Dragoncrest Cliffs well every lord i pray doesn’t sound the same,
wearing my dream like a diadem in some better land.
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@Isleña!! /ugly laughs
those tagged are simply for reference <3
Setting Morning after this. So, 1/2/2019

The early morning, grey and blue and full of frostfall, turned its sights onto the would-be herbalist who’d risen even earlier. Hours ago, she’d roused from her dreams—or lack thereof—with a soft breath. Since then, she’d wound her way from her hollow, to medli‘s past ruminations, and loitered around the apothecary; @Rose hadn’t been there.

So, as the wintry beams sluggishly trickled through the arms of redwoods, Aure had taken to meandering around the lake for both Drakru and prey. Her coltish, snowy legs coiled; her nerves had been snagged by some sense of... impatience. They fizzed with it, bringing her hackles to a rise as she rounded the rise and made her way to the cliffs.

She hadn’t really got a wink of sleep in... weeks, she thinks, unless the few hours between war and storm counted. And she was restless. Absolutely, out-of-her-mind restless.

@Eastwood had been right; too much peace, too much comfort, too much ease... it set her on edge. It always had, even if peace was something to be cherished. But as she crested the lip of a precipice and settled down, let the flakes of snow settle upon her porcelain pelt... she knew what this agitation was, and what it meant.

She needed to set out for Vonn, just as @Takiyok had begun the search for her family. Soon.
the world is cold and life's not fair
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Like Aure, sleep had not found Isleña easily. In a very similar train of thought, the banshee mused that she likely hadn’t experience a full night of sleep in weeks — maybe months. But, unfortunately, that was how it went when one lost their family and everyone they had ever loved. First it was sleep that left her awake at night, then it was her security that left her shaking during the day, and then it was every happy thought and memory that forsook her and would not reappear no matter how much she tried— and do trust, Isleña was trying.

Isleña ever-churning mind, brimming with worries and uncertainties, had calmed slightly at the sudden appearance of her the dar-furred lover. It was a strange twist of events that she might turn up in the same pack as he, but these types of incidences just seemed to happen with Isleña. It made her so good at subterfuge where most Luks were only skilled fighters. Though Isleña too was not bad in a scrap, these random chance encounters always made her life more interesting than she really deserved.

The woman saw Aure around the lake, and didn’t question why she was out and about at so early in the morning. Really, Isleña did not want to engage the white, verbose woman at all — she was much better at sulking on her own, because she seemed to be misunderstood and misinterpreted at every turn. Still, the roan wolfess felt that she owed Aure a debt of gratitude, because had it not been for her, Isleña might be as good as dead. With a grumble deep in the pit of her throat, Isleña stalked within Aure’s earshot.

“Tha-ank you,” she called out bluntly, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.
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wearing my dream like a diadem in some better land.
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The skayona had ended up lounging at the precipice, snowshoe paws curled at the wrist over the dark crest and her chin propped upon them. Her pale eyes had been enthralled with the sea, peering into it as she would a pond; as if she wasn’t on the verge of an endless, briney drop. Distantly, she wondered how many times doamnă de sânge or dragă had ended up pondering before these incessant waves. Countlessly? Always?

But now, her eyes whirled to seek for the source of a stumbling of...gratitude. Half-distracted, they finally alit on a smoldering she-wolf she didn’t recognize at first, and her slim brows narrowed generously as she scoured her most recent memories. Foraging... the excursion... oh! Weeks of activity had gone by, and in the time since she’d all but almost forgotten the ranach Mallaidh and she had recruited.

So, with that in mind, she supposed that Isleña must be thanking her for that, despite the rushed lapse time had lent them. ”It is nothing,” she mused, and as an afterthought, leapt into the baser speech of Common for the brana’s convienence. Perhaps it would open up another way to communicate? Nevertheless, it had been a learned thing from Rhaesuial, when unversed tenants would arrive and they scarce had any means of communication beyond gesture.

And if that were the case... what if she taught Isleña?

Rising up to face the roan female, she made to close the distance between them, before reclining back onto her haunches. ”How do you feel, at Drageda? Sad still? Safe?” Aure hoped her reclusive bearing wouldn’t give cause to Isleña to balk again; but she tried to make her features soft for her. Open, as the night did for borean veins, sometimes.
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With all of the grace of a white-tailed doe, or a silken dove, Aure turned to her and spoke in words that were simple, and even somewhat understood by Isleña. This recognition of words excited Isleña, and the part of her that had been somewhat unwilling to interact with others easily fell away and her mind swam with the possibilities — the conversations she could finally have with others!

Perhaps this was a large expectation to place upon a woman who had hardly said 10 words to her, but Isleña was an all-or-nothing kind of girl and she would not let someone she considered a sudden friend think that the gift she had given was nothing.

Isleña stood a little bit taller, not out of dominance but out of confidence. “Nothing? No…” she slurred, wishing she could support that claim with examples or anecdotes, but her abilities lapsed and her mouth clipped closed, voice cut short. “Umm…” the girl stammered, not entirely disheartened yet. Aure trotted closer and Isleña met her in her advance, tail swaying low and steady. “Drageda good,” the copper-toned girl said simply, thankful that Verx had taught her the correct pronunciation of the pack’s title prior to this meeting of hers. “Good, good, good.”
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The brana rose to meet her, bringing stilted words along with her, so the two could speak more leniently. Aure nodded all the same, and perhaps it was because of what Takiyok had enlightened her upon, but soft quiver of a smile curled at the corners of her lips at 'goog good good'. A bit less rare of her, lately, but all the same lured from her early on. "Sounds good," she gingerly chirped back.

"When I once brana," Aure began, keeping her words level enough for now, "I was... weak-thoughts. Empty heart, lonely," the skayona continued, trying to get the point across as to how forlorn she'd felt when trying to prove her worth here. It was an attempt to relate, if nothing else; perhaps the news of Vonn being alive was was made her so telling at this moment. "Then, after war, I find purpose. Purpose is Drageda."

She mulled over what she meant to say next; how could she toe the threshold of interest, but not coddle this other she-wolf like a whelp? She knew how exhausting one tended to be after learning only a few mere words of a new language, so she didn't want to invade her limits. "You will be okay." The paler of the two pursed her lips in thought, eyes drifting to the scenery about them for a moment. For now, though, she ended her little tale with a gentle "You will know Drakru," (read: 'make-friends-of') and allowed Isleña to process all of this at her own pace.
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Even these words, and few and simple as they were, flew over Isleña’s head faster than she could ever try to catch them. There was only one word she knew, weak, and the girl held onto it with all she knew despite having no context. The banshee sat there grinning, not interested in letting her excitement over her previous understanding fade, and nodded her head as Aure spoke as if she was in complete agreement. Weak? Isleña was almost positive that the Skayona wasn’t talking about her so yeah, sure, whatever!

When it was clear that Aure was finished, Isleña parroted the “O-okay,” and scooted her hiney closer, tail dusting the area of ground behind her with its constant movement. Isleña was eager, but for what, she didn’t really know. There was another words that sounded as if it was in their guttural language, that felt close to her own mother tongue, and Isleña wanted to speak it despite having no reason to.

“Drakru — fight?” she queried, giving the word some meaning so that she wasn’t simply spitting out pointless words like a child. It was also a very valid question; Isleña knew that these were warriors simply by the energy and stature of the wolves that lived within, but beyond that, the banshee had no confirmation of such a thing. Such a thing was important to Isleña, if she were to make Drageda her home and devote her loyalties, which were worth their weight in gold, to them.

Isleña tightened her gaze and stuck her nose out closer, noticing the scarring of Aure’s beautiful face for the first time. “You… fight…” she said solemnly, suspecting this wasn’t true of the gentle woman. Someone had done this to her.
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Although her soft smile didn't vanish, the crescent curves of her jaw and throat worked in a tremulous little gulp. "Y-... yes," was all she breathed, wisping and withdrawn. She receeded into herself, into the she-wolf who'd told her tale to Takiyok yesterday; who'd gone at length of it alongside Verx so many eves ago, had returned. Even as Isleña neared, studied her diadem of hurts as if she might try to sew them with threads of pyre, the present vanished before her bleary, starlit eyes and was overwhelmed by the past.

Water and blood. Winter water in lungs. Brother's blood on tongue. Bedeviled hymnal. All she heard. All she became. Wail and shriek of bone in neck. Eyes, His eyes; mad eyes, empty eyes. Mad mortal, mad god. Ravenous god, severing her from herself as her brother screamed and there was only this endless agony agony agony—

The fanatical, unhallowed baptism had ruined her, and as she grew stilted and wavering; in her mind, Aure was convinced that she would never be lovely again. Unless, by some blessing, she was made to see otherwise, she would perservere in the inner allure that she'd cultivated ever since. At least, she hopes that remains, if nothing else will.

For so long, Aure had fallen far and from herself, like waves that had been kept from the shores for far too long. But, a little voice entreated to her, as she bit into her lip, you've always known. And your beloved thinks you are without flaw. Is it not what you deserve? There is nothing to be frightened of. Those she had been deemed loving and beauteous by — they were heavensent, not her. Never her.

Her heart beat irregularly, straining against what she knew to be true and all of that she’d buried within it. All the same, there is no shame in knowing your beauty, Elbereth, the voice whispered. "I..." With a trembling breath, it was with a film of tears that Aure brought her gaze back to the cocoa female, simmering with the hushed embers that the skayona had glimpsed when they'd first met. This brana was stunning; unmarred, as far as looks went, with piercing eyes of the sea. Exquisite. And it was this that made Aure's soul shy from herself.

With another weak, shuddering breath, salt-limned lashes fluttered as they cradled astral eyes full of repose. "I... I tried. D-drown," The words came out quivering; and then her bottom, ivory lip followed suite, and then she was fracturing in all her strained silence. Wilting, trembling like baby's breath as she babbled, voice hushed; unable to stop the tears from threading, dew-like, down her taut cheeks, "Wh-why couldn't I s-stop him? Why--"

Fractured, as the weight of her forsaken childhood, of Vonn, of her unsteady life in these unforgiving Wilds turned her voice in a weak, whelp's whimper.
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Her questions elicited reaction that, to be blunt, Isleña hadn’t expected. Surely having one’s face scarred must be an unpleasant experience, but it seemed whatever happened to Aure had been truly horrifying. Awful enough to crumble the woman to tears, and strip the voice from her throat. In the end, Isleña didn’t truly know what awfulness had befallen Aure, but it inspired empathy within the banshee, as well as a small amount of pity. 

Islena scooted closer to the distraught woman, feeling slightly guilty for imbuing their nice interaction with a newfound distress. First it had been Isleña to cry, and now Aure was cashing in her chips. Isleña remained silent but allowed a slow whimper-whine to emanate from deep within her throat. She attempted to comfort the woman with carefully uttered series of  “S’okay, s’okay…”  which really held no meaning to her, but she had heard some wolves use it every now and again, and it seemed well within context. Isleña’s lower lip pouted unwillingly, as this brought back all of the things she had done in her life which she wasn’t proud of. There were many.
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Aure felt, more than she saw, Isleña's comforting words, felt her move nearer to the ivory she-wolf. The skayona, for the first time, didn't turn away the pity of another. It was well-deserved, and not altogether given in some ill-intended way.

So she took it, all of the comfort that the she-wolf had to give -- well, tried to. She would find her hanar... somehow. Soon. With that thought in mind, she allowed the cocoa brana to come closer; and once her tears stopped, she could feel whatever bond between them shine a little brighter.