fuga | timeskip logs.

The night is dark around her as she stalks through the forest, eyes flicking here and there as she hunts; food is not as important as it once was, not in the way it might be for others, but if she doesn't feed herself, her magic, then it twists inside of her and becomes something worse, sapping the life out of her body and using it against her. It's better to hunt and eat, even if she has to do it raw, often, than it is to ignore the urges that overcome her.

Her teeth have just snapped around the neck of a hare when she feels the pulse of shard magic, her head lifting as she lowers her ears. It's not Iorveth, that she can tell, and she takes a few cautious steps backwards as she regards him. If he approaches she might well have to turn back to herself - already she can feel the exhaustion coiling around her - but she has the upper hand like this, freer and with no consequences for attacking other people.

Who can blame a wolf for instinct, after all?

He's fairly sure that the wolf is sentient and after briefly berating himself for what is bound to be yet another Very Bad Idea, he flies down low to the ground and hops off his broom. Carefully, he puts it down on the ground and shows that his hands are empty.

"I don't want to be a bother, but I'm looking for Sumsi Punu and I've been told he might be in these parts. Likely as a fisher cat or maybe a marten?"

She pauses, for a long moment, examining him, before she tilts her head. With a nasty snap, letting her teeth sink in to the flesh before she twists and drops it to one side. Her snout is bloody, now, her jowls matted, and she takes a step back to sit. Watching Harry for a long moment she pauses, wondering how this man thought a wolf might respond to him, before she breathes out sharply, darting into the forests to the left.

There, she transforms, not willing to let a stranger see what she becomes; the elven creature that is her natural form. She moves out, making a soft whistle, as if she had called the wolf to her side, moving forward to bend and pick up the dead hare.

"I have not heard the name," is all she says at first, her eyes exploring Harry's face and turning to look at his broom before she lifts her head, acting as superior as she dares. "And I doubt trying to converse with beasts of nature will help your cause."

A talking wolf would hardly be the strangest thing he's seen in the Drabwurld. (That rather dubious honour goes to the Brucolac and Vol'jin shrieking like toddlers as they splashed about in the ocean during Samhain.)

"Thank you though, and I'm sorry to have bothered your hunting. I hope I haven't disturbed any other game?"

"I don't need more." Which is true enough. She's out here from stubbornness - there's only so much she will accept from Iorveth without a growl overtaking her, without him sneering at her, even with their uneasy and developing alliance. She's always keen to prove herself and if that means getting her own food for a few weeks then she will go out of her way to do it, to show him wrong if she can.

Turning her head, Lauralae lifts her hands to pull her hood lower, careful as she watches Harry.

"You are too far from home."

"Probably, but I can't go back until I find Punu and this is the best place to look." He'll find somewhere out of the way to camp for the night and wait. It might be easier to apparate to somewhere warm and safe, but Harry has learned that he needs to make himself somewhat visible, somewhat vulnerable, for the older, more cautious shardbearers to risk approaching. They all know what he's come for, but they want to get a measure of him before relenting.

"You will not have much luck if you continue as you are. Do you think him capable of speaking if he were trapped as you think?" Lauralae watches him with dark, careful eyes, flicking here and there before she shakes her head. "It is too late for you to find anyone, save the people that need not be found. You would do better to find a place to keep yourself safe, mage." She isn't being kind, she is being practical; his travelling will bring more dangers to both herself and Iorveth and she doesn't have the energy to deal with that tonight.

"You're right, of course. I'd just ...well, I'm almost done a very long task and I'd hoped to get that much closer today." Harry shrugs and shaking off the thought, he reaches down to pick up his broom. "If you've a long way back home, I can offer you a lift, but I don't think I can fit your wolf as well."

"One night of rest will not put it off so much. It is better to complete a task with all your energy than give a bare amount to it." Lauralae moves, stepping forward, the light of the moon lighting up her face; she seems gaunt, for the moment, her hands, covered in light gloves, pushing her hair into her hood. "I would not ask for it. The wolf doesn't care for those other than myself."

"In that case, do you know of a good place to rest around here? I'm not much trouble and I can trade for the help." He tugs his own cloak up around his neck and as he fidgets with the clasp, the sense of his shard fades away so that it can't be spotted. "I don't have much to swap, but if you want some bread and dried fruit to go with the rabbit, I'll share what I've got."

"I don't need anything else." She shakes her head; it feels like charity, as if he pities her, and it makes her recoil in frustration. "There is a clearing north of here, by a river. I am sure that would suit you and, if not, a few miles south there is another, one without access to water." Her nose wrinkles as she loses grasp of his shard and she steps closer, her eyes boring into him. "How did you do that?"

"The Queen gave me a boon; it's not a sort of magic I could manage on my own." Harry doesn't really understand how it works, just that it does and he's grateful. Normally he leaves it on, but he thought that leaving his shard visible might help convince Punu to come out of hiding.

"Ah, the Queen and her magic." Lauralae's nose wrinkles, a childish action that goes back to a time when she was with her own people, and she shakes her head. "Their magic is cheating. There is no cost, no adventure in it. A wave of the hand and their will is done." A wave of their hand and, she thinks, she could be cured - but why? What would be the point if she hadn't learned it herself?

"And when there is cost and adventure, she sends us out. That's why I'm here. She sent me to talk to every Unseelie shardbearer." He's almost tempted to ask if she knows how to speak to a peach tree, but doesn't want to push too far. "A wave of her hand, and I'm off to do her will."

"I don't mind, though."

"Of course you don't mind. You've her shard in your chest and her gift at your throat. What more could you beg of your queen?" Her own experience with authority, with monarchy, of a sort, has been disheartening at best and, so, she rejects it easily enough, her hand waving. "You're a tool in her game. I suppose you don't mind that, either, do you?"

"I'm not about to tell her to take my shard and put it somewhere indelicate, no." That said, he has made an agreement to support to the aims of the Covenant, to stop either side from winning, and he's moved against his own court.

...and yet, Harry doesn't really mind all that much. He's at his best when being useful and for now, if that means letting Morla use him, then so be it.

"You would not last long without it, I imagine." All shardbearers have magic, of course, she knows that - it's why she keeps Iorveth at her side, desperate to claw it out of his chest as soon as death takes him - but that doesn't mean they know how to use it. Lauralae had to learn alone, blackened hands twisting as she drew her own blood and tried to feel the power of it, to explore how to use it without the guidance of a real teacher. "It is your gift and your curse."

"That and my stunning good looks," he wryly remarks before turning his face up into the moonlight. 'Stunning' is one word for it.

"And no, I don't suppose I will last long. I'll lose it, sooner or later, hopefully later, and I ought to start looking for something to do with myself after. I've been told, there's good work for wizards in Daonna, if you know where to look. S'that true?"

She just raises an eyebrow, deciding it might be better not to comment. Her appreciation for human beauty - or handsomeness, whichever was more appropriate - was minimal at best. She was not the type of person to be impressed with a soft smile and a nice set of eyes; magic is the best means to attract her.

"It is not a lie," she says, careful. "It is a place where you can learn many things, but I do not think it is for the faint hearted, or those unprepared to care for themselves. Do not regard it as a least resort, though. Even the darkest places have their uses."

"I had friends there." He doesn't know where they are now, but he still considers Trouble Is Our Business as his friends. While he'd like to live with his shard inside him for a good, long period of time, he reasons that they'd be willing to put up with him if he'd lost it.

"And, while I'm scared a good deal of the time, I don't think I'm too faint-hearted. Although, you never know until the moment you need it."

"I wonder how long they would be your friends." Loyalty is not something familiar to her, not anymore, and her eyes dance as she regards Harry. Friends in Daonna, a shardling with magic powers and a broom that can move up into the sky; she had never heard of the likes before.

Her nose wrinkles, almost childish.

"Fear is fuel. You ought to use it to your advantage."

"I don't know, but they saved my life after hardly knowing me, so I can't complain." Harry tends to believe that people are loyal until proved otherwise. "They might be out to use me for a court connection, I'm not so dim that I can't see that it's possible, but I don't think that really changes things. At least, not for now."

"And I do try to use it. To be smart about it. I'm scared more for my friends than me, which bothers them, I suppose."

"No, I suppose your complaints would be unfounded." She thinks of the way her people 'helped' her, cast out from the only home she had ever known, the peeling feel of something eating at her insides keeping her awake at night. "Not for now, no. They can tell what you are as easily as I can and anyone with half a mind would use it against you."

It's logical. People use you, abuse you, and she has learned that surviving through that means doing the same in return; using people, taking what they offer and lashing out if they ask for too much in return. It's like a diagram, a step-by-step process.

"You may be smart, but you are still claimed. You are tainted by their touch and none would soon forget it."

If she were to explain her viewpoint, Harry wouldn't entirely disagree. People in power tend to use those with less and that's just how the world works, but that doesn't mean he has to bow to tradition.

"I know. I see the looks I get, I can hear when people speak behind my back, and I don't like it, but I can't blame them. Wherever shardbearers go, things go to pot, and they don't come back to set right what they've overturned. It's wrong, I think, but there's a lot more in the courts than just me."

"You are given power you often have no right to claim," her head shakes, her hood sinking lower around her shoulders - baring more of her face for Harry to see. She couldn't talk, she imagines, since her power, the hands she has and the strength she was given given to her through curse, not kindness, but she makes the point still, despite the hypocrisy.

When she speaks again her eyes have lifted to look at him, boring into his.

"You come to this world and turn things upside down, are given things you do not entirely deserve and claim to have ownership over the land, over the power here. You are their pets, nothing more."

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