Redsand Canyon that’s why i’m calling you back on my way through.

@glaukos

time in mereo was short. the halls were full of little curiosities — the general’s warty demeanor, ruenna’s limp, the state of their medicine bay… but most curious to qiao was the hushed song she heard stirring like a heartbeat — there but barely perceptible, like the ripple of soft breath on dark water. 

she closed her eyes and sat still. her ears quivered as she imagined herself — not her body, but her mind — falling back against the dark veil. 

somewhere here, an artifact sang.

Having completed his rounds for the morning, Glaukos moved through the territory on the search for something to fill his belly. After that he planned to rest an hour or two at the barracks, then maybe head to the training grounds to see if anyone was sparring - but he didn't make it very far.

There was a sharp-bodied stranger among the passages. Their eyes were closed. They looked more like a coyote than a wolf, which made his nape prickle. As he prowled closer, Glaukos found scents of Germanicus and his wife upon them - which meant they were either another civilizan recently acquired, or a guest.

He did not want to deal with either, and tried to turn back before being noticed.

a disturbance in the breeze, paired with light steps, announced glaukos' coming. qiao was no omniscient creature, but even she would be remiss in sensing the presence of a fellow predator.

her trance broke -- a silence swelled within like a wave.

opening one eye, qiao regarded the intruder. her first impression was perhaps unkind; an unkempt adolescent -- yet behind the sunken visage of his shipwrecked gaze and mismatched ear was a sense of untapped power.

"and where are you scurrying off to, sura?" qiao called to his creeping form, opening her second eye with newly ignited interest.

He should know by now that he couldn't hide from anyone.

Gone were the easy days of being ignored or being too small; he'd always been a bulky child, but at least within Ursus he wasn't often noticed. These days Glaukos had eyes on him more often than he'd like.

The stranger called out ot him. He stopped, turned, regarded her coldly. That's not my name. His voice a stern grumble, as if he were trying to emulate the general and lacked the chutzpah.

gone were the tantalizing threads of song, lost like spring sun to stormheads. qiao focused her attention in full on this man bruised by his own burdensome masculine adolescence. rough, cold, every bit as gracile as a shark. 

what is your name? qiao answered back, unaffected by the repellant thrust of his brusque manner. if she were so fragile when it came to men and their thorny dispositions, qiao would have rotted on the roadside long ago.

He didn't like the look of her. She reminded him of the various foxes he'd dispatched, the occasional coyote.

He huffed an answer. Glaukos.

Some might say a name held power. For the boy, it was only a name. His changed as frequently as his contracts — so he wasn't exactly attached to it.

a burly boy of greek name; curious then, for qiao had been under the impression mereo’s imperator was of roman stock.

perhaps glaukos was the son of a thrall then, or a child picked from a raided encampment. it would explain his disinterest with the general world. you did not ask, but i am qiao. she rose with a pantherine slink. where are we going? already alongside the inimitable wolf, qiao hedged a smile his way that seemed to brook no quarter.

The stranger - Qiao they called themselves - did not want to be left alone. They were soon following after the boy, which forced a choice upon him: escort the woman silently or let his natural charm drive her away.

Usually he would give zero fucks and let his abrasive nature win; she looked hardier than any other visitor he had seen so far, and older, which placed her somewhere within the respectability realm close to Germanicus. It was likely Qiao was here by the general's request.

Hungry, he decided to answer. Glaukos looked over the woman as if she could be a meal, but turned momentarily away to begin his search for a cache, whether she followed or not.

qiao sensed glaukos’ gaze upon her with a passing predator’s interest. she stilled, never near enough to a stranger that they could make a bid for her throat. 

he moved on. qiao was his shadow besides him, keeping step with an ear attentive to his single utterance. would you like to hunt, or is it easy fare you seek? in her deerskin sack, qiao had few dried meats — long ago she had learned the way to a feral man’s heart was through his stomach.

He grimaced when she spoke. Something about her reminded Glaukos of the boar witch and he felt his mostly-missing ear twitch.

A hunt means you'd have to shut up. He grimly made note aloud. The alternative was easy enough. There were stores of food near the barracks for the auxillia and a separate storehouse for the civilians. He'd march somewhere between, dig up the first thing he found and claim it for himself either way.

When it was clear the old woman wasn't deterred by his attitude, Glaukos glared at her. He eyed her sack too, with more suspicion. You a witch?

there came the barb; glaukos turned upon qiao in full, neatly dwarfing her in every way. even his shadow seemed gargantuan as it loomed over her, swallowing. 

she did not miss a beat. if that’s what you wish to call it. witches can cast hexes upon rude boys, you know. the corner of her lips discreetly uplifted in a smile. 

bending to the earth, qiao slipped her noose of greenbrier and from the folds of tawny deerskin she extracted a lean strip of boar packed by spores. she held the strip aloft, its smoky scent to wafting between then. for a moment it seemed she might offer the stripmeal to her gunmental companion — instead she consumed it in full with wolfish glut.

If there was another word for "old woman with a threatening aura" Glaukos didn't know it.

This one seemed unaffected by the association. Her threat made him snort. Having dealt with one witch already, and born to a cult a lifetime ago, Glaukos wasn't afraid of her.

Already been cursed. He rumbled, more as a jest but, his voice remained grim and serious. The woman ate some dried meat from her sack while Glaukos watched, unsure if he was fascinated or disturbed by the strange smells and sights.

qiao hoped to taunt the boy by eating before him. if he'd been a little more pleasant she might have shared -- his manner left her cold. it occurred to her to offer him the same piece of meat she'd offered the fence;  ah! maybe later.

she looked up in renewed interest as he mentioned a witch's affliction upon him. her gaze raked his coat, his rough stature, his missing ear and hard eyes. "if you've been cursed, they did a poor job of it." no boils, no patchwork bald spots, no unsightly disfigurement or scaly flesh. is there a witchdoctor here then? how did you come by knowledge of such things?"

The woman seemed to know what she was talking about. At least that was the vibe that Glaukos got as she looked him over; she asked a question and he snorted. No.

There was nothing witchy about Mereo; not until this one had arrived. Germanicus did not appear to be the type that believed in such things, or potentially fall victim to them.

I was born where the people worship bears. The auxiliary went on to say, and while he grimaced, it wasn't until he mentioned: Then a witch found me in the wilds. Tried to turn me in to someone I am not. I stole from her - so she took a piece of me, he flicked his ears (rather, ear, as one was obviously missing).

I don't... talk about it. He hadn't told Germanicus about Kukutux. Nothing that happened prior to his enlistment felt real or like it would matter to the stoic, and Glaukos wasn't exactly a fan of airing his dirty laundry.

many questions lingered at the tip of her tongue.

born in the wilds, raised in a bear cult. thieved, and then cursed. qiao found her gaze trailing to his hind quarters -- she knew more than one witch to have taken their pound of flesh there.

he appeared intact. "a benevolent witch, to only take your ear. i would have taken your dick." qiao ignored the suggestion glaukos did not often talk about such things. "three questions." she looked to him slowly, measuring. "where are the bear worshippers? what did the witch try to turn you into -- and last of all, what did you steal?"

Talking had been the wrong thing. He should've put the mental walls up again and left her there. Save himself from the woman's curiosity. What he thought might satiate it only exacerbated it and drew a deeper scowl from Glaukos.

Her three questions further threw him. Glaukos resisted the urge to roll his eyes but the tone of his voice became something petulant.

It was a valley marked by a... a large boulder. He didn't remember much beyond that. The witch called me Nuak. She acted like I was family; fed me, lured me to her home, and kept me there against my will.

Glaukos' brooding gaze became glassy, as he spaced out, retelling things from fragmented memories. It felt like a lifetime ago. When a friend of mine came to my rescue, I took the opportunity to... mess their shit up. Their homes. I found something precious to the witch in one of them.

He thought of the piece of boar tusk. It snapped him out of the recollection sharply and with a grunt, Glaukos swallowed down any residual emotions connected to the memories. Shaking his head lightly as if that might clear his brain of incongruent images.

a valley with a singular landmark -- a boulder snarling from its face like a ill-set tooth. qiao took note.

meanwhile glaukos seemed only to further pull away; he was by her side, but his expression was untethered. qiao endured such mental travel patiently, murmuring some soft truth incantation under her breath; tell me more.

in the past, this bear of a creature had acted impulsively. selfishly. he had turned against the one that called him nuak. qiao wondered of the name's significance. three questions appeared too much for this beast who grew more and more distracted: one question would have to do.

qiao leaned in. "and what did you find, nuak?"

He looked to the woman when she posed her question.
A moment of silence followed, as he clutched close the details as if they held some kind of meaning for him, or some importance.
A boar's tusk. It had carvings on it. She kept it in her sleeping place. It didn't sound like much but at the time, knowing what little he knew of others, Glaukos had thought it strange but powerful.
I thought by taking it I'd be taking some of her power away. That it'd hurt her. And he thought himself successful. —It is buried where she cannot find it.

the more she learned of this boy and his thievery, the more qiao became invested. it seemed the boy had stolen a totem -- something of great value, no less.

qiao's eyes widened in intrigue. no wonder she tried to curse you. a knowing smile curled around her muzzle like darkening smoke. it was likely very powerful, but those things have a mind of their own. a pull of their own to some preordained fate. do you remember where you hid it? it became difficult to conceal the greediness qiao felt nibbling away at her mind. some other witch's totem! great magicka could be found in such things.

He thought of what use such a thing could have. For Glaukos, it was a childish ploy to take what he could not have, to remove something vital from a person and strip them in some fundamental way.

It was not an item of great use, now. The importance of it, or what it might have symbolized for Glaukos at the time, was gone now. He saw no reason to hold tight to it.

The place of her power is a tall mountain, called the Spine. Beneath the mountain is a Glen full of stars, even in daylight, which is hard to traverse because at some point the trees fell. He spoke quickly of this place, unaware of its significance for Kukutux or even himself and his forgotten bloodline - It is there, buried in the heart of the wood where theres an old blueberry bush.

It wasn't a blueberry bush - but a cousin of black-skinned crowberries - however, it was indeed an old prolific thing, and made an easy marker.

ah. it was not here, among mereo.

for this, qiao's heart lulled. glaukos spoke quickly of this place, a darkened fen illuminated seemingly by starlight and crisscrossed by fallen trees. somewhere in this gloomy underwood was a blueberry bush -- and here, her target was buried.

she smiled. you have given me a treasure hunt. she was not deterred by distance. when i find it, would you like me to send regards to your witch?

When I find it. It was not a matter of if? Glaukos found this intriguing. The woman might have been made of tougher stuff than he believed; a craftiness that those of Mereo lacked. He appreciated the offer, then began to shake his head - only to stop, unsure.

I've moved beyond her. Which was the obvious truth. Glaukos was no longer Nuak, no longer Kiliutak; he'd sought a new contract and had made Mereo his home. A new beginning that had pieced together what had remained after Moonglow, and the witch.

Do what you want with it. He finally answered, and moved off from the conversation promptly after that. There were tasks Glaukos had left hanging for this conversation and he was eager to get back to it.

thank u for the thread <3

moving beyond one's past was a powerful motivator. qiao reflected on this curiously. glaukos carried with him many marks of his past -- but whoever this witch had been was slowly fading into obscurity.

until qiao found her little token; then life would be breathed anew.

she did not follow after as glaukos kept moving. very well. i thank you for this knowledge. qiao's head dipped. may the nine keep you.

with that, qiao turned to her quarters. there was much scheming to do.