[SWP] selcouth

[Atreus]

over the moaning bones
of those who quit and chose to remain

In the weeks that followed the torrential downpour that more or less pounded Terrastella into the ground, the citadel had become overrun by animals of all varieties - furred, feathered, scaled, winged, omnivorous, carnivorous, and everything else between. It had become almost maddening, and more often than not Atreus had locked himself away, occupying his mind with studying a new concoction or slipping away for varying lengths of time in order to gather components for his next insidious idea.

Today, he was making a return from the latter, a basket grasped by the invisible threads of his mind hovering near his shoulder. It was filled nearly to the brim with fresh ingredients - burdock, calendula, motherwort, passionflower, even a few rocks for grinding and, if one were to remove the stalks and flowers, they might also find the bodies of a few unfortunate salamanders, a frog, a few minnows and a crayfish.

As the potion master crested the final hill that led him back to the citadel-turned-madhouse, he was met with a sight most curious. Gophers, an endless sea of them, followed in the wake of the newly crowned King as though he were some Varmint God, and amongst them were the faces of a few he didn’t recognize. A winged mare with a hide like fresh snow, bright markings coating her wings and with yet another gopher lying prostrate across her back. The other was rather lackluster upon his eyes, a dull grey with nothing at all to make her stand out - he’d found more interesting things stuck to his muddied hooves.

Then, there was of course Asterion whom he’d had the pleasure of meeting with once, and fiery Warden who had definitely caught his eye each and every time he passed her by, but whom he had never given more than a passing greeting.

Although the crimson marked man wanted to turn around and disappear back into the wilderness until things had returned to some semblance of normalcy, his curiosity had unfortunately been piqued and with a hefty sigh, he approached the puzzling gaggle of women, gophers, and Asterion.

“Who is your friend, indeed,” his voice curled as he drew near, coming to stand close to the Halcyon cadet so as to inspect the creature lying across her back. He cared little about leaving much distance between them, their comfort hardly at the forefront of his mind. “You’ve returned with a dizzying amount of them.”

“Speaking.”

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