Firestone Hot Springs come and lay your bones on the alabaster stones

I’m closing up Lotte’s old threads, so would you mind closing after your post? ♥ Thank you for the thread!

I’m running fevers so please excuse how lame this song is.

It was disappointing that the wolf didn’t have any songs or stories to share, but Lotte kept a tight lid on her feelings about the matter, maintaining a pleasant expression as she chuckled in turn. “I will tell you some,” she offered eagerly. “They are about a hero called Dagfinn Ansbjørn III — a great adventurer.”

The scratchy pull in her throat had her amending her statement, though. “Maybe just one,” she corrected herself. “As my voice permits.” Clearing her throat, she began her rollicking ode:

“Down in a valley in a land far away,
covered in snow and the shadow of night,
two hunters renowned trailed the tracks of their prey —
one dusky black and one creamy white.

The black wolf was Dagfinn, an adventurer true,
pale star on his chest and a grin on his face;
with the joy of the hunt in his eyes, winter blue,
he and the white wolf set to the chase.”

It wasn’t the best song, but Lotte was basically making it up on the fly.

“The white wolf was Saena, a warrior fierce
with the air of a matron and the look of a maid.
Copper war paint on her eyes and her ears,
her bobbed tail flicked as they entered a glade

inside which a herd stood with one wounded doe.
When the wolves came, they scattered, darting away —
and Saena and Dagfinn leapt ‘cross the snow
to whet their sharp teeth on the hide of their prey.

They thought themselves lucky; their quarry was dead —
but the situation soon became far from sanguine.
From within the underbrush came a glint of blood-red
a thirty-pronged monster with flesh rotted green.

He charged at the hunters, this king of the glade,
hooves whittled to spikes, skin stretched across bones,
a macabre specter with debts to be paid
each deer-death-sin by a wolf-death atoned.

‘Saena!’ cried Dagfinn, avoiding disaster
by shoving the vale queen out of harm’s way.
‘Run home!’ he barked at her, moving still faster
to feint toward the demon hart. As night turned to day,

and the battle for Deerhome greeted the morning,
it was Dagfinn who led the chase wide and awry
for three days he ran with the demon bull’s bellowed warnings
hot on his heels, leaving the Teekons behind.”

Her song came to a close, and she paused dramatically before stating, “Dagfinn returned to the Teekons after the demon bull had faded from sight, but no wolf knows where the deer is now or when he’ll turn up next,” in a hushed undertone. “A wise wolf will always look for him before hunting his lesser brethren, for he appears to be summoned by the deaths of his people — they say the number of prongs grows with his fury.” She smiled a bit devilishly as she rose, shaking out her fur and preparing to take her own leave. A bit hoarse after her song, “I am for home, Birk of the Tundra,” she said. “I wish you well. Should you have need of aid, look to the northern coast.”