@Lecter I'm assuming Jinx came across Lecter's scent in the thread with Haunter and realized what happened or something, I still have to post to it though. Silvertip Mountain related!
The Creek's grounds were damp and muddy, but a lot of the snow had become slush and run-off, and straw-like grass could be spotted poking up in places. She wasn't a very sentimental beast, and didn't welcome spring with the same feverish excitement that other wolves did, but perhaps it was a result of her misfortune of late. If she thought to recall it, Jinx would remember a time when she had greeted the coming warmth with the tongue-lolling smiles of a foolish whelp, even in her adulthood.
Now, she was embittered by the season. Her children would have come into the world on this day, or the next, and she would have offered the living ones with fervent love to Sos. He would bless them all for the next year, and see them through their hard times. Atka would shine Her sun with praise and favour upon them. The Creek would have flourished, and the Kesuk with it. Instead, her babes had been delivered on the cold soil of a battleground, not one of them alive, and in her delirium she had driven away the only man to hold her affections.
Her distance from him may not have been warranted, since it was she who had caused the problem in the first place, but she felt it was at least deserved. Her wounds were still deep and pulled painfully against their scabs, and without Lecter tending them as he had before, they hurt more than they otherwise would have. But a sort of fear had held her back from seeking the shaman, fear that he would hate her for what she had become and hate her for what had happened to their brood. Never once did she stop to think whether he knew they were lost or not.
Today, however, she had risen with her bitterness fashioned into a dagger, which she stuck in her own heart. The cougar had come upon these flatlands, been engaged by their foolish and young leader... If not for that, these wrongs would not have been done. Any sane creature could reason that Jinx was scapegoating, but of course, the flawed Kesuk could not admit any fault. If it wasn't for Fox, none of this would have happened. The plains held the memory, so that anytime she crossed over the place where the cougar had been slain, she felt the pain of that day acutely, and retreated from the company of others. She was the Beta now, but could not think of this place with the same fondness she had prior to that fateful day, and the delirious encounter with Haunter thereafter.
It was with this bold thoughts in mind that Jinx put aside her fear and uncertainty and sought the shaman. She was not foolish enough to believe he would forgive her, but he was hers, and he would listen... On that, she bet everything. She could not know, did not suspect, that the feeling of guilt would pierce her so fully as to render her speechless when she did find him, nor that a more unfamiliar feeling would root her to the spot should he turn his nack... She felt only a burning need to run away, and knew she must take him with her.
He had taken to tending his wounds with the dwindling supply of lemon balm and comfrey, and growled as he laid his eyes across that which he had left. Lecter would need to venture forth and gather some more, though his ill-fated excursion for sage had left him wary. Jinx had not come to him, but some bitter part of him doubted that he would welcome her company.
It was the way of the world, he supposed, lifting himself to his paws and meandering down his personal trail through the woodland, that the young should come together. Lecter knew he had little in his ageing form to offer the ivory sylph; he would die long before she reached the peak of her years, and now he would die without having left her children. Perhaps the dark male whose name he did not care to know would grant her that; perhaps Lecter's progeny was doomed to belong to the spirits, in one form or another.
Entwined in his hateful thoughts, the madman placed muzzle to the loam, the keen knifeblade of hunger twisting in his gut. There was little chance that he would catch but the bravest, stupidest creature with his healing injury; better luck would be had if he sought out a cache. Stubbornly, however, the ice-eyed witch cast his senses about instead for supplies to replenish his gutted stock, in case he was called upon again.
But it was not the sharp citrus of lemon balm that flared his nostrils, nor the earthen fragrance of comfrey. It was a scent that all at once pierced his heart and set his hackles soaring; Lecter regarded his former lover with a carefully neutral expression painted coldly upon his features.
In the next moment, he turned away from her, disregarding not only her rank and her ability to command him, but her, the very loveliness of Jinx, the remembrance of her touch. Stride lengthening, Lecter prepared to leave her presence.
She came upon him suddenly, the abruptness of their encounter cutting short any flow of courage to her heart. When she beheld him, she felt an icy fist close around her heart and stopper her lungs, and for a moment stood in awe of him. But it was not the feverish awe of a lover she had bestowed before, but rather, the fearful awe of a slut who had shamed him. She knew what she had done to him. She knew, and yet no amount of wishing could make right what she'd done wrong. The reality of it was that she had been caught up in a wave of passionate grief, nostalgia, and faithfulness, but that was much harder to explain than to believe.
But even though she knew, she felt there would be some small amount of forgiveness. That she could tell him what had happened, why it had happened, and how she had stopped it when reality pierced her deranged fantasy. She tried to summon those words to coax him into forgiveness to her tongue, but before she could will her throat to make noise, he was turning, leaving her behind... And where she thought her feet would be frozen to the ground, they were flying.
Jinx Kesuk refused to go unacknowledged. Ordinarily, she would have done this in the dance of dominance, scruffed him and forced him to comply. This was the furthest thing from dominance, however, for the girl in her had broken free and was frantic as she followed after him. "Lecter," she breathed, swinging back her ears as the sudden realization that even her strongest hopes could not make him turn if he chose not to washed over her. "Lecter, stop!"
;__;
He did not wish to hear her, to have her words sway him. His jaw tensed as Jinx sounded her cry nevertheless, and the swiftness of her paws quickly outdistanced the loping trot he had set for himself. Yet his icewater eyes did not move to meet the flames of her own; he recalled how they had glowed with desire for her lover. "I have no claim to you, Jinx," Lecter growled, continuing in his movements — where, he did not know.
As a Kesuk, he knew well the persistence of her lineage, but the witch was not inclined to listen. She was free to go where she pleased, to tumble with whom she deemed worthy of her lovely body. He simply would not be foolish enough again to succumb.
Lecter cursed himself for the hot jealousy of a scorned lover that had lashed him since he had seen her with the nightfall male. He was, he reasoned, too old to be so involved in the proceedings of the young; pain had struck him when he turned his full attention from Sos. And so he pressed on, jaw clenched closed stubbornly, eyes refusing to look upon her, lest she sway him from his determined course.
He was uninterested in her, and the knowledge of that cut her heart like a hot knife through butter. She was not acquainted with the concept of giving up, however. Despite his physical and verbal insistence that she leave him alone, she pursued him still, drawn to him as she always was. She offered no apology, but only because she feared it would incense him further to bring up what had happened that night. There had been nothing but tentative contact, yet that was enough to break his trust wholly.
"You know that isn't true," she cried in a voice hot with defiance. She could not let him turn her aside and shut her out. She responded to a pull in her heart and her tummy she didn't understand, to a possessive need of him and something else, and defied him fully. Despite herself, she belonged to him, was wholly his, and could not fathom being anything else, even if it was his one strongest desire to distance himself from her this way.
Irritation mounted in the bloodstained Eta; the quick pace aggravated his healing wounds, causing a limp to enter his gait. Pausing, finally, Lecter turned and grasped the eyes of Jinx with his own. A myriad flicker of emotions played across her face, but his heart remained hardened against her. "It is apparent to me that you have chosen another. I ... saw you. With him. I went to find you one night."
His words were breaking apart, and so he stilled the jabbering of his tongue. Commingled pain and confusion gripped him, a sensation he had never before felt, and he was quick to decipher its genesis in the jealousy he still felt keenly. Jinx had pushed him away, had disallowed his presence — but she had gone to a wolf other than himself, and it was the simple acceptance of a threat to his masculinity that inspired his reactions, coupled with a still-fervent love for the slim nymph.
Dignity fought to loosen its hold on her, to let loose her famous Kesuk temper and swallow him whole, but she had been raised better. She didn't sputter out in disbelief at his claim nor try to cover it up with lies. She was guilty of what he blamed, no matter that delirium had gripped her that night. She could not lie to him, knowing he would see right through it anyway, and she had found evidence of his witness in the trace scent of his paws on the ground near where she had met Haunter.
But there were some half-truths, and she was quick to seize upon them in hopes of dispelling them. "I did not choose another," she protested, certain that he wouldn't care what she said but needing to say it anyway. "I chose you. What you saw... I was ill, grieving and not myself. I allowed the loa to paint a false reality in my eyes and deceive me." Was it truly the loa who influenced visions? Perhaps not, but Jinx believed it.
"I smelled the ocean, and... Thought of you. I did not realize it was someone else until... His touch cleared my mind. I left immediately." She was mad, that was what it boiled down to. She had been mad with grief for their lost children, mad with her religious zeal and need to please Sos, and mad with the scent Lecter had once been most known for. Now, he carried the tang of old blood on him always, a smell that warded away others but drew her near. But once, when she was but a babe, he had carried with him the scent of the ocean, be it from the air or the sea itself... Or maybe nostalgia coloured her memories of that, as well.
DERP i am sorry let's finish this up shall we? <3
He listened, but he did not believe her. Not at first, until the burning verve of her eyes, the sodden urgency in her voice, coloured the blasphemous words she spoke. She had thought the dark male was him, perhaps blinded by loss and fired by something ... something he did not truly understand.
Regarding her quietly, Lecter's eyes roved over the pale fur the other had touched, had embraced. He had left the scene of their would-be coupling too soon to know if the nightfall man had taken Jinx, and in truth he did not wish to know. "The loa blind those who show weakness," the shaman muttered, for she surely had in the face of the spirits, though he knew that the sylph was altogether strong.
Straightening, Lecter met the Kesuk's eyes with his own cold stare. He did not draw close to her, nor did he invite her near to him; the wounds of her betrayal stung though he knew now why she had done it, and believed him. "I will continue to follow you, Jinx," the madman said softly, simply.
Though his words seemed to yield to her, there was a thin barrier erected between them by the frigidity of his gaze. She dared not cross it, though her heart tugged toward him and yearned to be in his immediate proximity. She could not bring herself to defy him in this moment. He was still her mentor, and she still remembered the way she'd shied away from him as a young child, frightened of his icy stare and his peculiar ways.
She felt like that child again, though the words she uttered next were far from shy and uncertain. "I do not mean to stay here," she announced, tilting back her ears lest he argue against this decision. "They are gone." Jinx was likely mistaken in assuming Lecter would know what she was talking about, but she put a lot of faith in his intelligence, and felt no need to explain further. "Fox has not indicated that she cares about the sacrifice I made on her behalf. I cannot be her second any longer while her manner is so unappreciative. And our neighbours are unruly and arrogant, and I do not see her acting to put them in their place, though it is beneath us." Fox being unappreciative and inactive was completely untrue, and Jinx knew it, but the wounds were too fresh and still stung. Shearwater Bay would have marched to war on Northstar Vale or at least given a show of strength for their "diplomatic" visit, but Swiftcurrent so far had done nothing, save for the individuals who rose up of their own accord.
"I will find land elsewhere, nearer to the sea. Come with me," she implored, knowing that Lethe was no longer here to hold him down. Clarice had gone off into the wilderness, carrying this man's child (unbeknownst to her), leaving poor Lecter with none but Jinx to tie him to the old ways. She had forgotten them from time to time, but felt now more than ever she had to step into her mambo shoes and be the Shearwater wolf she knew the shaman needed... Even if he felt otherwise.
Their dynamic had undergone several changes over the past months, but Lecter remembered vividly the bright-eyed, fierce girl he had mentored, and how with pride he had watched her blossom into a fiery paragon of spirituality, a fitting tribute for the eye of any God.
He was not surprised to know that the young Kesuk planned to leave. She had chafed below Fox; Jinx was not made to serve others. It tried her patience, reduced her to a brooding shell of what she could have been. Add to that the encroachment of the Vale — Lecter was removed from the rest of the Creek but he was not so distant that he did not listen to the gossip of the other wolves — and the death of her children due to Fox's foolish choices, and he too would have longed to leave.
Though Sos had marked the pups for His own, for death, Lecter felt that in some small way Jinx had grieved their passing. Though he too mourned them, the pale witch had sent a small prayer of thanks to the Dark One that He had taken them early; he would not have wished to watch Jinx slay them, and for all her strength of mind and body, he did not know if she could have done it.
Slowly, the madman moved toward her, drawn inexorably by the glow of her eyes and the stance of her body. Eventually, with a familiarity that caused him to sigh with contentment, Lecter reached for Jinx, seeking to draw her into an embrace, one that had too long been neglected. "I am yours to command, Jinx, for as long as I have breath. Of course I will follow."
She watched him, half expecting him to turn and leave her then and there. Half a dozen possible answers tumbled through her head, all of them negative. What reason did the shaman have to go with her? What reason to cherish her the way he had before? The loa had successfully blinded her, if only temporarily, and proved for all to see her will had weakened. Her resolve was stronger now, but Jinx doubted that it was enough to sway him. Fear clutched her heart in icy talons as she waited for him to part from her, forever.
But he moved forward, and fear melted with a nearly audible hiss of relief. Her whole body slumped as though a rigid weight had been removed, and she was reaching for him. She felt his body against hers, and sought the crook of his neck with her face, glad for his acceptance. It might not have been forgiveness, for only he knew that, but it was more than she had dared hope for.
"It will be nice," she murmured, thinking of the distance they would put between themselves and the wicked devils of the Vale. "I wanted to uphold Lethe's vision for this place, to show I value my father's friends, but... I couldn't do it. It is not what she wanted." Wherever they went was not likely to be what Lethe wanted either, but Jinx was already determined to hold a proper ritual there in Lethe's honour, for devoting her soul to the Gods. If only she had known Lethe had been buried rather than sent off on the river's currents, her motivation to leave would have been stronger sooner.
"How... Do you feel about mountains?" she wondered, knowing that Lecter's word would determine where she would go. She had plans already, but they could easily be changed here and now. "There is a lone mountain in the west. Tuwawi told me the forest at its base has been abandoned, and it is very close to the sea." They would have prime hunting grounds, access to the hot springs, seclusion, and of course, the ocean at their backside... It was all Jinx could hope for, but now more than ever, she needed her lover's approval before acting.
Lecter preened the bulb of one ear, pleased to have her against him once more. The very marrow of his bones had called out for Jinx during their separation; he did not wish to endure the agony of her absence again, regardless of how she favoured him. But with her very actions, the shaman felt that his pearlescent Mambo returned his love, or at very least cared deeply for him. Surely she would not have cleaved unto his side had she not.
"There are too many dark spirits here now," Lecter murmured in a display of solidarity for Jinx's decision to depart the Creek. With the flaring insolence of the Vale, and Fox's unwise refusal to cut them down preemptively, before they struck and maimed the Creek beyond repair, now would be the most prudent time to leave.
Mentally, he arrayed a list of those whom the Kesuk would bring with her — Ira, for certain, and perhaps the dark male. Unconsciously he bristled at this possibility, but he would honor her choice. There were, after all, many subtle paths to killing a creature for whom he did not care.
A mountain. Lecter thought briefly, wistfully of the sprawling beach that had been Shearwater Bay, but his mind quickly arrayed the vast advantages to living upon shelves of rock. Seclusion, above all — it had been too long since he had been able to live without the irritation of constant visitors.
"It sounds worthwhile, my love. I will remove myself to this mountain with you." Pale muzzle, which he had lately realized sported hairs of almost colorless silver, something he had not noticed before, pushed gently against the crook of Jinx's neck. "Only let me die there, Jinx. I am weary of wandering." He would never cease following the Kesuk, however, no matter where she uprooted her band, Lecter would follow.
It was perhaps the first direct referral to the years between them to which the witch had made mention, at least in recent memory. Jinx was vibrant, filled with the ferocity and light which illuminated her every action and lashed those around her with fear or verve. Beside her, Lecter faded into shadow, but it was a dynamic he had always loved, that her light outshone his own.
"I wish to be yours, Jinx. I wish for us to belong to one another, in title as well as word, if you will have me." Pensively, he withdrew to seek the fire of her eyes with his own, unsure of how she would respond. "Speak truly; my love for you will not diminish." But neither would he ask again, and Lecter trusted his young lover knew this.
Lecter's sole request was that he be allowed to die on the slopes of the mountain. Though the thought of him ever dying was jarring and made her stomach plummet, Jinx conceded to this request with a quiet nod that dug her chin into his flesh. "I do not intend to leave it," she whispered. She was resolute in this. It would be her final destination. Shearwater Bay would forever be Jinx's home, but she would carve out another niche for herself, and make it every bit as fantastic as the Bay was. It was her vision. "You need not leave it either."
Desperate to push past the discomfort of their confrontation as well as the unsettling reality that Lecter would die someday long before her, she opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced by the witch's cold voice. This request, she did not answer as quickly. It wasn't because hesitation wormed its way into her heart, or because she was unsure of what she wanted. It wasn't because she worried that it would do them both more harm than good. It wasn't because she didn't want to answer.
The rigidity of her body in that moment would tell him that she was shocked. Her breath was trapped in a cage in her chest, whirling madly around as she attempted to settle it enough to speak. What feeling rose in her was brand new, but it was warm and inviting. It tempted her, and she yearned for it. So although she had paused, and although she feared Lecter might read this response as negative, a bright smile had found its way to her lips. "Yes," she breathed into his rank fur, "yes, of course. Yes."
There was, of course, a dirty joke in there about a crotchety old man and his perverted relationship with a young woman, but it was no joke to the Kesuk.
Pulling back from him, she regarded him warmly, for the first time as something more than just someone she longed to possess. She had always respected him and revered him, but it had been a matter of possession. Now... It was something very different. "I will make preparations. It will take time. We will stay here for now, and let none know our intentions." That decided, she leaned back into his embrace with a girlish sigh, and said, "love, will you teach me a new spell today?"
ahshshsldls;; we need the fancy mate titles now <3
For a long, agonizing string of heartbeats, Jinx was silent. While Lecter knew that she was mulling over his invitation in her mind, she remained without words for so long that he vaguely wondered if his lover was searching for the gentlest way to reject his bold advance.
Her surprise did not escape the notice of the pale witch, and he gathered her closer against him. A rare smile curved his lips at her acceptance; he closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of her fur, a mingling of earth and fire and perhaps even a hint of the salt he would forever associate with Shearwater Bay.
Upon this mountain that she would claim for them, for her own, they would grow in a fashion that he could not understand until it came to pass. Though perhaps Sos would never grant them children, preferring that the only issue of Lecter's was Clarice, the shaman found true happiness in the Mambo. She was the binding tie between himself and the Kesuk line, the last remnant of the Bay; she was his confidant and his pupil, though at times Jinx was also his teacher, and Lecter was pleased to learn from her.
He nodded against her. Silence was his milieu; keeping his jaws tight around the other wolves of the Creek would not be difficult for the reclusive man. A youthful sound broke from her then, and Lecter let the pink of his tongue stroke her shoulder thoughtfully. "Of course; was it something specific that you wished to be taught?"
Done :D :D :D We can probably fade soonish and have a newer one shortly once all your NSV stuff is sorted out!
"Mmm," she hummed into his arm, relishing with delight the electricity that sparkled through her blood originating from where his tongue touched her.
"Perhaps... Something calming or soothing? No curses today." She could not bring herself to taint this day of all days with negativity, even if they jointly took pleasure in that negativity. From her infancy she had been infatuated with voodoo, and all the negative aspects... But had spent comparatively little time on the positive ones. Should Lecter know an incantation to soothe her frayed nerves and allow her minor reprieve from stress, it would be put to good use in the coming weeks, she didn't doubt it.
"My totem was a porpoise once. It has... Changed, I think. I no longer see or feel the porpoise, but something else instead. Can that happen?" It was a randomly blurted question, irrelevant to the present conversation, but she said it nonetheless. Perhaps he could teach her more than just a spell. Something of the spirit guides or spirits in general, possibly. The fact that she now occasionally caught sight of a blue-eyed wolverine didn't seem necessary to state. Jinx had not known her father's totem, so the wolverine wasn't outwardly important to her.
fade with your next post? :0
A low, thoughtful sound thrummed in his throat; he mused over the incantations he knew, and took comfort in the fact that she had come to him for new knowledge. A careful mull stirred in him; a porpoise. He would not have thought that such a gentle totem would have been Jinx's, and this was confirmed with her next words.
"I believe it can happen. We change as individuals, after all; a Totem that comes to you in youth may not be the one that lasts through your time as a grown creature." Lynx was his, but he had not felt Her presence in some time; perhaps the shaman would seek Her out.
Presently, Lecter moved alongside Jinx, inviting her with a vaguely playful expression to walk in the rambling direction of his den. 'Twas there he would ply her with the small, flowery herbs that induced relaxation, perhaps slumber.
For a long moment he held her eyes, simply basking in her nearness. Wife, mate; he had no true title for her, past the eternity of his love for her; his title for her was nameless, held in the quiet recesses of his heart.
He invited her to move, though lingered, regarding her with something she almost would have called warmth. Lecter had no such thing in him, yet all the same, it was an expression she liked to think was reserved for her. She rubbed her flank alongside his as she passed, falling into step with him and mulling over his words. Her education on spirit guides had been brief, so all the traits of all the spirits were impossible for her to know. To behold Koios would have been very telling about why she had the guide she did, but he had died before her eyes had opened.
Her gaze shifted to Lecter with the realization that he was the closest thing she had to her father. To either of her parents. But he was distinctly different from them, not familial in the same sense but in another sense. Her titles for him were many, but of them all, she would state husband most proudly.