Limping on his right foreleg still - by the time he'd been able to put the dislocated joint back in place, there had been significant damage to the soft tissue surrounding it, and time had done little to heal it when resting was not an option - and herbal poultices still covering the ruins of the left side of his face, Tornach stumbled in near-blind exhaustion behind three equally exhausted elk. Aiden tacked overhead, ocassionally swooping down to adjust the course of what remained of the herd he'd saved from the wildfire that had chased Legion from the home they'd stolen from him. When he'd - blinded and scarred from his fight with Chaos and the wildfire that had (perhaps mercifully) cauterized his wounds and left burns down his neck and his shoulder - had thrown open the gate holding in the panicking elk, he had been bowled over as they'd stampeded to escape the wildfire they could smell so closely. That was when he'd lost most of them, and had dislocated his right shoulder, but with Aiden's help he'd managed to turn some of them to safety, and he'd ripped open the pens holding hares and prairie chickens and ducks to allow them to escape, knowing he'd never be able to keep any of them together. The elk he'd saved he had herded towards the west, away from the volcano and towards Valhalla, but other predators made desperate by the volcano had picked off many of them, and disease and simple starvation had taken its toll on the small herd until he was left with just these three - a cow with a recent leg injury from a cougar that he'd barely driven off (that attack had cost him a young bull as well) and two nervous calves from that spring. A poor start to a new herd, but it was all he had left.

"Tornach." Aiden's voice roused him from his daze, and he raised his head to see the falcon had landed on the stone wall of Valhalla's lands. The three elk milled between him and the wall in confusion, but they were too exhausted to be agitated. He'd made it? The better part of a season trying to guide a half-wild herd here, but... he'd made it. For a while he'd thought he would never make it here... and then he'd been too exhausted and sick to do more than put one paw in front of the other, let alone worry about the future. He swayed in place for a moment before he could lift his muzzle and call out a weary song for his niece. She had little reason to care what became of him, given that he'd never truly been a part of her life, but if he were going to ever come back from this he would need to beg her help.

Aurielle Adravendi

She hadn’t slept in two days, beyond a few short naps that left her feeling no more rested than before she’d slept. At the moment, she was working over scraps of leather, with Loshir and Dele’s help. It had been tanned and dyed white with lime. Now they were working to soften and scrape it. It had been from a buck brought down in the autumn. She needed to be prepared, and the thick hide was part of the preparations. Armor. She’d been watching Red craft, from time to time, noting everything he did with interest. She knew her mane was a liability. In the long run, if wars came, she supposed se would cut it and her tail’s long hair down to minimize available points for an opponent to snatch hold of. But before it came to that, she would try this. A piece of armor that her mane would be hidden under, and her neck protected by. She froze as a call rippled to her ears down the ravine. Distant, and the last time she’d heard that voice calling at the border, she’d been a child. Her uncle Tornach. Relief flooded through her. He’d lived in the east for as long as she’d been alive, and the eruption’s destruction had spared little of the eastern portion of Boreas. It terrified her to think that the Uncle she’d barely gotten to know or spend time with might have been taken by the blast. With a scatter of tools, the Spirit scrambled to her paws at a dead sprint down the ravine and out into the Plains, not slowing until she saw the wall. It still took considerable effort to slow her strides to a brisk trot, as eager as she was to make sure she wasn’t just imagining the call. But a tired rustle of hooves over ashy ground and grass from the other side of the wall told her he was there. He looked worse than she felt. The three elk huddled, wan with exhaustion, but she barely cast them more than a concerned look before she moved to lean into the tall, stormy grey male, checking him over as Loshir whirled back to bound toward one of the caches of meat. Finally she stepped back to look her uncle in the eyes, fighting to keep her voice steady as she said, “I’m so glad you’re okay.” Loshir padded back, a well-aged haunch almost dragging between his forelegs. The meat was on the verge of turning, but it was still edible at this point. With a glance toward the tired elk, he lowered the haunch to the ground in front of Tornach and slunk out of sight, not wanting to spook the animals. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

Tornach didn't even register the patter of paws on the other side of the wall, he was trying so hard to stay on his feet and conscious, so he wasn't expecting the elk to shy tiredly away, and could only stumble a step forward before stopping and swaying in place. Aiden had to cast off from her perch on the wall and circle the herd to keep them in place. The cause of the commotion seemed to appear so suddenly at his side that he only blinked at her for a moment. In his delirium it seemed strange to him that it was Aurielle standing there, and not his mother, though he knew that she'd been gone for many years. He shook his head to try to clear it, but quickly flinched away when she leaned against him. Too much of him hurt, he felt like nothing more than a collection of burns and bruises and lacerations barely held together with poulticed herbs. He had to stare at her a moment, and coughed out a faint, incredulous laugh at her words. "Ok is relative, I suppose," he croaked out, though the simple action of motion of opening his muzzle to form the words radiated pain from the poulticed wounds on his face. He stared down at the haunch of venison that had appeared before them with some confusion - when had it gotten there? It didn't matter, though. He was too tired to eat. "I apologize for intruding, Aurielle, but I need help." His dry throat made the words crack at the end, and he had to stop to pant.

Aurielle Adravendi

Her eyes widened as she saw more of her uncle, finally actually seeing his injuries as a whole. A choked sound constricted her throat. Clearly, he needed immediate attention, and Paladin was away on a hunt for herbs. It was down to herself to tend him. Her uncle’s words brought a firm shake to her head as she shifted to his … better side. "Ní fhéadfá riamh cur isteach ar Uncail. Ní bhíonn grá ag dul díreach toisc nach bhfuil tú anseo. Cibé rud a theastaíonn uait, tabharfaidh muid." She nodded to Aelloshir, who gently pressed the trio of elk forward through the passage in the wall. He’d become decent at herding since they’d gained the sheep from the nomads, and Aurielle was left to figure out how to get her uncle to the den to care for him. "An mbeidh tú in ann é a dhéanamh chuig na pluaiseanna? Thig liom do chréachtaí a thabhú ansin. Beidh do eilc sábháilte anseo." Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

Tornach found his attention wandering and had to fight to bring his niece back into focus. "Áit le leigheas," he rasped, "Luibheanna, má tá aon le spáráil agat. Ag innilt don eilc go dtí gur féidir liom níos mó fál a thógáil áit éigin." He shook his head, fighting against the exhaustion and dizziness that dragged at him. "I can... walk you or one of your wolves through what I have been doing for my wounds. At this point I just need... time."

He watched dully as a dark-coated mountain lion herded his elk through the wall. Aiden glanced over at him with her sharp eyes, hesitating, but must have figured he was in better hands than she could provide and forced her tired form back into the air to chivy the elk along. The cougar made them nervous, but the falcon was a familiar shepherd for them so they stumbled along docilely enough.

Tornach watched them go, then made himself turn blinking back to his niece. "I can walk," he said with quiet dignity. It would be the first time he'd returned to those caves since he was a child. They were full of memories of his mother and father, of Baine who had been gone for years. Good memories, but painful. It was not going to be easy. He closed his remaining eye despite the pain that caused as it pulled at the burns on the other side of his face. "Go raibh maith agat, Aurielle."

[ooc] Timeskip-ish forward in form of story-telling if this is alright? :P

Aurielle Adravendi

She nodded quickly as her Uncle listed off what he needed. A long, long walk later, she’d settled him into one of the alcoves, one deeply bedded with mosses and grasses. While he rested, she worked with the herbs, deft despite the fact that they weren’t her main knowledge. Ayodele had healer’s training, having traveled with Paladin’s monkey and lemur before they found the wolves, and walked her through some modifications that would accentuate the efficacy of what Tornach had already been doing. The result was a thick, cool paste, and a lot of it, mixed with the water from the spring outside the cave system. When she returned to her Uncle’s side, her father was stirring from a deep sleep, but she didn’t nudge him yet to tell him about Tornach’s presence. Instead, she settled by her dark-coated uncle and worked gently in tandem with Ayodele, covering the burns with the paste – a mixture of many herbs, including Valerian, honey, and a sort of clay Paladin had learned was particularly good for healing and drawing out infection and heat from wounds. She also nudged a small concoction of herbs under his nose that would ease his pain, fever, and bring him a comfortable sleep, which she knew he needed. As she worked, she talked, about everything that had happened in her life as a whole. It fell into a cadence of storytelling, soothing, emotional, open. She spoke of hopes for the future, ideas for crafting, for animal breeding, for agriculture. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think