The next morning came too soon, and a bleary and red eyed Basilisk rubbed sleep from his eyes as he crawled out of his warm coat. Despite his restless night, he couldn’t sleep into the day when there was so much to do. It seemed if anyone would know where Charlie might have gone for materials, it would be Ignita.

He felt… more than a little foolish now that he had cooled off, and relieved that he hadn’t jeopardised his relationship with Hazel. He wasn’t sure how this would affect their interactions going forward, but he needed her help. He knocked on her door. “Ignita, are you up? I need to go over some things regarding Charlie with you.” He said to the closed door.

"Basilisk" || "Iggy"

Morning. The earth continues to rotate and morning always arrives. Fitful half sleep dogged her dreaming heels. Fear mixed with curiosity and a lust she had never known roiled within. What had she done? Nothing, they had done nothing. Except unveil and twist a new confusing layer of her bond with him.

She lay on the bed, her golden eyes open, thinking thinking thinking thinking. No solutions only the same moment replaying in her head over and over again. Trying to determine if she had done something that had turned the tide down this path herself. They were talking about Charlie, the darkness was around them, and he pulled her closer. The thought made the skin under her pale thin fur bloom a rosy hue.

She sighed and buried her head under the furs. If the world could just swallow her up and solve all the problems of the heart. She was torn, so torn. If she involved herself with Bas, she risked everything, if she involved herself with Spider she risked more, if she denied herself any of it at all... Self control was not one of her strengths, not when something was new and exciting.

A knock on the door. He wanted to talk about Charlie. Yes, they had to find Charlie. She debated far longer than she ought to. She didn't want to see his face. She can't police her emotions and expressions like he could. Everything was on her face all the time.

She took a breath in to steady her nerves then got up, shook her pelt hard, and then opened the door. Her fur in more disarray than usual, her eyes darted to his then glued themselves to the ground. A rosy hue evident through the white of her fur around her ears, nose and over her cheeks.

"I-I don't really know which way he went." She stated, her voice halting. She didn't know the mines and where one would go for his materials.

"Ignita"

Basilisk may enter her threads without warning.

He waited at her door perhaps longer than a master should have for their slave. His patience won out when he heard movement inside that resulted in the door creeping open. Ignita stopped there, glancing at him only once before her eyes hit the floor. Leaving him to freely assess her. She was a weak little wolf, one who couldn't learn to fight if her life depended on it. Pray, victim, slave. Hazel was his childhood best friend, someone he had shared everything with. She had proven her strength time and time again when life gave her a shitty hand and she rose above it. Logically, there was no way this scrap of a thing could endanger that. He thought of how she had looked when he had found her fallen from the ladder. Or her expression when he had given her gifts, charcoal and warm blankets. 


He stood there for too long, before he shook his head. Admitting to himself that he didn't understand his own emotions. “perhaps not, but follow me down to the forge and perhaps together we can access what materials he was missing for the broaches. Perhaps from there we can figure out where he would have gone.

Strength was hardly her strong suit. She was small, she was clever, but in tight situations, as with the bear, she was fierce. She didn't cower and let Ollie and Bas take on the bear alone, no, she was quick and resourceful. Though she was untrained, she could be an ankle biter in dire straights, at least when Basilisk was concerned. It had been her first and only opportunity to truly fight. She was defending Bas and Ollie. But when it came to defending herself... She was helpless. Like a bird that played lame to distract the hunter from its young.

He was taking too long to continue the conversation in the usual way and she stole a glance up at him just before he shook his head. He had been drinking her in... This was far from over, unfortunately. The prospect lit a tingling fire between her hips without her consent. Finally, he continued their conversation.
"Oh- all right." She nodded, staring straight ahead, and would follow him as he led the way. What if everyone already assumed it anyway.....?

"Speech"

He caught her reaction to him, the way her body teased. The subtle change in the air. His own body tensed, and heat pooled in his gut. Yeah, this development was going to be frustrating for all parties. Basilisk had never been with a wolf outside of Hazel before. What would she taste like, how would she move… he gave his head a vigorous shake, his body standing rigid and tense for a moment. Foolish, he had long left behind his youth and the impulses that came with it.


He unlocked his limbs and surged forward. “Let's get on with it then.” He said briskly as he led her down the slope of his den and towards the blacksmith at the other end of the Col. When they arrived he turned his back to her and started to poke around half completed jobs, and checked a todo list the other had left behind. Seeking what other jobs he might have been gathering for.

It wasn't fair.
She walked quickly in his trail toward the forge and blacksmith's workshop. Her life had never been fair, why would it be anywhere near fair now? They swallowed the distance across the Col and busied themselves with looking for clues. She was grateful for the distraction.

Her eyes scanned the debris. Some trinkets here and there were familiar, but most of it was not. Her eyes meandered, but somehow she couldn't take anything in. As if her eyes couldn't focus on what was in front of her. She picked up the drawn design she left with Charlie for him to base his pins on and there were a few scorch marks on it as if from some errant embers. She put it down and let her eyes try and focus on the forge but they kept magnetizing themselves to his titanic muscular back, had she never noticed how the charcoal of his fur was broken by the smattering of blues and seafoam greens. Like blue and green flames licked each hair follicle and rippled over his muscles. Some of his blue was almost purple and the marks at the end of his tail and back toes seemed to be dipped in the hottest of blue-green flames turned white.

She shook her head once and drew in a breath, willing her eyes to focus on the cold forge. Maybe he had left his current project within it? She took one of the pokers and looked absently through the ashes of the forge. If a white wolf and a black wolf had children, would they be grey like the ashes? Or would they come out black or white?

"Basilisk" || "Iggy"

He could feel her admiring eyes on him, but when he turned to look her attention was on the soot residue from the latest blacksmithing project. He narrowed his eyes, before turning back to what he was sorting through. “I don't know the first thing about blacksmithing,” he said, somewhat frustrated. “Any clues on your end?” her creativity and sheer… knowledge of obscure things had to come in handy here, right? He had to do something, if the pack didn't see him putting in the effort to find Charlie it would damage his fragile balance of the pack. 


He sighed, putting the list back down again and taking a step back, surveying the workstation in a slow, methodical motion. “We have gems and metals in abundance.” He continued, putting his thoughts into words… for all the good it did him.

She sighed. A conundrum before her, two problems... three. Focus on the one in front of her now. Charlie, charlie, charlie charlie.

She paused her poking, finding nothing in the ashes. She decided to take a smaller step back than Bas and imagined the motions Charlie would have done to start a project. He would have planned one out and picked out his materials... Got it, got it, then he would have fed the fire with wood and added coal and pulled the string to get the bellows going...

"Coal!! There's no coal! You can't get a hot enough fire for the smithing without coal! Where do you get more?" She asked turning to Bas and looking up. Her eyes were bright with ideas, finally set on the problem at hand.

"Speech"

Perhaps Basilisk should have spent a little more time with his Grandfather learning how to craft weapons. But it wasn’t a skill that Azure had seemed to value, and Basilisk hadn’t had much time for it in his youth. Now he was down a blacksmith, and missing a pack wolf. “Coal…” he muttered out loud, turning back and looking at the blazing toned wolf. He felt the clue form into a piece they could hunt down. The hunt was on.

“The best place to get coal is in the Northern Mines, located just to the East of the Mile-High Woods.” He explained. He gave the smithy a final glance over, but he knew her clue was the best they had to go on. “Let’s go.” He said, already deciding to drag her along on this quest.

"Basilisk" || "Iggy"