In Dire Straits

Ash is a peculiar feeling on their paws - soft, like a newborns fur, and finer than any powder or dust. It clings to them like a memory and they can taste copper in the back of their throat like phlegm they just can’t cough out. The dead field expands far out past what they can see, but they know the extent of it. They remember. The war was not so long ago, and they were there, after all. They lived through it - not everyone did.

Nothing grows here. Not yet. In time, the forest will regrow, grass will sprout from the renewed soil and trees spring up into the sky. Time will heal what war had wrought, but til then it was this - barren and desolate.

The dead bodies gave it some color, at least.

Seir gingerly stepped over a (mostly) decomposed corpse, wincing when a stray tooth caught between their paw pads. They sat back on their haunches to work it out, flicking out the tooth with an unimpressed glare at the skull. It was mostly clean, only some too-tough meat still clinging to parts, and Seir absently picked the head up, twisting it this way and that.

“Oh young folk,” they recite with a sardonic note, “if you fear death, die now! Having died once, you won’t die again.” They click their teeth and the head bobs agreeably like a good little hand puppet. Then they toss it back over their shoulder and keep on.

It isn’t who they are looking for. Seir didn't think that they would find her - after all, she seemed the type that would only be found if she wished to be. And they were not so close that she might wish to be found by them. But the thought that she might actually be dead irked them some, enough to irritate, so they searched the bones in the ashes for clues. They hadn't found anything yet, and if it brought something resembling relief to them they didn't acknowledge it.

So they kept looking. If each canine skull stretched the smallest of grins across their maw the slightest of centimeters, no one was there to comment. Not that they could hear.

[a kick, if anyone wants to jump in]

This place reeked.

Not only of death but it stank of decay and failure. Which suited Alteron just fine. The Red Dragon had gone, but had not left a scorched wasteland in her wake. Instead, it was a land that had built itself upon the fallen. That was the kingdom of Alteron. The rulers would fall, the subjects rise. It was a gross, unappealing place to grow up but Edie found herself incapable of wishing to be anywhere else. She had reached the age where you were no longer expected to pay much attention to your family. The only real thing she missed about them was the status that had come with being the daughter of her parents. Perhaps that was a little harsh. They had raised them well... put up with the little oddities that were her siblings. It must also be hard having to deal with the fact that you had just one perfect daughter.

The speckled girl soon scented life through the death and it encouraged her forward, careful not to step in any pools of what was once dried blood but had now turned into a murky black slime that smelt of rancid meat. The living being was a wolf that was around her age. Their coat was covered in patches of dark brown and black, accented by pale markings. Edie held back a shudder as they carried on walking through this place of death as though they didn't have a care in the world. The dire hybrid intended to change that, however.

"Just when I thought a reanimated corpse had appeared before me," she began in a mock surprised tone, wiping imaginary sweat from her brow. "Then I realise it's just a creepy little urchin making friends."

She indicated the skulls of the fallen, still wearing that arrogant smirk even though she wanted nothing more than to flee this place. This place of dirt and failure. "If it's not the desire for companionship that brings you here," Edie continued, looking the other youth up and down. "What is it?"

Despite her disgust and the desire to establish herself as superior than everyone she spoke to, Edie felt curious by this stranger's presence in this part of the packlands. Perhaps they were unimportant enough to be appointed a rank related to this graveyard. Clean-up work, maybe? Gross. She could not imagine picking up the lingering reek of the dead. It was one of those scents that clung to you and could never be shaken off. Even though she had inherited her father's poker face, even Afzhal's famed coldness could not hide the repulsion she felt for lingering in this place. Her inquisitiveness always won out, however. Especially if it resulted in information she could make use of.

seir

seir

Eidith (RP)