Moonspear And Smitten the Nightingale had Become.

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Imprisoned, banished, into a nexus of my own design...
Now Time mocks me, and my sentence is Gravity.

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The sway of her body, fresh from childbirth and only a day healed, wove a song of it’s own within the nighttime of the Moonspearian lands. There was no motive other than for her to return the favor @Amekaze had graciously given her.
A curse, for a curse. 

The Witch was covered well in perfumes. These were of freshly bloomed flowers, grasses that had been healthily sprung, and broken remains of eggshells left behind by triumphant hatchlings lay scattered over her spine, her shoulders, caught in the wisps of ebony and auburn fur. she walked with her returning grace, beauty all about the image she painted, an image she quite literally painted- 
as from knee, downwards, her legs were draped in sticky muck, a horde of little smashed up mess and darkening the timber colors of her legs decorated hide, basking it instead as though she had walked through a river of decayed bodies, a sea of corpses and blood. It was the blood and body mass of her stillborn which covered her limbs. 

In her maws, three little bodies, cold and stiff, cleaned and seemingly sleeping as she had freshened them too up to appear napping. And they were...they would slumber forever. 
They had been robbed of their wakening. A thief, the thief who claimed these lands with her untrusted mate. 

The begotten mother laid them upon the thickly scented borders of Moonspear, pissing just beside each of them, tucking them together as though they cuddled for warmth. All three, pups of ebony and timber, all with a telltale sheen of nocturnal blue skimming in the shimmer of light from the moon’s embrace. 
Of Sahira and Melonii blood. 

A whisper of words, all illegible by any who did not hail from either Nightmare pack, or spoke Tsis, period, would not know the words that seared the bodies and land beneath them so heatedly. And then she allowed rest of exactly three seconds, before she blazed the land again in poisoning words, this time spoken in Japanese. Another breath of seconds before she used the Language of Ice and Seas, and brining the flatland in a bind so sick she grinned just from the perishing end of it. 

And afterwards, a tilted crown up as she inhaled her work, exhaled her passion, and left.

Soon, Moonspear would know anguish, too.

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But every sky will build my throne.

 

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Her patrols spanned seemingly endlessly with her family this scattered and torn apart from within. Thanks to this, from nearby, the Ostrega matron materialized from the darkness not so long after Zafina vacated her accursed scene on the mountain's earth. Amekaze came upon it freshly enough, and ridged her hackles up the instant she could realize what assaulted her nose as badly as this—well before she formally came upon the bundles on the earth, arranged neatly, deliberate, and carrying a message deeper than what she could even perceive.

But, at its face value, she loomed above the newborn corpses with a cold, impassive look, her nostrils flaring and lips peeling back as she took in their foreign scent, marked by their mother near too. Dark, and agouti, not so unlike cubs she had reared in her time, but to her.. these similarities ended quick, well before the midnight sheen on their pelts. While symbolic of their bloodlines, true, it meant nothing to her, or her clan--neither the one cultivated through the ages that she had come from, or those she had created herself here at the Spear.

In the dark mother stirred no sorrow, no sympathy, or otherwise as she peered down at the ill-fated infants. Only an icy knowing that wholly justified her drive to cut off their chance to flourish here before they even had the opportunity, despite what it now meant that they were dead, and that it was seemingly upon her—but so be it. To her, this feeling came resolute; they were not hers, and neither were they her daughters' now that they were of age to heft the burden as well and even beyond this little fact that her kind would guard, it was not a union of Moonspear's bearing at all. To not be the mountain's—this was exactly where her interests ended, and so, where her mercy did too.

On her heel, she pivoted away in part and eyed the trail their mother had departed with, considering it weightily.

wanted this in my log, basically! and to react a little ;D

Hydra followed her mothers trail, pace quickening only when she spotted her mother investigating something. She bridged the distance between them swiftly, investigating what evidence was left behind. It was easy to guess who these belonged to, and after confirming such a thing she snorted at the lifeless cubs. This was their fate the moment their mother conceived them, there could never be anything else for these cubs but this; she was satisfied with their end, and with Zafina, too. 

If there was any malevolence in these actions, Hydra did not sense it. Nor would she care. Her belief in otherworldly things existed when it suited her, and even then she believed far more in the things that she could see, feel, bite. Hydra nosed at one of the still corpses, stiff with death, contemplative for a brief moment until instinct and her baser nature made clear to her what it was she must do next.

RO threads cannot be posted in private (pack) forums unless the poster is a member of that forum. For that reason this thread will be treated as an AW by any Moonspear member!

it was not two, but three shadows that skirted the edge of moonspear -- their forms aligned by generation. first came the mother, dark and prowling -- followed by the daughter, feral and cold -- and then, pulling up the rear at a distance that made him nearly undetectable, came arcturus.

he watched as his mother stopped to inspect something concealed by the brush -- when she spun away, her daughter nimbly took her place. drawn by curiosity, arcturus drifted closer and it was then the acrid scent of urine tinged with death met his nose.

the boy's hackles flared as he glanced upon the bizarre scene; the way the dead were assembled seemed deliberate. he had no understanding of the malign or the arcane, and a low rumble sounded in his throat as he stared at the lifeless bodies put on caustic display.

Arcturus emerged upon the scene, and she acknowledged his arrival with a flick of her notched ear. Only when he sounded off did her glacal blue eyes shift from the bodies to him, and by then no time at all had passed since he himself realized what it was his eyes rest upon. Zafina, who is no longer welcome here, procreated during her season without approval from any leader; what you see are her bastards. She knew they would not be welcome here, and so she fled—and likely killed them herself, Hydra really did not care about the who, or the why. Just that it was done. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Hydra shrugged. She could not interpret the message, and even then, did not much care. They were dead, and that was that. Hydra inquired, not wanting to bore him with the logistics if he did not care to understand: would you like to know more of all things that transpired these past few weeks?

And, after that, Hydra gazed down at the bodies and said, we must get rid of the bodies. They will attract scavengers. And if their own mother did not wish to see them buried... Well, who was she to interfere with that, and exert energy on the undeserving? With a sigh, Hydra stooped over one, and began to gobble it down dispassionately. There was nothing hateful about it; she simply responded to the more primal part of her nature.

arcturus had not known zafina in any context more than simple passing, and so, he stared down at the dead babes from her loins dispassionately. he had no pity for their lives, and only contempt for their mother. hydra detailed the reason for their deaths and arcturus found himself believing their untimely ends were just. the woman had not sought the permission of his parents, and so, had condemned her offspring to a mercilessly short life.

perhaps in retrospect, it was kinder this way. they died before they ever took their first breath, or felt their first pain. life for a wolf without a network was short and cruel; life for puppies even harsher still.

he wished to know more, but he did not stop hydra from bending down to one of babes. he watched as her intent became clear: eradicate all evidence of them, else they would attract scavengers. following silently in her footsteps, the dark brute took cold skin in his jaws and began to chew mindlessly; they were small, and he was hungry -- in a matter of moments, the first baby had bloodlessly disappeared down the moonspearian's gullet.

His remaining was enough for Hydra to think he did desire to know more, and so after she had finished the first cub and while he made short work of his own, she licked her chops and paused. Being the good sister that she was, she nosed the other (and last) cub over to him; she had eaten not too long ago, and the fare had been better than this. If he did not want it, she would eat it—food was food. 

As leaders, it is up to mother and I which females can procreate. Zafina had no mate; she was not with us for very long at all, either. Remember that there were no others upon this mountain but for you and your siblings, too; resources we had then were for you all to grow strong when you could not hunt for yourself. There could be no other competition for them—the resources, I mean, especially when no other had earned the privelege to bear cubs themselves, she shared with him what she had come to understand through education from her mother and experience both. Naturally, mother and father together are a mated pair. They are also the head of the pack. I came into heat, and Dirge and I have become a mated pair. After speaking with mother, she determined I had earned the right. So, if mother and father have no cubs, my children will be the only ones we, the pack, look after, she informed. If they do, it had already been decided that my children could be raised beside them. She paused for a moment, considering. 

She-wolves are driven to push other she-wolves out of heat. That was the chaos with Speedy, the other day. I was prevented from my responsibility, here her tone was more clipped, though her ire was not toward Arcturus, and it showed as her gaze (which now fell upon him) softened. No, Arcturus was not to blame. She was not sorry for giving him an order, but... I know it was difficult to endure that day. The scent of heat can be near-impossible to ignore, which was why she should have never left—but you were caught in the middle of it all. You have become a strong man, Arcturus; father should not have been so crass. But that is what heat can do to a man, even a strong one, she forewarned, her eyes cast toward the horizon. What would come home to them, when her heat ended?

arcturus licked his lips as the remains settled in his stomach. ot was a meal he was not fond of, but luckily he was a wolf driven by instinct, and set into the final corpse with absent-minded obedience to nature's whims. while his sister expanded on their reasoning for driving zafina from the keep, he made short work of the last puppy.

never in his life had arcturus expected to consume the flesh of his own kind -- he did not think of how wrong it seemed socially, until he had swallowed the last grim bone. he hoped he would not have to ever do this duty again - it felt strange and wrong to him. hydra's mention of their last tense incident had arcturus feeling somewhat prickly. a shudder of revulsion climbed his back, partially as he felt his burgeoning stomach protest its new burden. he still had his own feelings to sort out about that day; charon had cut clean through him with his hostility, but the fervent manner of all (including hydra) had him still on edge.

"mhm." the boy responded in textbook chatterbox form, rubbing his chin against his leg as if to wipe clean the sullied taste of wolf-pup on his tongue. there were a manner of questions he wished to ask (like why couldn't you control your own heat? truthfully, this seemed like a woman's problem) but he kept silent for now, his instinct clashing with his conscience and ultimately coming out on top.

Hydra, as he processed it all, observed him; she did not know what his thoughts were, and that he did not speak them inspired the thought that perhaps that was the extent of his interest. She moved toward one of the spots Zafina had pissed upon and with a cursory sniff, moved to roll into it and overwhelm the scent with the strength of her own. Not at all interested in the woman so much as being a part of their soil, Hydra's scent glands spread her own strong scent. 

Finished with this spot, Hydra looked to him. If you have questions, now would be the time to ask, Hydra prompted, patient today. Her education on this topic had come late, and it had not been to her benefit—though she knew ultimately, she had nothing at all to worry about. Better to teach him now how these things worked, if he was at all interested in knowing.

arcturus had questions, but dared not ask them -- he had enough sense to know, too much poking about his barbed sister, and he was bound to hit thorns. feeling a hiccup press his throat, arcturus wiped his chin on a paw and grunted. by now hydra would be used to the boy's lack of verbosity; it was not that he was no longer interested, but that he was still processing things in a systematic manner.

he followed after her sister as she spread her scent along zafina's vile conflagration; arcturus did not lift his leg in retaliation, but he did rub his shoulders against any sort of landmark he could, as if to say to hell with the lot of you; moonspear was his home, and as he got older, he liked strangers less and less.

None came, and Hydra nodded, content to finish their lesson just as she eradicated the last scent Zafina had left behind. To come into heat is the sign of ones womanhood. It can only be prevented by the lead female, she informed, and here, she lifted her head a measure. Mother did not prevent mine, and though it went unsaid, Hydra would not have let such a thing happen. One way or another, she would follow her path, however difficult the climb was. But her mother must have seen that she had earned such a right. In any case, this news came with a purpose. 

And from heat may come children. Arcturus, we must be diligent in protecting this mountain in months to come. For you may very well be an uncle, and I trust you to look after them, my cubs, and keep them safe. Revui, too, she moved to nose him. Such an honor was reserved for very few. Arcturus and Revui she had always looked after herself, and the agouti twins were too... well, she was not sure, yet, though she supposed she was partially to blame. None of the woman in their family showed similar qualities to her except for her twins, and perhaps even Vela later on in life. Vela who had not returned. She was not so certain if she would trust her fathers mirror image to protect them now that she had been gone for so long, not so close anyway. Naturally she knew Vela was a good guardian; she trusted her to man the borders properly. 

Lifting her leg to piss to mark the borders and completely wash away all traces of the charlatan, Hydra felt quite satisfied in she and her brothers work. Well done, she hummed, moving to administer a fond nip to his shoulder.

arcturus continued alongside his sister, eager to quit what he believed was an arcane and troubling scene; to leave your dead whelps at the border of a pack that had housed you, sent a message the boy did not like. 

he was silent as he rubbed his scent nearby, listening to hydra detail more of what he would describe as “womanly woes”. it was somewhat educational, but the boy had some of his own (admittedly ignorant) world views on all of this. what caused him to pause was the mention of becoming an uncle. he briefly examined hydra, wondering if either of his parents would approve (and if they didn’t, would it truly stop her?)

he started as she nipped him; a playful gesture, but unanticipated. the boy rolled into a smooth lope, flinging a quick (and unconnecting) snap in the draconian’s direction before moving off in a roughhousing tumble.