Work Text:
East of Limgrave, past Agheel Lake, the Mistwood stretched out like a sea of faded gold. Atop the cliff by the Waypoint Ruins – quiet, now the mad pumpkin head within the cellar had been slain – a bull-horned steed and his rider stood, easily confused with a statue if it weren't for the fluttering of the main and tail of the horse in the faint breeze that did nothing to remove the cloak of fog that clung to the trees below.
The Tarnished's eyes scanned across the forest, sweeping over the horizon from the leftward ruined archway – from where Kenneth Haight was spouting about being ousted from his fort – until they came to rest upon the towering minor urdtree with all it's golden splendor. Of course, it was nothing compared to it's parent far to the north, but it was still a sight to behold, especially now that she had something of a better vantage point. There was even another in sight, northeast of her position, in the place she knew to be called Caelid, though she dared not step into those reddened lands just yet.
Moving past the minor urdtree was Fort Haight, standing proud atop the cliffs overlooking the sea. That was her eventual destination, but she was in no rush to aide the pompous oaf for what she highly doubted would be anything more than a pittance in ways of a reward.
The Tarnished huffed out a breath she didn't know she had been holding and tightened her fingers around the grip of her greatsword, the weight of the blade a faint reassurance as it pressed into the embossed leather collar of the tatty coat she had scavenged off a fallen noble soldier not far from her current position (it smelled old even after she had washed it but it was better than the nothing she had woken up with). Below her, the grey steed let out a snort and shifted, his dropped head and drooped ears a sign of his boredom.
The Tarnished, feeling for the beast, began to say something to her companion, but her eye was caught as the morning light caught on something shiny for but a moment before it was gone and a faint howl reached her ears. Brown eyes, flecked with the faded remains of gold, narrowed as she reached for her pack without looking away from where the glint had been located – a figure, perched on the ruins directly ahead. After some fumbling, and pricking her fingers on a spare dagger twice, she pulled out her telescope and raised it to an eye, closing the other.
The figure was almost indistinguishable at her current distance, vaguely humanoid but that meant nothing to the Lands Between. What the creature was, why it would be howling, and why it was perched on the ruins were all questions to be answered. All the Tarnished knew was that it was a he, and that she should snap her fingers somewhere under his position to call him down from his post.
At least, that's what Kalè had told her to do. The merchant had refused to elaborate, maintaining his air of mischief and amusement at her expense and just leaving her with a vague 'you two might just hit it off' .
Because that didn't sound ominous at all.
Telescope return to her satchel, the Tarnished brushed her fingers over the fur on her mount's neck, scraping her blunt fingernails through the roots of his mane and causing him to stiffen and curl his head around from the enjoyable sensation.
"Just as we dry out from the Peninsula, we have to go back into the damp, eh Torrent?" It comes out as a low murmur so as not to alert the large Miranda bloom in the ruins behind her to their presence. The horse, in return, lets out a snort of agreement. With a soft sigh, the Tarnished gently tugs the reins to the right and squeezes her legs to encourage her responsive steed to turn towards the obvious updraft of a spirit spring, which they amble towards at little more than a lazy walk. "I hate these things." The mutter comes before she gives a sharp nudge with her heel and Torrent lurches into a gallop before bounding like a deer off the cliff.
She feels the drop as her heart lurches up into her throat – along with her stomach, it seems – the wind roaring in her ears until they land with a powerful gust on the ground below from a drop that almost surely would have killed them without the magicks of the spring. She urges the horse away from it before pulling him to a halt, dropping the reins so she can press the back of her hand to her lips in an effort to keep down the meagre offering that was breakfast. Only once she had made sure that it was going to remain down did she spur Torrent on at a gentle trot towards the ruins - and the source of the howling.
Predictably, the mist in the titular Mistwood proved to be the clingy sort, quickly settling on — and seeping into — both the Tarnished's clothes and Torrent's fur. It also proved to be harder than expected to navigate once she was in it. From up above it didn't seem so bad, ever present yes, but deceptive. It seemed thinner from above when in reality it was more a dense fog than a mist. "Fogwood doesn't have the same ring to it," she mused aloud to her equine companion, who didn't deign to respond. Still, she thought, it didn't mean she wasn't right. This was most definitely more like fog. And given it's perpetuity, most likely had some kind of magical nature to it rather. Close to the sea it may be, but even coastal fog rolls in and out in waves and gets blown away by the wind. The first time she saw the Mistwood it was in the middle of a torrential downpour with strong, driving winds and yet the wood still remained true to its name.
Definitely magical.
The warning pink petals of a giant Miranda bloom off to one side caused her to swerve, encouraging Torrent down a short drop and avoiding the ancient, long abandoned graveyard that sat nearby. Just as well, she didn't wish to fight skeletons today, not when she didn't know what other nasties lurked within the Mistwood. Besides, the howling was getting closer, drawing her like a beacon until the ruins faded into view.
It wasn't the only thing that faded into view. From her angle of approach, the great furred backside that stuck out from the ruins was all too apparent and she pulled Torrent to a stop just as a fearful chill rippled through her — one not solely caused by the damp that was now slowly seeping into her smalls. The deep, sonorous rumbles vibrated through her chest and even the ever fearless Torrent seemed a touch apprehensive at the sight. A slumbering rune bear.
How the perpetual howling hadn't awoken the thing was a mystery in and of itself.
Though her view was partly obscured by the tree canopy, the Tarnished squinted up to see the…at first she wanted to say it was a man, squat on the pinnacle of the ruins but as he tossed his head up and let out another howl, the noise was very clearly coming from a wolf's muzzle. Kalè didn't seem the type to be one to intentionally get his returning customers killed on some amused whim, but that didn't mean the Tarnished withheld doubt. It might all be a game to the merchant. And between the rune bear and this howling wolf-headed creature sat above it, there was very little that compelled her to keep going.
That is, of course, except her morbid curiosity. It was a thing that had gotten her almost killed many a time yet and would likely get her killed eventually.
She walked Torrent in a wide circle around the ruins, careful not to wake the slumbering beast, until she found what she assumed to be a safe spot. There wasn't any obvious threats — at least not beyond the wolf-creature above her and the grumbling sleeping beauty hidden from view but very loudly snoring so no one would ever forget it was there. Her neck cranes upwards as the wolf-creature let out another howl, seemingly oblivious to her presence below, and she let out a sigh.
Swinging her leg over Torrent's rump, she dismounted and her steed snorted and vanished in his usual cloud of blue sparkles, something which sparked a grumble from her. He didn't always peace out like that, but given her proximity to things that could easily make him lunch, he had obviously decided to leave her on her own. "Traitor," she grumbled under her breath as the last of the glitter dispersed and she lifted her free hand into the air, fingers poised.
Then she snapped.
The sound seemed to echo through the ruins and the wolf-creature made a noise of alarm, which in turn caused the Tarnished to grip her greatsword in a two-handed stance and take a startled step back just as a grey-blue blur landed with surprising grace right in front of her.
While it may have been her first instinct to swing, she fought the impulse and let herself take in the sight before her. That sight being a giant of a man with the head of a wolf, littered with scars and one glowing purple eye half-closed from what she could only assume to be battle damage. She couldn't help but gawk, blinking at this wolf-man in what seemed to be heavy plate armor and sporting a blade on his back longer than she was tall, her jaw slack. She barely registered that he was even speaking until she noticed those abnormally large tusk-like teeth moving.
"... – recognise that gesture. Kalè sent you, did he? Ever the bloody busybody." The voice that came from the half-wolf was not what she was expecting (though, if pressed, she couldn't really say what she was expecting). It was softly spoken, almost gentle, incredibly eloquent and held a lilt to it that she recognised. She didn't know where she recognised it from or even how, given how lacking her memories were, but all she knew was that his accent — wherever it was from — was very familiar. "Hmm, maybe to him you don't seem so strange." Either the half-wolf was oblivious to his guest's indignation at being called strange or he just didn't care and he just carried on regardless. "The name's Blaidd. I'm looking for a man who goes by 'Darriwil'. He fled somewhere nearby, or so I've heard."
"That doesn't explain why you were howling from the top of the ruins." The Tarnished, now fully knocked from her gawping at this strangely composed and oddly compelling stranger that Kalè had coaxed her towards, finally finding her voice and almost immediately regretting it as one of Blaidd's ears flicks in what she reads as annoyance. Still, she soldiers on. "Surely if he is nearby, howling like that would alert him to your presence and send him running for somewhere that is distinctly…not nearby?"
"Perhaps," Blaidd conceded with a surprising amount of ease, when the Tarnished expected him to take umbridge. "But for the fact that he is not nearby enough to be within earshot. Of this I am certain, as I have scoured the Mistwood with no luck."
The Tarnished opened and closed her mouth at the answer, hoping she would have gotten more of an explanation as to why this mysterious half-wolf would be howling alone, but all she could do is click her jaw shut. After all, maybe that's just what giant wolf-men do. For all she knew it was the wolfy equivalent of a verbal tick.
"Come tell me if you find him before I do, I can offer you ample reward."
There was something about the word ample that shot an odd thrill through the Tarnished, the way his muzzle formed it, the gentle lilt of his oddly familiar accent, the soft way it left his lips which by all accounts should struggle to form plosive sounds but had no difficulty at all. It snagged on something deep within her that caused her to blink at her own reaction. This was no different to any other promise of reward for fulfilling a task and yet there was a very distinct difference between this request and the one from Kenneth Haight, who made her skin want to crawl into the middle of next week. It was a very odd sensation indeed, one she wasn't quite sure she was comfortable with.
"I'm going to need more than a name to go off, Blaidd." His name rolled off her tongue with an ease that almost caught her by surprise, and from the ear that flicked up and focused directly upon her, it seemed to provoke a similar reaction in him. "Who – and what – am I looking for?"
"Darriwil is nothing but a traitor, and in need of a fitting end to his tale." There's what sounds like the faint hint of a growl in Blaidd's voice as he speaks of his mark that causes the same ripple of gooseflesh to spread across the Tarnished's skin that had made an appearance earlier when she had laid eyes on the slumbering rune bear (whose snores still served as a constant background rumble to their conversation). "He's a bloodhound knight. Typical to their kind aside from the treachery he's committed. But aside from his nature, there's nothing special about him. He doesn't stand out among the others of his order — but they're not common, and the sight of a bloodhound knight this far south is telling."
"...right." It's really all the Tarnished could respond with at the information given. Blaidd speaks with such a fire in his gut that she doesn't want to break it to him that she has no idea what a bloodhound knight looked like or acted. It was mostly due to a combination of her own pride and shame that stilled her tongue and made her bite her lower lip with a thoughtful nod.
"Good hunting, Tarnished."
It sounded like a dismissal, a distinctive end to their conversation that would brook no argument or further query. The Tarnished took it as her cue to leave. She backed off, lifting a hand to her lips so she could blow the summoning whistle that caused the familiar cloud of blue sparkles to form under her into a solid shape of her equine companion. Blaidd, on his part, had the decency to look surprised at the steed's sudden appearance.
"Be careful of the rune bear, Blaidd." She didn't wait for any answer, should it be forthcoming, and instead chose to turn her horse on the spot and pick up a swift gallop in the direction of the nearest road — the sudden urge to put as much distance between herself and the strange half-wolf taking a firm hold on her. She most certainly didn't look back.