Neverwinter Forest i stood very still by the window sill

set directly after the moonspear thread

hansel had bread crumbs, and cam had crimson. blood spattered the snow in his wake, his panicked flight from the mountain. in his mind's eye, he still saw her face, her evil face. still felt the sting of teeth on his body. and still. . .

the stick remained. he was spared hemmorhaging only by its presence; were it removed too clumsily, he'd bleed out in minutes. of course, he didn't know that. he'd attempt to pull it out, but he didn't have the guts. he didn't even want to touch it.

the trees ahead looked awfully familiar, though. not willows. . .but familiar. and as he came closer, he realized that this was the shady, aromatic forest that mal had claimed, and with @Mal was ibis, and okeanos, and more? had his family come here?

whatever the case, cam knew neverwinter forest was full of friends, not foes.

help! he cried out as he collapsed near the border, sides heaving, the tracks of tears freezing on his face. he curled into himself, shivering, reeking of blood and piss and fear.

Just gonna tag everyone. XD  Show up if you can help!  Also tagging @Pan in case that other thread ends up with him joining I guess?? @Simmik @Markus @Cèilidhh

Wait, what?

That totally was just someone up ahead, he was pretty sure.  The mottled yearling hurried up, moving towards thinner points in the trees so he could maybe spot who it was.  Didn't take too long.  That black splot was pretty easy to see once there weren't treetrunks in the way.  Time to check 'em out.  Except things gained a whole different set of urgency when he the scent of blood and someone familiar finally struck his senses:  Cam?  Mal closed that distance quick, and started looking the boy over, What happened?!  Okay, the stick was kind of obvious.  And obviously an issue.  How did that even happen--?

Moonspear.  Again.  That whole pack needed to take a long walk off a short cliff, for the good of everyone else on the damn planet.  They certainly didn't deserve the respect their egos demanded, that was for sure.  They deserved to be maligned and harassed and slowly suffer until they finally faded from existence in a whimper, then forgotten for all time. If they ever wanted anything from him, he'd make sure it cost them a pretty premium.

He shifted from paw to paw, unsure if he should touch Cam or not, or what was even the best thing to do.  He was totally out of his depth here, so all Mal could think of was to raise his head and howl anxiously for some help, though he wasn't entirely sure who knew anything that could help.  Someone had to know something, right?  That done, Mal looked down the trail that Cam had taken, scanning the horizon for trouble.  Didn't seem like he was being followed at least.  Can you get up and walk a little farther?  I'll help you, but we gotta get you safe, then see about fixing uh.. That.  Mal had no idea what to do about the stick, honestly, but it seemed like a really bad idea to start messing with it out here if Moonspear might be after him.  Safety first and then Mal could think it over if someone who knew what they were doing didn't show up.  This would have been an ok time for those two dumb siblings to suddenly return...

Markus was too far away to hear the call for help. It wasn't a bad day, he wasn't curled in on himself, but he wasn't patrolling or anything either. He was just watching the snow and it's contrast with the dry, brown of dead needles bellow his own feet. He was thinking he had probably chosen pretty good for the winter, all things considered, when he heard the anxious call go out and his body jerked itself around and onto his feet almost before his brain could process it.

Mal. 

Markus took off like a shot - a gear of speed he rarely used. His lungs burned with cold air as his brain worked to catch up - he hadn't even thought before he flew through the pine forest. He had just answered. Mal had called and Markus had simply gone. The tone put the pep in his step and soon Markus burst through the trees, slowing to a trot as he came to stop before Mal and the new black shape.

For a moment he was confused. The stick protruding from the young wolf - younger than Mal - did not make sense to his brain. It looked like a black bone or an extra limb before his mind caught up with what his eyes were seeing and he could make sense of it. Then, his stomach turned. It squeezed painfully as the scent and sight came together to create a wave of nausea. Markus snapped his jaws shut tight to prevent any bile that might try it from escaping. That was the opposite of helpful, now.

The hair along his spine upright, his stomach turning, his gaze flicked from the pup to Mal and back. "I-uh..." the idea of touching the boy caused a shudder to run through his body and he shook his head to clear it. He would do what he was told...what Mal told him to do. His eyes settled on the young, grey male and they softened just a bit before he shook himself violently like a dog covered in water and turned to the black shape. "H-hey...yeah - can you, uh...if you can get up, we can help..." he parroted. 

He hoped there was more help on the way. Markus would do what he could but he was next to useless in this scenario, truthfully.

Ceilidh, too, had been too far away to hear the cry of the child, but there was no way she could have missed the voice of Mal; his anxiety set her scrambling forward, a flustered bullet of legs and fur. A feeling of dread flooded her heart, as her memory shot back to that night a few weeks ago, when her friend had found the trace of murderers tangled within the boughs of their forest. What if they had come back?

The thought terrified her, and she willed herself to move faster.

Somewhere along the way she found the trail of that new boy -- Markus? -- and she fell in step with his path until she, too, plunged through the shrubs and came face to face with what Mal and Markus had apparently come face to face with just moments prior. Once she saw they were safe, she barely registered them. Her attention dropped instead to a child on the ground, and her nostrils flared to catch the sting of blood. She saw the stick in his side. And she nearly threw up.

"Oh, gosh," her voice strung too quiet for anyone else to really hear -- and like Markus, she didn't really know, didn't really... understand? what she was seeing. The angle of the stick -- the mere placement of it, within the boy's soft tissues -- oh gosh, oh no.

Trembling legs refused to carry her forward, and she realized, of course, he needed medical help. Her tongue ran faster than her brain. "Hazel -- umm, uh, witch hazel! That'll stop the bleeding -- " but what the heck were they supposed to do with the stick? She spun back around to scour the forest's edge, and hoped and prayed that the boys knew something more. She only knew how to survive -- her parents had raised her a jack-of-all-trades, which effectively made her useless as master of none.

the mottled gray form appeared— mal, cam sobbed breathlessly, looking up at the young man. i dunno, i was just—i was looking for leesum and—and these two black wolves—mean wolves— by now, he was babbling nearly incoherently, and during this speech, two other wolves had appeared.

his gaze snapped warily between the pair, teeth chattering. they were all encouraging him to get up, something he wasn't sure he was up to. but after a couple unsuccessful tries, he managed to find his paws, hobbling like a newborn foal on three trembling legs.

it hurts, the boy whimpered, feeling not only the sting of the stick but of the other myriad bites across his nape, his ribs, his shoulders. they had gotten him good; even nature had taken a swing. i didn't—i dunno why—

he didn't understand. no one had taught him the concept of an aggressively-defended border. wolves meant safety. that was all he knew. . .up until now.

Mal had no idea how to really comfort someone.  But hey, he was here and hovering around Cam.  He was also kind of afraid that if he touched Cam, it'd somehow make the injuries worse.  Yeah, you ran into Moonspear.  They're probably almost the opposite of Elysium. Maybe not 100%, but close enough. 

As first Markus then Ceilidh showed up and both seemed pretty shaken by what they saw -- Markus especially.  Most of Mal's panic was focused on checking the horizon for familiar black shadows hunting Cam.  Still clear, looked like, but that didn't stop him from repeatedly looking.  Thank goodness it was clear, 'cause Mal was out of his depth to start with here and adding in fighting was gonna make him figuratively drowning even more.  Anyway, witch hazel!  Mal blinked owlishly,  Uhh. I have no idea what witch hazel is, so uh. He looked to Markus, Do you?  Mal was gonna be his most useful by being here with Cam, sounded like, so that left her or Markus would be the one to go fetch it from.. Wherever. Ugh.  It would have been nice to have had an education.

As Cam started to get up, Mal moved to step next to his non-stick side, If it helps, lean on me and stay off that leg.  We just gotta get you inside the territory and then you can rest again.  We can take it slow, yeah?  Unless there was some other way to bring him into the territory, but Cam was just a wee tad bit too big for that at this point.  And I bet it does -- but we'll get you patched up.  Then figure out why stuff happened after, okay?  If Moonspear had just gone and attacked him out of the blue, that was way beyond what Mal had been expecting.  But being kind of a pessimist, he wasn't gonna put it beyond them.  They were a danger to everyone.  

Of all wolves, Mal would be the one present who would understand what really happened.  Elysium had done a good job screwing up a couple generations of kids, whether it be by being too kind or just ignoring them entirely it had ended with pretty much the same result: not a damn clue about how a normal pack worked.  Mal being an untrusting twit was only saved from a similar fate by his own standoffish attitude.  Pays to be a jerk sometimes?  Whatever.  If only Cam could go read Elysium the riot act for not teaching him things.

Markus heard, as if far away, the word "Moonspear" and he felt a flicker of fire in his belly. He didn't know what "Elysium" was - likely before his time, as it seemed like a place - but he knew of Moonspear. He had yet to hear or see anything that he liked out of them. This only compounded his feelings, but it was no time to nurse a vendetta. He was beyond relieved to see Ceilidh, a far cry from not too long ago, but then Mal was asking him if he knew what Witch Hazel was and Markus...had no fucking clue.

He shook his head, eyes flicking to watch Cam's teeth chatter. "He has a fever." He blurted and steadied himself to explain. "He's chattering - that...I think he might have a fever. And don't touch the stick, either." He added somewhat haphazardly. "I don't remember why I just...I know we can't touch it. At least not yet. We have to stop the bleeding, or something...with something..." He was rambling off as he detached from Mal and Cam and began to scan around them. This was easier - pretending like this was a test or even a game. He just had to figure out the puzzle. The smell of blood and vomit and shit was all in his head, an illusion.

He turned and left Mal to get the injured boy inside the borders. He was looking for a hollowed log or a place where the tree branches grew low enough for a spider’s nest to be within reach. Would spider web work? He'd walked into it enough times to know that it stuck to anything and he remembered, vaguely, his mother tending to a cut in his paw pad when he was very, very young. He had no idea what to do for infection, though. And if the boy did have a fever..?

Maybe if they could just get the stick out and get him stable, Markus could find a medic in another pack...or something. He reared on his hide legs, forepaws resting against one of the evergreens as he looked for intricate pattern of webs and hoped that it wasn't too cold for spiders to still be around. Their forest was warmer than most, he hoped to God that meant that he could find some. He neglected to tell the rest what he was doing, however, too caught up in keeping himself rooted in solving the puzzle and ignoring reality to remember that the others were all still there.

Oh gosh -- the little boy's whimpers, his confusion, his words -- she found everything all too much! Her heart twisted with an ache she couldn't stifle, and a painful lump of distress caught in her throat. The murderers? Her mind reeled again. Had they done this? They must have, they must have-- for who would do such a thing like this?

None of them really seemed to know what they were doing, but Markus, at least, seemed to have some knowledge of how to deal with something of this nature, tucked somewhere away. Which, honestly? Was good enough for Ceilidh.

She wanted to stay with Mal and the child, but she knew would be more useful going out to look for some sort of medicine, with what few things she knew of healing. So her eyes fell on Markus, who was the first to peel away from them without a word, and, with a final pause of hesitation -- her eyes falling soft and sorrowful upon Mal and the child -- she turned, and followed after the speckled man.

She reached him quickly; he hadn't gone far. His attention seemed stolen by something in the evergreens, and Ceilidh felt a curious thrill of hope. "Markus," she said, and she came up to his side. Was he looking for the witch hazel, or something else? "What are we looking for?" If he knew something easier to find than the flowering tree, something that would stop the bleeding, perhaps even better, then she wished to know. She would gladly help in his search.

moonspear. a pretty word, but he'd associate it forever with horrible things. they were saying other words he didn't understand. witch hazel. fever—apparently he had it. he wouldn't know the burning of infection by that name just yet.

instead, he gratefully took mal's invitation, leaning his scrawny frame against the bigger wolf. the warmth was comforting despite the heat of his own frightened body. the things mal were saying were comforting, too.

he hadn't felt this kind of comfort since. . .

mummy, cam blubbered, sinking into a kind of pained delirium. want mummy. wanna go home. despite his crying, he was able to hobble forward, weight braced against mal. tears and snot and blood dribbled down his muzzle, sprinkling over the needle-carpeted forest floor.

they moved into the trees, where cam was treated. mentally, it would take much more time to heal.