it is tired.

crow begs it not to be. keep walking, he croaks, and cú has!

but it can't.

it has stood and walked for so many days they have blurred into one. it never knew autumn-cold before or the way it turns the forest still and empty. there is no prey to hunt besides the bird it cannot harm. it chews dry pieces of grass and wishes for warm meat. it is hungry, and so exhausted the forest blurs beyond its eyelids. it wants to sleep.

so it sleeps, though crow tells it, over and over, it should not.

cú snaps, then feels ashamed. crow has followed it this far, though he must be just as hungry as it by now. it feels more ashamed when crow stays quiet, watches wordlessly as it pulls itself into a loose ball around the cold trunk of a pine. it shivers and tucks its muzzle into the meager warmth of its tufted tail. but crow croaks and finds a perch upon it, beak grooming through tangled fur, and it knows with a rush of relief it is forgiven.

it presses into that faint warmth too until its fuzzy awareness unspools.

it sleeps.

in its dreams the air is warm and rich with midsummer flowers. when its mother beckons it to follow the birds they lead them to meat, and it eats until its belly is full. crow's talons hold tight to its shoulders. it is safe.

its living body cools beneath the tree, and crow's cools with it.

•

cú's eyes open not to weak morning light, but to darkness and wet earth.

"crow?" it slurs in sleepy confusion, uncoiling from its ball. this is not where it settled for the night.

back legs and front catch against something hard. exhaustion and hunger delay the fear, but it creeps up as cú tries to grasp and make sense of the feeling. when it lifts its head it thuds painfully into something firm and soil spills out around its paws.

terror snaps at its heels then. trapped.

cú writhes with all the strength left to it, lurching unsteadily to bash its body against its tomb. earth cracks and collapses. the primal need to get out get out overwhelms the pain and it beats itself again and again, mindlessly, against the trap until it crumbles apart and with a heaving breath, cú pulls itself into open air.

crows are shrieking. its heart thunders like an angry storm. weak-legged the shadow pulls itself to solid ground and curls there, coughing a lungful of dirt that tastes like blood.

the sky above is black. the moon looms above it, a deep crimson disk. from somewhere above a crow calls and then there is a shadow in its vision, blocking out the light. cú is too exhausted to panic again.

but the shape swimming into view is a bird's feathered wings and cú has never forgotten a scent. crow tucks his beak against its chin and cú sobs and pulls him close with a gentle paw, curling protectively around him.

i am here, he says.

"táimid anseo," ("we are here") cú whispers, grounding itself, relieved. alive.

Saw this post and went "oh yeah I gotta have the char with a missing daughter meet it" Cúchulainn

---

To stop looking for Solvi, even briefly, breaks her heart. It doesn’t help that the lack of light only feels like an echo of Ylva’s situation- a daughter she had wanted to protect, had been so relieved to find again, snatched away. And Bryn…Bryn had disappeared too, like her daughter.

Both of them were probably so scared- Solvi with whatever may have happened, and Bryn with the arrival of the blood moon. They were probably looking for her like she was looking for them, but…but for once, Ylva was at a loss of what to do. Encouraging her daughter’s escape had been action, and everything that followed had been, too. This was new. This time, she felt almost helpless, wandering in the dark in the hopes she’d somehow stumble across one of them again.

The crows break her from her thoughts, too many to count, all shrieking, and for a moment she thinks her heart may plummet, worry driven by her own thoughts.

And beneath all that, something else. Something quiet and drowned out by the crows to the point that Ylva isn’t sure she heard it at all. Something almost like a sob, coming from the shadows. Against her better judgement, she waits, ears perked, to see if she can hear anything else. And against her better judgement, she finally calls out.

Hello?

cú's sobs die down. it trembles like a leaf, cold and starving, though there is more strength to its limbs than it remembers.

together, crow coos. safe.

cú wants to believe him. it lifts its head uneasily and peers around.

the world is bathed in red light, from the pine trees to the glimpse of water ahead. crow is not bothered, so cú thinks perhaps it should not be either- it has not lived a full turn of the seasons, has never seen an autumn. it bunches its shoulders and sniffs tentatively at the air, tasting only something salty like blood but with none of the warm tang.

it whines a descending note at crow.

crow ruffles his feathers and tucks his beak against its cheek, then flutters off in a flurry of wings. he has found it many meals in the past days, but cú has only grown weaker and each of them has slipped its teeth. maybe in this new place there is food. maybe cú has enough strength now to catch it.

but once crow is gone, cú is alone.

it huddles again into its ball, ears cocked uneasily. its stomach growls.

someone shouts.

cú flinches. ears twist in the sound's direction; eyes dart to follow. it looks frantically for crow, who is not there, and in fear curls tighter, ears flattening and lips pulling over its teeth. a low growl of warning eases from its throat.