thattimeofthemonth | Broken on the Dawn

Broken on the Dawn

Sometimes, one just gave up on life. When there was nothing left to fight for, nothing left to live for, nothing left to even hope for. In one terribly short amount of time, he had lost... everything. The people he had come to love like family - James, Peter, Lily. Their beautiful child he had been so excited to meet, murmuring to the little one in the womb in a way that always made Lily laugh. Even his brother, his best friend, his... maybe one day they might have been something more, but then to find out in one blow that it had been Sirius who had become a traitor, whisked away to Azkaban before he could even find out why. Why he had murdered Peter, why he had told...?!

Why Sirius had said he was the traitor. But... he was all too easy to blame, wasn't he? Who else could Sirius have gotten away with blaming the leak to that everyone would immediately believe? Some people knew who shouldn't ever have, but equally, some of them were dead. He had no idea who knew anymore. What he was, what Sirius said he was... some probably believed Sirius had lied about anything, everything-- hell, he didn't even know.

So he sat waiting, staring up at the horizon as the sun fell. It was a beautiful sunset, streaking bloody red and purple across the sky, more beautiful than he felt. No one was out here nor would they be, on this desolate moor where Dumbledore, bless him, had set him up a place to be able to hide now that he was long out of school. Enough for him to recover and go back to home... but now there wasn't even that. No home, no one to go back to.

His head hung. The tears came. They hung, then fell. Every time he thought there couldn't possibly be more within him, more to wring out of his soul, they came. It hurt more than waking up tomorrow morning would, far more. The nightmares were even worse because they were glorious. James and Lily laughed in his memories, Peter squeaked and shared food, and Sirius gave him that grin and told him to come sneak out to the village with him. Then he woke to nothing.

When the moon started to crest the far hills, Remus reached down and tugged off his shoes, tossing them to the side, then did the same with his pants. It was hard not being a little used to being nude given the amount of times the boys had found him as such, but even more so when no one was around. This time, he met the moon straight on, eyes watching it as it came up. It would take away his humanity and with it, the pain that came with knowing.

What he never would have expected was that long after it happened that night - the change, the creak and crash of bone, the moments between knowing and not until Remus faded away completely and Moony cried to his namesake, the running through the heather, even a hunt that started to bring him towards morning - that something would go horribly wrong. What it was, he had no idea, couldn't know. All the wolf saw was light, smelled the reek of burnt fur, then darkness.

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Bad days, Vrenille would be the first to admit, were relative. They sat on a sliding scale that ranged from "damn, I really can't catch a break here," to "holy fuck that explosion just blew a city-sized crater into the landscape and the airship I'm on is getting sucked into it." Today's bad day was, unfortunately, the latter kind.

The first jolt of the blast had knocked him off his feet where he'd stood by the railing on the deck, trying to get a look at the ominous looking maelstrom on the horizon. Then the shockwave had reversed itself, the ship careened wildly, a rope snapped, something came loose. Vrenille scrambled for a handhold and, as though in slow-motion, watched himself miss, his fingers closing on empty air as he found himself in free fall, the airship shrinking into the distance above him.

It was impossible not to panic, even as he scrambled to right himself in the air and deploy the wings of his glider, its frame a small security as debris pelted him in the air. Heart pounding and hands shaking as he tried to avoid the massive shards of stone hurtling all around him, he was already convinced he'd never make it to the ground alive--if there was even any ground left. From where he was he could see only swirling smoke and dust and sharp crystalline shards that made the whole sky look red. In the air around him, strange glassy patches had begun to appear, glimmering like malformed portals and blinking in and out of existence without warning. He couldn't see the airship at all now, nor even guess which direction it lay in.

Calm down, he tried to tell himself. Think! But there was nothing to offer the first explanation of what had happened or why, and he was too shaken to do more than curse at himself for not having a better idea what to do. He didn't have long to worry about it though. The air before him glimmered into glassiness, and he banked hard to the right, but it was too late: he had just long enough to silently berate himself for not paying close enough attention to that danger, before the portal pulled him in and pain coursed through his body, knocking him unconscious and leaving him plummeting like a rock.

When he opened his eyes again, Vrenille was rather surprised to discover that he was still alive at all. It was, presumably, sometime later, because it was dark. But he must also be some place different because the sky showed no signs of red and the earth showed no signs of having been blown to smithereens. There was soft grass stretching out around him dimly lit by the full moon above, and a cold wind of the sort that blew when it hit nothing to break its momentum.

Vrenille rubbed his arms to warm himself--he had no coat--and took stock of his situation. He still had his scepter, his pistol, and a small pack which, conveniently, carried a lot more within it than it looked to do from the outside. Ok, he tried to reason with himself, ok, just be calm, it could be worse. (Famous last words.)

From his pack he pulled a scarf, a fluffy pair of earmuffs, and a torch. The latter burned with a greenish flame, and he held it aloft to try and light his way before almost immediately wishing he hadn't. It destroyed what limited night vision he had for one thing, and even if it managed to illuminate the ground around him, it only served to make everything beyond its radius seem darker. He extinguished it almost at once. ...But it was only a few minutes afterward when he heard the growl.

Stupid! he swore at himself. Oh you are so damn stupid sometimes, man! Go paint a target on your chest next, why don't you. Lyssa's tits, you're an idiot.

But of course none of this did him any good. Somewhere out there in the darkness behind him, something was coming--something malicious--and Vrenille already knew it was coming for him.

He ran. It chased. He hid himself in fleeting moments of invisibility. It tracked him. He stumbled through the darkness, scrambled up the uneven slope of a tor and down the other side, feet catching on rocks. It didn't matter.

He couldn't have said how long it went on for, only that he'd never yet quite seen the thing that was after him, though he had heard it: a wolf, it sometimes howled, and the sound was chilling.

At some point Vrenille became aware of a faint glow on the horizon, a skirting of pink--a settlement of some kind? He ran towards it, breathless, panting, knowing he was losing the race. The glow grew brighter, but never closer. He stumbled, rolled onto his back, saw the wolf for the first time as it sprang towards him.

He managed to roll out of its way, leaving behind an illusion--a clone of himself that it could rip and rend at least for a few seconds before it spotted him anew.

Again it sprang. Again he dodged, setting up another decoy for it. But his legs were shaking now, his endurance spent. He didn't want to kill the wolf. It hadn't done anything wrong. But what could he do? It seemed mad with the chase, completely fixated on ripping him to shreds, and he didn't want to share the fate he was seeing inflicted on his clones.

To buy himself time, he cast a well at his feet--a broad glowing clock face inscribed on the ground beneath them. The clock chimed down, slowing and stretching time for his foe while speeding it up for him. 3...2... Vrenille drew his gun. He and the wolf squared off. The final chime sounded, Vrenille aimed...and something about the wolf seemed to change. It still sprang, he still fired, but what he fired wasn't a real bullet. Its only goal was to stun.

He ended up on his back, and though he was sure that it had been a wolf (or something quite like one) which had launched itself at him, what he was now pushing off of him was the body of a man, and he could see it because what had seemed to be the glow of a settlement on the horizon had now revealed itself to be the rising sun.

It was morning, and Vrenille had no blessed idea what in the hell was going on.

[For future reference, I like playing the wolf, and while i don't mind a bit of godmodding to make the action work, this was a bit more than I normally like. It's okay, don't freak out, just something to keep in mind. <3]

He had a quite unconscious man on him, one that had seen better days. Dark bags were under his eyes (though not nearly as bad as they would be in years to come), scars criss-crossed on his skinny frame (some new, some old), and while at first glance he seemed older, on a second look this was a young man, somewhere around his late teens to twenty, and very much naked at the moment. However, that bought of unconsciousness didn't seem to last because the man in Vrenille's lap started to stir, but only in the manner of starting to curl up on himself as if he was in a great deal of pain, a quiet sound matching that assumption leaving him.

For Remus, it was always a terrible few moments when he woke. It had been better when he was in school, when he would reach out and wrap an arm around a warm furry body (almost always Padfoot) that had been asleep beside Moony or just keeping him warm, usually jostling Peter awake who tended to end up on James' back or neck depending on if Prongs had changed back or not. Then, knowing he was safe, he could fall back asleep until they made him get up to sneak back into the school before they were caught. It wasn't even a conscious motion to try and find warmth nearby, not after so many years at Hogwarts doing the same, and he didn't even properly register when his arm contacted flesh. James, most likely, his mind supplied without needing to wake him up more fully.

[Ahh mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa! I'm sorry, I should have checked first rather than just presuming and rushing ahead to get to the morning. I shall remember for the future and will not do it again! <3]

This was certainly shaping up to be something in his top ten list of weirdest nights and mornings ever. Not for the naked unconscious man part. On its own, that was admittedly sort of par for the course for him. The location, however, certainly upped the oddness factor a good few notches. And then there was...everything else--the whole context that pretty much blew the weirdness right off the charts.

Vrenille struggled up onto his elbows to try and get a better gauge on the particulars. (Yup, guy was definitely naked, definitely looking a bit rough, almost definitely cold. Also definitely not a norn, which would have been Vrenille's go-to supposition for a person whose body could shift between humanoid and animal forms. Even a norn child, however--by age eight most members of their race were as tall as a fully grown man--would never have a build so slight.)

Craning his neck to look around him in the growing light of dawn, Vrenille confirmed what he'd pretty much known all along. Wherever this place was, it could stake a damn good claim to the year's middle of nowhere competition.

All right then. That sort of left him only one thing to do. He was just going to have to wake his new...friend, and hope that whatever had made the guy want to kill him when he was a wolf didn't still make him want to kill him now that he was a man.

"Hey," he began softly, laying a gentle hand on the stranger's bare shoulder, and then a little louder, "Hey. You all right there, friend? Can you wake up?"

The voice started to cut through the fog of the change, like a man chipping away at ice to uncover something beneath, and when it finally broke through, it cracked everything at once. Something in Remus deeper than his exhaustion, hunger, and bone-deep pain recognized that it had no idea who the speaker of the voice was and drove him up into full consciousness as if he had been doused in cold water. His eyes snapped open, head turning to pin his gaze on the stranger, blinking until he could get the person in focus.

Someone was looking down at him, a bloke a little older than him if he had to guess but right now, all that mattered was who was this!? and oh by Merlin how did they find me!? Under his bare shoulders and back he could feel the prickle of foliage and a breath in told him that it was heather, still on the moor. How did someone find him out here on this moor? It was supposed to be far enough away from anywhere that he was safe, Dumbledore had been certain of that and he trusted the man completely.

And thus Vrenille was just being stared at somewhat blankly, but no immediate leaping for the throat.

For a moment, Vrenille stared back, waiting to see if some further reaction would come. When it didn't, he figured that it was safe to assume the stranger was in something like a state of shock. ...What were you meant to do with someone in a state of shock again? He was sure someone had told him at some point.

"O--kay. Um. Hi?" He cocked his head, looking at the young man with worried eyes, his teeth tugging at his lower lip.

"You look cold. Are you cold?" Taking his scarf from his neck, he offered it to his new companion. It was a broad, thick length of woven cloth, soft, deep blue, and wide enough that it could easily be wrapped around the man's waist. It wouldn't do much, but it would certainly be better than nothing.

Blink. Remus' gaze barely shifted to the scarf before letting out a breath, which seemed to be the restart of his mental systems. He swallowed hard and sat up, gingerly reaching up and taking the scarf. "Ah- thank you," he said quietly, his voice lightly accented to Vrenille but then again, so was Vrenille to his ears. He looked down at his own body, twisting to check the back side of him. Only a few minor scratches, no major wounds this time. Good. So he hid himself with the scarf and after a moment, actually managed to do a little odd sort of toga with the long 'arm' of the scarf thrown up and over his shoulders and down onto his back.

He slowly moved up to his feet, every muscle complaining. So much harder without Peter tucked under one arm, James under the other, with Padfoot checking out the end of the tunnel to be safe. The outfit the other in wasn't so strange to him, and in his mind, he pegged the stranger as another wizard. Muggles simply didn't dress like that. "Apologies," he murmured, giving a tight smile before it faded. Finding someone naked on the moor couldn't have been a fun morning, but he also was somewhat guarded. Another wizard very easily could guess what he was given the moon last night, the scars, and his state.

To Vrenille's ear, that accent was oddly reminiscent of sylvari speech, which was a little odd, but so far down on the scale that he didn't really pay it much mind. Obviously there were much bigger fish to be frying at the moment.

Things like watching the young man get to his feet, which made Vrenille almost wince in sympathy--the guy looked like every part of him hurt, but a lot of people didn't like pity, so he tried to keep his expression from showing too much, even as he stood and tentatively extended a hand in a gesture that said he'd offer support if it was wanted or needed.

The whole thing was a bit awkward though, and despite how good he usually was with people, he really wasn't sure what to say or just how to act here, especially not given that muttered apology. So he tried going with a bit of levity, hoping maybe it would break the ice.

"Are you apologizing for the being naked part or for the part where you tried to eat my face?" He said it with a smile, still gentle and genuine. It didn't occur to him that the stranger might not remember what had taken place before the dawn. He figured the awkwardness was because he did remember and just felt bad about it.

What was a tired, pained, but not unfriendly look on Remus' face changed to a look of abject terror when the stranger spoke those words. Oh by Merlin... he had attacked this man. Immediately his heart began racing in his chest, fear pulsing through him. He scanned up and down Vrenille's body but saw no tear marks, but that meant little. "Did- did he hurt you?" It had been Sirius that had started to get him to talk about Moony in the third person, and it came without much thought now. "I- bloody hell-"

This was his nightmare, to have attacked someone and changed them as well, making the cycle started by Greyback complete. Normally he would be trudging back towards the little shack on the moor, calling his wand to him along the way to make it easier, so that he could get cleaned, dressed, and use the portkey to get himself back to town for a proper breakfast.

This was a bit of a damper on those plans, though.

Well that certainly hadn't gone as planned. ...Oops?

Seeing that look on the stranger's face, Vrenille sort of reflexively went into damage control mode. Usually when people looked at him like that it meant that he was at risk of not getting paid, and even though this guy obviously wasn't a mark given all the current circumstances, old reflexes died hard.

"Whoa. Hey, hey--it's all right. I'm fine. You scared me a bit, but the sun came up. Everything's fine." (Bullshit. Very few things were currently fine. Still, it seemed a good thing to say just then.) He had his hands out, splayed in a 'calm down' sort of gesture. It wasn't the gesture of a man who was frightened. If anything, he looked ready to grab hold of the stranger should his legs give out from under him, which was mostly because standing there wrapped in a scarf didn't make this young man look any less like someone in danger of having his legs do precisely that.

"...You don't remember anything from before dawn, do you?"

Remus had dealt with far worse on waking up when it came to the physical - some of those scars went deep, very deep. A closer look would show terrible bite wounds as if the wolf had chewed on his own legs and arms, slices fairly anywhere but his stomach where the wolf wouldn't have been able to get at himself. Waking up without a wound meant he could walk even if he had to fight for it.

It was mostly his own fears that were keeping him completely on the blitz at the moment.

His throat felt like it was closing as he panicked in trying to figure out what to do. The other didn't seem to be nearly as worried as he felt and honestly he had no idea how to handle that. How could any other wizard not be angry with him? It just didn't occur to him that others out there might be like his friends had been. How Dumbledore had always been with him.

"...no." Flat, looking more like a spooked animal about to run instead of an angry wolf about to chew his face off. "I- I'm so sorry." Just a whisper, debating if he needed to run or defend himself or anything.

Maybe it was kind of weird to feel sympathy for someone you really didn't know, but Vrenille had kind of built his livelihood (such as it was in his younger years) on being able to do just that for people--for men in particular, soldiers in many cases, but really that part didn't matter. Half the time what he offered a guy was simply companionship, and for his companionship he'd get a meal, a warm bed, and someone who would want to come back to him again, someone who'd help him out when he got into a really tight spot.

It sounded horribly mercenary and disingenuous on the surface, but in a way, this was no different. And the truth of the matter was that Vrenille didn't fake the caring. He almost never faked it, and he wasn't doing so now.

He could see how scared and disheartened this young man was--scared in his bones for reasons that Vrenille couldn't fully understand--and the most natural thing in the world for him was to reach out to someone like that.

"Look, it's ok. Whatever could have happened, it didn't, yeah? Come on, tell me your name and let's get-- I dunno, inside somewhere? Someplace warm maybe? Is there anywhere to get inside around here?"

Nope.

Remus immediately jerked back from that reaching hand, assuming that this stranger was going to try and hold him. Without his wand, weak after the moon, he was almost defenseless. Normally at school, in the Order, he didn't have an issue with people touching him. It was usually nice to have even that small contact, someone who didn't act afraid of him, but from a total stranger who knew what he was? It had to be taken as something bad.

There was a limited amount of wandless magic he could do, and he was damn proud at his age to be able to do it. It had taken many hours of lessons with Dumbledore to be able to do the most important one - calling his wand to his hand from a distance - but given that some adults would never prove to be able to do it, he couldn't help but be proud. Even if it was a huge necessity in his life for things exactly like this. It took a raised hand and concentration as he was backing away from the stranger, but when there came the satisfying snap of it to his hand, stinging from the speed at which it arrived, and the weight as he closed his fingers around it, worth it.

So Vrenille would have the wand pointed at him, every line in Remus' body tensed up. "...I don't want to harm you," he said quietly, but everything in his tone suggested but I will if I must.

Vrenille's eyebrows rose.

Wands were not a thing in Tyria. Weapons, however, could come in veritably all shapes and sizes. That made it easy to read the threat, even without understanding the mechanics of just how the wand had appeared in the stranger's hand.

"Okay. Not...exactly the reaction I was going for."

Somehow between trying to offer a friendly hand and suggesting that they go somewhere together, Vrenille had gone very wrong. Trouble was, he wasn't quite sure what precisely the wrong point was. Maybe it was asking the guy for his name? Maybe it was something else completely--maybe the guy was just nuts. But Vrenille didn't think it was that last one.

He breathed a deep sigh, making no move to reach for a weapon of his own, though in his mind, he readied a spell that would cloak him into invisibility and leave one of his clones standing where he now stood. Just in case.

"Friend, I'm gonna level with you here: I don't want you to harm me either, but I have absolutely no idea what is going on right now. And I definitely don't know what I did to set you off. I don't know where I am, I have only about half an idea how I got here, and I just spent what feels like the better part of an hour running from you. So if you could just maybe give me a break--maybe? I would really appreciate it."

There was a very, very long pause from Remus, completely unmoving from that position of threatening stick pointing. This... didn't sound at all like someone who was about to turn him into the Ministry or kill him on sight. His brows started to pinch together, confused about it. What did he mean he didn't know how he got here? Why was he so calm after being chased by a werewolf?

Slowly, still with a cautious air, Remus lowered his wand, letting it stay by his side still in hand. Not out of the equation, but no an immediate threat anymore. "...what do you mean, you don't know how you got here?" Something wasn't adding up in the middle of this. The man seemed dressed like a wizard, but now Remus was starting to worry that this was in fact a Muggle and he was going to need to deal with all of that mess. Oblivating them and reporting that (or not bothering but hoping no one figured it out-- okay he definitely wasn't about to report it) and making sure this guy got somewhere safe.

As of this moment, Vrenille of course had no reason to think he was anywhere other than a different part of Tyria. A foreign part of Tyria perhaps, but his own world nonetheless. And that meant that he saw no reason to be anything other than forthright about what had happened to him, since to anyone in his world it would be perfectly plausible and within the realm of possibility.

"I fell off of an airship--there was some kind of explosion--and then I hit this portal...sort of. It's hard to explain. Anyway, I woke up here, wherever 'here' is."

Simple answer, just the facts. Facts, hopefully, that would satisfy the young man and maybe set them back on steadier ground. Granted, none of that explained why Vrenille was so calm. He could have explained that too if asked, but as it stood it simply didn't occur to him to point out that after being chased by mordem and chak and more pocket raptors than he could count, being chased by one lone werewolf seemed like the kind of thing he really ought to just take in stride.

A very slow brow raise followed Vrenille's words because airship? That was nothing he knew of, and his free hand came up to gesture just slightly as he asked, "airship?" What exactly did he mean by that? "You're telling me some sort of magic went awry?" That was what it vaguely sounded like, but 'portal' wasn't something he really knew either. Portals didn't exactly happen often in the wizarding world other than the normal use of portals - doors.

"You're in Scotland." Maybe this bloke was from the States? That would make sense, though he wasn't terribly sure on that accent. There, start with that. Then... figure out if this was a Muggle or not. The term 'airship' suggested not, but that whole reaction to him as a werewolf wasn't anything like he might have guessed. Also the fact that this man had yet to draw his wand equally suggested Muggle.

Was an airship some kind of cause for confusion? Vrenille didn't quite follow that, but it wasn't top on his list of concerns. More important was the topic of what kind of magic had caused the explosion and what had happened in its wake.

"Hard to say for sure, but I think it must have. I know the maelstrom I saw was no ordinary storm, and with all the reports of White Mantle in the area..." He probably shouldn't be talking about that with a stranger though, at least not until he knew who this guy was affiliated with.

At least he'd gotten a name for where he was. That was...helpful? Except for where it actually wasn't. "Uh, right. Scotland.

"Where's that?"

Even though he knew Americans were supposed to be... somewhat challenged on the rest of the world, this felt like it wasn't the same thing. Everyone knew of Scotland, didn't they? His brows pinched further, trying to figure out what to do. "What do you mean, maelstrom? What's the White Mantle?" Why did it feel like he wasn't understanding what this stranger was saying and visa versa?

Was this some sort of Muggle thing? That would make sense; he definitely wasn't completely connected to what was going on there, after all.

"...north of England?" He cautiously suggested.

The realization that something wasn't quite right here was entirely mutual, and a moment too late Vrenille caught on that he probably needed to start being distinctly more careful with what he said to this guy until he had a better sense of what was going on.

Not that the White Mantle question was such a tell. The group had been operating in the shadows for centuries after supposedly being wiped out in the Krytan civil war. Most people who knew the name now knew it from a chapter out of a Tyrian history book. Nonetheless, it was still time for some damage control, starting with the topic of his geographic knowledge. Evidently 'Scotland' was a place he was expected to know.

"Right, north of England. Of course. Six, how'd I get there?" He shook his head as though he was just remarking on the distance, nothing more.

"Look, all can say for sure is that we were flying towards this maelstrom and it looked real dicey, even from a ways away. The rest--I mean, it wasn't my airship, wasn't my mission. I was just there as a messenger. I don't have details. But yeah, sure, there was magical energy crackling through the air like lightning, and you could just feel it, you know the feeling that something's not right. Maybe the whole place was a powder keg.

"That explosion I mentioned? The blast came from inside the maelstrom, and it reached right up into the clouds, took over the whole damn storm. I thought we were done for. And then the blast kind of reversed itself and sucked everything in, and that's when I fell. Everyone else on that ship could be dead for all I know. Or maybe they're all scattered and lost the way I am.

"I don't know what you're thinking that made you wanna--" a nod towards the lowered wand, "but I'm not out to hurt you. And I don't want to fight you now any more than I wanted to when you were all...toothy. I've had a long day; I think you've had a long night. So if it's all the same to you, can we maybe agree that we won't try to kill each other?"

Edited (noticed a 'the' which was meant to be 'that', my bad) 2016-12-10 12:39 (UTC)

Well the man was certainly speaking like a wizard, so that was an utter relief for Remus who definitely wouldn't have had the first desire to deal with a Muggle right now in this situation. Even more so, this was not a wizard from around here for certain, given that the man seemed more than a little confused about how he'd even arrived in this part of the world. For now though, he cautiously accepted that the other didn't seem entirely a threat, so he gave a small nod and with a lack of better placement, tucked the wand into the scarf at his hip.

"...a man has to defend himself," he said as if that explained everything and in a way, it did. This was Remus though and he gave a proper smile, albeit still an awkward one, and offered his hand. "Sorry about the rude.. well, everything so far. Bit of a strange scenario for both of us I think. I'm Remus." In future years, he would lie as easily as he breathed about his name, but for now that wasn't so ingrained. "I've got a tiny place back that-a-way, where I can be less in the buff and we can figure out on how to get you back home."

"Vrenille." Exhaling a small breath of relief that his little speech had worked, he reached out and shook the man's hand, returning the smile with one of his own which, while not exactly calculated, was the sort of smile he often gave to men when he wanted to make them feel warm and special. It was almost reflexive--his 'you really want to treat me well, right?' smile.

Remus wasn't the only one with a sense that a man needed to protect himself; Vrenille approached that need in a very a different way, but its spirit was still the same. The truth was that going home with any guy was always a bit of a risk, however nice he seemed. He had to be aware of that, every time, no matter what he was going for. And he'd already established that he'd need to be circumspect with Remus--maybe outright deceptive if it came to it--at least until he could figure out where he was and understand his situation here a little bit better.

All that meant, of course, that he was going to be very easy going about accepting the proffered apology and taking any and all rudeness in stride. "And it's okay. I'm glad to meet you, circumstances notwithstanding. I really don't know what I'd do if I hadn't run into you--I'd be lost out here." A pause and a concerned look, "Are you sure you're ok though? No offense but you kind of look like you've been through hell."

He'd be happy with walking back in the that-a-way direction that Remus had indicated (he didn't really think they had many other options) but that didn't make him any less concerned that a barefoot trek across the moors might be more than this young man had left in him.

For a painful moment, that smile reminded him of someone else all together and he swallowed down that spike of pain that threatened to happen. It was still all too real for him, too soon. Still, the face was different enough that it didn't push too long on his heart. For now, he could just start getting himself through the moor along with Vrenille. "You're miles and miles from the nearest anything, so you're right. It might have been a trip trying to get out of here." If Vrenille had been pulled from somewhere else in the world, it wasn't as if he could safely Apparate such a distance and he most likely wouldn't know anything within safe distance at all.

So first things first. He offered his arm like he might have to a lady, a wry smile on his face. "I've had to Apparate in far worse conditions." And the sad part was how true it was. As soon as he had gotten his license to do so, he had practiced until he was able to do it almost without thinking when he was fine and conscious then when he could manage it without splichering himself when he was exhausted or injured. Useful during the war, sadly.

He... assumed it was calling Apparation across the world, at least in proper English, but Remus still had quite a bit to learn about going out to other countries and assuming certain things.

Of course Vrenille had no earthly idea what this whole 'Apparation' thing was, and of course he could have just asked. But he was already under the distinct impression that he was going to have to ask quite a lot of questions about things that a person in this...land? realm? region? whatever was supposed to know. In practice, there was probably a quota, and if he went over the threshold he fully expected some very uncomfortable questions to be coming his way.

That meant he needed to reserve his queries for situations of absolute necessity, not just mild confusion or curiosity. In this case, he didn't need to know what Apparation was to understand that he was meant to take Remus's arm. The body language translated perfectly well, and anyway it was the sort of gesture that he was perfectly comfortable with. He even returned that wry smile.

Given that Remus had told him they were pretty much miles from everywhere, when he slid his hand through the crook of the young man's elbow and let his admittedly chilled fingers come to rest on Remus's forearm, he expected some method of magical travel. He just didn't have any clear idea of just what it would be. He simply had to trust and hope.

"Hold tight," Remus said in a casual way, as if it was just a formality and he expected it of the other or this was the warning he was about to go, but Vrenille would probably have one of the least comfortable moments of his life as it felt like his entire being was squeezed through a tube, nothing but horrible pressure from every side until his eyeballs felt pressed in their sockets, then all of a sudden they would be standing elsewhere on the moor, in front of a little shack.

Remus glanced to Vrenille, checking him over. "I haven't done a Side Along in a little while - all together?" Seemed like all of the limbs were in the proper place. Good to know he was still fully capable.

If Vrenille hadn't been holding tight to begin with, at the moment that the first tug of movement started he absolutely clutched to Remus for dear life. He had been through asura gates, he had teleported and blinked, he had created magic portals, and he had very routinely projected illusionary clones of himself which he shattered into smithereens the moment it suited him to do so. Nothing, however, had prepared him for the feeling of this.

When they stopped moving, which felt every bit as abrupt as when they started, he was immensely glad that he had such a strong constitution. Nevertheless, he still very much needed a moment because he certainly couldn't answer Remus's question--it was a few seconds before he felt he could speak at all, staggering to get his legs under him against the swirl of vertigo. It was a bit like having the wind knocked out of him except without the blow to the chest.

He coughed and gasped a few times, one hand extended like he hoped to find some sort of support under it. Presently though, he did manage to regain himself.

"Dwayna," he swore, "I sure hope that's not what you do for fun around these parts."

But hey, shack. Shack was good. Better than wind-blasted heather and rocks at least. "You live here?" He didn't mean for it to sound judgemental--he'd lived in worse places than this in his life--but out of context it might have sounded that way.

I hope it's ok with me puppetting the wolf this way, but please let me know if not--I can edit!

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Remus of a few years ago? Not nearly this jumpy. War does shit to you.

Their two experiences of war will make for fascinating comparison of notes!

Indeed!

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