— my root delicate as an artery:

for @Guildenstern, but any traveling with him are welcome ♡

---

[narrow width=800]before returning, she had seen to the titaness' leave-taking, at the meridian to the plains.

long, late shadows spread between the glimmer of all summerthings; choruses quiet beneath the thrum of oncoming night and all of its creatures. early eve had found the gorge's climes and made to billow down. it is not so far off, now.

she'd been so lost, once.

females such as aėrith are not meant to stay. they are made to forsake forever and roam. but she felt none of the youth that had been returned to her. none of that furtive mischief, that searching for something that she couldn't name. none of that full-throated wandering that she would have, as an aurëwen  ( an andraste )   surrendered herself so pliantly to. no  —  here, those threads of wanderlust had frayed, been shaken loose, and there now remained no division between her godsmarked path and her transitory mind. she had been torn from it all, though; far-flung and windblown; pearlmade. and perhaps the restlessness is not a stillness at all, but restlessness made weary.

weary of this final wanderlust that had broken all of their hearts from past to present. from the last world, and this.

she had been so grounded, before.

in this copse of low-hung, too-ripe boughs, aėrith breathes, taking deep into her lungs the tentative calm and dim of everything; the remnants of sunsetting and creature-whispers left behind. not for the first time at all, her mind returns, achingly, to her children; thinks of how desperately alone and uncared for they must be. left in all of this earth, not born from seed and soil the way all things should be.

she must find them, before they grew faster than she could bear.

so kunnhekku — moonglow rises, and begins to work her way through the maw's sprawling gorge; searching for her little, final forevers, the ones that she could name — always.[/narrow]
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 Guildenstern picked across a land as foreboding and jagged as his own stone heart.

 Slim trails narrowed to splintered paths, pebbles careening down cliffs all too eager to welcome a new carcass to their hungry abyss. The pale wolf denied the land its tribute, carrying on through the unforgiving maze of rock. 

 His prize, if he could call it that, was a lush gorge and another wolf dressed in white. Sniffing, he regarded the other creature, a she-wolf of petite stature. “I didn't expect to find anyone else in here.” Not bothering to mask his disappointment.

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[narrow width=800]she cranes her neck, fineboned and willowy, up and about and over. until the dusklight touches the soft, silvered column of her throat and limns the unassuming corner of jaw. the growing darkness they both preside over, both half-agleam and argent, shawls about her like some tattered, third skin. he is great  –  but then, the males she had known in her last were usually so  –  and aėrith chooses to admire this stranger, if but for a moment. her eye upon him would have been shameless, if not for the slight shyness that peeked around its edges.

still: she looked, and wondered at the shadows that thrust themselves across the heavy knotwork of joint-laden muscle that plied themselves along the foundation of bones, battle-forged. distantly, she wonders if his ancestors had lain theirs in the far-and-away norths.

which god had crafted him so, if any?

"nor i," she finally intones, but with a distracted, inward look that lets her nevermind the blunt displeasure in his voice. with a few flurried blinks, she turns her considering gaze from him, and instead back up the way he'd traveled from. the same way she had.

"it seems that many do not know of the valley, here."  ( not that she could blame those who'd tried, of course. )[/narrow]
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 “Their ignorance is a boon for the land.” Untouched and unfettered, a virgin valley protected from the greedy clutches that might ravage its natural beauty and slay the creatures in the green cleft between sharp-edged stone. He could be one of those voracious visitors. He had the capability to destroy.

 Again, he looked at the pale stranger. “Are you traveling with anyone?” Surely someone as incapable as a small female would have guidance around - just like Miriam. Deadweight save for a short-stinted season.

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[narrow width=800]a boon indeed, to let the land replenish on its own terms; without the trampling and converging and homing down in, without the prying eyes of tireless invaders. but the land of this ... wherever she was ... already so sought after and reached for. she only hopes that some hidden, within-er worlds remain untouched, unknown.

"no, save for those i drift with, in the rare while." she tilts her muzzle a smidgen, nipping at her lip with wandering eyes, "i rather like walking it alone," before they likewise return to him. takes him in, again, before a simper of deep, indulging amusement settles into her lumine features; her voice lazy, low, "and why not? i am wildworn enough. not so muscle-bound as yourself," limned with false loftiness, hazy, near-silent laughter, "but not at all weighed down where the wind cannot guide me."

and, perhaps ...

"would it be too much to ask if you are of the norths?" looking at him, "or why you have wandered so far from its lights?" drawn a few steps towards his person and the answer he may ( or may not ) choose to give, eyes searching. searching for whatever winter of whatever north of whatever world he'd been summoned from.[/narrow]

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 When she advanced Guildenstern didn't flinch, like a dove approaching stone. “I'm not from the North.” He replied, squandering her assumptions as he sized up the petite minx.

 “And if you're as wild-worn as you say, you should prove it.” He fell into a balanced fighting stance, the earth solid beneath his feet.

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[narrow width=800]she was no trained soldier – that much was true, and she was sure that he could more than see that as much as she felt as such. any choreography learnt was best suited to the few wildling scuffles she had had, once upon a time. she could only respect his wish, and oblige him; feeling the pleasant pull of muscles as she nodded, stretching the bindings of her pale neck. "very well." aėrith knew that fighting based purely on heart and a rallied spirit was not a fight that would last, or last well. but she'd acquiesce him ... even if this ended up with her on her ass in the dust and his choice, cutting evaluation.

she was just glad he wanted to be shown, and that she, hopefully, would learn. so she moves.

muscle memory throws her low to the earth, where she darts towards his left leg, fangs flashing — darts rightwise, feinting, before surging up with a snap in his face and the sharp peak of her boney shoulder thrusting up hard into his sternum. hoping that this would unroot him from where he was. drive him back enough for her to make her next move.[/narrow]

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her, sculpted by paraffin and diurnal in spirit, flammable — and him, a tool doctored by tungsten. aėrith could be mistaken as his gamine doppelgänger; if rosencrantz had to accrue the fairest sex, he'd rather he found the egret first than the supine eiderduck. she throws her frame to the earth, good, he thinks, her small stature and agility should be used tactfully in conflict. whether it be of the body, or the amorous musings of a man.

   he expects her to go for his leg, but she is keen and fakes him out. axiomatic, the sellfang's body veers away from her trick as if every step was an afterthought. he was a hardened solider after all, humor, dreams, scratched and peeled away like a produce sticker, until there was only a forged weapon left. the woman would not have thrived in his homeland, and that in its itself was riveting. he reacts in kind with wind-up teeth, to moither, to falter, "you may surrender, vrouw. — woman --- dutch"

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she does not spare breath to speak and she will not waste another moment. as the sellsword winds himself up in preparation to attack the nightingale jerks away from his personal space that she'd invaded; only to drop low to the earth, surge forwards, sidle somewhat alongside, and thrust her fangs into  ( where she assumed )  he was the weakest into one of his wrists  —  hooking them into the tendon there and tasting blood as she gave as vicious, joint-grinding twist-tug of it as the power in her pale jaws could give. to stagger, or sweep; simply hinder in some way.

if he was too slow to react, she'd hopefully long darted from his grasp.

either way: let that be answer enough for him.

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