tartok was lush, and it was firm in its claim upon the mountain. long hours of wandering its crags and peaks had made its navigation easy, though he was not so surefooted as those who had been raised among looming stone pillars; tonravik darted and danced upon her mountain with the surety of a mountain goat.

a coney! he had spotted it out of the corner of his eye, and gave chase. the little animal darted and wove in its haphazard path down the mountainside, but lasher kept his footing and his eyes fixed upon it, seeking to keep his balance but win his prey.

the sun was high overhead, and warmed him through upon his pursuit; his eyes danced with delight, and the murder of crows overhead winged after lazily, hoping to win scraps from his table when it was all said and done.

a misstep could mean his death, and yet lasher was unafraid, warmed through by the delicious singing tension of the chase through his body, and the sudden burning hunger in his veins. a shove against the shale with bunched hindquarters allowed the earthen man a new burst of speed, and with this he swung his head low and snapped.

he surfaced with the coney swinging from grinning jaws, but lasher would not cause it suffering; he snuffed out its life quickly, and plucked the choicest cuts of meat from its tiny body with a ravenous savagery. it was not for several moment that lasher looked about himself, and when he finally was roused to do so, murky eyes met the cold, calm fire-gaze of his jetfurred watcher. lasher did not stir, nor did he challenge; the man wore the look of tonravik, and so the he would do well to respect this man with witch's blood.

his voice was a pleasing baritone, and for a half-moment, lasher found himself pondering the similarities and differences between this man and the lost eismitte. and then, as not to annoy his new companion with his own personal musings, lasher roused himself, and moved higher on the slope to watch the blessed man with good humour in his murkwater eyes. you praise me. his gaze drifted off past toward the man momentarily, before taltos forced himself to return to the present, cursing his propensity for skylarking when there were other importances afoot.

you are of tonravik. and siku. he spoke the words not as a question, but a statement. the other was obsidian and ochre, and he felt muzzy and less-than in his earthen robes and swamp-gaze. but this feeling was fleeting, for lasher was not one to dwell upon his own appearance, only that of beauty determinate on hidden factors. he had never been averse to beautiful women, or beautiful men, for that matter. i am lasher.

since before siku was the witch, lasher murmured, paws shifting upon the shale as the other approached. he was flushed anew with the realization of the power that surrounded the masculine shadow; he moved like stygian night over the rock, flowing into its crevasses and across its surface with an eldritch grace. to clarify, as many did not know 'witch' in the context used solely by taltos, he breathed: i am bound to her and hers, and to this mountain, and to tartok, until she releases me.

but he did not wish for this — contrarily, lasher wanted for quite the opposite. such sweet chains siku had bound him with! the day that he divested himself of them would be the hour in which he would meet his demise. of this he was assured. are you to rule beneath her, or will you flow away to begin in a new place?