R Stardust

[Delilah]

The stench of fear was poignant around her. The scent acrid and bitter, unsettling and unnerving. It became paired with the growing rate of her heartbeat, fast and thundering as it hammered against her ribcage. Her lungs heaved with each shallow breath and her legs burned with each pointed thrust. Delilah ran and she did not stop.

Her eyes were wide and bloodshot. Her body merely running off the fumes of her own adrenaline. Exhaustion was the devil in disguise. It whispered sweet lullabies in her ear, primed her for sleep and implored her to rest her eyes—but even wildly uncertain of the path before her, Delilah knew she could not give in. Not yet. Not until she was safe.

In all her years, she had never heard of someone escaping the clutches of the Guild. Others had whispered it was impossible. And yet here she was. Alive and perhaps even free. The reality of the situation, however, was not lost on her. She would not fool herself to think that her freedom would last long. Surely someone would come after her. Certainly, she would be punished for her transgressions. It was obvious that this would only be a fraction of what true freedom could one day feel like.

But Delilah vowed to try, to at least give herself a fighting chance.

Snow crunched beneath her feet as she ran; frantic and careless against the the winter cold. The forest around her towered with its white tipped hands and howling wind—it looked just as eager to enact its vengeance against her, as she believed the ones who tracked her would.

Tears bloomed in her eyes as she pushed forward. Yet, within a few short moments, a hidden pile of roots, a deceptively icy stretch of earth, and a pile of snow would be her undoing. The woman tripped, legs buckling and twisting beneath her—and her body soared against what she would later recognize as a pile of frozen snow and a large tree.

Delilah heard nothing but a loud thunk and the blood rushing through her ears as her body disintegrated into the ground; melting into a place beneath a towering pine. Dots of darkness blotted her vision and with no more energy left within her to fight, she succumbed to the steady shadows of unconsciousness.

[Barbosa]

The world was new and the ground that her graceful strides crossed was travelled with a knowledgeable mind and the poise of a cat. With ease, the wanderer traversed the landscape with a slow and steady gait. Serenity was her mind, centred and focused on her nomadic ways. Little was a discomfort the woman, at the peak of her life exploring the unknown world. She'd come far since her time in the desert. She'd come far since the canadian wilds and their harsh winters.

Composed, a woman of discipline, and yet she'd not sacrificed empathy for it. Her face was as warm as it had ever been. Her manners always openly accepting of everyone until they'd proven otherwise.

It was weaving through the woods that the healer found immense satisfaction. Joy beaming across her open maw as she pounced over limbs and roots. The snow had been heavy in this region but even she knew that this cold snap wasn't to last long. The days were chilling to the bone and the night ever colder, preserving the fluffy white blankets and transparent sheets of ice. Spring was a couple of moon cycles away and then her job was to begin in full again. A healer. It was a difficult profession for a wolf who travelled often which is why she often used the colder months to keep moving. Not much she could help with when she did not have an inventory hidden away, a cache to keep supplies.

It worked better for her this way, but it did make her job harder if, and when, she came upon somebody in need.

She was often concious of her surroundings, scents breathed through her nose and into the depths of her senses. She knew the animals that littered her trail, the wolves who took purchase to various plots of land. It was her duty to be aware. Nose, eyes and ears.

So when a thump echoed a little ways off. Barbosa easily diverted her route with curiosity.

Perhaps it was sadistic, to wonder if it was somebody injured. Or better yet, kindly to hope that nobody was in pain. She followed her nose to a wolf, the sound only attracting her to the body's direction. No blood, not that she could smell yet but an injury was likely too fresh. Just a wolf that Barbosa initially approached with curiosity until she found herself sighting the body in a heap on the snowy forest floor. Paw steps quickened then, her eyes becoming her key source of information. Watching, studying.

No movement, but there was breathing. Unconscious was the apothecary's first thoughts from the appearance of the body. The lithe frame lay beneath a tree amongst the mounds of snow, a dusting of the white dust across the she-wolf's pelt. She was young, this wolf. Though not a yearling, perhaps just graduating from that youthful period of her life. And skinny. If there was injury, the frailness worried Barbosa.

She approached with caution, in hopes not to spook the girl, however did speak softly in hopes it would lure her back around.

"Oh you poor dear... What a position you've gotten yourself tangled into..." she uttered, lowering her muzzle to gently nudge the doe of a wolf behind the ear.

[Delilah]

Her body twitched beneath the darkness of her subconscious, paws jerking spasmodically as she fell deeper and deeper into the gloom. Beyond the shadows of her thoughts were images, faces, and voices. Each one causing a minuscule crack to form against the poorly built walls of confidence she tried to manage. Within her thoughts, her body cowered against their ghastly, growing shadows—watching as each of her perpetrators drew closer and closer. The words that echoed in reality were transformed, mutilated and distorted in her subconscious. The voice of sweet kindness was mutated into something far darker and far more evil. Delilah cried out, the voice a sickening shriek inside her head, and a whispering mewl in the outer world.

Her body jerked forward once more, this time paired with the widening of her eyes as her breathing came in short, labored spurts. At first, the world was nothing more than a blurry palette. Shades of white, gray and brown all muddled together to create something abstract, something different than the forest she had previously been a part of.

But the smell that nestled around her was odd, unfamiliar and strange. The forest had not smelled like that before, hadn’t it?

And then her vision sharpened.

Lilah let out a squeak of surprise as her body pushed against the tree that steadied her and a pale gaze fastened against another. Her paws scrambled haphazardly around her, neither pushing herself to her feet nor doing anything productive to flee from the situation, either. Instead, she shook—waves of trembling quivers erupted across her flesh like an ocean’s surface in the midst of a storm.

Her ears pulled back against her skull, tightening as she chattered, “P-p-please, l-l-let me be on m-m-my way. I-I p-promise, I-I meant no h-harm.”