Larksong Grotto nagrulik-atuun

Kigipigak could have been imagining things. He had heard stories of the snow bringing on hysteria in some, but did not himself feel hysteric in his shelter. The white-blinding that could occur if one was not careful—but that did not occur on storming days. That was a problem when it was clear and bright and all the glare of the sun hit the snow, then the eyes. Kigipigak was trying to make sense of that smell and the sense that something was there with him.

Perhaps it was one of those totem things that @Kukutux had spoken of. Kigipigak reasoned that any such visitor would come when he was asleep. He shook his mantled shoulders and felt the heft of his coat shrug back in to place, and knew he was still awake. He could hear the blunt ends of his claws touching the stonework beneath, further confirming to him that he was not asleep.

He drew close enough to the rear of the cave to loom over the slick puddle of rot. The smell was beyond ripe. He felt a bolus of something rise in his throat and swallowed repeatedly to keep it down. It was too dark to discern what the death thing had been but there were some bones to nose at — curving ribs, sprawling femurs and tibias, and a clearly mummified midsection that had, at some point, burst.

The coywolf was not far from where Kigipigak stood examining the remains. The smell was overpowering though. The sight of the twisted, somehow too-flat body with its nested innards taking his entire focus for the time being.