Henbane. A funny little plant that was hard to find if you weren’t looking properly as it was, as a whole, much the same colour. The veined and sick like yellow flower giving away the poisonous gem that d’Artagnan sought in the rough tundra by the Frozen Arch. He had little of it stored in his pouch and the shade liked having a full stock of his toxic weapons should a situation arise. There was a sadistic kind of pleasure the shade took in knocking his prey out with narcotic magic before contemplating how best to kill it, by claw? By fire?! Or should he poison the dear sod and watch them writhe in pain until death offered mercy. It had been a while since the Doctor had found such opportunity to be so barbaric, so much so that he longed to go hunting, hornless were fair game for a start and there were so many of them that a cull was definitely on the agenda.

Isn’t that what you do with things that become pests?

Finding what he was looking for, d’Artagnan carefully snapped the stem and placed it into his bag for safekeeping and future use. It was as he was stuffing his pockets that Aramis appeared with what looked like the remains of a white hare. It’s blood splattered all over the hounds face and his markings had a dull glow to them, slowly fading away as the thrill of chasing it down ebbed from the cur’s mind. He proceeded to dump his kill on the floor near the Mender’s cloven feet and the shade shook his head in disgust. ”Carnivore. Eat that somewhere else” he grumbled to his friend, who looked up from his meal with a note of surprise ”what’s this? You don’t mind spilling blood, but you can’t stomach an innocent hound eating his dinner”. d’Artagnan blew out a long snort and stomped off towards the entrance to an icy cave, away from his gorging bonded. ”It’s not natural” he retorted, cherry back now swiftly turned away. Aramis made an exasperated look ”to you maybe” he replied, the Nightshade let it drop there.

What even was he doing? Casting a backwards glance he checked he had actually got all of the plant he came for and put it in the right section of his bag. Though it may be a surprise, the Doctor did carry healing materials should the need arise, mixing Henbane with that may have caused a disaster in the future! Though the thought did send a tickle of humour through him. Alas, he had gotten what he had come for, now he just had to wait for his greedy dog to finish his dinner.

@[Mauja]

Life: a bitter, solitary existence. A void between aching ribs. A spinning darkness, with only two stars. Two tiny pinpricks of life. Two desperate, loving hearts suspended between wings, but for all the wisdom of a spirit leopard they could not balance out the violent heaves of his soul.

They loved him. They loved him and they tried so desperately to bear him up—but their love was painful to him, agonizing in its intensity, and as he spiraled deeper he did all he could to block it out. To not feel it. To hold himself together, when the opposite was what he needed.

But all it did was add guilt to an already burdened mind.

They loved him and he loved them but he was too afraid to let them back to the spaces they had inhabited so comfortably—too afraid to feel their soft, constant presence, and the warmth they fed his frozen heart. It was what he needed, but it would undo him, and.. the prospect of that frightened him more than he wanted to admit. All his life he had been in control, perhaps not of events (you never were, huh) but of himself. To give in would be to lose the last of what he had, because right now, all he had was that: control. And even that was slipping, the harsh wind freezing tears in the corners of his sky-blue eyes.

If Mauja had a frost heart this was not a season of thaw and melt. Perhaps it was being purged by a raging fire, but more than anything it was the slow death of a glacier, fragments breaking off to crash into the seas with a deep, resounding boom.

So he wandered the north, alone but not alone, because he had two shadows floating in the sky—but alone because he pushed them away again and again, until even Irma's quiet persistence grew tinged with confused hurt, and Diego.. he understood even less, uncharacteristically flying close to the white owl. She had to give him what Mauja could not, and it was all wrong, but he wasn't strong enough to do anything differently.

She was saying something, but he didn't listen. She said it again, and he still didn't listen, just pressed his eyes shut and wandered. The Steppe was flat and still snow-covered anyway. It wasn't like he could fall off the face of the world and die if he walked blind. Again Irma's cold voice battered against his skull, but he just pressed his ears flat to his neck and turned into the darkness.

Her battering ceased for a moment. He sensed great, great annoyance. She had been patient with him. When he had been lost in time, she had kept him sane, she had told him they still lived, that all would be fine—she had loved him when he had been unable to love himself, and even when he had been ready to let them all die, she had not felt betrayed, because she had understood. She had been disappointed, yes, but she had still loved him.

She still did, but she was an owl—there was only so much she could comprehend of his misery, and when her understanding slipped, when her quiet, constant love wasn't enough...

It frightened her.

And fear, as much as his unwillingness to listen, made her angry.

ARAMIS! she finally yelled, her voice a clap of thunder rattling his mind, her surge of wrathful annoyance rushing through his blood for a heartbeat. He stumbled. Paused. Opened his eyes. Irritated, the white owl swerved away, followed after a moment by Diego, a last, pained look cast from amber eyes in Mauja's direction. He swallowed. Aramis..?

Irma was seldom wrong, and she certainly wasn't now. By the entrances to the frozen caves where he'd lost yet another friend the hound lay, blood and gore spread out on the snow as he gorged on some animal unlucky enough to have been trapped by his sharp fangs. "d'Artagnan..."

Fear: of life itself, of his own weakness, and of what his friend would make of it. The friend he so desperately needed. The friend he.. the friend he wasn't sure he could bear losing.

The friend he was afraid he would lose, simply because the King was Dead.

The friend he so very desperately needed.

Mauja blinked the wind and tears from his eyes, and drew nearer with careful, frosted steps. "Aramis," he greeted the hound, remembering his small, round puppy shape rolling about his own feet and toying with the long strands of white hair. The beast was more regal now, more refined, and, Mauja thought, probably less playful. He didn't pause at the guard, though, simply stepped past him and his meal into the frozen darkness of the world, chasing after fifty shades of red.

[ @[imi] this is long enough as it is lmfao xD ]

night-fate-stock -- dreamofsandman -- deirdre-T -- deviantart.com // i-mi.deviantart.com

A single red ear swivelled as his name drifted in with a familiar scent delivered by a well-known voice. For a moment he didn’t turn, how long was it since he had last seen Mauja properly? He counted the seasons and two years lapsed, two years… Yet, as d’Artagnan turned his head to gaze upon his old friend, the same awry creases framed wet eyes lost down a lonely path. If the Nightshade remembered correctly, the last few times they had met had only told him that his closest kin had gone to a place that he couldn’t reach, a place he didn’t understand and feelings he wasn’t versed in. However, even now the corners of his ageing lips curled upwards into a steadfast smile, their years of comradely adventures were not so easily eclipsed, even if the Frostheart was determined to chase the forsaken trail into the abyss. Kou might’ve called him foolish, it was time to leave the old legends to history, but d’Artagnan believed there was something to be said about brothers in arms that meant walking away became an impossible notion.

Aramis looked up from his kill to cast a friendly glance to Irma and a more curious one to the eagle owl, the newest addition to Mauja’s growing flock of beady-eyed birds. Perhaps they would meet him one day, old and crippled, buried under a pile of feathers. Acknowledgement complete, Aramis returned to dining whilst his red hued companion bypassed greeting and nodded to the brown bird ball instead “is this a new hobby?” He inquired, his voice filled with amusement before he cast a glance to Aramis with a grimace. Yes, one Hellhound was quite enough, especially ones you had to fight Boggarts for.

Considering his friend again, d’Artagnan allowed a sigh to pass through his lips, what had they become? ”Where have you been?” He grumbled, all those seasons and not even one visit to the Basin, the shade had also run into his daughter the other day and even that poor girl seemingly had very little to do with her elusive father. He wondered if the spotted clod found it amusing to leave him unallied against the new generation of Basin idiots who floundered around thinking they knew everything about the world. Even one of its Leaders shared the blood of an equine and Deimos mutely continued on, but d’Artagnan was sorely outnumbered in his views and looking upon the face of Mauja, the life of an outcast wasn’t all that appealing either.

Was he not allowed to follow Kou to the other side? Where was karma when you needed it? How many had he killed, maimed, how many families had he destroyed and yet still, here he was. Perhaps this was karma, sentenced to living out the rest of his life in an alien world.

[ooc :: I can't match your length of ramble ;~; I tried]

[ Shoot me. <3 ]

How do you pick up the pieces of a life you've left behind in every way? How do you pick up someone who seamlessly fitted into your life, and with fear trembling your hands, try to slot them back into place—holding you breath and praying they'll still fit?

Or don't you dare? Do you take what you have, the memories and the love, and walk away? Let it become nothing but fond memory, protected from failure and heartbreak, simply out of fear? Coming face to face with one of his oldest friends again, a man he had let down as thoroughly as he'd let down anyone who came close to him, he felt that fear creep up on him, choking tendrils of shadow forcing themselves down his throat to grip his heart. What if I lose him? The Ice King that had stood upon the World's Edge so long ago and spoken words of glory and destruction, the man with the iron conviction and a heart big enough to listen to everyone.. he was no more. The man d'Artagnan had chosen to follow, was no more, and Mauja was terrified that just Mauja wouldn't be enough.

That d'Artagnan would scorn him for his weakness and leave him out in the cold, bloodied pieces of his shattered heart strewn about him as the cold stars watched impassively as yet another tragedy occurred in the snows.

He drew a deep breath, trying to mask the sudden, and sickening, rush of fear he felt. It certainly wouldn't impress the red if he crumbled down here and now, and became nothing but a sobbing pile of Mauja-mess. Even when the shit raged around them d'Artagnan always seemed to keep his dark old heart intact, and even when the times changed, he had never given Mauja reason to believe he'd shed their ideals.

Blue eyes closed for a moment, a black-rimmed ear flickering to the first question. "Blame spirits and darkness and Irma," he murmured, a stab of guilt that he could not take better care of them. ”Where have you been?” He opened his mouth to speak, dark lips parting and eyes opening, but nothing came out. After a moment, he shut it again, teeth coming together with a click. Where had he been, indeed? When had he last seen his friend? And what had happened to him since? He seemed older, more worn, lines carving through his handsome face in an unfamiliar fashion.

He couldn't, easily, place when he'd seen the red madman last. One year? Two? Three? It must've been when he still lived in the Basin, so that had to be before Kri came up to challenge Psyche, because it was at that time that he'd gone south to infiltrate the Throat, which had ended with Sarazheha and Gaucho and Midas.. and then he'd gone and become the hero of a doomed war, brought peace to two warring nations, returned to Helovia and nearly died, received Diego, hid in caves, left again because of Diego, returned, moped, hunted and haunted, that whole business with Kahlua, leaving again to return north, coming back, finding Tolio dead and fighting Ophelia...

"I've been everywhere and nowhere," he finally admitted in a quiet voice, something dangerously close to defeat lurking in the silent spaces between his words, and in the depths of his blue, blue eyes. "Running, searching, fighting, fleeing. I..." For a moment he looked aside, then he spun his gaze back to the Doctor. If anyone deserved honesty, it was him. "I can't lie to you. I'm a mess. I'm not who I used to be. I'm weak and confused and.." A sigh. "I just don't know but.. I just.. thought you should know.. not to expect wonders of me anymore." Soft, so soft, his voice floated across the space between them, drifting gently against the walls and stopping there, not strong enough to cast a damning echo. And with tightly controlled fear he watched his friend, preparing for doom but praying for hope.

[ @[imi] <3 ]

night-fate-stock -- dreamofsandman -- deirdre-T -- deviantart.com // i-mi.deviantart.com