The Portal
If Lothíriel knew anything about this queer wood, it was that she was not alone. This fact was confirmed when she saw the twin pinpricks of eyes watching her from every which direction. Their presence felt sinister, even malicious; perhaps they were waiting to see if she was weak enough to pick off. Summoning up whatever strength she could gather, the roan maiden scrambled to her cleft feet. She stood there for what seemed like hours, although in truth it was only for the span of several heartbeats, contemplating whether it was wiser to stay in place or to run. Her dark ears flicked back and forth uneasily as she canvassed her surroundings, noting that even the flora in this wood was alien; strangling vines climbed up the length of great trees whose leaves came in colors too vibrant and brilliant to be normal. Even the little blooms that continued to push through the undergrowth around her were of foreign shapes and colors; usually, Lothíriel could give names to each and every flower that grew beneath her hooves, but now she failed to recognize any of them. Something stirred in the darkness deep inside the woods, and the lilac girl found herself quivering from fright—somewhere in the distance, she heard a passing disturbance agitating the still night air, almost like a whisper, although she could not make out the words, or if there were any words spoken at all. When she attempted to grasp the filaments that linked her very soul to Thingol, the girl was startled to find that they had been weakened, as if a knife had pared down the satin ropes of their bond until only a single thread remained. Despite herself, tears welled unbidden on the rims of her eyes, threatening to spill over the threshold of her eyelashes. Never had she felt so alone, even after her mother disappeared. For a moment, Lothíriel allowed to think about the family she had lost—Mother, Father, Erebos. They had been happy once, but that was long ago in what seemed like an entirely different world, an entirely different lifetime. As if testing the bounds of her loneliness, she heard the timbre of an achingly familiar voice, although its inflections were more masculine, more grown, than she had ever remembered. Dark ears pricked forwards, desperately attempting to catch its dying melody. Loth. Lothíriel's eyes narrowed in suspicion—was this some siren the wood had summoned from the last vestiges of her memory, seeking to lure her towards an untimely death? She was silent for a moment, straining to hear something that could confirm her fears. However, the roan girl could not deny her heart its fragile hopes, and anyway, if the forest wanted to claim her soul so badly, it would do so anyway. "Ere—" she started, almost startled by the sound of her own voice. Gathering up whatever courage she had left, the maiden began again: "Erebos? Is that you?" She stepped forward blindly into the darkness, painfully aware of how vulnerable she was. The forest was not completely bereft of light, although whatever starlight filtered down from the canopy was corrupted and sinister, feeding the shadows instead of driving them away. The thrum of her swallow's heart rattled against her sternum as her slim dark legs moved forwards. Was it a mistake to pursue this specter? And then she saw him. He was far from what she remembered of her baby brother, her accomplice, her partner in a hundred small crimes; he was a man grown now, the familiar bruised tones of his pelt—black and blue—enveloping a warrior's body, as finely honed as a sword's edge. The lilac girl stopped dead in her tracks several lengths away from him, blinking hard. Her velvet nose reached towards him, half convinced that he would burst into smoke if she touched him. |
@Erebos
