Si Vis Pacem...

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