"Comfort in the Aftermath" Log Date: 6/15, 6/16/02 Log Cast: Tefin, Fallberry (emitted by Wayfound), Wayfound Log Intro: Death has struck the camp of humans and elves on the beach of the Vastdeep Water: a death that's come in the form of a pack of wild dogs horribly changed, almost past all recognition. They'd borne three heads each, along with writhing tentacles that delivered a sizzling pain to anything they'd touched. Two elves were struck down by the monsters, and two of the sailors from Vrae as well; strck down, too, was Wayfound's wolf-friend Surejumper. Vardeus and Coralfire and Leafshimmer have all taken injuries, Leafshimmer most serious of the lot -- and yet, in the aftermath of the battle, a note of hope has arisen as well. Leafshimmer has Recognized her lifemate Orenth, a happening of no little wonder to the humans in the camp. But Wayfound knows nothing of the Recognition as of yet, for she has been gently led away from the scene of the grisly conflict. Exhausted and in shock over the loss of her wolf-friend, she has been in a position to notice little else besides the concerned attention of the wanderer Tefin... and this is exactly what the Go-Back hopes to achieve, for the wise little Tefin can see all too well that the Wolfrider desperately needs rest and peace.... ---------- Far, far from the battle Tefin leads her, until they reach the shores of the Shoaltail river, where they first met and where Tefin has been camping since deciding to stay with the humans. The sounds of nature surround the two elves but, sadly, Tefin does not believe that this will soothe Wayfound much. "Come...sit.." he whispers quietly, leading her to his makeshift camp and lowering her to the ground next to his firepit where his sleepfurs lay. It's not the first time they've been stained with blood...hopefully it will be one of the last. He quickly stokes the coals into brightness and adds a few more sticks, sending a shower of sparks into the night sky.... The Preserver comes with the elves... Wayfound's sole remaining companion, now, from her travels. Remarkably, the little creature stays quiet even as Tefin helps the Wolfrider sit, and only when she is sinking down and curling up into a huddled all on the Go-Back's furs does Fallberry lament, /Poorpoor findaway highthing! Poor poor growlerthing! Poor poor highthings and bigthings!/ Tefin nods slightly in agreenemt, digging out a bit of dried elk to nibble on; battling tends to make one ravenous even when friends are lost. "A horrible day..." "Did... you feel it at all?" Wayfound's voice comes breathily out of her, still with that exhausted, remote detachment. She does not otherwise stir from where she has lain down, and her eyes are staring blankly ahead into space as she whispers. "I am not... normally sensitive to such things... but I remember... all the magic in the Willowholt... and this... felt like that, except... _wrong_... the creatures felt... _wrong_...." Tefin nods solemnly. "Yes, I did...I felt it, like a stain on the natural setting surrounding us. It was like someone had taken a perfectly good creature and twisted it into something horrible..." Tefin lowers himself to the ground next to you, resting on his elbows and staring into the sky, but remaining alert as he can be. One hand brushes a lock of hair from over your eyes. "I am sorry about your wolf-friend...." "He was my first," Wayfound murmurs, in a voice almost as tiny as that of the Preserver's. "Out of the pack at Lostholt... not long before I left the tribe... already grown wh... when I bonded with him. I... expect it will take longer to walk to Lostholt, now..." The effort of speaking is palpable, and as your hand strokes her pale hair, she can be noted to be shaking. Tefin had heard about this wolf-bonding a few times before, and knew wolfrider had their bonds, but he never knew that the death of one would shake a wolfrider as resolute as Wayfound as deeply as it obviously has. Still, her brain is working in the way Tefin is accustomed to...logical and emotionless, but that is not the way to stop these feelings. He leans over and gives her a tight hug, whispering. "Wayfound...it is allright to cry." Taken into Tefin's arms, the she-elf shudders convulsively... and indeed, her face is growing wet, tears beginning to leak between her tightly closed eyes to streak through what's left of the blood that's dried over her face. She is exhausted, her body aches with exertion... and she can smell the stink of the monster's blood all over her. It makes her shudder, it makes her ill... And when she recollects that it's not even the blood of the monster that killed Surejumper, it makes her weep. Tefin rocks slowly back and forth, Wayfound in his arms, holding her as tightly as he can without hurting her. Sure, he's smaller than she, but comforting was one of the pre-requisites of the job in his previous life. The monster that murdered her wolf-friend escaped this time, but wherever they came from...that unnatural place...needed to be put to the torch and burned until nothing remained but ashes. Surely a hunt would be called within the next several days. Tefin bit his lip. Killing was not to his taste, but sadly it seems that it is inevitable. "He had a good life...and we will make those demons pay for taking it from you." Wayfound has height -- but she's not heavily built, more lean than strong, and she is easily enfolded into the smaller elf's embrace. It's a comfort she hasn't experienced for many years; to be sure, she has not felt its like since she was a cub, and a very small cub at that. The soothingly murmured words and the slow motion begin to do their work, even as she weeps hard, hot tears. Later, perhaps, she will howl; for now, she'll cry, and try to hold on to a clarion center of resolution. "You and I... yes... we must study the things... figure out w... where they came from... pool of bad magic, o... or if they were made..." "I hope to the high ones that they were not made..." Tefin whispers quietly, feeling the tears spatter against his tunic like a summer rain flurry, combing his fingers through her blood-sticky hair and hoping that this, this little thing that he is doing, gives her the least bit of comfort. If she were bak at the lodge, the best thing to do would be to put Wayfound in a bah and scrub her until the stench of those creatures was gone and only the pinkness of her skin remained. Perhaps once she is done crying...or in the morning. Tefin will not rush these things... Perhaps it helps her to talk? Wayfound slides her arms about you, clinging to the normalcy of an elfin scent... and the _abnormal_ but definitely craved sensation of an elfin voice murmuring consolingly over her head. But she also keeps talking, struggling for composure, struggling to keep hold of her one strength: her rationality. "I... do not kn... know how many stories the Go-Backs know... but I know of elves who can... _make_ twisted... creatures... Mother spoke of a Mad One called D... Doreel..." Talking is always good. The sound of another's voice nearby and the closeness of another's warmth are some of the most soothing things known to elfinkind. "I have not heard of him. Perhaps he or one of his ilk are the cause of this misery?" Perhaps your tale will give him some insight on how these things are created and why... "It... it happened before I was born," Wayfound whispers. Another shudder courses through her frame, the product of reflex and perhaps a bit of lingering shock as well; for a moment, too, she frowns to herself and huddles closer against Tefin's chest. Why is she cold? It is most peculiar that a perception of coldness should have come over her, when she seems to recollect that no abrupt change in temperature has happened all morning... "Mother and... and Strongbow were lost in a wood... full of spiders. Giant spiders, which had been... changed. Made to grow..." Perhaps it is the instinct in her making itself known here and there. Knowledge is a powerful thing, but sometimes feelings work just as well in certian situations. "made to grow...was a purpose discovered for their growth? Were they protecting something?" "Doreel," is Wayfound's whispered reply. "They were protecting Doreel. He lived... alone in the middle of his grove... Mother said... he was mad with grief. His tribe h... had been killed by the Tall Ones. He made the spiders and seemed to think they were... Preservers." /NOT wethings!/ Fallberry chimes in, sounding quite put out at this. /Fallberry there! Fallberry see nastybad chitterthings!/ "I know they weren't preservers, Fallberry, but they did serve a purpose." A pensive look wanders over tefin's face as he mulls over this information. "These creatures today were twisted...ugly..frightening. They worked as a pack, much like the wolfrider's wolves were. If these were created...they were formed to be as vile-looking and dangerous as possible...to defend against intruders or to frighten and destoy any who they crossed." he sighs quietly. "It is a vexing problem." Tefin snaps his fingers. "I've got it...they had to have been created by someone, not by a pool of bad magic." "Mother... Mother told me Doreel was a High One's son. He had great magic... he could change creatures... like the spiders. He.... he made them wrong." Wayfound shudders hard at the thought, not liking to consider it, but reason demands it must be. These changed near-wolves felt _wrong_, and malicious, and if there is a chance they might have been made by the same Mad One... reason also demands she hasten back to Lostholt despite what has happened, despite her loss. Her eyes fly open at that and she begins to try to sit up, gasping out, "I've _got_ to go back... to tell them of this...!" Tefin's strong arms hold you down. He shakes his head, slowly, keeping you from rising. "tomorrow, Wayfound. You wouldn't make it to the end of the river before you passed out from exhaustion." /Findaway highthing need be stillquiet,/ Fallberry agrees, sternly waggling a tiny finger at the agitated she-elf. It shoots a sidelong glance at Tefin, then, almost cannily considering whether or not the Go-Back is an ally here, before it asserts, /Findaway highthing try go, Fallberry put in wrapstuff!/ Wayfound jolts in reflexive reaction to the Preserver's threat, stammering out hoarsely, "Th... that will not be necessary..." And then she lifts stricken eyes to Tefin once again. She stares at him a long moment, before admitting at last, "I... am... tired..." Her eyes, still full of tears, blink once, stiffly. And then an awkward send crystallizes in the air, from her, simple and stark and hollow: ** ** Tefin leans down and presses his forehead to hers..a simple **... ** is all that can come forth, but it is enough..."Sleep." [Sleep Wayfound does, under the protective eye of the Go-Back who is swiftly becoming fond of her indeed. And on the night that follows the battle with the monsters, Wayfound gets an opportunity to look after her companion in turn...] The Vraeyans had not had reason to know, not yet, that Wayfound has learned the ways of combat well from the elders of Willowholt and Lostholt. "((A bonny wee fighter, she is,))" they've been saying of her in the hours since the monsters attacked. "((Fought wi' th' Captain like she were 'is shadow!))" But she knows none of this. Curled up in Tefin's campsite, the Wolfrider maiden has dropped into an exhausted doze, only the shock of loss of her wolf-friend and the weariness of her wiry muscles tipping her past caring that she stinks of the blood of the monster she helped to kill. With the canny blaze of reason that usually dominates her features doused by slumber, she looks unaccountably younger, frailer; in slumber, she dreams fretfully as well. Little noise escapes her, but her body is tense and her eyes dart back and forth behind her closed lids while little hitches periodically interrupt the rhythm of her breathing. All through the night Tefin remained vigilant, keeping watch over the exhausted wolfrider maiden, making sure that she slept undisturbed for as long as required. She was dreaming..this he could tell, but he was not one to disturb those dreams. In fact, every once in a while, he dozed, waking only to add more wood to the small, smokeless campfire, and to check on Wayfound. The next morning he left to hunt some fresh food up and to visit the Vraeyans, always checking back on the slumbering maiden. A kindred spirit, she is, even though they only met a few weeks prior to the events that happened on the beach. The sun is beginning to set on this new day and Tefin returns from one of his jaunts to the camp by the beach, hoping that she will awakem soon. The Preserver, understanding that it is needed to go and wrap up one of the monsters for the humans to keep till Tefin is ready for it, vanishes for a time. But as night wheels around again and Tefin returns to the camp, Fallberry flitters up to zip circles about the little Go-Back's head, piping, /Fallberry here! Fallberry make much wrapstuff on nastybad growlerthing! Bigthings keep for busyhead snowhighthing!/ Not content to stop there, though, the bug *whits* down to Wayfound, fluttering hopefully a foot or so over her, touching a tiny finger thoughtfully to its mouth. /Findaway highthing go stillquiet?/ As if on some level aware that she is being observed, Wayfound shifts position. She does not yet open her eyes, though, and her features grow more taut. He chuckles softly, shaking a finger at the little preserver. "I know that making wrapstuff is what you enjoy doing, Fallberry, but no, Wayfound is not stillquiet. When she wakes, she will be fine. In the wrapstuff, she will stay stillquiet and that is not a good thing." He looks over at her from his perch against a small tree near the campfire, and near to where she lay, still curled in his furs. "If we do need wrapstuff, I will certianly call you. Thank you for your offer, though." It's the voices, perhaps, that call her out of her sleep. Wayfound rolls onto her back, lifting a stiff hand up to rub at her still-closed eyes, and she can be heard to mutter distantly, "Indeed... I do not think we will require any further wrapstuff...." /AwwwwwWWWwwwwwwww!/ If Fallberry were on the ground, it might perhaps kick a pebble. Since it is in fact still fluttering in the air, it settles for making its fluttering a bit more dejected-looking. /Sunnygreen highthing always say no wrapstuff! Findaway highting say no wrapstuff! Fallberry NEVER make wrapstuff!/ So cute. Tefin can hardly suppress a chuckle before coming up with an idea to get the little preserver out of their hair...for a bit, anyway. "Okay, Fallberry...I do need some wrapstuff. I want you to go to the vraeyan's camp and ask the chief there if he requires anything preserved...if he says yes, ask him if you can wrapstuff it. I'm sure he'll have something for you." True, it may be a bit cruel to Vardeus, but Fallberry's little need to wrapstuff things may help keep the Vraeyan's from too much hunger on their trip overland. At the sound of Wayfound's voice, Tefin smiles a bit. "Finally awake, are you?" Fallberry lights up, at this order of Tefin's, quite visibly. /Fallberry go!/ it pipes, thrusting out its tiny chest and perking its wings up significantly. /Fallberry go to ask skyeye bigthing if need wrapstuff! Or givewords bigthing! Or play with muchburble bigbaby!/ It pirouettes in delight three times around Tefin's head before vanishing southward, giggling as it goes. Wayfound, to that, opens her eyes and looks up at the Go-Back, solemnly, though one corner of her mouth turns fractionally upward. "I see you have developed a knack for keeping Fallberry occupied," she rasps. "Well done. It took me two turns of the seasons to figure out how to do that, at Willowholt." As a reply he shrugs a bit, offering a smile in return. "The little preserver seems to be almost like a three turn old child; it knows what it wants and won't stop until it gets it. Now..." He rises and makes his way over to where you lie. "Now, I'm sure you're a little hungry after your nap..." He offers a freshly-killed ravvit...compliments of one of the wolfriders on the beach. "It isn't much, thanks to the leaf-fall, but it should be ehough to fill your belly." "Preservers indeed seem to function on a child's level..." Wayfound sits up, stretching to try to work the kinks out of her neck and limbs, moving with the heaviness of someone who has not yet shaken off the blanket of sleep. "Having observed those of Willowholt as well as Lostholt and received the accounts of the tribe of others they had met, it is quite evident..." Now, though her attention turns to the kill, and she pauses, taken aback. Then she gives a grateful nod, reaching out to accept the ravvit, while glancing down to see if she's still carrying her knife. She is. She hadn't drawn it during the battle, relying on her spear instead, and so the stone blade is intact and unbloodied. "Thank you," she says hoarsely. "I... reek of blood, but this smells cleaner. And I should replenish my strength." "Yes you should. After that, if you're feeling up to it, I think you should take a quick bath and let me see if I can get the stink of that creature out of your clothes." The last thing that needs to happen is to be reminded of the creature that killed her wolf-friend any time she gets wet or sweats enough to get the blood-scent going again. "And perhaps after, I can comb out your mane again." "I might as well burn these leathers, if the Vraeyans can spare me cloth and hide to make new clothes," Wayfound sighs, her brow crinkling. As she attends herself to efficiently slicing off bits of the ravvit for consumption, she studies her bedraggled garb critically. "Moonshade would be most cross with the state of my leathers. But although I have acquainted myself with the basics of the craft, as has been necessary when living alone in the wild, I have not found myself to be more than adequate at it..." "I think that this moonshade would probably forgive the state of your leathers due to the circumstances that caused them to be sullied in such a way. I wish I could help you, but in the matter of mending and manufacturing clothing, I have no coordination. The spare clothes that I have would mabye fit you. You're more than willing to try them, though." The image of Wayfound bundled up in his Go-back leathers causes him to chuckle a little. Still, perhaps one of the Vraeyans is a tailor and can make her some new clothes. There must be someone there who could help with that. Cloth, however, may be difficult to come by...leather, perhaps, but cloth... Does Wayfound follow that train of thought? Perhaps. "They've been cutting up the things they call ((sails)) to make clothing for themselves," she says, in between small, precise swallowings of ravvit fragments. "The cloth is heavy, I find, but it is serviceable. I shall inquire whether they can spare enough to make me something else to wear; I am given to understand they wish to keep some aside, for trade with the Olbar tribe." Then she pauses, and considers Tefin's offer, smiling a tiny bit more now, though it doesn't reach her eyes. "I am taller than you," she points out. "I expect my legs would stick out of your breeches." "Quite true. You would most definately fit into them, but probably not very well without some kind of adjustment. I believe that i could spare a little bit of my sleepfurs to extend the bottoms of the breeches to where your entire leg is covered...perhaps you should consider that in case there is no ((sail)) material to spare." A short chuckle at the image of Wayfound's legs sticking scarecrow-like out of the bottom of ill-fitting breeches is humorous, but it would probably be warmer than the ((sail)) material. The she-elf manages a bit of a bigger smile this time, though it's mostly a crumpled quirk of an expression, rather than a true smile, and her eyes remain not only somber, but a trifle dulled as well. But on the good side, she does make methodical progress in putting away that ravvit, and as she does, she nods wisely at Tefin's last words, before asking, "I trust that the woods around the camp have remained quiet, if we are still here and Vardeus and Leafshimmer are not making us all come into the main camp for safety in numbers?" True, Vardeus did suggest that Tefin and Wayfound move closer to the camp, but after that first night when none of those creatures returned, defenses were lowered slightly and Tefin's campsite remained undisturbed. Wayfound is apparently becoming more comfortable around tefin...smiles, small as they are, are still smiles. "He did think it would be best, but this is a very defensable area, with the camp only a quick run away. Besides...I stood watch all night. nothing came close, and if there were any sign of danger, we would have been in the main camp faster than snow melting on the stones surrounding a cookfire." Tefin says "Besides..I did not want to wake you." The confident assurance seems to help, and tension Wayfound didn't quite realize she still had eases away from her frame. At that last, though, she can be seen to pinken a bit. "Thank you," she says, ruefully, finishing off the last of the ravvit's front right leg. It's almost with a sigh of relief that she goes on, "I... must have been tired. And I find that I like these strange humans from across the ocean. It troubles me that they have lost two more of their number, as much as it does that Briarholt's elves have lost two of theirs." Tired, perhaps. A better word would be exhausted. The first time Tefin experienced a battle, he slept for a good three days afterwards, the adrenaline draining out of him with every breath he took. "They are very interesting, to be certian. I have spent some time with them while you slept...watched them bid their fallen dead farewell...listened to their songs. It was a most...moving experience, to say the least." he looks at you, eyes glinting in the firelight. "sometimes I forget that we are of two different peoples, the humans and the elves. We are different in so many ways, but so alike in so many others." Exhaustion still is clearly limned in every plane of Wayfound's stark face, too. She has never been short for words when discussing what's in the world around her -- but when it comes to herself, apparently, she is a chieftess of understatement. As she starts on one of the ravvit's back legs, she inclines her head, slowly, heavily... but with a bit of a spark of life in her eyes, as long as the topic is off blood and death. "It is what drew me to observe them," she whispers. "When some of us of Willowholt were sheltered in Blue Mountain after our Holt was destroyed... that is when I first saw humans. I wanted to see more of them... but Rainfire was furious and Mother did not want me to go near them. I have wanted to know ever since how they think... to understand why many of them seem to hate us." Tefin purses his lips thoughtfully, tapping them with one slender finger. "Elders choose to shelter their young from things that could harm them...and old predudices run deep. For some, this hatred of humans has been all that they have known for their entire lives. From my observations, hatred is a useful emotion at times, but usually it causes more strife than anything else." Tefin also looks a bit tired...like the tree behind him isthe only thing propping him up. Wayfound stares at the smaller elf for some time, wanting to acknowledge the truth of his words -- and she would not be Wayfound, if she did not give them at least some mark of acknowledgement. For she does see their wisdom, and she tries to encourage wisdom's expression whenever she sees it. "That would appear to explain many of my tribe's opinions," she murmurs. And then, after a pause, she remarks earnestly, "Perhaps you should take a turn to sleep." "Perhaps I should, yes..." Tefin says with a soft yawn, still leaning against the tree. "I probably should have napped a little more the previous evening...or at least tried to take a nap today...but the humans were so fascinating. they wrapped the bodies of their fallen in some of that ((sail)) cloth and held a vigil for them the entire day. Each member of the tribe came to visit at least once, some bearing gifts for what family there was. I had never seen anything like it before." "From what Arnos has told me," Wayfound says quietly, "they will burn their dead, when they have said their words for them and honored their ((gods))." She uses the Vraeyan word -- there isn't one, in her own tongue, as far as she knows. "And they have been most solicitous of Dharce... the one with the baby, and another coming. I heard her scream for Nefis; he was her mate." The words come out of her very quietly, now. Almost a whisper. She has stopped eating the ravvit, and instead sits there on her haunches, watching the Go-Back grow more droopy of eye as he leans there against the tree. It becomes a struggle for the little go-back to even keep his eyes open, much less form coherent thoughts and sentences. "((gods))...their version of high ones, mabye...? he asks quietly, not really listening for an answer. A sigh almost larger than Tefin rises forth, and he stretches a little, trying to stay awake a few moments longer. This is a conversation that he doesn't want to end just yet, but it seems his body is conspiring agaisnt him. Silently, a testament to the wolf-blood in her veins, the young huntress -- the young _thinker_ -- lays aside her half-finished meal and reaches instead for one of the furs out of Tefin's sleeping place. "It seems at least the beginnings of a similarity," Wayfound answers in soft reply, and that's barely more noticeable than the feather-light touch of the fur that she drapes over Tefin's form, to try to make him as comfortable as possible. If asked, Tefin would prefer the thinker to the huntress. In his experience, there are not nearly enough rational thinkers in the world...mostly impulsive reactions to problems and very little critical thinking. "it's warm.." he whispers quietly, nestling down into the fur you draped over him, a smile brushing across his face before his breathing evens out. "perh...ap..s.." he whispers quietly before...** ... ** And sleep steals him away. For the battle, at least, Wayfound was huntress through and through, leaping into the fray at the side of the big captain Vardeus -- because there was no other option at the time. But now that the battle is over, wolf-instinct and wolf-blood yield to Wayfound the thinker, and it is that side of her now that studies Tefin with grateful eyes as he drifts off into slumber. ** I'll watch, ** she promises, and her send, like everything else, is barely detectable. ** Your turn to rest now. You've earned it. ** [End log.]