Northstar Vale ¹ oþlō

part i of a request of thalia & based off of this!

Inexplainable, this; this creature that moves through the mists in manner that is not preything but elicts such from the stricken all the same; she, who has been roused from a meager slumber and the remnants of which are swiftly done away with as the spindly touch of curiosity and caution alight upon the fogg'd webbing of her mind. It is of no scent she cold have ever known -- is not close enough to know. She might not even dare.

A lowing for @Andromaque, then. Let the firebrand sleuth alongside her once more.

She had at last found respite beneath the sheltering limbs of an old oak, russet fur ruffled and made muddy by rainfall. Andromaque has nearly drifted off when the familiar howl drifted through the air. Stumbling, sleep still in her eyes, she rose to her paws and followed it. 

”What is it?” she asked once reaching the side of the pale wolf, senses alert as she scanned the woods before them.

"I cannot say,"  the stricken murmurs, ears aswivel to catch the crunch of thin frost and fraying leaf underpaw as the burnt approaches.  "There is much within ze Vale that we have yet to unearth."  And perhaps still they might not be shown all; but Andraste took the fleeing of this hulking figure  (so in gloom! so inconspicuous from here!)  as an invitation all the same.

Wisp of silver; flicker of flame; each respective spectre setting a course for the great and reaching shadow. Eat; escort; had become one and the same. They had done so with eagles.

Why not the same for this?

Interest piqued, she followed — as she always did when it came to Andraste. They woven through barren trees, sky gloomy and dim between gnarled branches stretched out above them. Andromaque sniffed the air, wondering what type of scent whatever Andraste had seen would have. There was nothing odd about the woods, at least not that she noticed. ”Can you describe what you saw?” she asked, searching for any inkling of a hint as to what it was Andraste had seen in the woods.

What had she seen, other than the breathing concept of food that her gut-galvinized mind had conjured from her innards? There had been no face to see, and there was no telling that there was even flesh thrumming hot with blood and life just longing to be lashed from limb—!  "It strode along ze earth... upwise,"  she bid, her own nose wriggling about for that elusive scent and step and thing, "upon its hinds, in ze way that whelps might do when yipping up a tree."  A pause. Then:  "There was no tail, and ... and it moved as if it has lurked here, many times. I wonder at its weakness ... if any might be evident."

Crudely, plainly put: there was a big bitch in them woods.

They crossed the misted threshold all the same, though; stomachs purling, ribs elbowing for a peek behind the unearthly veils of the earth; come to let the unspoken and incomprehendable into the corpreal realm.

What a beastly thing they chased — she found herself shuddering briefly at the thought, imagining some hulking shadow figure between the woods. Perhaps Andraste had seen a trick of the light, for what she described sounded wholly unfamiliar to the flame-licked wolf. Charcoal maw turned to woods again and she continued. Andromaque found her mind wandering, trying to puzzle out what it was the pale she had seen. ”I’ve heard of bears walking on their hind legs like that — mostly to itch themselves on a tree,” she professed, thinking that perhaps she had uncovered the mystery. Yet part of her still wanted to chase it — a bear was far more dangerous than some shadow creature.

Where the sunlit shuddered, the starlit snickered;
for she has not seen such a sight in many seasons  (not that she were able, really)  and, given the fact that all were in a famine, she might not pass up the offer of supping the red flesh of ursine from dark fur, either. Deranged, she must be, yes; why ever had Andromaque answered her asinine call? -- but it should not matter, not now, not yet. Perhaps, when they felled the beast ...

For now, she treads featherlight; bids the flame to do the same. Ahead is the splintering snatch of boughs; the snapping of fronds beneath a great and swaying weight; Andraste drops low, then, and slinks further into the underbrush for the sake of remaining veiled if ever the behemoth should show itself.

She heard the crack thunder through the woods and lifts her head, hackles rising as muscles tense. Something hulking, tall, matted golden and brown fur — she follows Andraste into the underbrush, creeping along the ground, soft fur of her stomach coated in mud and soggy bits of leaf, brambles pulling at her skin. From her position she could barely make out its face, only it’s height and broadness and terribleness shifting through the woods, something that she felt would haunt her for nights to come.

”Do we kill it?” The words came from frightened maw that she fought to keep from trembling.

It was hideous  (nevermind their own hunkering in the mud like two ill-behaved goblins, preying on something that much more malevolant than they)  but even through the dying foliage she can see this gargantuan being; arms hanging low like evergreen boughs, evaded even by lunelight. Kill. Kill. Oh, she would love to; would adore the ripping of ligament from limb; of nibbling through the bone and to the very marrow, even the hide, the eyes-- eyes that were utterly fathomless, staring back at the mothpale and the flame that flickered beside it.  

But the fear in her courtling's chords was enough to reign the stricken back to the plane of sense -- for now, it seems, she is resettled.  "No,"  she wisps, shorn brow unfurling from its own frustrations. They would, however, see that it would depart from these lands; regardless of how effortless it had bypassed their premises in the first.

So when this folk-cloaked figure finally turns, near dismissive, Andraste waits several heartbeats, and several more, before rising from her post and meandering after.

She felt like a snake with her underbelly pressed against the dirt, laying in wait for the creature to make some wrong move so that she might uncoil and strike it down. Despite her fear, she was poised, muscles ready for Andraste’s word to send her running and —

No.

Tension in her muscles released and she sank further into the ground. She watches Andraste until she rises and then Andromaque follows, sulking for she didn’t get the chance to end the beast.

ripriprip better luck next time sis

Again, they follow;
seeing to it that the age-old creature lumbered past the last of their scent-markers; Andraste kept to the foliage, to each shadow, all. Perhaps they would strike a hunt, then, should it pass through their Vale once more; come to dine on the last of what had fled their hillocks. The stricken was quiet, restless; ruminating, and her mind eventually to her from reasurrances towards Andromaque; for her curiosities would certainly get the better of her ...