never kill the light inside me

OOC: It's okay me too >_>

<style type="text/css">q {font:13px Georgia; color:#9E0853; font-weight:bold;}</style>IC: The prior day, Jinx's wound had been cleaned and tended to by Pied, loath as the Kesuk was to admit her gratitude. That night, she managed fitful sleep without her wound to worry about, during which she dreamed.

She strode across a wind-bitten tundra, over scalloped ice that crackled with a layer of frost. A stream would have bubbled nearby, but its waters were sheathed in blistered ice, inaccessible to the wolf. Her tongue snaked over dry lips, which she smacked hopelessly with a frown. For miles around there was nothing but ice; in the far distance, she could spot the vague outline of mountain peaks, but they were much too far for her to reach, especially while thirsty.

Jinx therefore turned opposite the mountains, and strode away from them, in search of fresh water. Snow could be melted for drinking, but it was inefficient, and harboured bacteria and other oddities that running water didn't. Besides, she was in unfamiliar territory... And it was so vivid, she didn't consider that it might actually be a dream. Horizon Ridge seemed like something far off and forgotten, a dream itself even though she slept safely within its borders, and this was reality.

As she proceeded east, she came across a bundle of fur huddled on the ice. She approached with head hung low and ears thrust forward. She held her tail alertly out behind her, uncertain what she would find when she reached it. What the Kesuk woman found when she drew near was a pup, with fur as pure and white as the snow that sparkled around it. A silver overlay gave it the same mystical, shining quality. She reached out her nose to touch the downy coat, with a rumble of uncertainty—perhaps she would eat it, and lick its blood in place of water—but when her nose touched its body, the pup turned and fixed her with impossibly blue eyes. She was assaulted with a jolt of searing pain through her skull when she met those eyes, and she stumbled back, crying out with pain.

Take it, whispered a voice, clear as spring water in her ears, and yet a muddled mix of female and male. Take it and raise it up. The words seemed to come from the pup, but its lips did not part for an instant. It embodies usss, hissed another malefemale voice. Behind Jinx towered two bears, one a polar bear with matted black fur, and the other a black bear with soft, white fur. The pup in front of her suddenly darted between her legs, in their direction, and as its gaze dropped from her, the pain subsided. Jinx could now feel their presence; her spine prickled, and when she turned around...

Her eyes sprung open and her breathing quickened as she woke. Her hackles were raised even as her sleep fled her, and her feet were beneath her in an instant as she rose beneath the sequoias of Horizon Ridge, alert all of a sudden. An ache in her neck reminded her she wasn't yet healed, and her ribs protested the sudden movement, but Jinx bit back the bile that rose with the pain. Something was amiss.

With an almost supernatural accuracy, Jinx spun about, as though to follow the dream pup that had gone between her legs. She trailed through the forest in that direction, scarcely deviating from her path but to swing around trees and dodge broken logs, and before long she found them, though she couldn't have known they would be there: an elderly wolf, prone in the snow with his breath rattling brokenly in his throat, and it.

The child. The pure white fur, the silver overlay, and the eyes, blue as copper chloride. Her eyes struck it and remained firmly upon it, and when their gazes touched for a brief instant, there was no searing pain... But the voice was remembered, and she felt the wind dash against her coat, as though to confirm that the voice was to be obeyed (regardless whether it was just stray wind or not, Jinx took it to mean something more). The child was of uncertain gender at the moment, but all would be explained soon.

To the elder wolf, she spared no concern. He was on his death bed, but he had a crime to confess, for there was no way in ever-loving hell that he was the pup's father. Atka and Sos were its mother and his father; the cub was gifted, favoured, or something. The vision told all. Or Jinx had simply had a silly dream, and coincidence had made the pups look alike, for the pup in the dream did keenly resemble Nanuq's colours, and Arktos', and so any memory of them could have conjured its appearance... But of course, Jinx was a wolf of faith, and a wolf of faith saw signs where perhaps signs were not.

Who are you? Where did you get this child? she sternly asked, her ears pointing sharply to the elder of the pair and her eyes demanding answers of him. Perhaps it was a loa in a wolf's body that guided this "chosen" child to her to, and as it abandoned him, it left his old soul to die. But if that were true, it had brought the pup to her to... What? Discipline and teach how to be a proper wolf? Jinx had no love for anybody but herself, and perhaps her sister Kaskae, whom she respected... And certainly would develop no love for a child. Jinx hated children. But it was her gods' decision, not hers, and she had no choice but to comply. Caring for it was not in her nature, but... Well, she could certainly keep it in check, if that would count in her gods' eyes as doing her duty.