Herbalists' Cache poison arrow

set ~5 hrs after this <3 staying vague

he writhed.

he was not present.

fever to bloodloss to fever again.

"@Nagruk. nagruk. i make you war chief now," sun eater shuddering in a cold pool of his own blood;

he would not know who heard. he would not know who saw.

"protect children —!" gasping, eye wide, breath labored.

silent again, the prayers to caribou soul for mercy.

can be a cameo, ping me for a reply.

she stayed close. her body burned to be away, but she stayed close.

how had this happened?

she thought of the way she had pled for his life, once.
how he had bled and festered; how weak he had been.
again! how could this happen again!

she was afraid.
he was her family—her only family! how could this have happened?

as singular as sulukinak had always been, now she refused to move away.
he spoke a name; commanded from a liminal space. don't die she commanded back to him, silently; don't leave me.

he is there. watching with silent eyes of malice.
he had come. reunited with family. with brother. blood kin. just to see weakness. just to see his reign fall as it had only just begun for dark fang.
this does not change loyalty. dark fang stands vigilant guard to his brother, eyes circling in paranoia. watching this nagruk woman.
if she betrays she will be met with dark fang.

Nagruk... Nagruk! The fearless tresspasser, rewarded for her stubbornness and stupidness. Meleys didn't think she would have spared the Tartok woman the same. 

The phantom's eyes lift, meeting the gaze of her newly known half-brother. He is strong. The fever will break. He would live. Or he wouldn't. If he had the strength she believed him to have he would recover quickly from this. If not, he would be left like any other when the herds moved. It was the way of Lanzadoii. 

Luckily, pups of two women had only just been born. They had weeks yet still before travel.

quick cameo

star eater returned to the saatsine in silence.
gjalla’s blood was upon her.
dried in streaks along her chest, clotted against her throat, dark and heavy beneath her claws.
she felt it. smelled it. tasted it.
it was in her fur. in her teeth. in her bones.
but she did not break.
she walked with the surety of a woman who had seen the end of something. and the beginning of something else.
the camp was restless. whispers churned like the wind, pressing into her ears as she passed. but she did not stop.
she did not help.
she did not go to him.
her husband writhed in his own ruin.
his voice was fractured, a broken man calling to the void.
her steps slowed.
but she did not turn.
"protect children—!"
her lip curled, a quiet, seething thing.
was that his penance?
to name another in his place while she carried their children on her back? while she bled for his sins?
his voice broke, gasping for mercy from the spirits.
but star eater gave none.
she went where she was needed.
where her children waited. where ishmira waited.
she had no use for dying gods. only for what would rise in their place.

lmk if any of this is not ok!!

It is the scent of blood that draws her.

Chieftain, lying cold. A spiderling girl, a shadow, and one of light and dark - and Star Eater; Nagruk's lips peel in a throaty snarl. Blood of Issitoq, blood of: "Gjalla." 

She lets Wife run to her children, lets the others tend or watch or weep. Ears prick to catch his words, icefire gaze boring holes into his red-soaked body. If he is weak, he would die, but without a leader his people would scatter. Would fight. This, she understands. This, she embraces with a triumphant cold heart.

War Chief. Issumatar. They did not seem so different now.

"Hide him. Guard him." Her first command, to the piebald woman of his blood. Gjalla would come for revenge and Nagruk intends to starve her of that satisfaction one way or another. She thinks of Blackfell, his allyship with the glacier; it is the first place she deduces the traitor would turn, that the stormwoman would follow too in the wake of her man. The call is risky, but she will not stay here like sitting ducks for Gjalla and her men to slaughter.

The horn of battle is too tempting to ignore.

"Gather men, women! We march north to glacier away from cubs, away from mothers. No more peace, no more politics," Tartok's roar shakes snow from the trees of Sun Clan's forest camp. This is what she is made for, this is her chance to meld both clans. To lead. To prove. They would need bodies here to protect the vulnerable, but Nagruk hopes to halt an invasion in it's infancy. She turns to @Sulukinak who reeks of Darukaal, her care for Chieftain acknowledged and brushed aside with a grunt. "Take us there. Gjalla will die." If she has not already from blood loss. "We bring fight to them. We bring war!" 

Those tending to Cen did their very best. Sulukinak watched them, not knowing anything that could help for all the many wounds, as this was not the same as losing an eye alone—this could have been the end of the chieftain completely. How could this have happened? Still she reeled over this, keeping close to him, watching strangers; and there came the woman Nagruk who had been named his War Chief, calling for forces.

They were hunters! That did not detract from their ability to kill; they knew these wilds well because of it. They had the tenacity to keep up with the herds, the endurance, and the strength to bring down the mightiest of beasts—so how could they have let this happen to their chieftain? Where had this Nagruk been at the time of the attack? Where had any of their cousins?

Sulukinak agonized in ways that were new to her.

The woman Nagruk made her call to arms, and she came to where Sulukinak coiled possessively near her uncle, demanding she move, and she only earned a dull-eyed stare at first. Take us there. Where - to the glacier? We bring war! She flashes her teeth at the warrior woman and goes so far as to snap at the air, scything for the words as they leave her. The bristle of her body speaks volumes in the silent way of beasts: I'm not going anywhere.

To leave would be a betrayal. She had been drawn away by her season, all the way to wilderness and then to Darukaal, but she could not fathom going anywhere now.

he was quickly learning the dynamics of this clan. he had only one question: who was this woman, and why did his brother put her in charge?
why not their sister?
dark fang looks to her, eyes narrowed. she looked perfectly capable. strong, stoic. dark fang lets eyes drift back, and listens to the call for war.
he had never been a man to turn away teeth and carnage, so he has no quarrels. the enemy would fall and they would fall swift; and no harm would come to his brother.
meleys is ordered to guard. dark fang does not budge, coming to step forward, as the smaller woman nips and growls at the big woman. he looks through a visor of greed. brave one to raise teeth to war chief. dark fang remarks, with a heathenous snicker.
he assumes position of guard at sun eater's side. ignorant to the tartok woman ordering only his sister to guard. dark fang would not abandon bloodkin.
if the enemy came, they would meet teeth of sun eater's kin.

Nagruk was a woman commanded, who sought then to command. What? Who? Tikigâk saw nothing of worth here among the splintered remains. What did Nagruk note? What was she missing? 

(Certainly plenty—Tikigâk would never be renowned for her wisdom.) 

Tikigâk wrinkled her muzzle at the scene before her. Here is what she saw: None here displayed loyalty for the woman given a name that meant nothing in their world when given without blood. Not even Tikigâk could regard her then as such—why? The blood that had been spilled was that of Issitoq and that of another Tikigâk did not know. 

As one wolf sauntered forth in challenge, Tikigâk looked among the rest. 

For all of Nagruks time there, what was given to her by her fellows now? Nothing. It was clear that they would prefer death to the rule of Nagruk. To even the rule of Sun Eater, who lay prone and useless and, with perhaps some of his last breaths, had placed Nagruk in a position that none responded to. 

Tikigâk would not fight among these wolves. She did not trust them at her back, nor did she want them then, as they were this day, by her side. 

She stepped now toward the side of Nagruk, ear twitching as she watched the small crowd that remained. Not Tartok, she rumbled, though she doubted that Nagruk would need reminding in the face of the response she had been provided. They had ignored her call to arms. 

These wolves had been given an opportunity that none would likely receive again. She did not care for the reason in which they did not take it. Nagruk perhaps offered it to see what the wolves here were made of, and Tikigâk saw in their answering of her that there was nothing to be desired here. Nagruk had offered these wolves more than they deserved. 

The wolves loyal to Sun Eater would prove such a thing in the ways that many wolves she herself had killed in the claiming of their territory had… when Tartok needed more land, more resources. She saw echoes of the dead among those that turned their faces to her sisters in arms demand. Pride. Ego. It so easily dominated their instinct to live—to know that surrendering meant survival. 

Against Tartok, it was a fatal flaw. 

We go. 

Tikigâk would leave them to their graves.  

Her call to arms is met with silence, is met with teeth! Nagruk's own bare to the spiderling, but she does not strike. For she realises in her greed for power that none here respect her. None would follow her charge on Gjalla and Blackfell - they would rather watch their Chieftain die. To value kin over blood, over strength; that is the caribou hunter's flaw, and she despises it.

Tikigâk is at her side now and speaking what Nagruk has been thinking. "Not Tartok, never be Tartok," she repeats. "Cowards!" This time she spits in the twisted face of the man who approaches. All three would stay, all three would die with Issitoq. 

And what is her power anyway? War Chief means nothing; it is just a title without weight. Nagruk could not lead and would not fight his battle, would not hunt the woman marked for death despite her grudge for Blackfell. She forgets she has only ever been a soldier, she forgets herself and her name. She forgets what she desires.

She forgets no longer.

"We go." Bristling, she brushes past Tikigâk in search of Kukuvrak's trail.