As soon as Artorias had heard about the attacks on his brother and sister from Tamsyn, the young wolf wasted no time in marching straight through the castle doors and rushing down the eastern corridor towards the infirmary. His mind was reeling with every step, trying to process the information his mother had told him. Rudy, attacked by a bear and rendered comatose. Gwyn, attacked by some unknown wolf virtually in their own back yard. All of this had happened while he had been away, when he hadn't been there to protect them. Gods damn it all! He never should have been gone for so long. There would be plenty of time to kick himself in the ass later though. Right now, he needed to see his siblings.

In a blur of black and blue fur, Artorias stormed into the infirmary, pushing the doors open with such urgent force that they bounced off the walls with a bang of wood on stone. Only one bed was occupied in the expansive medical ward. The limp mottled gray body caused his heart to wrench and plummet into his stomach. Rudy! Artorias ran over to the cot with his unconscious brother in it, throwing his satchel carelessly to the floor while he came up to Rudy's side, placing his paws on the edge of the cot to lean in close and inspect the comatose wolf. Rudy was still breathing, light and shallow, but he was alive. The bandages wound around his head made Artorias cringe to imagine what must have happened to his reckless little brother.

"Oh, Rudy..." muttered Artorias in the quiet of the empty infirmary. His body slumped down until he was sitting on his haunches, left staring blankly at Rudy with hollow and pained eyes. This was all his fault. If he hadn't left to go train with Sirius, Rudy would never have been alone to try and face off against a bear—a bear of all creatures! What the hell were you thinking, you idiot?! You're lucky you didn't die! Lifting a paw, Artorias rested it across Rudy's foot, holding onto his brother to let him know he was here for him. "You're gonna pull through this, you hear me? You gotta help me run the Hallows. I can't do it without you, Rudy, so don't you dare leave me to do this alone." He gave a weak chuckle and halfhearted smile, praying for his brother to just wake up and be okay.

"Artorias Carpathius" | "Corbin" | "Argent"

One big happy family

Artorias has two ravens named Corbin and Eira and a fox named Argent. Assume they are within calling distance at all times.
As his mate, Briar may enter Artorias' threads unless marked Private.
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Gwynevere felt a bit like a ghost, wandering and haunting the halls of the castle ever since the day that she had been attacked. Sleep came in bits and pieces, only really sleeping for any length of time when she was just too exhausted to dream. The only times she felt any sort of peace was when Ysmir was visiting, but she couldn't expect him to be here all the time. He had his own pack and family to be with and she eventually insisted that he go back to them no matter how difficult it was. Of course if he wanted to return she would welcome him back, but she wasn't unrealistic. He didn't live here no matter how much she wished he did. She was far too afraid to leave the walls that surrounded the castle, only ever leaving the interior of the castle to go to the greenhouse. She felt like she was going through the motions, letting herself be numb as she buried herself in her work.

She was in the pharmacy sorting through some herbs she had collected from the greenhouse that morning when a slam from down the hall made her jump, causing her to knock over a pile of marigold she had just finished neatening up. She gave a slow sigh, her ears flicking back as she looked out into the hall and tried to calm the rapid beating of her heart. It sounded like it was close enough that the only doors that could have him slammed like that were the infirmary or one of the guest rooms, but either way she figured she should probably go investigate in case it was someone rushing into the infirmary for some reason. She walked down to the now open infirmary door and immediately stopped in the doorway when her swirled lavender and mint gaze landed on a distinctly familiar form.

She had successfully evaded her mother's questions thus far, no matter how much Tamsyn tried to find out more about what happened, but she had been worried about Artorias' return because she knew her brother wasn't going to be as easy to say no to. He was leaned over the edge of Rudyard's bed and she had no doubt that someone - probably their mother if she had to guess - had filled him in on what had happened in his absence. She very seriously considered slipping away before she could be noticed, but it would really only be delaying the inevitable. Steeling herself, she walked into the room and walked over to stand beside Artorias, settling onto her haunches next to Rudyard's bedside as well.

Gwynevere | Eilwen

The sound of claws clicking subtly against the stone floor made one black ear flick to catch the sound, Artorias' head turning from his unconscious brother a moment later to spot Gwynevere coming over to sit beside him next to Rudy's bed. He greeted her with a soft smile and gentle eyes, not saying anything at first either while she joined him. "How's he doing?" he asked after a few moments, turning his gaze back toward his brother. Once Gwyn had answered him, he turned his head a fraction of an inch to glance at her from the corners of his eyes. "How are you doing? How's your leg?" Yes, their mother had filled him in on the little bit of information she knew. That probably wouldn't surprise Gwyn too much.

Dropping his paws from Rudy, Artorias turned to better face Gwyn and meet her gaze with concern and love in his eyes while he looked her over. She looked terrible, if he was being honest. Her eyes seemed tired and distant, and her posture was tense and defensive. Whatever had happened to her, it had shaken up the ordinarily mellow girl something fierce. He didn't see any of that light of innocence in her swirling eyes any longer and it broke his heart. He had failed her. Now he had to make things right again.

"What happened, Gwyn?" he asked, his voice gentle yet protective. He didn't need to press her or interrogate her. She was still fragile—still a victim. But he'd be damned if he didn't do everything in his power to give her back some control in her life and bring her attacker to justice.

"Artorias Carpathius" | "Corbin" | "Argent"

One big happy family

Artorias has two ravens named Corbin and Eira and a fox named Argent. Assume they are within calling distance at all times.
As his mate, Briar may enter Artorias' threads unless marked Private.
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She felt nervous and uneasy as she sat next to Artorias and she hated that fact. After a whole season apart form her brother she didn't want the emotion that dominated everything else to be an anxiety that had been gripping her by the back of the neck ever since she was attacked. She couldn't even really explain why she felt this way. Logically it didn't make sense, but just the thought of having to talk to him about what happened and having to mentally relive it put her on edge. She kept her gaze focused on Rudyard, only giving Artorias a small glance when he asked about how their brother was doing. "He's as good as he can be," she said honestly, her her tone calm and even as it tended to be when she was talking about one of her patients. Even if it was her brother, she still treated all of the wolves in her care equally. Perhaps encountering things as serious as their mother's injuries back when she was still learning had made everything else pale in comparison. She gently lifted the edge of the bandages on his head, checking the wounds underneath. "The surface wounds are healing nicely. They've pretty much mended together at this point so the bandages could probably come off in the next few days. The internal damage... That's harder to assess. There's still signs that his brain is active and alive so he'll wake up, there's just no telling when."

It was easy to talk about those things - things that didn't directly relate to herself. When he turned the topic toward her, her ears flicked back and she sighed softly as she lowered her paw back to the floor, looking down at the stone under her feet. "My leg is pretty much healed now," she said softly, carefully avoiding the question of how she was doing. "It's still a bit achey sometimes, but there was a good bit of strain put on my knee and the muscle so that will probably be the case for a long while. I've been taking it easy though so it hasn't gotten worse." Her explanation sounded distant even to herself, sounding like she was describing someone else's wounds rather than her own. It felt easier to talk about it that way and was made even easier to focus just on the physical after affects than the mental and emotional.

She turned her head away when he questioned her about what happened, her jaw tightening. It was a question that she knew was coming, but she didn't want to answer. Even though his voice was gentle and his demeanor was calm and protective it still felt impossible to explain what had happened to him. She didn't want to be fussed and worried over. She didn't want their concern. She just wanted to forget it ever happened and chase it away from her nightmares so she could finally move on. But she knew that eventually he would have to know and if nothing else she wanted him to be aware just in case he ever encountered the man out in the wilds as well. The man had known about her brothers so clearly he had seen Artorias at some point. Maybe that was the scariest part. He had been in their pack lands, had done something so horrible, and had slipped away without a trace. He had been close enough to know and recognize them and she had no idea who he was. He was like a horrible phantom that continued to haunt her.

She sighed after a long moment, glancing back toward him. She still couldn't meet his gaze so she settled for looking at his blue furred feet instead. "I was by myself by the Cedar Falls gathering herbs and I saw something in the water. It..." She couldn't bring herself to say it, at least not yet. She gave a little shake of her head and quickly brushed past it, trying to build up her confidence as she revealed more details to him. "The man jumped out of the water and tackled me. I couldn't get away. He was as big and bulky as Ulric and no one was around. He... He said he was Resin's son. He said we shouldn't have the Carpathius name - that I was weak and wasn't worthy of it... He said Mom was insane for sullying the name by giving it to us." There was plenty of horrible things from that day that plagued her, but his degrading and demeaning were the things that had eaten deepest at her. She remembered every word, all of it burned into her memory.

"He tossed me into the river by my leg and I washed up a ways down stream," she added, a brief explanation for how her leg had ended up injured in all of this. "A friend I made at the Ashen festival found me and helped me get home. I... I haven't left the castle since then. I've barely gone outside." She swallowed back a lump in her throat, finally forcing her swirled gaze to lift to look up at his, drawing in a shuddering breath as she finally made herself tell him the fact she hadn't even shared with Ysmir. Someone needed to know and she most certainly didn't want that someone to be their mother. "He... He had Mom's skin," she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. "He snuck into the pack lands and dug her up and skinned her. I-I... I went to Mom's grave and there was just little remnants and bones left and the dug up grave. I guess... It's tucked back into the trees so we didn't notice I..." Her chest felt tight and tears threatened to well up in her eyes, her claws scratching at the floor as she fought off the panic. "He was wearing her, Art... like a cloak. When he had me pinned under him I just... I just kept looking at Mom's head on top of his..." She grit her teeth and looked back down at the floor again, tense and drawn in on herself, looking away from her brothers as she shut her eyes and tried to think of anything else besides the mental image it conjured.

Gwynevere | Eilwen

Gwynevere spoke to him with such poise and professionalism, and Artorias appreciated her all the more for it. He hated when wolves tried to sugarcoat bad news or treat him like he was still a child. He wanted the facts of his brother's condition and what the likely hope was that he would recover from his condition, and Gwyn delivered. His physical external injuries had healed well, but it was the internal damage they wouldn't know until Rudy woke up—if Rudy woke up. The thought that there was a possibility his little brother might never come back to them upset him, angered him. It reminded him of how useless he'd felt watching his mother waste away into nothing in her prison cell. It wasn't right; it wasn't fair! Rudy had to pull through this, he just had to.

When he turned the conversation back to Gwyn, she had expectedly begun by addressing her physical diagnosis. That was fine, it told him how she was doing physically, and it sounded like her leg would be a slow-going road to recovery. Whoever had attacked her had done a number to her leg. Speaking of the bastard that had done this... Gwyn turned away from him when he asked what had happened, and Artorias was prepared to interrogate her as long as it took to get the answers he needed. He didn't want to push his sister into reliving that traumatic experience, but he had to know. He needed this.

Eventually, Gwyn came around and began detailing her day play-by-play for him. She'd been out gathering herbs when she was attacked by someone. The wolf claimed to be their brother by Resin, then bullied and berated her. Artorias' eyes narrowed as Gwyn relayed the insults hurled at her by this stranger. They glanced off of him like pebbles off a suit of armor, but he knew his sensitive sister would have been much more vulnerable to the man's verbal assault, especially if he was physically harassing her too. She described the wolf as large as Ulric, which Artorias knew meant he was a dire. Even still, the brute would only have a couple of inches on him as opposed to the near foot he'd have on Gwyn. Artorias would not be a pushover when he confronted this fucker.

Gwyn explained how the wolf injured her leg and threw her in the river to drown, but she'd managed to survive and was helped back to the castle by a friend she'd made back in the summer. He made a mental note to thank this wolf for helping his wounded sister if he ever saw them. Just as he thought the story was ending, Gwyn dropped the bomb on him. The wolf had been wearing Resin's skin as a cloak. Artorias fixed Gwyn with a furious and incredulous look. He didn't understand at first until she explained what she'd discovered with Resin's grave. Artorias' blood turned to magma and he was very nearly quivering with rage. This piece of shit waste of life had not only attacked his sweet sister unprovoked, but he'd also trespassed in their home, defiled their mother's grave, and committed this horrific act on her corpse. There was no question left in his mind; Artorias knew what he had to do.

Artorias was not blind to the suffering Gwynevere was going through. As livid as he was, he managed to compartmentalize that aside for now to focus on comforting his little sister. Art came closer and slowly brought his forelegs around Gwyn's back, wrapping her up in a secure yet loose embrace, allowing her to pull away if it became too triggering for her. "You're safe now, Gwyn. I'm here, I've got you," he whispered while trying to soothe her with gentle shushes and a loving embrace. "He's never going to get you ever again, I promise. I'm going to make this right." His jaw clenched and his eyes were ablaze with unbridled fury. He was going to kill the whoreson mongrel if it took all of his days to do so. "What did he look like, Gwyn? What did he sound like? Did he give you his name?" He would have to work on whatever descriptors Gwyn gave him. With weeks having passed since the attack, there would be no trace of any scents left to follow. He'd have to do some sleuthing to find his quarry.

"Artorias Carpathius" | "Corbin" | "Argent"

One big happy family

Artorias has two ravens named Corbin and Eira and a fox named Argent. Assume they are within calling distance at all times.
As his mate, Briar may enter Artorias' threads unless marked Private.
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Gwynevere noticed Artorias shifting closer to her out of the corner of her eye and eventually felt his foreleg drape around her shoulders. She didn't lean into him right away, but as he began trying to soothe her she eventually let herself settle into his embrace. Even though his words barely scratched the surface of her anxiety and trauma it did still help knowing he was here. She believed his words that he would make this right. If there was one thing she knew about her brother it was how much he cared about each of them and how much he would do to protect them. The castle did feel safer with him home if nothing else. The promise to make it right did make her nervous, but she wasn't going to try to persuade him otherwise. She knew him well enough to know that it would just fall on deaf ears. He would go after her attacker whether she wanted him to or not, that's just the kind of wolf he was.

Artorias asking for the man's description was expected and that felt easier to give than any other part of this tale. "His eyes are really dark... Not quite black, but close. He had spiked, serrated teeth kind of like Ezra's. His fur is white, dark, slate blue, and a dark charcoal and all of his markings are kind of speckled and splattered... kind of like they're dissolving into one another." That was the best way she could think to describe them. She couldn't think of any real specific markings, but her view of him had been fairly limited since she had mostly only seen what she could see from where she had been pinned under him. She brought her gaze up to Artorias' again, her brow pulling together with concern. "I know you're going to go after him, but... Please be careful."

Gwynevere | Eilwen

It took a little bit of time and encouragement, but eventually Gwyn yielded to his affection and relaxed into the hug. Artorias was thankful that he could be giving his sister a little support when she needed it most. It pained him to think of her trapped inside the castle walls by fear. It just strengthened his resolve further. He would slay the monster that had terrorized and disrespected his family so the world could once again be safe for her to explore. But first, he had to find the monster.

Gwyn began to describe the wolf that had attacked her, and with every detail she gave, Artorias began to try and create a mental image of his foe. Large, dire height, a solid and stocky build. Dark gray eyes, slate gray and white fur with charcoal speckled markings. Most formidable though were those spiked, serrated teeth she described; those could be a problem. Art felt Gwyn shift in his grasp and he pulled back just enough to peer down into those swirled pools of lavender and mint. She was concerned for his safety. He simply gave her a little smile and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, squeezing her in his arms. "I promise I will be," he said. "I'm going to kill him and then you'll never have to be afraid of him again."

With his vow of vengeance made on behalf of her, Artorias slowly released Gwynevere and headed out of the infirmary. He rushed down the corridors and back out of the castle, hellbent for the Cedar Falls. He prayed that there would be some lingering traces of a scent there or some other clues as to where his target went. It ultimately didn't matter though. Artorias was going to find this fucker, and he was going to kill him.

- exit -

"Artorias Carpathius" | "Corbin" | "Argent"

One big happy family

Artorias has two ravens named Corbin and Eira and a fox named Argent. Assume they are within calling distance at all times.
As his mate, Briar may enter Artorias' threads unless marked Private.
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