Ouroboros Spine mines (danger!)

The bird Vairë found and is trying to treat is a leucistic “brown” fish crow!

Deer were creatures of wandering, and despite Vairë’s wolf body, the spirit that had settled into her empty places at birth was still that of old doe, even if her memories had faded into the haze of time, clinging to the edges of Vairë’s consciousness. They came as overly vivid dreams, offering young doe a glimpse at what old doe had done, how prey handles their lives outside of predators. Old doe’s first fawn, the first doe to die for her, the stag who would eventually steal her heart and keep her in his herd until her death.

But this was lost on cub, on wolf child of soft fur where deer was course. Her legs did not remember having hooves, her haunches did not remember the score of teeth. What Vairë did remember, body and soul, was travel. For all she wished to stay at home, home had been invaded. Home had become terror, so she began to roam. Small bits and pieces away from where she normally stayed, at first, then beginning to leave Moonglow’s scented borders, climbing up the spine, dipping low towards the Wilds below.

Today, however, she was running back to Moonglow’s borders, eyes wild, iron scent invading her nostrils making saliva drip down from her jaws, intertwining with the blood that was already staining her chin and chest. Across her back, slung like a fur, a todd fox, slain by her own tooth. In her mouth, the limp shape of a bird, held ever so carefully as to not injure it even more than it already was. The beige toned teenager skidded to a final halt outside the ulaq she shared with her family, throwing the fox off her shoulders and gently sitting the bird on the ground between her paws. Dual toned eyes flicked between wounds, between the bird’s eyes and the shade of its feathers. She couldn’t just let the poor thing die.

But she didn’t know what to do to stop it from its fate.

lómion slept soundly within the ulaq. he saw nothing in his dreams. just still darkness. it’s always been this way; sleep left undisturbed by whatever scenes he thought up before he drifted away.
but something invaded the quiet void within his mind that day. he could smell it, he could see streaks of red. he could practically taste it.
lómion shot up. his murky eyes fell upon his sister.  scarlet red stained her fur.
vairë. he walked with newfound energy. his eyes were no longer on the second born, but the crow at her feet. and then to the fox that had been thrown to the side. it’s fur, that plush, crimson fur. it was so
so pretty.
he whipped his head back to vairë and nodded at the crow. a bird too? you’re a. good.. hunter vairë.
he turned to the fox again, slowly. he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

kukutux was proud to know that her pack held strong hunters. when vairë returned, her adopted anaa looked softly after the girl. she had grown long and beautiful. there was a spirit there that was more than wolf. moonwoman considered what this might mean for her totem.

lómion came next. he was a moon's shadow where vairë glowed like soft stars upon snow. but he was not without love. the spirits had seen fit not to place the mark of the disgraced white bear upon them. she watched the two of them share words. when she noticed that the girl's attention was upon something ground-level, moonwoman lifted up and came closer.

"kannikiviak," kukutux greeted to the young hunter, looking proudly over the fox. "i will make this into a fine pelt for you." her affectionate jadestone eyes rested now on her son. "aaglunukat, i think that it is time for you to join the hunting."

the bird caught her attention now. she looked to vairë, seeing again the soft spirit which had killed a fox but did not harm a small creature.

A voice, joined by another.

Lómion and Kukutux. Her brother’s eyes rested on the fox she’d killed and brought back, calling it pretty. Her mother said she would turn it into a pelt for her.

Vairë nodded, looking at the crow between her paws.

He was.. Vairë cut herself off with a frustrated noise, turning to glare at the fox as though he had personally fouled her, then back to the bird.

He wouldn’t kill it. He just…he just kept pouncing, then skittering away. He…he was tormenting the crow. So I stopped him. The fox had not been able to see very well, perhaps that was why he kept pouncing and walking away, mere circumstance, but Vairë had not seen it like that. For a girl who had so suddenly found her home felt unsafe, it was a horror like no other. But this she could control.

This she could stop.

Water splattered against the brown feathers. Tears dropped over her muzzle, as she raised her head to look at Kukutux.

How do I fix it? Can I fix it?

kukutux walked to her children. he’d hardly noticed her until she addressed vairë. she told her how she’d make a pelt of the fox for her. hearing the promise draws the boy closer to the fox. in his mind he hovers over it. he’s tempted to reach towards it. to bring it near and hold it close. to admire each strand of crimson hair.
he only stares at it. unmoving apart from one hesitant step.
lómion blinked towards his second mother. ah, y-yes. it’d be an honor. and can i — is there —? he turned to the fox once more. he wondered, briefly, where vairë found such a pretty thing.
his thoughts were cut short by his sister’s frustrated rant. it… isn’t to eat? he spoke softly when she was finished. confusion evident in his voice.

vairë explained why she had killed the fox, and kukutux nodded in understanding. she glanced to lómion. "i think that your sister sees a good spirit in this bird."

the girl's tears fell softly. kukutux lowered her head, investigating the wounds that the red brother had left in the flesh of the feathered creature. she knew that their bites could bring sickness. "we will wash the bites with fresh snow. and then i will put medicine on the torn skin," she decided, looking between them both. "will you bring some here?" she asked of her son.

herself, kukutux turned, removing herself to the den. she returned with a mouthful of dried sage-leaves, which she began to chew into a fragrant paste as she settled close to the reindeer girl once more. "where did you find it?" she asked gently, hoping to soothe her somewhat.

Vairë couldn’t tear her eyes away from the bird. Until her mother was sat beside her, gently rousing her from the contemplative state she’d involuntary fallen into by asking her about the bird and the fox.

On the edge of the Spine…towards the Terrace. I just…I just wanted to go for a walk. She tried to explain, but her headspace in that moment had been quite unexplainable. Her eyes trailed to the red of the fox’s fur, and she dipped her head to half heartedly try and get at the blood before it dried on her coat.

oh god please smack me for my late ass reply @_@

a good spirit.
lómion was blind to it, for all he saw was a bird awaiting its last breath. a pitiful thing that stood on the line between living and a meal. he had the sudden urge then to reach forward and crush it between his jaws.
the rising nape of his fur flattened. the feeling was gone just as soon as it came.
ok. he scurried off towards a nearby pile of snow and began to bring it back in little mouthfuls that stung his gums.

kukutux gently pulled the wounded creature between her paws and began to melt with her own breath the snow that her son had brought.

she carefully cleaned the bite-marks, hoping that the fox had not left bad spirits to fester and burn inside the tiny body.

moonwoman applied her medicines and gently placed the now fragrant bird back in vairë's care.

"i cannot promise that it will live. water each hour and chew meat well before you offer." they did not have the berries and seeds and insects now; they lived beneath the snow.

kukutux looked from her daughter to the boy, wondering what he made of it.

Vairë didn’t notice the flash of hunters’ instinct in her brother. She shivered in the aftermath of her adrenaline, nearly taken at the knees by the sudden absence of the chemical to take away the pounding in her heart. 

Her tired eyes found Kukutux once her mother was done, and a moment later, she gave a tight nod.

Then, she gently picked up the bird, as though carrying a child, and began to steadily head into the ulaq.

I think this is it for Vairë for this thread!