SHIBA KLEIN

Shiba had always believed herself to be completely in control of her emotions when she was young, so much so that she hadn’t realized just how messed up she’d been after having to leave her homelands behind. The loss was something she’d ignored, swept under the rug and pretended it hadn’t affected her. She’d found her remaining family twice, and twice she had lost them again. For a while she told herself it had been an accident, incompetence at being alone perhaps. But once she found Deathbelle and Ashen, she finally realized that her wounds cut much deeper than she’d allowed herself to think. She had expected to return and feel at home and have everything settle into place and resume as it had been before, but she quickly realized how foolish the thought had been. Everyone had moved on, created a new space for themselves in this land she was still unfamiliar with, while she had still been stuck in the past. Most of those in Ashen had been her family, she’d known many of them before, but she somehow felt like a stranger among them. Like they were somehow worlds away from where she was, they had grown, and things had changed in ways she’d never dreamed of, and she hadn’t minded the changes exactly. It was just… different.

When she left on her most recent adventure, she never intended to be gone for so long. Just a few days to wrap her head around everything, to process and come up with a plan for what exactly she should do with herself. The last thing she’d expected was to find him. A beast of a man curled in the dirt, with horrible festering wounds that smelled like death, the light wiped from his one remaining eye. As desolate as he seemed, he gave her something she hadn’t expected. Hope, a challenge. As deplorable as his condition had been, it excited her. The thought of the challenge that would come from her trying to piece him back together was one she’d never faced before and damnit, she wasn’t about to walk away from that. His wounds were deep, and old, and vile, and it was just what she needed.

The process had taken more time than she’d expected, but she’d been so lost in the work at hand she hadn’t quite noticed the passing of seasons. His younger sister had been with them as well, and while she was timid and fearful, she’d been helpful enough. The girl had been vital in those first weeks when Shiba’s every waking moment had been spent cleaning wounds, scraping out infected tissue, and trying to gather all the herbs she needed. The work had been tedious, but well worth it. If nothing else, it built her confidence. To take a man on the brink of death, someone who was so clearly ready to let go and give in, and breathe life back into him…. She wasn’t even sure if he was grateful for the effort spent on him, but he had agreed to go to Boreas with her, as he had a debt to pay. What exactly she planned to ask of him was as much a mystery to her as it was to him, but as long as she kept him close, she had plenty of time to figure it out.

"We can rest here for the night. If my memory serves me correctly, my family shouldn’t be too much farther." She glanced to her traveling partner, doubting he’d have any objections. His sister had remained close during their travels but tended to spend most of their down time tucked away out of sight, which Shiba didn’t bother the healer any. She was far more intrigued by Mikko anyways. The fact that he was so guarded made things interesting, and in all the time they’d spent together thus far, she’d only managed to catch a few details about him and his life before they met. Acciona had helped to fill in some of the information, but the man seemed to give as little detail as he could get away with. "How are you feeling?" She questioned lightly, sitting a short distance away from him.

"Speech."

A living body can only take so much torment before it crumbles, and Mikko...well, his had been so great that his mind had blocked much of it out. That, or he simply hadn't been coherent enough to grasp whatever had happened between then and that first restful morning that had followed so many months later. Regardless, any attempt to relive the past few seasons only left him foggy, angry, and--admittedly--a little sick to his stomach. A combination that wasn't easy to create in Mikko. Yet, as he staggered absentmindedly behind Shiba and his sister, he might have looked as feeble as he felt.

One thing that did manage to hold his attention, and had ever since she'd first found them, was the ashen female whom had brought him back from Death's door, even despite some of his quiet attempts to resist the slow trickle of life back into his bones. If there was any way that Mikko felt, it wasn't that he'd been deserving of any amount of help, let alone the literal blood, sweat, and tears that this still near-stranger had rained down upon his broken body. So why had she? What in the gods' great names had this...passerby...seen in what could've very well been a corpse lying in her path?

And what did she want from him?

He felt he had a debt to her regardless, but she'd still made it clear that she expected to be repaid for the immense time she'd spent on him. In what way she still had yet to specify, but she didn't entirely seem like she was hiding anything. Yet, anyway. At least for now, Mikko allowed himself to be strung along by her, resigning himself to the fact that if she'd patched him up and treated Acciona well, then surely nothing she'd ask of him could be as nightmarish as all the things the siblings had left behind.

"We can rest here for the night," she said, though before she could finish, he was already easing onto sore haunches, glancing with some hesitation at the fireflies that floated up from the ground in flight of his much larger body. Taunting him, they were, like a bunch of little stray eyes in the sky. Mikko then skimmed their surroundings briefly for any sign of Acciona, but she'd already taken the signal as her cue to disappear for the night. A clenched jaw, a slow blink in the direction he'd guessed she'd taken. Until Shiba pulled his attention back to his own present, checking in with him to see how he was feeling.

"I'm alive," he sighed hoarsely, turning away with some force to bring his focus to the woman. Mikko studied her closely for a few seconds through his single eye. "What about you? You're about to see your kin for the first time in seasons." And if he knew anything about that, it was that those reunions tended not to go over well, particularly when they were the result of an absence left unexplained.

"

table by Lowin art by kara

SHIBA KLEIN

His response was minimal, but that seemed to be his way. When she’d first stumbled on him, she had thought his lack of conversation was due to his condition, but even as his wounds healed, he remained as rigid as always. His company was not unpleasant though, otherwise she’d have left him behind much sooner. Too much time had been invested though, and now she was determined to worm her way past those walls he’d built up. He would warm up to her eventually, even if she had to light the fire herself.

"Indeed I am." She paused for a moment, thinking about how the reunion might go. It would not be the first time that she crept back with excuses for her absence, but last time she’d at least had the justification of never having known where everyone had settled. This time, all she had to show for her time away was the half-healed, scar riddled brute before her. She’d been intrigued by him enough that the time away had been worth it, but she wondered if anyone else would see it that way. Now that he was in better shape he could go about rebuilding his strength, and she was certain he could make a formidable warrior if he was willing to put in the work to regain all he’d lost. One extra body to add to Ashen’s strength could not justify what had nearly been a year's absence, though.

"It will be interesting, but they’re family. I’m sure all will be forgiven." Even if it meant it would take time for her to prove herself once more. At least this time around, she would have someone at her side who would feel just as misplaced as she did. She still couldn’t understand why she had felt so off when she returned to her family, but she supposed, in retrospect, she’d now spent more than half of her life as a loner. She’d been quite young when she’d been dumped out into the world on her own, without the comfort and protection of a pack. She’d grown so much when she finally found everyone again, and so had they. They’d grown into different people than the ones she’d known before, and she had been so caught off guard by it. It seemed almost laughable now, to think that she had once thought that she’d be able to step back into her old life when she found them, that things would even be remotely close to being as they were before.

She looked away, letting her gaze fall to the water. "I’ll search for something to help with the pain tomorrow. It might still be a few days before we head to the borders." She wanted to take a look around, and perhaps gather some useful herbs to bring home with her. Not that she thought it would make a difference, but it would at least make her feel a bit better about things. Plus, she still needed to decide if showing up with Mikko at her heel would be the best plan, or if she should go and explain things first, and bring him along later.

"Speech."

No, he certainly wasn't feeling like an open book, but Shiba's pokes and prods didn't irritate them as much now as they might have done in the past--or as much as they might have coming from other wolves. They made him a little uncomfortable in the way that they forced him to revisit things more than his busy mind was already prone to do, but at least for now, his sparing answers were good enough for her, which did well enough to minimize the discomfort. It probably helped, too, that they'd already gone for so long with so few words between one another. Her company had become somewhat of a constant, with their streaks of silence bringing him back to those first few inklings of relief when she'd tended to wounds everyone else had forced him to let fester. As for Shiba herself, she seemed content enough with his willingness to stick around even after finding his feet again--and hell, if that was all he had to do until she decided what she wanted from him, then he was equally content to keep it up.

He wasn't surprised by her careful response to his observation, but it intrigued him nonetheless. Mikko didn't know much about the woman besides the fact that she had kin waiting for her somewhere around here, and that her intention was to return to them as soon as she was able, but what he'd failed to notice until now was the possibility that maybe she wouldn't be able to do that so easily. He sensed a hesitation to her voice, perhaps the slightest tinge of uncertainty, though that could've come from his tendency toward pessimism as she spoke hopefully of her family's patience. After all, "they're family," she said. "I'm sure all will be forgiven."

Mikko's expression remained unchanged as his fur bristled down the length of his spine. With a twitch of his empty eyelid, he glanced away. "Right."

From the corner of his gaze, he saw her look away too. For a little bit, his attention lingered on the fireflies that lit up the air as hers did on the water, but then she spoke up again. She offered to forage for more herbs in the morning, but he quickly shook his head. "Don't," he said, abruptly at first before he managed to push her last words out of his head, after which his features and tone softened into something less hostile and more...defeated. "Don't worry about it. You've done plenty." His next thought lingered on the tip of his tongue before he took the chance and voiced it. "Use this time to prepare...while we have it." For how she'd handle her family when they found them, for how they might handle her.

"

table by Lowin art by kara

SHIBA KLEIN

The bristling fur on his spine at the mention of family didn’t go unnoticed, and she thought for a moment that maybe the comment had been in poor taste given his circumstances, but she would need to get tougher skin if he was going to stick around. In her world, family meant something, and if it remained a touchy subject for him, he’d have a hard time adjusting to this new lifestyle. She ignored it though, not feeling it was necessary to comment on. He would adapt in his own time, or else those emotional wounds would continue to fester, and unlikely the missing eye and the rips in his flesh, there wasn’t any combination of herbs she knew of that could fix the infection in his soul. Only time, and patience, and effort on his part would be able to do that.

She raised a single brow at his adamant outburst that she not search for herbs for him, though. He was recovering quite nicely, but if he overexerted himself he could set back the timeline on his progress. The strength he’d managed to build back up thus far could quickly unravel and make all the work she’d done entirely meaningless. She frowned slightly, but didn’t argue. "Alright, then." He knew himself better than she did, knew his own limits. If he disagreed with her assessment that he needed a bit of a boost, she would listen, and if it was only a stubborn man’s pride that brought about the protest, he would be the one to pay the price. She was, if nothing else, a persistent woman.

The tip of her tail flicked once as she glanced around to see if she could catch a glimpse of his younger sister. "Acciona mentioned she’d been to Boreas before. I never thought to ask if you had." She still wondered just what kind of relationship he had with the woman, as the siblings conversations often seemed just as strained as theirs were. If they’d both been here before, she doubted they’d spent much time in each others company.

"Speech."

To his relief, she let his outburst slide, and he took the brief span of silence between them to finish reeling himself back in. Somewhere within himself was a version of Mikko that neither recognized nor praised the version of him who acted with such , but the former was locked away so securely, and for his own protection, that it was a mystery even to the latter where the key was. At least Shiba had been there to see the reason for it. Or, at least, a small part of it. Of course, she was only trying to help, but the thought of her doing much more for such a useless creature, after she'd already done so much, was enough to put the brute beyond his (very tight) comfort zone.

Mikko glanced at her again and momentarily tried to follow her eyes before realizing what (rather, who) she was likely trying to find. It was then, as if reading his mind, that she spoke up again, hinting at a question in the way that she pondered aloud his and his sister's history. So this was where Acciona had escaped to all that time ago? Suddenly, or perhaps not, his ears perked just a little, a wary curiosity glazing over his one eye as he straightened himself and took his turn to absorb their surroundings in greater detail. Did this mean they were finally free, now that they sought refuge here together? "Never had the option," he rumbled, almost thoughtfully. He looked to her again. "What all did she tell you?" Had she been up to good things here? Had this place been good to her?

"

table by Lowin art by kara

SHIBA KLEIN

He seemed relatively comfortable in the silence, but her question seemed to bring a certain alertness to him that she hadn’t expected. Did he not know Acciona had been here before? She knew that the siblings’ relationship was strained, and neither of them seemed to excel in the communication department, though the girl seemed to put forth a bit more effort than he did. Still, it surprised her that he hadn’t known. She wasn’t sure if leaving that information out when speaking to her brother had been intentional, or if she’d not thought it would matter much to discuss with him. Either way, if the girl wanted her secrets kept, she would need to learn to not share them with those who she didn’t know well enough to trust. She doubted that it was a secret anyways, it seemed a silly thing to hide, so when Mikko asked what Shiba knew, she shared the information freely.

Her tail flicked once as she looked at him, noticing a sort of emotion there that she hadn’t seen much of before now. Was it concern for his sister?  Curiosity? "Not much. Just that when she came here she was found by an alpha who took her in and offered to protect her if she worked and pulled her weight. She stayed off too far while hunting one day when Enno found her." Given the details, she was surprised the girl didn’t stick closer to her and Mikko, but she would admit that she’d noticed something change in her over the seasons that she’d been tending to Mikko’s wounds. Perhaps she’d built up a bit of confidence, or maybe she was just more comfortable here since it was more familiar. "I suspect she’ll be returning to the pack she was a part of before." She watched him closely, wondering if he would ask to be released from her charge to go with his sister. Of course, once his debt was paid, he’d be free to go wherever he chose. For now though, he belonged to her.

"Speech."