[mature] Champion.

[Ainlif]

He moved through the dark forest with the grace of a hunter, melding from one mass of shadows to the next with only a flash of deep red-gold when any sunlight pierced through and flared across his coat. Bright, amber eyes were embedded like wicked jewels in a black face, as wild and attentive as the other beasts in the forest - and the creature locked away in his mind.

His head was held low as he paced forward on a lengthy path, wide eyes unblinking and looking every bit like a dragon on a hunt. Perhaps like his mother's tattoo, now buried deeply in his mind alone. Or something similar to it. Something birthed from it and the long-lost Jungle he was raised in. That she'd been Queen of.

So long ago.

He dashed the memories away with a jerk of his head, black hair falling across his muscled neck and over his face. By all appearances, he could be tracking something. Though as reality would have it, he was retreating. Gaining distance. Others were pressing in today, strangers wandering deeper into these forgotten forests. And the last thing he wanted was to come across other people. Once upon a time, he may have been decent at it. Diplomatic, even. Perhaps it was in his blood, he thought dryly with a bitter taste in his mouth.

But he was most certainly not diplomatic.
And he was not friendly.

And he could never tell what would call the beast out, take over and consume him like a separate entity. Turn him wild and vicious. But at least he was no longer seeing the ghost of his dead child. Maybe he could say now that he was only half-crazy.

I've been on a long road with the devil right beside me

ainlif

rising with the morning sun; it’s a hunger that drives me

[warlow]

She isn’t sure how long she’s been running for, but there is some way down deep part of her mind that has begun to wonder if she remembers how to stop. It feels like an urgent instinct though, a desperation in her chest, an endless surge of adrenaline pushing her faster and further and forever until that tiny dark and autumn body finally succumbs to the sickness that is everywhere.

She tried so hard not to catch it, tried to outrun it and hide from it. There were too many bloated bodies fallen beneath the trees, the tall trunks like monuments to lives ended too soon, so abruptly. Nameless and faceless and nothing. Grey, patchy skin. Blood on their lips and leaking from their eyes. She didn’t need to understand what death was to know she didn’t want to be like them. Empty and ugly and nothing.

But now she coughs like they do, dry and heaving until she feels sickness swell in her tummy because the muscles cannot abide the constant contractions her suffocating lungs send in tremors through her body. She bleeds too, though she pretends she doesn’t notice when she wipes her nose on her knee and the dark skin is glazed with new red. Pretends it’s just a scrape, a cut, because she’s tripped so many times.

It isn’t until the fever builds in her, burns in her, guides her to the edge of delirum, that she finally slows to a staggering walk. She can hear him coming, hear something massive stalking through the trees towards her. Or is it maybe the forest staggering around her, trees thumping down to sleep because they are so, so tired from all this useless, pointless running. Yes, it must be the trees. So she starts staggering forward again, scowling and delirious and smeared red in too many places, because she’s only just realizing she’s always wanted to see a tree sleeping on its side.

“Mmust be sso tiring to sstand all day.” She mumbles up at the nearest tree trunk, squinting and reaching her nose out to give it a push. 



(ooc - this is being switched to current after-plague timeline obviously since baby warlow is sick. toli okayed it <3 )

[Ainlif]

He was retreating. And then he wasn't. His head lifted and he tested the air with flared nostrils. With a jerk, it turned to her direction, gold eyes flashing and lips peeling back. A child. Alone. He spun his body slowly, facing her and waiting for her to appear.

She stumbled forward, tiny and coughing and half-delirious. So many years now since he'd had a daughter. Since he'd let her die, be murdered with his wife in his absence. He hadn't even left for that long, but he'd come back to their bloody deaths and it was all his fault. He should've been there.

The sickness has claimed her, and he knew he should walk away, chase her off. His secret, noble heart wouldn't allow him, and he held still as her blood-painted body staggered forward once more, teeny face scowling so prettily. He would be amused if he hadn't been so furious that an innocent child was allowed to get so sickly.

"Mmust be sso tiring to sstand all day."

She must not have had any notion of what she spoke of, and he watched in grave silence as she reached out to push her nose against his dark leg. He growled at the heat he felt through it. She was feverish, a higher temperature than was safe for such a small body. It had been so many damn years but he supposed some things he wouldn't forget about being a father. It was still quietly surprising, though.

He still said nothing. Instead, he reached out and pulled her in closer with a low rumble. She smelled only of snake and man, no woman. Had she been bitten then? He scanned over her but didn't see a puncture. It could be hiding beneath the fluids on her. If that were the case, his efforts would be useless and she'd die in a number of hours. He wouldn't go without trying first, at least.

And even if she had a mother, she may as well enjoy his rough care until he could find her parents. If she lived long enough. He hoped she would. It rubbed him wrong that a child so small and innocent could be sentenced such a death. As his daughter had suffered because of him.

He shifted in the direction of water, nudging her firmly forward so he could bathe the sickness and blood from her skin, try to cool her high fever.

I've been on a long road with the devil right beside me

ainlif

rising with the morning sun; it’s a hunger that drives me

@[The Plague]

[Random Event]

@[Ainlif] is safe. For now. (rolled a 6)

[warlow]

She has no idea that this man is not a tree. That he is flesh and bone and sinew, soft and warm and with a heart beating so steady in his chest. There is too much sick in her mind, too much fever turning the blood in her veins to sticky fire, slowing her thoughts and her words and the stumbling motion of such small, rust legs as they stagger beneath her.

He is a tree. He is vast and brown and beautiful, missing his leaves and those beautiful greens, but trees did that when they got too cold. Dropped their leaves because their fingers got too cold to hold them. He is a cold tree. But that seems okay because she is a ball of fire burning so bright, she is the sun plucked from the sky and shaped into equine in her molten softness.

She will keep this tree warm.

But then the tree pokes her, nudges her firmly in a direction she is far too tired to go, so she plants her tiny little hooves and sways wildly, lifts her gaze to the face that is not a face so that she can scowl at him so loudly. Except for a moment the grumbling, childish anger tempers the fever and face does swim through her vision, a shark in deep waters when she doesn’t know how to swim.

Then it’s gone again, no face, no shark, no anything but her tree sleeping sideways and the dark root he keeps proding her with. She could go with him maybe, if only she could remember how to lift her feet off the ground. Were they always so heavy? She struggles a little, fights her feet until her legs buckle at the knees and she’s swaying again, falling sideways against something that catches her. But she’s made no progress that she can tell, still in the same place except it’s night now. So dark and no stars, no moon, no anything to tell her where she is. Just something solid against her forehead. Solid and warm and so she leans into it, sighs with a huff that is somehow both relieved and offended.

“Imma tree too.” She mumbles, lifts her nose a little so her face rubs against the soft skin behind his foreleg. “I ‘ve roots an’ ’m stuck.”

[Ainlif]

She should never have gotten sick. She should never have been allowed to wander where the infection spreads.

Her stubborn little feet planted firmly and he nudged her again, making her sway. The illness was toying with her mind, her eyes blinking and glazed and hazy. He rumbled again, displeasure swelling in his chest. She would be bathed if he had to carry her the rest of the way there. He was stubborn too.

He lowered his head and pawed the earth, thump-dragging a solid hoof in frustration. His nose was there to catch her the moment she stumbled, gently setting her right again and resuming his relentless pushing. She spoke again, more nonsense that he ignored. He wasn't going to get attached. She was not meant for him. It didn't matter how that tiny nose pressing against his leg made his foolish heart flip then ache in long-buried memories.

"Walk," he growled harshly, giving her another shove forward. It was fortunate the shallow creek had not been far, and he forced her the remaining distance however he must, letting her tumble this time when he knew she would land soundly in trickling waters.

His amber-gold eyes in a dark face stared down at her for a long moment, indifferent. She was not his responsibility. It was not him that should be doing this. And yet there he was, taking a step forward and drenching his nose, scrubbing it across her bloody coat to slowly reveal the black and deep auburn beneath. Each pass was not particularly gentle, he was not a particularly gentle man.

And yet, the lineage of a king, he thought without humor.
And instead bathing a stranger's child in a world that had long forgotten his name.

"Rise," he commanded. So that he could examine her for that snake bite and survey her injuries. She was not his responsibility. He would have to find her parents somehow or pass her off to the wolf. Leaving his self-imposed isolation did not interest him. He kept it for a reason.

I've been on a long road with the devil right beside me

ainlif

rising with the morning sun; it’s a hunger that drives me