a path there ended

For @Aerith.

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Four months.

Four moons had passed since Sindri and her family had awoken in this vast, wild new land. Entrusting Ragnar with everything she had, the shield-maiden had set him off with the pups on their path they had been on- to find and found their new home. She? Sindri wanders alone and alone searching for their lost son. Sindri's only child birthed from her own womb.

Through the north she had roamed first with knowing her son favored the cold climate well. Forests, mountains, open tundra. She found nothing. So she had gone elsewhere- through plains, meadow, gorges, further south, but nothing.

So she returned to the north with a heavy heart and empty arms. Her son was beyond her reach, set on a new path all his own. A deep sigh, she looks up to the mountains which stood proud before her now. She knew Ragner would have brought their children north, to the mountains, near the sea too, if he could. Was this it?

She calls out to the bright open skies of day, hoping one might hear her plea.

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+1 Discovery Point

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[narrow width=800]that first call within her vale was a comfort to the tithes of her soul  —   ​so she answers it, of course. and as she runs and runs through the heathers and grasses, she watches for @Evune and her low, swooping shadow to join hers over the skin of the earth.

this place is not yet hers.

... but then, hers had been a dead place, and if she cannot kiss her nameless, mouthless, formless lover through the afters of all the worlds then she'd seek to fall in love all over again. if she cannot reach for him, remember him through that veil between all worlds then she would unwrap and unearth the hushed, hidden things within this hollow. hold the hurt for her court of ghosts dearly, darkly, solemnly, softly, as she loved the earth back into herself, over and over. until the winds tracing at her cheek no longer felt like unknown spirits.

and so it was that the nightingale found her first; eyes fervid, twinkling and the spring of her ribs shivery, insatiable: "terveisiä," — greetings a bit more than breathless, addled, "what is the name of the one who sings?"[/narrow]

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+1 Discovery Point

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The vale her was shrouded. A mist clinging to the lands, filling the air with dew. Somewhere, she heard the gentle flow of a creek. Somewhere, she heard the call of another.

And then...

Peachy ears lift, seeking the source of the sound of falling footsteps. Bright sunflower eyes find the snowy pixie and stills, her throat clenching. Snowy and silvery eyes. She danced with moonlight much like the woman she loved whom feasted with the Gods now.

Sindri holds back a whine but forces a small smile instead. “Halló.” She responds in kind, thickly accented but with no words not uncommon to the other. “I am called Sindri Swiftkill, of house Stormborn.” A dip of her creamy muzzle. “And the name of the one who listens?”

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+1 Discovery Point

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[narrow width=800]swiftkill and stormborn; the feé wasn't familiar with either surname or house-name, but ignorance didn't give her license to remain as such. so the wisp studies her fellow tundrian with polite curiosity; noting the make of her and the earthsown fur, the suncast eyes, and most of all the sturdiness of her bearing. "such titles suit you. it is good," twinkling at said sindri, now, with a little more favor. then, with an equal cant of her muzzle: "aėrith tindómisel, of this 'ere hollow."

and, if she'd the members to build it upon, house fervanis. but she hasn't met many travelers to and from her ways here; only those that seemed to belong to one pack or another. nobody that needed to be found.

she supposed they'd come to her, then.

"you find yourself at cloudrest. but what, may i ask, has brought you here?"[/narrow]

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+1 Discovery Point

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Sindri's smile there lingers with the woman's words. Sindri did not extend the family name she had been born to and so takes Ragnar's instead, despite their lack of love affair. Sindri, she truly just was, where 'Swiftkill' was a title she had gained from her hunting and fighting prowess. A name given by her former mate which she thought so strongly of now. Her title suited her, said this woman and for which Sindri was happy for.

“Aėrith Tindómisel,” She repeats the name, the last which rolls off her tongue with odd dialect. “Your vale is lovely...” And she wonders then how many others there might be. She smells little. Smells, none really at this moment and in this area, savor the woman before her now.

“Pardon my intrusion, ” She apologies, “I merely walk and the Gods guide me as they so choose. I find myself venturing north again. I believe they mean for me to rest back where I belong, now.” A soft frown, a failed mission. Wherever her son was, she did so hope he had strength and good company.
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[narrow width=800]it was good, sometimes, to hear the way her name rolled off the tongue of another; rooting her where she is and reminding her that she is there truly ( wellness notwithstanding ) and the heartbeat of the earth is not some vision of her mind's doubting eye. though lovely her vale might very well be, she had not yet the numbers needed to more surely make her claim better known. she could wait, for solitude served her well.

her heart fractures and then breaks for the swiftkill, though, when she proffers her plight limned with godspeak. removed from the norths where their ancient lay their long bones. the two females are tundrian in their own rights ... but aėrith is not as familiar with that which her kith and kin knelt to. but she often considers that haltija shadow her every step, and might have led her to this very land.

but she will wonder on that another time;
and some company wouldn't hurt, either.

"a kindness of them, i should hope. but, may i ask – is there something that ails you that i may tend to?"[/narrow]

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She nods of the Gods and they bringing her home. Without their guidance and with being so worn in travel alone, had it not been for their helping hand Sindri did not know if she would have found her way. At least not for some time longer. But then, a question of favor by the other, a metaphorical outstretched paw to Sindri.

A deeper frown then before touches her expression now and in that moment of weakness, the mother turns her head away from the other and out to the misted vale which she now knew as Cloudrest. Sindri, of course being a woman of the north had always appreciated its beauty. From here however, she did not smell the coast and longed for this just as much so. A picky woman she was, perhaps.

“Only time may mend my ailment, far deeper then any blood shed of raid or war. I fear no death but, ” She turns to the soft maiden again, her eyes like moonlight, like whom Sindri so loved, now gone too. “My son is lost by me for far too long now. I only hope he serves well elsewhere and that somewhere near, my others still wait for me. Have you caught wind of them in this area? Their father is named Ragnar. He would have sought a home for us near rock and sea.”

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+1 Discovery Point

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[narrow width=800]at once her heart breaks for fellow maiden and mother; of course it does. it wanes across her lumine features, sorrowing so plainly for the swiftkill's own plight that she near moved to tears; the cusp of lashes silvering only briefly, for she blinked them away in favor of addressing the matter more readily at hand:  "those that are born of us and are then lost to us is an ending far less gentle than death. know that i hold your hurt within me as if it were my own,"  breathed she, lips pressing into a thin, tragic line; taking the moment to look out into the great, silver mountains of her would-be people  ( in time, in time )  as she let her gaze cast northwards, always north.

"i have not yet heard tell of a ragnar, in my own travels,"  and she had not been to the accursed sea in so very long, "if i had, i would have gone myself to look upon the male who has such kin as yourself to make a home with."

another shake of her head; regretful, now. and even though there was no use in lamenting over it, when so much more was to be had:

"it seems that, no matter the godsplain we walk, our fates are often cruel and callous mistresses. rarely are they ... miellyttävä. — benevolent"[/narrow]

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+1 Discovery Point

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Aeri's expression pulls at Sindri, it flutters her heart and quakes her soul as the woman bats away sudden tears. Sindri in that moment feels no need any longer to shield her sorrow from her. For which the look Aeri gave, the words which came there after, she too had felt such horrible pain, same as she. A pain many young mothers felt, a pain which at some point most all mothers felt.

Alas, she finds a loss of hope once more to hear that the woman did not know of Ragnar and with it did not know the children which they bore together. Sindri sighs, her own lips forming into that tight, pained flat line. A loss for words, the little woman comes to move to the ice queen's side. A quiver, a hesitancy. She wills herself to find comfort there with her and within the still and silence of her home.

Then, after awhile, “Might I stay with you tonight?” Not only because she traveled so far and was so very tired, but because already she had come to truly enjoy the woman's company. And in their loneliness, in their loss, they would now have one another.
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[narrow width=800]an acquiesing cant of her silver brow  —  it was all she felt she could do when the shieldmaiden moved nearer on the request of such a thing. aėrith had long learned to use her heart less, in this world away from everything that had loved her and been loved; but she was not so much so as to be entirely unfeeling, ruthless. so she's wordless, but draws sindri further into her claim for cloudrest; two ships for once not boundless, aimless on a horizon now shared.[/narrow]
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