Lost and Found Again

[DragonSong]

@Imperfect_M



Only very specific pathways exist between the lands of the Fae and the realm of mortals. Some of her kind could travel without them, but it took a great effort of will and magic to accomplish such a task. Magic that required a faerie be hale and whole.

She was neither, and yet she did it anyway.

Anoria knew it was dangerous, but she could not stand to be in the Glade a moment longer. Its Keeper was kind, and she truly had needed the rest, but she could no longer stand to feel the pitying eyes on her every time she turned her back. She knew Lakali meant well, but the careful way she treated her only served to fuel a burning sense of rage and self-pity that she'd spent the better part of the last several years attempting to suffocate.

The problem was that the Moonlit Glade existed both in the realms of her birth and in the mortal land; it was easy to cross between the two there, but she wouldn't actually escape it if she did.

So, as she followed the faint, spiraling path that circled to the center of the Glade, she reached out to the inherent power of the place and sought to twist the path, guide it just slightly of course, just for a moment, so with her next step she found herself not in the Faerie Glade, but...somewhere else.

It worked. To an extent. And it hurt.

Anoria sank to her knees as she stepped through the veil between worlds and pain jolted through her body, drawing all the strength from her body in less than a moment. She threw out a hand to brace against the earth and gasped desperately, lungs burning, and though she was panting near frantically it still felt as though she could not draw breath.

The last flickers of magic from her foolhardy attempt shimmered in the air around her, a faint halo of blue and silver light, then faded. Shivers wracked her frame and the slight faerie raised her head to look around, vision blurry, as she desperately tried to make sense of her surroundings.

She could make out vague shapes, too carefully arranged to be natural formations of stone or wood, and what might have been the flickering light of a fire pit--beyond that, it was all blurred colors and tilting shapes.

Where...where was she?

[Imperfect_M]

The campsite wasn't totally complete. Not yet, at least. But Aksho had been hacking away at it since he settled down in this part of Serendipity. Out of the way of the Humanfolk, secluded, and quiet in its own way. He had set up a trio of A-Frame huts to keep himself, his equipment, and his supplies out of the elements. He had a little smokehouse to one side, and a rack for drying meats he had butchered. Tanning racks were ordered about, as were a set of flat stones he had piled neatly to give himself a butchering table or an herb-preparing table while sitting down. Many- even among the Fae- will say that the Beastfolk are a wild and savage people, but the Beastfolk themselves cared little for the ignorance of outsiders. They certainly knew how to make themselves comfortable while in the wilderness, and old Aksho was no exception.

The beastman had shed his armor and weaponry, simply opting to carry a utility knife around his camp. This night was no different than the several he had spent setting this camp up. The elder beast squat idly as he cooked catfish filets and marinated boar flank steaks across a pair of long, flat stones set across his firepit. Suspended above the firepit was a ceramic pot filled with steaming garlic rice. Aksho took a deep breath, savoring the coalescence of smells as he cooked. He enjoyed this part of the night. It was... Peaceful.

Was being the key word.

For the second time since he arrived on this side from the Faewild, a lone something stumbled face-first into his camp. Aksho chuffed in surprise and rose to his prodigious height, flint knife already in-hand to maim and butcher the...

Faerie? A gasping, ragged, trembling Faerie barely half Aksho's own size. She doubled over practically as soon as she appeared, little blue flickers of light still illuminating her fragile form. The Faerie fell to her side, sucking in each haggard breath as if she was only seconds away from drowning. Aksho rumbled some quiet sound of confusion, but the instincts of all Faefolk took hold as he realized that he now had a guest in his camp. He ambled over to his supply hut and unfurled the massive hide of an elk he had hunted, its fur was soft to the touch, and the leather skin was smooth and comfortable. He unceremoniously draped it over the trembling, gasping figure and lifted her up with a single hand. It was... almost comical. The giant beastman gently set her down a comfortable distance away from the firepit in order to keep her warm and comfortable with the elk pelt.

By the time Anoria's vision cleared, she'd already have a too-large ceramic cup full of clean freshwater waiting next to her. Aksho's giant form squat across from the firepit, eating his own meal of catfish, marinated boar flank, and garlic wild rice as he prepared a second meal for his new guest. He asked no questions, and aside from the occasional sigh he barely made any noise at all as the minutes passed.

@DragonSong

[DragonSong]

Anoria tried to scream when she was suddenly enveloped in some sort of material, struggling as she was lifted off her feet--but then she was set down again, and the dancing light of the fire was directly in front of her.

Still struggling to control her breathing, the faerie's vision gradually returned to normal and she managed to straighten her shoulders slightly, looking around again in an effort to familiarize herself with her surroundings, look for an escape route.

The hide around her body was warm, but confining. She struggled out of it and in the process noticed the cup of water that had been left beside her. Her eyes flickered up, landed on her...host, as it were, and she shot to her feet.

Or tried to. Though her breathing and vision had evened out, she still didn't have much strength; her legs buckled almost as soon as she put any weight on them and she collapsed back with a sharp, "Huff."

Brow furrowed, she tried to scuttle backwards over the grass and ground out, "What-- who are you? Where am I?"

[Imperfect_M]

The Faerie girl seemed to regain her vision. Either that or she was someone with legendarily slow reflexes... She jumped to her feet and proceeded to fall right back down onto her backside like that of a newborn deer. Aksho flicked his ears and hummed a quiet note of amusement; it reminded him of newborn beastfolk of his own tribe. Happier times indeed. The giant Beast Fae hardly moved from his squat near to the fire in response to Anoria's own up and down. He only turned the filets and steaks, sniffing once or twice.

"What- Who are you?" the girl stammered as she tried to force her weakened limbs into a scuttle, "Where am I?"

Aksho rumbled out some few syllables in the Sylvan tongue of all Fae. Though as true to dialects, the way the beastfolk spoke the Wild Tongue was quite different than that spoken by the Courts of Summer or Winter, and different still from the manic chattering speech of the Pixies. He spoke in low, rumbling bassos that almost vibrated throughout one's body as much as it did the ears, and despite its comparatively deeper sound, there was a harmony and melody in each word. Even the Beast Fae were still Fae, after all.

"Aksho. Me. Faerie, here." he explained calmly. The giant Beastman appeared to have a nonchalant demeanor to him, as if he felt completely unthreatened by Anoria's presence.

The second round of steaks and filets finished. Aksho placed them- and a very generous portion of that garlic rice- into a ceramic bowl and handed it out to Anoria. The smooth clay had no special markings and simple craftsmanship, but despite its simplicity it was obviously made with care. It was also comically too large for the smaller Faerie; while being of reasonable size for a creature like Aksho to hold in a single hand, it was nearly the side of Anoria's entire lap. Aksho gazed calmly at Anoria with eyes like healthy moss, arm casually outstretched. She was obviously still weak from whatever ordeal had tested her, and Aksho- despite what the Courts may say about the Beastfolk- still adhered to the ancient and supernatural laws of the Fae, namely that regarding courtesy and hosting guests in one's home.

[DragonSong]

She stared up at him with a deep frown, but she slowly allowed herself to sit up from her crouched position and even shifted a tiny bit closer to the fire, head tilted as she looked her strange host up and down.

"Aksho?" she repeated slowly. Her eyes flickered toward the offered bowl of food--oh goodness that smelled good, and she was starving. Doing that much magic really took a lot out of her body, especially in such a condensed time frame.

But she wasn't sure she trusted it. This Aksho may be Fae, but they were not in the Faerie Realms. The rules of hospitality did not truly hold their same power in the lands of mortals; she couldn't necessarily trust that her host would be as inclined to follow them.

"Where...is here?" Anoria questioned further. She shifted a tiny bit closer to the food. She really, really needed to eat something. Maybe just a bite? There were only a handful of poisons that could truly affect her from just a bite of food, and they were difficult to procure. She had a feeling Aksho wouldn't be able to do it.

[Imperfect_M]

The Faerie Girl was hesitant to accept Aksho's offering of food. She was right to be suspicious, of course. She appears in some strange giant beast's camp and he casually offers her food? It sounded ridiculous to explain to someone. But by that same token, Aksho himself had figured that Anoria had not posed any immediate threat, given how she was blanched, shivering, and gasping for breath just a moment ago. Either this was a very dedicated bit or she genuinely was as weakened as she looked.

She hadn't taken the food offered yet, eyeing it with the same suspicion as Aksho and the rest of his camp. So in turn the Beastman simply kept his arm extended, waiting until she made some cue to reject or accept his offer.

"Where... Is here?" the Faerie asked.

Aksho shrugged, his massive frame lifting ever-so-gently up and down with the gesture. It was not that he didn't know where they were, he simply did not know its name and had not cared to listen for what the Humanfolk call it. He made his camp far-removed from the roads for a reason, after all. He knew exactly where they were, relative to the locale. In his time spent here Aksho had memorized nearly every landmark for miles around. But he knew none of their names. He flicked his ears in some kind of confused gesture, eyes glancing around the fire as if searching for a word that had gone missing.

"Here... Here," Aksho reiterated, "Forest, mountain, water."

[DragonSong]

"Ah-huh." Anoria continued staring at him, face expressionless, though her mind was racing. Finally, scowling, she snatched the offered bowl from his hands and shoveled a few bites of food into her mouth.

Stars but she was starving!

She flicked her eyes over Aksho again, then their surroundings, still eating quickly, as though afraid he might suddenly change his mind and take the food from her. Head tilted just slightly to the side, she looked him up and down and then tried in cautious Sylvan, "What mortal nation is this?"

That would at least give her an approximation of where she'd ended up, and maybe speaking in the ancient language of the Fae would make her more understandable.

[Imperfect_M]

The little one took his offering of food. Wherever she had come from, they must not have fed her much. Or at all, the beastman thought, what with how she was practically inhaling what he had given her.

"What mɔɻtəl nɛɪʃən is this?" the Faerie asked in her cautious, melodic Sylvan.

Aksho turned over those sounds in his head. He understood some of those words. What was "mɔɻtəl nɛɪʃən?" What was THAT supposed to mean? The beastman rumbled an awkward, flustered drone, his nostrils flaring in ponderous thought as he tried to glean meaning from whatever it was Anoria said.

"Hrrrmm... Don't know... Word," he finally grumbled.

[DragonSong]

Ooooohhhhhh. That was the problem.

For a long moment, Anoria had been wondering if her strenuous journey through unmapped faerie paths had somehow impacted her speech in a way she herself was unaware of--odder things had certainly happened to Folk who were unwary of wondering where perhaps they shouldn't. But when her host specified that he didn't recognize the specific word she used, she thought she had a better understanding of the miscommunication.

"Ah. Right, so...the, ahm..." The Beast Fae dialect was not one she was overly familiar with, and she wracked her mind as she tried to remember the correct phrasing. "The--the other folk. Not fae, the...humanfolk? They give names to the land, carve it up into pieces and guard the borders. Do you...know which piece we are in?"

Did that make sense? Honestly, she was still so exhausted that she wasn't sure herself whether or not her words had formed anything like coherence, but she'd given it her best go.

[Imperfect_M]

Human territory, Aksho realized. The Faerie girl was asking about Human territories. The humanfolk gave strange names to the lands they used to grow food and raise their young. They claimed to "own" these things. How strange for them to claim ownership of things like the earth, the water, the wind.

"Land... Hrm..." the beastman chuffed ponderously. "Don't know yet. Not see Humans here."

Aksho rose and trundled over to one of the A-frame huts he had erected in days earlier and disappeared into it for a moment, only to return with a ceramic jug tucked under one arm. He let it warm by the fire for a time and spoke little as he waited; it would seem that this old man was used to living alone and unused to company.

From that jug Aksho poured Anoria a warm drink that tasted full and hardy with hints of both sweet and sour as it crossed the tongue. Fermented goat's milk, believed by many cultures (the myriad tribes of the Beast Fae among them) to be medicinal and helpful to heal both body and mind. Aksho was not one to drink it often; milking a wild mountain goat was a trying task, even for someone like him. But that little Faerie seemed injured, exhausted, and miserable. One might suppose this was the elder beastman's way of being hospitable. It did not take a genius to see Anoria's state after all, and while the behemoth of a beastman could do little in speaking words of comfort, a gesture often made a more impactful statement.

[DragonSong]

Mmm. So there was no hint as to where she had wound up on the mortal plane. Inconvenient, but survivable. She simply had to regain her strength and find the nearest proper path back to the faerie realm...

She looked up curiously as Aksho set about finding his jug and setting it by the fire. She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, then shut it again after a moment of thought. If it was of any import, she got the feeling he would tell her, some way or another. She lapsed into quiet, tired silence, simply staring at the flames for a while as Aksho seemed content to sit near and say little.

"Oh." She blinked when he handed her a cup of warm milk, quickly wrapping her hands around it and relishing the heat that soaked into her fingers. She stared up at him for a moment, then offered a soft, slow, "Thank...you."

She was unused to giving verbal thanks. Most of the Folk she knew saw it as a shifting of debt--as if by saying "thank you", she no longer owed them their due for whatever service or gift had been bestowed. But, well...she didn't have anything to offer Aksho back, not for the moment, at any rate. Perhaps thanks would serve as a placeholder of sorts.

She sipped at the drink, crinkling her nose slightly at the unfamiliar flavor. After a moment, she glanced sidelong at him and asked, "How long have you...lived here? Or, well, camped here?"

[Imperfect_M]

"How long have you... Lived here?" asked the Faerie, "Or, well, camped here?"

Aksho hummed a thoughtful note as he set the jug back down by the fire. Despite the difference in structure between the two of them, it was clear on his face that his silence was out of deeper thought rather than standoffish reluctance.  He counted out- to the best of his memory- how many times the full moon had risen.

He finally answered the question with: "... Eight, moons, here and gone." Or rather, eight lunar cycles.

[DragonSong]

She quirked an eyebrow. That wasn't so long by faerie standards, all things considered, but it was a decent length of time to have avoided human interaction. They must be well and truly in the wilderness.

"Do you plan to stay?" she found herself asking, shifting a bit closer to the fire as she sipped at the milk again. "I...don't meet many of our kind who linger on this side of the veil so long."

[Imperfect_M]

"Do you plan to stay?" she asked, "I... Don't meet many of our kind who liŋgɻ  on this side of the vɛ͡ɪl so long."

Aksho hummed another ponderous rumble. One could think his camp was a temporary one, but given all the structures and bushcraft around the area, that would quickly fall apart under any kind of scrutiny. He was here for the long haul. Why that was remained a mystery, even to the beastman himself.

"Yes," he replied to Anoria's question. "Stay. Exile. No tribe anymore."

Exiled? Was he here because he committed some kind of wrong against his people?

If Anoria was familiar with the ways of the Beast Fae, she might have known that it was common for a younger member of the herd to take a leadership role for themself if they thought their elder was unfit to lead, and that elder was too stubborn to give up their place.

[DragonSong]

"Exile?" Anoria repeated. She was not necessarily unfamiliar with customs of the Beast Fae, though she was certainly less well-versed than with the traditions of the Spring or Summer Courts. "And...there is no recompense? No way you can return to your tribe?"

She was a rather solitary creature herself, particularly in recent years, but it seemed that Aksho wasn't. If her fuzzy memory of herdfolk traditions held true, they tended to prefer a close-knit community. If he had not committed some great wrong--which she supposed was possible, though given her limited experience with him it seemed unlikely--surely there was a path he could take that would rejoin him with his tribe.

Unless, of course, he simply did not wish to. She supposed that was also possible, but again, she really wasn't familiar enough with what his customs may be to make a hard guess.

[Imperfect_M]

He was trying not to reminisce about his tribe; but he was an old man now. By this point in his life, all he had were memories. The Faerie girl asked him about his past, or how he could join his tribe. Or at least that's what he thought she was getting at.

Aksho chuffed and rolled his shoulders. "Old. Tired. Here, quiet," he answered in some form of dry humor.

Again he stood to retrieve a different flat stone. Unlike those he was using for a cooking surface, he made sure to leave this one far enough away from the flame's heart for it keep food warm, but not so much to burn it. He finished cooking and placed the catfish filets and boar flanks aside, though not before he took some of that catfish and ate it himself. A little treat for the chef.

[DragonSong]

"But..." She frowned slightly. "Won't you be...lonely?"

It was concept she herself was all too familiar with--though that was mostly by choice, nowadays. She watched the easy way he moved about his humble camp, how content he seemed simply to sit and share a fire, a meal.

She missed that. Missed feeling whole in herself.

"So you...will just stay here?" she asked after a moment longer. It didn't seem like a bad life, not at all. A quiet one, as he'd said. It was just so difficult for her to wrap her head around the idea of settling, of picking a place and saying "Yes, here, here will do", and meaning it.

[Imperfect_M]

Aksho perked up and flicked his ears at the Faerie girl's question of loneliness. Admittedly he had never thought about it before. In his old age, he seemed content to live out his twilight years here amidst the wilds. He had lived a good life, so he thought. He led his tribe and clan with wisdom and compassion and left a strong impression for the later generations.

The beastfolk did not enjoy the same immortality as much of the Fae. While time ebbed and flowed like tides in the Faewilds, the herdpeoples were not at all ageless. Perhaps then in that way it forced them to accept a sense of purpose; to be fleeting in a world of immortals. Aksho flared his nostrils and chuffed thoughfully as he turned the Faerie's question over in his mind.

"Alone-ness... Not... Bad," Aksho answered in his people's dialect of Sylvan. He answered slowly, as if the old beast himself could not readily put to words the idea in his mind. "Not... Without-age. Like Faerie. Have... Much time... To think on... Life. Have good memories."


"So you... Will just stay here?" she asked, evidently puzzled.

"Here... Bad?" asked the elder beastman incredulously. He thought he had a good thing going here!

[DragonSong]

"Oh no!" She put down her cup so she could wave her hands in denial. "No no, that's not what I meant. This is lovely."

She meant it; there were of course ways that a faerie could talk her way around a direct lie in order to avoid offence, but there was sincerity in Anoria's face. She really did find the camp lovely: calm, safe, cozy. It was just so very far outside her own realm of experience that she seemed a little puzzled by the very concept of it.

"It is lovely," she repeated, looking around at the camp once more. "But...you aren't...afraid? To be alone here? What if--what if something happened?"

An attack, a betrayal, even a destructive act of nature, all could be devastating. And if Aksho was the only one here...how would he recover? It gave her an abrupt surge of panic, to think of this kindly old man left to fend for himself in the aftermath of a nonexistent disaster.  Someone so willing to aide a stranger...it just didn't seem right or just for him to not receive such aide in turn.

Her mind spun on for a few moments longer before she realized she was getting quite ahead of herself and blushed lightly, her pale complexion gaining an almost lavender tint in the firelight. "I mean--I'm sure you're quite capable, I did not mean to offend."

[Imperfect_M]

"But-... You aren't-... Afraid? To be alone here?" the Faerie girl asked. "What if- what if something happened?"

Aksho mused on the question. What did she mean "happen?" Things happen all the time. There is never a moment in this place where something isn't "happening." Roof thatching needed to be replaced, the firepit needed cleaning out, more ceramics needed to be made, hides needed to be tanned, food needed to be stored... Always something. The beastman hummed a rumbling basso as he thought it over. The old beast had a creeping feeling that he was missing the point.

"I mean- I'm sure you're quite capable," the Faerie chimed in after a moment of silence. "I did not mean to offend."

The elder beast only tilted his head in abject confusion. His puzzled mind was clear on his face as he stared at Anoria; the questions in his mind were nearly visible behind his eyes.

"... Ah?" he drawled. Even with all the thought he could muster... The poor old man had gotten lost somewhere in the conversation.

He adjusted his squat and scratched at an itch around his neck. He seemed to flick his ears when he was thinking about something. Most of what the Faerie girl had said tonight had him doing quite a lot of thinking, even if it was simply focusing hard enough to understand her version of their shared tongue.

"Not-scare alone," Aksho finally answered. He would try to reply to her first question if nothing else. "Old. Quiet... Good."