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SKILL: Herbalist (1/5)

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❁

It was like home, but not really.

Flowering wisteria trees the color of scarlet -- like a beautiful yet cursed reminder of how homesick she'd been. Izumi didn't know exactly when she'd be returning to the island, but she wouldn't go back without finding her people first. Though a reminder of everything she'd left behind was always nice during her journey across Mytheris.

The Empress long limbs carried her through the expanse of the red, still forests, feeling the fingers of branches grazing her sleek form as she walked. An ink-dipped paw reached upwards , letting the dangling flowers lay across her wrists lazily. A weary sight escaping her lips.

Many doe visited these parts as well, she'd come to find out -- perhaps due to the sweet scent of apple fruit that hung from neighboring trees. She had turned over her shoulder at the sound of rustling nearby, thinking it was yet another who had come to snack on the fruit. Yet her ears swiveled forward in the direction of a wolf-shaped shadow casting itself from beyond the trees. The Empress' eyes glued themselves to the approaching stranger with a curious, lilac gaze.

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Llewellyn

Llewellyn spent the better half of his day stumbling around like a newborn colt who'd lost its herd. Tripping over the gnarled roots of the pretty wisteria trees, walking in circles, and crying out for his friends until his voice went hoarse and his throat was raw.

Bella usually found him first, whenever he got a little too overzealous and wandered off. She'd march up, take him by the hairs of his tail or by the flimsy cartilage of his ear and escort him back home. Tarquin would just sigh and sometimes, if he was feeling nice enough, sit a little closer when he was returned.

Home. They didn't really have one, did they? The trio usually settled down in whatever cavern saved them from the nipping cold of the north. They'd stay for a few days—maybe a week, if they really liked the joint—before moseying on through the sea of endless white until Llew whined that his legs hurt and Tarquin gave him that certain look that made him simultaneously terrified and warm.

But god, he felt so homesick. Homesick for a girl that terrified him and a boy that was, quite literally, like a lump of charcoal.

They are his home. They had been for months. They had been since the day Tarquin found him blubbering for his Ma and decided, for whatever reason, that he'd stick around. Llew attached himself like a leech because they were all he knew. It was the three of them against the world. That's how it is supposed to be, wasn't it?

But they never came to collect him. Bella didn't come drag him back with a roll of her eyes and the promise that the next time he wondered off, she might poison him. Tarquin didn't chew his ear off for an hour straight like he'd done the time Llew chased a caribou for three miles and found himself nearly swallowed by ice water.

It was just...quiet. And he hated it. He hated it more than anything in the world.

Hunger came as swift as his sadness. Clawing, incessant, demanding. Tarquin was their provider. He'd always reappear after a hunting trip with a few snowshoe hares or a fatty ptarmigan. Llew had tried to hunt, but...

His latest effort was embarrassing. He'd stomped through the wisteria forest like his feet were made out of lead and promptly frightened off every doe that took to feasting on rotten apples. He hadn't even been able to get close before they spooked. And he'd tried the apples, in a moment of pure panic and desperation, and promptly decided that fruit was disgusting and he was hopeless and he was likely going to starve and die—

Oh my god, he was going to die. Bella and Tarquin wouldn't ever find him, and they probably missed him, right?

Llew tripped over another root. Startled another doe and her fawns. He looked so dejected it was pathetic. And then, from the boughs of the wisteria trees, he spotted a wolf.

A wolf! An adult! Someone who knew how to survive and didn't have to rely on a lump of coal to feed him!

Mama would've smacked him upside the head for approaching a stranger. Tarquin probably would've, too. But adults knew how to hunt, he didn't, and right now, he has no other options.

So he approached with a soft whine and tucked tail. All puppy-dog eyes and bravado that was a farse. Closer and closer until the woman was a few feet away and he practically sank to his belly.

H—Hi. I'm sorry to bother you, miss, but I was wondering if you've seen my friends? T-They like to play hide and seek a lot, and they're a lot better than me at it, a-and I can't find them and—

Oh god. He's blubbering again, isn't he?