All welcome but
@Aethon I'm looking at yooooou~
On a blustery mid-afternoon, a pale woman found herself sitting atop an eminence on the creek's eastern side. Several feet below the ridge, the water of the deceitful creek swirled around a bend, its surface dimpled. She engaged memories of home and discovered a distinct homesickness for the sea... Which explained why she had come here. The sound of rushing water sucked around a river's corner was comforting, reminiscent of the crash of ocean waves. More than once, she had considered slinking back to Horizon Ridge, admitting she was wrong, if only to see the sea again... But the feeling that she was right kept her rooted here. The strength and approval of her Gods kept her here. Lecter kept her here.
Of course, her princeling kept her here, as well. No doubt the boy grew tired of displacement, and she was loathe to uproot him again. He still displayed a distrust of any meat she placed before him. Jinx supposed she approved of this behaviour, and had even taken to shooting him cheeky smiles when he refused to eat around her. Ira could not have been starving himself, she knew. The Kesuk didn't expect him to ever trust her, just as she didn't expect to ever love him... Though she had developed a fondness for his cheekiness and his attitude. One day, she would elevate him from princeling status to king, be it by her own rule or by helping him win the title himself.
She would be the silent puppetmaster in the back, pulling strings and whispering advice in his ears. For now, he was but a child still... And showing great promise. But Jinx didn't think of Aethon today; she thought of Kiviuq, no doubt still hard at work under Kaskae in Shearwater Bay. He had been her favourite of all her relatives. Aside from her littermates and Kerberos, who was brother to her no less than Arktos and Vex were, Jinx missed him most of all. They had been close as children, similarly bullied by Kaskae in their youth and later bonding against Bold Heart... While she had Lethe, Lecter, and Clarice here, Jinx could not help wondering how Kiviuq was holding up. His siblings, Silatuyok and Nukilik, weren't been as close with her, even as they got older. She would even go so far as to say Silatuyok disliked her outright. Arktos was on a mission from the Gods, Vex has long since disappeared, Kaskae and she had never seen eye-to-eye... So Kiviuq had been her closest friend at home, and she could only hope he was still well.
"Anaanak," she implored in her mother's tongue, her eyes scraping the sky for some sign that Nauja, her deceased grandmother, heard her plea.
"Watch over them, and let not the flames ever take them. Please... For me."
<3 To keep timelines straight I'm going to say this is after his trip to Duck Lake but I'm going to be vague beyond mentions because the thread is still in baby stages. :p
Ira's morning had been exceedingly uneventful and routine. As transpired every morning (rather any meal time) he would nibble reluctantly (only to return later to devour it) at the meat Jinx offered him, careful to never show enthusiasm or, as it was, gratitude. In hindsight, Ira was aware that Jinx did not have to feed him, she could starve him just as easily as she could abandon him to die if she ever found his insolence and lack of gratitude tiresome; he understood the ramifications, that the odds were not in his favor and that he should have been thanking her how a pauper would thank a queen who displayed such non mandatory generosity. To be fair, this behavior had begun with Tark, and though she made no moves to kill him, or poison him there was always the chance that it could happen. Ira was beginning to doubt that Jinx would do that, however. His time with her was brief (though longer than his time with Tark), and while he did not doubt that she was valuable to do so, Ira relied upon the instinct feeling that she wouldn't. In his own way, hinting on the hairs breadth measurement away of outright possessiveness Ira liked Jinx. In the agreement of their ...relationship he was comfortable with her. Unlike it was with Tark who had tried to force feelings out of Ira. To love is to destroy, to be loved is to e destroyed apparently was not a concept the elder had been able to grasp. Jinx, however, seemed to understand and held a concept of a similar vein.
After Ira's little adventure to Duck Lake and the resulting horror the feathered fiends' mere existence left he had no intention of venturing out of Swiftcurrent Creek for a while. Once, he ha conspired the designs of running away but as those old schemes were revisited and accordingly reevaluated Ira found that he did not want to run away from Jinx. He desired her praise and her approval too much, though he was still a child. Children crave reverence; or so this was what he worked to convince himself of. After returning to the den he shared with his Mambo to consume his breakfast and tuck away a multicolored, smooth pebble he found safely into his corner, he had meant to venture out with a contented and full stomach with no clear destination in mind. He had not meant to venture to Jinx's current position within the borders, yet he found himself confronted with her imagine in the distance nevertheless. Without cognitive recognition he had been following her scent trail though he knew not why -- not that he felt a dissapoint meant or anything of the sort.
She was speaking, but with no one visible in sight of her Ira was left to assume that she was speaking to her gods, though, he was left with an uncertianty. "My mambo," The Princeling greeted her, using his favorite (tied with 'mine') word before her title. Fierce milky blue eyes peered up at her as he stepped from the snow covered bushes he was attempting to hide within as he observed her. For a few seconds he wondered whether he wanted to ask her about the strange tongue she spoken in, or for who she was praying for. Unable to decide he settled for neither, presently.
The skies were sombre and silent in response to her plea. Releasing a quiet sigh, the woman resigned to hopefulness. There was no confirmation that her grandmother watched over the Bay, but Atka and Sos had taken her soul. Her funeral had been a grand affair, she remembered, and Nutaaq had spoken in fondness of the favour They had shown her. It was a sad thing that Jinx could scarce remember Nauja's face; the woman had been her milk mother, her mother's mother. She was nothing but a stranger of Jinx's past now.
Her ears tugged back when Ira's voice, demanding and edged with greed and superiority as it was, sounded at her back. With a wry grin she turned herself to face him, her gaze approving. Yes, princeling, said her eyes, all the world may be yours. Seize it and do not let go.
"You have become good at sneaking, princeling," she observed in a silky voice. Though she did not say it outright, this was a trait she approved of in the boy. Jinx herself was apt to sneak about, finding as much value in eavesdropping as she did in prying information from lips. That Aethon had taken on this quality, be it from her or from his own desires, made her proud. "Tell me, what things have you learned from the shadowsss? You can learn much of those around you by listening when they do not want you to do so."
Encouraging bad behaviour was what Jinx did best. One day, she would encourage Aethon to plot against his own, to unleash upon them his power and superiority. It was an inherent trait of her bloodline to be supreme, and there was no doubt Jinx would instill that in him. Given half a chance, she would unleash him upon the world with the training of an assassin and watch the carnage unfold. But Aethon was not an assassin; he was a king, by rights. She would make him into an assassin king, if she could. An assassin king could not fear the ambitious rising up against him; he could slit their throats in the night, and they none the wiser, so they would not.
Avarice lingered like a frequented but by no means favorite lover in the catacombs of Ira's personality, as did most but not all of the deadly seven. As it was, Ira was deaf to the tenors of avarice slipping forth from his lips, coloring his childish voice; instead hearing nothing more then what he perceived as his normal voice. Observantly, Ira watched Jinx turn to him, reading the approval upon the alluring lines of her face that he had gotten used to seeing. Ira was not so certain what he had done to deserve her approval but accepted it with a controlled eagerness, nevertheless. Praise and accordingly approval didn't not just come as a free handout, Ira had learned. The compliment was not accepted with words of thanks, for that was not who Ira was. "I know," Instead he offered her, though a coy smile played carefully at the edges of his lips – just for her. After all, he had been practicing, creating a game out of it as he spied upon the wolves whom guarded Swiftcurrent Creek's borders. Primarily, it had begun to suit his selfish needs, having decided that he wanted to sneak out of the borders without being caught though it had served a much greater purpose it would appear.
At her inquiry, his skill having seemingly came with a lesson, Ira contemplated what he had learned, eager as ever to please her with his knowledge. "I have learned that most of those the patrol the borders are vigilant and quick, but predictable in their patterns. Creatures of habit," Ira paused, inhaling softly as he settled contentedly upon his haunches. "In that there is a flaw. That knowledge could easily become known to an enemy or savage and exploited." In truth, though Ira did not think of himself as a savage by any means, he would exploit such a flaw. "Patience is a useful weapon." A virtues intent that could be twisted to fit that of one who used it as he thought of it: a weapon.
"I will now listen to the secrets of the others." Ira promised, since initially he hadn't been stalking for the purpose of eavesdropping. It was time to take his skill to a new level, test it, now that the foundations had been built.
She twisted her ears to indicate her interest in what he had to say, and what a tactical mind he possessed! Jinx was unaware who else patrolled the pack's borders. Perhaps Njal haunted them when she herself was not in their vicinity. Jinx suspected the boxy male was one of these creatures of habit, though in truth, so was she. In their own ways, they all were beasts of burden, chugging through the same motions every day. All for the protection of the home.
"What would you tell these habitual types?" she wondered, aware for once that she was among the flawed. She paused, then presented a scenario for him. "Suppose it was your own land. What would you have them do to improve?" If Aethon were to one day lead, then it was imperative that he put his strategies into action. Recognizing that they were doing something wrong was one thing, but determining a fix was quite another. Jinx had never encountered such a situation in Shearwater Bay, so she did not have the answers.
Still, what he had to say interested her. The boy vowed to use his sneaking prowess to learn others' secrets, earning an approving grin from Jinx. "Remember," she advised, "if they discover you, sometimes standing and staring them down is enough to unnerve them."
Following his report, Jinx provided him with an opportunity to state how he might go about it differently, encouraging it rather with her question. Ira deliberated at first, having not considered such things even as he relayed his observations to her. For a few seconds he tried to think about as an Alpha what he would have them do to keep habits from forming. "I would tell them to mix up the order of their duties," Thoughtful expression twisted into a scowl in a matter of seconds. "That does not solve it though, does it?" Patterns could still be made and there were ony so many combination available. Skin and short silken fur between his eyes wrinkled in intricate thought. No, that was only a temporary fix. So, the only other approach was what might deter him from sneaking into a pack's borders? "The dead," He blurted in an enlightened manner, having reached an epiphany. Looking back up at her lips spliced to explain, "Give savages the false assumption that the borders are weak, let them sneak in. Give no quarter and show no mercy. Kill them and pose the bodies at strategical points of the borders. A warning, threat and a promise." That would likely keep Ira from braving the chances. Fear was dangerous but it was also extremely useful.
Ira watched her with unbidden anticipation wanting to know what she thought of his (rather disturbing) idea of using fear where wolf power failed.
Ira took Jinx's offered advice in regards to eavesdropping into serious consideration, nodding that he understood. While that tactic could work when he was full grown there ran a potential it would only get him laughed at currently. His intellect had far surpassed his age and size, giving to his impatience to be at least adult sized. His rapid growth was alleviating said impatience but he was still comparatively small compared to the standard adult. Still just a child in some aspects besides physical.
Though morbid, Jinx had to admit as Ira revealed his thoughts that the boy had a certain cunning to him. Although she had never done anything like that with Shearwater Bay—Kaskae would not have allowed it—the idea was alluring. Not only that, but if any wolf knew the merits of fear, it was Jinx, who had posed over others the threat of voodoo magic on more than one occasion. So when Ira voiced his own devised strategy, she regaled him with a toothsome grin that said, that is perfect, princeling.
"Come, princeling," she beckoned, gaining her feet and taking a moment to shake out her fur. "We do not have enemies to slay at this moment, but we may deter them another way." By nature, she was reluctant to allow the borders to appear weak, even though Ira's plan had clear advantages. She would rather fortify them, and let any trespasser arrogant enough ignore the warning signs. Those are the heads she would prefer to mount upon the borderlands; those of known wolves, those whose escapades preceded them.
The nearest border was not so far. Ira was growing at an alarming rate (had she grown that fast, she wondered?), so she no longer feared he could not keep up. It wasn't as though Jinx had cared even when his legs were shorter. Upon reaching the territory's edge, she paused and glanced back at him to give him the lead once more. She knew Ira so loved to be in charge, and she also knew it allowed him to succumb to his own inner darkness, the better to please Sos. "What might you do to fortify the borders when you do not have heads available?" she asked, having in her own mind an image of trenches lined with sharp fangs of rock and wood. She was interested in his tactics... And, of course, it helped her formulate her own, as well. Ira's intelligence had its uses, for more than just his eventual rulership over some plot of land.
Ira did not see anything wrong with his ideas, though others likely would have been disturbed that a child's mind was so dark. Most children his tender age had not seen half of what Ira had witnessed and in the wake of it he had been presented with two resolute options: let fear control him and make him a weak and sniveling infidel or let it strengthen him so that he might learn to control fear instead of the other way around. Ira chose the latter. He was no stranger to fear but he wanted to use it for his own devices because it was a powerful force. Probably the most powerful motivator because rage would fade, pain would fade, but fear lingered always whispering. Jinx did not seem disturbed by his ideas, and learning from this example, Ira had no intention of altering them.
Jinx beckoned for him to follow, and in a rare display of obedience Ira followed after her, hurrying to keep pace with her though it did not take as much effort as it had when he had first met her. The scent of Swiftcurrent Creek's borders grew stronger as the approached them, and eagerly Ira took the lead haughtily when Jinx offered it to him, ears twitching back to hear her inquiry. Frankly, he really wanted to try out his dead theory but Jinx was right: of that they were in rather short supply of. Not to mention, it wasn't as if they could go out and kill the innocent. A crime warranting death would have to be committed first. Whatever his already dark mind and intentions may have said about Ira he was a protector of the weak and innocent because he was strong and corrupt. A balance existed for a reason, he thought. The darkness needed the light as the light needed the darkness. "Hmm," The insolent child drew thoughtfully, pausing to inhale the borders. Their scent was strong and crystal in it's meaning. "Maybe we could make talismans out of bones of our prey, chew carvings in them or something and soak them in said preys blood? That way the meat could go to the caches so it wouldn't be an entire waste?" Ira glimpsed back at Jinx then, eager to know what she thought of his idea. It was probably flawed but what he had to work with was limited by the lack of wolf bodies and his own age.
Jinx hung back as the child approached the borders and seemed to consider them for a short time. Wolves had their own ways of making their borders clear to their rivals, but coming from a line of mystic wolves, Jinx also had her ways. Many of them were nothing more than ideas she had never put into play, but nevertheless they existed in the back of her mind. Had she her own pack, it would be decorated with canine pelts and skulls, mostly from coyotes to be sure, to give the illusion of wolf-killing intent. The Kesuk, however, knew how wrong it was to kill a wolf who was unwilling to die. She would argue their lives were forfeit if they overstepped a line, but that was her corrupt way of thinking.
Ira proposed something Jinx hadn't thought of, which she silently commended him for. It was no less morbid than showing off wolf heads, but it was within most wolves' moral boundaries. But the Kesuk was here to push Ira's imagination and test his strategies, so she didn't accept his idea as complete just yet. "We like to chew bones," she purred suggestively, pointing out one flaw in his design. "What would you do to them to keep desperate, hungry loners from picking them off your borders and eating the marrow?" Then, after a moment's thought, she added, "and how would you display them if they were small bones?"
Ira blinked his frosted milky blue eyes at his guardian as she pointed out that canines liked to chew bones and he could not dispute her because he knew her words to be true. As her question flowed from her lips, Ira's eyes drifted from Jinx -- though his attention did not waver -- to study the borders again as if he were imagining the scenario in his head. He could see the problem, of course, easily since Jinx had pointed it bluntly out to him. The wretched s alone would have been enough to deter him but then again he was not desperate nor was he a savage. Silently, Ira thought through it, squirming into the distance before it occurred to him what could be done. It was painstakingly obvious once he realized it but he looked back at her, abruptly eager to put forth his solution. "Poison. We could poison them. It doesn't even have to be lethal but enough to make them violently ill," He proposed, figuring that since he didn't believe in killing innocents even if they were a vessel for starvation and death. Although, even a small dose could probably kill a wolf who knew only hunger. But in truth, that wouldn't be his concern. A merciless, and sly ruler Ira would be but he would not seek out meaningless deaths. There had to be justice and honor, a fortified cause to warrant it. He would be many things but a random murderer was not on the agenda.
"I," Ira began but paused at her following question of how he would display small bones. For this, he did not have an answer. It would seem his disturbingly morbid imagination had ran out. "I don't know." He admitted, making a face as the words left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He was still a child, and he did not have all the answers, though he liked to think differently. "What do you suggest?" He asked Jinx, realizing that he needed her council in this.
If she was being truthful, Jinx didn't have an answer to her own question. It was wholly open-ended and, such that Aethon could suggest any number of possible solutions. What he ultimately proposed wasn't unlike what Jinx herself would have done. Like the young princeling, she thought it might be sufficient to mark the bones with blood and crude carvings, but there would be poison too. If any fool was desperate enough to steal a bone from the borders, they would find themselves with a belly-ache for a weak, and heaving up twice the pitiful food they had consumed.
But Aethon seemed perplexed about the smaller bones. Jinx gestured for him to follow her to a tree, upon whose trunk she leaned against. "Trees contain a substance called sap," she began, pushing her snout against the bark to relieve a sudden itch. "Sap is sticky. If you can get enough bark off a tree, it will bleed sap, and you can use that sap to stick small bones up on trees. It's more or less permanent, especially when it freezes." She stepped back, hoping Aethon caught on to the usefulness of sap, and awaited any questions he might have.
Jinx was quiet as he suggested using poison upon the bones to ward off unwanted theft and his frosted, milky blue eyes did not linger far from her face as he spoke his idea to her, searching it for any signs of approval, or according disapproval. Since he did not verbally receive either he assumed that the idea wasn't horrendous. In this, Ira was contended, for the moment anyway. When she gestured for him to follow, the dark princeling was momentarily obedient, curiosity winning out against insolence. Jinx spoke that trees contained something called sap and for some reason the child snickered at the strange sounding word.
It was not a particularly humorous sounding word but it was odd. "Why not just call it blood then? If the tree bleeds it?" Ira inquired of Jinx, knowing and understanding that a tree was not living in the same context that Jinx and him lived but still. Why did it have to have a funny word to define it's way of bleeding. "So it bleeds that sap stuff that's really sticky and bones will stick to it?" Ira repeated to ensure that he had truly understood Jinx. "But if it's really sticky will I get stuck to it?" There was a small grimace on Ira's face as he contemplated it. He did not want to wind up stuck to a tree.
Ira's question reminded her abruptly that he was only a child, no matter how seriously he took himself or how mature he tried to appear. She might have asked a question like that before when she was young, but any memory of it was long gone. It was part of a whole family of questions that were both valid yet silly. Such questions almost always came from children, and almost always gave pause to the adults who were pressed for answers. As she regarded the lumpy bark, she realized she didn't have an answer, and offered him an honest shrug.
"I do not know the origin of words, princeling," she said, to appease his curiosity if nothing else. She supposed it would do no harm if he considered it blood, though its properties were distinctly different. He wondered if he could get stuck to it, a thought which brought a chill chuckle to the mambo's dark lips. "If you wanted to stick to it, then perhaps. I would advise against getting it on yourself, young king, unless you want a bald spot when you rip it off. You can lick it off your snout, but if it got in your longer hair..." The imagery of Ira with a patch devoid of fur was almost too amusing, even to Jinx. She cut her words off there to avoid sniggering aloud and triggering the boy's inconsolable temper.
Congrats on yours and Jinx's promotion!
Ira drew in a thoughtful breath as Jinx responded to his inquiry, explaining that she did not know the origins of words but subtly saying that she didn’t know why they called it ‘sap’ and not ‘blood’. Contented with this answer, Ira shrugged not willing to dwell too much upon it. It did not matter, in truth. He would call it sap because that was what it had been named in the first place. Jinx had found something in his question in regards to sticking to the sap humorous, and Ira grinned impishly at her though he did not share in on what she thought was so funny. “A bald spot?” Ira repeated, turning his icy blue eyes to the tree so he might observe it better, though it provided no solid answers - despite that Ira wasn’t sure, exactly, what he was looking for. “Is it really that strong?” Ira glimpsed back up at Jinx, believing her words, of course, but trying to picture what kind of substance they were talking about. “Oh,” Ira let out his breath in a puff. “I’ll be careful then,” He assured Jinx because he really, really didn’t want a patch of fur missing. He did not want to know that level of humiliation. Ears slicked back to half mast atop his head before they rose suddenly as another question tickled at the forefront of his mind, “Does it taste good?” He asked Jinx, thinking back to that she said he could lick it off his snout.
We could probably fade this since we have 2 other ongoing threads. :P
"It depends on the tree, I think," said Jinx, unsure whether it was true or not but assuming. Once, she had been told it tasted nice, but the trees in the Timber had never tasted nice. They bled always, even if their bark was not gouged by the wolves' efforts. Back then, though, the mambo had never really used it for anything but sticking small tokens to her amulets, and it was always such small amounts that she never got much of a taste.
"Where I am from, it is bitter, but does its job well. It hardens when the air grows cool." Still unwilling to talk about where she came from or what her Gods were to here, the woman gestured for him to lead her with a brief explanation of,
"show me the best places for these talismans, princeling." This one was not so much a test as an offer to let him do the teaching; Jinx had an opinion of the best places, of course, but there was no best answer to this one. She followed him dutifully as he led her, pointing out places he thought were advantageous... And on all of these locations, Jinx was inclined to agree.