Arrow Lake but please let me plead, I just need you to let me have this

just on the borders dated for the 30th — edit: switched thread from Joining to AW...apologies

He didn't recall much of the journey here. He didn't recall much of anything, honestly. The ache in his body had not ceased (for good reason as he had apparently deemed it fit to push his limits) and he had not bothered to wash his own blood off himself. Scratches, gashes, and bruises — he had them all. Anyone with eyes could tell he had been through something recently.

He found himself lingering on borders that carried scents he didn't know. Nothing familiar but what was familiar? It was here he finally gave in and let his rear meet the earth. Instincts told him it was best to not linger unannounced. Yet all he could offer was a croaky chuff that hurt more than he anticipated.

it was difficult to discern which of the pair was more wretched as they met; ingram, downtrodden in his soul, or rokig — beaten and roughshod at best.

ingram had been walking when he heard the chuff, and once he came upon rokig he examined the stranger with a solemn gaze unusual for him. stigmata’s death still lingered in his mind, straddling his shoulders like a swinging torc. hello, you looking for someone? while not entirely friendly, his posture and tone was civil — just heavy with unspoken sadness.

Distant stare settled on the approaching dark figure. In his mind he saw someone else at first. Someone from a time long ago and a sense of warmth spread in his chest. Whoever it was before him morphed into someone else. As soon as he had started to make a shape of who they might have been — who he saw them for — the vision vanished. Greeted with a voice he couldn't place to anything. A few slow blinks passed before he seemed to truly see the man.

I don't... Hoarse and broken came the words. I don't know. It hurt like his lungs were squeezed with each words and like water had not been had for weeks. I'm sorry. He pushed the words out of himself and even though he had spoken them, he was not sure what he was saying them for.

Ghostly distant gaze settled upon his dark company waiting for some kind of guidance.

ingram frowned as he regarded the male; it was not a reflection of his presence, but a reflection of stigmata’s noted absence. without the general, diaspora was likely soon to be aground; ingram could not help but feel that helpless flutter, for no more would a strident and stormy-gazed basilisk join him. no more would stigmata rise to meet those at his borders.

ingram tried to fit the hole, but it was woefully big. how would have stigmata apprehended this bedraggled man? he was in sorry condition, and ingram knew the late general would have sneered at ingram’s softness. all the same, an age-old and timeless question tumbled from the eyjolfur’s lips, hung in the air like a crystalline and fragile gimbal. ..are you alright?