Redsand Canyon her flesh held the scent of honeysuckle drenched in battle
"But if I live, I win,"
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@Donovan Azura maybe? set sometime after her joining thread (timelines oof) set in territory #5 (catacombs), looking out on territory #9 (redsand canyon). I figured they prolly would have stashed her somewhere after the healers looked at her? Oh yeah, (last note oml) but by way of explanation, she would still be a bit confused and disoriented


When at last, she woke - truly - she was in the dark once more. 

Several slow, heavy beats of her heart had thudded by before the waif tried to move, which were spent attempting to puzzle out the situation she'd found herself in. In those infinite seconds, her mind raced for explanation against the impending fearful realization of amnesia. 

Here was different, light penetrated - silver and silky. This was safe; this she could focus on. 

Staggering, the shattered creature struggled to her paws on failing legs. It took her a minute to blink away the black void that clouded her vision, just as it did to hobble to the mouth of the cavern where she must've been stowed. 

The healer did not have to squint against the moon - a longtime companion - and swept her surroundings from within the shadows with a wounded gaze. 

Freezeframes of petrified waves, dunes of sand turned some shade of pewter by the night as far as her eyes could see. The occasional column of ruddied stone standing warden against the dark. 

Her first thought was that the gaping hole in her memory could be attributed to Aliroth, that he had somehow returned her to the clutches of the Ravine. In her mind - which was still fractured with disconnect and throbbing as though beat like an anvil - it was the only thing that made sense. The only true memory she could recall was a hazy image of Donovan's face (surprisingly enough) but this had a dreamlike quality - the golden ambiance of it surreal and foggy.

The only evidence to disprove her addled theories were the signs of a healer's touch: the perfume of poultice, the sting of herbs against her open wounds, the cobwebs binding them.

Resources were never wasted on slaves; she could think of but one reason they might save her. There were many things she could not remember but the fate of concubines was not one. The druid could still see the redhead girl who clung to her as the slavers brought them in, just as she can still see the mutilated remains of her body when it was removed from the tunnels. 

To hell with that. She will not sit idly by and wait for the next assault to come. 

She tiptoes out onto the shifting sands with a heavy limp, a silver beacon flashing beneath the moon - I am here. 

Without warning, she buckles to the ground and slowly twists in the substrate - hissing and biting back grunts as the grains scour her flesh and grind into raw, superficial wounds. Blood will bead up but the sand will camoflauge her scent with luck, her coat stained ruddy by its dust and her own lifeblood. 

Pacing her lopsided gait to move faster is a new agony in itself, an awkward stumble of a lope somewhere between a flinching trot and a stuttering canter. 

She cuts through the desert, southward, uncertain of her location but unrelenting. 

She runs as if the very hounds of hell are chasing after her. No alarm has sounded yet - but perhaps they already are.
"You see, I got a bullet for a tooth and
I'm gonna use it to shoot you."
"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
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Donovan doesn’t instantly wake when the small wolfdog pads away. He doesn’t notice her soft footsteps that lead out of the canyon. Though when he does wake he has a gut feeling that something wrong, but when the male looks about, surly enough, he finds the dainty female missing from her spot a couple meters away from his own. Instantly he has a short bout of panic that electrocutes through him. Quickly standing he looks around, instantly putting his nose to the ground in search of her. 

Donovan follows her scent and as he looks out into the canyon he sees her small form hobbling off like she’s rightfully being chased by death itself. He knows she’s probably confused and scared, doesn’t know where she is and Donovan doesn’t even know if she remembers that the Saints found her. So he wastes no time galloping to catch up to her. Soon enough he’s running next to her, calling her name and speeding up to get in front of wolfdog.

“Awenfen stop running, you’re safe.” He hums loud enough for her to hear. “We got our medics to treat you and you’re here with us now. Calm down, darling.”
"But if I live, I win,"
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The dreaded call sounds, strangely enough carrying her name. 

In ringing ears, a panicked mind, his voice does not register. 

"Non, non, non," she hisses to herself, a curse beneath her breath, as she struggles onward - steps hitching as he calls out and nearly sending her tumbling to the unforgiving earth. 

Only when the form of his bulk cuts into her path does she falter to a skidding stop, paws digging into the cutting sands as she grounds to a halt. Without thinking, she lunges for his pale throat. 

Someone will die before she is taken captive again - him or her, it does nae matter. 

Only the glint of a molten gaze, the conformation of his handsome, square features draws her up short. Donovan. 

She twists slightly as she dives for his throat, glancing harmlessly off his side and falling to the ground aside of him - where she wheezes for breath. 

"Donav.." the midwife mananges to wisp as she staggers to her paws with great difficulty, backing off a pace as her pallid gaze greedily drinks him in. 

"It vas.. you're real," she breathes as she faces him, swaying and stumbling to stand steady on the uneven ground. 

"'ow? ..'ow did I get 'ere? Ye saved me?" She questions uncertainly, unwilling to consider the heartbreaking alternative - that he might've done this to her. 

A wild gaze absorbs the canyon again. "Zis is yers - yer Saints?" 
"You see, I got a bullet for a tooth and
I'm gonna use it to shoot you."
"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
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She’s stumbling in the rough terrain hissing nonsense to herself. She’s definitely not the same as when hed first met her. What did they do to her? He wonders. Whoever they are, he’s content to rip their fucking throat out. The sudden thought of killing whoever’s responsible for her condition is odd to say the least, yet he doesn’t fight it. He’d do it if he has the chance.

Though when he cuts into her path she seems content to fight back. Really, if she had decided to try and fight Donovan, it’d be quite useless. He could snap her neck like a twig without even breaking a sweat. She’s so small and fragile, beautiful and sweet; so different from the women Donovan has usually associated himself with. Right now she’s nothing of the sort. When he speaks, she recognizes him and veers off to the side and tumbled to the sandy ground below. 

Instantly he’s dipping his head to help her up. Donav. She sighs out her version of his name in a soft whisper and he’s looking down to her intently, awaiting her next words. She’s sputtering words of confusion, the answer to all of her questions being yes.

“Yes to all of those. Calm down, darling.” He hums softly. Seeing if the deep, soothing baritone of his voice could soothe the frantic woman. He comes closer nudging their noses together briefly. “I found you at the borders of my territory. Someone dropped you there like a fucked up present.” His tone get a bit harder as he explains, anger for what happened to her evident in his voice.
"But if I live, I win,"
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The druid leans into his touch as if starved for contact, caressing the length of his muzzle with her own and stretching to nuzzle the good side of her face against his chest momentarily - breathing deeply as if to imprint the scent of him upon her senses. Had she been able, she might've wrapped thin arms about his neck. 

Awen leans into him as the warlord helps her up, drawing back from her unconscious invasion of his space. She tries to focus on the hushed thunder of his timbres as she finds her balance. 

Her head tips back and ever back, as if faced with the goliaths of druidic lore, uninjured orb of moonlight intent upon the sunrays of the Grandmaster's gaze - which seem to be the only thing tethering her to the present with the pull of their gravity. 

"Who? ..who vould do zat?" she asks dazzedly, the idea almost inconceivable in that moment. 

She did not know if Donovan had any enemies; even if he did, it didn't make sense that they would target her. Why hurt a woman he had met once before, when it would bring him more pain to torture someone closer to him like another Saint? 

And her enemies? She blanched as two came to mind, gooseflesh prickling beneath her fur. 

"I know of only two men who vould do something like zis," she murmured softly, the familiar pain between her thighs evidence enough that it had been a man. "My former mate - Aliroth. Or Takeshi, Emperor of ze Vale ta ze nort'."

"But vhy bring me 'ere? I do nae understand zat," 
she murmured, uncertain of who her true attacker might be, eye gazing warily out upon the night. 

Only one thing was certain: someone had been watching them.
"You see, I got a bullet for a tooth and
I'm gonna use it to shoot you."
"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
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The smaller is pressing herself against him like he truly is her only lifeline — the only thing that's keeping her a float right now. Really he is, it hardly looks like she can stand and he does his best to stay still and sturdy beneath her as to not let her fall. Eventually, she’s able to gain her balance and sadly enough their bodies part. Her thin legs struggling to keep her up and her broken body is practically shivering and writhing with the struggle to keep upright.

To answer her question, he doesn’t know who would. He gives her a silent shake of his head. There’s not even a blip on his radar. Why would they hurt Awenfen if they wanted to hurt Donovan. If they wanted to hurt him they’d have gone for his pack. So they probably had the intention to hurt her the most. 

Then she seems to have an epiphany. Only two other men. One being a former mate and the other a the Emperor of the pack in the Vale just above. At this point he’s confused and stares at her with furrowed brows. “Why then?” Is all he asks. Probably something they’re both asking. 

Though he’s easily distracted as the sickly blue moonlight catches on her wounds, the simplistic outline of what looks to be a bull is carved or branded into her flesh. His stare becomes more intense. The bull is a symbol of strength, it resembles him pack. His father was able to take down a bull once, hence the reason he made the animal the symbol of the Saints.

“There’s a fucking bull carved into you. That’s the symbol of my pack. This is obviously a targeted attack.” He almost growls. Not to her of course, rather anger fills his senses towards whoever thinks they can fuck with the Saints and get away with it.
"But if I live, I win,"
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"Why then?"

An innocent question in itself, the query of the man who'd assumed her to be unblemished, whole, that night upon the loch. 

The milkmother's shoulders sag and suddenly her head seems too heavy to hold aloft anymore, drooping like a wilted flower between the bony peaks of her shoulder blades as opalites close and a heavy sigh falls from her lips. 

"Aliroth vas..a monster, a real one," she explained, head lifting as though only that mere moment of weakness was what she would allow herself. "I vas a slave, captive of ze druids. I served zem vell an' I vas given me freedom fer it."

"But vhen Aliroth showed up on our borders an' decided 'e vould 'ave me as 'is vife...I vas surrended unto 'im - ta keep ze peace."

"'e vas cruel. 'e beat me, forced 'imself on me, gave me ta 'is closest guards ta share." 
A heavy swallow here as she forces the acid of bile back down her throat.

"Vhen I fell pregnant, it stopped. But only because conditioning began." 

"Dredguild 'ad strange beliefs regarding new life. We trained more 'eavily zan ze varriors - ta strengthen the spirits of our young." 

"Ze Disciples believe zat a voman becomes pregnant vhen 'er totem, 'er life force, is defeated by a man's. Zey believe ze bairns inherit from ze male totem, nae ze female. If a voman trains 'ard enough, zose unborn life forces vill be male." 


It had been brutal. She'd already been emaciated, broken to bits by Aliroth; at that point, it had been too late for a healthy pregnancy. From sunup to sundown they had been forced to run, spar, swim, anything that might make them stronger. Food and water were still minimal. They'd pushed her even harder after she miscarried one of her pups but to no avail. 

You couldn't bend the will of nature. 

"I gave birth ta a single child - a girl. She vas condemned ze moment she vas born," the Saluki whispered, eye still distantly locked upon darkened canyons - desperately clinging to composure, lest she fall apart before his very eyes. "She looked like me. Vhich vas unforgivable. Zey said she vas deformed. Zat I vas a vitch who 'ad cursed 'er, zat I vould curse ze other mothers an' younglings."

"'e killed her. But nae before zey batted 'er around like a piece of game." She can still hear the gut wrenching cries of a baby, her baby, screaming in pain. She can still see Aliroth's jaws closing around that tiny, downy little head - the crack of it, like an egg, as her daughter was snuffed from this world. 

She'd known only agony in those few moments of life; she'd been denied the comforting touch of a loving mother. 

Fen could never forgive herself for it. 

"Zey passed me around next. An' zen 'e killed me too. Or tried. Sometimes I still vish 'e 'ad." 

"If'n 'e 'as somehow managed ta follow me 'ere it is ta finish ze job," 
she could have been speaking of the weather, or the stars, for there was no hint of her pain in the wispy lilt. Only a hollow ache, numbness. 

Her gaze flickered back to him as he growled, brows rumpling in confusion as she twisted and strained to see the mark he spoke of but could not spot it. 

Still, the blood drained from her face and her wintry eyes grew wide. It could not be Takeshi - he would not know of such a mark, if he was even aware the Saints existed at all.

"Do ye zink 'e vas vatching us - zat night at ze Lake?" 
"You see, I got a bullet for a tooth and
I'm gonna use it to shoot you."
"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
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Donovan listens with bated breath as she speaks of her past life — her past mate. He knows his own past cannot compare to the hurt and pains he knows of. Sure he lost his family, but truly that’s the only real loss he’s ever known. He’s lucky to have been numbed to others death as a pup, a teenager. His father made sure of it.

He doesn’t know why, but certain emotions swirl within his breast. He’s passed. Even though he has no right to be. He’s raped and killed and done all the  horrible shit she just mentioned. He’s just as bad as him — the dark figure of her past that she speaks of. He tries to put it to the back of his mind and it seems she has an epiphany. She gasps and looks to him, beautiful eyes wide. He wants to comfort her, then all of a sudden he’s pissed again. These stupid primal emotions always getting the best of him. He’s fucking weak. 

As she mentions. Their first meeting, the past events playback in his mind. It was nice, very pleasant to bask in her company like that. Look at the stars, talk about fairy tail shit, not have to really worry about anything. Though clearly he was wrong, he should’ve been worrying about shit. Do you think he was watching us — that night at the lake? She’s asking and Donovan pans down to her, a face that conveys all of conflicting emotions. 

“Had to have been. Where the fuck is he? I’ll rip his fucking throat out if he thinks he can try and make an example out of us. Out of you.” He growls.
"But if I live, I win,"
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His question only brought back that same panicked look that felt familiarly etched into her features by now. Her head shook, somewhat frantically, as her lips parted uselessly. 

"I donnae know," she whispered helplessly, wrecked by the blockage in her mind. "Ze last zing I can remember is traveling ze steppes..meeting Haoniyao." 

"I try and I try but all I can see is black..I did nae see Aliroth fer sure. 'e vas pale, I could see 'is coat in ze darkness...like a ghost,"
she muttered hauntingly as a shiver wracked her.

"'e kille' me birds," she murmured, almost to herself, as the realization struck her - uncertain of how she knew but knowing it to be true in her bones. 

Suddenly, she seemed to take stock of the tumult upon the brindled halfling's scarred countenance. Hesitantly, as if uncertain that she should be so bold, the healer reached up wobbily to rasp her tongue across his cheek comfortingly. 

"It vill be okay," she soothed in a gentle rasp, given she'd grasped his attention, "I vill be okay." 
"You see, I got a bullet for a tooth and
I'm gonna use it to shoot you."
"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
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He’s confused by this name, all these odd and unknown wolves she mentions. They have him on edge. Her foreboding tone has him on edge. The hairs along his spine vibrate and bristle at the mere thought. He wants blood.

Still somehow he is able to calm down even if it is only a pinch. Her small form must reach up to get him, he even lowers his head further south for her. A small, pink tongue laps at his cheek. The motion filled with an undying need to comfort. It seems she’s trying to comfort him when really she’s the one who needs comforting. He’s not good at that, but hell, he can try. 

So as she soothes his bubbling anger with a raspy, broken voice, he listens intently. Allowing his own miscolored tongue to flick out against her own muzzle boldly. “We will protect you; I will protect you.” He promises in a low octave. His tone suggests death will come to any who pose as a threat to the small shewolf.
"But if I live, I win,"
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There's a tint of surprise on her marred features as she leans into the kindest touch she's received since leaving her mother's side so many years ago. Her first kiss. Maybe it's not quite upon her lips but electricity crackles against her skin regardless, a path of sparks tingling along the trail of his tongue long after he's drawn back. 

The herbologist pushes it from her mind as he speaks again. She smiles up at him but it seems wan, tired. The words ghost across her tongue, waiting to be breathed to life.

She wants to tell him that nobody's safe in this world. No one can protect anyone. That the druids were wrong; they are just pawns in a cruel world, destined to suffer. 

But somehow, looking at the titan's solemn face and hearing the firm resolution in his words - she believes him.

"I can stay? Truly?" she asks. The Saluki is a little too wounded for much movement but her paws pit-pat an excited tune against the sand and her sweeping tail twitches as if it would desperately like to wag. 

Then her face falters a bit. From what she's gathered the Saints are akin to the Ravine - minus the focus on slavery and trafficking. Fen doesn't seem like the first choice for a candidate. 

"I vill need ta learn ta fight," she murmurs, something like determination or perhaps eagerness in her tones. She'd been denied the chance to learn for most of her life and looked forward to being able to protect herself. 

"But I do 'ave other skills. In me first posting I vas used as an agent. It vas my job to infiltrate me Master's enemies - gather intel, steal zings sometimes, or even poison zeir waterways." Once, it was an occupation she was unproud of but now it was nothing more than a means to serve the Saints. 

"I learned ta 'eal zere an' I 'ave spent ze past two vinters of me life as a midvife." It was only unfortunate that the Saints didn't yet have any expectant mothers or little ones she might care for. 

"An' as fer me third posting...vell it is nae something I vould feel comfortable offering ta yer pack," her gaze dropped as she shifted slightly. Then a thought struck her.

"But...if'n ye should decide ta refrain from siring pups come spring...an' ye are in need of experienced mothers ta bring forth ze next generation of Saints, I vould be most 'onored ta be considered as a candidate," she nodded once, firmly, somberly. 

She could worry about the conception later if it was even something to worry about. She had months to heal and get to know her new comrades - including whatever male might be chosen in such a scenario. As it was, she was simply too tired to fret over a situation that may not even happen. 

"I vould be 'onored ta repay ye in any way I can." She smiled again at him, this time with gratitude. "An' zank ye again..fer saving my life," she lilted as she brushed her cheek against the hollow of his pale throat with a soft rumble of appreciation.
"You see, I got a bullet for a tooth and
I'm gonna use it to shoot you."
"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
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She asks if she can stay and he smiles cockily, as if the answer is obvious. “Of course. You’d be one of the Saints, dear.” He hums easily. “You’d eat, drink, and sleep with us. Become a true member of the pack.” 

Then she describes her skill set and desire to learn how to fight. She would has to take up the little damage, a lot of speed kid of battle technique. She’s so small, but he’s sure he could train her to be fierce. Along with some of the other members of the pack. Perhaps she would need the know how to fight larger opponents. He only knows so much of that. Since he’s usually fought smaller opponents.

He nods eagerly. “Your skills will be much needed. Especially your ability to look so innocent.” He chuckles with a teasing smile. “Perhaps spy and poison our enemies.” 

Then his face falls as she mentions her last, more reluctant offering. No. He wouldn’t don’t use her for pups. More would he allow anyone else to in the pack. Or any other pack. He’d kill them first. So he shakes his head. “No. That won’t be necessary, darling. No one will make you do that here.” He lowers his head and smiles softly down to her as she rests herself against him. Daring to rub his cheek against hers briefly. “You’re welcome, dear. Let’s get you to sleep.” He hums in her ear. Silently offering for her to sleep with him tonight.