Stone Circle Here I be

There was not much to be had
But Inkeri scrounge
She hunted and she fished. Filled caches as she could. She would not see Kvarsheim fail b3cause she did not do her part. But with each passing day. More members wiled away and left. And could she blame then for searching for something. Even she still searched.

when she woke the black doe had left her and a bitter cold had seeped in.

lean times, this. but the girl had survived worse - her entire life a tableau of hardship no scroll could summarize. she picked at chunks of frozen snow. she gnawed bits of exhausted bones.

sometimes she woke like this and didn't remember what lead up to her dozing off. other times she stared and tried to recount backwards: where was ana? dinah? mama?

a jolt then as she remembered mama was dead.

now she came across another wolf like her. skinny and tired. maybe worse. and young -- far too young -- to be beholden to life's injustice.

the girl came forward at a carrion-bird trawl, eyes upon the figure with quiet interest.

Inkeri knew there were new faces and new bodies in the ranks. But they were still falling down. It disheartened her and made her worry like crazy. But she would do her best until it wasn't enough.

Inkeri lifted her head and tilted an ear at teh girl that came forward. Lean and scrawny. Days of living hard and possibly on the run. She knew that well. Her and her sister had run like that. How she missed her.

She smiled. Hello. Hello. I'm Inkeri. Inkeri.

A wag of her tail. You hungry. Hungry? I just caught rabbit. Rabbit.

hungry could be an understatement: the girl had one mouth and three personalities to feed — with another growing somewhere darkly along her belly. 

she inches forward, focusing her blurry gaze on the packmate. a stranger, but someone whose scent was interlaid with that of the meadow. and kindness — much kindness in that gaze that communicated she was a safe person for the girl to lay her trust within. 

she watched as somewhere off of inkeri’s silhouette streaking phosphenes of green swirled. focusing with no shortage of concentration, the girl sat up and cocked her head in silent query.

Inkeri knew that times were lean. However, she also knew this girl. Had been given a harder time than others. There was something in her gaze that spoke to a deep well of loneliness in the wells of Inkeri’s stomach. She knew that stare well. When you were given only pain and cruelty at the hands of those that were meant to love you. It wounded you deeply. She knew this well.

It’s just in the cache here. Here.

Inkeri turned slowly. She did not wish to startle the little lamb of a girl. She knew how quickly someone who had been dealt a cruel hand could startle. She pulled the little prey animal from it’s recesses of dirt and pressed it forward.

Not much to hunt right now. Now. I usually fish. Fish. But still warm. Warm.

from the depths of an icy patch of land inkeri procured something edible; she sniffed it warily. ironic, considering in the next second she had wolfed it down entirely, bones and all — licking her lips in the satisfied manner of a cat. 

then her gaze climbed to the streaking figure; green, green this aura that emanated from her like an emerald spring!

did she know? the girl’s eyes snapped back to inkeri, nostrils twitching as she drank in the scents that made inkeri part of this place.

Axsmall smile as thr younger girl ate her fill. Mild surprise at how quickly. But she dipped her head.

I was going to hunt some more to give to Sven. Sven. Would you like to join me? Me?

This girl was hungry. Inkeri would feed her. Simple.

this aura she could stare at all day; lose herself in its rippling waves of spring-time green.

her attention snapped back to the present by inkeri's question, and she noticed the girl tended to repeat things twice over.

for her, such things did not matter. she splayed out her limbs in a coltish bow and pressed forward, running her body along that of her new hunting companion before bolting off with nose to the ground.

they hunted small game, these two quiet souls of kvarsheim. that night with belly rounded to bursting, sleep came to her easily and well.