Haunted Days of the Past - Caregivers 3

Wassail watched as the happy memory faded, leaving a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest. He let out a sigh as he felt the waters tugging on yet another memory. He couldn’t make this one out fully right away.

The Handmaidens smiled at the memory as it dissolved from the water they viewed it from, some looked back at the floating runner.

Soon though he realized what kind of memory was being pulled out of him by these waters. It was when he lived on the streets as an urchin. A time of which he hated he needed to live. He struggled with whether or not he should allow them to see that part of himself, the pain of what he went through. So similar to the Forgotten, but still so different. He decided that there wasn't a reason to hide though. They would judge him either way, and hiding things was not a good indicator for character.

“Come back you little brat!” An older puller ran after the winged runner, a snarl on his lips.

Wassail ran as hard as his little paws would take him, a grin on his face as he held his bounty in his mouth. He scrambled towards a back alley before leaping up and over a high fence, landing in a snow bank before continuing at a quick pace. He only slowed down when he got to the edge of the pine forests, whose calming scents let him know he was near his home. He pad through the forest, waving through the tall trees and shrubbery that littered the floor. The fresh fallen snow crunched under his paws as he made his way to a deep set cave. When he entered it, he shook any snow that had fallen onto his wings off them and shook his paws off.

Setting the pouch to the side he took a moment to stretch and relax. He was sorting through the food he was able to snag for the next few days. He would have to be even more careful if he did go in to town simply due to them being on the lookout again for him. He went to his pile of wood and started trying to get a fire built once more to take the chill off the falling temperatures outside the cave.

He piled some of the sticks together before using some flint to spark some tinder in to embers. He pushed it under the stick pile and quickly added logs when it started to catch. Watching the flames grow, Wassail went back to his pouch to get what food he had gotten and sort through it.

He took out a small roll of bread, some fresh fruit, and a small string of sausage links. He felt his stomach grumble at him, causing him to shift uncomfortably. He shuddered when there was a gust of wind that came from the world outside, using his wings to block what he could from the fire. The runner took one of the sausage links and pushed it close to the fire, trying to get it to cook at least a little bit.

The scarlet and teal runner huddled in his small cave for a few more hours until the sun set and the winds died down. Warmed up a bit, he took his pouch once more and trudged through the snow back towards the town thankful of his darker back marking. He watched as the last few vayrons and humans passed by, absorbed in each other's presence. He crawled past without being seen and started to make his way through the back alleys to see if he could nick more food off of the stalls. If not, he could always go through the left overs that get tossed. He watched the stall owners go to and fro, from one stall to another. He narrowed his eyes as he watched an owner walk away from his stall, the runner took that opportunity to leap at the contents. It was more meat products, to which he grinned wickedly to himself, scooping what he could in to his pack.

He hated to steal, he really did. But he had to survive, needed to. He snarled when he heard shouting, some from humans, others from vayrons. A snarl was let out from his throat as he scrambled away after shoving more into his bag. And thus the repeat in his life began. Go in to town, snag what he could and flee to the cave in the pine forest. He always made sure to cover his tracks in the snow, thankful for his sweeping tail.

As that memory continued to play out, the Handmaidens looked at one another, thankful that the scarlet and teal runner hadn’t put up the walls they thought he would have. He may have been lost then, but they felt the pain he had been in.