Larkcall Lowlands peel the scars from off my back

Wraith padded with tension settled firmly between his shoulders as Whitestone became a speck on the horizon behind them and the northern mountains loomed high overhead. With @Craw at his side, he bumped often against his leader to reaffirm their bonds in the simple gesture. Finally, he sat in the mountains' shadow and sighed.  "It's an irresponsible time for ghosts to start their howling again. Winter is coming and it's already promising to be a hard one. But more and more, I find myself wandering back here. If there was no duty to the pack, I would have left six days ago." The thick-furred northerner turned dark amber eyes on the spider-faced male, his expression filled with the battle between duty and hope for redemption. "Tell me to stay and I will. I won't bring it up again. But let me go and I'll do my best to be back before the worst snows. I intend for it to be a quick visit with my parents. One way or another, it will be quick. A few days with them at most. The longest will be traveling there and back. Especially at this time of year." Realizing he was monopolizing the conversation, the Second fell quiet and waited with bated breath for his friend's answer.

Burtn @DA & Dawnthieves.de

Was it a coincidence that Wraith turned them towards those northern mountains which had so often drawn his eye, too? Both of them knew the other's past - or the jist of them, anyway. Wraith had shared more than his leader on the particulars, and though Craw suspected that his history was the topic on his Second's mind, it seemed like fate that this only mirrored his own inability to forget.

As Wraith finally drew them to a stop, Craw could not stop staring up at the cold peaks ahead.

Ghosts were on both their minds, then. Trusting of Wraith not to delve into this conversation without good reason, Craw maintained his silence, though instantly knew where this was going. The possibility of losing his most reliable subordinate tightened his windpipe, but he did not interject. Six days ago?

Tell me to stay and I will. The affirmation of loyalty, that this wasn't abandonment, did much to settle his unsettled nerves. Almost at the same time, a thought was born which settled them further. Wraith's plea finished, and Craw said nothing for a few moments longer, the only sound his rattled breathing as he processed it. "It's not an easy journey to make alone," he rasped, finally turning to meet his Second's gaze, no anger or hostility in his expression, "but of anyone, you know that. As for your request - I know what it is like to suffer unfinished business, to be pulled north. It has never stopped tugging."

He breathed deep, feeling the vibration in his throat, flexing the muscles in his jaw as he clenched and unclenched it, finding the words without haste. He could taste it on his tongue, that sweetness, and it was cloying in its closeness. Perhaps this was a happy coincidence. "You may go. But before you do - there is something I want you to do for me."

He held stiffly, breath held anxiously as @Craw spoke and worked through his own thoughts. Wraith need not have worried. Of course, were he in his right mind, there never would have been a flicker of anxiety. His friend knew him better than any other - even better than his own family had known him. Now it was time he show his family just the kind of man he'd become. He intended to make better the injustices he had performed. While he had no more the power to bring ghosts back to life than he did to fly, the male wanted to at the very least ask for forgiveness and offer his condolences.

The spider-faced male was supportive. He was always supportive. Always encouraging Wraith on, trusting him with things the dark male himself felt should not be entrusted to him. As of yet, the male's faith had not been misplaced. The northerner wasn't about to start disappointing him now.

As Craw's breath rattled out, raspy and clunky from old wounds, Wraith's own shuttered out on a shakily released sigh.

Without hesitation, Wraith replied to Craw's request.

"Anything."

He meant it. From the very depths of his soul, the black man meant that word. If Craw were to ask him to hunt down a wolf that had done him wrong, he would do it. If Craw asked him to take down a bull elk alone, he would do it or die trying. His Alpha would not lead him astray. Not set him on a course destined to fail if he had faith that he could be successful. It was for that reason which Wraith also set his faith in his friend. At the base of their friendship lay the strongest of foundations; trust.

Anything.

There had never been any doubt, of course.

"From how you've described them before, I recognise your mountain range. I never travelled there myself, but met wolves who had come that way. It must be only a few days travel from the plains where I was born." Wraith would see where he was going with this, no doubt. But it was to be much more - Craw needed his friend to know everything. Morganna knew, and it was past time that Wraith did, too. Craw fought hard to keep himself composed even as he headed straight towards dangerous topics, topics which made him froth and the rattle in his chest become rougher as he remembered how the wound had happened and everything that went along with it.

"You told me the reason why you came south, but I've never told you mine. Not... properly." He recalled their discussion in the willows, when Wraith had confessed to mating with @Morganna, when they had talked of the north and what it meant to them. Craw remembered mentioning his father, hinting at the malevolence which had driven him away, but he had not been able to talk of it in any detail. It had still been too recent, too raw. Now he had had a year and a half to process, to rebuild, to show the world what he was capable of, and now it was not as difficult to put into words.

"My father was a very twisted man. He viewed everyone and everything around him as commodities, and valued us accordingly. My mother was the only exception. He loved her, I think, even though he treated her terribly - even though he wanted a legacy, almost more than anything, she was unable to give it to him. Looking back, he must have loved her. He would have discarded her, otherwise."

It was easiest to speak frankly, to stay detached, to try and resist the sweet hot anger in his chest and its urge to bubble upwards.

"I was worth a great deal to him. Before me, it had just been the two of them, barely surviving out there. You know what that part of the world is like. With me, he had a willing pawn to try and fulfil his real ambition - to rise up out of the dirt, build an empire, and have everything he believed he deserved."

The flash of teeth was unbidden, uncontrolled, brief but vengeful. He will get what he deserves.

"Everything he built, I built for him. And Roose was right - a wise leader knows when to step down, when he is faced with someone better. I only wanted to carry on his legacy, the legacy I had built for him, but he couldn't let go. He would never have accepted me as anything other than his pawn. He-"

Then the bile, the racing heartbeat, the smell of blood and the feeling of falling.

"He killed my children. The only two to survive, out of all of them, and he slaughtered them like they were vermin. I found my son's corpse, but he took my daughter, and then he turned two of my own against me and they tried to push me off Oldedge. They succeeded, but I took Roake with me, and his soft body cushioned mine. The waterfall washed us away, and then south. Ever since then... always south."

His gravelly breathing ran ragged, as though he had just run a marathon, fighting so hard to contain everything which raged inside. If there was ever a day where thinking of it did not get his bloodlust pumping, it would not be for a long time yet.

He recalled Morganna's hinted uncertainty that his father might yet be alive, let alone still be out there in the cold rolling fields, but some part of Craw had no doubt. If Murdoc was alive, then he would be there; the man had been born there, had suffered there, had risen there, and had won the war there. Only by dragging his corpse away would the wolf ever leave it. Craw dearly, dearly hoped he would get that privilege.

For the first time since he started to speak, he looked at Wraith, a calculating, hungry calm behind his eyes. "I need to know if he's still there."

It was a subtle change. Another may have missed the warning signs. But Wraith knew his friend far too well to be unaware of what was coming. This would be @Craw's secret. The one the spider-faced male held close to his chest and the northerner had never pushed. It had been an unspoken understanding between them that they would reveal their hearts in their own time to each other. Friends didn't have to needle when patience and understanding would do. Wraith had never had a better friend than Craw. He could only hope the same was true to him.

In silence, the black wolf waited. He couldn't help but wonder who it was that Craw may have met. Brothers? Sisters? Aunts, uncles? He couldn't recall the number that had traveled south searching for fairer weather. While he'd been sad to see them go, he had understood. Everyone must find their own place in their own time.

He knew even before Craw stated it that the male's father would be the root of his secret. But he never could have guessed such cruelty existed. Abusing females and treating one's own pups horribly. These were stories he'd heard of before in passing. Each time, they brought a disgusting taste to his mouth. Using one's own blood as a tool... He could imagine it. He could see it in the worst of individuals only. Someone with no values, no morals.

Wraith picked up his friend's racing heart and shifted forward in concern. There was something else. Something...

Never in his life could he have imagined it.

The murder of pups was unthinkable. Unforgivable! The worst kind of sin out there.

He whined. Softly. Quietly. Empathetically, as he imagined the same being done to @Kara and @Odin. They weren't his by title, but he was training them, raising them alongside the Alphas as his own. As only a friend could offer, Wraith stepped forward to press his head under the male's chin in a silent offer of comfort.

"I'm so sorry, Craw."

He let the words hover between them as the biting wind slipped through their fur. The world felt a little colder in that moment.

And brighter all at once.

"Consider it done." And then. "You want to end him." It wasn't a question. Wraith knew it. Part of him felt disappointed he wouldn't be allowed to do the world the honors of ridding everyone of such a miserable creature. But his own soul-seeking part knew this would be Craw's closure. He had his own to find.

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

Pity was repugnant. If Craw had wanted pity, he could have told a version of his story to anyone who asked, put on a long face and lamented the evils of his sire. The fact that he had only shared the truth with @Morganna demonstrated how little he wanted sympathy, for he could not have chosen a less soft creature to confide in. She had not disappointed him. Wraith was not the same kind of hard wolf as Craw's mate, and perhaps that was why Craw had waited just a little bit longer. Until he knew that Wraith understood him well enough to listen with the proper mindset. To react without the kind of gentle simpering which might accompany the revelation that one's beloved children had been murdered.

Wraith didn't disappoint him either.

The soft whine was forgiveable, a reaction to hearing such an atrocity, and Craw knew that his friend felt the horrors of loss all too well. The pressure of a muzzle underneath his own was understood, for it was Wraith merely wanting to connect, to show that he understood, to support. The simple words of commiseration were met with a long rattling breath, as Craw climbed down off the angry high he had had to mount in order to tell it all, to get to the point where he could taste his retribution like blood on his tongue and yet it still felt so far away.

Calming, the spider rumbled low in his chest, feeling the vibrations in his throat and against Wraith's snout, a sound of gratitude and solidarity.

As ever, Wraith did not disappoint. The metallic tang was almost tangible, so teasing, and Craw pulled back to gaze at his Second with something approaching adoration. "I must end him." The world would not be right until he no longer breathed, his lungs not deserving of the air they drew on. But he could not jump ahead, could not get wrapped up in the conclusion to the story when there were still significant hurdles yet. And while Craw knew that Wraith was completely competent and trustworthy, it did not mean that he trusted those who his Second was to seek, and while he was not hesitating to put Wraith at risk for the purposes of his own revenge, it still concerned him.

"There is a mountain, the Howler - from the east, it looks like a wolf calling to the moon. Perhaps you've heard of it. Cliffs surround it, over which no fewer than five rivers empty themselves into the great lake below, known as the Glass Eye. At the top of the cliffs and beyond is a vast stretch of nondescript plains - where I was born." And there they had stayed, for all the time he could remember, until he had made that unwilling one-way trip over the cliffs, a fall which nobody survived. Not before him. "He - Murdoc - changed the pack's name and densite so many times, wanting to start fresh over and over as though he could erase short-term memory and reputation that easily, but we were always recognisable as the Khai, and he would never leave those fields. You must be careful - and trust none of those who might follow him. If he never finds out who you are, and why you are there, he will not harm you." Craw snorted. "He will probably try to recruit you. There is a man, though... a small wolf, black fur with white on his chest and striking green eyes, called Roosemooth Boor. If you find him, you can trust him."

"I know it," Wraith said immediately. He'd passed the howling mountain on his way south. Ever south. At the time, it had felt like an ill omen - yet another ghost to chase him farther from his homelands for his crimes. Rather than stop by, the northerner had been urged farther on, through the prickly terrain of the lowlands and into the copse where he'd initially met @Craw. Fate, Wraith was still convinced, had led his ghosts to chase him straight into his trusted friend.

"I didn't stop there, but I know it," he assured with a stern nod.

Funny, the male thought, how both of them had fled their previous homes due to such comparable losses. South.

Until it was time to head back North. The southern lands held no more promises than anywhere else and Wraith had not found the escape he wished for. Craw - and Morganna as well - had become a balm to his heartfelt wounds. His presence had given his ghosts pause, making them reconsider their hauntings. But Wraith knew this day would come. The day he could no longer keep them from his head, no longer face the guilt of what he'd done without going back to offer some explanation.

"Roosemooth. Is your intention to recruit him to the Monadnock? I can stop there and voice my intentions. Leave him to gather those he trusts - if you trust his judgement - and stop again on my way back to lead them home?" he suggested. "Weakening the bastard's pack can only be beneficial to you and strengthen ours for any consequences that may result."

That the Howler was a familiar landmark was of no surprise, though Craw had always wondered whether outsiders saw it as the symbol of strength that the locals did. He sometimes looked towards the Dire to the south and recognised its unifying presence in the land, how the Lore seemed grounded by it, and yet it did not have the same presence of the peak of his childhood.

And then there were wolves like Wraith, born and raised on a mountain range, to whom the great rises meant so much more than just another landmark.

Hearing Wraith talk about Roosemooth felt strange, like two powerful but self-contained worlds colliding. Here was one dark-pelted wolf, probably the one Craw trusted most in these lands aside from his mate, talking about another dark-pelted wolf who was the one Craw trusted most in all of Ritter... and aside from a keen ear and sharp mind, there the similarities between them ended. Gather those he trusts... Craw's heart ached with the thought of who might still be with him, if the man was still to be found at all. Why would Murdoc have allowed Craw's allies to cohabit in Ritter peaceably, after all? And yet he could not believe that they were all gone until he had confirmation. If there was only Murdoc to be found in the fields, then that was just another reason to seek vengeance for all his crimes.

"Yes," he wheezed, breathless from the mere idea of bringing his old mentor back here safe. "If there are others... whoever he chooses, I trust. I have no idea who might be left, who might still be alive..."

The gravel in his throat felt harsher than usual, maybe because his throat was tight from the overwhelming possibility of it all. Rage and bloodlust swam alongside his nostalgic yearning and made everything harder to process. Gaze lingering over the horizon, Craw knew that he'd be watching the north even more now, in the moons to come. It would be hard to sleep next to Morganna knowing that Wraith was not on her other side. "You must stay safe, above all. Whatever you find, stay safe... and come back to us."

"I will find them," Wraith assured, his muzzle dipping to brush along the underside of Craw's chin. "I promise you, I will find them and answers. You will have your closure, Craw." And if it were to be a bloody mess, so be it. While Wraith was not one for violence, for the crimes Murdoc was guilty of, he deserved that and more.

As @Craw implored him to be safe, to return at any cost, Wraith knew his heart would always lead him back here. No matter what waited for him in the Far North, whether it be forgiveness or condemnation, he would always return to Craw and Morganna. The pair of them, he would trust with his life in any circumstance. They never let him down before and he would be a poor brother if he didn't fulfill their wishes now.

Anxiety thrummed in his chest as the very real knowledge that he was going to confront his ghosts along with research Craw's own sank in. This was his obligation to his Alpha, his brother. And so too was it his obligation to those he let down so long ago. "I will. Keep an eye on the horizon and an ear to the North. I'll be back sooner than you think."

He could not know that it would be longer than either of them anticipated. But with hope renewed in the male's heart, he gave one last tug on his brother's ear with affection before turning towards the mountains and racing off.

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