Duskfire Glacier universe everything's wrong

what probably happened

A hesitant tongue rasped across Tuwawi's lip when her daughter pried for more information. The experience was hard to stomach, second only to the Sveijarn's cataclysmic tragedy. The whole harrowing ordeal had felt like a reverie, and it hadn't been until the steel doors of her enclosure opened that reality's bleak truth set in. The mother was reluctant to divulge the specifics to her child, wanting so badly to protect what shards of Maera's innocence remained. Yet, as a pale eye drifted across her smaller twin, it became clear that hardship was a familiar guest in their lives.

"I don't know who it was," Tuwawi murmured with an audible gulp, eyes narrowing as she recalled the experience. "I was following Jokull's scent through the forest and there was... a hum in the air. Like a million bees. I looked up, but saw nothing near the treetops. So I ran." The chopper's metallic thrum was nearly indescribable - how easily the buzzing shook her core. "I just made it past the lupines when a felt a sting in my back," Tuwawi's brows furrowed, "and then... my legs stopped working. My whole body felt paralyzed." She recalled her drunken stumbling quite easily. The heaviness in her head... the drowsiness of her lids. Only the fright of having an incapacitated husk kept her semi-conscious, and she struggled against the sedative with a valiant effort.

"Then they came. It wasn't wolf who put this on me. No animal I had ever seen. They were... shadows. Upright shadows." The human's back lit silhouettes were fuzzy in the ember's mind, body under the influence of tranquilizers at the time. Perhaps the research group had underestimated the dosage needed to immediately knock the mother out.

Tuwawi's voice became strained and horse as she fought to speak. "They tied me up! Wrapped my muzzle!" she said, affronted by such treatment, "put this thing on me! Stung me!" The volume of her words increased with every offense, "and lifted me away."

She paused, "I blacked out then... but awoke alone in a cold box." How long had she been asleep? Long enough for the human research team to transport her to the fringes of Chinook in the Northeast. "When the door opened... there were others like me. About four. In their own silver boxes." Unknowingly, each wolf had been abducted as a reintroduction program to revitalize Chinook's dwindling population. "Nobody had any idea what had happened. And most hadn't seen the shadows." Tuwawi's mania cooled, "I recognized the mountain Storm King. I have made the journey to Teekon before and knew the way, so I left the others and came home - to Duskfire."

The ember flinched, remembering Njal's tired expression upon her arrival. The stress of every transgression battered his psyche, and somewhere along the way fire and ice had become estranged. A thirst for the unknown often took her husband away to distant lands, but this time Tuwawi was uncertain he would return. Jokull, Valtyr, and Njal slipped away from them as easily as Larus had, leaving the smallest daughter alone to be battered by waves of abandonment. I don't think he's coming back, she wanted to admit to Maera. However, Tuwawi suppressed her confession for another time.