary groan slipped from him. Opening them only to give their surroundings another look, they slit on shelf of stone, curtained away by ice and hollowed into the mountain. ”I would stay there,” he nodded, face solemn again, ”for ze remainder of my time here... However long that may be.”

though his upended company seemed appropriately grateful for stigmata's hospitality, the leader of diaspora was under no such illusion - and he was not able to return the resplendent wolf's cheer. "i believe the truly generous expect nothing in return," the basilisk huffed. "i have no such inclinations." it was good then, that the foreigner seemed adamant of his own accord to repay diaspora's efforts on his behalf, and stigmata cocked his head slowly. "you are more than allowed, good wolf," he added darkly, feeling no need to reiterate that it was something he almost expected.

stigmata followed his moonbeam gaze to the cold mountain shelf indicated, and gave a single nod. "as you wish," he murmured, unwilling now to reveal that he had been willing to cradle the wolf within the confines of his own motley crew. "settle here for now," he suggested, using a long, tapered foreleg to pull back some of the snow, so that his nameless guest could lie down more comfortably. "i would have you eat before you are moved."

he did not wait for any argument. if the male wanted to push himself and head up to shelter now, he was welcome to it. in the meantime, stigmata turned away and bounded across drift and mound until he was out of sight - soon to return with a meal for the fallen stranger.

He merely bent his head in further appreciation at the other’s words, and then watched as the overcast male pitched himself over the snowy terrain, and was soon out of sight. Moved... so, he was to be taken to this Diasporian encampment, then.

Licking dry lips, the pale wanderer turned his gaze to the earthen shelter instead. Getting to his paws this time proved to be significantly less harrowing; nonetheless, he was labored by the time he got there. He’d planned to settled down with some dignity, but ended up losing balance, and landed with a disconcerted huff on his ribs.

Mon dieu, I feel ancient.

Vonn simply hoped that when he arrived within the pack’s heart, the bairns wouldn’t be too disturbed by his appearance.