Cedarwood Forest my haunted lungs

September 14th; Late Afternoon; Partly Cloudy; 57 ° F, 14 ° C.

The words he had exchanged with Morganna stuck with him for the past few months. It stoked the rage within him and, with it, all the longing and yearning and devastation. It was official now, he had already lost count of just how long @Piety had been missing. If that was not enough, Skoll was already at wit's end with everything. His days of merely brooding were running short and he had more than enough conviction and motivation to move forward.

Through the morning he had slept and, by mid-day, he ushered @Sven closer towards the heart of Willow Ridge before taking his leave. If he made friends of Niles, Ravenna, and Isolde, so be it... The ghost prince already knew what he could and could not do; Sven could boss them around if he wanted, Skoll didn't care. He believed it was proper behavior for a little royal, and it was with that mindset that he pressed his nose to his son's nose and left the boy on his own.

The boy knew where he could go, just as Skoll knew where to start his search. A black streak through the willow trees, he loped, energetic for the time being as the sun was covered by both clouds and trees. The further he went, the more he felt that uncomfortable prick of a pine needle underfoot. It did little to dissuade him from continuing onward; the Archer still had blood left to bleed and he would offer it for her.

At some point, a whine slipped form his throat and his gait slowed somewhere between the ancient cedars. His coat stood up in terrible spikes in the places where someone should have helped him groom the oily build-up in his fur. He panted as though he had been wandering for days without water. He was determined this time to not return to the Ridge without his beloved dove. Broken or not, she still belonged to him and he was intent on making that so very clear. To the Archer, it was obvious that she was only meant to be within his care. Only his. Having her back in his possession would be the only way he could mollify the yearning within him and put an end to his mania over missing her.

He prowled through the forest, half-limping as his paws burned with each step. As if the forest was warding him away, a pine cone fell from the high canopy above, knocking him square on the back of the neck hard enough to make him slip forward. His muzzle dove into the carpet of thick forest debris and his hind legs folded beneath him in turn.

"Stop," he told nothing and no one in particular, shakily lifting his head so that he could survey his surroundings. "Please." As carefully as he could, he pushed himself up and stood on his aching feet. He teetered to one side, shoving his shoulder into a rough-barked tree much harder than he would have liked. At the back of his skull, he imagined how lost Piety was beyond the shelter of the Willows and inwardly panicked. He bowed his head as his pointed black ears came back against his skull. "I know you're out there," he whispered, straightening himself out again with a huff. "I will find you if it's the last thing I do."

you must be onto me

Clouds loomed and his head ached, the constant drum as steady as his heartbeat. With ears flat out to the side, the male drove himself away from Grizzly Hollow and the safety it offered him. Aware he could have fled to Rook’s side, he did not – there he would find comfort and love, of this, he had no doubt. But these were not the things he wanted-- No, these were not the things he deserved, and Veho gave himself a mental lashing and surged onwards. Those were the things a mate should be offered first and foremost – those were the things he was stealing from Quil, and when had his father raised such a thief. A ray of light across his eyes made the male flinch and he veered deeper into the forest, no longer aware of what direction he was running. As long as he was running, he could keep a foot ahead of the demons snapping at his tail.

Unable to keep it up forever, the medic slowed on unsteady limbs, dragging his paws towards a large tree. Torso pressed to the trunk, the male leaned down and wretched, entire body shivering as the world spun around him. It took a moment (or what felt like a moment – or was it several minutes?) before he found balance once more, and Veho turned about, pressing back into the forest. Though the throbbing in his skull raged on, the medic was able to realize that he required water, and sought to seek out the river than ran through the trees when he heard an unfamiliar voice echoing through the land.

Ears rolled back and forth, hackles standing on edge as his entire body tingled. The gray wolf slunk forth, stopping several lengths away from the inky shadow babbling tommyrot to himself. There were no other wolves among these woods – even in this state, Veho would be able to smell them.

“Who do you seek?” he demanded of the stranger, voice far stronger than he currently felt. “These woods are a sanctuary.”

You cannot find those who do not want to be found.

If the hour had been just before midnight, Skoll could have been nearly invisible if he closed his eyes. It was very much uncharacteristic of him to be up during the daytime. As it stood, under the brightness of day, he was blinded and out and about in plain sight. In-between the evergreens his stark black coat, colorless irises, and white-lined muzzle was easy to pick out; and, it rendered him as an easy target for anyone who happened see him when they drew near or passed him by. Soon enough, the scent of another, an older male, curled in his nostrils but he did nothing to acknowledge them. He needed to collect himself, to regain his bearings so that he could soldier on in his search.

“Who do you seek?” the stranger questioned. The dark prince's right ear twitched and rotated towards the place he knew the other stood in his midst. "These woods are a sanctuary."

A quivering forepaw rose, then hung in the air with a hesitant step before being planted back down into the carpet of pine needles. Skoll's nose wrinkled in discomfort, the gears in his mind slowly clicking into a rhythm that was more sluggish than anticipated. If his angel had not fled from her safe haven within Willow Ridge, he probably would have kept to his normal schedule, left to slumber the daylight hours away until nightfall covered Relic Lore in shadow and moonlight. He couldn't think straight; it frustrated him beyond measure.

"I'm looking for m-my-- my m-mate," he faltered, wanting nothing more than to be at her side, to find the softness of her side cradled against his in the security of their thicket. "I can't find her. Agony threatened to overtake his tone, to show the rogue before him that he was nothing without the one he loved. Piety, ever since she had come into his life, had been the light of all lights; and, against his darkness, she had shown him what beauty was meant to look like. They were opposites - without her to balance him out, he was simply twilight and shade with no true direction or verve. He simply consumed, blacking out everything else until he found there was nothing to destroy or devour. She had been the only thing in his world he found worthwhile apart from his sister @Morganna and his son, his one and only heir. "I need her."

you must be onto me

The pain still bridged behind his eyes, small flashes behind his lids with each wash of pain. Were he else where, he might have whined and curled up and settled in for a nap – sleep was one of the greatest cures for all ailments, when his florae failed him. But here was a stranger, dangerously close to Grizzly Hollow’s borders, and where he could not sleep, the man was able to take all those thoughts focused inwards and cast them out. Guilt trickled into wariness and suspicion – levels of stress began to drop as the wolf found himself with a job once more.

A job. He could do a job.

“I am very sorry to hear about your mate,” Veho answered gravely, dipping his head in a show of sympathy. Were he ever to lose Rook-- His heart clenched at the very thought. Technically, they weren’t even bound, not officially, but in the darkest recesses of his mind, he considered the alpha his lover all the same. Were the masked male to disappear, the medicine man had no idea what lengths he would go to in order to locate the holder of his heart.

With a soft huff and his banner remaining high, the silver male allowed his hackles to fall. He did not wish harm towards the man as long as he did not intend to harass the wolves of the Hollow, or trespass on the sacred land. Tomen’s safety, Borden’s safety, they were all at risk with a stranger nearby.

“You are dangerously close to pack lands, friend. We have not had many lone wolves cross through, not lately.” Not wolves who didn’t join Grizzly Hollow, he added to himself. Perhaps if the stranger was a crackerjack at tracking, he might have avoided Veho altogether – but here they were, and the man could only assume the Ancestors intended for him to offer his services. “But if you can describe her for me, ser…? I’m afraid I haven’t caught your name.”

The sympathy he could do without; no one's words, apart from Piety's, Elettra's and Morganna's, were enough to soothe him from the inside out. He made no further comment, finding himself utterly uncomfortable the longer he remained in the shadows of the cedars and evergreens. In his head he promised himself that he would do whatever it took to rid himself of the painful sensations that were pricking his paws and racing up his limbs, weighing down on his back and shoulders. Obviously, whatever force was at work here within this forest was doing all it could to ward him off and tell him that he was absolutely not welcome. Furthermore, having this silver-furred guard here before him was just overkill.

For a while he considered if this venture into foreign territory would be worth it if he expended his energy over fishing for information, lying through his teeth just to hear for himself if his mate did actually inhabit the woodlands just out of his reach.

"Her name is Piety," he huffed, a flash of heat racing down his spine in a prickling sensation. He flashed his teeth to hide the discomfort. "White fur, brown eyes. Slender build. She needs to be with me; I'm the only one who can take care of her. If you have her... Please, you have to surrender her to me. It's for her own good."

you must be onto me

Had you been there tonight, you might know how it feels to be struck to the bone!

“There is no one here named Piety,” the medic replied in short order, with no hesitation. Mate or not, he did not feel as though this was a lie. Upon their first meeting, his packmate had requested she be called Dove, and only Dove, regardless of the rules that surrounded Grizzly Hollow and secondary callings. The sympathy he had for the swarthy male began to diminish by the moment – it was clear to him that someone had done the woman harm prior to her acceptance into their pack, and he had to wonder if this was the soul that had done it. She wasn’t very descriptive at all, outside of the fact that she wanted to ‘start over’. The rest was left for the pale-eyed wolf to fill in the blanks and make assumptions.

Readjusting his stance, the sturdy male widened his stance and flagged his tail, making his position quite clear before he opened his mouth again. “Furthermore, it is not for a stranger to decide what is and what is not good for a wolf. Wolves are not a thing to keep, a thing to own. Even if she were here, what makes you think I’d surrender her to you?”

A flash of teeth, and a brief wondering. When had he gotten so protective over a single packmate? He considered the woman to be a friend, yes, but they were little more than that. He’d only made a promise, but oh, how he’d failed to protect those he cared about in the past. Neha flashed across his mind and Veho steeled himself, putting a barricade between his willpower and the doubt promising to pick away at him. “You owe me your name, stranger. You are too close to Grizzly Hollow. If you only come seeking this woman, I suggest you be on your way. She’s not here.”

And I do not care for your presence here.

can someone tell me how he got into our system?

There was a distinct musk in the air that Rook kept getting a whiff of everytime he took a step on this part of the territory and he wasn't entirely sure that he liked it. For the most part it smelled of trees that weren't entirely "native" to his nook of Relic Lore. It vaguely reminded him of the trees in the east, of birches and willows. He frowned and took up a hunter's stride, quick and swift through the pine needles that cushioned the ground wherever he stepped.

With his head lowered, he began to peer around the trees as Veho's scent began to mingle with that of the apparent stranger on the borders. His fur stood up on edge as their conversation, muffled over the distance and the close positioning of some of the trees, drifted into his ears. A breath was sucked into his chest as he spied the near-silhouetted figure of the Archer prince with the tip of Veho's tail somewhere not far from him. He had to act and quickly.

He threw all caution he had to the wind; he had been in a much worse predicament than this one tha was about to unfold, and this time he had the upper hand. There was no doubt about it. Squaring his shoulders with a lift of his hackles and his tail, he charged through the measly thicket he had been hiding behind. One growl of warning was all that preceded his arrival onto the scene as he launched himself at Skoll's side.

Jaws agape and basically floundering about in a blur of mottled fur and flashed teeth, he wordlessly snarled at the Willow Ridge prince to get lost, snapping at whatever bit of black fur that was available to him. "Veho!" he called, much too preoccupied with warding off Elettra's much larger son. "Veho, get out of here!"

you'll kill me? evidently there will be a line.

"There is no one here named Piety," the other male told him. Skoll was almost ready to believe all that he said if it weren't for him pressing them matter even further. The idea that his mate was somewhere in the woods beyond, made his heart swell but not enough to risk his own hide. His limbs were bothered, whatever speed he was capable of, there was no doubt that this gray-furred guardian would rip him apart first.

The prince decided to drop his quest; Piety was not worth this if he had to extend himself to show the brute just who he was talking to and that he could have owned whomever he had wanted... Like Quil and Cinder...

"They were mine!" he roared back at the man. "Quil was s'posed t--" Indeed, it wasn't worth it. He didn't even get to finish his sentence before a growl erupted from the foliage at the stranger's side and the air was easily knocked out of his lungs. With his shoulder on the ground, he struggled to right himself all while he flinched and continually jerked wherever Rook managed to pinch with his teeth.

"Veho!" the voice confirmed that the masked man was actually Rook. "Veho get out of here!" Skoll's face distorted in pain and all kinds of aggravation - at Rook, at Piety, at Veho the guard, at himself - and it took all the strength left in him to find his feet and basically high-tail it out of Rook's reach when the opportunity first came to him.

He rolled on his side, wincing as a snap of teeth came at his spine, then ran as fast as his limbs could take him. He probably should have said something different, asked a different variety of questions, done something different instead of just... standing there looking like a heartbroken fool.

Once or twice he staggered on his way past a number of trees, tripping when he was a good distance away from where he had originally been standing. Pushing himself up, he whined as he struggled to stand up again, hoping that the two Hollow wolves would not come after him. If Rook was smart, he wouldn't dare come any further...

Had you been there tonight, you might know how it feels to be struck to the bone!

Veho had never claimed to be much of a liar, even when done in the name of justice and upholding promises. It was done only for love of @Piety and concern for her welfare, but that did not give him the skills one obtained through practicing often. No, Merlin could not must up a lie, and perhaps he might have been more convincing had he not opened his mouth a second time, but since when was he one for little words? Regardless, he had little idea of how transparent he’d been, nor of the inferno he’d just lit inside the younger wolf.

They were mine! the massive beast roared, true colors suddenly flashing to the surface. Gone was the poor, pathetic creature, lost and pining over the woman he loved. It became suddenly apparent why the heavenly refugee would want to avoid this monster. Not only was his temper a hairline trigger, but it was only a breath away from erupting into an actual assault beyond sharp words. Veho’s ears flew back against his skull protectively, curling his lips in a promise of violence should the stranger try anything else. His tail lashed behind him furiously as hackles peaked upwards, the gray wolf growing to his full height as he snapped his jaws. The Macieo son was not afraid of a fight, especially not if this was for Piety’s honor…and the Queen’s protection. How, or why, this beast knew @Quil was not of immediate concern, only that he came no closer to the woman or her young son.

Before either wolf could act on threats and oaths, a third joined the fray, a familiar voice ringing out. Veho, get out of here! it cried, and his heart skipped a beat or two. Ice crested over the rage, fear leaving him brittle and motionless as @Rook exploded from his visual barricade, taking the stranger by surprise. It was a motion of black and white, two kings locked in a wicked embrace for one second, and then two. All at once, the world snapped back to reality, and Veho did not give a second thought to his alpha’s command. “You would sooner see me dead, but not before this justice done!” he snarled, bursting forward in a rush of speed. It came as a bit of a disappointment that Skoll did not put up any fight, instead only hitting the ground with a meaty thud. As he was escorted by sharp teeth and snapping jaws, he rolled further, gathering his legs underneath him to spring away through the cedar wood forest.

This was far from satisfactory. Run, thought Veho maliciously, spurred onwards by the stranger’s ugly disregard for things fragile and precious. Now that Rook was involved, he couldn’t stand for this. Grizzly Hollow could not stand for this. They’d not have to run him back from whence he came, but Veho wanted to be certain he was a ways off from their home when he finally slowed to a job, and then to a walk, his breaths whistling harshly as he cast an eye over Rook.

“I think he is gone. Did you…know him?”

I had it handled.