Mount Apikuni it's not my time, my soul ain't yours to take

all manner of strange creatures had flocked to asperas and her spiritblessed companion, the ash-woven @Alduin, since that fateful day in the forest. the exception, it seemed, was large game, though this was perhaps a blessing; neither child yet possessed the skill or the bulk to bring down any animal that might compose a more substantial meal, and so they subsisted on rodents and weasels and other such vermin found in their wanderings. asperas, for her part, had already become rather adept at killing the little things. it was as natural as breathing —
though breathing was not near as painful.
this morning she'd stowed her cursed treasure at the base of a gnarled old tree, tucked among the raised twisting roots and buried under a mass of assorted foliage she'd torn from the ground around it, marked with tufts of navy-black fur and left for the thrill and agony of the hunt with no small amount of trepidation. to lose the skyrock would be the death of her; this, she knew without knowing how she did. she scarce let it out of her sight, and when she did, it was hidden from all others. even her companion.
asperas trusted no one since merrick's betrayal.

she was carrying the fruits of her labor, on her way back to where she'd stored the skyrock, when two scents abruptly cut through the fresh metallic blood-and-meat scent of the weasel in her jaws: boy, and rot. the willful little voidsent could hardly allow this strange combination to pass uninvestigated and unmolested, so asperas changed course immediately, malicious intent already brewing in the bones of her.
but the pain of today's kill had taken much from her. the lines of exhaustion were set deep in her face, and her limbs felt sluggish and clumsy. sleep would serve her better than heckling some desperate boy and his foul meal, surely, and it was this thought that slowed her steps even as another ash-spun pelt winked into view against the mottled olive-and-umber summerscape of the mountainside.
asperas let the weasel fall, and listened to the whispers on the wind. boy, she called when the spirits had whispered their secrets, and said nothing else.