Situated between the bulk of the swamp and the ocean was a place where the two watery worlds collided. The reedy, silty, soupy mess of the swamp bled into the crystal blue water of the ocean and created a dark and murky mess whose shadowy waters brought to mind toothy jaws and sudden attacks. Along the sides of the merging water were sandy shores and low scrub brush. As he trotted alongside the merging waters and towards the ocean Valentine's gaze swept the shoreline. He was looking for ghost crabs. It was late enough in the evening that the little insect-like creatures were beginning to come out. Predictable, flighty creatures as they were, the crabs were relatively easy pickings if you knew how to go at them. His pace was lazy as he moved. While he'd love to get his jaws around some crabs he wasn't all that motivated. If he got some, he got some, and if he didn't then he'd just go home and chew on the bison carcass that was waiting for him there. "Talk" "You" Think

Pain, it was all she felt. In the moments, the hours since she had woken up, was pain. Her chest felt heavy, sore, her head...oh, her head. It hurt so much she couldn't open her eyes or she might pass out again, but luckily the longer she laid there, the less light there was and the less it hurt when she tried to open her eyes. Pain...she could barely turn, barely move. She couldn't feel her toes, but she knew where they were, she couldn't feel parts of her face because it had gone number. There was a coppery scent in the air, one she instinctually recognized as blood. Dry, but oddly fresh. Was that her? Oh...it felt very much like it was. Somewhere near her ear... She groaned slightly as she shifted, tried to get her paw out from under her chest. Ever since she had woken up she had been laying there, washed up on the shore. She was freezing, her body shaking uncontrollably each time the wave crashed over her and slowly fell away. The cool autumn air cut through her soaked fur, chilling her to every sore bone in her body. She would groan each time the waves would pull over her, like some monster trying to smother her, to finish the job. But luckily for the child, the tide wasn't too high anymore. All the water did was flow over her, but she would remain where she was, trapped on the sand with her paw under her chest. Oh...all she felt was pain. All she knew was pain. Everything, including this moment, was black to her. It terrified her, caused the tears to fall endlessly down her cheeks whenever she found herself in conciousness, found herself remembering that she...didn't know anything but darkness. Where was she? Oh...why..why was she in so much pain. She'd whimper softly, feeling the hurt thrum through her body. Where...where was she? "Burn Baby Burn"

His eyes settled on a blob in the distance. Valentine slowed to a halt, his head dropping to shoulder height as he squinted at the thing. It was laying on the beach and each incoming wave rolled in around it and gently pushed it around. There was something oddly familiar about that shape. Something... Oh. Slowly Valentine straightened. It was a body. The King was no stranger to death, but the realization still chilled him. He began to pad closer and it was only then that he realized that the body was a small one. Surely it wasn't a child! He picked up the pace and was standing beside the waterlogged body in a matter of heartbeats. Once beside it his nerves frayed and all he could do was stare down at it. It was a child. A young girl. For some reason this knowledge saddened him. At his paws was someone's daughter. Someone's Evangeline. Someone's Rhys. He couldn't just leave her there, but what could he do? He could bury her. The moment he decided to do it the weight of his decision came crashing down on him. This was someone's daughter. He would need to find her family; he would have to tell them their baby was gone. How on earth could he do that? How could he possibly tell a parent that? He didn't know how, but he would. Valentine grasped the girl's scruff and then recoiled sharply, almost falling back on his haunches in shock as he sought to get away from her. She was faintly warm. That meant she was still alive! Now that he was looking he could see the impossibly soft rising and falling of her chest. His sadness turned to panic as he took in her sorry state with new eyes. "Sweetheart? Sweetheart, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes for me?" Placing a paw on her chest Valentine gently shook her. He was no healer and he had no idea what to do. She did need to get warm; that much he did know. Grabbing her by the scruff again, Valentine pulled the girl farther up onto the beach. He drug her up out of range of the waves and didn't stop until the sand under his paws was completely dry. There he released her and then curled around her in the hopes of warming her. He licked at her ears, at her face, and it was then that he saw her markings. There wasn't any time to dwell on them though. There were more important things to consider. "Come on, girl, wake up!" "Talk" "You" Think

The darkness behind her eyes had grown even thicker, darker, bleeker for a moment, and she felt light. It was an endless cycle. Was this her life? Falling into the blackness, only to find somehow...somehow she was back to full conscious again what felt like moments later? She felt as if she was endless, it was a strange feeling. Slowly she tried, tried to pry her eyes open again but the bare sliver of light that flooded her senses caused her to groan again and closed her eyes again. Her whole body quaked with the cold that crashed over her again as she felt herself get lost to the darkness that consumed her... But suddenly, she wasn't alone. She felt more than heard his pawsteps and then she was grabbed. She wanted to cry, wanted to shriek at the spike of pain that crashed through her when he pulled. But she couldn't, her voice had gone dry, washed away with the cold that flowed over her relentlessly. But just as quick as it happened, it stopped. Then...what was that? It was...speaking, right? The words were muffled, but she could tell they were words. What? Eyes? She'd groan again, protesting. No, it hurt...it hurt too much to open her eyes! Everything hurt. And then the pulling again. This time she did manage a dry, scratchy whimper at the treatment, and it felt like eternity. She was tugged away from the cold, feeling it give way to dry. The dryness scratched through her wet fur, cut into her skin and she whimpered again before it...stopped. Her chest rose and fell rapidly at the feeling of pain coursing through her again when, suddenly, she was wrapped in warmth. It was slow at first, but it soon seeped into her. Her body trembled constantly, shaking and vibrating as the warmth battled with the cold, and her chill wracked at her bones. The groan that pulled from her this time was almost silent. But then...there it was again. That voice, a sound...she didn't recognize it, but then again she hadn't recognized her own sounds the first time she had woken up. Her jaws would part just slightly, but no matter how she tried, the sounds would not come. Her throat felt so dry, her lungs burned...everything hurt. So she tried again, feeling her brows pull tight over her numb face. "...M'awake..." She rasped lightly, eyelids fluttering before one opened just a crack to look up at him, seeing nothing but a dark...something, it was blurry, it had no face. The pain became too much again, her head throbbing as the blood scent grew stronger, feeling a trail of cold seep through her fur, down from up near her ear down towards her cheek. "...H-hurt..." She rasped, her body trembling and causing more and more waves of pain to crash over her. At least....at least it wasn't cold anymore. "Burn Baby Burn"

She started to shiver - that was a good thing, right? - and her mouth moved as she tried to speak. Valentine continued to gently lick at her face and her ears, and carefully cleaned the cut on her head. Finally she managed to croak a response in a voice that was almost too soft and broken for him to make out. He understood. "You're going to be just finet," he assured her. Aware that she might have hidden injuries - why hadn't he thought of that at the water's edge? - Valentine was very careful as he licked at the fur on her neck and shoulders in the hopes of ridding it of excess moisture and aiding in the drying process. He tasted nothing but salt, sand and copper, and the gritty seawater was quickly drying his mouth, but he ignored the mild discomfort. In between licks he kept talking to her in the hopes of capturing her attention and keeping her awake. "What's your name, sweetheart?" Concentrating on the tasks at hand, Valentine was largely blind to the appearance of the girl. Usually, if presented with an unnaturally colored wolf, contempt would be at the forefront of his mind, but right now that was the last thing on his mind at the moment. Right now all he saw was a little girl in need of help. "Where are your parents at?" If they were here that would make this a bit easier. "Talk" "You" Think

Her little body shook, quivering, vibrating in his arms. It seemed endless...or was it her that was endless? The pain...no, well. At least it wasn't freezing anymore. She would have moved impossibly closer, would have tried to snuggle into his warmth if she could just...brave the movement. But the pain was too much, the pounding in her head was too great. But with each lick, with each pass of his tongue over her face and neck and wherever it hurt it felt...a little better. Slowly she'd peel her eye open again, red rimmed and distant, but she tried to make out the voice of this strange thing. Whatever it was, whoever it was. He was soft, gentle...caring, and he took the pain away. She'd whine again as he assured her she'd be just fine, and for the first time in her endless pain, endless existance she truley believed she may be. Whatever "fine" was, it had to be better than this. He'd continue to lick her, to warm her, to fill her body with a sort of strength she never felt before, but then again...all she had ever felt was this pain. When he asked her her name, she was quiet, silent, almost deathly so as she closed her eye again. Her name? Did she have one? Now that the pounding had lessened and the pain had fallen away just a bit she could finally think about it. What was she if not this pounding pain? "I don't know..." She whispered in her broken, raspy voice, a round of coughs shaking through her body as she trembled in his arms. A deep and overwhelming need to sleep fell over her, but his voice, his constant licks kept her awake. Her ears would twitch before pulling back, her first real movement since the dawn of time. His voice spoke to her again, questioning her again. Parents? Her eyes would move beneath her eyelids, searching the blackness but finding nothing but that, blackness. No memory aside from the pounding pain and the constant wash of cold and him lived there. "I don't know..." She repeated, this time her raspy voice was tight as fresh tears grew in her burning eyes, slipping from sealed eyelids and down her sodden cheek. There was nothing she knew but this, and the more she thought about it, the more it terrified her. "Burn Baby Burn"

The girl was shivering hard enough to shake him and Valentine found himself curling tighter around her in the hopes of stifling her tremors. Since it seemed to be helping he continued to groom her. Briefly her upturned eye opened and treated him to a glimpse of beautiful blue rimmed in red, but then fell closed again and he gently brushed his tongue across her eyelid and brow to clear it of any lingering saltwater. To both of his questions she answered with a "I don't know," and his heart went out to her as he brushed her tears away. That certainly made tracking down her parents harder, but at least it helped make up his mind. She could have washed here from any number of places; the coastline went on for miles. He doubted he would find her family nearby, so with that in mind he decided to take her to Imperium. He didn't know the first thing about healing, but both Cascade and Rhythm did. With one or both of them she'd be in good hands. "That's alright, sweetheart," he soothed. "It'll come to you." He would wait a little longer so she'd dry and then he was going to have to hope she wasn't seriously injured, because he intended to carry her back to Imperium. There was no way he was simply going to leave her there while he went for help and there was no way his voice would carry all the way back to the packlands. "Why don't you tell me what you do know?" "Talk" "You" Think

Her body continuously trembled, but as he tightened around her, she would almost calm. The warmth seeped into her, and as she dried in his embrace, she could feel the cold seep from her veins. Slowly but surely. The hours of laying in the waves, of freezing to her bone and marrow, was easily reverted under his attention. Instinctively she would shift closer to him, just a bit but enough to remind her of the thrumming pain that echoed through every bone, every muscle, every tendon. She'd breathe brokenly, but her eyes were drying. He spoke again, his voice tender, chasing away all her fears and comforting her through this terror, this pain. "I..." She paused then, her brows pulling together for a moment before her eyes slowly slid open again, shifting to look up at him through painful slits. It was like some small light had turned on in her pounding head after she had calmed down. "Illie...I think...I th-think my name...is Illie..." She'd close her eyes then with a groan, her ears pressing back again. "I...I d-don't know anything...anything else. only black, only h-hurt." She'd whimper then, her throat so dry speaking hurt terribly. "W-wh-who are y-you?" She was beginning to think just a tad bit clearly, and she realized, in all her fear and all her pain, that she had no idea who this man was. Was she supposed too? "Burn Baby Burn"

Valentine was far outside his comfort zone. Give him a mouthy dumbass and he'd be able to act without thinking. But this? This medical emergency or whatever the hell it was? He was a fish out of water. Did he stay or go? Should he wait and should he move her? The brute kept second guessing himself. He didn't want to risk hurting her further by moving her, but he didn't have much of a choice. "Illie, huh? That's a lovely name." She said she didn't remember much else but he felt like he had to keep digging. "Is it short for something?" He ran an assessing eye over her. She wasn't quite as dry as he would have liked, but she wasn't shivering so hard anymore. He was just going to have to go for it. "My name is Valentine." After one final lick to her ears Valentine slowly shifted so that he lay beside her instead of curled around her. "Illie? I think we should go see a friend of mine; she'll take good care of you. Think you can climb up on my back?" All she had to do was drape herself across. Hopefully she could manage. If not he was going to have to get creative. "Talk" "You" Think

She would just barely shake her head, her cheek rubbing against the rough sands beneath it. No...she didn't know anything. Just...Illie. Something about that name told her it was hers, in some small way. She at least had that one small thing. Her name. "I don't know.." She groaned, her jaw clenching slightly as a wave of pain crashed through her, just like that constant had done not long ago. At least...at least now she was warm. Her eyes would peel open again as he introduced himself, and the slightest of smiles touched her lips. "Do I know you?" She whispered in her raspy voice. She wanted to lay there for eternity, lay there in the only thing she had ever known: darkness and agony. But he had other plans, it seems. His warmth uncurled from around her and all she wanted to do was cry, was sob at the loss. But his voice didn't leave. He asked her if she could move, if she could go and meet this friend of his. For a moment she wanted to refuse, wanted to lay there and get washed away, but then a small light of clairty burst in her mind, and she knew she had to go. If she had a fighting chance, she had so somehow move, and go with him. She'd tilt her head slightly to look up at him. He was less blurry now, but still a strange thing, and so large. "I can't climb mountains.." She breathed in what was a weak attempt at a joke, her lips curling into a pained smile at the attempt. But she was determined. Her very soul was fighting to get up at that moment. She had too, she just had too! If only her body would cooperate. So, for the first time since the dawn of existance, she moved. She fumbled to gather her paws under her, whimpering as she pulled or pushed too hard on something that hurt a lot, but she grit her teeth and perservered. Her ears were back, her burning eyes were narrowed, and she managed it! Her paws were against the ground, pushing her weak body up. Everything hurt, but because everything hurt, it allowed her to ignore the pain just a bit. She'd twist towards him, finally on all four paws but her hind end remained close to the ground. She just didn't have the strength to stand up fully. Everything hurt, and each movement was so jarring it rattled her right down to the marrow that lined her bones. Suddenly, with a yelp, she stumbled, and she'd press herself against him. She was crying again, but when had she stopped. "It hurts.." She rasped, her lungs working overitme to breathe, and her body shaking again. "Will y-your friend...make it...not hurt?" She panted, looking at him with burning eyes as she leaned against him, trying to catch her breath and wait for the moment when it didn't hurt so much so she could get herself sprawled across his back. She had too, she knew it. If she had any chance of surviving, she had to go with this man...this Valentine, whoever he was. "Burn Baby Burn"

Illie...perhaps a cutesy nickname for Elizabeth? It was a good a guess as any. "You do now," he said with forced cheer. "You know, Illie, you remind me a lot of my daughter Rhys." Okay, not really, but it was something to talk about. "She's, oh, maybe a little bit younger than you. Brave and strong just like you too." Had similar eye spots as well... Her joke caught him off guard. Surprised, he snorted a soft laugh. "Come on now," he teased back. "Where's that 'can do' spirit?" As she struggled to her paws he reached out to lightly bump her shoulder with his nose. "Alright, you got this," he murmured encouragingly. Unsteady as she was Valentine was quite sure she was going to make it. The sudden stumble that brought her crashing down against him surprised him. The girl started crying again; her pain and frustration written plainly across her face. Again he reached out, this time aiming to brush away her tears. "You almost had it - don't give up." "It hurts," she admitted, and the corners of his mouth dipped down in a sympathetic frown. Maybe if she could stand up long enough he could shimmy under her and pick her up that way. "I'm sure of it," he assured her. "Talk" "You" Think

She felt his affection wiping away the tears, and she couldn't help but sniffle a little. There was something so reminiscent about the feeling, something so far away that she could never hope to touch. But something about it gave her a little bit of strength. Her legs wobbled as she rested against him, her breathing pitched and her eyes screwed shut. He encouraged her, told her she could do it, and that his friend would be perfectly capable of fixing her up. That alone gave her enough strength. She could do it. She could do it! Somehow. Someway. All she had to do was climb this mountain, and he'd take her somewhere where she could feel better. Somewhere that wasn't this endless place of cold and gritting sand. This place of her birth and her endless agony, this place where she had spent a thousand years in thrumbing pain. He would take her somewhere new, somewhere where she could feel whole, whatever that was. Slowly she peeled herself, one bone, one inch, one little blue hair, at a time from his side. Her legs protested but she continued, her jaws clenching and her eyes shut tight. She huffed and panted, before she managed to, finally, raise her front paws to his side. She gripped, held on, gathering all her strength into his hind paws (no matter how little her strength really was) before she hopped It hurt, the pain ricocheting through her little body, but she managed it, managed to lift herself enough that she got her elbows over the point of his spine, and she could sprawl across his back. Perhaps it wasn't the most comfortable resting place, but at least this way she could see the light at the end of her endless darkness. "I did it.." She gasped, a small smile touching her maw. Her head lolled, and the blackness overwhelmed her. She was out, like a light, her body limp but her harsh breathing evening. "Burn Baby Burn"

"I did it." Valentine turned to grin over his shoulder at her. "Yes you did, sweetheart. You did very well. Now hang on." The brute got to his paws slowly. Once upright he paused to get a sense of the weight across his back and how it was going to affect him, and how the girl was doing. He then started off carefully; each step deliberate and slow as he tried not to jostle her too much. This was going to be a rather slow process, but he was sure they would make it before dark. She just had to hang on for a little while longer. -exit- "Talk" "You" Think