Blackfeather Woods That's a dance I want to see

A crow's guttural warble drew the growing dwarf's eyes up to the skeletal canopy. Blackfeather Woods was darker than usual, with heavy snow clouds low over the knitted branches. A cold calm descended over the quiet forest, broken for now only by the whispered crunch of paws in the snow. Flakes drifted lazily down between the trees, coming to rest on the cub's hunched shoulders and sloped back and lending him a frosted appearance.

He'd just concluded a lesson with Astrid on the lesser Daedric gods, those who came after Mephala and Sithis in significance and power both. He reflected on the one they associated him with—Malacath—but he couldn't draw any connections between that daedra and himself. He was at least a little aware that he was different from his siblings and other wolves, but Ramsay didn't know the full extent of it. His ability to understand why he would be associated with the patron of the rejected and damned was clouded by youth and naivety. It was a thinly veiled insult that Ramsay didn't pick up on.

Collapsing the front half of his body toward the ground to accommodate his stunted neck, Ramsay stooped to awkwardly sniff at a raised root, then resumed his quick, choppy walk, indiscriminately searching for company with inattentive ears jutting out to the sides of his head.

For @Vaati!

He intercepts his brother as soon as he sees the boy waddling on in search of something, hoping to steer clear his siblings from venturing near the borders. The Cerberus is not the only force he fears lurking near the woods, but anyone else anyone in Blackfeather had ever pissed off. "Where are you going?" He doesn't suppose the smaller boy has any plans to venture beyond the dark woods by himself, surely he had to know he was at a certain disadvantage should anything happen. At least Maegi and Euron could somewhat escape the jaws of an intruder, he supposed Ramsay would have to roll into a nearby hole to wait out an attacker. But perhaps the boy had no intention of putting himself in unknowing danger, and Vaati relaxes a fraction at the notion, instead trotting alongside the smaller boy as he goes.

His ears roved from half-mast to full when a much larger pale-furred figure stepped out into his path, then fell in alongside him with a pointed question. He hardly knew Vaati, so there wasn't much fanfare for his brother's arrival. Ramsay greeted him much as he might greet another of his pack mates rather than how he might greet Maegi, Euron or Cicero. He answered in his succinct fashion, "nowhere," and pressed on, glad for the company but unable to think of anything to talk about right away.

He sighs at the blockade his brother's stoicism presents; his presence welcomed like any stranger would be. "Nowhere is somewhere." At least, it is within the depths of Blackfeather Woods. Vaati doesn't know the boy, not really. The threat of war and the matter of making sure that his siblings and all the other dwellers of the dark forest still have a home captures most of his time, energy and focus. If it could be any other way, the yearling would not mind at all. But the task of upholding the woods is time-consuming and ungenerous; eating up the last few months of his childhood and spitting out a man grown up too soon.

It is a curse, really. A curse that no one else within Meldresi's legacy had been willing to take on -- thrust upon him and then shamed for it. He knows what the others whisper in the dark; how he is too young, unfit and incapable of leading the woods like his predecessors had. Except those who came before him had not filled their ranks at record time, had not formed alliances and made their mark on the world as they knew it, all within a few months. Vaati would not be mistaken as a pretender, a teen with a head filled only with arrogance. And he certainly would not be called a distant brother with no reason to his absenteeism, not like how Damien and Cicero had been to him. Not how he figures Euron and Ramsay see him; like he does not care.

"What do you want to be?" He wonders aloud; seeking to know his brother better, his aspirations and goals, in the time that he still could. "Your role within the dark woods as you grow older -- what do you want it to be?" 

"Okay," Ramsay acknowledged in his typical brief fashion, leading them onto one of the larger trails toward the wood's heart. Vaati wasn't wrong that nowhere was somewhere, but as to the where, Ramsay just didn't know. If they kept going this way they would eventually reach the contaminated willow. The dwarf had never been there and was ignorant to the direction they were going, so kept on in silence until Vaati addressed him again.

He had been told a little of the three paths a dedicated Blackfeather Woods wolf could take, but not enough to make any major decisions on. It was plain enough from his physicality that Ramsay would never excel as a spy—perhaps he could learn to move silently and trick others, but because of his unique appearance, he was far too conspicuous to get away with it for long. That left the other two branches, but for the time being he chose to play dumb and seek more information.

"What are choices?" he asked, equally succinct, but this time he cast his elder brother a curious look.

He is somewhat greatful that the boy chooses to go along with the topic of conversation, instead of shrugging him off. "Spy," Vaati pauses, wondering if that was even an option for the boy. Unfortunate as it was, he doubted Ramsay could survive very long as an infiltrator, what being so physically distinguishable. Neither could Vaati for that matter. "Preist, Assassin." If one was going by practicality's sake, becoming a priest of the Dark Brotherhood would have been the most likely option for the boy. However, that was not to say Ramsay would be hindered from becoming any of the three options presented.

If he wanted to be a spy, they would find a way to make it so. If he wanted to become a killer for hire, Vaati would train him in a way that allowed it to become a reality. He would not be the one to tell them that they couldn't do something, and if they couldn't they would figure that out for themselves. "Take your pick."

He gave his head a gentle shake—more of a twitch for him—in response to spy. That was Euron's field anyway; his brother had had a strong grasp of the skills and characteristics of a successful spy from a very young age, and though Euron was no less hindered by his unique and unusual appearance, he did everything else masterfully. That wasn't Ramsay.

The other two options were more abstract than spying, and he had to ask, "what's a priest?" Someone had, somewhere along the line, explained to the pups the basics of each, but he couldn't really remember which was which when it came to assassin and priest. He already had Maegi pegged for the one that dealt with their religion, and while there was no rule that each of them had to have a unique skill (this wasn't him and his rivals choosing starter Pokemon, after all), he didn't think he wanted to do the same thing as his sister either.

That left the one dealing with ambushing, tactics and snuffing out the life of a target, which all sounded more fun to Ramsay than making potions from plants and various forms of worship—he waited for Vaati to answer before confirming.

Vaati gives it a thought for a moment before replying, having very little knowledge on the field priests and priestesses dabbled in specifically. "They work to praise our Gods. They make sure that our pack runs in accords with what our Gods demand, keeping an ear open for the commands of Sithis and Mephala. Herbs and sorcery and rituals, I guess. It is what mother does." He adds the last part as an afterthought, figuring the kid could at least know something about the mother-that-never-was, as they likely would not be learning it from her.

Whether or not that would drive him away from the idea was something he did not consider, for Potema was not the only one within the woods to have an acclaimed connection with the dark gods. Kove too held that rank, and another woman, as far as he knew.

What mother does. Ramsay hadn't seen his mother since the day she abandoned them in Spiderlings' Glen to be raised by their pack mates and relatives. He could hardly even remember what she looked like; he was new to memory in those days, and what he could recall was fleeting fragments at best. Knowing that she was a priest brought him no closer to knowing what a priest was, but he tucked the information away for another time. At least it was something he had on Potema, but he wasn't likely to ever talk to her about it.

"No," he said at length. "Maegi does that." Ramsay was interested enough in Blackfeather's religion, having learned some but not all of it eagerly enough, but Maegi was positively rapt whenever the subject was brought up. She talked about it often, worshipped their founder with all her being, and was consumed by it. Maegi was the only one of the three who had taken any real steps toward learning the secret language some of the Melonii wolves spoke. If anyone was destined to be a priestess, it was Maegi.

Ramsay, on the other hand, was more direct. He was a mix of his siblings. He understood the need for spirituality and for rituals, for the favour of the Gods, but he also cherished the advantage that being quiet and sly and patient could bring. Most of all, Ramsay liked to intimidate and scare others using these tactics—although it would be some time before he really understood that himself. What he did know now was that Euron was a quintessential spy and Maegi was a quintessential priest, and he was something different from them. So without much hesitation, he decided, "assassin," and looked to Vaati for more information.

Not Preist, then. Vaati knows of Maegi's inclination to the art, and is proud that she has chosen so soon. However, there is a side of him that err's on caution as she develops her ideas and pledges to the Gods, as she dabbles in witchcraft, toxins, drugs and blood rituals; willing that the fascination does not consume her in the way it did Potema. Or so, that's how Vaati sees it.

However, assassin... he found troubling to fit for the boy. Not because he did not think him capable, but he figures, why would anyone want to fight him, and who would take him seriously? Perhaps becoming an assassin would prove to easy for the boy -- fooling his targets quick enough with the ruse of his stunted neck inhibiting any tactical knowledge, just long enough to slit the other's throat unsuspected -- or too difficult to find an opponent that would stick around long enough to entertain the idea of fighting the man with no neck, out of pity.

But Vaati does not question his brother's choice, instead, nodding affirmatively, rather pleased at the choice. "Okay." It is at least something he can educate his younger on. "Well, then I guess you better train, killer." The yearling says so before cutting his brother off as they step, leaning down to (hopefully) knock the boy off his feet. Perhaps abrupt, but as it would be if the boy truly wished to be the one to take others down, instead of the one to get beat down upon.

He was focused only on plodding forward, but even if he had been watching Vaati closely, Ramsay would never have anticipated his brother's trick. He was young and, despite the circumstances of his birth and his aloof manner, he was naïve and trusting still. So when his feet came out from under him and he pitched headfirst to the ground, he didn't immediately understand what had happened. He rolled awkwardly, trying to see whether he'd tripped over a root or something, and it wasn't until his brother's words registered that he figured it out.

"Hey!" the dwarf protested, flattening his ears and baring his teeth as he struggled onto his stomach and then rose back to his paws. "No fair!" Vaati was only teaching him in the best way possible, for no wolf's life was truly fair, and an assassin had to learn to turn unfair odds into advantages if they wished to succeed in life. Ramsay didn't understand it yet—he would one day, but not yet—so he growled at his brother instead and charged, prepared to spar in his usual head-on manner with no regard for the tricks an assassin could play with their prey.