Hushed Willows oh no, i’m sorry if i smothered you,

my laptop is downstairs and i'm not going to get it so if there's typos, future tweet will fix them. @Djinn :)

between the taiga and the flatlands sat a crossroad. to the west was the coast, to the east, a valley. neither seemed a promising haven for elahlekileyo, but the huntress was beginning to run out of options. 

for a while, she sat hopeless and without direction. anathi was lost, if not in body then in spirit. why else would it have taken so long for them to reunite? aphiwe wondered if he might be in trouble, the prospect alone prompting her to keep moving.

It was the whispering that woke them from their sleep— be it the snow or the tendrils of clustered willow shifting in the wind, as they woke they felt the stirrings of life caught in His breath; sussuration, like a sigh, which crept down their throat like the forbidden serpent — twisted, next, as if to constrict the heart of the vessel. There was pressure as they woke; yet as the eyes opened and beheld the white of this nowhere-place, that breath pulsed from them in a gasp, and they knew life again. 

The head lifts, eyes blinking, and they hear the snow collect around them where they lay exposed—bundled, bloodied, yet bare here beneath the swaying of the trees. Watched-over, much as she might have once done the watching. The brisk winter air fills the lungs of the vessel and as a plume is exhaled from parted lips, she cannot help but think — 'What have I done?'

Why has she fallen — and how far? Where is her father?

There comes another sound, repetitive too yet clamorous, sharp to ears that had survived so long on silence. Something was moving across this idyllic winterscape and coming closer. She rises in panic and the vessel's limbs react in conjunction to the panic of her new heart; instinct tells her to look, listen — but she feels the pain of her new body acutely, a searing sensation along her back where the ribs curve up and meet the spine. Warmth nests there, streaking the silver coat of the vessel with red (diluted and fanned in to the snow around her), and she is immediately distracted by the shocking sight of it.

Forgetting the sound of someone approaching, of the silence as they stop at the crossroads, the fallen is ultimately too distracted by these new (sublime, terrifying) sensations to do much beyond pant in the snow.

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Hope this isn't too chaotic, it'll take a bit for me to figure out how I wanna write her!

the distant sounds of one rising from slumber drew the huntress's attention. bright eyes scanned the surrounding scenery in search of the source.

there, some yards away, stood a woman. aphiwe inhaled deeply, the faint scent of blood barely discernible among the rest. 

she approached, apprehensive until prompted otherwise. you, ukopha ingcuka, where are you hurt? aphiwe would wait for a reply before moving forward.

Breathing comes easy enough regardless of how it made her feel; this uncontrollable process that forces the lungs to expand, the cage of ribs to shift (painfully, one might add), then cease and withdraw. If she focused on the feeling too much she would be stuck at a stand-still; this is certainly what transpires as the stranger draws closer. The sound—then the sight—of their approaching silhouette gives those eyes something new to trace. She follows the shape as it corporealizes; ears shudder at the deafening sound of the voice until she realizes that she understands. Not all the sounds, but most of them. They carry a weight although she cannot discern what the intonation truly means, and the vessel's eyes narrow, confusion replaced by scrutiny.

Hurt—she knows this word. It is not an experience she remembers. The strange creature is looking at the vessel with an apprehensive aura that stitches them in place; they do not come too close, just close enough to see the streaks of red, to study the vessel which Djinn has made her home. Where...—the voice is grating, it is rough, deeper than one might've ascribed to them, but really it is the act of making any sound at all which makes the fallen pause.

She must be here for a reason; father must have cast her out—No, he would not do that to her—but she hurts! Thoughts are a jumble inside; a frown creases the vessel's wide face and then she, piloting those eyes, looks to the strange shape of the other wolf and commands: You will fix this. There is a flavor to those words that is confounding for all of its minerality, and as she comes to notice this, the vessel's tongue draws across a pointed snout and leaves a streak of red behind—blood?

the confusion was clear in ingcuka's expression. they were both foreigners in this land, it seemed. umzingeli took the stranger's question of where? as an indication of ignorance, a precursor of vulnerability. aphiwe thanked anathi for guiding them to one another, lest a malevolent creature find the woman first.

she moved to take another step forward but halted upon recognizing the command. abasemzini, foreigners, they were all beside themselves with pride. did one not know that a command from the needy was but a cry of help? if she did not, aphiwe did. 

eyebrow raised, she replied, you do not lead me. assuming this was understood, she moved to circle the woman and examine the scene. i can help. you fell?

The creature is resistant. They do not see her properly, only this leaking vessel and the weakness inherent to the body, not the energy that it houses. The fallen stiffens at the sound of that voice and her jaw sets with tension. Does this beast not see how fortuitous their meeting here really is? As blind to fate as they are to Djinn's power; unable to see because they do not believe. A heathen? Would her father place a heathen in her path so readily? What lesson could be taught by someone such as this — unless it was a test? Too many questions.

Still, they offer their aid—but it is their own question that stuns Djinn thereafter: You fell?

The vessel reacts to this before Djinn can stop it: a contortion of the face leaving it creased with sadness, loss, immesurable confusion as the eyes drift to the compacted snow streaked with red. Perhaps they are a messenger of the lord after all, or placed here for another purpose — not to be saved as might be Djinn's charge in any other moment, but to do the saving. To teach humility.

Yes. Djinn confirms, but does not know what else to do. I do not... Remember.

the circling umzingeli stopped and settled beside ingcuka's side. the cause of injury seemed to have been lost with time, a fact that was accredited to an assumed head wound. aphiwe was no healer, but she knew that if one hit their head hard enough, their umoya would rejoin the air, leaving behind but a shell.

this theory beckoned symptathy, patience, from the hunter. you do not remember? she asked. this is okay. she was of olityelweyo, the forgotten. aphiwe knew that an issue of such nature wasn't easily fixed, so she chose to ignore it. what do you know?