TJ: Outside the Firelight

OOC: Sorry I missed this.  Bleh.  Battling a flu, sleepiness, and flemmy coughs.  Yeck.

IC:

Slinker smiled congenially.  He took Sunset's silent cue in stride.  He readily accepted her hand, and gripping her knuckles, used his strength to swing her up behind him.  Ash continued slinking along, taking his time towards the caves, while his elf-bond opened his mind to Tinder's pride-sister. 

~**Show me.  Tell me.  Let me see as you do**~, Slinker locksent encouragingly.  ~**Help me to understand**~.

OOC: Rolled with the 'hand-up' lol, so yah Slinker gave her a boost-up to sit astride Ash.  So Sunset's behind him.  XD. 

Slinker felt and heard and sensed the swell of love and loss over Sunset's tribemates.  He was startled by the elfess, Earth, who seemed not like an elf at all, but was an elf none the less.  He was confused for a moment, though it passed, as he listened silently to Sunset's shared locksend.  It was a deep, passionate, and private thing held close to her heart and spirit.  He understood the bonds of family and pack, even though he did not fully understand her connection with both the human and Earth until he saw the flow of her memories.

Slinker's eyes widened when he felt the surge of loss.  The grief ran deep as a river inside Sunset, like water carving its way through rock.  The trickle had begun slowly, he sensed, a handful of seasons ago, but had coalesced into a flood as the turns had passed.  The human, Coia he realised, had withered like a berry left too long on the vine.  She had grown old too quickly for an elf to appreciate or understand.  Earth had followed after, aging in reverse, much more slowly but still withering none the less.

Slinker was shaken by the last torrent of memory and emotion.  He tensed in his seat astride Ash when he saw, through Sunset's eyes, how a tribe of elves gathered round the death-bed of a dying Coia.  The grief was real.  The pain near unbearable, but he accepted the shared burden.  He had asked to see and to understand. 

Slinker smelt the saline stink of salt on his skin.  He reached up with trembling fingers when Sunset closed the locksend.  His voice was rough when he wiped the tears from his cheeks.  He reached round his waist for Sunset's hands and gripped them tight.  He had not the heart to send again just yet, so he spoke to her instead, voice hushed and thick with remorse.

"You poor soul, Sunset.  It is not right for an elf to carry so much sadness on her own.  I am so sorry, so very sorry".

Slinker sighed with a heavy heart. He opened a locksend to Sunset, knowing that only she would hear him if she wanted too. It was too difficult to speak anymore. The grief lodged in his throat like a stone. He would have sung the old goback mourning songs if he could, but Sunset's human friend, and Earth were not from the icy mountains or the deep forests. These were sand elves from a place hot and scalding and so very dry as if all the water had evaporated into the sky to leave the earth parched and dead.

~**Among my people, we would sing when someone passed over to the Highone's embrace again. We would sing mourning songs, filled with words, and sounds, and memories, and we would howl with the wolves, giving our voices to the sorrow. It was our way to say farewell and to wish them a good journey home, and to make it easier for those left behind to endure**~.

Slinker smiled sadly. ~**A spirit should not be sad, my people believe, when it is time to depart. Sorrow is for the living to bear, so that we may remember who we have lost**~.

Slinker patted Sunset's hands as he delved into his own memory, opening a gateway so that she might glimpse how his tribe had said farewell to the last of them who had died. He shared with her the scene of an open fire, with wolves, branch-horns, and many elves gathered round a large hearth, all in a circle. Words were spoken, stories shared, and near the end, as each made homage to an elf, wrapped in furs, still as stone upon the earth, voices both elf, wolf, and branch-horn were raised in ululation. Some elves wept, some wolves bowed their great heads, ears and tails drooping, and others sang the haunting call until their throats were dry and their voices cracked. The song continued until none could sing anymore and all about the honoured dead, among the living elves and bonds that remained, the tears fell like rain.

Slinker closed the locksend with difficulty.  It had been a terrible occassion.  He offered Sunset a brief explanation, voice rough with remembered pain.  He lived in the Now of wolf-thought, but even the wisdom of the oldest and wisest of wolfrider teachings could not dull his memory.  "My pack-brother, Lorr, died two turns of the seasons ago.  It was an accident.  Lorr was charged by a boar during the hunt, fell off his bond, and rolled down a steep embankment.  He was impaled on the branches of a rotted tree.  Straight through the back, chest, and belly".  Slinker bowed his head regretfully.  "I stayed with him through the worst, while my packbrothers and sisters ran for our healer.  By the time they returned.  Lorr was already dead".

Slinker smiled sadly, though Sunset's locksend grounded him in the now. It was difficult to shake off the feelings of sorrow that clung like mud to his insides. Dirk would scold him for carrying the sadness too long, he knew. Nettle would be more understanding, giving him a shoulder to cry on as she carried on in silence, doing her duties. Her warmth and understanding, enough to soothe the worst of the pain.

He missed her.

Slinker shook his head, the smile fading, though he readily agreed. It was better to occupy his hands and mind with something that might help the tribe than to dwell on old sorrows. ~**Yes. A good thought. I need to run, Sunset**~. He was intrigued at how Ash responded willingly to the elfess's need to slip down from his back. The wolf turned his great head into her belly to make it easier for her to slide down onto the ground. Ash wuffed as he sniffed her clothes.

Slinker flicked his bond behind the ear when Ash got a little too friendly. "Behave yourself, you great big flirt".

Ash rolled his shoulders, dropped to the ground, and threw Slinker over his head till the elf hang onto his shaggy grey ears.

Slinker laughed, though the sound was dry and humourless. He bumped heads with his bond, setting his feet on the ground, as they shared silent communion. Slinker wiped away the tears, took several deep breaths, and thanked his pack-brother. "You're a terror, Ash, but I'm glad you're my terror".

Slinker nodded at Sunset's locksent suggestion. ~**Let us go. Prey great or small will not matter, long as we bring something back. I've a need to run. Nothing else matters when there's blood singing through your veins. Lead on, Sunset. I'll follow close behind**~.

Slinker looked on with respect when Sunset prepared herself for the hunt. He kept his own boots on, though he followed on foot when she took the lead. He was grateful for the quiet. It felt better to be moving than to be thinking about things he could not change. He was always miss Lorr, but he could not bring his pack-brother back.

Lorr was in the hands of the Highones now.

Slinker followed dutifully, keeping his ears sharp and his eyes clear. He kept two eyes on Sunset as they moved through the holt. Ash followed too, padding along on silent paws, ears keen, and nose twitching. Slinker gritted his teeth when he caught the sharp scent of something bitter. He darted ahead, Ash on his heels, when Sunset came close to tripping the snare.

Slinker ran on silent feet to the elfess. He caught her elbow, pulling her sharply back from the source of danger. He heard the hiss, saw the flash of thorns in the twilight, and promptly kicked a rock across Sunset's path. ~**Puckernuts!**~, locksent Slinker. ~**It's strangleweed, but like none I've ever seen! You step on it once, and it will wrap around your legs like a coiling snake. Watch out! Those thorns look nasty!**~.

Slinker patted Sunset's elbow reassuringly. He let her arm go as the rock he'd kicked tumbled across the strangleweed's path. He grimaced when the plant twitched like a striking snake, and immediately coiled around the stone as if it were living prey. The sound of its scraping thorns, loud enough to give him an ear-ache, made him wince. ~**It does. Nasty stuff. Big patches of strangleweed usually grow in the tree-tops. It's the first time I've seen it hang down like this around the roots. I'm thinking that this kind might be a hunter too. From the looks of that ravvit, the thorns are used for spearing, and catching, and dragging down like the claws on a mountain-lion**.

Slinker paused, head shaking, as he cautiously withdrew his dagger from the sheath at his hip. He moved forwards, slowly, a step at a time until he was within reach of a thin coil of the strangleweed. ~**Juniper said he's a plant-shaper. He'll be able to make better sense of this than us**~. Slinker picked up a clod of dirt and cast it across the strangleweed. His dagger glinted in the moonlight, silver-white, as he cut a thick section of it before it could latch onto his ankle. He leapt away a heartbeat later, the piece of strangleweed impaled on the tip of his dagger, as he rejoined Sunset a safe distance away.

~**Puckernuts**~, swore Slinker. He offered Sunset a closer look. ~**It's writhing like a worm! Can you smell that? The sap is sweet!**~, he explained as green inchor dribbled down the blade. ~**It must have used the smell to lure the ravvit in! Disguised itself as food! Smart, but nasty! If this is what we have to contend with, Sunset, than we'll have to be more careful. If the plants hunt like we do than it could hunt us too!**~