Nova Peak hearts and minds

Tagging @Pasha @Allure II @Swift @Whittier @Jorunn - going to start using this thread for 'teaching' the pups things now that they're a bit older. These posts are mostly for you to have some background parenting to react to. :)

Now that each pup had proven to her that they had some command of language (Swift's first word was not what she had hoped for), Bazi started to hold court more frequently. She would summon the children to her, dragging those that refused into the circle by whatever limb she could seize, and relay terrible tales of the world's many dangers. Even Jorunn was encouraged to join in, though she made no special effort to include him.

That day, she would tell them about Lecter - and all hell-sent witch-spawn like him.

"There are wolves out there that call themselves .. shamans. Witches," she told her assembled brood. "If you ever come across someone claiming to be able to fix your problems with some mystical herb or chant, someone that makes your skin crawl, someone that believes that the rain falls because they did a dance... I want you to run. Doesn't matter how wise or sincere they seem, they are always, always out to trick you and cause you harm. Mommy has met several of these creatures in her time - when I was pregnant with you, in fact! A witch came to the borders and told mommy she could help, but your mother isn't stupid. If I'd eaten the the thing she offered me.." Bazi paused for dramatic effect, lowering her head to the children's level, "Every one of you would've been born without legs and eyes. I mean it," she barked, "I've seen it happen. There was a wolf named Jinx, long before I ever met daddy, who loved a shaman named Lecter. But she did something to offend him, and he made her unborn children leak out of her like rotted frog-spawn."

Far from the truth, of course - and a terrible thing to bring up. But Jinx was dead, and so was Lecter - Bazi was free to twist their lives for her own again. "I saw him murder a child in the forest," she told them with a dark look. "For fun." Another serious kink in the truth. The wolf in question had not been Lecter, but Jorunn's late father - and the child in question had not been a wolf. But the Frostfur children did not need to know that. "You need to know how to spot one of these lunatics, and protect yourselves from falling for their tricks. Listen closely.."

It was unlikely that the children would recall the detail of her sermon in later life. Her goal was to etch the ghost of fear and prejudice deep into their hindbrain, arming them with the pseudo-instincts that had kept their mother alive and well up until this point.

Bazi talked and talked until Whittier looked about ready to collapse and Swift's patience for sitting ran out. She told them about painted signs and symbols, lairs of bones and weeds, the twisted language and fantastical beliefs. She described Ragnar, Lecter, the borderlands witch, and every creature in between - all lumped into one dark, dagger-toothed entity.

She referenced her own great-uncle in whispers, unable to meet Swift's eye.