Blackfeather Woods And I don't know where I'm gonna go

@Scarab

He was happy to be back within the woodland clutches. Perhaps his words with Maegi had convinced her, but it was better than freezing out in a field. 
Recently, he had become distant from his Mother. He gravitated towards the Nona's company. His sister had left, and he might have too if he hadn't made himself a promise to the woodlands to protect -- of which he'd managed to enact on once before. Not even for his own brother. But it prevented one from being killed; though he was killed later anyway. Perhaps there was no point. 

No. He couldn't think like that.
He shook himself and looked carefully at the end of his patrol. Done. Finished. Then, his eyes caught something amongst the leaves. He moved towards it, and found it to be a bone. Old and stained, cracked a little. He carefully picked it up and decided it might look good on the shrine MAegi had been building for Jaes. 
He trotted into the woods, the long bone in his jaws looking almost comically large.
His fur was getting darker and thicker, his body was packing on muscle and fat. His paws and ears didn't look so large and his face became sharper, more adult. He could be large. Very large. Tall, like his parents, the body shape conditioned by his activities which would be assisted by the same genes which granted him his unique coat. 

He moved through the forest, proud and powerful. He would be the guardian of the woods. Camouflaged not as a black shadow or a ghost, but as the trees, as the bark that grew here.

oof. *writes a novel*

scarab's hunt for treasures for his menagerie continues. after a successful haul from otter creek — a small clump of gold about the size of his toe — leaves scarab feeling renewed in his search. the golden rock and his petrified sandpiper have found a temporary home in a crevice he found while searching the cave system beneath the woods and though he has yet to have issue with any of blackfeather wolves messing with his treasures he feels better tucking them away in the most desolate and unnerving place he can find to ward off the curious.

curiosity killed the cat..., the illusionary spectre — a near constant companion these days because apparently the evil dice gods love to torture him — hums in the bone cracking voice of legion. scarab's teeth grit, hating that his ear twitches in the half skeletal phantom's direction on his left. he's been doing his damndest to ignore the morbid vision keeping step with him. though the initial stage of upset has soothed over ( for the most part ) as the realization hit scarab that something in him broke when he's suffered the high fever and that he is and would be the only one to see the reaper that haunts him, he does not want to give indication that he is in any sort of mental place but tip-top.

he's already confessed to maegi about the lengths he's gone to for survival and that he feels no remorse for it. that he'd do it again without a moment's hesitation. he does not want to add mentally unsound to that growing list of secrets.

it is the piece of jawbone clutched betwixt the jowls of the other boy that first catches the prince of plague's attention. gaze of lapis lazuli snaps to it like a greedy black market collector's. it'd be perfect for his menagerie... but the issue was the other boy who held it. this boy was a stranger ...though unless he'd taken to seeing all of the dead scarab knows he is not maegi's. only her daughter dwells with the living now.

for a moment, scarab simply observes, steps slowing and eyes darting to the spectre long enough to note the omen's greedy grin a direct mirror to scarab's hunger for that jawbone piece — before he looks back to the boy whose strides are powerful. proud. he thinks he's important... the spectre hisses with a laugh that prickles scarab's guard hairs. his own bubble of amusement rises. don't we all. the prince of the dead replies in a hushed murmur without thought. a second later and realization that he's acknowledging the spectre verbally again has his brow furrowed and a low annoyed noise rumbling in his chest.

but scarab whisks it away as he begins his approach in an effort to intercept the other boy. hey! scarab calls after him. i don't think i've seen you around. maybe he has and he just has been too caught up dealing with the newest addition in his life to notice — it was very plausible, at least.

nanowrimo: 523

He strode through his forest, aiming to go straight to the altar which happened to lay on the other side of the woodland. Maybe he would pass through the Redgrove, the roses would have withered by now with the pestilence of winter and would look perfect settled in the bone.

But his fur bristled with agitation or discomfort. Someone was watching.
He stopped, and a voice called out a heartbeat after. He turned to look for them, his tail waving softly. Another new Fledgling.
He put down the bone, placing his paw possessively over it, keeping it slightly tucked under him. 

"Hey," he replied with a grin, "I'm Rowan, you must be new." He hadn't seen him either. So they might as well introduce themselves. 

the other boy responds, much to scarab's surprise. for some indiscernible reason, he expected to be largely ignored. perhaps, he thinks cynically, he's been spending too much time in the company of the imagined and the dead. a cobra quick glimpse was shot in the space of air where the spectre lingers before snapping back to the other boy just as quick. you must be new. for some reason, those words grate at him. the spectre hisses another rasping laugh, reading his emotions as if scarab were an open book. of course he does. we are connected, he and i. the omen was just as much apart of him as any one limb, or more intimately, as his heart.

for a moment, the split moment between heartbeats, scarab considers lying. he'd been in blackfeather for a while now ...over a month, he thinks ( though he's a bit fuzzy on the concept of time and mochi is too lazy to look ) ...but not about that. he considers lying about his name. khepri ...the god of creation. of life ...and death. why not take on a moniker while he was here, fulfilling the debt of life he owed maegi? scarab was erzulie's golden prince ...but did that boy exist anymore? prince of the dead. king of the damned. khepri. scarab tells the boy — rowan — as if he's never went by anything else.

it feels like a shift. like an acceptance of what he's become. closing the door on a useless fight and embracing the dark abyss of his future.

i wouldn't say i'm new new, the prince of the dead corrects imperiously. maegi took me in a month ago or so. and for that he is her ever devotee. a life cannot be repaid with a simple favor. it was worth so much more. how quickly maegi has become the lalin of his life. the moon of his life. despite his best efforts, scarab — no khepri's — gaze flits lazily down to the jawbone that the other boy guards with a possessive paw. that was troublesome. that's a nice jawbone. khepri remarks offhandedly, as if his interest isn't almost solely in it.

nanowrimo: 375

Khepri. He liked that name. It flowed nicely and suited the other boy. His head tilted in the typical puppyish way with a smile. Things had been better since they came back. He'd lost his siblings and that hurt. He felt he'd also lost his Mother. He felt betrayed by her.

Moonshadow had lost two of her children; one to a coyote, another to a pack. He stayed because of Blackfeather and the outside was just not safe. He'd only leave again to find Moonshine. Then bring her back, or just to make sure she is happy and safe.
Falling Star was gone and he accepted that.

"So, where'd you come from?" Maegi would've found him somewhere, and he would've come from somewhere. He wanted to be his friend, he just wanted to know more about him.
He looked down at the bone, grinning with pride the looking back at Khepri. "I'm going to give it to Maegi for Jaes." He remembered her pile in the meadow, made of a concoction of things. Then he realised he didn't know what this was a jaw bone of.
He stared at it, trying to figure it out.

so where'd you come from? khepri finds it a bit of a nosy question, as told by the terse line his lips tug into. does it matter?, he wants to ask. ironically, as selfish and vain as khepri undoubtedly is, he doesn't want to talk about himself. he wants that jawbone currently tucked within the safety of the other boy's grasp. rusalka. comes khepri's gruff, single worded answer; a twitch of his lips given in displeasure at the pride that emanates from rowan as the other boy glimpses down at the jawbone and then back at him again.

maegi. as rowan states his intention for the jawbone, to be gifted to maegi for someone called jaes ...a small reluctant sigh slips from betwixt khepri's lips. damn it. he could, and would, steal from someone else but something destined for maegi? a wrench is immediately wedged in the cog of khepri's scheming. khepri's growing affection for blackfeather's nona keeps him on a suddenly tightened chain. too bad, deathreaver... the spectre taunts khepri and khepri, determined to ignore the illusioned omen asks, who is jaes? for while he's, likely, heard maegi mention it before ( perhaps in passing ) he hasn't asked her who this mysterious jaes is ...and he cannot deny that he's a little bit curious.

nanowrimo: 225

Of course, he didn't miss the firm line set into his mouth. 
He only tilted his crown, looking at him under lashes to go on.
But wherever Rusalka is, he might or might not find out. He seemed to hate where he came from; he wondered why.

Then, the question emitted from Khepri the same as he'd asked MAegi.
Who is Jaes?
"Maegi said Jaes is Peryite. The Daedra was revealed to be one God, one which is Jaes who rules everything. Peryite revealed it to her." So the Daedra were nothing, but Jaes playing with them all until now.
He wondered what Khepri thought of this all. Did rusalka have a religion? Did Jaes talk to them, or were they bound to those in the woods?
It was part of the reason he wouldn't leave. He wanted to talk to the Daedra...who were now Jaes.

Rowan had an epiphany right there and then, all thought in a split second.
Sithis was the void, nothing. Jaes was nameless, but all Daedra was nothing. So was Sithis still true? Because if Sithis was nothing, then the Dread Father was still Daedra.
Perhaps Jaes is Sithis.

jaes is peryite. daedra. one god. revelation.

khepri does his best to keep up with the information rowan bestows upon him — at his own inquiry — but it leaves the plagued prince to put together the pieces on his own. daedra were gods, but apparently one daedra: peryite, told maegi that the whole time it was only one god. him.

though khepri has kept a rather indifferent outlook on religion, he thinks back to the conversation with the ebon woman who claimed during the throes of his high fever that he was possessed by a demon. a brief glimpse is spared to the spectre who yawns like a bored feline before lapis lazuli gaze falls back upon rowan. seems an awfully bold claim, khepri remarks offhandedly. that jaes is the only god. skeptical not in the existence of gods but that one god was so powerful to control everything. even alphas had betas. surely a god had lesser gods.

so...what? you gift him treasures and trinkets and it appeases him? khepri asks, gesturing with a paw to the jawbone still clutched too possessively in the other boy's grasp. does jaes actually like these things? there is a quicken to khepri's heart as he draws the similarity. he, too, enjoys gifts of such nature. does he offer ...favors in exchange for them?

nanowrimo: 229

He seemed to not believe him. Was it because he said it? Or did Khepri just not believe in Jaes. His nails curled on the bone, the only show of his...what? His aggravation that he was not believed or trusted?
"What do you think controls our wold? Who do you think made us?" His lips pursed, only a twitch in the corners of his mouth showed his pride in his statement.
Would Maegi be proud?

Then the other boy asked what the purpose was. Rowan didn't know fully, he had to admit.
"I guess Jaes does, otherwise what's the point? I mean in return for favours. We gift him for our existence and he makes our life better."
Admittedly, it hadn't worked. Maybe it was not enough. The rumbles, the deaths, the famine. Rowan would understand why Jaes wanted to punish others for not believing -- clearly not everyone did. So why did his Family get broken? Why was Blackfeather plagued.
Was Maegi wrong? Was Jaes a trickster?

His thoughts scuttled and slithered like mice and snakes. Then they connected and he realised.
Maegi was wrong.
"I.. uh." His small stuttering, trying to relieve himself of conversation before he could find Maegi.
But words escaped him.
And he could not.

rowan's question is met with khepri's silence. as for who controls the world ...he couldn't rightly say. no one, he supposes. as for who made them — in a more literal sense his mothers. my mothers made me. while his conception was a bit more complex than that and involved a sire — one that unbeknownst to khepri he and rowan share — khepri doesn't know that; probably wouldn't care anyway. the suns of his life — and moon of his life — were all he needed in parental figures. men had never really been in that equation. why does it have to be any more than there? religion sounded complex. and exhausting.

and ...frankly, he wanted that damned jawbone.

does he? khepri asks bluntly, brow furrowing in unbiased disbelief. then how come he killed both of maegi's sons? he wants to ask but doesn't. but, the existence of jaes wasn't really want khepri was questioning here. he was drawing the similarities and finds that he shares qualities with the proclaimed god. it was uncanny and spooky. spookier than the vision that was a near constant companion to him. lapis lazuli gaze focuses on rowan then, flickering down to the jawbone before it follows a trail back up to rowan's face.

if its favors you want ...i could take the jawbone in exchange for a favor. khepri offers, figuring he's played enough. something of equal value to it, of course. he adds pompously. you'll get more satisfying results from being owed a favor from me than jaes. a confident statement spoken in a low purl that a crossroads demon would use as he holds out a contract to be signed.

nanowrimo: 288

Rowan tilted his head. Why did it have to be more? Because Maegi could hear them, spoke to them. Surely they were real. One day, he would too. He was sure of it. 
"Because we can talk to them," his quiet voice came. He didn't know what to do with his beliefs under fire. Whether to dispute or not, but if Khepri didn't want to belive then he didn't have to, the woods would show him.
That settled the boy's mind.

But he was right, Jaes didn't protect them from shit.
But for some reason, Khepri decided to take him upon himself to make an offer. Rowan considered; though his nails curled onto the bone now he knew it was wanted.
"What would be equal value?" He wanted to know what he would get. To some, a bone might be worth a lot, to others, just a little. If he had a margin of which he knew what he could get, he'd be more inclined to give it up.
But what could Khepri give him?