Location: Lazuli Falls Aranea had been trying to head out more and longer in search of herbs. As Auster experienced the winter and continuous coldening temperatures that came from Boreas, most of the herb plants in the southern continent had been completely diminished and non-existent. They only hid in the deepest of places and it seemed the healers of The Hallows were going to extremes to make sure they gathered them all while they hadn't had time to plant and nurse a lot of herbs yet. The sun was starting to bring the day to an end through the darkening clouds though Aranea had caught on to the scent of some Ginseng Root in the area. Thick flurries had lightly started to fall, but she would still creep her way around the falls while she didn't want to pass up the opportunity that the plant would be dead by the time she could make it out here tomorrow. At the top of the falls, she searched thoroughly at the edge, peeking over every so often to see if it was hanging out on a ledge under the falls. The rivers at the top of the falls were nearly nonexistent as they were frozen and she was careful not to crush the ice around the edges so she wouldn't cut up her paws. If she could spot the herb off the cliff side, it would be a little easier to grab while the falls were only just a tiny stream of water, not that the entire task as a whole was easy in the slightest. She would keep tracking the herb, and at a point her paw pushed against a layer of ice over the stone surface that was covered in a blanket of snow, immediately causing her to slip and fall right over the edge. Her head knocked on a jutted out surface before she could even think she was dying or worse, knocking her out cold. She fell only less than ten feet, not causing any drastic injury other than a few bruises and major cuts, the worst being a large one off her back and down her rib cage from her side cascading off a different jutted surface before she hit a ledge close to the top of the falls. -Fade- Her head and body ached as she came back to, the flurries from earlier gone and the sky darker than night. Frost covered her in a blanket, but she wouldn't notice for at first as her body went from nearly dead to alive in a matter of minutes. She shivered after a little time, probably fighting off hypothermia now that she had been laying here for hours. She laid in a small pool of her own blood though it was all frozen and crystallize running off oh her side and underneath her. At least her ice blood helped close the wound. Her squinted gaze had trouble focusing on her surroundings, her legs weren't ready to work. The world was silent around her until he could hear a grunting like a bear nearby but it wouldn't be a bear not that she wanted it to be either. One of those giant monster wolves were stalking around at the bottom of the falls probably now tracking the scent of her blood. If only her head wasn't spinning and she could just peel herself off the ground, she would have enough time to sneak away before it spotted her. But she wasn't appearing to gain any cognitive skills back just yet. She didn't believe anyone would be out searching for her, Ulric was attending to the needs of his kids the last few nights as they were trying to mend what Ezra had witnessed, not that they hadn't seen each other around the castle. No one else would come around to her room or notice she was missing through out the night. Surprisingly though, her mind set wasn't in a place to think she would die tonight. At least not yet. It would be different if the beast creature was standing over her or even just in view. She was still trying to silently fight to get her body up and moving though, because there would be nothing worse than the extra dire wolf finding her. Seasonal Bonus Prompt Total Word Count: 713 words Word Count Goal: 2500 words Walk "Talk" Think

In the days between when he got the injury from Ezra and now, he had split his time between his duties around the pack, trying to mend and build the relationships with his children, and sneaking moments here and there with Aranea. He'd use his healing leg as an excuse to see her so she could check on its progress and rewrap it if needed. More and more though, he noticed her going out of The Hallow's lands to search for supplies. It made him slightly uneasy considering the state that the weather had been in as of late and even more so with the whispers he had heard from Artorias' altercation with a wolf even larger than himself. In seemed like Ardent as a whole was growing more and more unsafe and the fact that the small healer was out on her own wasn't something he liked. He didn't want to be over bearing so he didn't stop her, but it did give him another reason to check in with her occasionally just to make sure she made it back to the castle alright.

Throughout the day he continued to look for Aranea as he tended to do now, but each time he looked for her he came up empty handed. At first he didn't think anything of it, but as the hours passed and the sun began to set the more worried he became. He hung around outside of her room for quite some time waiting for her to return and still nothing. He could just feel deep in his gut that something was wrong and he wasn't going to be able to rest until he found her and assured himself that she was okay. After quickly making sure that his children had at least found their way to their rooms and letting Resin know where it was going, he ran out of the castle and started tracking the healer's scent. Her trail was difficult to follow through the snow that had recently fell, but he managed to find faint traces all the way out of the castle grounds, past the Shimmering Shore, and eventually led him down to the Falls that he had visited not all that long ago.

As he got closer to the Lazuli Falls, the metallic scent of blood started to drift toward him on the breeze, mixing with Aranea's now familiar scent and making his heart sink into his stomach. His lope changed into an all out run while he quietly cursed himself for not coming to look for her sooner. It was pitch black out now and the only reason he was able to see at all was the moon reflecting off of the snow. He skidded to a stop near the edge of the now frozen pool, sniffing the air and looking around for where her scent was coming from. After a moment of looking around with confusion he finally thought to look up and saw her pale form laying on a ledge below the top of the cliff. "Aranea..." he breathed as his eyes went wide with shock, his ears flicking back with worry. Immediately he started to work his way up to the top of the cliff, already wracking his brain to try and figure out how he was going to reach her.

Once he got closer to the top of the cliff, another scent caught his attention and it made him slow his steps, his silver eyes searching the darkness. He ducked down behind a rock near the top of the cliff as a huge, hulking form of an over grown dire wolf came out of the darkness enough for him to make out its shape. "Shit..." he muttered to himself, gritting his teeth. His only saving grace right now was the fact that the smell of Aranea's blood seemed to be distracting the beast and helped him keep some sort of stealth in the situation. He watched the behemoth of a wolf lumber closer to the edge where Aranea had fell and Ulric knew he was going to have to do something fast to keep it from getting to her. He crept out from his hiding spot, using the holes in the snow that the larger wolf had made so that he could walk up behind him quietly - avoiding giving himself away with the sound of crunching snow.

When he was maybe a foot behind the larger dire wolf he rushed froward and leapt up with a vicious snarl, latching his teeth onto the beast's scruff and beginning the struggle to yank him away from the edge. It was the first time in his life that he had to fight someone larger than him and right away he could tell than any normal tactics he might have tried were not going to work here. The element of surprise he had benefited him long enough to pull the extra dire wolf away from where Aranea was laying a handful of feet below the edge, but soon the snarling, snapping wolf got his bearings again and was able to pull out of his grasp pretty quickly. Ulric stumbled back, feeling one of his feet slip a bit on the ice that coated parts of this elevated land mass.

His opponent spun to face him and lashed out with wickedly large, sharp claws, catching Ulric's right shoulder before he could dodge out of the way. They sliced through his skin, but since he had been in motion to duck out of the way he avoided any more serious damage for now. He righted himself again and growled deeply as he faced down with the larger wolf, looking for any opening or opportunity he could find to get a hit in on the brutal wolf. They began slowly circling as they both seemed to be sizing each other up and Ulric started shifting the path a bit till the wild wolf walked on top of one of the small, frozen rivers unknowingly. His massive weight sent his paw crashing through the thin layer of ice and that's when Ulric made his move. He leapt at the extra dire wolf again, this time biting deeply into the side of his neck near the wolf's throat. A roar of pain filled his ears and he was yanked off of his feat as his opponent tossed his head in an attempt to shake him off. Ulric held on tight, letting his hanging weight do even more damage to the seemingly bulletproof wolf.

As he tumbled onto his side, part of his body hanging in the air from still dangling from the dire wolf's neck, the stranger stepped hard onto Ulric's side, his abnormally sharp claws stabbing into the Adravendi man's ribs. The sudden sharp pain made Ulric gasp as the air was knocked out of him, making him release his neck and fall all the way to the ground with a hard thud, his shoulder taking the worst of the impact. The paw that had been digging into his ribs lifted and tossed him away, making him roll and tumble across the snow a couple of times before he came to a stop a few feet from the edge near where he had climbed up in the first place. His right shoulder was still bleeding from the first initial cuts he received and now he had deep lacerations around the ribs on his right side to add to that along with bruises all along his left shoulder and hip. He couldn't distinguish one pain from another enough right now to tell, but a couple of his ribs were also cracked from the pressure they had received. He struggled to pull himself up onto his paws and before he could get fully upright he saw his opponent charging toward him again, the monster's throat and chest now slathered in deep red from the bite he had given him.

In a panic, Ulric scrambled and threw himself to the side at the last moment, crashing to the ground again and making his teeth mash together against the pain as he landed on his already wounded right side. However, it was all worth it when the larger wolf started scrambling to try and change directions or stop and could do neither thanks to the ice that Ulric had nearly slipped on at the beginning of their fight. The massive wolf's paws slipped out from under him and his momentum carried him right over the edge of the cliff. Ulric listened as heavy thump after heavy thump reached him until everything went silent again. He crawled toward the edge while breathing in hard, shallow breaths, looking down into the darkness till he was able to make out the faint outline of the dire wolf's broken body all the way at the bottom. A heavy sigh of relief left him and his head fell to rest on his foreleg for a moment, gasping in breaths while he tried to catch his breath.

The reason he had come up here to begin with suddenly came back to him and he pushed himself back to his paws, hurrying over to the ledge where he had seen Aranea from the bottom. He fell back onto his stomach on the ledge above her, looking down at her with a breathless whine. "Aranea? Are you okay?" he managed, knowing that she wasn't but just hoping that hearing her voice would lessen his worry a bit.

WC: 1582
Total: 2295 / 2500

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The sound of the struggle would go nearly unnoticed as the beast made its way closer to her, and she had moments of her ears ringing in and out, still not being able to focus on anything. But at some point as her head would be lifted off the ground, her vision would finally catch the figure of Ulric above her off to the side, his body thrashed around in the air off the side of the cliff. "Ul-ric," her voice nearly silent regardless of the highest concern she had. She would become more aware of the stomps and snarls, ripping her body up into an upward position, her legs twitched as she attempted to rise on more than one occasion, eager to get up quicker in order to help him before it was too late. It seemed like time had flown by quicker on her end as the beast lost itself over the edge though Aranea wasn’t entirely sure if it was the banshee or Ulric. She froze for a moment after the shadow passed her by before finally getting herself up enough to crawl to the edge of her ledge and look down. She still wasn’t able to tell fully, until Ulric poked his head out from above her. Her nerves jumped terribly as he spoke out, but as her gaze came to meet his from the ledge, a grin of relief took over her, relief that he was okay instead of her own safety that he had brought. Her front legs wobbled as she continued to rise, Ulric would find a way to get to her before she could stand completely and fall over the edge again, because her brain still wasn’t functioning from the bitter cold she held and her injuries. With the help of Ulric, she would rise completely or be lifted, either was acceptable for her condition. But it was extremely prominent that she was worried little about herself, looking him over best she could and insisting, "Need- Luta- You-" she took a hard swallow, "Need- Luta-" surely she knew in her condition that she couldn’t assist him, but while Ulric was at least in a better mental state than her, it would at least seem she needed more help than he did, even if it was really just warmth and rest that would bring her back to normal. She would insist on staying on her own four legs until Ulric would simply pick her up if he chose to. Her words still not forming any real sentences but she was proving still stubborn that she was fine and they needed to get back for his own injuries. Only Ulric would be able to take control so they could make it back to the castle quickly and still breathing. At least the banshee wouldn’t be in their pursuit. Seasonal Bonus Prompt Total Word Count: 2769 words Word Count Goal: 2500 words (met) Walk "Talk" Think

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he watched her rise to her paws and attempt to climb back up to where he was. At least she was standing, even though there was still a number of injuries on her that looked far too serious for him to know how to treat. The wobble in her legs was obvious and he quickly shifted closer to the edge so he could meet her half way, ignoring the painful protesting his right side gave him in response. He gripped her scruff and helped pull her up over the edge with a pained grunt, the muscles pulling against his ribs only aggravating the already irritated wounds. He didn't care though - as long as he managed to get her safety then it was all worth it. Once she was back on stable land again he got a better look at her and frowned at all of the blood that was caked to her pelt. He knew he didn't look all that much better at this point, but that was the least of his worries.

Her words were disconnected and jumbled at best, barely giving him enough to go off of to decipher what she meant. He needed Luta. He gave a shake of his head and touched his nose to her cheek, feeling how icy cold she was. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine," he insisted despite the wince he gave when he breathed in too deeply. His own well being was the last thing on his mind. "Come on, lets get you out of here." She needed to be somewhere warm and fast. He wasn't a healer, but that much was obvious. Between that and the blood loss all of the worry he held only continued to worsen. He bent down and carefully got her draped across his back, knowing that if left to her own devices there was a chance he'd never get her back in one piece.

It took him a bit of time to get them both down from the cliff safely, but once they were down on level ground again he set off toward the castle at a lope, gritting his teeth to fight through the pain that wanted to slow him down. "Stay awake for me, okay? Keep talking to me. Keep telling me who we need to go see," he insisted, occasionally glancing back over his shoulder at her. The stretches of silence were more terrifying than any fight - the thought that perhaps he arrived too late squeezing his gut and making him move faster.

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Once they got going, Aranea would come in and out of mental consciousness mostly from her throbbing head. Ulric would ask her to keep talking, telling him who they needed to see. A clever response to Aranea’s mental state no doubt. "Luta..." but in her snoozy state it was hard to keep track of what was real and what wasn’t. She clung to Ulric as he moved on, her face buried somewhere in the bloodied fur of his back, "Ty...?" she had realized her mind was only playing tricks on her the instant she spoke the thought, she knew Ty was not here and Ulric was in fact clearly taking her back to The Hallows. Maybe his thought was only surfaced on the brink of death or close to it. Aranea would be fine, and Ulric would be fine. -Fade- After they had been tended to, Ulric had invited Aranea to stay in his room for the recovery, and while she hadn’t verbally accepted, it was after all something she wanted too after such a traumatizing event. She didn’t know what to think of staying in the wing with him and his children, or sharing a room with him beside them. But the feeling was deeply mutual so she joined him after the events. She was physically tired for once, though still tiptoeing across his room as she tried to make herself comfortable without his help at first. Eyeing the bed set up in the room, she turned to him almost waiting for permission, or at least to be asked to join beside him. She wouldn’t say she felt awkward or something of the like, but thinking about staying in his room a while just twisted her thoughts and feelings around while she had his children on her mind. Walk "Talk" Think

He couldn't quite describe how relieved he was to see Aranea up and walking around again. It felt like she didn't quite understand how dire her position had been when he found her, but he wouldn't press the matter either. There was also the distinct possibility that he was over reacting, but he hadn't seen anyone in as bloodied of a state as she was... at least not since his father was killed. He pushed that thought aside quickly as he let her into his room and gently closed the door behind them. It was very, very late at night at this point and he wanted to make it clear to the outside world that he didn't want to be disturbed until they were both done resting. There was also the added worry of how his children - or at the very least Ezra - would react if he saw Aranea here, but he couldn't leave her alone. Not after how this night had gone.

As he made his way over to the bed, moving with only a very slight limp thanks to the pain relieving herbs and ointments he had been given, he noticed how Aranea was fidgeting. Even though he was grateful that she had accepted his offer, he could understand why it was uncomfortable. He smiled softly and hoisted himself up onto the bed, grunting quietly as his aching muscles and ribs protested even that small movement. The bed was made up of an old mattress filled with feathers that was held a couple of feet off the ground by a wooden frame and covered up with several furs that he had laid across it. There was also a few thread worn pillows along the side that met up with the wall.

He settled onto his left side with a relieved sigh. There was a very real moment where he hadn't been sure if either of them would make it back here. Her half frozen on a ledge with so much blood lost and him attacked by a monstrous wolf that could have easily killed him if he hadn't been a more skilled fighter. It really helped to put things into perspective for him and as he turned his silver gaze toward Aranea he found himself looking at her differently as well. "Please join me?" he asked softly as he reclined his head into one of the pillows.

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Her gaze followed as Ulric moved to his bed, getting comfortable as he relaxed his own aching and throbbing wounds. Aranea still wouldn’t speak as he asked her her to join him, only click from her claws as she strained her way over. She was less than hesitant though to nestle up beside him, very clear that his warmth and security was very easily what she wanted in the moment.  Her back faced him while she didn’t really want him to see her face. She tensed as her wounds were disturbed by her trying to get closer than was possible to him, no doubt he would feel a sting too. She would just lay there a while, the only movement in her breath as she fought sleep. Eventually she stirred, rolling her body to put her belly side into him, "Ulric?" she whispered almost silently, searching his face with a tired eye to see if he was sleeping, almost hoping he was for many reasons. Still would continue if he was or wasn’t visibly awake, "I’m scared." she pushed her face and head into his chest, a strange overwhelming feeling in her that she didn’t know how to let out. She was scared of too many things to address even in her head. Scared of her nightmares that would persist tonight. scared that Ulric had pretty much almost died coming to save her. Scared of what the rest of the Hallows would think of her while she had taken Ulric in the time his mate was missing, or what they would think while she had kids in Abaven. Scared of how close she would allow herself to get to Ulric. And scared of Azariah coming back. Walk "Talk" Think

He smiled softly as she joined him on the bed, watching as she laid with her back to him. He was tempted to reach out to her, but even the thought of moving right now made his muscles ache. In the moment he had known he was hurt, but it wasn't until afterward when he had Aranea back within the castle and he was watching her wounds be treated that he really started to feel it. He let his eyes close with a soft sigh and honestly expected to fall asleep immediately with how exhausted he was, but as minutes ticked by sleep never came. He kept replaying the moment that he ran up to the base of the falls and saw Aranea laying lifeless on the ledge... how heart wrenching and terrifying that moment had been. He knew that he would have gone out of his way to help any of his pack mates, but would he have reacted that strongly for all of them?

His eyes opened enough to see the faint outline of her shape in the darkness while his thoughts continued to roll from one memory to another, one possibility to another. At some point he lost track of exactly what he was thinking about - but whatever train of thought he happened to be on always seemed to end in the same place. When Aranea rolled over to face him he was hovering somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, his body unable to decide what it wanted more. His ears perked at her faint, quiet voice saying his name and he tipped his head down to look at her better, just able to make out the blue sheen of her eyes and the faint glimmer of silver in her fur from the moonlight that came in from the window above the bed.

A bit of worry creased his brow as she whispered her fear and pressed her face to his chest, but he also couldn't blame her for being scared - no matter what it was. Whether it was something about tonight, something about them, something about the pack, something about life in general... He felt like just in the last couple of weeks he had basically assisted in turning everything upside down around her and he felt responsible for any amount of fear she felt. He gently tucked his head down over hers and managed to bring his foreleg up to rest it around her shoulders - careful not to touch any of her wounds in the process. "That's okay," he replied just as softly. "I'll protect you."

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She indulged in his embrace, as she had previously, continuing to nestle into the fur of his chest lightly until she was comforted by his warmth and fell into sleep rather quickly despite wishing she didn't need sleep. It seemed though that as Ulric had promised, she was able to shut out the feelings of what his children and The Hallows would think of her, what Allegro would think of her, and everything else along the lines once she found peace beside him. It would be broken though as again, a few hours into the night where the sun would start to rise with a pale grey light poking through the window, she would jolt forward after letting out small whines through the nightmares that plagued her. It may have seemed like she was only in some pain from her injuries that happened the previous day, but it was in fact not the reasoning. Whether Ulric had woke from her disturbance, she would only push her head back into his body even ignoring his voice if he tried to speak out to her, as if waiting for him to fall back asleep or keeping her form against him would keep him asleep, though she wouldn't herself. After a good while she would slink out of his grasp, wincing as her cuts and bruises were disturbed around her, and try as quietly as she could to leave the room. She didn't want him to worry, or maybe just know what she had suffered almost nightly. -Exit Aranea- Walk "Talk" Think

Ulric smiled softly as Aranea pressed tighter into his chest and he gently squeezed her in his embrace. There were no more words to be shared, but he didn't suppose that there needed to be. He laid awake for a little while after he felt her form relax a bit as she eased into sleep. The visual of peeking over the edge of the cliff, seeing her surrounded by a pool of blood, the dark liquid icy and frozen in the frigid coldness of this second winter... It made him hold her just a little tighter. Just as he was about to finally join her in sleep himself, Azariah took her place in that memory and his ears flicked back with worry. He had searched high and low for Azariah when she first went missing, but hadn't found any trace of her... and now his biggest fear was finding her hurt like he had Aranea tonight or worse.

He sighed and forced himself to focus on the warmth of Aranea against him as he eased into exhaustion driven sleep. He wasn't sure how many hours passed between when sleep claimed him to when Aranea's whines woke him up, but he opened his eyes a bit so he could look down at her, squinting against the early morning sunlight. He frowned and gently nuzzled the top of her head as she tucked her head back into his chest again. He was still half asleep so deciphering what the exact cause of it was beyond his current capacity, but that didn't stop him from worrying over her. He held her close as he eventually drifted back to sleep, his worn out body not allowing him to stay awake for more than a few minutes to check on her.

Later in the morning he blinked his eyes open again and very quickly recognized the lack of warmth from where Aranea had once been laying. He lifted his head and looked around for her, but the room was empty. He surprised himself with the pang of disappointment he felt at her disappearance and had to remind himself as he rested his head on the bed again that there was no reason for her to stay. In fact, there was every reason for her not to. Her scent still hung on the furs beside him and when he shifted on the bed a bit the wounds and bruises ached painfully - reminding him that the previous night had truly happened and wasn't a nightmare. His ears flicked back as he battled with his own conflicting emotions and desires for a while before eventually slipping back into a fitful sleep.

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