Deepwood Weald and if you don't know, now you know

He came to the borders of Aure's -- sorry, Andraste's or what the fuck ever -- new home, myriad emotions whirling through him as he kept a short distance away.

Vercingetorix tried to temper these emotions, thinking that he may be overreacting. Hadn't he left, after all? He'd gone to Rusalka in the hopes of a life for his kids along the coast. It hadn't worked out; he'd fucked it up. And yeah, he'd left, and they would always hold that against him. Maybe this was the same sort of thing.

But why hadn't she said anything?!

He worried for her health, her sanity. Being struck by lightning. . .didn't seem like the kind of occurrence you'd walk away from. At least not all fine and fucking dandy. Perhaps she was not in her right mind; maybe she didn't even remember them. That, too, was forgivable, though it would take time to heal. At least it would be an accident.

God, please let it be just lightning-based amnesia. Please dear god, tell him that she didn't just up and leave the kids.

The anger could wait for answers. The upset could wait for conversation. Right now, he was just confused, bewildered, hopeless. The trio were without a pack in a world that wouldn't stop shaking. The hope of finding Aure and reuniting the kids with their mom had kept him going, but now. . .

Fuck. Fuckity damn it. He just needed answers.

Vercingetorix howled into the autumn air for @Andraste, wherever, however, whoever she might be.

@Dragomir and @Isilmë welcome of course as are other members of Courtfall. set morning of Oct. 1

staying vague w demeanor for now

Aksva—
        it is what she has named that thing with feathers, perching upon elm boughs as if the last, fleeting sigil of faith; this thing with half-moon eyes that stared through the paltry stature of herself and knew the stormcloak that had become her mantle; that which the stricken must always veil from the sights of others, yes—
        —and when the call came, this thing took flight, leaving Andraste to wonder, hushedly, as to who-ever would summon her at such at time; disturbance! Nevermind amongst such a moment!

        Half-knowable, now, the beholder of said call;
        and though she cast herself through them all the same, her firstsworn had all but become one with the mists he had pledged himself to. Those avowed lurk no less, and with only a vague, bleary concern does the stricken tread ever onward towards the thinning perimeters. 

When gaze drapes upon the haggard, inked, figure, Andraste is a thinning fragment of porcelain pillar. Her step does not hasten in the manner it might have when she had been Aurëwen; shorn features an unassuming wonderment; argent brow knit, vaguely addled. There are many lulls in her arrival, and yet, when she eventually shrouds before him—

" ... Vercingetorix,”
and the name is canted as enquiry and statement on the wisping tones of tongue; cloudthick recognition arrives in the treachery of a faint, faltering whimper  (how past-lived!)  as if wondering at herself and at the male before her. Even as she now knows who he is; even as a fragment within might presume as to why he had ever come to the Weald.

        Yet her eyes still gleam faraway, even as they settle upon the iridescence of his own.

Okay, so the lightning thing seemed to be legit. There were new scars upon her body and she had a kind of faraway stare, as if she were looking through him rather than at him. For a moment, amnesia seemed like a probable theory. . .and then she said his name.

So okay, he threw that possibility out of his mind. Now time to tackle the Rusalka-esque theory.

You remember me, he said, keeping his emotions in check (for now). Verx held her gaze, his own eyes gimlet, searching. What about your kids? the man asked. His throat grew thick; he swallowed, forging on. Dragomir? Isilmë? His son's devastated face entered his mind, suddenly, and he felt his breath hitch.

Were you gonna come back for them? he questioned baldly, his voice quieter than before.

It wasn't about him. It wasn't about her. It was about them. It should have always been about them.

”Yes,”
she breathed; unbidden if not for the fragments of blood-mother that yet remained.  “I was departing. I ... wanted to return. I longed to see them. I,”  pale planes of the fissured masque shifting, for recollection of these specifics was a fickle thing,  “I slept. I dreamt. I woke. I woke, and I was not Aurëwen,”  gaze, fell and argent,  ”never again a mother.”  How could she have ever been? How was she to make he before her understand?  ”Ze skies have met ze earth. They have sent me ... farther,”  and at this her crown arced to the heavens; flushed like new harvest.  ”It will not let me return.”  Never again would she bring peril to those she had breathed life into— by Stigmata, by misrepresented Sanguinus—

Still she regarded Vercingetorix with hazed eyes; eyes that had become half-lashed, adrift, as she feathered her plume towards the Weald she’s staked claim upon:

”For moons, I endlessly went from ze ones I have brought into this world. I cannot reclaim ze many hours that should have been used for their betterment; all ze days of my idling. But — there are so many that walk ze earth and go unversed; who wander, ever as I shall, to find that elusive hearth that they have yet to name."  Until she had nurtured several patrons and several more, her womb would go unhastened; if she must burrow underworld from that fateful season ... so be it.  ”Though I am no longer she, a name cannot truly cast aside all of my wrongdoing. But this ambition remains my atonement,"  gaze ironed,  “and my atonement is this ambition, and I would share in this with all."

Every hour would be ticked into the instruction of another  (whether they flourished or wizened)  for all those that had went uninhabited in the early days of her own brood. Perhaps, however, some would think it a fool’s errand — no doubt that her previous words had made definite the true loss of any familial ties. No doubt they would very well not follow her; not with an anguished brood, no.

She did not know; she had never known the wishes of children who, at the time, had been likewise hers; and so her fault lie there, and in that she had quailed and quivered in bringing her truths to them, as well; had been thoughtless in her departing for Moonspear in the first place.

Never again would she be without such thought, for this.

As usual, she spoke in fucking riddles, and his ears canted far forward to try to make sense of it all. He became angrier and angrier as she went on but managed to hold his tongue until she'd finished; basically, what he gleaned from her speech was that the lightning strike had given her some sort of epiphany which evidently prevented her from going back to her kids.

But wait! There was more! Not only was she not returning, but she was gonna help other wolves without a home, right here, in the weald. Not her kids. She wasn't going back to her kids. Just a bunch of randos. You know. Whatever --

Are you fucking serious? Verx asked, and his voice came out calmer than he thought it would. You're literally gonna fucking trade in your children to be some sort of good shepherd here? He already knew she was delusional, but this. . .this was something else. Lightning strike really managed to scramble her brains around more.

I hope you know they fucking hate you, he lied, hoping to -- god, he didn't know. Hurt her? Did she even care? And so do I. Do you know what I fucking gave up for you, Aure? I can never go home and see my brothers, my family, because I'm a natrona. Because I fucked you and you ended up pregnant and oh, fuck me, right? I wanted to keep y'all safe, so I gave it all up! And you're telling me that you're just going to fucking walk away? Fuck you, you self-righteous bitch!

He huffed and puffed, ignorant of the precarious position he was in. Come on, let whoever she'd wrangled into these woods come and attack him. He was ready for them. He was ready to take on the world she'd created in lieu of being a mother.

just watching for now! feel free to skip her.

Her light brown pelt shone under the morning sun rays; there were very few of them though. The tangled trees blocked the sun almost entirely. She liked it however. Ever since the beige woman made this weald her home along the silver, she came to like it’s eerie feeling. She felt.. protected, safe from any harm.
 
An unknown howl made her ears twitch; who was calling for the silver at such early hours? Agana decided to investigate who was this mysterious caller. Not long after, the scene unfolded in front of her; perhaps something she was not meant to see, or hear.
 
Agana had heard everything; what she felt in that moment could not be described. But from their conversation, Andraste had children of her own which she chose to forget; and this black male claims to be their father. It was an odd situation; and she could not do anything about it.
 
Still, it was clear where her loyalties where; her body emerged from beneath the twisted trees, unsure of her next decisions and movements. The female kept quiet and watched from safe distance what was in front of her.

Last from me.

How this moment ridiculed her!
and how she condescended to let it cascade upon her shoulders; features settling into solemn vigilance, inscrutability entire as he named her shepherd and self-righteous bitch — and yet, there had been no preaching to her tones. There had been no fevered gleam perched within her gaze; only the dimming cloak of one who has only found sense in supposed nonsense. This errant male before her was no better than she: unknowable.

Vercingetorix had never understood her—
she had lain upon her belly and let him in because she thought she had loved him. She had given him her support for his raid upon Rusalka  — the shores that had almost killed him —  because she thought she had loved him. She had stood against Stigmata and had whisked her children over sun and spire, all because she thought she had loved him; she had forgiven his dual departure, all because she had told herself she was in love with him. Him!— he who, last they had spoken had, quite plainly, told her to give up on him.

And now she would.
She would away from him, fleet, before he would see the glistering of her eyes and know it for what it was; before she threaded her sights back upon him and intoned, hushed,  “You should have never had mine.”  The specter of a smile that was more fang than favor; the words featherlight, unfraying. There was the assumption that she would never again see him — and perhaps it was all for the better. He and his children would never again have such an unhinged, unforgiving, ungrounded mother in their lives; a mother who had only ever meant well, yet hadn’t ever truly been able to convey that to the family she had been apart of.

Let them hate, then.

When the weald’s shade billowed down upon her once more, she invited Agana to her side, as to all those others who had gathered to inspect the commotion; drew away those who had readied themselves to surge to her; act as shield; he did not deserve it.

All hail Her Satanic Majesty, or whatever.

In this moment, she was worse than Caiaphas -- because even though Blackhead had killed a kid, she had supposedly done it for the benefit of avenging her own. Her own children. Those she'd cared about enough to kill for. Aure was a mother walking away from living, breathing children. . .so fuck that.

Yeah, but I did, Verx retorted nastily. I did put babies into you and you popped them out, and now that you're just gonna leave 'em I'll take care of them. I'll be their real parent. You're just gonna walk away, aren't you? God, I hope you burn in hell, Aurewën! he shouted after her as she left, voice roaring off the trees.

He'd thought about Drago's face again, halfway through that diatribe, and now tears stood in his eyes, his vision shimmering. Vercingetorix sucked in a huge breath, summoning all the energy he'd lost in yelling. Breathed, breathed, and with a final, hollered, FUCK! he turned, stalking away.

If anyone were to pursue, they'd meet his teeth. Otherwise, he was headed back -- back to the kids he sure as hell wasn't gonna let down now. They'd been failed enough.