[ P ] Ordinary

What was that noise... it was like a ringing he could not ignore, it was driving him absolutely mad. Delcan's muzzle wrinkled as he lay there, his body jerking as he tried to escape the sound. He tried to outrun it but it was no use. Suddenly, the ringing became unbearable and then it was nothing. He opened his amber eyes and sat upright. Blearily, he looked around the forest as the birds chirped and a gentle breeze blew by. Where... the fuck was he? He cleared his dry throat and licked his lips. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he wasn't sure why. He felt a sinking feeling in his gut as he stood on wobbly legs and took a few steps. Yep he was going to...

Nothing but yellow bile rose in his throat and was expelled on the ground. He coughed and shook his pounding head before stalking off into the forest to figure out just what the fuck was going on. He felt so strange and off, he couldn't explain it. Eventually he found he had been in the Redwood and meandered back to Inverness. As he walked through the town nobody looked familiar and he heard whisperings of 'King Beltane this' and 'Ildhrune and Da'ira that'... mutterings of things he'd never heard of before and something called the fae fog and it's strange magic that had spread over the land of Rionnach. But they were in Saora? Strange, he thought.

Eventually he got up the courage to ask someone what day it was and when they told him, he blinked. That couldn't be right that would mean he'd been out for a week! Declan felt panic rise inside him at the thought of Lachlan being out money for an entire week. He thanked the person and dipped, heading towards his parents home in the countryside to see if he could beg his father for more time. He didn't know what had happened, or why he'd been out, but he had to figure shit out and quick. When he arrived he found the place empty and that was peculiar. His father was too injured now to leave much. He looked around until he found a pile of bones in the back room. As he noticed it, the entire place was dusty and seemed abandoned. He looked at the bones in confusion before leaving and heading back into town to try and get more information.

...

Now he found himself far to the south after a day's travel and his panic only having risen. He had learned that it had not been a week he'd been out, but five years and that a strange fog had lingered upon the land for those years, keeping many in a strange stasis like himself. He didn't know what that meant but he knew one thing. He had to find Lenora. He had to know if she was still here or if, perhaps, she had...

His throat tightened as he found his way to her door step and burst inside. There on the ground, she lay, and he saw that she was youthful still like him. Maybe she had not yet woken up... or maybe she'd died after waking. "Lenora?" he said softly as he pressed a paw to her side and brushed his muzzle over her ears. She was breathing, that much he could tell.

art by alz

Darkness. An empty, suffocating darkness. While she wasn't exactly conscious, she was in the back of her head, forced into a corner where no one seemed to ever be able to find her. Sadness overwhelmed her in her overwhelming loneliness, with dreams playing one after the other, reenacting anxious moments or personal fears. Ryker, Nalik, Declan, Kenzo, Riften, Atlas... all of their faces flashed by, all of them upset at her in some way.

Eventually, it had to end.

Lenora blinked, her eyelids feeling like sandpaper as they scraped over her eyeballs. Someone had called her name, rousing her from a slumber that left her feeling paralyzed. It was as if she hadn't moved in years. Purple irises flickered, taking in her surroundings as she laid still - every time she tried to move, her muscles groaned in protest. Someone was standing over her. Her sights rose up, searching the face of the man... recognition was slow, but it did come.

"Declan," she whispered in reply, her voice hoarse and broken. Like she hadn't drank any water in a long, long time. But she had made sure she hydrated before bed the night before... "I feel ill, I... I think," she gulped air, saliva nonexistent in her mouth. Something felt wrong. Off. Confused, she searched Declans face, suddenly wondering why he was here - the question would be silently asked as her throat choked on any more words.

He didn't have to wait long before she woke, thankfully. It was like fate had brought them together just in time once again. At least that's what he might believe if he believed in things like fate. "Declan..." she whispered his name and he hushed her. "Hey, it's okay..." he murmured gently, sitting beside her as she came to. This was anything but okay but if she was anything like he had been she would be feeling off, sick even. He didn't want her to panic yet. "I'm here," he added softly, though he wasn't all that sure she'd find solace in his presence after what he told her.

"Let me get you something to drink," he said before wandering off to find some water. He returned quickly, placing a small cup by her side as he tried to guide her upright with a paw.

He was thinking now about the bones he'd found at his parents house and wondered if those had been... he swallowed, uncertain, and knew that he would need to seek out the remnants of his family to confirm what he knew in his heart. This fog had not saved everyone, it had claimed some and taken them perhaps naturally or unnaturally. He wasn't sure. He and Lenora had been some of the... lucky ones, he guessed.

"I have a lot to tell you and you're not going to like it... I don't know what this means or what the fuck to do now but..." maybe they could figure that out together.

He told her all that he had found out in the streets of now Rionnach -- that a fog had descended upon the land five years ago and places some wolves in a stasis-like slumber. That they had been sleeping for five years somehow. He told her King Adamh and Jacob were no more, and Saora was no more having been unified under Adamh's daughter some time ago only to then be replaced by her son, Beltane now. He even told her about the lands that had appeared through the fog over land bridges cast out into the ocean. He told her everything he knew and then he quieted, watching her and waiting for that panic to rise. "Lenora, I'm so sorry. I don't know what any of this means but I'm glad you're still here. I don't think some of us were so lucky." he said, wishing to throw his arms around her and embrace her, but holding off for the moment.

art by alz