Blackfeather Woods Let my mind be your freedom

She'd retreated to the depts below the woods. She didn't care if she wasn't allowed or if it was dangerous. She welcomes the pure darkness, quite unlike the darkness above. In the forest, the darkness was intermittent with a heavy greyness hanging around. Here, you needed owl eyes to see.
Trailing against a wall to guide her, fur turning slick with some run-off from above. Or wherever. She could hear water running; quiet tricklings that guided her. She'd spent a few days down here. Almost lost, but not afraid. Not completely lost.
The wounds inflicted upon her body were healing slowly. She had to keep licking at them, trying to keep them clean. She wondered what othered dwelled down here. Was the boy, the Mou-Titmouse-Screech boy?
Its a wonder how Wintersbane had just tolerated his presence, seeing as his hatred for the boy was heavy.
She wondered what callous doings he'd done to be so hated. She knew of his scent, his presence. It was fading rapidly. As was Maegis...Maegi. Where was she now?
Numbers in the pack were certainly dwindling.
Yet there was at least one presence that surely demanded attention.
The other, older male in these woods.
His scents were down here, she'd crossed them in her wanderings but not the man himself.
She wondered what sort of person she'd find.
If she ever did find him.

Soon, she was stepping into a river. She followed it upstream, unwittingly, towards Namira's Mire. She broke out into the swamp, shrouded with mist and cold. She blinked slowly in the grey light. She wavered at the entrance, wondering if she should turn back into the darkness beckoning her below.
She had a duty to the pack.
She gritted her teeth, coldness seeping into her paws and numbing them beyond feeling.

Zafina watched from the borders edges, this cream wolf submerging herself in the cold and malicious bile of this cold and seemingly desolate place. Keeping her chin tucked, she watched this child punish herself in this mire. What a curious thing it was.

Regardless of the happenings, the Goddess stayed where she was, atop pieces of solid land. The thick stench of other wolves here was given a fainter girth here, but she hadn’t dreaded over that distinct line. Last thing she felt she needed was a vengeance list when living this life was her own punishment. Simply took so much energy to have grudges.

A careful string of sounds to alert the youth before her-

“Hello...Busy?”

Her head snapped to the source, her heavy-lidded eyes widening. At first, she thought it was the shadow-child, but realised she spoke not. And her eyes were of violet, not red. Her fur was a picture of the night sky adorned with stars, not dark and...blood stained?

Her head tilted, trying to assess the stranger at the borders, trying to find a better light.
She had a duty to the pack.
The woman dredged up her sinking paws with a powerful kick and waded towards the other. Female, it sounded. The cream woman cuffed softly before starting into question, "Who are you and why are you here?"
Her voice held no accusation or aggression. Only a quiet calmness; detachment you could say.
She clenched her paws, trying to regain feeling in them as she studied and waited for the others answer.

"Niekinuas zizelsa."The words were a soft and beautiful song, something which gilded the harsh reality with a soothing and kind fantasy. However, inwardly, Zafina was irritated that this mortal dared to question her so carelessly, without any semblance of respect. But how could she fault them? The wench had no clue who Zafina was. So how could she fault her?

"My name isn't very needed; you wouldn't have any clue who I am, nor would you care to know me", she waved the first question away with a nonchalant whisk of decadent words. She had a feeling she wouldn't have any affiliation with this scarlet-backed woman, anyways. Being greeted so apathetically curled the witch's insides, and she knew she wouldn't be too fond of this useless girl.

"I am looking for a place to rest this body...is this plot available? Are there servants around?" How could she expect there to be any servants around? It seemed everyone was out for themselves, here...there was no respect on this plane. Let alone for the Divine. Mortals seemed to have no culture, anymore. No sense of religion, no worship to the beings who gave them their ablity to exist. It burned Zafina inside and out, as she regarded this life before her with careful crimson irises. It was her own duty as a Celestial to create the unfoldings of time and contradict all of what mattered most. But then again, that was what she had gotten banished for, supposedly...

Her trouble-making sorcery.

The bitch before her was arrogant. Certainly saw herself high above all else. That earned her a flash of bared teeth; a silent warning to not be so demanding here. Not on the borders.
She spoke a tongue not recognised. The words barely registered, seeings as they were not known to her.

“If you wish to be here, to live under the Night Mother’s gaze, you must first of all stop thinking of yourself as some high-above being.” A breath, but not long enough for the dark-woman to speak, “secondly, you must earn your rank here, we are servants to Mephala. No one else,” her golden gaze narrowed, “certainly not the likes of you.”
Wintersbane would never stand for her talk, would undoubtedly even let her join. But it would be up to the Listener, as far as the fire-licked woman knew. She knew not of the role of the Dark Master, yet.
“Last of all,” she continued, possibly letting the bitch speak if she so desired to do so, “you should call when standing to close to these borders. Most here do not take kindly to some even within scouting distance.”
A soft smile that held a malice and a promise; a promise of harm should it so come to it.

Flicker tilted her ears and threw up a howl for leadership, expecting @Relmyna ; not knowing of @Kove . She suspected others would come to the call too, but that perhaps wouldn’t be a bad thing. Not bad considering who was on the border.
Some pretentious bitch; but one that perhaps could save these woods.

She was tired. So very exhausted of these mortals who thought themselves worthy of challenging her. So weary of the lupines who thought they knew better than a Goddess. Words were easily twistable...
as were throats.

”Have you considered my asking to be of servants to Mephala? Or did you assume I meant servants to myself?”

Irritation briefly skirted across her features as the dog howled for an audience. That in itself gored a savage maul across her patience, something she truly had come close to running out of from merely being locked away in this dirty corpse body.

”I’ve been around this forest for days, girl. The scents here fades, as does your hold here. I come seeking respite, and this is what you show yourself to be? Discipline, and self control are obviously a foreign concept to you.”

Slade had taught her much in their past lives...and truly she had missed the wise man; he truly was deserving of the titles bestowed upon him. She had missed the Nightmares as well, but the teachings between them and those Slade had garnered into here were polarly opposite.

”I have had your pack’s teachings carried in me from a prior member. Your gods are nothing new to me.”

Garnet irises sat upon this whelp of a woman. This place held bountiful spirits, so close and ripe for her rituals. Using them, she could craft a way to commune with the Celestials, just to see if she could weasel her way out of this punishment they stuck her in. But first, she had to make it her temporary home.

"You certainly worded it as if you wished us to be your servants." A sly challenge, cocky even. Just a game. She shook a back leg, removing a clump of mud that deposited itself on the ground behind her. A small grin.
Her head tilted slightly, assessing the woman. The fire she held had been extinguished by the dark veins running below the woods. A cool ice had replaced her fire, unbreaking.

She took a deep breath before speaking again, "Perhaps, yet I know how to seed such things amongst others." The hint of what she was, the crown she'd clung to for so, so long. She'd accepted it would never adorn her head.
"I'm surprised you haven't been sought before now, our eyes are often aware."
Wintersbane. The mass that patrolled daily. She would do the same soon, inside and outside the borders. Prowling for information.

But how was it so that this woman knew of the woods? Perhaps she'd once dwelled here, suggested it enough. Flicker wasn't about to argue with her over it. It would only make the life easier, she probably knew more than herself given the confidence she assured the statement with.
The cream woman merely rolled her eyes before settling to meet the dark-ones gaze.
"What is your name?" She repeated.
But perhaps the first words she'd spoken to her had been her name, in a different language. She wished she hadn't dismissed them so easily; if only to know if she spoke them again.

The Goddess snorted, something that closely resembled ridicule of this situation and a laugh at the involved reason for it all. This was just silly.

Shaking her head, ebony and dark ochre mane splaying vividly in her dismay of the notion, she replied. “No...but I can discuss the finer details of this later.“

Quite a few had come to her in the name of the ‘Dark Brothehood’; it seemed she was not the only one Slade had begun to teach. But why he had left the original place of the pack’s teachings was beyond Zafina. Slade was wise, calm, but his wrath was something not even the God of War himself would be so confident against.

“Enchantress,“ she effortlessly lied. It was a name easily understood in the wolfspeak, and she felt this woman didn’t deserve her real name...
names had power.

Flicker's eyes roved over the other. Assessing, weighing up.
She still didn't know if any others would come to her, to admit this one into their pack.
They needed her, as much as the proud woman hated it.
The ice held in her eyes was her only show today.
Enchantress.
The woman nearly snorted a the name, so prissy, seemingly so...breakable. Like glass. She didn't really care for the true meaning of the name, she knew most used it only for show and wouldn't put it past the dark female before her to do the same.

"Very well, Enchantress," she crooned, "we shall see if anyone would wish to keep you around and we shall sort out these finer details at a later date." Oh, the wolfess was sly and sharp-tongued. Yet she held back cussing her out right there, hoping that the game -- dance -- they've initiated would be enough to interest her.
She wondered if it would make her back another target.

It was clear they wouldn't find anything beyond petty feelings. Zafina was above such mess. Snide remarks and snippy retorts; she couldn't stoop to such a pathetic level. Turning away from the immediate gaze of of this harlot, Zafina took her willowy body and placed it further away, not wanting to be any closer to Flicker than needed. Respect wasn't something she simply gace out, whether the organism before her deserved it or not. And she certainly wasn't going to tolerate getting herself momentarily killed for something as pithy as endulging her wrath upon this girl.

Zafina also wasn't fond of having the upper hand in this battle. Should this tramp call for them, other wolves would come. But hadn't she called earlier, and no howl responded? How lonely truly were these woods? Devoid of nearly all lupine life, it seemed...

And it was all she had left to hold onto to stop herself from launching at this scarlet and cream wolf. She held onto it, and stayed seated.
Too wise to take chances.

The woman debated admitting the dark-woman to the territory. But that would be without Relmyna's permission. But she had not come; no answering call. She didn't have the authority to simply allow this woman into the pack.

She merely watched her every movement with a critical eye. She certainly didn't enjoy her company, certainly didn't think much of the cream tramp before her. A soft ember of amusement glowed in her eye as she sat down. Hunkered, really, not about to let her ass get dirty from the sludge around the area. What did one do with a creature like the one before her whilst waiting?
"What do you think of the border decorations?" No pride, she wasn't about to take any sort of credit for the erection of rancid bodies. Merely curious what one whom thought themselves to be soo high standing thought of them.

He was not quick to arrive, a nap having lured him in. He’d found a rare spot where the sun shone through the canopy, and there he laid, taking in the warmth. The howl made him stir and he blinked a few times, conscious of the sound and what it meant, but it took him a few extra minutes to rise; several joints cracked and he let out a grunt, unsteady. Thankfully, the weariness of his previous slumber wore off and he was able to give his body a good shake before setting off to find the source of the howl.

As Kove approached he spotted two wolves, both female; one belonged and the other did not, the scents that he inhaled exposing them. Holding his head high, he closed the distance between them and himself, a nod offered to his pack mate whilst his gaze was drawn to the stranger. “Who are you and what brings you to our home?” asked the ghost, the pleasantries previously exchanged between the women having gone unheard. Was she, by chance, another searching for a lost soul?

Now that was something she could appreciate. Turning the slender head of hers to peer appropriately at Flicker, she murmured, “I quite enjoyed them; from the occasional skulls to the murders of avians smattered about despite the season. For a family of living things to remain where life if not fondly welcomed is what draws my curiousity.“ It was a play on words, where she referenced the wolves who were clearly not doing well in these cursed woods, where it may seem that she was speaking of the ravens and crows she had come about, here. But the corpses however, left on the grounds in which they were more than likely murdered? They would be catalysts to numerous rituals, and the Witch could use them as her gateway free from this plane. But there was still so much to do. She’d have to become a Priestess to their Gods and Goddesses, whom were her actual siblings and partners. Relatives, and neighbors. Friends and foes. But they had gone by different names, and the organics wouldn’t know the difference.

Casting a curt snatch of garnet gazers to the sudden white which entered the scene, immediately her stare was drawn to the emblem upon his shoulder, a rustic red that too had evoked memories. Slade had this very same sigil, the mark of the Dark Brotherhood. While she hadn’t been baptized by him nor approved by the head of his own sanctuary, Zafina knew well of this mark and what it stood for.

Only after running her glance swiftly over the elder male’s body, she easily felt more understood by this ivory lupine than the scarlet and cream wench.

“I was tutored by someone who resided here long ago. Was instructed to seek this place, and remain.“ Silken plume of void and dark cherrywood banner wrapped beguilingly around resting pawheads. Would they simply take her word? Or would they require more than that? “Enchantress, a lone Daughter of Akel, the Dread Father, and learner of Mephala’s teachings.“

Now while she had admitted she was a ‘daughter’ of the Dread Father, he was known as an Ancient, even before her as a Celestial, as the Father of Naught .

However, religions came and went, and as did his aliases, they too came and went. But Zafina was a wise one... she knew of them all.

She nodded slowly, quietly thinking over the Witch's words. It was only mere moments later when she'd decided on something to say that a deep voice sounded from near her. She turned her head, eyes settling on the pale-wolf, red mark on his shoulder. She inclined her head, respecting the man. She knew what it meant and realised he was a leader. Did he lead the woods beside Relmyna? She turned her golden gaze back to Enchantress, knowing it'd be an insult to try and explain for her.

She studied the dark-woman, letting the white-man talk. But to claim daughter to the Dread Father when he was nothing? It seemed strange, but perhaps that reflected the wraith. She was nothing; like the Void.
But was she neither good nor evil?

Instructed by one that had once resided within those very woods—interesting. Whilst his memories flowed towards the front of his mind, his expression remained bare; he had not spent his life perfecting the skill just for old age to take it away, it seemed. “Who taught you?” he asked, the names of those that once were having settled in his head. Which it might be, he could not even guess, though he was interested to find out. It was not every day that someone from the past returned to the woods, and even rarer was it for one connected but unrelated to the past to show up.

She assessed how much harm could come of her prior mortal mentor before she shrugged it off. The man was old when she had come across him, already silvering lightly in his most oh his most delicate of areas. Regardless, even in his old age, he was of menacing stature.

”His name was Slade.”

Once Kove had begun introducing himself, Zafina had truly begun to hear the accent in his voice. Almost as imperceptible, she had nearly missed the pride locked in the tapered walls of his titles. And with the accent in mind, she instantly knew what North this man was from.

With a tranquil gleam of curiousity in her garnets, she regarded the Alpha of this pack. “Kaninngituk mânngat, hm?” she asked with understanding in her ancient eyes. Oh how forsaken she felt for her perish on this plane. Simply being so far from the stars, from the ability to transverse between universes-

it depressed the Divine a bit.

Yet was interesting to see she was not the only to suffer.

The woman closely monitored the conversation, taking in all the details of the dark-woman. Enchantress. Why did the name seem so...odd? Her useful eye narrowed, the swollen wound twitching slightly in mimic. But there was information, whoever Slade was had been here; a relation of Maegi's?
She deigned to know, perhaps she'd seek to consult later on, perhaps she would find her friend.

The pair seemed to share an understanding; a different language. She frowned slightly, racking her mind for any kindling of insight towards the interaction -- the new packmate. Her jaw only tightened, restraining the questions that drifted across her mind. She'd ask later, after her offering.

The name was one that he hadn’t heard in years now, the male having vanished long ago; Kove had assumed him to be dead, either by natural causes or, more likely, a vengeful follower of the Brotherhood. But his assumptions had been incorrect, it appeared, for he’d managed to take under his wing a young female. Whether or not he lived still, he did not ask, and merely settled with saying, “Then you were trained well, I’m sure.” Although the man had betrayed the woods by abandoning them, the northerner was not so quick to pass judgement; there were often factors that drove a wolf to leave, and who was he, or anyone, to question the importance of those same components? He had never known Slade’s history, had never known of his family or former affairs—so why condemn him for something that very well could have been far from his control? How likely that was—perhaps he had betrayed them by simply running off, as it seemed he had—he did not question it or say anything more.

She nodded at his revelation; it was clear from his mannerisms alone that he was far from the barbarians that resided in these wilds. He had the patience and calm demeanor of an avalanche that knew it was capable of taking you whole, but bided its' time until it was in the mood to. The iceberg which knew that it could take enough burden to surprise even itself. Kove was much like Gladion, the Lord of the Cold Times, who had come from the siring of Hycen, the God of Vaccum. Gladion was an ever patient one, who knew well his weight when he needed to throw it. Stars forbid you get on his bad side...the Celestial had a cold shoulder like no other.

"Would you believe me if I told you 'the stars'?" she asked with a wiry smile on her lips. She could believe him if he said no- as many mortals as she had come across, she knew their capability to grasp beyong the mortal plane was very limited. They did not often believe in ncarnations, and had they, then they wouldn't believe their sight even if one stood before them in real life. They would write it off as someone being a lunatic, as heresy. But to those who worshiped daedric gods, Zafina had a slight hope for these wolves-
even if the redhead cream one had initially vexed her.

"He was old," she returned the subject to her mentor of this culture. "But he still handled himself well. Spoke of you all, what legacy you all held and where to find you. I asked him to return with me, but he said there was something here that forbade him from going, and that there was task the Dread Father had put him on before he could return to Meldresi." She shook her head at the memory of the man, trying to no miss the wise old mortal. "Whether he was successful or not, I have no bearing. But to see he had not reached you all yet does no good."

She supposed she shouldn't need to, but she had to restrain a sigh. Either from the drawing conversation or the mention of damned astronomy. As much as she used it in her time-keeping, she hated it. Her mother came down to it, the wise-woman that had turned rouge...and yet kept her position. Even in the usurping. That had irked the redhead the most and yet made her glad for her mother. That the old woman didn't need to claw her way up the ranks between littermates and family to have a chance of survival at all.
A chance at what she wanted for herself.

The felt the rising pressure in her gut then, the twisting creature rearing its ugly head to influence her every action again. Again she had to soothe it. She wouldn't have a childish outburst here. By the time her thoughts had returned to the words of the woman, it became apparent Slade should be here before her. So, where was he? Was her chance of finding Maegi gone, lost forever?
Her ears tilted towards the woman, head tilting down in a show that she was listening. Surely it'd seem courteous to do so.