Blackfeather Woods each night reunites me with the feral tenderness of my own evil

he's only begun to learn about the deities of the dark woods and though their names come to him easily enough: mephala, the night mother, and sithis he struggles to tell which apparition is mephala and which is sithis. his brow furrows as he watches them with muted curiosity, ears and eyes attentive to the visions and little else. there is a slight prickle of the hairs at the nape of his neck, a soft shiver of his hackles. he doesn't feel threatened but he's never experienced anything like this before and he's have a hard time deciphering reality from hallucination. but it looks real and sounds real. it feels real ...not unlike lotte when she visited him in his dream.

his attention otherwise diverted wintersbane does not notice the approach of another ...even if he had he would have thought he was the ghost of the woods as the others. but unlike the ghosts and gods and monsters there is a scent attached to the newest addition whom wintersbane now sees from the corner of his eye. under normal circumstances the tundrian would've been startled and reacted accordingly but the surprise is so fleeting he barely registers it and wintersbane acts as if mou's been there the whole time. salmon pink tongue draws across his jowls once and twice. he's growing thirsty and yet his legs feel heavy. like if he tried to move from the tree that supported him he would collapse before the two gods, ghosts and packmate before him. he presses his body harder against the tree instead and swings his head to face the stranger in full.

"näetkö heidät?" wintersbane asks, motioning towards the far trees with a small gesture of his muzzle, not realizing that he's speaking tundrian instead of common tongue. in his high, his translator appeared to have broken and the mix of languages are nothing more than words. what are words to the dead and the deities that speak a language so old he feels it deep within the marrow of his bones even if he does not understand it? wintersbane assesses the pale, scarred man before him the best he can but he struggles to focus on the living while the dead and the holy convene around him. his head swims and he looks back to the divine duo once more, searching desperately now for a fourth. for the nightingale queen whom has surely ascended to sainthood. she does not belong in these dark woods with all their secrets and their lies and yet that does not stop wintersbane from feeling the desperation of wanting to see lotte as either ghost or divine.

it does not stop him from feeling disappointment that she does not manifest as the ghosts of strangers and the holy have.