Sun Mote Copse Sleeping well, no bad dreams

Maybe @Giana or @Honey, or maybe even a wild @Bastian

A frigid breeze blew in from the east and it chilled Ar-Khalba to the bone. Such a thing was foreign to the grove watcher. Surrendra, his homeland, had been such a warm and arid place. The winter was mild and dry, comfortable -- but here, it was different in every way. It was unbearable. There were times, when the wind picked up, that Ar-Khalba would close his eyes and think wistfully of Surrendra and the warmth of Ashtorath's private chambers.

Sometimes it helped, but every time Ar-Khalba opened his eyes, he found himself just as cold as before.

As the wind picked up yet again, bringing with it a teeth-chattering chill, Ar-Khalba sought shelter within the grove. His eyes fell on a fallen tree, hollowed by rot. He made his way to it and climbed inside. Curling into himself for warmth, Ar-Khalba closed his eyes and thought of rolling desert sands.

He was no stranger to winter, having been born and bred in the north near the Great Lakes, but he found that his new packmates were not used to such climates. They were thin of fur, with their reddish hues suggesting deserts and warmth year round. He found one of them — the only male besides himself! — curled up within a hollowed log. Bastian approached, clicking his tongue gently. Poor summer child. It only gets colder, mein Herr,

A stranger approached from behind from an angle that Ar-Khalba could not see. His eyes opened and he shifted in his log, but it was to no avail; he could not turn to face the other wolf. His voice was heavily accented, yet it wasn't the accent of Ar-Khalba's homeland, and it was distinctly masculine. Ar-Khalba was less than surprised, having heard word of another male's arrival prior to this encounter.

"The cold is unforgiving, is it not?" came Khalba's voice from within the log. "If this is not the worst, then I fear for what's to come." It would surely be the harshest winter yet. These heathan lands would test their resolve -- all of them.

Bastian chuckled at the man's fear for a harsh winter. Clearly this was the farthest north he had ever been. He had briefly crossed pass the Great Lakes of the far east into the northern lands. The land was cold there, both in summer and in winter. There were worst paces to go. Zere are colder lands zhan even zhis, He poked into the log. I must inspect all zee dens; see if zey are well protected from cold vinds und insulated, That was a killer for those unused to the cold; even colder dens, slowing a slow heart until is faded with the snow, stiffened by the freeze. He licked his lips at the thought of it, wondering why he even bothered to help these fanatical wolves. Ah yes, potential test subjects, tucked away in the wombs of their acolytes. By zee way, mein name ist Doktor Bastian Höffner; recently recruited to zee Malkaria, He dipped his head.

Khalba began to wriggle his way backwards. Awkwardly, he backpedeled his way out of the hollow log that he had taken residence in. Now in the open, the bitter chill of the wind hit him at full force. He winced, but bore the discomfort with the remaining strength he mustered. "I take it you've seen those lands, yes?" he asked; his eyes finally falling on the figure of a stranger. If there was a place colder than this, Ar-Khalba had no intention of ever traveling there.

Just as the other intrudced himself, Ar-Khalba figured a proper introduction was due. "My name is Ar-Khalba. I will soon be the Kurvat of the grove you stand in. Welcome."

His fur, thick from his mixed heritage, shielded him from the worst of the cold, but wind had a tendency to cut through all that. He turned, his back to the wind, head turned to watch the southern wolf pull of out the log to the full breadth of the cold. Ja, I vas born zhere, One day of high winds was fine, but a whole winter? He couldn't even fathom what the north was like in winter; he made a point of never visiting then. It takes some gettink used to,

He tilted his head curiously. 'Kurvat'? I am afraid I do not know zhis term, There seemed be a whole slew of terms from a language he didn't know, didn't recognize. It was unlike even the most foreign and exotic tongues he had heard in his life.

"My mistake," offered Khalba. Sometimes, he forgot that there were foreign wolves among them that were not versed in the Malkaria's language or structure. He couldn't hold Bastian's ignorance against him when he had not yet had a chance to learn their customs. The other male would soon learn, as it was Ar-Khalba's job to teach him. Soon, Bastian would fall under his direct jursidiction. "A Kurvat is, what they'd call in the more blunt tongue of this place, the Grove-Watcher," he explained. "It is a title prestige among our culture -- the highest a male can achieve."  

"We are to live semi-seperately," he continued. "This grove is a place for the men of the Malkaria, and it is here that you will make your den. The Kurvat oversees." Ar-Khalba's gaze rested upon the stranger's face, where he studied the male's expression thoroughly. Surely, the untested heathan must have had questions. "Is there anything you wish to ask of me?"

He listened to the explanation quietly, absorbing the information. He thought that, for a cult that emphasized procreation the most, that men and women would be together. Encourage mating and all that. But they weren't, strangely. It would be lonely sleeping with just one other male, but he supposed the tradition stemmed from larger packs.

Your god, Molech, Now that he had the opportunity, he could finally wrench some answers out. Explain him fully to me,

Ar-Khalba nodded. "Molech is," he replied. The god of the Malkaria was in, and of, all things. Inescapable, undeniable, and nearly indescribable. However, Ar-Khalba could try his best to explain the Great Ram of Caanan to the heathan outsider. "Molech is fear, and is to be feared. Molech is power, and is to be revered by those who follow the fold. Molech consumes all." The Gods were not benevelont, Ar-Khalba believed, but indifferent to lives of those inferior to them. "It is our lot to appease Molech, or the eye will follow, and our fold will be cursed, and we will return to the dust from which we were wrought."

"Our God is the Great Ram of Caanan," he continued to explain. "You have seen a ram, yes? But it is not four, but eight limbs that denote's Molech's depiction."

God-fearing. 

He had heard the term once, somewhere else, but it was spoken with derision, not hushed reverence. He did not know what to think of this; a God who must be appeased, who must be feared. Weren't deities supposed to be helpful? Was he missing something here? 

Probably, but he absorbed what information Ar-Khalba gave him. The thought of an eight-legged ram gave him a turn. He had seen many deformities in his life. From the "tame" ones — blind and no eyes, born without a tail, with a twisted leg — to the intriguingly absurd: two heads, five limbs, crushed into dwarfism. But eight? He was, of course, going under the assumption that this God was inspired by real life anomalies. Whatever thing that first Molech worshipper had seen, be it hallucination or lucky mutant, it had caught on. And now it was here. Vait...vhat is zhis Caanan?