skilll: healer - only a millenia later, that starter for you Eidola

Each evening he picked a way to go and took it, looking for more of the strange purple flowers and random herbs that he might store some of them. Winter would eventually return, even if they had been enjoying the return of warmth and a beautiful summer. The warmth from the sun still lingered in his cinnamon kissed fur even as night began to rise around them. Life had been curious, so far, but good in a way that he savored.

Fable was well, stress aside, and had settled back into her role as Matriarch like he had seen her don her cloak; it was a natural and fluid motion for her. Foxglove was humming under his breath, keen eyes peering ahead and then occasionally up to the motes that floated lazily above him. Whenever he came to a stop, they sometimes bounced off one another, making it near impossible to tell where one stopped and the other began.

In the distance he spotted another wolf but could not smell them or see them clearly over the cloying scent of the purple flowers. Politely, he let out a chuff, not wanting to come up on them and startle them.

Eidola’s evenings had become quieter, not peaceful, exactly. Peace was a word that implied the absence of something, and Eidola was rarely alone enough within herself to know what absence truly felt like. There were always whispers tucked beneath the rustle of leaves and shapes moving where nothing stood, voices that borrowed familiar tones and unfamiliar ones alike. She had learned long ago that fighting them only exhausted her.

So she walked and tonight, the purple flowers had caught her attention.

Eidola stood among them with her head bowed amethyst eyes fixed upon a cluster swaying gently near her paws. She had been watching them for some time now, though she couldn't have said precisely why. Perhaps because they were pretty or because one of the voices had insisted they were watching her back.

Her paw reached toward one, Don't. and she stopped ears flicking backwards

Why? she whispered, they bite. Eidola stared suspiciously at the flower, it did not look as though it had teeth so she leaned closer anyway, nose hovering just above the petals, when a sound carried through the evening and her head snapped upright.

For a moment she simply stared in Foxglove’s direction, body gone unnaturally still. The motes surrounding him caught her attention first, gaze followed them instead of him, tracing their lazy movements through the air as they collided and separated again.

There were nights when Eidola might have immediately decided that he was not real. Her nose twitched, searching for a scent beneath the overwhelming perfume of the flowers and finding little that helped her. Hello? she called softly, she did not recognize him.

Perhaps once when she had been very small, their paths had crossed beneath the same sky, but whatever memory might have existed had long since disappeared beneath months and everything that had happened in between. To Eidola, Foxglove was simply a stranger standing strangely illuminated in the distance.

---

Foxglove

skilll:

It wasn't until Foxglove was much closer that he was able to see her clearly, and there was no way he might have missed her strikingly unique coat. She had taken more of Archon's coat than Fable's, he thought, but there were still little hints at her Goldencourte heritage. For a moment Foxglove thought about turning around and fleeing back to Avon, hoping he'd be fast enough to outrun the ghosts of awkward past. Instead he took a second to draw in a deep breath and tried to settle the wave of nausea. She was certainly more grown than when they had last seen one another - which he thought was about directly after Fable and Archon had separated.

He didn't begrudge the cutting gaze she'd given him or the bitter tone of Kyros; the complexity of the situation and its emotions were so much for such little children. Hell he'd been fully grown, and it was a lot of emotions for him. He'd been pinning away but hadn't made anything known, trying to stomp down as much feeling as he could, actually. After the tournament, things hadn't been quite the same, but he'd tried to avoid any pitfalls lest he snap an ankle or two. Wouldn't that have been awkward, his stiff hip in winter and strange gait from breaking a leg. He would hope his luck would be better.

It was different than with the girls he'd seen grow day by day. They'd been in human bodies, though, and seeing them suddenly as adults was something that Fox struggled with. Especially now with Aisling the fresh mother. Two little tiny babes nestled at her side was a foreign sight but one that did tug at his heartstrings. He hadn't realized how quickly life would fly by - he and Fable had barely had time as newlyweds before they were also new grandparents. He stopped a ways from her, head bobbing politely in greeting before he set the bundle of purple flowers to the side.

Perhaps it was some of their pollen, or some strange sudden control of his emotional state, or perhaps a stroke. But Foxglove had managed to ingest some of the flower when he licked his lips, and the haze of their effect had softened his anxiety. Guard hairs had still bristled some, the fur at the base of his neck standing on edge. Hello, He answered, not wanting to address her directly by name and coming off like some prophetic creep. I'm Foxglove, from the Kingdom of Avon. Maybe she might have a flash of his name in a memory; maybe being neighbors would register him neutral.

Maybe there was still time to take off and run - but he'd given her his name, and he'd given his soul to the Goldencourtes. Their blood was her blood; she was a sister to his daughters; she was a daughter to his wife - he was outside that circle, but not bitter at all. Just.....well. Scared.