Skill: Seer (1/5)

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Set during Solvi's visit to Elysium in late Nov./early Dec.
Sreda

The gentle drift of snow had stopped, at least for the moment, as night yawned above the Respite. Evidence of the day's flurries were glued to the ground, but winter clearly had not yet taken full hold.

Solvi suspected that, in mere weeks, Vivarium would be a veritable winter wonderland. For now, it was the in-between of autumn and winter - not yet frozen but far from thawed. The grass crunched beneath her small paws, creating an audible trail of her movements for anyone within the general vicinity.

She tried to sleep without much success. When she tired of wrestling with her body's own refusal to slumber, she slipped away to observe the sky.

A part of her hoped to see the Vintersol, but she would have to keep hoping - the night held only pinpoints of distant light and a curved crescent of moonlight. The reality of it carried a touch of disappointment, but she found some beauty in it all the same.

Her eyes seared into its star-studded blanket, begging, daring The Mother to give her answers to questions she couldn't formulate. They were more feeling than words, felt more than spoken.

The sky - the world - was quiet.

The honeybee perched at the lake's edge for several moments, drinking in the starscape, but the stirring in her soul did not ease. It fed restlessness to her paws, her skin crawling with pent-up energy.

She pushed to her feet, the buzzing only quieting when her limbs began to move. With the gathering darkness to dim her, she followed the lake's edge in silence until she noticed something up ahead - a waterfall. Its crashing waves were the first sign of its presence, but through squinted eyes, she caught moonlight glinting off its edges.

Drawing closer, she realized there was a cave.

She came to a pause, warring with her next course of action. On one paw, she had grown a budding distaste for caves... but this one was behind a waterfall. That automatically made it cooler than other caves and it was still within Elysium. So maybe it was also safer?

The water made it difficult for her to pick up the scent of the cave's owner and she pressed ahead, carefully choosing her path to its mouth.

Skill:

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She'd been out.

And in her jaws was a small, well-loved squirrel skeleton.

It wasn't that she was rooting around in Viscaria's den, it was just that she'd been looking for clues. Her disappearance and death were sudden but certainly appeared pre-meditated. And it was clear that Viscaria would have had to have left her den in order to have faced down the Red Monster alone. And Sreda had begun to wonder why the woman had left the safety of the pack lands, to begin with.

Viscaria had seemed above completely mindless wandering.

Perhaps it was an understandable, strange calling that had driven her into the night and danger's waiting grasp. Or perhaps ... perhaps she sought danger. Thrill (and for that Sreda held respect). But where was her husband, then? Her children? Her grandchildren? She realized this included her, but it hadn't been on her radar to stalk her grandmother very much — the woman seemed private. Besides, wasn't that what society deemed a husband's job?

Perhaps Silas  was in cahoots with the Red Monster. He disappeared pretty damningly quickly after Viscaria's original absence. The cogs of her mind worked overtime as the mystery continued to perplex her. And the witchy woman would puff air from her lips, taking short and precise strides as she made her way back toward her den.

But it would seem that, once more, she was to entertain guests.

Perhaps she needed to put up a sign.

Small and golden and oddly similar in build to their now-late-grandmother, Sreda noted the half-familiar figure. She recognized her only by sight, realizing she was the woman from the North that Alder had come home with. Seemed strange for her to wander so close to the serpent's den. Alone.

And she was certainly not a Blood Breather. She didn't have the same bold, otherworldly charm as Wardruna. Nor the ... apparent fortitude.

Sreda's steps were impossibly quiet as she approached, drowned out further by the heavy cry of the waterfall. Her scent matched the air of general decay that lingered near the cave, that strange smell mirroring that of a haunted house. The darkness cloaked her as she moved forward, trailing behind the sunbeam before approaching in Solvi's wake in an eerie, otherworldly and slithering silence.

Closer, closer, closer, until she was nearly beside her until she uttered a curt, emotionless Hello at full volume.

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Skill: --- (1/5)

She drifted closer to the cavern, drawn forth by some sort of accursed thread. The spool of fate toiled and it lured her in, the cave’s ominous mouth delivering many clues that should have been disconcerting.

It smelled of decay, far richer than a typical cave. They sometimes smelled musty and damp, a certain earthiness that spoke of reclaimed life and the ebb and flow of The Mother’s Balance. But this… it was more.

Solvi’s paws dawdled to a stop, ears cupped forward as she stretched onto her tippy toes and craned her neck to gain better visibility before she barged right in. Her eyes strained against the dark, but she squinted, focused-

”Hello”

The voice might as well have been a clap of thunder, rattling the earth with its booming roar. Solvi’s heart leapt, much like her paws, and she spun to face her attacker. Her movements weren’t as graceful as perhaps they should have been, but she remembered the lake was close at hand and she did not aspire for a freezing midnight swim.

Green eyes wide and heart racing, she looked into the face of… one of the wolves from the funeral. Not Cypress or anyone else who meant her harm, but a woman similar to her own age.

She didn’t have to wonder who the girl’s mother was, for she saw aspects of Amaranth peering back at her - amethysts placed into an angular, wedge-shaped face which was fringed by both cheek fur and tasseled ears.

Despite the artistic liberties The Mother had taken with this one, she was undeniably a child of Amaranth.

A gusty, though relieved, exhale pressed through Solvi’s lips, her tension going with it.

Sorry - hello, she returned, straightening her posture from its squared, fight-or-flight mode. I did not know you were there.

Skill:

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With her abrupt greeting, the golden woman jumped and spun, fueled by adrenaline and sudden fear as her smaller frame whipped around to face the emotionless gaze that awaited her. Sreda watched the way that gold fur stood on end for a few moments, those bright green eyes flickering with subtle nuances of fear and post-traumatic stress.

Sreda waited for the other to compose themselves, silently reveling in her midnight fright. The gold wolf then apologized, for whatever reason that Sreda could not quite fathom. Had she slipped some sort of poison into Sreda’s mouth mid-conversation? Now that would be a fun party trick.

But she didn’t feel sick.

Pity.

Sreda’s ears flicked, amethyst eyes twinkling darkly.

“I did not know you were here.”

I noticed, Sreda returned, voice even and unyielding. She would then press herself past the stranger, crossing the threshold of her cavern so that she could deposit the squirrel skull in one of the many strange receptacles she’d created. Really, it was just a mess of arranged sticks, but don’t tell Sreda that. For in her head, there was pristine organization. There was science.

The woman would raise her head, turning her curt gaze back toward the stranger that lingered at her doorstep. Come in, she’d encourage, flicking her tufted ears. You came all this way, after all. And I don’t get to meet many strangers. She would turn herself to fully face the stranger, finally lowering her rump and gazing toward the other down the bridge of her pointed nose. Unblinking.

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Skill: Blabbermouth (2/5)

Solvi's eyes followed the caped wolf as she entered the hidden cavern, stowing the small bone somewhere that was likely intentional. She twisted her frame to follow the other woman, placing her paws with greater consideration - who knew when another wolf might materialize as this one had.

I was not expecting to see anyone out here, Solvi admitted as she followed her. I am not yet familiar with all of Elysium's terrain.

Her eyes alighted to the amassed items, trying to find rhyme and reason in their placements and what greater meaning they all might hold. There were bones and bits and bobs of other things, but she had not yet discovered the source of the scent of decay.

Her wandering gaze paused as she looked into Sreda's intense face, offering her a beaming smile as her typical manner returned to her. She took a seat opposite the other, tail curving to cover her chilled paws.

I do not think I have ever seen a den behind a waterfall, Solvi commented as she looked from the waterfall and back into the den's depths. Thank you for inviting me inside.

Solvi imagined the droplets from the waterfall were pleasant in the oppressive summer and the sun was at its worst, though it served to entice frigid breaths from the wintry wind in the moment.

I recall seeing you at Viscaria's funeral, but I did not manage to introduce myself. I am Solvi, she added on, dipping her head as she added her customary prayer, with a small edit specifically for the Elysium wolves. May The Mother and the Five bless our meeting.