Lion Head Mesa i worship ancient hungers

for the sake of my timeline this thread is backdated to october 9th. :-)

for the lunar views DB quest

when darkness settles over the wilds, wintersbane slips outside of the borders and heads south. he does not travel far, choosing to stay in a neighboring territory. he doubts he'll be of any need to anyone and with his nightly patrol wrapped up with nothing to raise anything of an alarm during his sweep he feels confident that he can steal some time outside of the dark woods to work on another quest. they keep him busy but that is not a bad thing. the tundrian is not a beast that tolerates idleness. he's far too ambitious to ever be content with an idle life.

wintersbane knows nothing about stars, phases of the moon ( aside from what he can physically see of them ) or anything of that sort. the sky has always been the sky and his interests have always lain in more earthly things. a glimpse is given skyward only when he reaches a nice outcropping on the mesa, not too far from the ground. the climb is sharply sloped and unstable and he climbed as high up as he dared ( which is to say not very ).

height doesn't matter. the outcropping he's taken to has a full, unobstructed view of the night sky and more importantly of the moon which sits fat and rotund in the velveteen darkness of night, casting sweet moonbeams of light upon the shadow cloaked ground, spreading glow where ever it could.

It is a very interesting rock formation that has never before drawn Wraen's attention, but it does on this evening. Having spent the better part of the afternoon hunting otters and succeeding in stealing fish from one of them, she wanders further around the lesser known territories that belong to the Kintla flatlands. If she is going to survive the winter on her own, she needs backup plan. Especially if and when Maia was going to join her. 

Therefore it seems a very good idea at first, to travel up the rocky path to the very top in order to have a good view of the lands. However, when she comes near to the intended destination, it turns out that the place is already occupied by someone else. It is dark and it is difficult to tell, whether this a wolf she knows or do not. Especially since tall, dark strangers are so easily to tell apart in the darkness.

She decides to remain in shadows, wait and observe the other, hoping that, once he or she leaves, she can take a better look of the place without being disturbed.

wintersbane glimpses skyward, gaze lingering upon the moon for prolonged beats of a moment as if it might crack open like an egg and reveal all of it's secrets. if he's waiting on it, he's left disappointed. he distinctly lacks the talent to read the stars and knowledge of the moon's phases and it manifests itself in a low grumble, unintelligible of annoyance. he doesn't exactly understand how observation of the moon's current phase and it's effect on wolves has anything to do with the dark brotherhood. nevertheless, it's an initiation quest and he hungers to climb the ranks of the dark brotherhood as he's clawed his way to the top of the standard ranks.

ambition will not allow him to stop. not when he's so close. not even when he doesn't particularly understand the usefulness of a quest. still, it's a giant glowing rock, wintersbane deadpans in a mutter under his breath, accented pointedly and sharply by a snort. how can it's phases possibly affect anyone? clearly, he was never meant to be a dark priest. wintersbane doesn't expect anyone to be lingering in the shadows, waiting for him to vacate his prime sky-gazing spot and therefore he doesn't realize she's there. thus, the tundrian thinks out loud, believing that he's safe to grumble about a quest he doesn't quite grasp understanding on.

Wraen did not realize that her hiding spot was so good that the dark man had not the slightest idea that she was standing in the shadows. Therefore it's easy to understand, why she felt very startled, when the guy spoke out loud and asked questions. She shot a perplexed look around, seeking anyone else he might be talking to, found none and came to the logical conclusion that he was aware of her being there.

Oh, well. No need to remain silent then. She thought for a bit, then took some tentative steps out in the moonlit space, but kept a safe distance, so that she would have a headstart in case she has to run. "Beliefs are a tricky thing," she says, "people need an explanation for things, they need reason, they do not accept... cannot accept the fact that the world might be driven by chaos only."

wintersbane does not expect a reply. his attention is not focused on the happenings of the world around him — a careless mistake for a warrior, he reprimands himself — and he starts when a female voice drifts from the shadows. the hackles along his spine bristle and his lips pull back to expose his teeth as he moves stiffly to his feet. he moves and reacts on instinct and once he processes that she's answering his meant-to-be rhetorical questions and does not appear to be hostile he relaxes. not fully of course, but enough. i thought i was alone. he offers as a gruff explanation though it lacked an apology for his initial reaction. his words were truth, at least. he hadn't seen nor heard her, wrapped up in his own world as he'd been. that slip up didn't happen often to the vartija who prided himself on his ability to be vigilant.

despite that the tundrian no longer necessarily views her as a threat he does not relax back into a reclining position again. instead, he favors a rigid sitting position. is the world ruled by chaos? perhaps it was a belief his younger self would have been all too eager to sink his teeth into. an older wintersbane, however; has taken surprisingly well to the religion of the dark woods. he's seen mephala and sithis. he's been visited by his deceased mother. all these things work in constant cooperation with one another to keep the tundrian's newfound faith strong and unwavering.

i have seen gods, he speaks simply, leaving out that he'd been temporarily high while he'd been seeing them ( except the lotte dream was still a giant mystery to him ). faith or lack thereof is not my issue, he draws in a deep breath. i look at the stars and moon and i see them for what they are. useful for for navigation, and guiding light to chase away the worst of the shadows. but he lacks the imagination necessary to see the constellations and to think that the moon has affect on behaviors ( or perhaps he's just blind to it; he's stubborn and that's never out of the realm of possibility ). what do you know of the phases of the moon? he inquires, a small cant of his muzzle skywards as if to emphasis his own desire to learn. he isn't sure she can help him with this quest but wintersbane's too pigheaded to quit now that he's came all this way in an attempt to learn something.

"I apologize for scaring you," Wraen replies, visibly relieved that the man has dropped his initial hostile mask and changed his defensive posture to a more neutral one. The moment she says these words, however, she smiles and chuckles to herself - joke is on her, because at the second glance this guy is many things, but being easily scared is not one of them.

In order not to have an awkward conversation over a long distance, she reduces it by coming closer and taking a seat not too far from the guy. She listens carefully to him speaking, and realizes that she has run into a no simple man. He mentions gods and she gets a hint that he sincerely believes in their existence. His views on stars contradict her own romantic notions that each one of the shiny dots are a soul that has finished it's karmic circles on Earth and ascended there to become immortal.

And finally he asks her about moon phases and she thinks that Terance here would have been a much more valuable asset than she. Stargazing and reading has never been her fortes and she has led a very comfortable life without the knowledge, on how they can guide a person or protect them. Therefore she is silent, meditating upon the right answer and finally says: "Celestial bodies have never been my friends and I therefore can't speak much about, what they try to communicate with us. However, there is an old tale that says the moon was created out of residue dust that remained, when the Earth came to existence. And since then it wishes to return."

There had been more to this story, but she can't recall the details now.  "If that story is true, perhaps, there is some magic in full moon or new moon, but I have never seen a difference."

she apologizes for scaring him and he both accepts and brushes it off with a rise and fall of his broad shoulders, a quirk of his lips given as she smiles and chuckles to herself. he doesn't understand the inside joke, of course, but wintersbane would much rather a chuckle than a flash of teeth at him. not that he couldn't hold his own in a fight — because he certainly an — just that he didn't necessarily enjoy the thought of fighting on a precarious outcropping that which a tumble from might spell death ...or if not death than several broken bones at least.

she draws nearer and he allows this, studying her with a clinical interest before his gaze returns to heavens once more. he scoots over a bit to make more room for her but is mindful of the edge and his body. he's not scared of heights per-say but something in his intuition warns him not to stray too close to it. just in case. she offers him her disclosure and wintersbane lets out a soft, contemplative noise that is more breath than it is anything else. he understands and far be it for him to hold her lack of knowledge against her. he doesn't know much of anything about them either and if he's ever heard stories about the stars or the moon he's long since purged them from his memory.

she offers him a tale and he glimpses at the moon with quiet consideration once more. if that is true, he adds softly, then the moon knows ancient longing. how sad, he cannot help but think.

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272 words

Or vice versa, - thinks Wraen, following the man's gaze and taking a good look at the starry sky herself. So many of those shiny dots scattered accross the almost black pelt of the night wolf that she gets easily lost trying to count or track them all. There she recognizes the milky way a river of stars clustered together and ironically one of the two constellations she knows for sure (the other being The Big Bear or Dipper). Because none of them are difficult to miss. 

While observing and contemplating, what she sees, her mind wanders back to the words the man had told her earlier. About seeing gods. Having never been in touch with divine herself, but collecting and enjoying stories about those, who have, she decides to ask: "What gods did you meet? And how did that happen?"

despite stating that she believes the world is ruled by chaos in lieu of gods she takes an apparent interest in his off-handed comment earlier about seeing gods. his glacial gaze is clinical as he regards her, cold for a moment as he anticipates ridicule. he finds none. her interest seems genuine and it is enough to placate the rising defensiveness he feels barricading within his chest. he wonders how much he should tell her. sometimes, their rules of 'secrecy' is a bit confusing. they want to be known but they want to keep things secret. the dark brotherhood is covert, this he knows. but are the gods? he doesn't think so.

i saw the night mother and the dread father. he tells her, opting to keep their true names out of the conversation. wintersbane doubts she will know of whom he speaks anyway. if she is perturbed that he is from blackfeather — his coat is saturated with their scent. he is apart of them just as much as they are apart of him — she does well to hide it. it was only after i realized the mushrooms i'd eaten had psychedelic properties. yet, still it counts ...because he can remember them. and the ghosts of blackfeather whose names are lost upon him.

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215 words

"Night mother and Dread father?" Wraen repeats, having never heard of the duo before, which probably means that Blackfeather woods are doing a very good job at keeping their secrets. Something about the other's demeanor tells her though that she is not going to squeeze out more details about these gods, therefore this litte inquiry aside, she does not prod for more. 

"Psychedelic mushrooms? Weren't you afraid of ingesting plants that could be potentially dangerous?" again a question about fear but in this case Wraen draws a strict line between being brave and being needlessly reckless and stupid. She was no botanist and stayed away from any plant that she did not recognize for sure. "I mean there are people, who can get suicidal thoughts under influence. So, I have heard at least."

the simplistic names of mephala and sithis do not appear to spark any recognition within her. it is possible, wintersbane considers, that she has not heard much of blackfeather woods or it's dark gods. he, himself, has not specifically spoken about his home by name. he is vague by well-honed skill and sees no reason to be overly specific about much of anything. mhm, he replies with a curt nod. there are many lesser gods but the night mother and the dread father are the patron gods. or so he's been told, anyway. while he does not necessarily deign to ignore the lesser gods he does not know much about them. there is only one he knows ( whose name he's already forgotten ) and that was only because of maegi's mention.

not really, no. he is no medic despite harboring enough knowledge as a warrior to tend to wounds on a rudimentary level. nevertheless he is lucky the mushrooms didn't end up being poisonous and killing him. he knows now to be more careful about what he ingests ...though history suggests that wintersbane has not learned his lesson about eating unknown things. i wasn't suicidal. i just saw beings that i couldn't ...that i can't see under normal circumstances. and honesty? though he feels blessed to have sighted mephala and sithis he is glad that he cannot see them without the help of a high.

they are ethereal, otherworldly. but i am glad that i do not have the ability to see them without ...help. he selects the word after a moment of consideration, his admittance sheepish and accompanied by a lofty shrug of his broad shoulders.

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278 words

"Didn't you just stop for one second and ask yourself, whether, what you saw, was really just going on inside your head?" Wraen asks, trying not to sound patronizing, rather suggesting another valid explanation for, what the man has seen during his trip in the imagination land with the phantasmagorphical sceneries and characters. 

"I am not doubting, what you are saying, I just have always thought that everything we think, see, perceive or assume is the result of our brains making those conclusions. Or the seeking out the closest ones that fit to things they cannot explain or find reason for," she elaborates on the subject. Her great interest in lore and stories have taught her that every event and character reflects in a way something that has happened in real life. Or is used as a metaphor for feelings, thoughts, opinions, doings. Everything really. While she kept up her image of a girl, who still believed that tooth-fairies and unicorns were real, she had lost faith in their true existence a long time ago. Because she had found rational explanations for every one of those imaginary creatures. 

"Maybe... what happened during you being poisoned by those mushrooms was, that this somehow woke up parts of your imagination that's usually is dormant and subdued. And, when let to go wild, it conjured everything that you had ever come up with or thought," she finishes, knowing well that she has not got to the point of, where she can say, why is she speaking about this to this guy or, where she is going with it in the first place.

wrap this up soon? also, sorry he's being a butt. :-(

no. wintersbane tells her point blank, coldly. he hadn't always believed in gods, but the dream with lotte ...and there are times that he can hear mephala ...and he's not high when he hears it. how could she possibly explain that? aside from calling him mentally unstable. she doesn't have to believe but he doesn't appreciate what he takes to be patronization for his own beliefs. he's not in the mood to have a philosophical debate with her over whether or not gods were real. he believes they are real because he has seen no other evidence otherwise. perhaps she does not believe for the same reason. in the end, it doesn't matter. neither opinion was right nor wrong and neither had to agree with the other.

as she ( still ) tries to explain away what he's seen as a side effect of the drug as opposed to actually sighting the divine, the veil between the worlds lifted however temporarily ...wintersbane can't help but snort with derision as she speaks of his dormant imagination. which only serves to solidify his own belief because he had zero imagination. that might be plausible if i had an imagination. i don't. fairytales and imaginations are for cubs. even then they lack practicality. but, this is a bit of a sore spot for him since his own mistakes as a cub led him to ( more or less ) skip majority of his own cubhood. ...yet, even before the mistake that had stolen him from his family and tore the fearghals apart he'd always been driven by and focused on practical games. like fighting. tug-o'-war. games that would make him stronger. better.

he grows annoyed and shifts his weight, thinking that perhaps it's better if they part ways soon. their opinions on gods are different and arguing with her in circles is a quick way to exhaust him.

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315 words

Wraen feels that she has crossed the invisible border of the other's freedom of having his own beliefs and ideas and feels a little ashamed for being so imprudent in doubting, what he has seen with his own eyes. But, what's done is done, and she knows judging by the cold remarks and change of airs, that she is no longer welcome. 

It is a pity really, because this has been by far the most unusual conversation she has had. She sincerely believes that there would be even more for her to learn about him, about his beliefs, gods and other visions. Perhaps, her opinion that everyone lives inside their own heads is as much a myth as his take that the gods he has seen under influence have been real. She wants to tell him that every person possesses imagination, that is a vital part of anyone's mind. And he is not without it either. But she has a feeling that even this fact would be disregarded. And - in the end - why should she keep discussing, if neither of them were to give in?

"I will go now," she quietly gets to her feet and after one last look in the man's direction, she leaves him on his own.