Rest at Last -open-

*Crusade* · 02-08-2013, 12:02 PM

~*~

A voice, deep but feminine cut through the winter air, but from the distance it only just registered above the wet drumming of the falls. "Glaciem," said the voice. "Mercianne is from Glaciem."

Further up the series of waterfalls stood a large white she-wolf, marbled over with copper and cream markings. She held herself with the bearing of warrior, but seeing the silvering bits in her tail and back, one got the feeling that her days of warfare were over. -Even more so when the she-wolf turned, showing the right side of her face, and the empty socket where a gold-green eye had been.

However, aged or not, wounds or no, the Timber cross made her way down the natural stone staircase - heavily enough to betray the thick coils of muscle she still lay claim too, yet with a mountain wolf's balance that even the stiffness of old age couldn't shake. She tread through one of the pools, sending out silver ripples, and hopped down the last past the last smaller cascade, coming up beside the cowering white she-wolf.

"I'm glad to see you're alright," Crusade said softly, but even the quietness couldn't hide the feeling behind the words. "Too many of us are still unaccounted for." Crusade recalled the dark, stormy night she'd spent in the mountain cave with Mercianne - a frightened stranger who'd shuffled in past the border. She'd told her of Glaciem, but she'd never promised her a safe home. Glaciem was a place bears and blizzards, of avalanches and mountain cats, but the wolfs there were used to the dangers of snow and ice....what they hadn't expected was fire.

Crusade and Gargoyle had discovered Mt. Animi's unrest the day Crusade had gone to plant Xy's head on the peak. For the mountain already carried the name of Crusade's adopted daughter....it was only fitting that it also carry the head of her daughter's murderer. But the stone's trembled underpaw - the first and faintest of the tremors. It was a small warning. But combined with animal senses it was enough. Crusade and Gargoyle had gone back to camp and warned the others that were there....but it was then that all hell broke loose. Smoke trickling up from the mountain in bigger and blacker clouds convinced most to start moving - orders convinced others. But when the rocks started flying from the mountain - flaming and falling from the sky. That moved everyone. The ash... the poison smoke...the red boiling inards of the earth itself.... It was terrible. If Crusade believed in gods she would've been convinced they wished all upon the face of the earth to perish.

But they were still alive. Or most of them anyway. Glaciem, which had been closest to the terrible eruption, was slowly picking up the peices and putting itself back together. For Crusade, each one of those "peices" was a packmate, a family member - nearly all of them she had accepted herself and knew what made them tick. She had lost Glaciem once - and very nearly had so again...each part of Glaciem was precious in her eyes - or eye, rather.

So it was only natural that when she turned to face the Tortugan, her paws beside and slightly in front of Mercianne. It was a calm, unthreatening gesture, but it said clearly "This is mine. You are not allowed to harm it."

But for all that Crusade didn't see an enemy when she looked at the smaller black she-wolf. If the fae had wanted to hurt Mercianne she would've already down so. No. In fact, as far was Tortugan's go, she'd been downright friendly, and Crusade was thankful for the goodwill. She'd known a couple of their pack's sort and they had her respect as hardy, dangerous wolves, in many ways like herself and others of her family, but when it came to the untrained members of her pack she was protective - almost, some would say, to the point of being motherly.

"I've seen other Glaciems and a few Valhallan's, but you're the first Tortugan I've seen since the Exodus. --Forgive me for interrupting your talk, my name is Crusade and I am, for the moment, Chief of Glaciem. May I ask for your name, stranger?"

~*~

~Because .G.i.v.i.n.g. U.p. was something I never learned to do~

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