Ravensblood Forest father of the year

Aure's healing had helped, but Vercingetorix was still dragging himself from the fever, his wounds on the mend. Physically, he was not in peak condition, and mentally, well. . . Let's just say the fever had addled his brains, somewhat.

Which was why, when he was unable to track down his son, he assumed it was his mind playing tricks on him. And then he stumbled upon the last strong traces of Dragomir's scent, mingled with others, and rage and fear and disbelief crashed down on him all at once.

DRAGOMIR!!

His rasping voice crackled loudly through the trees like thunder and lightning mingled together, startling birds from roosts and small prey from their burrows. He looked in every nook and cranny, searching for the boy. Panic grew, cresting like a wave until it spilled over and he was practically frothing at the mouth, panting, stammering, eyes sharp with terror even despite the fever glaze.

DRAGOMIR!

He shouted again upon the tail end of his search here. Then, nostrils flared wide, he began to follow the bread crumbs left behind, the faint, meandering scent trail of his son. Where it would lead, what he would find. . .

Nightmare scenarios flashed through his head, but he kept them at bay. He just needed to find the boy, as soon as fucking possible.

gonna slap this here instead if that’s ok? (just 1 post from me)

For all her faults and her fierce foolishness this season, Aurëwen was undeniably tireless.

Perhaps he’d taken the night with him, and had tucked himself away in the corner of this bleeding world somewhere; and so she’d busied herself seeing to Isilmë and to the corruption in Verx’s wounds, and whatever else she could stave her own fidgeting. Her frenetics has eased some, but, then again, she was a mother; so they might never, as next light found her toeing the liminal edges of the wearing trails of Dragomir’s scent.

He’d asked to be alone, hadn’t he? And she knew better than to dare follow on yet another olive branch that’s been proffered towards her ...and yet, with a gentle enquiry of “Balaur?” made sifting and sweet on the faint summer winds, the herbalist strode off with silken, reaching, fleet-pawed strides. She was scarce able enough to spare a short call for @Sanguinus, who hadn’t yet met her beloved, but—

There was a mossen log, bedecked in fungi galore and draped of her son’s scent; and she sniffed, and smelt, and breathed in in in, all the way until she reached a gloamed glen which seemed to be where her little dragon had roosted last.

Here, though, was the most curious concoction of smells — others — and through the incremental staccato of her heart, of Verx’s cries, she knew something was amiss. The silver could only look towards him, waxen face tinged with a wondering sort of dread. All she could do was stand there, shivering so badly that she dared not to step about, lest she fall of her own accord. 

Where has he flown?

cameo for now, feel free to skip

He answered the summon immediately and silently found himself following behind the concerned mother, ever watchful for her wayward son who'd apparently vanished into thin air. He was not a father himself and did not know of the terror clattering around in the fevered man's head, but the wretched cries swirling in the summer air were enough to shake the champion's bones with sorrow.

Aure's own trembling left him speechless, worried and desperate to find the missing child, for he did not wish to see either of them deal with this overwhelming fear any longer than they needed to. And so he slid forward and offered a soft tap to the scarred sylph's shoulder, a silent promise to help in any way he could.

cameo!

Dragomir had made it clear he wanted time to himself, and that suited her fine enough. thus far, her life had been far to tumultuous to form the kind of attachments she ought to have, to both others and her own family. still, above all, it was Dragomir she felt closest to, and so her father's thunderous words were enough to draw her near to him despite her lingering anger. 

she ensured distance remained between them, having no desire to show herself. as understanding dawned, so did her anger grow - this time, it felt distant and foreign. he'd left again. helpless and hopeless, suddenly, and she backpedaled, face set into a firm mask of distress. there was no warning, or perhaps there was one only lost among the anger, but either way there was no stopping the sudden disappearances of those she cared about. silently, she withdrew, slipping back the way she'd come.

last last post, just tagging the daddio for ref

The touch of her former guide was what aided Aure into moving into action; in the terse lulls that followed and filled the deafening silence ever further, the silver mother moved from Sanguinus’ side to instead whisper past her beloved’s flank, pinked nostrils flaring in tentative, half-hazy focus. “He would not leave without a word to us,” she murmured, more to herself than anything — and then she drew from @Vercingetorix’s side and into the dark copse beyond...

...and no sooner had her breaths came ragged, raw, as she stared into the blasphemous dark, petrified in thought, body— “They took him,” she croaked, and trembled ever harder.

The scents might be fraying, and her tenacity for tracking, for inspection might be lacking; but the signs were there, in the scuffling near the fated stump, and the remnants of an odd misstep towards the riverway.

Embers she’d once been kissed with now piqued from their slumber into something raw, ferocious, indifferently ruthless... but, no. She must smother it, all of it, for when she looked into the eyes of her son’s snatchers  (or, so she hoped, so she thought). With ruff shivering into a cascading mess of frenetic nerves, the herbalist could only look toward the water with an uncharicaristically hateful study.

What did the water take from me?
Her breath came faster, at that; at the prospect of one of their brood perhaps facing the same damnable fate that she’d fallen to, not a month shy of three moons herself. And then, there was the worse; it could always be worse, always, always;

“No,” she grit out, but it was a choked, desperate, hushed. And then strained, thinner than a whimper, “No,” as wrathful veils of salt drew themselves over her argent gaze. Breath rattled weak in the clutches of springy ribs, claws scored into the loam with a deep knead, and she was shivering, quaking, unseeing—