Private Tales Taming Eretejva

[Faurosk]

A sigh was the first response to meet the Witch's question, and for a moment it would seem that's the only answer she was getting. Behind his placid expression, Faurosk reflected upon what had brought him to the frigid north, and his reminiscing lingered for what felt like longer than he'd ever stayed quiet before.

A dead village laid in a sprawl at the world's feet, bodies raised upon crucifixes as their homes burned below; Some still twitched now and then, not knowing their fates had been sealed hours before. Distant rumbling resolved into the sound of marching feet, snarling men held back by leashes of authority. They charged, and a roaring fire rose up to meet them. The flames cried out so loud that Faurosk could almost pretend he hadn't heard the screams.

Blinking back to the present, the mage realized he'd been lost in the dancing firelight before him. He tried to give the Witch at his side a glance as if she might have disappeared, but the gentle tug of a thorn in his cheek served as reminder enough that his stillness is mandatory.

"I loathe what I've become," he began, the words slow and halting. His eyes didn't flit over to meet Sigrtith's. "And I thought, perhaps... Eretejva has what I need. That's the brief answer, anyhow- Strip away the romance, and it's not quite happy enough for a night like this."

 

[Sigrith]

His persistent silence was noted but left uninterrupted. Sigrith continued her work with slow and careful precision. The man had departed to another place, that much she could sense and see in his eyes. Much like a wind carrying off leaves and snow and the spirit of a body laid to rest, the Witch could watch it happen with curious clarity. Where he went, however, not even she knew.

When he returned he found her just as she was, her hand still holding his chin and jaw in place, her other still skillfully pressing thorn and pulling thread. She was nearing the end of the wound, which was just as well because she their meal was nearly cooked through. Fat fell into the fire, sizzling in the air to the tune of his low response.

She tied off the end of the stitch, looping, tugging, looping, tugging on the string until it a knot set secure against his skin. The thorn and remaining thread were stashed away and another small pouch was taken out from a collection of pouches within a bag slung by leather straps at her hip. From this she withdrew a brass tin and pulled the cap off to reveal a grey-green paste inside.

"Look at me, Braun," said the Witch with no amount of warmth or compassion, but plenty of cold truth, "nothing is permanent, even mountains change. What you are now?" A hand snaked forward to prod a finger firmly, squarely over his heart, "You are by choice."

Dark brows pulled in over her weirdly colorful gaze, a hard look upon a man who had all the power he needed to do what must be done but found himself stuck in a wallow of self-pity.

"Choose to become something else if you loathe what you are. The tundra won't do that for you."

She retrieved her hand and pressed her fingers into the paste, taking up a glob and holding it towards his face, "Don't move."

 

[Faurosk]

"...You are by choice."

Perhaps that's what terrified him the most, and that bone-rattling fear showed plainly across his face-- Perhaps there were countless hidden truths that went to war in his expression.

'Perhaps' many things, but it didn't matter; With Sigrith's piece said, Faurosk turned back to the fire and watched as the fat continued to burn away amidst the embers. He tried not to think about the scent, nor its disturbing familiarity. Instead, he raised his gaze to the distant mountains that blotted out stars along the horizons, only the faintest silhouettes left of their monolithic presence.

"My stillness is at your disposal," the mage muttered quietly to himself, not sparing her mystery-glob the slightest glance. She'd done well by him thus far, there's no sense in questioning her choice of salve.

 

[Sigrith]

"Eat. Rest."

It did not take much longer for the witch to finish her ministrations to his face. She said little else for the remainder of the evening and instead went about prepping as much of the meat remaining for travel as she could without giving up too much sleep of her own.

By dawn they had already set off again as the sun crested over the far horizon. Breath fogging into a crisp and frigid morning air, Sigrith set off towards deeper into the mountains. A sudden winter squall pushed them from the main path towards the afternoon, so she took what appeared to be a lesser-known prey route along the pass. What she hadn't bargained on was losing her barings after the sudden storm had passed.

Sigrith said nothing of this - it would not be the first nor would it be the last that she had been pushed off-course by a storm and found herself in areas unknown. That was how she had come to learn these lands as well as she did. All there was left to do was to make it to high grounds where she could get a better view with a clear sky, but the problem of the inclement weather persisted. Sigrith picked a path that lead towards the mountain rise, seeing hints of clear sky on the other side of the ridge. They could take shelter than and wait out the storms, need be.

When she crested the spine of the mountain, however, Sigrith came to a frozen halt at the landscape that greeted them. Bleak, white and grey, and a massive swathe of deep, still crimson. Her eyes took it in with wonder, feeding the sudden sensation of ethereal energy now striking up her spine.

What was this place and how had she never come across it before?

 

[Faurosk]

Faurosk did as his guide requested- He ate, he slept, and rose without complaint. When they set out through the snowy terrain, only Sigrith's faint silhouette persisted to lead the way. When the sun rose, Gods be praised, he was greeted by the substantially more interesting view of her lumbering backside.

Tragically, even a substantial amount more than nil isn't much, and the wizard found himself taking in the mountainous landscapes throughout their comfortably silent trek. He hadn't even noticed when the first flakes of a brewing storm began to fall, and he was similarly unaware of his guide's new attempts at wayfinding.

Faurosk simply followed, as was his lot.

When Sigrith brought herself to a sudden stop, however, he finally raked his gaze to the lands ahead, and, wow, what a view. "Like a sea of rubies," came his voice, reverent. His mind was already enraptured by the mysterious lake, mentally probing at imagined depths and unknown origins. Magic tickled his brain stem, mercurial and dark, but the instigator in his heart was certain that he had to know more.

His gaze already began to sweep their surroundings, searching for any way downwards. They fell upon a gentle decline some two hundred feet to his right, a slope almost too perfectly made to carry one straight down to the crimson shores. His arm swung gently upwards, one finger extended to the sloping turf.

"Fancy a swim?"

He was, of course, joking.

Probably.

 

[Sigrith]

No humor to be found on the witch's face at his query. Sigrith fixed him with a sharp stare that likely felt more stabbing than was meant, then turned to find her way down along the ridge side one careful step at a time. Loose dirt and small stones rolled beneath her boots, sending small cascades along the slope as she went. Upon reaching a level plain of black stone and sand she brought herself into a slow and meandering stride.

Something here felt intrinsically off.

Sound seemed muted, even the gales from the top of the mountains were hushed. The air was still, much like the red lake before them whose shores were gently turned over by a crimson lapping waters. She could see nor smell any signs of flora or fauna. Instead a heady aroma of blood saturated the small valley and the afterstench of the esoteric that few but those who knew the touch of magic might catch.

What was this place?

Approaching the shoreline, she carefully dropped into a kneel and lightly pressed her fingers into the red wavelets. The scarlet stain lingered with weight, with centuries of memory and indescribable meaning.

"This is ... blood."

 

[Faurosk]

Faurosk chartered his own course to the shore, winding down the slope with slow, meaningful steps. Not only did he spend the time nursing that all too familiar sting of Sigrith's muted disdain, but as he went, he listened- A talent few still have.

Crimson waters pushed against the shores, straining the lake's boundaries with every wave. Distant winds whistle past peaks and cliff sides, muting the scent of blood with brief breezes of cold, painful air. When those currents pass, it's as though the sanguine lake's smell redouble, settling heavily along the slope in a heady, invisible fog.

The wizard joins the witch at her side, letting out a deep breath at her remark. It wasn't a terribly enlightening comment by any stretch, but her pause was enough to make his heart sink momentarily.

"Something terrible happened here," Faurosk muttered knowingly, glancing out towards the distant shores. "I've not felt this in some time." It was true; That creeping dread in the pit of his stomach, the feeling of a truly desecrated place, was something he'd only experienced twice before. Once in a village turned to cinders, and again when he crossed into the red mists of Pandemonium.

 

[Sigrith]

Sigrith's thoughts did linger in a similar vein of familiarity to the Red Mist Crisis. But this area did not feel the same as that place - not by any means. Pandemonium had been a place not of this realm, foreign in every way imaginable, and terrible to the core. The Witch still carried the blackened marks on her arm from her time there, those very same marks that would soon become visible to the man as she stepped back from the waters and began to disrobe.

Something out in that sea of red beckoned to her. Powerfully. She, a Witch, was not one to deny such things.

Piece by piece her ensemble came off; pelts, cloak, armor, layers of wool followed by layers of linen followed by more layers of cloth. Her weapons, her supplies, her bags, her tools until Sigrith's figure stood starkly exposed to all elements.

"Wait here," she said to the man, striding forward into the shallows of deep crimson.

 

[Faurosk]

Faurosk could only watch in a mixture of horror and intrigue as her inevitable swim approached.

Well, 'watch' is more of a literary term, given that he peered off to the distant shore once Sigrith got down to fewer stitches than the day they'd met. "You've an honest way of going about things," the man somehow uttered through his nerves, biting back fears of bloody lakes and naked half-bears just long enough to toss her a put-upon smile. "I'd hate to return the favor of your patch-job so soon. Do be careful."

The wizard, however, wasn't content to sit around and wait for his guide to come back. He's a person of magic, damnit, and he must have some tool to figure this out. Crouching where the ground fell away to red waters, all it took was a swipe of a vial for him to nab a sample from the crimson expanse.

"Come on then," Faurosk muttered to himself, giving the bottle a rapid shake. "Tell me who you all are..." Uncorking the vial, he tipped its mouth towards the ground. A single glob of coagulated gunk slowly creapt down the glass interior, splatting against the dirt with a wet SLOP.

But that couldn't be right. Staring over to where Sigrith was wading deeper, Faurosk had to wonder what sort of creature would have this much viscera to spill... None of his ideas were particularly pleasant.

 

[Sigrith]

There was no mistaking the many different currents of magic lingering in the area. Sigrith felt the presence of the ancient one the farther in she waded. By the time the liquid was past her hips, lapping over the flat of her stomach, she'd felt the shiver of something familiar overcome her.

Mother.

The witch paused where she stood, feeling the chill of the lake seeping in through her skin yet not fully saturating to her bones. Her hands slowly lowered into the blood, fingers splaying as she raked them around to fall still at her side. Quiet. Cold. Death.

She breathed in deeply, letting the strange and tangy aroma fill her senses, and then pushed the air from her lungs through her nose. The pull tugged strongly towards the center and she obeyed. Sigrith's feet began to move again, taking her away from the shallows until the ground beneath them gave way to deeper fathoms. Then, as the Witch neared the center of the lake, she stole another lungful of air and disappeared beneath the surface.

 

[Faurosk]

Putrid air ebbed and flowed across the shore, the faintest breezes raking stagnant, ferrous scents through the valley like the pulse of some putrid heart. Faurosk couldn't sense the presence Sigrith pursued in any true or rational way, but chills still gripped him by the brain stem as the raw fear of these sullied grounds made its presence known.

The witch dipped below the surface, and her ward watched on bated breath. Seconds ticked by, but nothing was left of the Norden guide save for a few small ripples still running their course against the crimson currents.

Before long, Faurosk had to draw a gasp of air through his nose, yet she hadn't surfaced for much the same.

It was three more beats before his hands went about their busy work, gripping at various reagents that hung about his waist in pouches and vials alike. If this charade went on much longer, any respiration spell he could improvise would be better than drowning.

 

[Sigrith]

She found it in the deep. With the murky liquid far to thick to see through, her sense of the ether guided her there. At the center of the lake a pulsing, heated energy like the frenetic beat of a heart under the beastly throes of rage. It should have frightened her, should have warded any who came near away, but the witch denied these mortal instincts in the pursuit of hubris.

The calm of the lake surface broke very suddenly in a surge of bubbles. Simmering at first before slowly growing to a frantic boil. What broke the surface amidst the tumult was not a witch, but a beastly creature. Black fur slicked by viscous red, eyes cast aglow by infernal rage, it released a baying, snarling howl as it struggled at the surface.

Fire. She felt fire in her blood the likes of which could not find equal even within Pandemonium.

Sloshing about against the weight of the lake saturated into its pelt, the beast began to make way for shallower waters, directly towards the wary mage on the shore.

 

[Faurosk]

The wizard had just finished inscribing a glyph of respiration across the shoreline when a lumbering beast broke surf some twenty feet away. It shambled closer, fur soaked through with the lake's sanguinary body. Knotted clots of draconic blood clung across its muzzle, flung free now and then by deep, labored breaths.

Faurosk, meanwhile, was trying not to piss himself, marking a partial success in such pursuits that he might later feel a thrum of pride in. He stepped back, his ankle twisted, and the mage fell hard against the craggy shore. It was with a sharp cry of pain that he brought his amulet to bear, tearing its leather cord from about his neck and holding it out towards the approaching creature.

"Keep back, or I swear--!" He began boldly, but was soon found scrambling for words. What could he possibly promise a monstrosity? 'Swift destruction' ? A bone to choke on, more likely. "I swear I'll be the worst case of dyspepsia you can imagine!"

Not the cleverest threat, he had to admit.

Sigrith

 

[Sigrith]

Perhaps not the cleverest, but apparently it worked. Or so it may have seemed.

The ghastly beast came to a halt just half a dozen feet before the man, quivering in rage. The guttural snarl that bubbled from its maw ripped into a broad growl and then crescendoed into a high-pitched screech. It sputtered then, gagged, and promptly loosed a gluttonous amount of what appeared to be contents of the lake.

Wave after wave of red viscera surged forth, spilling out between its fangs and dribbling to the ground below. After several moments it slowed, a bulbous sort of shape pushed upwards from the base of its neck, and then with a gurgling whine it purged from its stomach a large, egg-shaped object just slightly smaller than a watermelon but larger than a newborn infant.

The object dropped into the puddle between its front paws with a sickening splat and the wolf nearly keeled over heaving for breath. The wild look dissipated form its eyes, revealing a dichromatic gaze curiously like the witch's.

"...don't touch it," the wolf warned in Sigrith's voice, "don't-" and then promptly dropped to the ground, out as cold as the snow on the peaks surrounding the lake.

 

[Faurosk]

Faurosk could only watch in horror as the wolf came to a heaving stop. It took every ounce of willpower left in his body to keep from looking away once the creature began to regurgitate its brunch, and his face only contorted further into a look of disgust as an egg came throttling up afterwards.

When the Witch's voice rose from that hulking wolf, though, felt himself freeze in half-expected shock. "Oh... Right," he said aloud, though to who, he wasn't quite sure. It did explain the deer carcass, the one clean bite to its neck. She hadn't struck him as the type to rob a predator of its kill. Her being the predator, however, made a fair bit more sense.

Rising to his feet, Faurosk moved two strides towards his unconscious guide. His hands went through a well practiced motion, taking inventory of the ground underfoot before shunting palm-first to the shoreline. Dirt shifted beneath the pool of blood and viscera, and at his command, a faint cracking sound rose above the eerie quiet of the lake. Carried upon a bed of pebbles, the egg lazily rolled away, stopping some ten feet from Sigrith's heaving body.

"You have certainly seen better days," he muttered before biting down hard upon his lip. Part of him worried over her continued wellbeing, but at least drowning was no long a concern. Perhaps she had emerged from the lake with a belly full of blood, but she'd been breathing as well. Hopefully, that meant something

Regloving both of his hands to avoid any undue contact with the lake's vile contents, the wizard placed a hand into either of her canine armpits and heaved the unconscious witch up against his belly. With a fair bit of effort and more than a few curses to bite back, he hauled her back a fair distance from the shore before falling into a heap.

"Had to choose the big one," came a wanderer's grumble as he shifted out from under her, moving to rummage through his pack. "Couldn't find another guide, had to be the shape-shifting intimidator..." Before long, he had a small pile of kindling lit between them, exerting no small amount of will upon the flame to keep it burning. The effort would cost him in calories, no doubt, but there were few ways to assess the witch's condition before she awoke; He only hoped such a time would come soon.

 

[Sigrith]

It would be dark before the wolf stirred, black coat matted by the red of the lake and reeking of rage made aromatic. It stank of fire, ash, the bitter sting of salt, a tang of copper, and the heavy aroma of blood. Whatever it was that the mage could smell of her, what she could smell of herself was exceptionally worse.

The curse of beast senses.

With a grunt the wolf shifted where it lay, turning a bleary gaze to the flames and the foggy shadow of the man sitting behind them. There was no sign of movement beyond their own. They were utterly isolated out here, wherever it was that happened to be.

But still, she didn't get a good sense about the place.

"We should leave," but first she had to bury the egg. Be it a canine instinct or something else telling her to do so, she wasn't one to question the compulsion. Sigrith pushed herself to stand on four unsteady paws, feeling no sense of regret for her earlier choice. Witches didn't know regret.

"There's a storm coming."

 

[Faurosk]

"So you can feel it, too," the mage lied, glancing up from the fire. Distracted, its flames sputtered a moment before redoubling into a smoldering mote that sent long, spindly shadows racing along the shore. With a groan of effort, Faurosk rose onto his feet and paced beside the canid witch.

"You know, I'd say we're due a talk... Perhaps one regarding why you're quadrupedal?" The school of Empathy had never been his strongest subject, but even so, Sigrith radiated rage like a furnace. "Or rather, what happened beneath the lake? You don't seem terribly distraught over your current shape, so I have to assume this is a common occurrence for you."

 

[Sigrith]

The wolf eyed him, ears back, matted fur slowly growing ice like discarded rations grew mold. There was nothing majestic about her in this state and she felt as disgusting as she looked and smelled. The difference was that she was rather one with the gore and felt incensed only to finish the job her soul was demanding of her. She turned away from Braun and slowly padded across the dirt to where the egg sat.

As she neared the wolf grew wary. The object, red and covered in curious scales, radiated an energy that was not unlike heat but far, far more deterring. Fury, it was an impossible fount of fury and it resonated through the air straight into her core where she had felt it only hours ago.

"I'm a Skinwalker," she replied to the man quietly, "the realms speak to me and I listen."

Anxiously, Sigrith bowed her great skull downwards to clamp her jaws around the egg. It stung, radioactive at such proximity, and moved her to act quickly. She turned with a sudden urgency and hurried off along the shoreline, leaving the glow of his campfire.

 

[Faurosk]

Faurosk could only sigh at the answer offered, his pace stopping several feet behind where the wolf now stooped. Truly, her answer's vagueness was only matched in volume by the worry it had sprouted just left to the center of his chest. A Skinwalker, she claims-- Or perhaps, it claims? How was he to know what came out of the depths? He had hardly known the woman who'd waded in from the shallows, and there has been little to say that a creature of the lake hadn't just stolen her voice like too-few pennies and come heaving to land.

In a moment, she was off into the night, padded feet carrying her well beyond his fire's glow and into the dark of night.

"Did the realms tell you to steal away with an egg?" He more so thought aloud than asked, squinting into the shadowed distance. Without quite realizing, the mage felt his hand go to the dagger on his hip. He withdrew it a single inch, glancing down to find reassurance in its silver blade. If that ovate font of rage had come dredging out of the crimson lake, there was no telling what else might come shambling ashore.

 

[Sigrith]

The wolf comported herself across the barren landscape with a rigid brusqueness, like someone might move that bore bad news for the crown. The destination was cause for fright but the weight of the news and the heat of it burning in their mind was enough to quicken their pace to the inevitable. Jaw clenching upon the egg with urgent tenderness, she scoped out the long expanse of black sand for an area of tumbled stone and rock, left behind after some disturbance higher up the mountain slope.

It was there she bolted, driven by a strange instinct of destiny, and stole upon the larger stones gracelessly. She moved them with her paws, pulling and heaving them apart one by one until she'd cleared herself a sizeable hole. Within it she placed the egg and moved to scale the slope, further uprooting slumbering stones to dribble and roll in a fresh sloughing of land to cover the egg in its new grave.

She returned to the mage panting and bleeding from the mouth where the egg's rage had burned itself into every bit of flesh it touched.

"My affects," Sigrith mouthed, salivating over a whine, "roll them in the pelt and bring them. We must find shelter."

 

[Faurosk]

While Sigrith went off on her mission to bury the furious entity, the wizard busied himself with two of his omnipresent pastimes; Worrying, and thought. With his meager fire now allowed to wear itself to ash, Faurosk summoned a pair of radiant spheres from the palm of his hand. Though they gave off no heat, the light was enough to guide the wolf back to her ward.

Dark, inquisitive eyes met the witch as she came limping back into sight, one eyebrow quirking to the sight of her new injuries. "If we can get to the snowdrift beyond these peaks, I can form us a shelter for the night," he offered quietly, rising to gather her belongings. His own pack was already slung about his shoulders, her pelt soon held snugly beneath one arm. "Unless you know of any 'sàbhailte taigh' within an hour's march, that'll be our best chance at weathering the storm."

Looking out across the calm surface of the sanguinary lake, his nose wrinkled in contempt. Its putrid haze clung to the nostrils, tinging every breath with a nauseating sting of iron and flame. He would suffer its odor no longer. With a exhalation that flared his nose in frustration, the wizard began to trek back up the pass they'd travelled all those hours ago.

"I'll take a look at your wounds once we're safe," he offered into the air. "I owe you that much."

 

[Sigrith]

"There are none near here," she reported on the question of safehouses. Sigrith wasn't even entirely sure where here was. Her instincts told her they were much farther north than she previously thought, but her mind had a difficult time wrapping around the notion that she had, for once, found herself lost.

This did not happen very often, though it did happen even to the most journeyed of tundra dwellers. The landscape had a way of plaguing the senses and the mind with confusion.

"A shelter will have to do." The wolf followed behind the mage as he retraced their steps into this strange place. Sigrith did not give it a backward glance - witches new better than to look twice upon such misfortunes.

The winds pushed in, a chill that cut straight to the bone and set her pelt into bristled ruffles. A time or two, while the man made his way up the slopes, the giant beast at his back pushed forward into him to help him keep his feet, giving him the push he needed to keep his balance and continue the trek. They reached the snowdrifts beyond the peaks well after dark.

The witch panted into the howling winds, keeping herself quite close to her companion so as not to lose him in the gale. With the whipping tides of snow furling across the lands, there was no measurable sense of direction to follow, no means to track down prey. Not even frost trolls hunted in this weather. It was best to hunker down and wait it out.

 

[Faurosk]

With his breath frozen in his beard and his heart thudding blood out to frost-numbed fingertips, Faurosk found himself in the mindset to agree; A shelter will have to do. The march from sanguine lake to snowdrift proved to be a long one, nearly toppling the mage on more than one occasion. But with a wolf at his back to brace him, the pair persisted.

Finding himself in loose snow once more, he stumblesd to a graceless stop. "This will have to do! Stay close, I'm not losing you now," he shouted to be heard above the storm. With little ceremony, the end of his glove was bitten and pulled free. Uncovered against the cold, his hand shook, tremored, and was thrust down into the snow.
Such a frigid fate would only mean amputation if he couldn't get it warmed again, and he was lucky enough to have the single best guide money can't buy.

The effect of his contact with the snow was immediate, the loose drift seeming to deflate and compress all around the unlikely pair. The frigid powder underfoot spun and flattened into a broad circle of neatly compacted snow, and a short wall of the excess mass began to form a barrier around them. At first it was half a foot tall, then two feet, and four— The circular wall began a lazy arc inward, gradually forming a dome above the skinwalker and her ward. The wind quieted to a distant, muffled thing as the domed shelter neared completion, closing an aperture on the storm overhead as the pair was sealed within.

Faurosk had been planning to abstain from such a blatant show of magic. He had wanted to prove to himself that he could survive as a man, not a mage. Such pride had ended countless lives before; He must not foolish enough to add himself and Sigrith to that list.

 

[Sigrith]

There'd been no need to demand proximity - Sigrith had no intention of putting distance between them. Not when the winds howled a promise of their own frigid fury from the lands of the distant cold. Keeping at the mage's back, the wolf hung near his heels, a silent witness to his arcane powers and grateful for such a thing right now. The alternative would have been to build a shelter by hand and paw; not ideal, but she'd done it countless times before in arguably worse situations.

When the last whistle of the billowing gale died away, their darkness within the dome filled with the sullen whines of the wolf. It started as a pitched tone and shifted gradually over to a rasp groaning as pelt smoothed to pale, scarred, and painted flesh.

Two bleary, mismatched eyes faintly glowed within the dome, "Braun," said the witch, her voice now lost of its wild, rumbling tamber, in exchange for an audible shiver, "my affects."

 

[Faurosk]

The mage wheeled about, prying his hand free from the vice-like grip of the shelter it had just erected. He shook the tingling extremity loosely at his side, grimacing at the feeling of ice cold pinpricks across his exposed skin. The spell was hardly a demanding one, merely shifting materials that were already present. But that fact hadn't stopped the effort from stealing half the energy he'd still held onto after their windward march.

"That," Faurosk began with more fire than he'd intended, the single word still raised against the gale. He blinked, dull brown eyes meeting Sigrith's mismatched pair in the dark. "That--... Probably took a lot out of you," he repeats and concludes. The bundled pelt is pressed forward between them, a careful offering made by shaking hands. "How are those wounds feeling? I've got my kindling somewhere, a light won't be hard to spark."

The sound of rustling filled their enclosure, a small pewter box yanked free of the wanderer's belt.