✦─────TOVE─────✦
He / Him | Male | Travelling Healer 
" Brand new life, I've been looking, I've been looking, I've been looking lately..."
Tears at a funeral, tears at a funeral,
I might break.
Angry at all the things, angry at all the things
I can't change.
When you're lost in the universe,
lost in the universe,
don't lose faith.
My mother says, "Your whole life's in the hand of God."
Tove was born with icy stone under his paws and the frigid nip of mountain storms in his fur. His family had been born beneath the snow-capped for generations, and Tove was little different—at least, at first. As a wiggly cub, the youngest of four, these peculiarities flew under the radar. His mother styled him a Boreas and conferred upon his three sisters matching names: Zephyrus, Notus, and Eurus. She reared above her family as a beloved matriarch, perfectly modeling her revered range. Her saber fangs and monumental bulk sheltered her family from the fierce winds and vicious predators. Many males had braved the treacherous climb to woo her, to investigate the veracity of her myth—but the petite lion she'd fallen in love with had been a dinky lost nomad, totally blind to her reputation. Together they built a home and family of their own and watched lovingly as their children played pretend. "Boreas's" most favored persona was a "vet" named Tove who doted on his sisters, mixing scraggly mountain plants into medicine for them. It was then brushed off as cub's play.
Or, it was, until the sleep-talking began. And then came the chronic insomnia...
Tove, the most wee of the quadruplets, bloomed into a hulking form not unlike his mother's. He bore her fangs but whisked his father's long tail. His pelt dappled like hers, but his colors shone like his father's. Unique to him, though, was his delicate lilting voice, soft paws, and hunched demeanor. He wore the sleep deprivation like a second fur coat, and though he could function, he could never shake off the weight of his reoccurring nightmare.
In his dreams, he was a man, a human man, though he'd never seen a human before in his life. He shouldn't have even known what a human was, for his father adamantly refused to speak of them. Surrounding him were quavering metal mountains and the sky was darker than dark. Roiling clouds blotted the horizon and ash clogged his throat. In the distance stood two more humans, one that in the dream he knew to be his brother. Every time, he screamed a garbled name and ran toward them.
And every time, he was too late.
As a pre-teen, his father finally ushered him into the foothills to seek a healer for his condition, and though no cure presented itself, the healer's eyes gleamed when they fixed on Tove. They had a preposition—Tove could remain as their apprentice while they sought a cure. His father felt he had little choice, and Tove stayed in the hills that day.
Tove practiced with the healer for moons until he was on the cusp of adulthood. They never quite cured his condition, but he felt he'd gained a much greater boon—a life purpose. His dreams continued to harrow him, and ages previously he'd dropped the name Boreas for Tove, the one that beat in his heart. He wasn't at all the same lion that had left the mountains that day. He prepped one final quest into the mountains to visit his family before embarking on his wanders, and his teacher left him with a parting gift—his incense holder. Their wizened eyes held the same gleam as when they'd first met as Tove accepted the offering and bid farewell.
Tove wanders now, offering his healing services as needed and without fee to any in need, lion or otherwise. The smoke from his beloved incense holder never blows with the wind, and his gut tugs to follow the path. Lavender eases his journey into sleep, but he's never escaped the nightmare that plagues his every thought.
He wonders who that man is.
He wonders if he'll ever know.
