[SOLO} A Question Long Asked

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

 

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

His large paws padded over the forest debris as he move silently through the trees. His breathing was returning to normal after his measure run. It would not do, to approach the place he was going at top speed. It would be detrimental to his plans not to mention his health.

In general his kind were feared-shifters. Like a dirty taste in the mouth of soquili everywhere. And while it was true that some shifters were beasts of a corrupted nature it was not the case with all.

Sigtrygrr Erickson had cause to know. Even amongst shifters, his forebearers were a merciless, bloody lot. His own redemption from the bloodlust that soaked his nature had come in the form of a tiny jewel imbued with an angelic power.

The gods were giving him a chance to forge his own path, a new path and destiny that could be as bloody as his ancestors or...not.

For the past year and a half he had become acquainted with having a choice in violence or not. It was no longer the only choice that ruled his thoughts. Now, more often than not it seemed a middle road might be found. It was in his serious nature to try to find a way to live in peace or at least in respect with his former enemies. It was the more difficult path. War and bloodshed was easy, as was the way of claws and the assumptions of what shifters were even after being gemmed.

He stilled his mind as he walked closer to his destination. He was here to seek out someone whom he had learned might have some answers to questions long asked.

Sigtyggr padded softly through the detrieus of leaves as a voice sounded out. It was cold and imperative. "I know you're there." His eyes found the still figure with cat like ears. His pupiless blood red eyes found him without a problem.

After that there was silence, those cold impervious eyes watched him from fifteen yards away through the underbrush. The black stallion did not move. He was tall, almost unnaturely so. He stood with a preternatural grace. He was clothed in white pelts of a shifter, but he was not one. It was only his paws and face that had the pelt bound to him with straps rather than unnatural magic as Sigtryggr's did.

He paused eyeing the stallion a moment longer before he shifted from a wolf. For a moment, he could feel the change overtake him--the elongating of his bones,the shifting of muscle as he transformed from a wolf to a pelted soquili.

Stretching his neck as his bones settled into this other form, he spoke. "I come in peace. I mean no harm to anyone here. I come to ask questions and seek answers." He paused, "peacefully." He added again.

The unmoving black stallion spoke carefully, "I see your gemstone. You know where you come. I will decide if you are peaceful...or not. Tell me your name and ask your questions." Still the stallion did not move.

Sigtrygrr straightened, the clasp on his pelt jangled as he moved. "I am Sigtrygrr Erikson. I came to ask after Revna Ulfsdóttir. I heard rumors she may have passed through here. And if anyone should know, it would be you, Karloff."  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

The black stallion tilted his chin slightly at the deference Sigtrygrr showed but stayed silent. Sigtryggr stood absolutely still as he tried to read the silent stallion before him. Hetry would not beg no matter how much his heart urged him to. The silence stretched painfully, expectant of some offer answer or indication from Karloff. It did not come in the form of words though, only in the slow but brutal inclination of Karloff's head.

Sigtryggr felt his heart beat wild as a drum for a moment as he we waited for more. But there was no more. Finally, he could bear the pain of the question no longer. "You have
her then?"

Karloff sighed deeply before he spoke. "I have. What does it matter to you?" His red eyes were insisten, Sigtrygrr felt as though they attempted to burrow into his soul and weigh him.

"She is my mother. I have not seen her this past year and a half," Sigtryggr spoke carefully trying to keep his voice even as though it was of no great importance to him even though it was obvious it was everything. Then he gave in, "To gem my brother Toke."

Revna had been held by his father after her home had been destroyed by him. Erik was a stallion of a bloody legacy, ungemmed and proudly so. Erik did not abide weakness and he did not much abide Revna Ulfsdóttir either. Nor had he cared much for his sons but to create them and release his bloody likenesses upon the world.

Sitryggr remembered the blood, it was his most vivid memory as a foal. He and his younger brother Toke had just been weaned when his father had made their mother go. Erik fed on that pain as she begged to stay for the sake of the sons--the ungemmed monsters she had created and loved desperately despite their father. She had been gemmed and there was empathy and love in her that their father did not know or understand. He broke her and with the slashing of his claws he had driven her from them.

But she had come back in the end and stolen Sigtryggr in the middle of the night. Only able to overpower one of her sons, she had wound up taking Sigtryggr and leaving Toke behind to his unmerciful father.

She had stolen him away to be gemmed, but she struggled to stay with him. Every night her pained eyes would look off into the night, eager to go back for Toke but she would not leave until she was sure that Sigtryggr had settled well enough. She wanted to make sure that he would be fine, young though he was, by himself. She had to go back to search for Toke. She had gone off searching for word of him--eager to find, save, and gem him. That was the last thing he'd heard from her.

"Walk with me," Karloff's voice cut into his thoughts. Cautiously, Sigtryggr picked his way over to the stallion and fell into pace beside him in silence. It was several minutes of walking back toward the herds and campfires before he spoke.

"She came through here a year ago," Karloff's voice purred. Sigtryggr began to lose heart. A year? So long ago? "She asked if we had encountered your brother. But we had not seen him, so he journeyed on by herself since she was unsure where he would even be."

They stopped at the outskirts of small shelters, "It was...three days past that she returned here."

"She is back? Where is she?" Sigtryggr felt joy fill his heart. "And what of my brother, did she find him?" His eyes eagerly took in the quiet of the area trying to see if he could discern where they were.

Karloff's tone was softer, "Sigtryggr, she is dead."

The ground seemed to lurch toward his face, but Karloff's shoulder held him up from falling completely. There was a low buzzing in his ears that seemed to overwhelm everything as his heart faltered in his chest. "Three days?" It was all that he could say. All that he could even think. Three days ago, his mother had be alive and here.....and now she was gone THREE DAYS! He had missed his mother by three days. Never to see her face again. To hear the gentle cadence of her voice or see the love shining in her eyes. Three days...If only had gotten here sooner. If he had come earlier than maybe he could have seen her...Maybe she'd still be alive.

Sigtryggr's voice broke, "Three days ago she was here? She lived and breathed and walked and..." He could not go on. His eyes burned and he felt grief cleave his chest in half. "What happened?" His voice was barely a whisper. "Did she not find him?" He ducked his head in visceral pain, "What has taken her from me?" He choked out a sob as Karloff kept supporting him.

"She found your brother. She found Toke."

"Is he dead then too?" A keening sob tore from the deep hole in Sigtryggr's chest.

Karloff's voice was kind, "She brought him here to gem him with our help. Toke was wild after, his emotions were reeling. Your mother," he paused. "While the monster within your brother was in it's death throes, it used his body in it's death throes for one final evil. He killed her by accident."

"You do not know that it was an accident," he felt the coldness open up in his chest. "You do not know that he did not kill her in his rage." His voice trembled with fury.

"I do know," Karloff's voice became sterm. "He felt too much all at once. He did not know what he was doing." Sigtryggr went to interrupt but Karloff stopped silenced him. "No, she is dead Sigtryggr and nothing you can do or say will bring her back. But there," he lifted his long black leg and pointed with the claws tied to his hooves. "Your brother grieves for her. For the awful thing he has done. He cannot forgive himself, he can find no hope in this situation." Karloff's paw clapped Sigtryggr's shoulder and pulled him around to look at him. "He is still your brother. He needs you to forgive him since he cannot forgive himself."

"FORGIVE HIM?!?!" Sigtryggr roared. "HE KILLED THE ONLY GOOD HE HAS EVER KNOWN. FORGIVE HIM?"

"HE IS YOUR BROTHER!" Karloff roared back. Sigtryggr was panting as his thoughts tried to still like his heart. "This is your reckoning Sigtryggr. It is your decision. Go to him. Or don't."

Sigtryggr's head lifted and looked past the glow of the fires to the small shelter where his brother resided, his heart pounding. This was too much to bear, too much to ask. He stood there in silence as Karloff left him to his decision.