The Stone Shore || Cyan & Rose
playkinshara:
It was at times like these that Rose wondered just how he could be so stupid.
He was bleeding, not badly – or at least not fatally, but enough that every step he was an effort and left a telltale trail of red for anyone to follow. Perhaps those who’d done this would return he thought and properly put an end to him, perhaps the cold would get to him long before they could; all he really knew was he was in no fit state to make it back to the village. It was far too far from here.
He was not from around here but had known of the area, and the great riches it was supposed to possess for the hunter brave enough to weather the cold and the ice to discover it, since he was a child. In the warm farmlands in the South, the area was the setting of many a story. Some who told these tales, spoke to witches and strange creatures lurking in the mists while others spoke of an abundance of animals and natural resources to make a rich man out of anyone who travelled there. Even as a young boy, Rose knew they couldn’t all be true, but it was still enough to fill the head of a young ambitious hunter with desires for danger and adventure.
Perhaps that was why he’d found to so easy to through in his lot with the first charismatic gentleman and his entourage who passed through the small village he’d once called home and claimed to be putting a party together.
He wouldn’t be doing that again
Rose wasn’t an inexperienced hunter. He’d taken after his father; learning the trade almost as soon as he could handle a weapon. By the time he was grown many would have called him an expert when it came to the subtle art of tracking and trapping. However, all this knowledge could never quite match the deviousness of a man who’d been able to see a young man with a good heart and a yearning for adventure. They bought him out here, made use of his tracking and combat skills, and once they had what they’d come for, ambushed him and left him for dead.
And Rose still couldn’t understand why
It was one of the many questions that now dogged him as he sat by a small fire licking his wounds. After they’d cut him down and left him for dead among the icy artic wastes, it had been all Rose could do to slowly drag his way slowly back towards the woods and the last town they’d come across days before. It had been an arduous trip, with his steps getting a little slower, and little harder as the minutes drew on.
The moon was high in the sky before he realised, if he was going to make it back at all then he needed to heal his wounds and try to rest. It had pained him to do so but there was no other choice. He couldn’t move any further and live to tell the tale. He settled in a clearing, sheltering a cave like structure; picking twigs and moss from the ground to hopefully let the fire last the night. It wasn’t perfect but it was enough to ensure he wouldn’t freeze to death.
Which was when he saw it.
He was about to lie down in the leaves and grass, littering his little sanctuary, when the glint of something soft and white caught at the very edge of his eyeline. Enough to attract his curiosity and a lifesaver once he dragged himself over to investigate and realised what it was. A pelt. A soft, warm pelt of a seal or some other creature. It had been well taken care of, which suggested it belonged to someone, but in Rose’s state of hurt and cold, he didn’t care. It could be, he thought, wrapping it tight around his shoulders and drinking in its warmth, the difference between life or death right now. It may have been left but its owner’s loss was Rose’s gain.
He might have drifted off to sleep believing that too until he heard the rustle of leaves and his peace was disturbed by the sound of someone approaching like a bat out of hell.
The footsteps drew him out of a half sleep, the fur still wrapped tightly around his shoulders, keeping out the worst of the winter weather. He searched for the sound, only for the sound to find him. A women, he noted. Tall and beautiful, with an anger around her that could have turned a lesser man to stone. Rose, in his injured state could only pull the pelt closer and stare at her as she began to make her demands. The pelt was here’s and the look in her eye suggested she wasn’t leaving until she got it back. Rose, blinked, gaining his bearings and taking in this nude figure with a sense of shock, not sure what else to do but say his peace and hope she’d understand.
“My lady, I had no intention of taking what’s yours, but as you can see – I am injured and not sure I’ll last the night without it to keep me warm”
He tried to angle himself so she could see the wounds and the makeshift bandages he treated himself with. If there was any time when he wished for mercy from this stranger then it was certainly now.
“Here” he half un-draped the fur, held it out to the bare figure in front of him, not sure what else he could offer in his current state or why this one particular pelt could possibly be so important to her that she’d shout down someone in such a weak and wounded state “I…I can’t give it up, but perhaps we can share?”
Perhaps were he reasoning with a human woman the blonde’s explanation and subsequent compromise would have been more than resolvable. If she were a human woman she might have had her own shelter to invite him back to and tend to his wounds she might have recognized a desperate and horribly injured man and taken pity. Yet, Cyan was not a human woman, all she knew of men and their ilk was the wickedness that had taken her family and freedom from her for half a decade she knew THAT man and his ilk and when she gazed at this human offering to SHARE her treasured possession nay a treasured PIECE of herself she balked further the rage around her only growing.
“Then should you suppose were I bored you might share one of your legs with me? An arm perhaps should I not be able to reach something, shall I cut one from your body you ignorant fool!” She noted he had a weapon on him, she could take that by force if need be, her time among humans had taught her at hing or two about spears and how one might wield them. He was wounded she could kill the man herself and be done with it. Yet in her blind rage it was not the weapon she chose to wrest from his possession no, she first attempted to simply make good on her word. She had asked him for it once, she was not asking again his exposing his wounds only showed her the exact place to apply force to yank the pelt away from the man pulling it around her shoulders the motion leaving a flurry of snowflakes dancing about her rage filled eyes.
“Are you truly so stupid as to steal a part of my very being and suggest we SHARE how foolish can your kind get?” The more she spoke the less the blonde man seemed to understand and finally her rage peaked and she decided to show the fool the very LEVEL of his insult. The woman shifted the pelt at first simply wrapped around her shoulders as it had been his became almost amorphous in nature it consumed her form as it slowly curled down to the ground leaving in place of the woman herself a silver seal glinted in the moonlight aggressively barking at the now surely more confused man. Feeling herself shift was somewhat of a relaxant for the woman it appeased the fear and wrath that had consumed her a bit and as her seal form began to unwrap leaving her standing a woman with a pelt once more she turned simply to walk away.
Leave the bastard to his own devices with the knowledge of what he’d insulted. If he was familiar with folk lore here at all he would know what she was if not he could die in bewildered amazement.
Yet, one of her own words just then came back to her, ignorant. She watched the man’s face and in his features was nothing but confusion as she compared sharing that pelt to sharing a limb of his, ignorant. The man was not wicked, or devious, or plotting anything, simply a cold bleeding fool with no idea what he’d gotten himself into so she had only walked two or three steps before she stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. He really would freeze to death would he not? He was bleeding and she could not sense or smell any of his own kind on the wind he was-
-alone.
“I cannot and will not relinquish my pelt to one of your kind, never again. Still, you seem more fool than foe so I will make you one simple offer. You have insulted me, and stolen a part of my very being, it would seem out of ignorance...if you would APOLOGIZE properly for that slight. I could be persuaded to spare your miserable life the cold of night in my second form which I assure you would offer far more warmth to your miserable bones than my pelt on it’s own.” Cyan could not quite explain why she was taking pity on this man, or even entertaining the idea but were she shifted he could not steal her pelt from her so it was not of much danger.
