Shadewood kiaruk ❂

for a moment the duck regretted her lie. would it not have been better to inform him she would rather leave the keep and pursue her own way than remain? the feral smirk that had climbed onto the dark one’s features rankled kukutux, but it faded quickly.

he would not allow her to take her things, it seemed, and even if cry had given her leave, the girl did not want to walk in shame through the beautiful forest with his flowering countenance as her escort. ”perhaps consider giving them to amaya, along with my den and its stores of herbs and meat. she wished to be a healer also,” kukutux murmured, the tension of their meeting driving her to irritate him further for ever having seen her as a possession.

pale ears flicked at his rumble, his dismissal, but she was not done. pushing the fur toward him with a small paw, the young she-wolf glanced into the burn of his ice-eyes for a moment. ”gwen once called me sister. i would not want her to suffer. tell amaya to crush the leaves and mix them with water. they will relieve pain but not put her to sleep.”

the tips of her fangs were visible a moment as the girl backed from him. what did he want? a promise? she had been prepared to give him all things, and he had spurned her, shunned her ways. there was nothing left to grant him, and yet he towered before her, a demand upon his lips.

”i will beg the spirits to allow your children safe passage into this world, cry,” the duck whispered, overcome by the rage and grief welling together to choke her now. 

the keep had been her home, and he her protector, but now neither the weald nor the shaman welcomed her. and still she had done nothing wrong — she had been a faithful servant to those above her, been affable to her packmates, loyal to her leaders.

cry could no more fling her back into the mud from whence she came than kukutux could have returned to who she had been before all this. she gathered herself some paces away, waiting for whatever cold word he would spit toward her at the last, and after he had spoken, the girl would return to the coastline that called to her even now.