Ancient Fire

[Lilraaos]

The ground was warm under her shoes, the soles worn so thin that they bended with her feet with every step that Alyssa took. Her feet throbbed, day old blisters begging to rest, but she couldn't stop yet. She was knocked backwards as a man whom had a clear destination in mind and couldn't wait to be there crashed his shoulder into her's, a loud profanity and quick dirty look shot at her before he darted away.

 

Honestly, Alyssa didn't expect the best of manners from the part of town. It was the shader part of the market, the part where the merchants preferred to punish you for any offense with their own two hands rather then call for proper authority to help because they themselves had something to hide. It was a place were you could easily be let off the hook for theft but only if you were very quick or very sneaky.

 

A lone girl, as small and as young as her to be able to defend herself in such a place, either with her fists or a sharp tongue, that or she could just not allow herself to be identified at all. Alyssa, clothed in her hooded plain gray cloak went with the second approach despite the burning sun beating on her back. On her arm was a swinging straw basket, a loaf of bread obtained honorably though contained some rather questionable content peaked out of the opening of the basket, as if it were a dog throwing his head out of a car window to catch the wind with his long pink tongue.

 

A loud yell of anger cut over the busy noise of the market place that did nothing to cease. A pair of kids, a brown haired girl and blonde boy was fast approaching Alyssa's direction, their bloated bellies upon a closer look was actually the faint outline of various items. The crowd payed no mind, stepping out of the way of the commotion, thrives, again were not very uncommon. Alyssa sidestepped the two, paying them no mind until she saw their pursuer- a large angry man with uneven hair that looked as if he chopped off pieces with the huge butcher knife he was wielding as he gained on the kids.

 

This was going a bit to far, especially over a couple apples or bread rolls. Waiting for the man to nearly pass her, Alyssa threw herself on the man, intending to buy the kids some time, knocked him off balance as she quietly and repeatedly apologized as if it were an accident.

 

The man didn't react well to that, pushing her on her to regain his own balance. She was sent flying to the ground, her hood flying back to reveal her face and wild hair, soon caught by the hot wind. He turned around to face her, knowing that he had lost the chase and instead turned his anger to her.

 

"I'm sorry! Honestly, I didn't see you coming!" She lied, grasping at everything that had spilled out of her basket.

 

"Who's gonna pay for what they took form me now?" He questioned taking no notice in her apology.

 

"I'm sorry sir. I don't have money." She whispered truthfully, sweeping her basket handle across her arm as she stood up.

 

"Then. Who. Is. Going. To. Pay. Me?" He repeated angrily as he grabbed a fistful of her cloak, pulling her closer so that she could smell his sour breath and hear the enunciated words that he delivered.

 

"I-I don't know." She responded with a stutter, fear shooting up and down her spine. This man was feral and she almost regretted messing with him.

 

"Hey, now that I get a good look at you, you actually have a pretty face. Your skin is so pale and smooth, almost like a dolls." He suddenly changed the subject, eyes squinting at her and tone of voice seemed almost curious.

 

"T-thank you sir." She managed to nervously spit out with a gulp, knowing where this was going.

 

"Say, it was your fault that those two brats got away. Methinks you should take responsibility and since I'm a generous man, I'll let you pay with your body." The man offered with a menacing smile revealing yellow teeth with his clutch on her cloak right as ever.

 

"No! Please! I-"

Please, please, please! Alyssa begged her body not to betray her.

"Okay, alright." She breathed with a sigh of heavy sigh and going limp in defeat.

 

The man started to give instructions on where to meet him, his grip on her loosening over her act of defeat. Before he completely let her go, Alyssa brought her knee up to quickly meet with his groin. Using the ball of her heel, she pushed herself backwards (and away from the man) as he doubled over with a groan of pain. She didn't waste any time sprinting away, wanting to put as much distance between them as possible, but she couldn't resist mockingly calling back to him. "I'm sorry! I hope you can still produce children!"

 

She didn't stop running until she was completely out of the marketplace, only slowing down a smidgen as she took the quick and sharp turns to the neighborhood her father and her had agreed to meet at. As she turned the corner of a line of houses that all looked the same in her mind, she was met with the sight of a woman falling through the air with her golden-brown wings spread out as she tried to catch the wind. Alyssa's let out a choked shout of surprise and concern, then watched helplessly as a tall red haired man nearly ran her over. With cautious steps, she walked over to see if the two were okay when out of the corner of her eye, she could see the outline of a one-winged figure being knocked to the ground.

"Father!" Her voice carried great concern as her legs carried her as fast as she could to the fallen man.

[Freezeon99]

Charadin slowly got to his knees "H-hey..." He squeaked out. He stumbled to his feet, using the building wall to stabilize him. "I'm ok... I've been through worse..." He wipes the blood from his nose, "Much worse."

[Lilraaos]

Alyssa's heart ached to see her father so broken and defeated. She had grown up seeing him as a strong man, one that she had respected and even feared a bit yet that didn't mean she loved him any less. He was the world to her. To see him like that right now, it was as if her world was crumbling all around her- and it was, her known world. They were violently tossed out of their home by her father's own men, forced to adapt to the streets. She felt as if their roles were reversed now. That she was the one in charge of taking care of and protecting him and at that she did the best she could. Despite everything, they were making it by, day by day and they had each other at their side, and that was what really mattered.

 

"Father, don't push yourself please. Sit down and let me take a look." She begged, rushing over to steady her staggering father. There was so much blood. "Father, I think your nose might be broken." She murmured softly, carefully examining his nose.

 

"Um. Hello? One of you two, if you guys don't mind can one of you hold my father down while I heal him?" Alyssa shouted to the tall red haired boy and the golden-brown winged girl hesitantly. Her healing skill was the one that she had a quite a knack for but the process itself was pretty painful on the receiver.

 

"It'll only take a second."

Edited April 8, 2015 by Lilraaos

[DrakeOfBones]

Keegan's heart froze like a stone as he turned, seeing Alyssa. You see, he had a pretty bitter rivalry with a boy about his age that had defected from The Scars to her father's gang. And Keegan... well lets just say Keegan had caused some noise. The thought of having TWO criminal groups on his tail scared the hell out of him. "D-d-did you s-say f-f-father?" He stuttered, trying to force the blood to return to his face. "Sh-sure. Of course. He once again motioned an apology to the woman he had nearly run over, scrambling to get up and jog over to the person that may recognize him as a menace.

 

He nodded to the pitch black skinned male as he came around the corner, and stood closer to the daughter, trying to keep his distance from Charadin. "How would you like me to hold him down?" He asked gently, attempting to stay on the good side of the both of them. One wrong move could leave him in deep trouble, potentially get him killed, or at the very least cost him another few inches of clear skin space... "! The SCARS! If that doesn't give me away nothing will..." He cursed to himself, his face running flush again as his heart leapt to his throat. The obvious markings covered his torso and arms, sigils of shadow and fire, helping him focus under pressure. Hot irons had been a familiar sight for him...

[Zeditha]

((I think it's probably a good idea if all the wolves we play are in one pack, at least mainly. If lots of people start joining, then perhaps a second or maybe even third pack would become a good idea, but we need plenty of characters for a pack and they should all be in one for simplicity.))

 

Mia was fairly surprised to see someone in the random alley she had landed in. "Oh, sorry," she said. "I didn't realise someone would be there when I tried to fly... Well it's a good thing I didn't just fall flat on my face or you'd have been squished, I guess." She smiled and held out her hand, decided to attempt befriending this stranger. She was right outside her house; what could he do? "My name's Mia."

 

((posting on computer, will edit in Zeditha's RP from iPad.))

[Lumikkja]

Tikvah knew it had to be some form of karma that as soon as she started walking down the street, she heard a yell and the sound of panicked scuffling. To be honest, she wasn't sure what to make of the scene unfolding in her peripheral vision. There must have been some sort of fight... all Tikvah could see from where she stood was a red-haired young man standing over what looked to be an older Posthuman lying on the ground, and a girl kneeling next to him. Tikvah had to admit she was curious, but wary. Whatever had happened was nothing short of shady, but really, the Bone City had plunged headfirst into the sewage system in the past months. Nothing was working the way it should, hence why Tikvah wanted to get out.

 

She wondered what would happen if she paused to help these people. Even from a distance, Tikvah recognized the sight of blood. It didn't look like a fatal amount, by any means, but it still meant someone was hurt. Tikvah doubted she knew any of these people, and it would be very easy to keep walking and ignore them. It wasn't as if she had any particular skill in tapping life-force, she she wouldn't be able to help heal the wounds.

 

Despite her wariness to go near the scene, Tikvah found her feet were taking her over there anyway. When she drew close, she realized there were two other people lurking in this corner of the market. One of them was another woman, and the other... Tikvah shivered. His skin was black, not unlike Aife's scales, and he unnerved Tikvah for reasons she couldn't identify. She decided she would keep her distance from him, at least for the moment. There were more pressing concerns.

 

"Is anyone hurt badly?" she asked. "There's an emergency aid center a few blocks away, in case you were wondering..." Well, that summed up Tikvah's abundance of good advice. Until someone asked her for help, she would just have to keep back and observe, all while wondering if it was actually a good idea to stick around.

 

***

 

It didn't take long for Hakon's stomach to remind him of the importance of food. In all likelihood, there were others who were hunting at the moment, and Hakon wondered if he should join them. Prey had been a bit scarcer in recent days, but the pack was still doing well. Trotting toward the border of the den site, Hakon saw a group of other adults and made haste to join them as they were talking.

 

"Hakon!" one of the females said, her ears perking up. "Good to see you awake. We were planning on a hunt. Would you join us?"

 

The older wolf considered her offer. She already had a large hunting party, and six adults was more than enough to take down a considerably large animal. He'd noticed another wolf heading off on his own, and that reminded Hakon of something he'd been meaning to do for a while now. He had to shake his head, saying, "I was planning on a patrol today. After what the Spirit told us, I thought it would be prudent to assess our borders."

 

Another adult nodded in agreement. "Good idea. We'll see you when we get back, I presume?"

 

"Of course."

 

"Good luck, then!"

 

Hakon gave each of his peers a nod of gratitude and wished them good luck in their hunt as well. A moment later they set off on their hunt, leaving Hakon to his own devices. His stomach was still growling at him, but he could find small prey as he patrolled their territory. Wasting not a moment more, he set off into the trees, his paws leaving large tracks in the thin layer of snow that speckled the ground.

 

After perhaps an hour of travel, which included a quick stop to hunt a few rabbits, Hakon found himself on the lower slopes of the mountains, where the trees were more sparse and prey was more scarce. In the distance he could see the snow winding down into dark, empty stretches of forest that were outside the Fain. But those dead forests were many miles away. Hakon payed little attention to them.

 

Lifting his nose to the air, Hakon drank in the scents around him. For the most part he smelled snow and ice and the piney scent of trees, but there was a thin electric smell underlying all of those. This odor reminding Hakon of anxiety, of speed and vivaciousness, and he recognized it as the odor of life energy. If he focused, he knew he would be able to sense it more accurately, and even be able to 'see' the trickles of life force coursing through the mountains. He preferred to keep his vision unhindered, and relied on his nose for tracking. As he mulled over the smells, he finally found what he was looking for.

 

Bitterness. The smell rested inside his nose like acid, festering in his head and lungs. It was faintly similar to the scent he'd picked up when they found his mate's corpse... Hakon bristled. There was a reason he volunteered to patrol the borders of the pack's territory. Their pack was closer to the edge of the mountains than most, and sometimes things had been known to stray into the snowy peaks from the outside. Mostly these were just decrepit prey-animals, but sometimes... well, something had come and killed Hakon's mate when she was patrolling.

 

Now the scent was back, after almost a year of nothing. Whatever had killed his mate had done so crudely, and the scent was like a dying animal. If Hakon had to attach a word to the kind of impression the ambient element energy of the scene had given him, he would choose 'prototype.' Draighean had once explained that odd word to them. It meant something that wasn't quite there yet - something that was only part of what it was supposed to be. The elemental energy that surrounded the environment where his mate was killed was tainted with that uncomfortable feeling of incompleteness.

 

This new scent was much more complete, and much harder to pinpoint, but Hakon had a good read on it. The feathers on his shoulders puffed out as his hackles rose, and he set off in pursuit of the scent trail. Whatever it was the was encroaching upon the mountains now... he would make sure that it didn't get far.

[Freezeon99]

Charadin rubs his head. "Just do it quick... I don't care if it hurts, I'm used to it." He slumps up against the building, and slides down to the ground. "Alyssa, where ha-" He coughs violently, "Have you been?" He asks.

 

OOC: (I'm really sorry for the short ones I do, I only have one character, and I'm not used to writing long things.)

Edited April 8, 2015 by Freezeon99

[Lilraaos]

The man haired man had seemed surprised when Alyssa had mentioned Charadin was her father. She got that often when and while he wasn't the man that have birth to her, he was her only father as far as she was concerned.

 

"Father, you know this will hurt a bit but please bear with it." Alyssa murmured, setting her straw basket down as to not disturb the content. She flashed the man a grateful smile as he came over to help.

 

Rolling up her sleeves, Alyssa looked hopefully over to the girl with the golden-brown wings for help, as the red haired man trotted over. She didn't take Alyssa's call for help, not that Alyssa blamed her. It wasn't hard to understand why perfectly civilized people wouldn't want to help a couple dirty and shady looking strangers. She turned back to her father as the man approached, asking gently how she would prefer her father be held. "Could you hold him still?" She asked, realizing just how useless her instructions were the moment they came out of her mouth. "Maybe hold his shoulders still?" Her suggestion in an attempt to be helpful sounded more like a question.

 

A pretty dark skinned, red haired girl with impressive green eyes approached, asking if anyone was okay and informing the group that there was a medical clinic far off. Alyssa was quick to dismiss her, "It is fine, I can take care if my father." Then added a quick "But thank you for informing us." Hoping not to come off as to horribly rude.

 

Pressing her pointer finger and thumb into a large triangle, she framed it around her father's nose taking a deep breath. She would have to set his nose and heal it fast if she wanted him to feel the least amount of pain. It was similar to ripping off a bandage, after the initial pain, it would reduce to throbbing and then cease to exist vs. the agony of doing it slowly and delicately.

 

"I've been singing in the square. I found a decently price loaf of bread and although I'm a bit suspicious of what it's made of, I feel as if it is safe to eat." Alyssa talked as she set his nose, trying to keep him thinking about something also to keep his mind off the pain. She closed her eyes, going silent in the next couple of moments as she has pressed her hands into his skin. The blood quickly dried, and if it were to be washed away, it would reveal a fixed though a bit slightly crooked nose. Alyssa stepped back, though not before brushing away dried bits of blood off of her father's nose. Her own hands were covered in blood but that could be taken care of later, she turned to the red haired man that had helped them. "Thank you. We don't have much credits leftover this month but if there is anything we can do to repay you, please let us know."

 

Now taking a closer look at the man, he seemed to be covered in scars and sigils of darkness and flames. It stood out to her because the marks were similar to those of a young man that had joined her father's group a few years before. She had remembered that the gang was in a state of celebration for far longer then they normally were over the fact that the man had joined. There was much talking about 'Those damn Scars' and the young girl had quickly concluded that it was just another rival gang and for some reason, this young man had abandoned them to join her father's gang.

 

Edited April 8, 2015 by Lilraaos

[DrakeOfBones]

((Lilraaos, I just wanna be sure you know that Keegan didn't join Charadin's gang, but was in a rivalry with a boy that did. If you knew that, my bad, but I just wanted to double check.))

 

Keegan gently held the man down by his shoulders as Alyssa healed his nose, keeping him from squirming too much. He shot a look over his shoulder as the tall, tan woman approached them. He opened his mouth to say something, but it snapped shut quickly as Alyssa responded. Beads of sweat began forming on his brow, the nerves in his body still straining against his common sense, trying to bolt before anyone else showed up and he started leaving a easy to follow trail. As far as Keegan knew, a group of Scar assassin could be around the corner now.

 

Keegan shook his head quickly. "No compensation needed, but if any of you know a good way out of the city, somewhere potentially safe, I would be glad to listen." he replied as the girl finished wiping blood out of Charadin's face. "That goes for you too miss!" Keegan called out to the woman he had almost crashed into. He turned to the newcomer, the one who had mentioned a health clinic and smiled brightly, still trying to play off the goody two shoes bit. "and thank you for the offer of assistance." He chirped quickly, before turning back to the injured man and offering a hand to help him up.

 

~~~

 

Fenik growled softly from the shadows. Something he couldn't pinpoint was throwing off his nose, and he couldn't tell what it was. It got worse as he traveled down the mountain in search of food, and at this point he was tracking the old fashioned way, following prints in the snow and mud and looking for snapped branches. A long, frustrated howl left his snout, his toes curling and digging into the ground. It was cut short as he heard the distinct snap of a branch, however. This did not please Fenik, as it wasn't a small branch. It sounded more like a limb being pulled from a tree. His hackle shot up as his muscles tensed, and he backed away from the sound's origin. Another rip confirmed his fear. It was coming for him.

 

Naught but a 10 seconds later, a creature he did not recognize ripped past a few tree's, charging Fenik's location. Yipping, Fenik tucked his tail between his legs as he bolted out of the way of the decaying monster, just before it buried it's horns into the tree he had backed up into. Eyes wide and heart racing, Fenik sprinted off. As his back turned, a loud snap occurred. Whether it was bone or tree, Fenik did not care. He thought he could take this own his own, but the uneasy feeling of it made him worry. He let out a loud bark and a yip, hoping someone would hear it though his ragged breathing.

[Lilraaos]

(plz, have more faith in my basic reading and comprehending abilities. JK, I should have made it clearer and given deflecting guy a name but I was really lazy so yeah. QQ. Yeah if Keegan had been in Charadin's gang she would recognized him and would probably have been trying to get him to eat her knife or something.)

 

"I do not know of a route." Alyssa responded to the red haired man with an apologetic look though she was quite curious as to why the man wanted to leave the city. Was he a criminal of sorts? If so, it wasn't a bad plan though it seemed to have its holes, like for example, where would he be able to produce food? Unless he specialized in the manipulation of plant life, it would be hard to raise crops outside of the city though he could probably hunt.

 

Maybe Father and her should go, sure they had just met the man and therefore he wasn't to be trusted, but if they could escape the city then it wouldn't mean they would have to stay with him right? With the people whom were out to get her father wondering the streets, Alyssa felt on more on edge as each day passed. She had decent control over plants so with a couple of seeds and a bit of water, she was sure she could charm the plants into bearing a couple of meals.

 

A faint high pitched mewing sliced through her thoughts, commanding her attention to her basket. Rushing over, she opened her basket and scooped up a bundle of cloth, an even smaller gray bundle of fur with shut eyes and a bright pink nose lay wrapped in the cloth as it let out another heart wrenching cry. She looked at her father, her words stumbling out as she begun to explain, with panicked eyes.

 

"Father, I'm sorry, I know we don't need another mouth to feed but her mother- I met her mother in this alleyway and she was so trusting and I always fed her little pieces of fish from a nearby kiosk and I came back today and she was completely limp and these little bodies surrounded her and it was horrible but this little one- this little one." Alyssa stopped talking to take a big gulp of air, hugging the squealing kitten close to her chest, not know how to explain just how awful it was to come across the sight, then at the mixture of disbelief, joy and a feeling that compelled her to protect the little creature the moment she laid eyes on her.

 

"She was just so small and defenseless I couldn't just leave her there. I stuffed heat packs into mittens, you know those ones that get warm every time you rub them? I wrapped those mittens in a cloth and then I wrapped the kitten in a cloth to simulate her mother's warmth." She continued talking, leaving out exactly how she came across the heat packs, mittens and blanket.

 

"And anyway I know she'll probably die because she has no way to eat- I mean its not like we can just feed her goat or cow milk, we'll need to feed her through a tube with a special formula that resembles her mother's milk and that no one that we know provides those but I just couldn't- I just didn't-" Her words quickly turned into sobs as she looked helplessly at her father.

 

"I couldn't just leave her there to die."

Edited April 9, 2015 by Lilraaos

[Freezeon99]

Charadin sniffed the air, with his healed nose, and took the bread. "A... A cat?" He shifts over and puts his arm around Alyssa, "I'll see what I can do." He says with a crooked smile. "Does he slash she have a name?" He rubs the kitten under the chin gently.

 

He picks up his pipe, and puts the pieces back together. "I've attracted quite a crowd huh?" He chuckles.

[Lumikkja]

Admittedly, Tikvah should not have been as excited to see the kitten as she was, and she was proud of herself for hiding her excitement so well. She had a weakness for small fluffy things, and it had taken years to get out of the habit of squealing like a little kid every time she saw one. The girl's attachment to the kitten was something Tikvah could sympathize with.

 

Still, while the kitten was undeniably cute, Tikvah had to force herself to pay attention to what the red-haired man had said. So he wanted to get out of the city, too? Well, that was refreshing, though Tikvah couldn't say she wasn't a little worried about his reasons. Generally she tried to ignore those kinds of details in favor of more meaningful aspects of a person, so if the man was on the run for some unsavory reason, Tikvah didn't really care. He'd paused to help the girl and her father, so that said something good about his character.

 

Besides, Tikvah had been looking for potential partners in her plan. She might as well start now. "Well, since you're interested," she said, clearing her throat to get their attention, "I may or may not be planning to leave this city by nightfall today, and I already know several good ways to get out that will not disturb any of our fellow citizens." Tikvah tilted her head to the side, her wings bunching around her shoulders thoughtfully. "It might not be safe, per se... but it's a way out, if you'd be willing to accompany me. Just so long as you're not opposed to a bit of sneaking around. I'm sure you'd be able to handle that."

 

Tikvah still wasn't sure about the bald one - there was something about him that just disturbed her - but she wanted to offer the girl and her father (and the kitten) the same opportunity to get out. They didn't look like they had a very good situation in the Bone City. "That goes for you too, uh... newly appointed kitten mother. If you want, I could show you my way out of the city." She then paused. "Though if we're going to do that, it might behoove us to know names. I'm Tikvah." Just as a precaution, she refrained from telling them her surname. She knew she was just being paranoid, but if she'd learned anything from her guild, it was that paranoia was useful so long as it didn't get out of control.

 

***

 

It was the howl that first got Hakon's attention. His ears perked up curiously, and for a moment he wondered if he had misheard. Perhaps one of his packmates was patrolling as well? Or was there a member of another pack wandering in their territory? Granted, Fainwolf territory boundaries were not exactly strict, and tended to overlap a bit, but it was common courtesy to keep to the hunting area that surrounded your pack's den site. Scent line boundaries were there almost solely as reminders that there were other packs nearby.

 

Hakon considered keeping to his original plan for a moment, and then trotted off in the general direction of the howl he'd heard. Whether it was one of his packmates or a Fainwolf from another pack, it might be good to meet up with them. The howl had sounded somewhat distraught, at least what Hakon had heard, and the aging wolf wouldn't be opposed to helping if there was trouble. Contrary to the popular belief of the pups back at the den site, he was not an old, grumpy hunter with no sense of humor. That was only partially true.

 

As he was moving toward the sound of the howl, down and around icy boulders and through dense clusters of pine trees, Hakon steadily became aware of the fact that the scent he had been following would have lead him in this direction at some point. Narrowing his eyes, he picked up the pace, darting silently over the snow. Almost on reflex he began to access the elements, though he didn't actively connect to them just yet. The white sigils on his chest and shoulders began to glow faintly in preparation for harnessing the energy that permeated the world around Hakon, just in case there was serious trouble ahead. The smell itching at Hakon's nose suggested that there was danger.

 

Somewhere ahead, Hakon heard sounds. Large, crashing sounds, like tree branches snapping. Not good... not good. These woods were not the sort of place were such sounds were welcome, since they were close to the edge of the mountains. Hakon hated to think about it, but there was a chance that something might have wandered into the Fain. All he could think about was his mate, Dairinn, and the way her corpse had been mangled as if by razor-sharp shards of ice.

 

Hakon heard an alarmed yipping from just over the ridge, and as he skidded to a halt along the side of a small cliff-like protrusion, he heard a harsh, guttural snorting sound, like hoarse breathing. Leaning over the edge of the cliff, Hakon stared down at the small tree-filled gulley, and felt his heart skip a beat. He could see a snowy white Fainwolf, one he recognized as belonging to his pack, and he was trying to avoid the attacks of a creature that Hakon had never seen or heard of in his entire life. It was massive, with a crest full of spikes and horns, and a leathery hide that seemed to cling loosely to its skeleton. In fact, the creature seemed... rotted. That would explain the smell, at least.

 

Letting out a howl in order to get the attention of both the monster and the Fainwolf, Hakon felt a rushing sensation tremble through his core. His sigils glowed pure white, and heat from his body began to melt the snow around his feet as he raced down the slope to meet the Fainwolf. "Are you alright?" he barked, keeping his eyes on the spiked beast.

[Lumikkja]

*nervous nudging bump*

[Gildraug]

"Fintan! Fintan! Where is that good-for-nothing airhead?" a grumpy voice echoed in the healers' den, as Mealla, Fintan's mentor, padded into the den, grumbling all the while. The younger healer had been sleeping to her best ability, her dreams filled with disturbing images and feelings, of faces half-formed and words softly whispered in the back of her mind. In other words, she hadn't slept well. Stretching on her sleeping spot with gathered dry hay she had grown with manipulating earth and life energies, Fintan got up slowly, still groggy from the nightmarish dreams she had seen. The den around her was dark and lightless, more like a cave formed into a hill, which an ancestor had formed years ago. The walls were full of large shelves, filled with herbs and healing grasses, all categorized and carefully put away. The smell of the herbs was ever-present in the fur of the healers, calming and gentle.

 

"Well good morning to you too, rock-head! I've been hollering for you for the past hour or so," Mealla said, her raven black fur with blindingly white strikes bristling ever so slightly and her tail moving in an agitated manner as she sat down. Fintan knew her mentor's harsh words were mostly air, so paid them little heed.

"What is the reason you have been looking for me so intensely?" Fintan asked with a glint in her eye as she sat down on the cave floor, close to her mentor.

"We're out of pigeon's grass, you numb-head!" Maella puffed and motioned at one of the shelves with her snout.

"Cannot we not grow it ourselves by using the elemental energies?"

"How many times must I repeat myself? The herbs are the strongest when they have been grown through the raw energy of Nature itself. Our energy is but a tip of the iceberg of the amount of power the plants receive from Nature. In other words, the naturally growing herbs and plants are much, much more stronger than those you or I could recreate," Maella sighed and frowned at Fintan. "Really, I have told you this before."

"My apologies. I shall go seek for it immediately," Fintan said cheerfully as she stood up and raced out from the den, slitting her eyes at the bloody red sky which greeted her.

"Maella, what's up with the auroras today?" Fintan called into the den.

"Just what you see: blood," the old healer said with a low voice. "Keep your senses open and allow the energies to flow. Something is going to happen today."

 

With that cheery farewell, Fintan dashed off as she opened her senses for the life energy, tapping on to the webwork of nature. A galaxy of tiny lights appeared before her, each and every star a plant or a living being. Ignoring most of the lights, Fintan searched with her mind for a specific patch of stars. Maella had taught her to use her 'mental snout' to search for something more quickly. Soon Fintan found a patch of pigeon's grass, although it was quite the distance away. Better get moving, then.

 

She hadn't been running for long, before she felt a tremble through the skein of life energy. Stopping on her haunches, Fintan twisted her head around, trying to pinpoint the disturbance. She could hear yelps and howls coming ahead of her, and could sense the presence of two wolves and... something else. Something that tainted the skein. Fintan's fur rose without her meaning so. The energy seeping from the other thing made her want to run away and hide, hoping it would never find her. However, her healer's vow didn't allow such, and she hardened her heart and ran towards the source of this foul energy, keeping one eye on the skein and the other on the real world.

 

Fintan skidded to halt as she appeared to the scenery. She recognized both of the wolves, Hakon and Fenik - she had exchanged a few words with them, from a healer to others, meaningless chitchat of which she had no recollection, save for their names. Hakon was pulsing with energy, the skein rippling with it, washing Fintan's psychic mind with warmth. Fenik was horrified, judging by his frozen position and the face he wore. Turning her head at the source of horror, she snarled.

 

She did not recognize the creature nor it's smell, which made her cringe, but the skein itself was twisted around this thing, screaming to her of unnatural and horrifying things.

"Take care; whatever this is, it's not natural and extremely dangerous," Fintan said steadily as she turned her gaze to Fenik.

"You do not seem to be hurt, right? Can you move? If you cannot, please stay back while we take care of this," she said gently before returning her attention to the monstrous thing.

"Hakon, do you have any idea what is the meaning of this?" Fintan inquired as the swirling patterns on her legs started glowing every so slightly. She wasn't going to let the thing catch her unprepared.

[Lumikkja]

*quite bump*

[Esko]

((I may join, give me a few days))

[Lumikkja]

*gentle bump from the ashes*