04-09-2019, 06:15 PM
The kin loomed close, and a memory trickled from somewhere deep, of the mastiffs that ran alongside the wagons -- though their curiosity had always been a thing of cold noses, slimy licks, and wagging tails. He just looked at her like she was something strange, alert and wary but unafraid. No smile punctured the sternness of his expression, and yet amusement sprung all the same to hers. She laughed, more welcoming of scrutiny than hostility. “I promise I won’t bite, either.”
Nim didn’t resist the pull and ripple of the world around them as he heaved her to her feet, though she did twist to glare at the tall stone as it blurred past. All those words wasted every time she visited, and not once did the dead creature within stir long enough to point her in the right direction. But the irritation pierced and faded, fast as a scything fin, as the home she had explored before came into focus. The wolf lingered in the entranceway behind. Her attention flooded to new things.
Such as the way he did some things the quick way, like pulling her from the water’s edge to the red-door, but others he did slow, like draping towels. There was something rhythmic in it, like the perfect pitch of a babbling brook in Springtime, and such small things always amused her to observe. The process of getting dry rather than willing it true -- or simply forgetting to feel the sodden weight of cloth and hair and the clammy chill of cold skin, as was her usual proclivity -- was a game of its own. She rarely bothered with such distractions when she was alone, but she was nearly always content to flow into the channel dug by another.
His attentions both bemused and mystified her, though she didn’t seem to notice the wounds had gone. Afterwards Nim blotted her hair, the crunch of ice from curls and braids sinking frozen trails down her back that made her shiver. She used the same towel to squeeze the worst from her dress, and laughed. “Tristan, if you ran through our world as you just passed the threshold, like your very heels are afire, then are you really surprised to have seen no one?”
Nimeda had been into the cottage before, though only once. Its shifting contents elucidated little at the time, but curiosity stirred anew given this time she was invited. She shook out a blanket and swaddled it over her shoulders, pooling ripples of warm wool over the tops of her feet. Beneath the covering she wriggled from the dress until it slapped to the floor, and set it to dry with the towels. Everything still shifted, but it did so differently with Tristan in the cottage. It was still rustic living, but it wasn’t that which struck her. Her hand peeked to run over a pile of books, head tilted to seek titles before they vanished under her touch. “Why do you live alone?”
She glanced back at the wolf and then up at the dark tomb beyond, her expression fluttering with something that seemed to disturb her. Thorn Paw’s ears flattened, which could mean everything or nothing as far as Nim knew, but the words she had been about to speak sank deep all the same. The frown softened, if not the furrow of consideration. She turned to the hearth instead, sat nestled in the folds of the blanket, and willed the twist and sizzle of flame into focus. An unnecessary but fitting indulgence. And cheating her own rules, though she found she didn’t mind, even when the sudden temperature change prompted a thousand needles to pierce her numb skin.
She hadn’t in fact asked Mara where she was held; too much information shared too quickly would likely only sink into oblivion. Her steps were slower by design. But she realised then that she did know, because there had been a reason she had called her friend the day she had discovered her prison. A reason she had quite forgotten about until now. Nim’s eyes widened with the epiphany, on the tip of fleeing to check that starry place where she watched the dreams of her Other’s sister, of late plagued by the nibbles of Mara’s pets, but the growl of Tristan’s promise stole the focus of her attention. It reverberated like the resonance that tickled her sense of him, as steady and true as a thousand lives blended to one.
“She’s in Moscow.” The declaration seemed of surprise to even her with its certainty. Such hard won treasures dredged from the depths of her memory were prized possessions, sparkling her eyes with pleasure, and yet delight was soon dampened with frustration when she realised she could not offer any more. “The rest I am still working on.” Details were such small, fiddly things, and sometimes fishing for them only made them more slippery. Bare white corridors haunted the dreams of her sister sometimes. Before the little shadows began their feasting, she had dreamed of work often enough. The thought drifted so close, until something else occurred. Nim rarely grew annoyed with her own limitations, but this time admitting it had shamed her.
She sighed, and watched Tristan instead of the inside of her own eyelids. Fascination poured unabashed on those she met in her wanderings, moreso when memory too distant to reach crashed against the base of her skull. But it was something he’d said that had disturbed the waters of her thoughts with a curious question of her own. "The Hildufólk are wise,” she repeated. “She told me a river knows no hurry, for it still reaches its destination. What did she tell you?"
Thorn Paw padded up the slope, blatantly ignoring the twisted one’s sneer into the sky. No interest stirred in Wyldfyre’s human den, but he placed himself quite purposefully between the doorway and the twisted one behind. The old wolf lowered himself slowly, resting his muzzle between his paws. Resignation puffed a sigh from his great chest, lest Wyldfyre forget his own feelings on this diversion, but he did not otherwise interfere, beyond to share the things he knew.
The wolf dream is home to many things, Wyldefyre. I am old. My soul awaits the time it will open new eyes to your world. When it does, I will be me, but cast anew, and only my memory will live on in my pups and my pack. She is a thing that exists here always, and she has no pack to carry the memories for her. She must carry them herself, whether she wills it or not. Perhaps that is why she forgets. I do not know.
It was a great irony that the forgotten one seemed to perceive that this was no home fit for a wolf, given how often the pup returned to this barren place to stare at the stone -- and he of the kin, not she. The twisted one had kept him too long from his birthright, Thorn Paw knew that. Chains as sure as the ones burning resolution in the pup’s chest now, but he was not sure his brother acknowledged them as such. His feelings on that were always a complicated scent, too human to unpick. Thorn Paw’s ears pinned back, irritated.
He watched them for a time, but soon grew bored enough to close his eyes. At least until Wyldfyre’s promise earned a low growl of disapproval.
You have a strong heart, brother. I am proud! But pack must come first. Two-legs take our dens, kill our pups, and string our brothers and sisters’ corpses about their shoulders. Madness steals our kin, or two-legs come with their steel claws and take them from us. Her toils are not ours. Let another break these chains. The Destroyer comes, and we will be the shield, brother. But we must be strong first!
Nim didn’t resist the pull and ripple of the world around them as he heaved her to her feet, though she did twist to glare at the tall stone as it blurred past. All those words wasted every time she visited, and not once did the dead creature within stir long enough to point her in the right direction. But the irritation pierced and faded, fast as a scything fin, as the home she had explored before came into focus. The wolf lingered in the entranceway behind. Her attention flooded to new things.
Such as the way he did some things the quick way, like pulling her from the water’s edge to the red-door, but others he did slow, like draping towels. There was something rhythmic in it, like the perfect pitch of a babbling brook in Springtime, and such small things always amused her to observe. The process of getting dry rather than willing it true -- or simply forgetting to feel the sodden weight of cloth and hair and the clammy chill of cold skin, as was her usual proclivity -- was a game of its own. She rarely bothered with such distractions when she was alone, but she was nearly always content to flow into the channel dug by another.
His attentions both bemused and mystified her, though she didn’t seem to notice the wounds had gone. Afterwards Nim blotted her hair, the crunch of ice from curls and braids sinking frozen trails down her back that made her shiver. She used the same towel to squeeze the worst from her dress, and laughed. “Tristan, if you ran through our world as you just passed the threshold, like your very heels are afire, then are you really surprised to have seen no one?”
Nimeda had been into the cottage before, though only once. Its shifting contents elucidated little at the time, but curiosity stirred anew given this time she was invited. She shook out a blanket and swaddled it over her shoulders, pooling ripples of warm wool over the tops of her feet. Beneath the covering she wriggled from the dress until it slapped to the floor, and set it to dry with the towels. Everything still shifted, but it did so differently with Tristan in the cottage. It was still rustic living, but it wasn’t that which struck her. Her hand peeked to run over a pile of books, head tilted to seek titles before they vanished under her touch. “Why do you live alone?”
She glanced back at the wolf and then up at the dark tomb beyond, her expression fluttering with something that seemed to disturb her. Thorn Paw’s ears flattened, which could mean everything or nothing as far as Nim knew, but the words she had been about to speak sank deep all the same. The frown softened, if not the furrow of consideration. She turned to the hearth instead, sat nestled in the folds of the blanket, and willed the twist and sizzle of flame into focus. An unnecessary but fitting indulgence. And cheating her own rules, though she found she didn’t mind, even when the sudden temperature change prompted a thousand needles to pierce her numb skin.
She hadn’t in fact asked Mara where she was held; too much information shared too quickly would likely only sink into oblivion. Her steps were slower by design. But she realised then that she did know, because there had been a reason she had called her friend the day she had discovered her prison. A reason she had quite forgotten about until now. Nim’s eyes widened with the epiphany, on the tip of fleeing to check that starry place where she watched the dreams of her Other’s sister, of late plagued by the nibbles of Mara’s pets, but the growl of Tristan’s promise stole the focus of her attention. It reverberated like the resonance that tickled her sense of him, as steady and true as a thousand lives blended to one.
“She’s in Moscow.” The declaration seemed of surprise to even her with its certainty. Such hard won treasures dredged from the depths of her memory were prized possessions, sparkling her eyes with pleasure, and yet delight was soon dampened with frustration when she realised she could not offer any more. “The rest I am still working on.” Details were such small, fiddly things, and sometimes fishing for them only made them more slippery. Bare white corridors haunted the dreams of her sister sometimes. Before the little shadows began their feasting, she had dreamed of work often enough. The thought drifted so close, until something else occurred. Nim rarely grew annoyed with her own limitations, but this time admitting it had shamed her.
She sighed, and watched Tristan instead of the inside of her own eyelids. Fascination poured unabashed on those she met in her wanderings, moreso when memory too distant to reach crashed against the base of her skull. But it was something he’d said that had disturbed the waters of her thoughts with a curious question of her own. "The Hildufólk are wise,” she repeated. “She told me a river knows no hurry, for it still reaches its destination. What did she tell you?"
Thorn Paw padded up the slope, blatantly ignoring the twisted one’s sneer into the sky. No interest stirred in Wyldfyre’s human den, but he placed himself quite purposefully between the doorway and the twisted one behind. The old wolf lowered himself slowly, resting his muzzle between his paws. Resignation puffed a sigh from his great chest, lest Wyldfyre forget his own feelings on this diversion, but he did not otherwise interfere, beyond to share the things he knew.
The wolf dream is home to many things, Wyldefyre. I am old. My soul awaits the time it will open new eyes to your world. When it does, I will be me, but cast anew, and only my memory will live on in my pups and my pack. She is a thing that exists here always, and she has no pack to carry the memories for her. She must carry them herself, whether she wills it or not. Perhaps that is why she forgets. I do not know.
It was a great irony that the forgotten one seemed to perceive that this was no home fit for a wolf, given how often the pup returned to this barren place to stare at the stone -- and he of the kin, not she. The twisted one had kept him too long from his birthright, Thorn Paw knew that. Chains as sure as the ones burning resolution in the pup’s chest now, but he was not sure his brother acknowledged them as such. His feelings on that were always a complicated scent, too human to unpick. Thorn Paw’s ears pinned back, irritated.
He watched them for a time, but soon grew bored enough to close his eyes. At least until Wyldfyre’s promise earned a low growl of disapproval.
You have a strong heart, brother. I am proud! But pack must come first. Two-legs take our dens, kill our pups, and string our brothers and sisters’ corpses about their shoulders. Madness steals our kin, or two-legs come with their steel claws and take them from us. Her toils are not ours. Let another break these chains. The Destroyer comes, and we will be the shield, brother. But we must be strong first!