Hanging Threads Loosely Woven

As the soldiers started to disperse and grunts were left to pick up the pieces of those that fell, he had put it on himself to deal with the only one that held any significance to him as his fangs snared a scruff and dragged her northward. It would be wiser to lock her up if she was insisting on being a brat that couldn’t just stay out of this. Even Gwydion was missing from the fray, seeing no traces of him, caught none of his cologne on the winds. He was the one he had always expected to turn, to run off and start a life of crime that would push him to his limits as a sibling and officer. Yet, it was his sister that lay here now, unconscious partially from his own doing but mostly from that man of red. There was agitation that swelled in him at the cruelty she had obtained from someone else when she was barely conscious as it was, that another soldier had gone overkill and she was lucky she wasn’t dead though her body was sure bloody and bruised.

She looked like a crime scene and where he felt she deserved some reprimand for fighting against the state, in the end, he couldn’t subject her to the squalor of the cells again when soldiers would likely abuse her. Where morals only slightly flickered in some instinctual display of care for his own blood, he wasn’t so sure it was that at all. His mind waged war on if he cared, if he would feel anything had she died, especially by his own fangs.

He would release her scruff, coming to sit next to her now that they were nearing the borders of the Highlands. Silently he leaned over her, watching her lungs, making sure she was even breathing with how shallow each breath was. At times he would think she was dead, only for the twitch of eyes under lids or her nose would chase away that suspicion. His eyes narrowed as he lowered his head down to look more closely, to make sure it wasn’t just reactions to death, the body spasming. Maybe he’d feel her breath bat him and prove she was very much still alive. “Orlaith...” he said on a bated breath. When that seemed to do nothing, he'd take a breath in. “Orlaith!” he barked in her face sharply like a drill sergeant, seeing if she might jolt awake.

table ; bunny

Adrenaline pulsed through her veins, pumping with each frantic heartbeat that thrummed within her ribs. A cascade of emotions flashed within her wide, frenzied eyes - anger, shock, and fear. Gone was the confidence she'd felt in battle, replaced only with the impending knowledge that she would very well die on this battlefield.

Every way she turned, another face with teeth hungry for her blood. Wolves she had never seen before seeking to end her life. And then Arran was there... Regret blossomed in her chest, spreading rapidly as her body erupted in such bright pain, bones caving and shattering under the force of a much larger wolf than she, as her world went dark.

Nightmares plagued the coma Orlaith was involuntarily placed in. The faces of those who intended to harm her chasing her endlessly as she tried to get away. But as hard as she tried to run, somehow they managed to keep up. They lunged, teeth scraping at her skin. Blood welled, but she felt nothing. Nothing but such intense, debilitating fear. Perhaps to those in the conscious world, they would find the woman whimpering in her slumber. Her ears would press against her bloody skull, face pinching in terror and panic.

Her body was incredibly battered. Blood was caked into her earthen furs, covering more of her than what was still clean. Where there wasn't her own blood, there was others or mud or who knows what else. Bones weren't just broken, but shattered underneath bruised and torn flesh.

Thankfully, she was unconscious as Arran unlovingly drug her around.

"Orlaith!"

Her name was yelled at her, and she awoke with a sudden gulp of air. It left her lungs as a scream; the first image registering in her bloodshot eyes being the visage of her blasted brother. Lips, dry and cracked and bloody, curled over stained teeth as she lunged upwards at his face. It was reactive, a decision she didn't even think about, but her body could not perform. If anything, he would easily be able to deflect her.

Still, the fury bubbled within her and brightened her hazy eyes.

And then a shudder rocked her form, her muscles quivering uncontrollably as the agony of the aftermath from battle set in. The last moments flashed as blurry images in her head, and she tried to curl into herself, to escape her mind and reality. She had no energy to hear whatever argument Arran wanted to start. She didn't care about his righteous bullshit, especially not now.

"Why'd you bring me here?" her voice was hardly a whisper, and was hoarse. The extent of her injuries was evident in the tone. "You should have left me to die. That's what you want." the events over the last few months had convinced her that Arran didn't give a shit whether the rest of his family lived or died through the war. So why was he here? Where even was here? She couldn't bring herself to look around and investigate. All she wanted was Eli and her sons.

art + code: clae

Ears sharply pinned when a screech pierced his ears and chased away birds that had been watching overhead, likely expecting a meal of leftover scraps but they were gravely mistaken creatures. His head raised up, tilting back with a confident looming demeanor that enveloped her in shadow. Nose wrinkled as unpolished fangs snapped up at him, proving time and time again that she was the volatile one and not him in his own mind. She should be grateful he was here, not treating him as the villain of this story. If he wanted her dead, she would be already. He would have ensured her unconscious body would be left as only a corpse, a perfect example of why one shouldn’t shine their fangs at their king and his soldiers. Why following the law was the optimal choice to live if one cared about the well being of their neighbors.

Rather than be intimidated by her violent greeting, he would take a step forward, emeralds burning into the brilliant weak blue topaz that mocked him. That rebellion in her eyes didn’t match her body as she trembled as though she was cold and frostbitten. It didn’t take long for him to deduce that it was pain that fueled those shivers as she had been crying even in her sleep. The way she sunk into her own body, perhaps fear also found purchase within and it was comical she seemed to think he was a threat to her right now if that were the case.

Ears would move forward to catch her lyrics, feeling like she had been reading his inner monologue but only halfway. She didn’t catch the fine print as it came out in questions that would have already been answered for her. “You strive to fight a war against your own blood, hurting father and I yet you can’t differentiate between home and the very earth you fight on? This is the border to the Highlands, the threshold from Melrose to Aberdeen. Your salvation away from those that wish to ruin you,” a calm reply as he slowly turned his body and walked around her, circling her with only the faintest limp due to his injuries. They were nothing as dire as she appeared to have. That dog pile could have been even worse than it was, and he was enraged that anyone else had so much as looked at his sister.

He’d slow to a stop as he got to her weaker side, taking in her injuries that probably had gotten worse from his less than kind way of bringing her here. Gentle yet with a little more force than was needed, his forehead would knock against her head. A habit he had as a toddler to insight play with his siblings back when he wasn’t one glued to codes and conduct. It wasn’t a means to play in this situation, however, but it was a way to show she was wrong and perhaps it was some inadvertent way of showing sibling affection. No matter how she took it, he would sit down next to her, allowing her head and shoulder to rest against his hip so that she could be slightly upright if she wanted. He was lacking words to speak which was a first for him, not wanting to spill his feelings and admonishments after just having a similar conversation with their father.

Letting out a breath, he'd instead ask her a question back. "Why are you fighting for Jacob of all beasts? That goes against both our parents, not just father," he scoffed, thinking of how his mother was Voxi last he knew back when it was a pacifist party. Had that changed? Was she fighting too, and he just didn't see her?

table ; bunny

Adrenaline pulsed through her veins, pumping with each frantic heartbeat that thrummed within her ribs. A cascade of emotions flashed within her wide, frenzied eyes - anger, shock, and fear. Gone was the confidence she'd felt in battle, replaced only with the impending knowledge that she would very well die on this battlefield.

Every way she turned, another face with teeth hungry for her blood. Wolves she had never seen before seeking to end her life. And then Arran was there... Regret blossomed in her chest, spreading rapidly as her body erupted in such bright pain, bones caving and shattering under the force of a much larger wolf than she, as her world went dark.

Nightmares plagued the coma Orlaith was involuntarily placed in. The faces of those who intended to harm her chasing her endlessly as she tried to get away. But as hard as she tried to run, somehow they managed to keep up. They lunged, teeth scraping at her skin. Blood welled, but she felt nothing. Nothing but such intense, debilitating fear. Perhaps to those in the conscious world, they would find the woman whimpering in her slumber. Her ears would press against her bloody skull, face pinching in terror and panic.

Her body was incredibly battered. Blood was caked into her earthen furs, covering more of her than what was still clean. Where there wasn't her own blood, there was others or mud or who knows what else. Bones weren't just broken, but shattered underneath bruised and torn flesh.

Thankfully, she was unconscious as Arran unlovingly drug her around.

"Orlaith!"

He approached her, closer this time, despite her rude greeting. His eyes bore into hers, full of judgement and almost.. confusion. She stared back at him, unwilling to flinch under his gaze. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

“You strive to fight a war against your own blood, hurting father and I yet you can’t differentiate between home and the very earth you fight on? This is the border to the Highlands, the threshold from Melrose to Aberdeen. Your salvation away from those that wish to ruin you,”

She wanted to scoff. He walked around her, and she watched as all she could think of was how disgusting he was. He made himself to be all hoity-toity, as if him being in the army somehow made him better than her. As if those suppressors were honourable, as if King Adamh was fair to all. She should have laughed, but she didn't have the energy. Did he honestly believe she was fighting for Jacob? She watched, in silence, as he spoke his wrong observations. She watched, and noted the limp - though it was slight - that caused him to not look as invincible as he thought he was.

However, despite all her strong, unbridled feelings at this very moment, she couldn't find it in herself to argue again. And this realization almost made her more angry - he was here, all prim and proper, forcing her into a situation she couldn't physically match him with. He drug her to the border and now spewed his word vomit, expecting her to actually understand, to what, see his side?! Orlaith worked herself up within her own mind, frustrated and angry and furious and and and--

Then he knocked his forehead into hers, like they had done when they'd just learned how to wobble to each other. The memory came to the forefront of her mind, fresh as if it were yesterday.

And all of the rage melted away, if only for a few moments.

So the baby sister leaned into her brothers touch, breaking down the walls of hurt. She soaked in his warmth for what felt like the first time in years; allowed the tears to brim along the edges of her brilliantly blue eyes. They glistened like fresh struck jewels as she looked up at him, her bottom lip quivering as she struggled to find something, anything to say. But nothing came. The words could wait - she relished in this moment, in feeling like she had a big brother again (Gwydion was fantastic, of course, but she missed the protection she used to feel as a pup with Arran). She was terrified that it would be fleeting.

"Why are you fighting for Jacob of all beasts? That goes against both our parents, not just father,"

Orlaith was quiet, listening to him without immediately rebutting with any retort she could think of. Her body ached; wounds oozed her life fluid and she briefly wondered if she was dying. Her heart quickened at the thought of her pups, of Elias, of her mother. But she forced herself to think about the question asked of her.

She knew the truth, but would he accept it?

"Would you believe me if I told you I was just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time... multiple times?" she watched his reaction, afraid of the answer despite her words being honest. "I don't fight for anyone but my family. I was scared... I was angry, after the first time.... I was running--" her breath hitched in her throat as a sob threatened to overtake her body, "Arran, why did you attack me so long ago? /I was running,/" tears flowed freely down her cheeks, dampening the dark fur there as she quietly cried. What had happened to them?

art + code: clae

He could see the war raging inside her eyes, the ones that protested everything he was saying and flickered even more alive with every word that spilled from his lips. There was expectation for her to attack him again, his muscles flexing under his coat with a brace for the worst, hardly expecting her to remain tame. She was a wildcard since they became adults and he wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing which card she pulled out to use on him next.

Gwydion was at least predictable, as far as he could remember, the biggest coward of them despite thinking himself a hotshot. She was more the other side of his own coin and perhaps that was why her opinions and actions bothered him even more because he had always seen her as the one he was closer to. It should be the other way around, he should despise the fact she was so unapologetically a Highlander, the very thing he snapped his fangs at to try to be something more. Perhaps it was because though he didn’t go chasing fairies, he did believe in the fae just as she did and he hadn’t minded her ever spouting about it while Gwydion had been so quick to stomp on it. They both also stuck far closer to their own views, fighting for who they were and what they wanted.

They weren’t so different in mind, only in their sides of which they stood for. He could respect her if he allowed himself to and perhaps that is why he allowed childish habits to win now and with it, she seemed to melt far more than he ever would have guessed to his touch. His brow wrinkled just a little as she leaned into him, having not expected this outcome at all, thinking she would remain feisty till the very end to show her apparent hurt. How wrong he was. How truly they broke one another more than he’d ever admit.

Cutting ties always seemed to fail for him as he wilted with her to a nicer time, for a moment feeling a familial love that had been missing from his life for nearing two years. Where she looked intensely to his eyes, his own would close, soaking in everything silently as he waited for her response.

As she did speak, he didn’t move, ears tilting to each rise and fall and crack of her voice straining against tears. It was far easier not to break more if he couldn’t see her, if he couldn’t take in her tears. His thoughts would travel to the merchant and how she also seemed to have that habit of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, the amount he was willing to go to get her out of ever falling into the jails last time. His jaw clenched tightly toward the end of what she had to say and his eyes would finally flicker back open, taking in water caressed eyes. He didn’t wish to answer her because he felt like he had to tell the truth and not some pathetic excuse.

“I didn’t think you were running. I didn’t think much of anything but my job during any of this,” he broke off, letting out a snort as he wasn’t keen on what he was about to say at all. “I feared for my own hide. Feared the treason I would be marked with if I didn’t separate feelings from duty and the death I would be rewarded with. It was safer for you being jailed by me than for anyone else to deal with you…the same reason I tried to keep our fight only between us today, until that Tiamat butted in. They are killers, Orlaith, one of their own is an executioner. I wasn’t going to allow them to kill you and that was the best way I could think of to save us both,” it was a rare entry to his mind, one only his sister was allowed to see for a moment. That didn’t mean that vulnerability would stay, already snapping as he hated this feeling of honesty about his insecurities.

table ; bunny