Larksong Grotto what gods win, what you lose

TW Sacrificial ceremony, passive abuse of illicit substances, mention of gory elements... etc.
Sweet Ayovi and Ulfric the warrior-HuNtEr

As she set foot on these lands, Aspa knew full well that she would need her "poisons." The men and women here were true northerners, whether by blood or by faith; they were, and behaved as such. They would seek to negotiate, demand gods, bargain... Aspa had sensed this the moment she crossed into this territory. The gods here were talkative...

In her hut, a humble den with an entrance adorned with hare skulls and dried plants, she had gathered what she needed. These plants had their roles to play, quickly clouding the minds of mortals. Flowers and jimsonweed intertwined in the skulls of hares, a scent that might seem foul, yet to some, it created an intoxicating fragrance.

Aspa had also carefully arranged the fisher pelts Ayovi had given her earlier. Seated, the sorcerer took a deep breath. Now, she awaited only her guest and her huntsman... both had been sent to fetch what was necessary to complete the ceremony.

This deep inhalation of warm air, thick with jimsonweed, made her feel reborn in another form...

aspa’s request had been strange—at the same time, ulfric felt remiss to deny her of much anything. a young stag, she said—something with antlers. something with spirit.
so ulfric tracks it at dawn. the woods are silent, they are still—there is only his breath, his steps, and the pulse of the gods somewhere in the cold. the stag had run, limping—wounded by something else before him. chosen by the gods. and it is not a long hunt. the kill is clean, and with great precision, it is swift.
he carries it across his back where blood mats his fur, streaks his legs. the antlers, though not grand, rise like pale branches—enough, he thinks, for her bloody work.
when he arrives, it is on stalwart legs, that fall in muted thuds; his approach is quiet, but the soothsayer very well might have already knew he was there.

She had ventured her head out of her hut to watch her hunter approach. The time for chuckles, light smiles, and other frivolities had passed; it was now the hour of the gods, and before the gods, one did not scatter one's attention. Yet, Aspa could not help but offer the following playful remark:

En smuk fangst. Du ved virkelig, hvordan man jager, kriger. she complimented him. Kom ind, vi har arbejde at gøre, og jeg vil stadig have brug for din hjælp. She gestured for him to enter her cave.

Placer den i midten. Vi venter kun på fem andre gæster... she declared. Har du nogensinde deltaget i ceremonier?

he fixes aspa with a narrowed gaze, feeling his cheeks burn hot at her comment; ears following suit, laying down thinly against his dome of a head. again, with the warrior. each time, he feels as though it grates harsher and harsher. but he only scoffs in response, hanging his head and tightening his teeth once more on the scruff of the stag.
hauling it within the center of her hut, doing as instructed. letting his eyes pass thinly over the scene the soothsayer had set up for herself. loitering briefly on the 'five other guests' part. shooting her a glance. five others? he grumbles.
but he stifles. i have, he responds, not in some time. then—what will you ask of them?
the gods.

Hvad der betyder noget, er hvad de beder mig om... og hvad guderne vil give dem, the woman with the milky eye remarked, her gaze fixed on the deer, studying it intently, lost in thought. She then moved away, catching a dried jimsonweed flower between her fangs and slowly swallowing it, before picking another and offering it to the hunter.

Jeg beder dig ikke om at indtage den, men behold den hos dig, she said. De er på vej, vi må være klar. Ingen flere spørgsmål, ingen afbrydelser. Du er nu en del af ceremonien, og du må følge mine instruktioner, gudernes instruktioner.

when she offers one to him, he takes it carefully between his teeth. not to eat—but he keeps it. holds it, because she asked, and because the gods are watching.
his ears twitch at her words and he only nods once, sparing her a lingering glance. then i follow.
he moves to stand beside the stag, planting his paws wide, steady. the flower dangles from his jaws, untouched. the blood from the kill has dried on his chest, but his breath is calm now.
he waits.

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No one in the wood would know them, nor the names they had been given. Elowen’s pups, no longer children. In the dirt, they are part of earth. Never to draw breath. Never to be remembered. Mother was not to look too long; not to become attached.  Grief sometimes works this way, not asking too much in a world that had never been properly theirs.
But in dreams, someone calls her name. Ayovi.
Dove.
Around their neck, wrapped like a rosary, a slick pink cord. Upon awakening, Ayovi knows; the dark spirits of her days want them all.

* * *

Before midnight she’d bathed her ivory in the silver creek, splashed ice upon her face. Sang lullabies beneath the half-cut moon and lied to the man who’d given her everything. A breath of air was all that she required; Ayovi would soon be back.
Her furtive stash is cleared, packed between hides. Ayovi left the mountain.

* * *

Katydids sing their insistent spring urge. An illiterate owl interrogates her from the light of a cavalier moon. The night grows slender and dark when mother’s paw sets inside the witch’s hut. The fetid scent has immediate effect, causing the woman to roll her chin aside. A sour gaze tears between soothsayer and the nameless man built like stone— a second witch, or otherwise a strange witness of the ceremony. To Aspa she stares now with eyes that make their blunt confession: she would choose her death; obey any pain the spirits gave her if it meant her children’s survival.
Two stoats, a fawn and a falcon are removed from her back and set upon the ground.  “For mine unger.”
The last, a juvenile silver lynx is pulled from the huntress' shoulders, landing with a heavier thud upon the heap of offered kills. A fifth beast not asked for.
"Og min mand."
This was Ayovi's condition.

The minutes stretched on, yet still, nothing. Had the hunt been in vain? Meanwhile, the sorceress felt the slow, insidious grip of the plants she had ingested take hold. Waves of heat coursed through her, nausea churned in her stomach, an unbearable malaise seized her limbs. And then—the visions. The voices. The words of the gods.

Through these sacred plants, she drew closer to them—gods of vengeance and fury, gods of battle and conquest, of victory and bloodshed. Cruel gods.

Jæger! she called, her voice a low, resonant growl. Guderne har talt! Without hesitation, she reached into the carcass of the deer, grasping an eye between her fangs, tearing it free with a savage twist before spitting it onto the ground.

Yet before she could complete whatever dark ritual she had begun, the huntress finally stepped into the hut. And she had brought with her far more than had been asked.

Was that what had delayed her? A slow smile carved its way across the soothsayer's face, splitting her features in two.

Unge mor, Ayovi, she greeted with a slight nod, her gaze then drifting toward the fifth beast—a young lynx, meant for the bear-man.

Sæt dig, Ayovi, she commanded, her voice steady despite the fever that racked her body, despite the tremors in her limbs, despite her eyes, wide and wild, on the verge of rolling back. Fire børn One by one, she took the offerings the mother had brought, separating their heads from their bodies with a single, brutal bite. The last—the fawn—she handed to the warrior who fancied himself a hunter, bidding him to complete the task.

Dit førstefødte skal velsignes med falkens hurtighed og dens skarpe syn. She placed a single petal of jimson weed within the bird’s beak. Slug, she murmured, offering the severed head.

Den næste skal arve væverens smidighed—klog, listig, altid opfindsom. She prepared the head as she had before. Slug, Ayovi she commanded, the words leaving no room for refusal.

Den sidste... må de overhovedet trække vejret, she intoned, her voice slipping into something softer, something distant. Denne vil være skrøbelig... Må de leve, Ayovi.

She closed her eyes then, swaying gently, her body moving in rhythm with something unseen. A whisper curled through the air, and she listened. Listened, and spoke no more. Spoke nothing at all.

The third, the last of the four children…

the eye is torn free. blood splatters. the huntsman watches with cold, monotone expression; unflinching against the depravity of the soothsayer's ritual.
what he does not expect is the soft woman who appears. but it is not softness that conveys her; it is a coldness. prey is slumped from her shoulders, her back. the snow she draped in broken by blood. ulfric lets his gaze tear.
the gods want a piece from him now. he comes closer, lowering jaws over the neck of the fawn, and rips. the head is placed where aspa may take it, blood a permanent stain upon his browned snout.
ears pulling back against his thick crown as he hears the words of the shaman. looking then, to the white woman, trying to gauge her reaction to the harsh words.

While the tawny man is silent, the gilded woman is all words. Ayovi stares, expecting wrath to flare; waiting for milk to be called out from the earth and an army to be shaped from dust. Such sorcery was worked by the crone, who sundered rolling heads from limp bodies and bewitched a mother’s senses by that which is next recited:
A child! A hunter like mother, with warrior’s eyes like father. And from any other mouth these claims would have seemed like wild lies. But in Aspa’s voice carried an utter conviction, and in Ayovi’s heart a fluttering young mother’s desperation.
Swallow, she’s instructed. And she does, avian beak churning to powder under sharp fang.
A second; clever! Summoning a warchief’s intellect and a river’s deftness. Her child; Skorpa’s cub, and Ayovi brings the stoat head; eyes, nose, whiskers and all, to her mouth.
All her yearning, life’s most precious dreams are given breath, and as if in answer the strokes of little feet keep quick time against mother’s belly. She cannot swallow quickly enough. Each prophecy holds the length of a night. The shadows gather thickly. A single golden glint on the soothsayer’s face darkens.
There is more.
Rapt ears stand, blood and offal rimming the dark lips. Intently, Ayovi listens as the third child’s fate is revealed to be breakable; sickly.
May they draw breath at all.
No! No, no, no, no! Fear wracks her body, pummels through limbs, giving rise to a gouging noise much like a cry that startles her own ears. Hands quickly encircling, protective of that which is safe inside her; who shares her body. Who would know life’s quick pulse— who must!
“They will live— they must live!” Her eyes whip between Aspa and the silent man, "Giv mig fawn," her cry burns.  It is a great ordeal to pass every bite, every chew, every swallow. It doesn’t matter. Over and over Ayovi is succumbing to powers beyond her comprehension, her mind tumbling now.
"Den fjerde?" Mother asks in near gasp, a weary muzzle raised in question of the witch while colors dance in the corners of a narrowed vision.

Jæger, lad hende ikke komme nær rådyret. The gods had decreed.

Aspa had placed herself between the fawn and Ayovi, her eyes closed, drawing in a deep breath of the thick, nauseating air that clung to the hut like a curse.

With steady fangs, she seized the last stoat’s head and, with some effort, wedged it into the fawn’s jaws, still adorned with jimson weed blossoms.

Ayovi, spis.

This time, the offering was larger, more difficult to swallow—a fawn’s skull into which the stoat’s had been embedded. Brothers devouring one another, brothers destined to become one.

De vil være fire, men du vil kun se tre. She pronounced with certainty. If Aspa spoke true, Ayovi would be spared the sight of a stillborn—should the fawn endure at all. The gods bestowed and the gods reclaimed. Through suffering and fear, strong souls were forged. Without misfortune, joy was but a mirage; without war, peace held no savor.

Din tredje, din rådyrkalv, han vakler. Han har brug for dig. Slug. Aspa urged, pressing her to consume the grotesque assemblage of bone and flesh.

Han og den anden hermelin er bundet af en kærlighed så heftig, så broderlig, at den fortærer sig selv. Hvis din tredje overlever, vil han bære hengivenhedens byrde i sig. Han vil vogte, han vil beskytte, han vil elske! The sorceress murmured, swaying on her feet.

Din sidstfødte vil ikke se verden, Ayovi. Bed ham give slip, før han trækker rådyrkalven med sig. she revealed at last, her voice steeped in something near sorrow.

Hør dem, se dem, tal til dem! Et barn vil høre sin mor. She had never borne life within her womb, yet she had witnessed the silent weeping of mothers, the echoes of their wails. And perhaps—perhaps she could hear, too, the cries of those yet to be born, the war waged in the unseen, the fraternal struggle that gnawed at the living.

ulfric remains still.
his breath quiet, barely misting the thick air as madness and divinity converge in the small, stifling hut. blood stains the floor in splatters and pools; the walls seem to hum with some unseen weight, thick with rot and prophecy.
he does not move. but his eyes—his eyes follow everything.
when aspa speaks, he does not know why, but he obeys. perhaps compelled by the suffocating intensity of the happenings around him, filling his chest with a heaviness.
the woman cries for her unborn. ulfric says nothing fore there is nothing for a man to say in this moment.
the fawn’s skull is taken, twisted grotesquely. the warrior-huntsman feels it too—a sorrow he will not name. his blue eyes fall to the mother again.
taking now a powerful breath as if he is a mighty stag galloping through his grotto forest.

“No!” Her heart screams, the wails dropping milk from her breasts into the dry ground. “No,” she rasps, “der må være en anden måde—” But the hunter sees the answer in Aspa’s dark face: the stain of finality in the single seeing eye. 
Ayovi sinks to her elbows now, too dizzy and conflated with poisons to find her feet. A misty sheen veils her vision as the shadows of witch and guard dance above.
The third and fourth will be as one. They will love.
They falter. They need you. Speak to them.
Trembling, Ayovi turns aside, lips resting against full womb. “Hold fast… my… tiny fierce hunters. Momma loves you— Daddy loves you— you are loved… so so loved, my dear— dearest ones.”
The fawn now. Fur torn and discarded; eyes consumed, flesh chewed. Brittle bones crushed into shards. Smaller skull within, shorn into paste. All of it is swallowed. Ravenous, and yet the mother gags over sickness that rises in her throat.
When the last is gone so too is her mind, but with fleeting consciousness Ayovi makes a final plea of the witch:
“S-skorpa. Pl… please— velsigne ham.”

Aspa had watched the young lynx before turning away to open the deer the warrior-hunter had brought. Without hesitation, she plunged her paws into its still-warm entrails, her fur soon slick with blood and fluid.

Then, without warning, she pressed those same stained paws against Ayovi’s pale forehead, leaving behind a viscous, fetid imprint—the mark of the gods.

Du har været stærk, Ayovi. Hvil nu, she commanded, her voice steady. Jeg vil bede guderne velsigne Skorpa. she added, casting a measured glance at the superfluous offering.

Du har mit ord, she murmured. Men for dig selv, for dine børn, må du give slip. Luk øjnene, overgiv dig, lad mine guder og dine ånder føre dig bort.

She turned her back on the Blizzardske dame and returned to the warrior who fancied himself a hunter.

Hjælp mig med at flå denne hjort. Vi vil svøbe hende i dens skind, og du vil bringe hende tilbage til hendes bjerg. With a slight tilt of her head, she gestured toward the young mother-to-be.

last!

Prayer is awakening, enlightening, granting intimate threads of connection to the spirits of earth and sky. Invocations have always left her with a closer tie to the spiritual plane.
Drowsy and heavy, the huntress feels none of this now. Her chest screams, her voice would have too, if she’d any left. Ayovi soon finds she is paralyzed, unable to lift her muzzle as Aspa rubs something warm and thick into her brow. Her stomach cramps, rejecting what it’s been fed and hot bile leaks between the teeth of a parted jaw, but she has no faculties left to clear sickness from her lips.
Eyes, the end of control. Ayovi watches what she can of shadows sifting over earth before sight, too, dissolves into nothing.