The Place for Restless Souls [Zwi]

[Silvanus]

OOC: This takes place after Silvanus' encounter with Carnage and before he makes it to the river.

Devastation. There were no real words drifting through the either of a jarred mind, no notes being plucked on the lyre of intellect. A grim instinct for escape and a hollow despair were the animalistic catalyst propelling Silvanus over the land. Like the jutting teeth of a carnivore maw, the Carpathian mountains yawned at his back as though gaping to scoop and swallow him whole. Though the nettling black trees and wildly uneven terrain had covered his point of origin, the Balkar lands were by no means distant. His skin prickled and stung, the illusory sensation that a white-hot thread still attached him to that repugnant place as though by a poisoned barb lingered persistently, conjuring subconscious gutteral feelings of paranoia and panic. In reality, the rankling wounds dealt to him by the Balkar's second were what he was feeling, though nothing so coherent had yet occurred to him save a will to flee.

Had anyone wanted to track the poor creature, his fear and the scent of blood may well have given them adequate means. As it was, however, in his stumbling flight he'd seen no one and the Balkar had spared his life. Though it was probably an act of cruelty to break his spirit and set him free rather than killing him, no thought of that had yet washed over. The crisis of living was smothering all else out.

Cresting a hill, his three good limbs scrabbling over boulders and shaggy patches of grass, a queer sight met the panting varg. It was as though a different maw gaped before him, with peg-like teeth half-obscured by leafy, coiling vines and shaded by verdant trees. There was something quiet and eerie and reverent about this place, a suggestion just beyond rational understanding that this was a place of some import. Silvanus checked over his shoulder; the mountains still reared in the opposite direction. It was like going from one mouth into another. He leapt down, disturbing a couple of birds that had been searching the ground for food. The stone "teeth" were regularly shaped and engraved with unfamiliar symbols. Had Silvanus ever encountered humans before he may have recognized them as their markers for the dead, their tombstones. To him, though, they were simply cryptic-looking rocks.

With chest rising and falling sharply, the ebon mann quickly became aware of just how far his crippled frame had carried him since the hellish nightmare from hours before. Blood had run down into his eyes, good and bad, and the coppery taste was in his mouth. With a racing heartbeat, he could not even assess how badly wounded he was. A single salient thought formed amist the rabble and static of the rest of his normally-organized consciousness. "Respite..." His mouth formed the word slurringly, but no sound came out. Exercising caution losing out to fatigue, the gentleman positioned himself in the lee of one of the headstones and laid heavily down upon the hallowed earth, hoping that rationale may return with his breath or his health, and more remotely, that the pangs of misery dealt to his soul might mend with swiftness and mercy.

[Zwi]

((OOC: This takes place before the thread A World of Regret.))

The air was stiff and quiet, the land seeming deserted. Few came here, the simple fact that this was once a human dwelling kept most away, and those the knowledge was lost to? Well simply the strange look of it all was detouring enough. But to one who knew this sort of living, was once a part of it, the place felt familiar. It felt like home. The sound of wood colliding with the hard ground broke the silence for a moment, as a tawny fae made her way out from a makeshift den. She had crept under the boards laid against the side of one of the few still standing walls a while before for much needed rest, her previous search tiering every inch of her, mind and body. She stretched as she took inquiry of the surroundings. Things looked as they did the night before, but then again she never really looked much then, too tiered to care. She knew the spot she had chosen would hide her from sight, and that was all that mattered then.

Just then a strange smell wafted by, metallic, and warm. Lifting her head she searched for it, trying to find where the bit had some from. She did her best to follow it, but the light breeze did little to help carry it. The action reminded the fae of a previous encounter, and a strange smell in the air, though the two smells were very different. The smell, strange as it was, helped to clear her mind of the thoughts that had been haunting it on her wanderings before.

As she neared the edges of the human dens the smell grew stronger, and she was finally able to match it. Blood. She never liked the smell at one time, but not since... she shook the memory from her head. She did not want to think about that, for a long while after that day when she hunted or killed she breathed through her mouth, not wanting to trigger the memory, and the action had become a bit of a habit. As such, once the connection was made, her lips parted and her tongue lulled out. She shook her head again once realizing it. No, she couldn't do that, she needed to find this scent, she wasn't sure why, but something told her she had to. She was almost out of the small village now, entering the strange area where the human buried their dead, and marked the site with stones. But here was something off here.

Tucked up a the base of one of the eerie stones was a black mass, fur ragged, and a warm black-red liquid splattered about. This was the source of the smell, a varg. The fae twitched her ears this was and that, searching for any one else. A varg wounded like this, there had to be some one else about to do that damage right? But when no sounds were found save for the shallow breaths the the figure across the way, She padded over. She crossed the small opening between where the structures stopped and the stones started. She weaved through the stones, using them as short hiding spaces while she paused to check for sounds or other smells.

She stopped when she felt safe with her distance, not too close, but close enough to see well. She couldn't see the small breath, but she cold still hear the light breaths it took. There was something about this varg that seemed familiar. Black was a common color, and she could not see his eyes, but there was something. Her eyes traveled over its body, looking as closely as she could. The moisture on his nose, the thick blood over his face, shiny black clusters of hair jutting out in strange directions next to the wounds of its body, then the legs. There was something strange about posture of one of the legs, it looked twisted....

That was it! “Silvanus?” she whispered softly, not trying to wake the mann, just voicing her recognition. “What happened?” she wondered aloud.


((Blah, cruddy post sorry!))

[Silvanus]

A sound reached the mann, distantly at first like the swell of some unintelligible sonance heard from underwater, then reaching a crescendoing clarity at its end. The words echoed in his ears calamitously for several moments before he could attach any meaning to them, and perhaps a few moments more before he realized that perhaps the jumble of sounds was not imagined after all. A feminine voice was beseeching him, addressing him. Who is that? What...what does it mean?[/i][/color] Silvanus asked himself silently, his eyes still tightly closed to the world. They were the first words he had consciously spoken to himself since evacuating, some paltry reassurance that at least his sanity was in tact. What felt like a small eternity passed, at least before his mind's eye, as he tried to repeat and decipher the words he'd just heard to himself. Suddenly, as thought stepping back from a single puzzle piece to view the entire completed picture, the words and their implications reached him. Familiarity...concern...someone asking of his well-being, rather than trying to raze it to less than it already was. This was a friend...it had to be.

Silvanus eased his eyes open reluctantly, half-expecting the voice and its inquiry to have been naught but a ruse and to see the night hunters enwreathing his resting spot like a flock of vultures. There were no slavering fangs and glowing eyes, however, no foe as far as the bleared, one-eyed gaze could see. The first thing that caught his focus was a pair of light, honey-hued orbs watching him, wide and bright. They seemed dimly recognizable, and recalled to him images of a lush wooded enclave and exotic perfumes of some remote memory. Framing the eyes were calligraphic black markings and tawny fur. "Who's there?" Silvanus mouthed, not even sure if his dry throat was emitting any sound. He was groping through memories to attach a name to the face. It was there, beyond the veil of pain and trauma through which he was wrestling internally.

Something clicked and a name came to him from the ether. "Zwi?" A sharp realization followed, shame at his broken state. The crippling condition he'd lived with for so long was engrained, while injury and weakness was not. The ebon mann made and attempt to turn his face away as though the act would make him disappear altogether. Part of him wanted to break down, reach out for help, while the other part of him wanted to recoil and spare the poor fae even having to hear about the trials of his existence. "Zwi...don't look at me." he rasped, averting his eyes, drawing his legs up and simultaneously regretting the movement as his aching muscles and punctured hide protested.

He opted to leave the question unanswered for the time being; there was not even any trusting himself yet at rehashing the awful events that had transpired so recently. The motor that was keeping his legs running up until now was the desire to escape those very happenings. Fatigue and stress overcame his normal conversational etiquette, and the wounded varg fell into a despondent silence.

[Zwi]

The already heavy lump in Zwi’s chest sunk deeper as she hared the mann’s words, heard them but really paid them no mind as she could not turn her eyes away from him. “Silvanus…” she whispered again, giving him another look over. Her body ached for him, the poor mann beaten and bloody on the ground beneath her. Every part of her said it. Her lowered posture, drooping ears, tucked tail. She quickly crawled to him, closing the gap of safety she had left. That gap didn’t seem so safe now. She lowered her body next to his, pressing against his side lightly, more for her own comfort than his.

She was told that varg were capable of doing this to their won kind but she had never seen it, never really comprehended it as being truly possible. She never wanted to see this horror. Here was only one varg she truly knew of who was capable of this, was it him? “Silvanus what happened? What did this to you? Was it a varg, what did he look like? Is he still around?” the words spilled from her lips in a jumbled mix like water pouring off a cliff. She sounded most frightened, but there was a strange optimistic tone in them which made her feel sick. What was she saying? How could she actually be somewhat hopeful that she knew the varg that would do something like this to one she dared called a friend? Why did she wish to find him? It was sickening, the words now left a vulgar taste in her mouth. They were like the bile that rose from the pit of the stomach and out of the lips of a sick creature. Is that was she was? Sick? It sure seemed like it.

”… a monster” she spoke, barley above a whisper, the ‘I’m’ that should have adorned the beginning cut off in chokes. She lifted her head just enough to look around, it seemed so dark now, and she was scared that there might actually be something out here. Finding nothing her eyes returned to him. She wanted do to something, wanted to help, but she didn’t know how. ”I’m sorry…” she whispered, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ she finished in thought. Every second she sat there she felt worse and worse.


((ooc: GAH! So short! Sorry! >.<))

[Silvanus]

Silvanus hazarded another glimpse at the fae when she uttered his name a second time, silently terrified that he might see pity--or worse, mockery--in her gestures. As he took in the sight of her for the second time, he was suddenly aware of the drastic change in her posture relative to the last time that they had crossed paths. When he had first seen her loping through the forest, her head was held high, her strides confident and graceful, her tail erect and waving gently like a banner. Now it seemed to him that she was drooping, a lolling flower weighted by rain or snow. Had seeing his condition caused this change in her? The cynical part of him, exposed by the fresh gashes in his soul, toyed with the thought that this must just be his effect on others, that his company was depressing as a rule; the part of him that wanted to reach and cry out for help, though, insisted that this was the face and the carriage of someone showing genuine concern. A few merciful drops of water fell upon the embers of his sore heart.

To his infinite surprise, Zwi suddenly moved to him. Though he did not have much time to react to the motion, there was little he could have done in his condition anyway. Instead, he lay bewildered as she pressed close to him--the first kind contact he had had in recent memory. It was infinitely comforting, touching, even from an acquaintance he hadn't seen in so long. The gesture brought a tightness in his throat and a warmth in his eyes. "Thank you," he murmured in a voice barely louder than the susurration of the leaves mingling gently overhead, quite certain that she hadn't even heard him. The mann leaned on her ever so slightly to show his gratitude, unaware of her thoughts on who his assailant might have been.

She made several inquiries about the doer of this offense, and he wondered if maybe she fancied that she knew the varg. It seemed a veritable impossibility, however, that such a pristine soul could have ever come face to face with a black heart like the Balkar's second and maintain such a sweet and sympathetic demeanor. It was as though the night hunters tainted and destroyed all with which they came into contact. A plague. A scourge. These thoughts were all borne out of fear and disgust and pain, of course, but he felt certain they weren't so far from accurate.

He let her finish her line of questions, even when she seemed to reflect inwardly at the end about a monster. Silvanus misunderstood her meaning though, missing the first sibilant word, thinking she was referring to the attacker. "Yes...it was indeed a monster," he intoned finally, preparing himself mentally for even the briefest probe to the scratch mark on his mind. The ebon varg sighed deeply. "He called himself a god, though I would liken him more to a demon." He avoided making the reference to Wolfbane that he was thinking, unsure if Zwi was the sort to believe in such things or, further, to be heavily frightened by them. He continued, suppressing a crack in his rumbling voice as he succumbed to the urge to talk about it in spite of his desire at the same time not to. "I went to the Balkar, Zwi. It is a desolate land of despair, of hopelessness. I don't know what I was thinking, ever setting foot there. Pure, unadulterated foolishness, I suppose. Their second, a varg of black and orange, teeth and muscle, cruelty and lunacy...his name was Carnage..."

Though Silvanus could go no further with the story at the moment, the end was apparent. One had but to look at the broken body, and into the unmatched eyes to see the broken mind.

When Zwi apologized, it took the gentleman aback slightly. He suddenly felt as though he should be the one comforting her, as though he were a cad for garnering any sympathy. It did not seem right that she had to suffer compassion just because he was suffering wounds. Venturing, Silvanus leaned and weakly nuzzled the ruff of fur on her neck. "There there. I don't want you to be upset over a broken, defective old thing like me." He smiled feebly, feeling the jab at his own assessment of himself but trying not to let it show through. A sworl of dizziness accompanied his movements, making him wonder how much blood he had lost. Heavily, he laid his head back down to the earth at the foot of the tombstone. "For what it's worth, I appreciate that someone cares...but I hate to be a harbinger of sadness. I'm sure you have your own encumbrances and cares without adding me to them. What...what brings you to this strange stone field, if I may?" His voice was trailing more than usual, but he was no less interested.

After his journey, it was hard to believe that the gods or fate would have thrown him a friendly face just as solace. It would be selfish to think so, and he could see some hint of worries and thoughts of something or someone else dancing solemnly beneath the tide of her visible emotions.


OOC: I hope this isn't too rambling D:

[Zwi]

((Ooc: Its not rambling, it's wonderful! Sorry for the insanely late reply, I got caught up in moving and doodling XP))

Zwi was silent as the mann spoke, felling comforted by his few gestures, the pressure on her side from him leaning on her. The light nuzzling of her neck. She wormed her muzzle to the closest wound she could find and started licking. She she wanted to help him in some way, to not be a burden, this was all she could think to so.

She was relieved to hear the attacker was not the one she feared it could, but sad to know he had misunderstood her statement. Maybe it was for the best?

She was silent for a long time, absent mindlessly licking his wounds. For a while all thoughts escaped her, she was relieved and at the same time even more worried, and she wasn't sure what she hated more. A head full of questions and thoughts that would never be answered, or a head so blank she felt numb. And how could she feel so empty and careless with her friend so hurt in front of her? Then again, how could she have felt so hurt herself when his pain was so much worse? Thoughts finally came back to her, and she was again a little relived to feel the weight of them again. ”Silvanus, I...” she wasn't sure what she was going to say, her mouth speaking of it's own accord. She was silent for a moment longer while she pondered her decision. Should she tell him of her troubles? Should she bother him with her pettiness? Would it make a difference if she said it aloud or not? Once again her mouth worked on its own, making the decision for her.

”Silvanus, I'm sorry, I've been untruthful. I've been a monster, doing these horrible things, and I can't stop!” she buried her face into the thick fur of his neck as she spilled out her thoughts, not wanting to see his reaction, for fear she'll run away again, hurt him in his already wounded state. Why she might seemed ridiculous. She couldn't possibly be that important to him, she was just a varg who she met once, and gone for a walk with, solved a mystery with, then left. Or maybe she was scared of how her reactions to her own words. Whatever it was, the fear was still there. So she hid. “I didn't live near humans I lived with them, trapped in their same cage, eating their food when they threw it to me, and drinking their water. I loved one of them very much, a small human cub, and I want to think she loved me too. But... but...” she was beginning to choke on her words, spitting them out as fast as she could. She had to break for a moment, swallow and breath. ”But one day I did something terrible, I hurt her so bad, and I didn't stay to help her, I didn't stay to take the punishment for my horrible crime! I ran away and never even thought of looking back! I know what I did, and how bad it was, but knowing that didn't stop me from doing it again!” she buried her face deeper, taking comfort in the warmth of him. “This time I tried to go back, even if I shouldn't have. He said people called him a monster and that he did terrible things, things like what happened to you and worse, but he didn't seem like a monster to me, monsters don't feel remorse for the things they do!” the saying hypocritical, unable to see how it applied to her too. “I don't know why I want to find him so bad! And when I saw what happened to you I was hopeful I may have found him, even if it cost you this. I'm just so afraid I'm going to never find him again, that I'm going to hurt other and never see them again to tell them I'm sorry. I know I'm never going to tell my girl how sorry I am, and I hate that! I want her to know! You say you are a coward and a fool, but you've done things I never could! You're so much better than I am, and this sort of thing never should have happened to you!”

She didn't retreat her face from the comfort of his neck. Strage how she was taking comfort in the same thing she was apologizing to. How would he react? She didn't she was quite then. The only sound was her racing breath.

((ooc: sorry this is so bad, I shouldn't type late at night! @__@ ))

[Silvanus]

For a time, the moments were marked simply by the methodic (if distracted) lapping of her careful pink tongue against his rent flesh and matted fur. Even with the sting of the crisp jags and perforations in his skin, and the blossoms of light that pirouetted behind his lids like dancers interpreting the painful bruises and lacerations as flashes and colors, the care was welcome, and reminded him distantly of some achromatic recollection from years long withered and past; the nostalgia of contact and compassion and some haven, warm and dry, and all the tactile reassurance of youth were all there in some long-unaccessed cove of his mind, and though he could not fully recall the extent of what it entailed, it was a solace none-the-less. He welcomed the unsolicited affection, for it made him feel as though his life may not have been so star-crossed as the Balkar had foretold. Although it simultaneously was a reminder not only of what had recently transpired in the fell lands, but also of how thoroughly without he persevered--without a family, without a mate, without friendship or kinship to speak of, save what flitted in and out of his life arbitrarily--he purposefully pinned these thoughts where they would at least have to wait to afflict him. His dismissal of these notions were not quite fleet enough to stop one rogue whim from surviving into consciousness, and it was simply the acknowledgement of some attraction to the fae. It was only normal that he notice this in the face of his injuries, that someone would sit and aid him even when the Second of the Balkar had indirectly asserted this as an impossibility.

It was an easily accepted paradox. And so he lay in silent non-contemplation for some undefined time, when gradually he became aware of a nervousness, a discomfort, or perhaps it could have even been guilt brooding behind the exotically-hued fae's eyes. He watched her carefully from the corner of his usable eye, and as if to confirm his suspicious, suddenly her words came out in a tumult.

She appeared near-frantic with apology and brimming with confessions, not all of which even directly applied to the mann. The instant she began, he felt a sudden wave of pity that dwarfed even the self-pity he had been nursing since his scrape, for all the suffering she had apparently been toting with her for some considerable time, and it was only amplified when she buried her aesthetically angular face in his mane. At first, he listened sympathetically to her outcry, recalling the story she had told him about her encounters with humans at their first meeting, and noting the ways in which it different from her current revision. This did not bother him, however; he had never seen the two-legged ones and at best had a vague curiosity about them, rather than the acrimony with which some vargs slandered them. She spoke fervently of them, and he could tell her care for the little girl to which she referred was genuine, as much as was her horror and remorse at whatever act of wrongdoing she had committed against her.

It was when Zwi spoke of another mann that Silvanus felt a bit of cold creeping into his extremities. She, much like the other normal varg who crossed his path, had someone she was following with tireless devotions, someone whom she loved...a friend, or more likely, a mate. The kindness she was now showing him was not diminished by this new development, but rather it was engulfed by it. For some reason it stung, but then again, what did he expect? He was merely an acquaintance. A wounded wayfarer with a familiar face, a mortal imperiled. Such a classification was to true love as plain copper was to pure gold. What were you expecting? he silently introspected as he listened to her go on about the situation in words painted in tints of heartache and contrition. The simple answer was "too much," and the simple explanation was that as long as he was a kerl, which may have foreseeably encompassed the rest of his natural life, he would have only the most minimalistic and superficial of relationship, no matter how hard he scrabbled at the surface for something deeper.

He was still mulling these thoughts as her quavering voice died away, muffled in the black ruff of his neck. He let the silence linger for a moment, clinging to the simple sensation and warmth of companionship and pondering her final statement, but when he answered he mustered encouragement from his rasping throat and blood-encrusted lips. When he spoke it was with chosen words and summoned strength. "Zwi," he began, waxing sonorous in spite of his thin current vocal capability. He turned his great head so that they were cheek-to-cheek, though their muzzles pointed in opposite directions. "Whatever you have done, whatever wrongs or rights that have transpired in your past, whatever the pains and hardships and losses that have plagued you...they shape you just as the wind carves the mightiest rock into the splendor of a mountain, or the way sunlight or lack guides a tree's direction. Part of the beauty therein comes from the abrasion and the shade. I don't want you to ever doubt your polish or your worth, nor especially for you to resent the machinations that graced you with them. Sometimes, the gods are cruel," Silvanus spoke slowly, with an undercurrent of bitterness for his recent revelations. "But they are not without their reasons. I think...that is what they call fate."

He took a moment to lick her ear and cheek reassuringly, gently, as though he were fearful that his inky coat might spill upon her and stain her radiant hues. Exhaling quietly, he continued with an irrefutable, practiced confidence. "You will find him, Zwi...do not fret, you will. I could never begrudge you for following your heart."

Nor could he begrudge her, as he looked upon her and simultaneously saw the kindness she was showing him even now. As for the mann of which she spoke, he had spoken with such conviction, he rather believed it himself, regardless of whether he wanted to or not. The words had taken their toll, though, and his head lolled forward ever so slightly as his crown became heavy and his body became light. A pang of dizziness, whether from the exercise of the concepts or the wounds of his body, threatened with a hum in his ears. A part of him wished he could rise and bid her farewell, that he might indulge in a bout of uncharacteristic self-pity for, ironically, the loneliness of which he had become more cognizant as of late. The rest of him, however, longed only to remain, if only for the feeling of another soul close by.

[Zwi]

The softness of his voice lulled, and calmed her, smoothing out the knots and wrinkles the fear had left in her heart, mind and soul. He spoke so surely, she had no choice but to believe him. But despite his sure words, there was still that small weight at the bottom of her heart, the nagging little thought in the back of her head that said he could be wrong. She wanted so badly to ignore it, to put it behind her and forget it. She adjusted so that she was as close to him as possible, to get as much of her body to touch his as she could, settling her head back into the darkness of his neck. Pert of her attempt at not thinking what her mind wanted her to think. “Thank you Silvanus” She said softly, hoping he might her hear her voice, for she couldn’t seem to vocalize her gratitude any better than her soft whisper. She nuzzled him a bit more as his head seemed to become heavier above her, his neck muscles relaxing, head drifting down.

He was probably falling asleep she told herself, trying to be optimistic and not think that his wounds might be taking their toll upon his soul. She pulled her head out from under his and lifted it to rest on his shoulders. If sleeping he was, she would lay with him for the night, go their separate ways when the sun rose. But for now she would take comfort in the soul sleeping next to hers. Spirits lifting a little, she suddenly realized how spooky this place seemed, and she would rather not be alone in it while darkness graced the land. The houses seemed alright, it was just this place with it’s strange stones she didn’t like.

She wished to sleep, to let her mind take leave from all this thought. To no longer focus on the words and actions that had recently been exchanged. But she wouldn’t. She would stay aware, in her own mind protecting the sleeping mann beneath her. Licking his wounds now and again, giving what comfort she could so he would recover as fast as needed.

Her thoughts wandered from here to there. Thinking abut the different things that had happened to her, and how lucky she was the meet this kerl. A mann would spend his time helping to heal her internal wounds, when his external ones called for more attention. This must indeed be what one would call a friend. If only she could spend more time like this. With other around, to comfort her when she needed it and to comfort them when they were in need. Company. Comfort. Protection. That must be what the old kerl had told her about, a pack. But how would she go about finding one? She lifted her head from his shoulder, and gave it a good shake. That wasn’t what she deserved. She would roam, by herself, looking for that crimson varg she owed an apology to. She very well couldn’t do that in a pack now could she?

As the night weld on, her mind grew tiered, and despite her decision to stay awake and guard, she couldn’t help giving into the temptation of sleep. Yawning, now and then before her lids finally slid closed, and her head rested in the ground, muzzle laying next to his, her last thought was the question of weather or not she would see him one last time in the morning before they undoubtedly parted ways. And then, the world went dark.