Bramble Falls Dust to Dust

You've held your head up / You've fought the fight,
You bear the scars, / You've done your time. / Listen to me.
You've been lonely, too long...
-- The Civil Wars - "Dust to Dust"

TAIMA LYALL

January 9th; Early morning, hours before dawn; Partly Cloudy; 12° F/-11° C

Taima Lyall had had enough. In the days since she had talked to Naira, she had wholly convinced herself that she was no longer the young woman she had always pictured herself to be. In all truth, she was the exact opposite. When she had once defied her leaders (a long time ago they had been her parents, Borden and Jaysyek) and her superiors, she now kept her head down and her tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth. It had been several months since she had truly smiled, actually wagged her tail, let alone laughed a genuine laugh. She had grown up much too fast, and gone were the days when she, Ryvet, Renier, and Calla played together in the heart of the Cedarwood woodlands.

In a numb state of mind, she allowed her feet to shuffle wherever they itched to take her. One paw in front of the other and from one step to the next, she slowly and painstakingly made her own path in the chest-deep snow leading towards the Bramble Falls nestled in the side of the Mountain of Dire. No matter how hard she had tried - and it had been seasons now since she had really tried - her heart continually felt as though it would never leave her throat. For the past week, in the long and lonely hours of the evening and night, she quietly sobbed to herself, nonexistent tears continually pouring from the corners of her eyes as she prayed for home... prayed for her siblings, for Kade, for Aniu, for Angier, her mother, her father... but most of all her father. Borden, the man who had always been able to bring her back home, no matter how far she had wandered, no matter how long it had taken for him to get her to give in to his orders to follow him back to familiar ground.

Where was he now? Had he even tried to look for her? Or did he stay within the confines of his kingdom, too afraid for history to repeat itself, just like how when her eldest brother Prosper had unexpectedly died. No... In mid-step she frowned to herself when she briefly regained her bearings at the sight of the frozen falls. Borden had loved her too much to let her go... He had to have been looking for her still... Right? Right?

She swallowed hard, failing to keep the biting wind from coaxing true tears from her eyes in their failed attempt to keep them glossed over. Though her winter pelt, the second coat she had ever grown in her life, had come in lush and thick, the stress from recent travel and the dull hunger pangs in her stomach had caused it to shed in a number of places - namely her elbows, her sides (from the days when she spent most of her time curled up somewhere at the base of a tree), and other places where her fur had once been matted from neglect and a lack of close acquaintances to help groom her.

At the edge of an iced over pool at the base of the barely flowing cascade, Taima brought herself onto the glassy surface, much too tired to carry on for the day. In the darkness of night she had easily lost track of the time and, as she stood, could only guess that she had traveled a day or two away from the third home she had ever known. At this point, she could no longer remember when she last saw either Naira or Mapplethorpe or any of the ragtag nomads they had considered their subordinates and charges. Her paws visibly shook as she backed away from the water's edge, walking carefully to one of the Wildwood's burnt trees and pressing herself against it before laying down. She inhaled deeply and folded her paws so that she could rest her head and neck over them. If she was lucky (and she so desperately hoped that she would be tonight), no one from Hollowheart Keep would come looking for her...

With a quiet sigh, she listened to the wind and the creaking of the frostbitten trees, pining for the scent of cedars and the warmth of the bear den her parents had made their home.

The soft roar of it didn't grow any louder as he trudged on through the snow, beneath a dark, inky sky mottled by moonlit clouds. He'd been here before; not for any great length of time, but recently enough to remember with a degree of clarity how mighty the falls were as they cascaded down the mountainside. Beside him was a slithering river of ice, mostly frozen over, that seemed to shine even beneath the dusting of recent snow. He'd followed it most of the way─carefullly. Departing from the thicket alone in the thick of winter could easily be a death sentence, should he get turned around or lost. Even areas that he knew well were shrouded in snow and ice, and the landscape around him was as foreign as if he'd never been here before in his life. It might have been foolish for him to have left, but the dull pain that accompanied the perpetually present fact that he had no idea where his brother was had become too much to bear. Until now, Mirren had done nothing to locate him, and had in fact only hoped that he was alright, wherever in the world he was. It wasn't like Nios to stray from him. They had come all this way to Relic Lore; he might have left the Vale alone, but his sable furred littermate was quick to follow suit. At this point, Mirren no longer mulled over reasons why. All he knew was that he'd been reckless to let so much time pass before beginning the search for his missing brother, and now winter was upon them all, more fierce than any season he'd ever witnessed. With every day that passed he was running out of time, and even now he knew that his efforts might be too late. Frost clung to the tips of his fur, his large paws causing the snow beneath to crunch as he navigated through the ever deepening powder. Dawn loomed upon the dark horizon and he had been travelling for hours, apprehensive of resting out in the open and holding out for an empty den or some other hole where he wouldn't freeze. No no avail, of course. With exhaustion drawing near, he only hoped that the mountainside would have some refuge to offer. The sound of the howling winter wind, against what seemed to him now as the white noise of the cascade, was sharp and uninvited as he drew to the edge of the icy pool. His sides felt stiff as they rose and fell with each drawn out breath, the amber of his eyes pale in the slowly fading moonlight as they scanned the barren landscape.

(This post was last modified: Jan 09, 2014, 02:38 PM by Mirren.)

TAIMA LYALL

In addition to the enticing idea of sleep, the frigid winds whistled and blew and Taima found herself vulnerable to the dropping temperatures. She draped her tail around her curled-up body, pressing it close to her left thigh and over her near-frozen nose. Once or twice her eyelids fluttered shut but if it hadn't been for the faintest sound of fracturing ice, she might have fallen asleep. Her ears, which had laid back against the ruff of her neck, slowly came back up. She lifted her head just slightly, squinting as though she could not discern the stark silhouette of a wolf against the icy falls.

A wolf!

Her pupils widened and she had to quickly blink as the chill pressed against the whites of her eyes. A small gasp fled to the back of her throat and she instantly sat up and leaned back so that her spine was flush against the rough bark of the scorched dead tree behind her. Hastily she angled her nose upward, each sniff sending her short black whiskers twitching on either side of her muzzle. With the winds working against her favor she inwardly moped over being unable to assess them by scent alone. By the look of it, from first impression, this individual was large... fully capable of dwarfing her or overpowering her if a fight broke out.

She shivered and grimaced. Just looking at the back of his head reminded her of her look-alike brother, Renier. What little hope she had harbored in initially discovering him - she had been so sure for two mere seconds that it had been her litter mate - slid back down into her stomach. It grumbled in reaction and she slouched forward, craning her head downward in doubt and embarrassment. In her inability to comport her gut with any kind of sustenance other than snow, she ought to have been ashamed. There was also no doubt that the other party had heard the hollow rumble. Well... no going back now. Might as well say or do something. The more she debated back and forth in her head, the sooner she realized that she had nothing left to lose. She did not have her family nor her pack, no meal to defend from the stranger, no gold-coated prince to look after her, no title to uphold her name... Nothing. Well... She took another deep breath. Here goes nothing.

The voice that came from her vocal chords was foreign and strange. It had been the first time that Taima Lyall, a girl who had never been afraid of anything in the first few months of her life, had ever been so fearful for her own life; her simple greeting cracked in-between its two simple syllables. "Heh-low?"

He was alone, he could feel it in his bones. No one in their right mind would be out in the middle of the night in weather like this─and he shouldn't have been. But even as the wind lashed his eyes and nose, and as the feeling of dread, which came with yesterday's sunset, increased with every minute that he couldn't manage to find shelter, he couldn't give up now. Mirren was a strong boy, surely a couple of freezing cold nights away from home without any food wouldn't break him. Right? Wrong. Staring out across the surface of the pool, gazing upward at the falls which were all but frozen, too, the boy bit down the helpless whine that thrummed at the core of his chest. Shit. And then, a glimmer of hope. Or fear. It came in the form of a shrill rumble and was a sound he knew well, though wasn't excited to hear here and now. The rumbling of a stomach, to be exact, and he didn't know whose. A ridge of guard hairs erected along his spine in a moment of near-panic. He was pretty big, but there were bigger things out there. Bears. Cats. Wolves, too. All of them sure to be as hungry as he was and up the same creek where food was concerned. Wide-eyed, the boy was as frozen in place as the trees that loomed around him. "Heh-low?" Her voice sounded as fragile as the skirt of ice that trembled where the falls hit the earth. Spinning in place to face the direction from which it came, he nearly missed the sight of her, if it hadn't of been for the fog of her breath. Curled at the base of a charred, frosted tree lay the girl, her tail wrapped like a fur blanket around her body, her pale, gold eyes like discs of glass in the darkness. She'd caught him off guard, and even gave him a scare, but there wasn't much threatening about her as she was. He gulped down a lump of uncertainty, his amber gaze cast upon her form. "A-are...Miss, are you alright?" Never one to stumble over his own words, he didn't want to insult her by implying she looked troubled, but the girl looked so cold and sad. Was she hurt? What was she doing out here alone? What was he doing out here. And how did their paths cross in such an unlikely turn of events.

Look Out!

There is a deer that was killed by a lynx nearby. +10 Health

TAIMA LYALL

He turned about and stared at her. If she had been capable of doing such a thing, she would have disappeared without a trace in thin air before his very eyes or shrink back and become one with the tree behind her. Sitting up straight with fear agleam in her eyes she looked him over. Though he seemed familiar on first glance, one good look and she was convinced that he merely reminded her of the wolves she missed the most. With the adrenaline coursing through her the faint scent of deer cadaver tugged at her nostrils, but she did not dare to move or even take her eyes away from him.

"A-are..." he barely stuttered. "Miss, are you alright?" The young Lyall could feel the blood gather up into her face, warming her cheeks and the tips of her ears. Miss, he had called her... Suddenly too shy to look at him any further, she averted her eyes, dropping her gaze into the snow beneath her off-white fore paws. Her ears lowered back down and she sniffed as she shook her head. No, she was not alright. As if she were contemplating whether or not to actually answer him, she froze then shook her head against before allowing her eyes to flutter back up to his face. Not alright at all...

What she could offer him was something from their natural, instinctual, and universal language: a very soft, single-noted whine, followed by an even sadder-sounding whimper. She might not have been physically hurt but, oh, how her heart and abdomen ached. She yapped at him then like a neglected cub, the choked back sound coming from her in a wordless plea after she assumed that he had brought with him the appetizing aroma of a leftover meal, "Share with me, please?"

The whites bordering her dull, nearly lifeless, irises were beginning to show as she studied his face. By now it was apparent that she had never seen the young man before, let alone seen anyone who looked like him in the realm of Relic Lore. Though she was clearly no match for the other youth, she opted to try another tactic; she slid her paws forward and laid down in the snow in front of him. Laying still at his feet ought to have sent him the message that she meant no harm, right? It had worked on Mapplethorpe once upon a time... Her stomach sounded out another sequence of gurgling and spluttering and she briefly winced, waiting for the stranger's reply.

Mirren stood motionlessly as the stranger sat, the wind rustling though the copper and pewter lengths of his plush coat while he took the sight of her in. For a brief time she watched him and he held her gaze, sifting through the layers of emotion that were so clearly written in her sullen, if not beautiful, features. It was plain to see that beneath the silver, black, and creamy shades of her mask, beneath the deadened glaze of her faded golden eyes, beneath the look of fear and uncertainty about her, that she was stricken with pain─not only from hunger. At his words, her eyes fell to the ground for a few silent moments; drawing in a quiet breath, the tip of his tail flicking mindlessly, he would give her what time she needed. When the answer he sought came in the form of a telling whine, the gleam of concern in his face softened further, his brows arching at the center as he shifted his weight slowly to one side. He was himself exhausted and didn't know whether to feel overwhelmed by the discovery of her, or to embrace the river of empathy that was surging through him. Never would he show it, especially not to a stranger, but a part of him wanted to echo her wordless cry. It was, truly, a heartbreaking sound. "Share with me, please?"The smell of death nearby had not eluded him, though it wouldn't break his attention completely from the girl. It had been a number of days since his last meal, and who knew how long it had been since hers. Had she been another wolf─any other wolf─he would have fought fiercely for the carcass, tooth and nail, fueled by a wolf's innate drive for survival. Tonight, now, as she watched him with pleading eyes and slid to her belly before him in a show of intention, he would not deny her. Slowly, steadily, he moved to close the small space in between them, tentatively breathing in the scent of the girl with with quivering nostrils. At her side, the longest strands of her frosted fur grazing the side of his foreleg, Mirren roved his muzzle, without truly touching her, between the nook between the blades of her shoulders before glancing around for any sight of the carcass. "Stay here." Softly spoken, he slipped away into the darkness. In a matter of minutes he emerged, stepping high through the deep snow with the remains of the deer in tow, his entire body flexed to drag the weight at his side. To her side he drug the nearly frozen meal, dropping it with a huff. His bright eyes cast upon her face. "Eat." It was no command, and was in fact more of a plea. "Everything's...it's gonna be okay, now, understand?" He reclined to his haunches, watching for whatever reaction she would have. When he was sure she would eat, or had her fill, he would take a meal of his own. He hadn't come here to save anyone, but tonight he was hers for the taking.

TAIMA LYALL

He edged closer to her, his slow and smooth movements bringing him to inspect her up close. She thought she could feel his breath against the space between her shoulder blades but before she could even question such a thing, he withdrew from her. Did she still smell of Mapplethorpe? Of the cold, stagnant sap that defined the woodlands that were her prison? She hoped not; it had been roughly two weeks since she had slept in that cramped and uncomfortable bear den with the other youths of Hollowheart Keep. Either way her message came across to him as clear as daylight and, just like that, the gentleman of a wolf obliged. It made the wisp of hope reemerge from the very core of her but she knew too well now to not let it get ahead of itself and soar to unimaginable heights. She would wait until he returned... actually shared his meal. But, what if -- oh... She quivered.

If this brute truly was an outstanding young man - hey, she had to remind herself, he had called me... "Miss," - he would come back; and, return, he did.

Taima inhaled sharply at the spoils he had recovered just out of her sight. She had been much too numb or too far away to take notice of it, but now that it was being laid in front of her, she realized now how grateful she was for her companion. She mustered enough courage to cast him an inquisitive gaze. "Eat," he told her, continuing to comfort her. "Thank you," she murmured just loud enough for him to hear, her ears at last coming up from their previous position.

Cautiously, she grazed her tongue over one of the deer's ribs, her tongue leaving it at the rough end where there had once been cartilage, muscle and skin. For some time she picked at it, moving only once to stand and settle herself in front of its frigid abdomen. When she was through, her stomach was gurgling for an entire different reason altogether. It had gotten so used to the pinching sensations that when it finally had something in it to work on, it nearly hurt. With as full as she had stuffed it, the discovered kill could easily last her two or three days if she was careful to spend her energy wisely. She had scavenged and enjoyed most of the exposed leg but nothing else, and when she was through she stood up to wamble and press her side back against her tree to let him have his fill.

She waited for him to move, though in fear of allowing silence to creep back into the conversation between them, she opened her mouth. Saliva might have pooled at her cheeks and the meal might have restored fractions of her strength, but her voice did not improve. It was still meek and insecure, "A-Are you sure? How... How d'you know?" She trembled as if she had the means to recall a terrible memory and sniffled, "Where are you from? Who are you?" Her jaw clenched, a tactic she had adopted to keep herself from asking too many questions at once, but it was obvious in her eyes that she was dying for answers. Do you belong to someone? Are you from near here? Are you alone, too?

He met the girl's inquisitive gaze with one of his own, though it was less inquisitive than it was curious. Not one to believe in fate─rather, in choice─he began to question the reasons that may have led the two of them to this encounter. Did it happen for a reason? Was it chance that brought him to the falls, instead of southward or further north? What was she doing here all alone, and, more importantly, why was she all alone. Even the toughest loners didn't brave winter on their own, and she...she was different. Those big, muted-gold eyes, the tone of hopelessness in her whine that lingered long after the woods had gone silent, and the crack in her voice when she'd finally spoken. The girl was young, most likely not much younger or older than himself, not unlike like a bird with two broken wings. "Thank you." A soft, lopsided smile spread upon his dark lips, his way of saying you're welcome. He slid easily to his belly as she proceeded to make her mark upon the carcass. After a long day, he was glad to have reached a point where he could stop and rest─gladder still that he'd found her in the dark. As he studied the slender, feminine angles of her face, the markings along her crown, he couldn't ward off the impression that there should be someone taking care of her, and watching over her. Not just him. Didn't she have someone, or a pack, in her life that should be here, or looking for her? Maybe there was─perhaps they were out there right now. If they weren't...Well, he wouldn't let her down. He moved to take his meal once she finished and settled with a full belly against the tree. When she questioned how he knew things were going to be okay, his eyes looked for hers in a moment of surprise. It took a number of seconds for him to process that she didn't seem to understand what his role had become since the moment she'd said heh-low. "Because I'm here now, and you don't have to be alone anymore." A single corner of his lips pulled upward, a glow of exhaustion in his eyes and on his face. "Somebody should take care of you." Without giving his statement a second thought, he pulled a half-frozen strip of flesh from near where she'd moistened the carcass, quickly gulping it down without having chewed much of it. "Who are you?" Feeling as though he shouldn't talk with his mouth full in front of the lady, he answered her instead of continuing at the deer. It wasn't going anywhere. "I'm from many places, really...I was born in a place called Copper Rock Creek, just north of here, actually. My family moved away from there for a while," and he wished they never had─maybe Nios wouldn't be missing, "and I came back alone." He watched for any sign of judgment from her. "I live in a thicket to the west, Secret Woodlands." Quickly lost to their conversation and the metallic shades of her eyes, he'd nearly forgotten to introduce himself per her request. "I'm Mirren─Mirren Tainn...What about you?" Where do you belong? Because you're too pretty to be lonely. "What's your name?"

(This post was last modified: Jan 12, 2014, 04:22 AM by Mirren.)

TAIMA LYALL

The generosity continued to shine through him; he had straight up told her that everything was going to be okay just because he was there with her and that she was no longer alone. She held his smile for some time before actually returning it with one of her own. The next thing to come from him should have been expected, what with the tokens of kindness and the obvious warmth he harbored, but the sentiment had taken her by surprise.

"Somebody should take care of you."

She froze and shifted slightly so that the left part of her side now touched the tree bark behind her. A long time ago the young Lyall had protested against such a thing - thinking about how revolting it was to have some other being take care of her when she could do most things on her own. Now, without having loved ones nearby or a pack to truly call her own (she had to face it, since Datura Aquila, her prince of the Pass, had left without saying goodbye), she realized just how much weight the statement held... especially coming from someone who wasn't her father or Kade, the two shining examples of chivalry she had always looked up to. Though nearly an adult in her own right, Taima Lyall did need someone to help look after her. The state she was presently in must have been nothing short of pitiful.

The young man replied to her questions with ease. To her surprise, her interest piqued when he mentioned that he, too, was from a number of places: the first being Copper Rock Creek, then somewhere beyond it, and then where he currently resided, a thicket in the west called Secret Woodlands. Her eyebrows angled up upon hearing the place but she found that she could no longer recall the mental map she had made of her homeland within the Cedarwood.

At the sound of his name, she brought her ears forward and up. Mirren Tainn of Secret Woodlands. It didn't ring a bell or strike even the most distant chord but Taima, at this point, was sure that it sounded pleasantly more promising than, say, Datura Aquila of Nomads Pass. Where Datura's name had clicked in her teeth and hissed between her lips in the spirit of hinting at a strong and unbreakable bloodline, Mirren's namesake provoked a curious sense of wonder and mystery about him and the family he had come from.

The yearling stalled and her eyes drew away as he asked for her name. Only when she returned her gaze to his face did the word association click and her father's words came back to her through the fogginess of her memory. Never show anyone... who you really are. They'll beg you and they'll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up... you'll be nothing to them. The singular note of what could have been the start of a girlish giggle lifted from her chest, "Rabbit," she said slowly, recovering herself again. "My parents... they called me Rabbit." Though she wished she could have uttered her real name, she decided that it was for her own good and for his sake, if Naira, Mapplethorpe, Sagacity, or even Datura came looking for her, they would have to sniff her out... The girl called "Taima" was going into hiding until she felt safe enough to "come back."