Totoka River it’s yours and it’s mine.

qiao and her familiar made quick progress of their climb north. they broke speed to rest only when necessary; she charted the stars at night, and tracked the gathering clouds as they sped past. they’d avoided the great hurdle of the mountains to their east, and eventually came upon a river whose end spat into a frothy and dark sea. 

qiao slowed as the tang of salt became evident. they were still some miles from the coast being visible, but she knew they were close. we are almost there, look— she motioned to @Stormchaser so he would see the change in scenery; how the trees grew smaller and more wiry, how large plots of vegetation thinned out to shrubs and vines. even the earth changed from rich loam to glittery silt and gritty sand. you will know you are close, for the ground and the trees and the air change. sense that? she inhaled the deep salt and the smell of tide flats. that is the smell of the sea.

The bite of salt on the air could be smelled from miles outside the vicinity of the sea. It was carried in on the wind, cutting sharp across the yearling’s snout and stinging his eyes. The further they’d ventured, the less he enjoyed it. While Qiao charted their course, Stormchaser watched her and noted her rituals as being familiar, trusted.

When the crone made note of the shifting land, the boy grunted.

The smell of the sea, he repeated internally, features shifting into an unamused glower. The young wolf lifted his head and breathed in, hoping that he might find another scent to battle with the overpowering smell of ocean. Nothing broke through. The closer they got, the stronger it became.

Why the hell are we out here again? Stormchaser growled.

the yearling did not favor the sting of the brine. his expression demarked great distaste, bringing an inward smile to the old crone.

the to’lang. she answered, motioning towards the thinning of reeds where an embankment sloped generously into riverwater. she drank her fill and turned, the thin of her wrist wiping river dew from her whiskers.

one more thing. when we get to the sea, do not sup from her waters. and mind the tide; many lives the sea has claimed with her churning waters.

a little more madness. as a treat.
the totoka's traveled tributary was now tower to the termagant which lestan had become. increasingly erratic, though not yet volatile, he ran to and fro between beachside locales until he exhausted himself.
all in avoidance of pending departure, of course.
as an apology to @Elodie and shardik and @Bonario, who had come to hang about in guardianship which lestan assumed was reluctant — in apology he was fishing beneath the sun in the cold river just beyond the reeds, and fishing rather well as he hummed tunelessly.
the circle of deer ivory was held beneath one hind-paw.

The young man didn’t respond. He knew well the importance of the to’lang and he knew better than to question her reasoning beyond what she had already shared. When it was mentioned, Stormchaser knew that it was all the reason she needed. Questions rarely conjured informative answers. Qiao had a tendency to mix her teachings with abstract ideas, things he could not see. Still, he followed.

What good is a body of water you can’t drink from?

It made little sense that there would be something of that magnitude, carrying enough water to satiate the thirst of all living things. It was cruel, perhaps, that so much of it would exist without benefiting the life around it. The more he learned of the world, the more he found that it was fond of taking.

The hum of a stranger drew the young wolf's ears to a point. He scanned with hawkish eyes to find where the sound originated. A chuff exited his lips, warning Qiao that they were not alone.

the world was built on the backs of others; it was all take, steal, thieve. take one’s life to survive, steal one’s flesh to eat, thieve from the earth’s bounty everything from water to the plants they walked upon. 

qiao was about to answer the boy’s question when humming broke through the reeds. she froze, eyes upon stormchaser — who had already noticed they weren’t alone. 

they had been together long enough to know what to do now. qiao went wide, slinking through the reeds with the to’lang left behind. it was not a trinket that lent to stealth. 

a man bent in the water; his frame carrying the scent of others and evidence of physical exhaustion. a scent emanated from him that instinctively was a warning; he was not well. 

she motioned silently for stormchaser, her eyes coming to rest upon the peculiar thing at his feet. 

the boy would know what to do. 

warm days and pleasant nights, traveller. qiao shouldered her way through the reeds, coming front and center to the man. a fine spot for fishing, aye?

"i s-suppose," lestan said without looking up even as her shadow fell across him. a round trout sauntered by beneath the current, and he lunged for it, dislodging the bit of ivory into the water. dismayed to hear its splash, lestan cried out! he started away from the fish at once, fumbling in the silt with gasping breaths and spluttered shouts until he surfaced with the ivory piece once more.
it was only then, hunched and streaming on the riverbank, that he turned to look at them. a woman whose age showed in her sharp, visible wisdom; the mayfair scudded his eyes with bright inquisitiveness over she and her accoutrements, then moved to the boy at her side, a taller youth with the same piercing look in his sun-hued stare.
"p-passing t-through?" lestan asked pleasantly.
he felt the deerpiece under his paw and was assured.

There was a strange man, likely the origin of the humming voice that had been carried on the wind. Qiao was pleasant when she approached, offering him a greeting and a chance at small-talk. These things were of little interest to the young familiar who prowled at her side. The man they had found, though… he was of great interest.

This stranger replied to her in a perfectly normal way. The illusion was shattered when the man shrieked and scrambled, voice climbing in distress. When the stranger had pulled a piece of treasure free, the wailing had died.

Stormchaser looked at this man with complete disbelief. His fur prickled uneasily, rising to spike at his shoulders and neck. He ignored the little man's query, stepping closer to inspect the strange wolf. 

What do you have there? he asked pointedly, gesturing with his snout at the ivory piece the lunatic had so desperately coveted.

the muddied piece of bone was interesting before the man became near-hysterical at the face of losing it — now it was downright fascinating. 

qiao did not move - not as the bone slipped into the water, not as the man resurfaced, half drowned but holding the trinket. her gaze flickered over stormchaser, who already closed the gap between them and now stood closest to the stranger. 

water coursed from the mayfair’s sodden fur. qiao listened to the rhythm of the water, remaining still in the practiced manner of a thief disarming their mark. 

stormchaser’s honing instincts would carry them through.

no one had ever asked lestan about the piece of deerbone, and he hesitated for a long, thoughtful moment. "it's —"
but why had no one asked?
and why were they asking now?
he thought of how he had wakened to find it; he thought of the pain and the blood and the fever. he thought truly that this was his reward, and his chest heaved suddenly at the directness with which the younger man had spoken.
a neolithic suspicion weighted his brow.
"it's —"
MINE it's M I N E
the mayfair shoved the bone amulet into his mouth as far as it would go and leaped again into the water, fully prepared to choke if he found he could not hold it and breathe at the same time.

This man was not alright.

Stormchaser squinted sharply upon the stranger, watching the way he fumbled over his words, trying to conceal the prize he had. Whatever it was, it appeared to be of great importance. This made it more appealing to the yearling, even without knowing anything in detail.

When the man scooped the treasure in his mouth and rushed for the water, the stormy wolf plopped himself into a seated position and shook his head.

This guy’s twisted, Stormchaser uttered to Qiao. Best if they just left him to choke on his prize.

qiao had seen many men weakened by the influence of their power-totem. this man’s constitution was whittled down to nothing — no doubt a side effect of the artefact he held in his possession. 

she shared a glance to stormchaser that could almost be misconstrued as sympathetic. 

then she looked back at the floundering man with the bone in his mouth. 

an image came to her of holding his shoulders and head underwater while violent bubbles cracked the surface — he was so willowy and reduced, would he really be able to fight back?

leave him be, the old witch murmured, her grandmotherly mein disguising the greed that rotted her mind. she must earn this man’s trust, and watch him to see how the totem supped from his lifeblood. only then would she understand it enough to be able to wield it effectively. 

come from the water, you bloody fool. qiao barked from the bank, her matronly no-nonsense tone carrying over the headwaters. you can dry off while we help ourselves to one of your fish. surely you don’t mind?

he paused his splashing in chagrin, then clambered up onto the bank, rushing water and sopping. "e-eat anything y-you w-want," lestan mumbled when he had spat the bit of bone back into his wretchedly filthy paw.
his own appetite had fled. he watched the strangers with baleful curiosity, stepping up again nervously to spray the surrounding area with cirlicues of water.
he shut his eyes hard! hard! against the blinding memory of hot light and a swooping golden bird, a lake of fire, a galloping stag.

Qiao instructed Stormchaser to let the man be. The boy regarded her with parted lips and a fire of indignance that flared in his melancholy gold eyes. He already hated this guy. Something was clearly wrong with him. He’d nearly drowned himself only moments ago. It didn’t seem like there was anything promising about him - deranged and half-soaked.

The old crone spoke to the stranger in a stern motherly tone. Stormchaser scowled, fixing his eyes to the trinket that the other man carried so closely. It was clear that it had value, at least to the man on the beach. Maybe the old woman thought they could make better use of whatever it was.

Uninterested in their conversation, Stormchaser scooped a fish and began to peel away the scales to find the bright pink meat underneath.

qiao could sense the glower of her familiar; just once, her gaze edged to him in silent communication.

she turned back to the man. rivulets of water splattered from his shaken pelt. the bone sat beneath his paw.

qiao took care to never once look at it. thank you, kind one. she murmured, taking one of the fish alongside with stormchaser. like him, she peeled back scale from flesh, revealing the circular swim bladder of the creature. this she ate, turning her attention to the exposed stomach.

oh, would you look at that. qiao brought the samplings of the stomach towards lestan, her gaze low.

it was at that exact second stormchaser made his move.

qiao complemented his lightning reflexes with a hard shove aimed at lestan's shoulder. the fish went flying -- its guts arcing in a pink ribbon above them. mud flung underfoot, and reeds clattered -- after silent work on her part, and much angry shouting on lestan's, she watched as her familiar slipped from the banks with the bone in tow.

qiao began to run.

the crushing rage of loss was nothing to the eldritch terror lestan experienced when they converged upon him.
dripping with muck and fishguts, he came up and up; he roared terribly, and pursued the boy! and then, in confusion, he doubled back to find the old woman's trail, leading toward the taiga.
his was a howl of screeching agony that reverberated, the bellow of a betrayed animal.
for hours he searched, but the thieves were canny, and gone into a land that lestan had never explored.
anger would drag him back.

Qiao was good at being seemingly non-threatening. She’d always been keen. Always seemed to have the upper hand in these scenarios.

Stormchaser was not an actor and he struggled with the facades and the games. Myrmidon had seemingly been lured in and he had been a tough stone to crack. The yearling wondered where the man was, if he had stayed near Akashingo. It was likely that he’d have good work there. If not, there would be other packs and palaces. Most had need for a big brute who could fight.

As the crone lured the madman in with her fish, Stormchaser watched the odd fellow’s paw leave the trinket. In only the blink of an eye, he’d darted forward and snatched the item in his mouth. Long-legged and equipped with a skill for racing, he ran until his legs all but shook from the effort.

When he looked back over his shoulder, the beach was gone and so was the poor fool of a man. In his mouth he held the amulet.