Skill - Expert Leader 1/5

Find the runes.

Well, easier said than done, with the damn earth breaking out from underneath and biting cold trying to steal your toes, nose, and tail-tip.

Nate forewent sleep as often as he could, and had all but entirely stopped eating. What food they had, the others needed more. A waking dread had begun to bloom in his heart, though he kept the deepening roots of premonition secret.

His focus outward was entirely on the well-being of the others. Nate smiled. Laughed. Led.

Their comfort he strove for, tending their hurts and reinforcing their shelters. Their spirits he bolstered, as much as he could. Promised them miracles, because if the world really was going to end, their last days might as well be spent fighting the good fight instead of languishing in despair. And if the Voice singing out in the dark was right, and they could still stop this... then they had to stop it.

It was simple, when you got right down to it.

He missed Ko-Ga. The crow had not come with the others South. He worried for Mithwyth, too — were the two of them safe? Would he ever see them again? Grief, he had to bury for now. He told himself they had found Nat, and were themselves staying safe all together. Nate had to look out for the living at hand.

And so he had invited Elk Charm to help him search. For anything and everything, which he'd surmised to be a particular skill of hers. Food and skins would keep them on their feet and free of frostbite a little longer. Runes would stave off vengeful plague. And her company would remind him that no matter how badly he wished to, he could not curl up in the cold and fail to live up to his own preaching.

Have you seen that big tree out on the Lake? Nate asked, striving for normalcy in small-talk as he put nose to the frosted ground.

this place which nate had chosen put elk charm to mind of her natal valleys. she had not yet set a place for a wetu; she lived in a quick-lodge similar to the one she had built with samo on that first day, before rejoining nate upon the beach.

elk charm was quiet enough to see that their chieftain did not eat, and began to hold back a pawful of the edible plants foraged daily. to hunt took force and time that might be spent elsewhere.

her breath rose in a plume. between the sharadoii woman's own pelt and the deerskin she wore outside the quick-lodge, there would be no freezing, but discomfort and the threat of aching feet were high.

inside the winter's shelter, she kept a cache, and from this she gave also to any others who seemed to ail. when nate spoke with elk charm in requesting that she search beside him, her riverdark eyes took him in with a somber nod.

she stood beside the leader now, draped in one pelt for shawling, another bundled to her shoulders to hold what morsels were available. at a -- long walk, elk charm murmured. not close.

setting down the carry-skin, revealing its light contents of dug roots, small green buds collected in spite of frost and little sun, lichen scraped from the underside of branches. i please ask you to eat, nate-ronan. then we will go to this tree.

elk charm found a smile to muster. this dreaming voice, this dark cold, the crying of the earth -- these things had stopped her from thinking upon those unsureties which had first plagued her.

[CRACK]

Rune Discovery : 「 Success - Fissure Present」 

---

Your nose stays pressed against the ground as you search with all the diligence you can muster. Maybe some part of you feels hopeless, or perhaps you really are as tough as you think you are - a valuable trait for someone in your position.

As your hunt is suddenly interrupted, you feel your snout bump against something as you start to pull it up and out of the snow-covered earth. Ah! Something blue resonates beneath the frosty white layer, and you use your paws to shovel away the snow and find -

- a Rune!

CRACK

And a deep cavernous pit in the earth! Just off to your left! And the Rune is rolling right into it!

Better catch it.

The sound of her fiddling pulled his head up, briefly. And Nate realized she must have planned this from the moment they set out. He smiled, only the faintest quirk of it tinged with exasperation. As if she shouldn't have worried. And had no reason to.

You're thoughtful, and I appreciate it. But we should save it. who knows how long this Rune search will last, or what will be left, after... Sticking his nose back down to the snow, Nate continued, It's a big tree, huh? Never seen one that size, before. Do you think it's really the one from our dreams? He'd sort of imagined it to be a metaphorical tree, originally. Not an actual landmark, towering and ancient.

And he might have said more, to push the conversation even further past the point of him eating, but, Hey, I think I—

Had gotten them into trouble. The ground tilted wildly, trying to take his rune with it as a fissure of destructive blue broke loose. Shit! Run! Alarm hit like a bullet. Nate snatched their prize and turned sharply toward Elk Charm.

perceptive of nate in a way that she almost wished she was not, elk charm noted that he did not pause, nor did he accept. his smile -- her own was swift, and she turned away to bundle the offerings once more. he did not want to eat. she understood that they must continue, but at the cost of his weakness? suppose he sickened? should she not insist?

appreciation warmed her face, but was what was it if this exacted more from him?

eat! eat! she wished to shout it as a woman of the great stag might have done in encouragement.

just when she was ready to form his name in consternation, to speak not of the tree but his condition and her fear for it, the ground fragmented into garish blue. she gasped, leaving behind the deerskin with instinctive readiness. the sharadoii did not question nate; her gaze ricocheted from the rune in his jaws to the path they had come.

stride lengthening, she ran just ahead of nate, not daring to look back even as her dark ears splayed with horror. senses searched for the sound of his steps, his breath, anything to say that the bright and unnatural landscape had not taken him into its maw.