Bearclaw Valley beloved physician

did he know? did he fight, before he died?

Avicus stares at the skull, gaze fixed on the cavernous holes where his eyes once were. she has seen bones before, of course, but it's surreal to examine those of a wolf she knew. 

does the bear haunt him in the afterlife, as the bear haunts her every dream?

each night, she sees the hulking shadow, rising from the corner of its mountain den. smells the foulness of its breath and feels the claws against her flesh. 

but its eyes are what remain with her the most. small, beady, devoid of emotion.

were those eyes the last thing Evien saw?

she wonders, as she observes the skull (she dares not touch it for fear of Merrick's wrath), why the bear had chosen to spare her, but take the healer. 

Evien had remained within its domain longer. he knew the religion that her father and brother clung to. he had given all of himself in service to Ursus, and now was buried beneath the earth here.

but he is dead, and Avicus lives, and she wonders if she has simply been lucky—or if it is strength, fate, (or both), that has granted her this second chance.

Comparatively, Aventus was thoughtless as he observed his sister from afar, twin chips of inscrutable ice where his eyes were housed.

At her feet was Evien's skull, stripped of flesh by carrion eaters and Merrick in his grieving madness. The healer's grim aspect was reduced to a macabre, toothsome grin now. The skull smiled up at Avicus like it knew all her secrets. Aventus thought he knew what it felt like to know someone else's secrets, too, and his lips stretched in a fleeting approximation of the skeletal grimace.

Then he was expressionless again, moving toward his sister with a sinuous gait, a high-flung tail and rigid ears pointed forward, intent now on testing the truth of her allegiance to Ursus by flaunting his authority as her leader and seeking signs that she would defy him or turn a tooth upon his smoke-black hide.

prideful as she may be, she is also acutely aware of hierarchy. her parents are her leaders—and now, it seems, her brother is, too. though envy burns within her at his promotion, she knows she has no one but herself to blame. he had stayed; she had left. intention mattered not, only presence.

so she turns and greets him with subdued posture, indigo eyes not quite meeting his own. Bruin-jaw, she says, for she's heard the news and the name of the title thrown around. 

names, titles, they mean nothing to her. . .only power. she wonders how he'll react to the words in her mouth, though.

in the meantime, the two siblings face each other, their erstwhile savior's head keeping grim and silent watch over the pair.

He was pleased with what he got. If she meant to kill him once, she seemed to know her place in relation to him now. Aventus did not think he would have to watch for signs of his sister's aggression from here on out. It was liberating; he never realized just how much tension wound through him from the mere thought of her betrayal.

They were close, once, and then they grew up, and now he was unsure whether he loved her or hated her, whether he would fight to save her life or fight to end it. He had no read on his own emotions regarding her, let alone hers regarding him, but he was at least a little convinced he could let his guard down now, at last.

Aves had nothing to say in response to her uttering his title. It felt good. It fit like a glove, or at least, he felt that it did. Rather than addressing that, he let his tail droop and drift side-to-side while he studied the skull, then said, he was punished because you were spared.

A part of him was relieved she lived, and a part of him was afraid.

he utters the very thing she was thinking just before, and yet it turns her stomach, twists her muzzle. Avicus glances back, but only for a second, wary to take her eyes from her brother for more than a heartbeat. there is a tension between them, a terse uncertainty, and it's been there from nearly the moment of their birth.

two cubs, blood and death, inextricably locked in competition. 

how? she asks. how do you know? . . .or, how did that happen? she doesn't know what she quite means, and lets the word hang by itself in the air.

the bear didn't spare her. she had her life because she had managed to escape, and Evien had not. isn't that how things worked? her actions had led to her survival; his actions, his death.

after all, Avicus spared no game. the creatures that had escaped her were simply too swift, too smart.

But the bear was everything, and spoke through their father, and chose to let Avicus live because it knew she was the daughter of its disciple. In exchange, it required another life, and Evien did not share the blood of Ursus.
Father, he replied, guessing that Avicus was asking how the bear had spared her. It was that simple. It took another's blood instead of father's.
In a way, he supposed that made he and his sister invincible. He knew as soon as the thought drifted through his mind that it was absolutely true. The way Nyra slammed him into the ground would have killed a lesser wolf, but not the prince of Ursus. Not a wolf whose line was favoured by the bear.
Ursus is weaker for it, he added, and did not elaborate whether he thought that would be the case if she had died in Evien's stead. He knew it would be true either way, but his heart ached for the caregiver right now and withdrew from Avicus, so he thought the choice was an easy one, even though it was not.

it took another's blood instead of father's.

it took my blood, she cuts in, suddenly a little peeved. he talks in riddles; she doesn't like it. he talks as if he is the arbiter of all that is true and real, but hadn't they both nearly perished? the only reason he reigns above her is that she had left and he had not—

but if the white woman hadn't broken his body, hadn't spat in her mother's face, she would have never left at all. 

he is not special. he is a beneficiary of circumstance.

Avicus shifts her body, putting the still-healing, ugly, twisted line upon her shoulder on full display. i am alive. Evien is not. i fought; he failed. how is Ursus weaker? if anything, it is stronger; the healer's inability to fend off an attack only benefits them in the long run. 

but it is the most words she's spoken in one sitting in a long time—perhaps ever—and her tongue is exhausted. she falls silent, glowering at Aventus (albeit still showing bodily deference).

His eyes wandered over the wound and then flicked away, dismissive. You are stupid, he pronounced. You do not see how you are favoured. You live because father is devout and the bear sensed that, but you should have died, and Evien should have lived. It was the first time he had given any outward hint that he wished ill will upon his sibling, but he still believed she had threatened him first. She had carved the rift between them, and he upheld it with a vengeance. He didn't mean it, not really, not deep down. But he did on the surface.

You will not be favoured forever, sister, he said, licking spittle from his lips as he turned to abandon her there at a steady lope. It was harsh of him, but he believed wholly that her disappearance from the pack had branded her unworthy, and he was fully prepared to oppose her at every turn until she proved otherwise. He had been injured, but he had never left.

He was loyal to Ursus, and he unfairly believed that Avicus was loyal only to her desires.

stupid. it's a word she's never been called, and boy, does she loathe it. her ears fold back, wincing, as if slapped. she bears the brunt of his hateful words with a stony expression, her face closing off with each utterance. and then he is gone before she has the chance of rebuttal—

but what to say? what to do?

she may be favored by his bear-god, but he is favored by their parents. otherwise, she would be lording over him and not vice versa. he is wrong; he is the useless one, he is the stupid one. fallen into fortune by circumstance—oooh, she hates him in this moment. . .

you should have died. and after all that, after her journey to try and avenge the woman who had almost taken his life!

no, he should have died. only Evien had spared his life. . .and, apparently, hers too. so they both had the healer to thank—twice over, in fact. but it is becoming increasingly obvious that Ursus will have one of them, or the other. not both.

Avicus wheels away, moving the other direction, a snarl rising up in her throat as the anger continues to mount.