The weather may have been warm, but the heavy rain that sluiced the dirt underfoot and lanced through her coat said otherwise. She was a wolf, though, and paid no mind to a little water. Her course had been set from the mountain that morning, and even the strongest rain shower could not have deterred her from it.
From the Ghost Rock Network, the cave system she had explored with Tyrande and Sitri, she had brought one of the loose ghost rocks. She did not know its real name nor its properties, but the mountain had an abundance of it. Nobody would miss this one small sample. Her mouth was occupied with the stone, so she carried nothing else with her. She did not intend to return with it.
Columns of steam and the faint smell of sulphur greeted her at the hot springs. Jinx glanced back at Silvertip once, assured herself that it would be well-guarded in her brief absence, and continued into the billowing embrace of the vapour. The water was much too hot in most of the pools to step into, and the cold rain connecting with the surface threw up dangerous plumes of hissing steam, so she skirted them cautiously in her quest for one that produced very little bubbling. She would learn the properties of this stone, beginning there.
Faith had cost her more than she cared to measure. Nanuq was a creature ruled by brawn, not brains, and she did not care much for ponderous thoughts. Faith had stolen Koios (though she still blamed Siku, the Houngan had always been accursed, such were the Sons of Sos) and faith had forced her to abandon Shearwater. She had always been more grounded in blood and battles but when Atka had spoken she had no choice but to turn her back on the bay and walk away. Back to Echo Cove she had went, leaving behind daughters and sons and an empire.
Faith was cruel.
The Kesuk matriarch had lost not an ounce of strength or size to age, she was as big and bold as she had ever been. Lumbering steps carried her around the foreign land, she had come once before seeking Aklhut, son of Oak Heart, but she had melted away back to the cold lands that were in her blood. Atka called and she went, and the Gentle Mother was not without mercy. Once more she had beckoned Nanuq forward and the female had went tirelessly, there was not room for doubting Atka in her. So many fell to Sos, but she was a champion of the light for all her wretched pride.
A scent, old yet familiar greeted her and while Nanuq had no talent for blending in, she felt shame for what her faith had cost her. Jinx was a part of her, as every one of her children were, and she hesitated a moment before continuing to follow the trail, her heavy thudding steps announcing her presence though she voiced no sounds.
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There was only one pool among the many that did not bubble excessively at its surface. The water was murky, turquoise and green with bacteria and minerals, and stunk. Having chosen to accept the rank shaman of Shearwater Bay as her beloved, though, Jinx hardly noticed the stench of the water as she approached it. She rolled the ghost rock on her tongue briefly, then parted her lips to let it fall into the water with a splash that released a gout of steam.
She whipped her head back to avoid searing her snout, but the rush of heat still pricked her eyes and brought tears to them. Swearing quietly to herself, the Alpha found her composure and settled sphinx-like at the spring's edge, awaiting some indication that the stone had special properties. Her eyes were trained on the roiling surface of the water, which was just below the point of boiling and so danced with itself in whorls.
She knew not how long she laid there, staring at the surface and imagining the shapes of beasts in the steam that poured off the water. It was the thud of feet that woke her from her reverie and simultaneously dismissed any possibility that the ghost rock had no magical properties. What she saw approaching her was a ghost, and an unwelcome one at that. The rock had summoned it here, of that she had no doubt.
Her nape prickled as she turned her hardened eyes up to meet the spectre of her mother, and in a quietly judgemental tone, she hissed, "get away from me." No spectre would come to unnerve her, not even that of her mother, who she blamed for so much.
AND I AM DONE WITH MY GRACELESS HEART SO TONIGHT I'M GONNA CUT IT OUT AND THEN RESTART
Kesuks did not forgive. They clung to old hurts and slights like ragged dogs with scrap bones. She would never truly forgive Siku for slights both realm and imagined, and she doubted it was in Jinx's heart to forgive. But she was unwavering in her stubbornness, only God could deter her from the foolish endeavors she normally undertook. The female had grown much into what Nanuq had imagined she would - strength dipped in snow white, with her strange, dark toes. Jinx had his eyes and it made them almost painful to look upon, but the bulky bear feared little. She looked at Jinx levelly and let out a faint chuff before shaking her massive skull decisively. "No." Great speeches were not the former Warchief's forte, and her words were as simple as her visage - stark and plain.
Nanuq was not made of loving things. She was a warrior and devout, but she was not made of the things a mother was supposed to be. She loved them, but she had left them. Both child and pack, because she believed above all else. She knew her own mind not to be swift or strong, so she placed her path in Atka's hand. She dropped heavily to her haunches to sit, her plush tail curling about one hip and over her forepaws as she eyed Jinx with some trepidation, and she shifted anxiously in her seat. Emotions were hard and she was not one for open displays of anything besides anger. "I'm sorry."
No, said the spectre, rousing in Jinx's breast a defiant flame. She rose from her prone spot by the pool, intending to march into the ghost's proximity and dispel it with snapping jaws, but something held her there. The memory of her mother's voice kept her from moving. Once, she had looked up to the Warchief, and expected to be taught and praised for her hard work. Instead, the bearish matriarch had left, and in her wake, Kaskae's natural dominance had risen up and squashed Jinx's accomplishments. They had wound up in the same place, even though she had worked harder.
She blamed this on her mother. She blamed a variety of things on her mother. Vex's disappearance and likely death, she pinned on her mother. The horrid fate that befell Arktos, that his mind be fractured and his body held hostage by the loa, she blamed Nanuq for. Irrationally, she blamed Nanuq for herself having to leave the Bay, because if Nanuq had been there, then the tension would not have forced one of the sisters out. Others blamed a lot of things on Nanuq as well. In Jinx's mind, the Warchief was not without fault, and blame was easy to place on an individual with faults.
Yet she made no motion. Her body was still and stiff as she seated herself as well, mirroring her sole parent even as the larger woman apologized. All her hatred as all her own, but that didn't mean Jinx acknowledged that. She firmly believed herself justified, so the apology summoned only a cold chuckle to the Silvertip Alpha's lips. "For abandoning your children, or for having other, less accomplished children to rain your praise upon?" Both of these things, the fact that Nanuq had left and had other children at all, and the fact that those children had known her, made Jinx exceptionally jealous of Akhlut and his siblings. It showed in the burning of her eyes and it was especially evident in the way her voice shuddered.
AND I AM DONE WITH MY GRACELESS HEART SO TONIGHT I'M GONNA CUT IT OUT AND THEN RESTART
Underneath Jinx's fury, she felt helpless. When most questioned her she lashed out with brute strength or harsh words and the problem went away. But love stilled a savage hand and quieted a brutish tongue and she only bowed her head in frustration and shame. They had been young, too young, but she had owed all things to her Gods. Atka was kind and just, but justice was not always easy. The Goddess had wanted Nanuq for her own designs, and she had obeyed at more of a cost than she ever wanted to pay. "For abandoning my children, Jinx." She fell silent for a moment, before shifting again, anxiety making her restless.
Icy blue eyes lifted to study the creature that was so like her in appearance, wretched unhappiness and guilt in her gaze."When God speaks you do not ask for more time. I owed the Bay, my strength, my family, the time I had with Koios...I owed all things to Atka and Sos. When Atka came to me, I could not tell her no. I could not plead for more time, and I could not defy her. God can be kind, but God can be cruel. I obeyed my God when I walked away from all of you and the bay, it was not my desire to leave you all." She had given her mother to the bay, her love, borne her children there. It had been everything, but she had no choice in the matter. She had seen the Great Bear and heard her words, and for Nanuq, that was the end of all things.
Her second sons and daughters had been born in Echo Cove. She loved Aktaie and Oak Heart with equal passion, the wolves had accepted their strange union and the faith of the Great Bears had married well to that of the Sirens. All things returned to the sea in the end of days, and she had given much to it.
Maybe if she was younger, and maybe if she had known what had happened to the Ridge, she would have smirked like a brat and rubbed in her mother's face Akhlut's failure. All she knew was that the wolf was an absent leader, and for that, Jinx had named him his mother's son. Cruelty had wormed its way into her once-compassionate soul and eaten into it like a cancer. It defined her now in a lot of ways. Maybe she blamed that on her mother, too.
Nanuq spoke, and it was with a fervour that momentarily stilled Jinx's burning hatred. The discomfort of being told it was the Gods' will made her focus waver to the rain that fell on them both, despite the warmth of the steam around them. It instilled curiosity. She wouldn't, couldn't, forgive her mother for what she had done, but Atka's name was enough to at least prevent her from further judgement. There had been times when Jinx had followed the seduction of Sos' power. For doing exactly what Jinx had done when she left Bon Dye, the Alpha could not blame her mother further.
But oh, she wanted to. "If She gave you all those things," the black-footed Kesuk began flatly, "then why would She take them from you, unless She deemed you unworthy?" That had to be it, she bitterly thought. Nanuq had failed in some way, and that was why Atka had taken her away. There could be no just cause for abandonment... And she was desperate to believe that. With little else to say, and no desire to further be proven wrong in all her assumptions (though she would never admit that she was wrong), she quietly added, "Kaskae holds the Bay now."
AND I AM DONE WITH MY GRACELESS HEART SO TONIGHT I'M GONNA CUT IT OUT AND THEN RESTART
God did not explain. God spoke and the truly faithful followed, perhaps a cleverer soul would have tried to suss out some meaning, but Nanuq was far from clever. Spiteful, ill-tempered and strong, but never clever. She had a low, base cunning — she could always figure out the best way to hurt and kill things, but the why of matters was often beyond her. Bulky shoulders rose and fell in a faint shrug, she looked to the ground and spoke in her plain, gruff voice. "The Cove needed me more, I think. She led me there. My birthland was in war as it always was...but for the first time we were close to losing." Echo Cove had nearly fallen but with Oak Heart she had reclaimed it. In time Aktaie had come as well and the three had ruled henceforth. "We come from cold winter seas, the place of our lines birth could not be allowed to fall."
Jinx's next words surprised her and she lifted her gaze once more and looked at her child with some confusion. "I thought it would be you." Kaskae might have been bigger and stronger, and while that won wars, it was not the best way to lead. The Bay thrived the strongest when she had paired her strength with another's cleverness. "She was bigger than you, but..." She didn't know how to say she thought her bulky little daughter she had often called Naga, and thought of as her little bear was stupid like her Mother. "You always seemed more clever." She was Koios's child in that.
As much as she yearned to hate the woman and rail against her, Jinx could not hold Nanuq's faith in question. She had blindly put her trust in Sos twice, and her faith had led her away from her home both times. Though she claimed to be devout, she questioned her Gods at times, and at other times behaved as though she was above their influence. The mambo in her knew better than that, and revered the Gods earnestly, but the Kesuk in her sported arrogance above all else. She was much changed from when Nanuq had last known her.
Of Echo Cove, she knew very little. What stories she had been told were of victories and glory, but there was little in her memory to recall about it. Specifically, she knew it was a northern shore, and primitive in its ways. Jinx chose not to comment on Echo Cove's supposed importance, if only because it wasn't her birthplace. She knew in her heart she would have done the same for Shearwater Bay, but would never admit it to those nearest her.
The hissing of the pools seemed to have stifled itself. She wasn't sure if it was because the rain was slowing or because her heart pounded in her ears when Nanuq admitted she had thought the pale daughter would lead. "I did," she responded brusquely. "We both did. Nutaaq said it was the Gods' decree," here she paused to rub her teeth over her lip with a frown, "but the Gods must not have realized there was only room for one. We did not agree on anything. Sos showed me the Bay in flames with Kaskae at my throat, so I left before He and Atka had the chance to make that reality.
I hold my own land now," she finished with a hard stare, as if daring Nanuq to comment on Jinx's leaving the Bay for reasons only she considered divine. For a little while longer, mother and daughter talked, but Jinx was still tense for all of it. There were some things that just couldn't be forgiven, even if the Gods had made them so. Abandonment of Nanuq's children without a word was just one of those things. Nevertheless she invited her mother to the mountain if Atka sought to take her there, then took her leave of the burly Kesuk matriarch, being no longer interested in the ghost rock's properties.