Moonsong Glacier hydrurga

maybe @Ulloriaq?

sulukinak had found a blood trail among the easterly trees and followed it.

it was a garish streak upon the ice and formed a bright trail across the grove and she traced it with her full attention earthbound, and when it swept suddenly up a tree she was at a loss. the scent of blood had been a fascination to her until this point and when she saw how the red faded at the base of this tree she was at a loss.

she rounded the base. her steps skirted another section of forest where the earth had been partially disturbed and there was another scent there but she didn't recognize it, so she turned from that and backtracked to where the red was strongest and went again and again in different directions; but each time she was led to this one tree, where the blood upon the earth terminated.

finally she looked at the tree itself and rose up on her hind legs and braced there awkwardly, seeing at last a streak of purple-red leading up the trunk that was out of her reach. stretching as much as she could sulukinak thought she'd finally found something interesting, something she could hunt with her long angular body and was immediately frustrated when she could not quite touch it for further investigation.

as she dropped back down to the earth she gave a chuff and glared at one shadow or another, and then back the way she had come, but did not move; and something above her shifted in the tree.

While Dutch visited the hearth of Chakliux, the northwoman busied herself with stocking the caches. The carcass of a wild boar was skinned, its meat torn into strips and left to dry on the branches of a tree in the winter sun. In the meantime, she hunted the occasional unlucky chipmunk, plucked straight from their fur-lined nests. 

Through the trees wafted the scent of Sulukinak. It was high time they had a conversation. Though there was something else, something - darker. Immediately, her spine prickled uneasily. 

Guided by her call, Ulloriaq materialised out of the shadows and took in the scene. The girl was, thankfully, in tact if a little worked up. But what was stranger was the crimson-smeared trunk. She followed the trail up, and up, to the branches. And then, she saw what Sulukinak perhaps had not.

"Shadow girl," heart thrumming in her chest, voice a low rumbled warning. "Come this way. Quickly."

the bear was so high up in the tree there was no hope for her to see it, but it saw her, and it did not want to come down. thankfully it was not one of the giants that lumbered through the trees - this one was a young black bear confused by the season - and while it had its front limbs wrapped around the tree's trunk, its feet were half on a thick branch and half upon some dead thing it had dragged up and away; the body was nearly as big as the bear was, torn to pieces, and staining everything. ulloriaq could see all of this from where she was further back.

her warning carried to sulukinak. while the girl thought of refusing her, she heard the note of warning and drew back from the base of the tree with quick steps, keeping her eyes on the stained bark. it was hard not to obey orders from a woman since that was all she had known for the majority of her life. she fled backwards a few wolf-lengths and strained her attention up, up, up, trying to see what ulloriaq now watched, but she couldn't; and with a huff, sulukinak doubled-back again so that she could align with the woman's haunches.

a small chuff whiffed from sulukinak, questioning.