Ouroboros Spine pharmaka

The boy ranged further up the cliffside each day. His belly was full of fresh meat and so his energy levels were vastly improved, garnering from him a strong curiosity he would otherwise have ignored, being too desperately hungry or anxiety-riddled to allow for extraneous feeling.

Wielding this, as he had never before expressed such a thing within the realm of Ursus, he felt compelled to challenge himself with further climbs each day. So it was that he climbed the spine; whether he knew it was inhabited or not by the end of his journey, the boy went about his business without obvious care.

He was careful and slow in his ascent. The thinning of the air helped embolden him, yet it was after a few near-death miss steps that he learned to be more cautious, prowling his way along rather than running to inspect different scents, plants, or views as before.

When he came upon a patch of disturbed earth he stopped to sniff at it, then the surrounding trees. As he probed the darkness of the underwood he stopped, turned, and began to investigate the pollen-heavy ferns just off the path.

Something here smelled good — like the fish he had taken from the woman — but the memory of that moment brought along a sense of urgency, as if the hills were watching and judging him.