Warwick

Her legs ate away at the ground beneath her, skirts hiked up by a single hand, the other holding a guiding candle light as she rushed down the cold hallway. Yvette had always hated the draping of the heavy curtains, the colour of the walls and the ghastly portraits her husband was so set on displaying. Previous wives, his favourite horses, all of them decaying with the ancient decor of the room itself, discoloured and old; another way to describe her husband.

This day was different though. On that day, the shifting fabric and her loud heartbeat were the only thing she could hear. The odd heavy, panting breath as she stumbled towards her devote husbands quarters. She'd been roused by her handmaiden during the night, her tone alarming and informing her of something she'd wished of for years. And yet, in that moment, a wash of panic paled her features. Her chest hurt, tightening at the grave news.

"He collapsed in the middle of his room, ma'am,"

"We've sent for the physician, Your Grace,"

Various times she'd pictured this day, but never did she imagine such emotions would follow her as she chased after the fleeing shadows that danced on the limestone pillars and creaking wooden floors. It seemed as though his door at the end of the hall was running from her, an illusion perhaps forged by her racing mind. Seconds felt like minutes until she finally released her skirt and reached for the handle, only instead of the gold brass against her fingers, she felt a nothing but her body teetering forwards.

A strangled cry fell from the woman's lips, messy, blonde wisps of hair sticking to the moisture on her cheeks. Oh right. She was crying. It was a strange thought to be woeful of someone estranged from yourself. She would be too late to cuss him into damnation, her scolds falling on deaf ears no doubt.

It was as if the world around her turned dark. She couldn't stop falling, wind grazing her cheeks and stinging them with a ferocious chill. Then there was light, blinding and encasing her body. Hues of pink and purple, the golden glow of the sun. Dawn's light. It was as if a calm too over, her breath wooshing from her lungs, replaced with a freshness that could not compare. Yvette felt... weightless. The moment of peace brought a faint smile to the Duchess' lips.

A dream. It had to have all been a dream.

A dream that was growing louder by the minute, reality soaking into her body. The wind around her, so loud as it shouted in her ears. Her body, weightlessly falling. A scream ripped from her throat, limbs frantically kicking out and clawing at nothing. The movements felt alien, uncoordinated and overpowered by the elements around her. The woman's mind was grasping at straws. She would awaken soon, no? This was all just a bad dream. Seconds once again felt like minutes until her prayer was answered.

With a winded gasp and a loud thud, she landed, doubled over a trunk clinging to a cliff side. Terror filled eyes peered at the lip of the cliff, a foot above her. It would have been within reach if she hadn't been in the position that she was, front legs over one side and back over the other. Wait. Legs? Front legs. Her wide eyes peered at the paws in front of her and a cry ripped from her lips.

Oh no, oh no! What is happening to me?! she almost leant back, the slight shift in body weight causing the trunk to creak and her body to begin to slip. As if instinct took over, the woman clung onto the tree, eyes eyes faltering on the ground far below. They would remain there, stuck as tears began to well up once more.

Help me... she snivelled a whisper,

Someone help me! her cry came, body tense and outlook on the work growing ever darker.

This nightmare was never ending.

⎯⎯ ♔ ⎯⎯

Warwick paced himself with each passing day, opting to travel by daylight. His paws glided over the damp undergrowth with the grace of a shadow. Moving deftly between the trees of each forest he brushed through. By nightfalls, he'd been fortuitous to find shelter in the thick copse of trees, where the eve could pass him undisturbed. Sleep came as a brief comfort though, as invasive thoughts intruded his dreams, haunting him with the echoes of a life lost. His life.

By a few days into his search for the Elks Crown, he realised underfoot he had gradually been ascending. The once-dense forest opened up into a higher, more barren landscape, with the trees here growing sparse and replaced by craggy rocks. Before night fell once again, he'd reached the foot of jagged cliffs where the mountains stretched upward like silent sentinels. He climbed until the cold air began to bite at his skin, and the horizon was painted in shades of deep violet and fading coral. Warwick surveyed the mountain and found a narrow cave nestled beneath a series of twisted stone formations - respite for the night.

Warwick awoke with the first soft whispers of dawn. The sky was a canvas of muted blues and soft purples, with the first brushes of gold as the sun crept over the horizon, spilling light across the jagged peaks. It was a picture of peace, just before the rousing of all diurnal beings. For a moment, he simply stood there, bathed in the light of a new day, feeling something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in too long: a quiet flicker of hope.

That was until he heard the sound of her cry. Desperation slicing through the tranquil air. Warwick’s ears snapped toward it instantly, his body moving before his mind could catch up. His paws carried him swiftly, over roots and precarious stones, until he arrived at the cliff’s edge.

He paused only for a moment, scanning the scene below him, finding a female of blushed pinks, of buttery ivory as though the sun itself had kissed her coat in delicate swathes. Her body was awkwardly positioned on the trunk of a tree. Panic had gripped her, her wide eyes locked on the ground far below, and Warwick could feel her terror in his chest.

Her disorientation was evident, but his calmness didn’t waver. He assessed the situation quickly, calculating the safest way to help, but he couldn’t help but wonder how she had found herself in such a state.

"Hold on," he called down to her, his voice low but steady. He took a step over the edge, placing it on a stone lip, his sharp eyes not leaving her for a second. There was no hesitation, no doubt in his movements. This was instinct.
Warwick crouched slightly, his posture unwavering. The distance between them was close enough, but he needed to keep his balance.

His gaze softened as reassurance in his voice threaded into his words. “You’re not alone. I’ve got you.”

In that moment, his focus was solely on her, the world around him narrowing to the urgency of her predicament. Whatever had caused her distress, whatever had left her here, wasn’t his concern. All that mattered was pulling her from the precipice - literally and figuratively.

⎯⎯ ♔ ⎯⎯

Claws grasped into the spruce bark, the fear evident on her space as her widened gaze lifted to the voice that beckoned. A voice? A voice. It was a canine, and it was talking. The hold her fear had on her heart tightened, her rational thoughts struggling to grasp the strings that knotted so easily in her mind. You're a canine too, you also speak. It wasn't totally abnormal to understand the same species right? But she was a freaking canine and that was abnormal.

Shuddering breaths escaped her lips, the panic rising as her eyes fell back to the sheer drop beneath her. A strangled cry clipped her throat, the damsel only clinging tighter to the wooden trunk that held her. She tried to hide her face with little luck, eyes squinting closed so tightly she'd hoped it would remove her from this reality.

But this was no fairy tale, nor was it a dream. If she couldn't escape this fate, she was surely dead, right?

His voice, soft and reassuring, drifted to her. It was soothing like the stroking of a hand along the back of a cat. She could remember many a stressful day ended with her in the library with her cat, the long hair of her feline companion soft to the touch. His purring would often lure her into a slumber she struggled with in her own chamber.

The memory took her to a happy place, soothed her nerves but never steeled them. She could still feel the wind in her fur, the frantic beating of her heart in her ears. With a deep breath, she tried to ignore it all. It worked enough to allow her eyes to shyly open, looking up to the stranger with a pleading silence.

What was she to do?