little lion man

The aftermath of the battle sat heavily in Kieran’s stomach. They had had everybody and then nobody; they were almost to safety until they no longer were. Kieran was used to loss but this one was so vast and so shocking. He couldn’t let himself linger on it and retreated into himself, speaking only when spoke to and even then, usually only to Rosa.

“How’s your shoulder?”

That was the thing about being lost…you had to have a direction in mind to know that you diverged from it. For the past century Allyria had been wandering Ironhaust aimlessly, going wherever her feet, the wind, to the whims of fate guided her. Now, for the first time, she had a destination set in mind. And she was having trouble getting there. It was all very disappointing, and in the recesses of impulse she wanted to just give in to her habit. 

“Not forever,” she agreed, “But we could walk in circles forever and never escape it. That is my worry.” 

She cast a curious gaze over to him, “Please do share,” she prompted, “Any idea is better than tiring ourselves out.”

Kieran dipped his head. It was his worry too; all too much.

“The moss,” he said, motioning to a patch on a tree that they passed. “It tends to grow on the northern side of trees. As long as we keep track of the direction of the moss, we should keep going in a relatively forward direction,” he explained. 

His fingers brushed the soft green plant absently as they passed by; as soon as they were past it, the fog swirled around and the tree was completely hidden from view once again. Kieran forced back another shiver.

He’d spotted most of the party in the fog but he hadn’t been able to catch their fearless leader until just then. Having long since abandoned riding on horseback, he strode carefully towards Théo.

“Hey,” he said softly in greeting. Too soft, perhaps, but there was something about the fog that pressed in, made him feel like if he talked too loud something from the fog would jump out and envelop him. “Crazy weather. Seems like it came out of nowhere.”

It felt like the temperature had dropped precipitously but Kieran knew that couldn’t possibly be true. He knew he was thinking too much into this—he’d been in far more dangerous situations than a bit of fog—but he couldn’t get that nagging feeling out of his head.

That there was something more insidious going on. That there were creatures swirling in the fog just past the edge of his vision.

Kieran’s jaw clenched and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, the fog still swirled but the figures seemed to have dissipated. Instead, Harlowe was there. He padded over, Drouin’s reins loose in his grip.

“The fog really gets to your head, doesn’t it?” he asked quietly.

She’d forgotten that she was not alone. In the haze of the fog she’d lost herself in time. The present and past blurred together, and even on horseback she felt as if she was by herself walking - gliding - through memories. 

When Kieran appeared in her periphery she started slightly and then exhaled. She tried to speak but for a moment the words did not form in her throat. Eventually she found her voice. 

“I think we should get out of this place…only I don’t know which was is out. Ranger, do you?”

A thrill of fear filled his chest. Did he know the way out? It wasn’t a question he often asked himself because he always did; if he got himself in to a place he could invariably get himself out.

But the fog. The godsdamned fog.

It wasn’t like anything he’d encountered before. He’d traveled through his fair share of foggy patches but this one went on and on and on. Could he lead the way out of it? He shoved down the fear and focused on what he could see. The ground beneath their feet, shifting beneath a thin layer of white. The milky light filtering in from the sky above. He could do this. He could do this.

“It can’t last forever,” Kieran reasoned slowly, bringing his gaze from the ground to catch Allyria’s. “Whichever way we go, we’ll get out eventually. But I— I have some sort of idea how to keep us on track, I think.”

the fog swirled around them as the group pushed forward. rosa had thought that maybe the fog would only last for a day or less. instead, they were constantly stuck in it with no end in sight.

rosa could only hope that the end of this delay would be done with soon. there were times the fog had gotten so thick that she couldn’t see the rest of the group. their horses were much taller than hers and they were sitting far above her. sometimes she could only see their legs and nothing else. it was not a comforting sight.

as they moved along she could see kieran jumping down from her horse, and she decided to join him. “this place would make for a horrible game of i-spy.” she laughed. “how are you doing?”

Kieran smiled faintly and shrugged, leaning against Drouin a bit as he walked. 

“Doing all right,” he paused, went silent for a handful of seconds. But this was Rosa, and if he couldn’t talk to her, then who could he talk to?

“Feels like I’m suffocating a bit,” he admitted finally. “Don’t you think?”

As if hearing him, the fog swirled closer, pushed by some unfelt breeze. It sent a shiver up Kieran’s spine. So much of Kieran’s life revolved around his senses—around sight and sound and touch and hearing and, yes, sometimes even taste—and this fog seemed to be draining that all away from him.

There was something about the fog that sent a shiver down Kieran’s spine.

He found himself gripping Drouin’s mane and relaxed his grasp, patting the horse’s neck instead. The horse and the fog were around the same color, which only made the whole experience that much more disconcerting; on more than one occasion, the fog had been so thick and matched Drouin’s coloring so closely that it had almost felt like Kieran was floating.

After two instances of that, Kieran swung down and settled solidly on the ground. 

There. A bit better at least. 

He took Drouin’s reins loosely and nudged his shoulder before starting again.

“I agree,” she began, making rather intense eye contact with the younger. “I’ve never been in such a large party with curious beings. I’m excited to learn everyone’s backstories, hometowns, personalities. Its about time we had an adventure, don’t you think?”

“Same,” Kieran murmured, glancing down and shuffling his feet. “I’m...excited to see where this journey takes us, I think. I’ve only ever been on guiding and tracking missions before and those are generally more...structured?” He glanced up and forced himself not to shy away from Yaphier’s gaze.

Ally had lived long enough to watch the world fall. She was born into a world of chaos and war, and she thought that once the siege on her home was done then she could enter a world free of such violence. What she found beyond the gate was only more of the horror she wished to escape. 

Some would have retreated back into the walls of Faelyre, the utopia. But not Ally. Even when faced with a nightmare she dove in and attempted to change the world to be what she wished. Thus far she had effected very little change. this quest was her chance to impact the realm for good. 

“Just look at me, look me in the eyes,” she said taking his hands in her and holding them softly in her lap. There was no force in her tone, she was merely requesting with as much civility and kindness possible. She looked at him, her gaze inquisitive and soft.

The urge to wiggle away was still there but Allyria was holding his hands so gently.

Kieran was able to use the dull throbbing in his shoulder as a focus and took a handful of slow, deep breaths before forcing himself to meet her gaze.

Eyes the colour of honey, his sister had said once. Golden in the right light. Our father left us with something good, at least. 

Neither twin knew what their father looked like, of course, but sometimes it was enough to pretend, especially when they were very young and when the idea of having royal elven blood running through their veins meant something grander than the slurs cast at them.

All blood, royal or not, stains crimson. It was something Kieran learned early.

So he held Allyria’s gaze, honey eyes filled with wary determination.

Allyria had been pacing the room for the past half hour. The hem of her coat kept getting snagged on the splinters of the poorly kept inn floor. She was a woman of diplomacy at her core, but being trapped in a town filled with sleazy and violent humans kept her on edge. She did not want to talk to any of them, let alone bargain or plead for the life of their companion. 

At his words she stopped her movement, walked over to him and sat down by his side, “Well, there isn’t much we can do at the moment. I say we gather the supplies we need and once we have enough to leave this town forever, we do. And we take Wulf with us no matter if that end is achieved through violence or peace.”

Kieran’s shoulders slumped further. The idea of violence was disheartening—sure, he liked Wulf well enough, but did he like him enough to risk his own well-being? 

He’d only known the other man for a few days. Still... Wulf was innocent, and the idea of leaving him there to die certainly didn’t sit right with Kieran either.

He scuffed his feet around on the floor and sighed.

“How does a town like this attract a criminal so bad they’re willing to put them to death?” Kieran mumbled.

Kieran was pale with worry. Everything had been going well…until it wasn’t. Kieran had expected them to get a bit further along in their journey before anything serious came up and even then he couldn’t have predicted this. The injury, maybe, but the accusation? It didn’t seem fair for them to set out on this great quest only to be foiled by a town with an angry handful of people.

He curled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, sitting on the floor of the room Allyria had claimed. “What are we supposed to do now?” he rasped, frowning at the floor.

Upon learning there were a limited number of rooms in the inn, Kieran’s first instinct had been to set up camp outside the town. As tempting as the idea had been, though, sticking with the group seemed like the way to go, especially with the attack they’d just faced. His shoulder was still aching a bit and the idea of spending the night in a room and not on the ground was enticing enough to assuage Kieran’s nerves a bit. Still. Rooming with someone…

He found himself slinking over to Rosa. “Do you, um, have someone to share a room with?”

The sun had just gone down and Kieran found himself seated in a corner booth at Gilder’s sole joint restaurant/tavern. His dinner had long been cleared away and he was currently nursing his second cup of tea and watching the handful of people in the room go about their business. Going unnoticed was normally easy enough for Kieran but thanks to both the small size of the town and the group he was traveling with, Kieran felt like he stuck out like a beacon. He could feel people’s curious glances and he mostly wanted to melt into the chair so they’d stop looking at him. Suddenly, attention was drawn away from Kieran to … a pair of men, voices raised, arguing about something Kieran couldn’t quite catch.

This certainly wasn’t going to end well.

The sun was high and Kieran set out to wander through the few stores they had in the town to look for odds and ends that might help them on their journey. There was limited space, certainly, but Kieran knew how to pack efficiently and to keep only what was absolutely necessary. That and it was a chance to clear his thoughts a bit—he’d worked himself into a bit of a state once he’d learned what happened to Wulf. Even as the thought came up again, Kieran shook his head to clear it.

He spotted Faunalyn just as he left the inn and wandered over. “I was going to look around for supplies…” he said carefully. “Would you … like to come with?”

If this were any other situation, Wulf might have refused the knife. If he’d had the time, he might have insisted that Kieran take some time to go see the healers in their party – unfortunately, with the sound of howls and battle-cries still raging, it seemed none of them could afford to take a break.

Especially not those who, like Kieran, actually stood a chance of fighting the beasts.

Instead, he folded his fingers around the hilt of the knife, and nodded rapidly, a silent, yes, definitely, pointy end out. He’d try not to stab himself with it, at least, and count himself lucky if he didn’t. And there was more he wanted to say – a thank you, a hope that Kieran stayed safe – but where others would have been able to say those words quickly, Wulf could not.

In lieu of words, Wulf pressed his hand over his heart in a half-bow (accompanied by Big’s enthusiastic headbutt against Kieran’s knee), and pointed emphatically at a skirmish where it looked like Elas wasn’t having a wonderful time of things. He was fine, and Kieran’s abilities would be far better suited helping Elas.

It was admittedly difficult to focus for long with the chaos that surrounded them. Kieran could fight, but he was not a fighter, not like some of the others in the group. He had always fought to survive—not for any sort of glory or patriotism. It was all mechanical, a series of steps that would let him live another day.

There was a particularly loud shriek that caused Kieran’s grip to tighten on his bow.

Kieran smiled faintly at Wulf’s bow and ruffled the fur on the top of Bigs’ head. “You stay out of trouble too,” he murmured to Bigs with a final ruffle of fur.

With what could only be considered a decidedly awkward duck of his own, Kieran smiled faintly before returning his full attention to the battle raging. There was still work to be done.