He had dreamt of Shearwater Bay, had seen the visages of Nanuq and Nutaaq and Koios! Kois, Bonechewer and the brother of his heart. And he had seen Clarice; he had pursed her through the slow transparent syrup that only materializes in a dreamscape, unable to catch at long last but a fleeting glimpse of her maddened eyes — she had walked with spirits, his daughter, his only child, and now he did not know if she moved at all in the world he still found himself chained in.

And yes, yes, Valkari had come to him, her gaze filled with the cold glitter of insanity, surmounted by the scar that Sos had given to mark her as His own. The pale madman had not felt himself respond to her, but his heart had broken with a metallic ache in his chest; he had not known it was broken until the vision of her pivoted on delicate paws, grinding the fragile shards of his heart into so much ash.

Lecter knew he could not bear it when the dream, lately turned nightmare, had breathed into ethereal existence the form of Starling, and he scarcely glanced into the haunting brilliance of her emerald eyes before he shook himself free of the invisible clinging tendrils and awoke, shuddering. He did not remember the journey to where he found himself now, but the cold tongue of the waters had soaked the new wound high on his shoulder, and the resulting pain sliced through his presently dim awareness of self.

A forgotten man, a forlorn man stood upon the shore of the wetlands, with only the distant yip of foxes privy to his pain — forsaken of his God, devoid of his pack, a stranger in a strange land. Lecter so hated weakness, had sought to excise every vestige of it from mind, heart, and soul, but the waters at his feet dripped red from the slow trickle of blood down his cheeks, crimson and salt mingling as the haggard madman gazed unseeing into the distance, longing for a death that did not come.

and then the thinnest tendril of scent drifted into his senses, drawn by the thrust and throb of the lungs that would refused to bow to the whim of his desperate mind. The bloodied madman did not yet turn, for it was foremost in his thoughts that this was yet another vision, one that would leave within the moment. And yet it did not, and his chest expanded with another breath, and here it was, stronger, the fragrance of earth and myrrh that had always clung to her, even in youth.

Lecter heard first her voice, soft, yet with the command that heralded her existence as a powerful walker of the spirit world; then his mind plucked out the words, and he at last turned to look upon her.

She was as the pale man recalled, and yet she was so much more, the girl newly become woman. Ferocity burned with eternal fire in the flame-wild set of her eyes; she was slim and blessed with a corded height that belied the sure strength of her being, porcelain but for the jet kiss upon her toes. And yet he saw in her that which he remembered from their time together as mentor and pupil: an undying devotion to the Loa and the souls that walked the earth with abandon.

Unable to find the words with which to answer, Lecter found himself moving with dreamlike slowness into the circle of her presence, gait unevened by the wound that rode in the flesh of his shoulder, though it was all but forgotten in this moment. The breath that fueled his body was rife with her perfume, and it was only through sheer force of will that the madman halted before her.

Jinx, he murmured, tasting the simple weighted syllable and all its memories of home for a moment, before his jaw tightened and he was forced to look away from her. Sos has forsaken me. It was not an answer, but it was all he had to give, to offer her by way of a response. At length, the cold water of his gaze lapped back to find her own, but it would be a feat for the glimmering fire of her eyes to cut through the saddened glaciers.

In many ways, the sight of her was the thin blue shore that a dying creature sees from afar, when he is able to lift his head from the drowning waters, the sight of which he clings to with all of his waning life and dying hope. She spoke softly, unsure of what the Dark God had planned for her golden life, but Lecter could see that she had not yet lost her faith, while he himself tottered like a newborn cub on the thin tripwire of rejection and redemption.

The nestle of her porcelain muzzle into the blood-stiff hairs beneath his own broke him from his reverie; he listened intently, as if in this moment, Jinx was the mentor, and he an eager pupil. And yet the seed of doubt had take firm hold in the thankless earth of his mind; how could He, who had forced Lecter away from hearth and home, taken Clarice, driven out Valkari? how could He not have already forsaken the man who had pledged his all? who would follow the Black Lord to the very ends of the earth if it was requested of him?

Perhaps the madman had done something to anger Sos, but Lecter did not voice this, for to put such a thought into words seemed to imply that Jinx also had committed such a crime against her God, which was simply improbable. She had always been filled with the zeal and passion befitting one given to the gods at a young age; Lecter would be damned if he took that from her now. A heavy sigh racked him, and he leant into her touch but for a moment, taking a desperate sort of solace in the mesh of their fur.

I left Shearwater Bay; He drew me away for Himself, and it was as if mere moments had passed. But when I tried to return, it was not as I remembered. It was nothingness. He had gone into the mountains to seek out communion with his God, and found, when the haze of poppies and herbs had cleared from his vision, and he was strong enough to move from his besotted dreams and the constant murmuring of Sos, that he did not know where he was. Shearwater Bay, Koios, Nanuq, Clarice — all of it was a distant reality, a mirage to which he could not return. And so he had pressed on, and found himself here. He took everything from me, and gave me emptiness and the absence of His face in return. The madman's voice was edged in a brief, confused anger, a vague inkling of rage that had yet to spawn within the recesses of his spirit, and he looked upon Jinx questioningly, but silence had closed his lips once more. What was she to make of all this, her teacher bereft of their beloved Dark One, her homeland gone? what must she be thinking in this moment.

And for all that it was worth, the bloodied madman did not feel his age, merely the weariness of thoughts dragged through the jagged fears of his own head. That he had walked, and she had also, must mean something; surely Sos counted their twinned trails to this place of His choosing as a sacrifice of sorts. Jinx — he had not yet investigated her scent to know if she had been taken in by denziens of the new land — but Lecter knew in his innermost heart that she had come alone, driven by the lashing verve of her cultist's heart and her mother's strength. Perhaps he had always known it, that she would be the one to survive, to press on, out of all her Atka-worshipping siblings.

Nanuq had failed them in that regard; to teach a child to crave the Light and disregard the Darkness was to rear a young mind to be weak, and his own nightmares had seen fit that he be aware of what had happened to Shearwater Bay and those who had not been chosen by Sos. It twisted his tongue within his mouth, filled his lips with the dry taste of dust; he could not speak of it, not even to the flame-eyed girl who stood before him now. In the eye of his mind, he had seen blood and torment, and death, and had stood aside, unable to cease the carnage and rot from overtaking his homeland.

And then a name fell from her maw, one he had not heard in many a moon; it was the old hatred, the old instinct, that dredged up the filth of loathing and coloured his black expression as his eyes hardened and he looked upon Jinx with an inkling of his familiar self castigating her. His very presence is very well what may have wrought Sos' wrath on Shearwater! he hissed with a violent vehemence that brought him lashing to his paws, the aching wound forgotten. The pelt along the nape of his neck stood tall, breaking from beneath a black layer of matted blood; he glanced skyward but for a moment before glancing back to Jinx, to calm himself.

She did not know — Nanuq's sin was not the burden of her daughter. And yet she needed to hear these words, for she was too devoted and wholesome to live in a blaze of half-truths and somewhat founded conclusions. We were not meant to mix with the Nereides, the pale shaman began, icewater eyes distant as he gazed unseeing away from his lithe companion. Your mother — I served her in all things, you must understand, and when Aktaie washed up on our shores, I would have gladly slain her had Nanuq asked it of me.

The telling of it was monotone, carefully modulate as not to let the wrath of the last years lash Jinx again; she was not to bear the brunt of his wrath. By some Sos-damned slight of choice, Nanuq ordered that Aktaie, Siren Queen of the Nereides, be nursed to health in our homeland, and kept there until she decided what was to be done. An abrupt pause fell, and the kiss of a brief wind flickered around the both of them, feathering through the newly liberated spikes of pale fur along the length of Lecter's neck and shoulders. He was lost! lost in a reverie of remembered betrayal —

— and what she chose was ... the binding of the kingdoms, as it were. The union of Nereides and Shearwater, and I was to be her vessel. I, who had served her in pure loyalty and blind faith since before the conception of her dream; she threw me to the bidding of Atka and I died that eve upon the beach, forced to do that which was evil and wretched in the eyes of Sos.

He had sunk down again, eyes fixed upon some distant point as head lowered between shoulders stippled in black blood from his latest sacrifice, and the wind would have carried his continued words away had it been of greater strength: She returned to her Cove laden with my children. Daughters, I am sure; the Nereides only treasured girlchildren, and they sent ... Aktaie's son back to us, discarded as so much offal, and for many moons he was a thorn in my side, a constant reminder not only of what had happened, but what would come to pass.

Lecter knew not from where the verbosity sprang; it was as if some boil deep within his heart had been lanced in her presence, and spilled forth its bile unquenchingly. It was after this that Siku rose to power, and your father ... He had loved Koios, and in the raw gleam of icewater eyes it showed plainly as he turned to look upon Jinx once more. And then I was led away, and the Bay is no more. We bear the sins that were committed that day. We are to make penance for them, but with what I am not sure, and for how long we are damned, I do not know.

Vex, Arktos, Kaskae — her anger and passions writ into reality that lot which had befallen each of them in turn, and again Lecter reeled within himself at the losses, gathering up as so much dried wood, to be burnt into ash by the bitter fire of Shearwater's collapse. Furthermore, the pale shaman had known the issue of Nanuq and Koios at their birth; he had doted upon them all as the future of the Bay, and not had the singlemost breath of betrayal besieged his mind. It was not until Koios had fallen to death, and Siku had turned her back upon Shearwater to spawn some distant, mountainous abomination, that the realization of the Bay's lost god-blessing had occurred to the shaman.

He had failed them, he had not pressed himself to be heard in Nanuq's deaf ears, nor had he ripped the entrails from the wicked Aktaie himself despite the twisted desires of the Warchief. In his very power as Angakok, as Shaman, he had let slip the demons of hell, had aided Nanuq in her very release of them upon Shearwater Bay with his silence and with his pride. Lecter was no more than offal in his own mind, and that of his God, surely, and this would be his lot. He deserved no less than the utter darkness of the Black God's back turned to him, perhaps for a time, perhaps for eternity; he deserved the sinking, sickening emptiness in his soul.

Jinx had inquired of their fate, and he blinked, clearing his eyes of the haziness that had seen fit to creep into the corners of his vision. She was resplendent in her cold anger, her pale form a beacon for all that was right within the Bay, all that had been breathed into her. Here was Jinx Kesuk's birthright — a broken packland, a smattering of followers, a legacy of betrayal and heart-rending sorrow. And yet Lecter knew that she would restore the balance desired by all elements of their world, that she would rectify the wrongs wrought by Nanuq.

In the fleeting glissade of a moment's time, Lecter recalled how he had come to Nanuq, how he had fought alongside her in the fierce insanity of his youth. Dare he not speak it — but that fire was Jinx's inheritance, also. He saw it in the righteous flash of her flame-gaze, in the lovely angles of her body, now rounding with a woman's flesh; the bud had blossomed, but he was no less loose of its tendrils than he had been before. Her verve would deliver unto her the answer, though it would take its time in the creation.

We are the only ones of the Bay who remained true to our paths, Lecter suggested with a halting glance into her fire-eyes. I have never forsaken Sos and you have never turned your back upon the Gods or the Loa. Even in fickle youth, you have remained true. Not knowing enough about Kerberos to gauge whether or not the sea-spawn's presence would be blessed or damning, Lecter eschewed commentary on that front.

Perhaps we are here to rebuild, to strive for balance instead of one-sided piety, the shaman murmured, drawing on the strength of the his spirit-blessed companion. But show me he who claims to know all, and I shall show you a fool. He was struck by an feral, cloying desire, a demand from the very marrow of his bones, to regain his former self, but from the same locale spawned the knowledge that he would never be the same again, that he was changed evermore, and could not return to whence he had come.

But perhaps this was for the greater good — the Bay had fallen, and those who had escaped its demise had been brought unto this place to create a more pious strength upon the righteousness of their actions and the bulwark of their combined existences as the Gods' Chosen.

For whatever purpose we have been placed here, I remain in service of the Kesuk line, Lecter murmured, the soft ice of his voice a respite from the otherwise haunted violence of his usual tone. The glacial eyes lifted to her own, some vague sense of renewal and determination shining in their depths, and he drew a long breath that was at once both invigorating and tangible with its own tension. I am yours, Jinx.