Cedar Sweep Say something awful

vaguely vague for @Ethos but backdated before she met the wolves of Darkness Ridge

The forest was not her own - the serenity of the place unnerved her and the cheerful openness of it felt alien. She longed for the dark, ominous heath of overgrown trees.

That forest, her forest, was but a skeleton of the home she had known. Black bones littered the ground, Puyule's bones and Hecate's and Näkki's and everyone she'd ever known, and ash was blown in the wind like a macabre snow. 

Despite herself, she had taken up a hermit's life on beyond the edges of the forest, and early morning found her in the center of the woods having roamed back that morning. The clearing was nearly perfectly circular and couldn't have been more than a few paces across. Trees encircled it but by looking upwards a circle of blue sky could be seen and occasionally a bird soaring overhead.

Pixie's altar gave off an air of temporarily being used - nothing more than a broken section of a rotten log placed in the heart of the fairyring. The altar itself was not so important, the gods would understand if she had nothing better to use while she was here, it was the things she had gathered for their honor that were most important.

Several trinkets and fixings lay atop the table - colorful stones found at the waters edge and intriguing feathers, the skulls of small animals and the hollow bones of birds, even a dry, scaly snakeskin. They appeared to be arranged atop the stained log in a grouping that made sense only to the witch's keen eye and in the center of her intricate design - the body of a songbird.

It lay small and broken on its back, an evident twist to its neck, its wings outstretched as if in flight and its leg pointed stiffly out. Its beady eyes stared glassily at the bitch as she smoothed one of its bright yellow feathers lovingly. 

Whispering soft, dark words beneath her breath, the witch kept mismatched eyes locked on the corpse as she murmured before falling silent. Seeming dazed, she dipped her head so as to reach a point on her shoulder - already scarred with much use - and savagely bit into it. 

Bleeding, she held the wound over the bird until its sunshiney feathers had been splashed generously with black. Licking the wound clean with a pleasured shudder - she finished arranging her herbs of lavender and left her altar behind her in favor of finding sustenance for herself.

Ethos had been doing his thing mostly, sleeping on a tree branch in some trees in Cedar Sweep with usually his legs dangling over the branch like those kinds of tree-dwelling cats. His position may have looked uncomfortable, but he didn't care. Ethos rather preferred Blackfoot Forest, but he also loved Cedar Sweep. However, little did he know that the area where his "sleeping tree" was, was being used as something for maybe a witchcraft ritual.

Ethos stopped sleeping and slowly opened his icy blue eyes, which nearly looked silver. He looked down the branch, and noticed a rotten log being used as an altar, along with bones and a body of a songbird, and many other things. Despite Ethos being quite grim, he couldn't help but nearly feel a bit sickened or shocked at what was going on. What was going on?

"What are you doing?"

Had she known another had taken residence in the forest, she might have chosen a different place for her temporary home. As it was, she was surprised by his presence - not that the witch's fire-kissed mask portrayed it - and her mismatched eyes rose to coolly meet his own. 

Pixie's head cocked curiously at the sight of him in a tree - her eyes burning into him with the usual mad intensity. She cracked a single, eerie smile in his direction though whether she was amused or simply trying to unnerve him further was unclear. 

"Worshipping," came the soft, seductive rasp as she licked rusty blood from her shoulder - relishing the coppery tang of her own lifeforce. 

"Perhaps I should be asking you that question. You are the one sleeping in a tree," she purred lazily, quirking a brow at him curiously before turning to groom some of the sticky blood from her coat.

Worshipping? Who exactly was this wolf worshipping? Ethos had no knowledge of any gods or goddesses the wolves of Teekon believed in, but this slightly sparked some of his curiosity. To be honest, it was interesting in the phantom-like wolf's opinion that there were some wolves, or maybe just this female, that had some other beliefs and did other things. "Worshipping who, exactly?" Ethos then asked, tilting his head in a curious way.

"Perhaps I should be asking you that question. You are the one sleeping in a tree."

Someone had apparently also decided to bring up Ethos' tree-sleeping. "I just prefer to sometimes sleep in trees than on the ground, so I can basically get a good view." He explained.

"Worshipping who exactly?" She's unsure if the words are fascinated, as she hears them to be, or disgusted. She seems unperturbed by his potential horror in her practices, licking the last of her own blood from the reopened wound with a dainty lap. She turned her eyes on him again, giving him a cursory glance. 

No, she would not reveal the ways she'd been taught just yet. The secrets of a coven were shared only amongst it's witches (a gender neutral term).

"You can't expect a girl to give up all her secrets, can you?" It's rhetorical for even if that is his intent, he's not likely to get answers from Pixie. 

"A view of what?" The bitch raised her brows, glancing around the nearly deserted forest. As far as she could see, they were the only lupines to be found. 

Maybe Ethos couldn't expect exactly everyone to give up their secrets. Maybe the female's beliefs were important to her, and she didn't want to spill the beans to anyone else. To be honest, Ethos understood that. He didn't want to be nosy or anything, so maybe it would be best to shut his traps about the odd wolf's worshipping, and ritual.

"A view of what?"

A view of what? Now that seemed like an interesting question. "The sky." Ethos said, not caring how crazy he sounded. "Maybe some of the lupines that are still around. It feels nice being above ground, if you understand."

Ethos then started to climb down the tree, revealing his dark appearance, and the only visible color that made him not appear as a phantom: grey. It was on his flank. He was able to see what the female looked like, and she looked interesting. "My name is Ethos." He said. "Ethos Oscuro. I usually go by the nickname of Tasalul though, but either or is fine with me."

He says no more on the matter of her art and Pixie offers no more than what she's given him on the subject. 

"The sky." she repeats doubtfully, knowing that the tree's limbs - and those of its neighbors - blocks out most of the cerulean blue. "I don't imagine it would but then, if that's how you sleep best," Pixie shrugged a single russet shoulder, as if to say it was his decision. 

He descended from his perch - revealing himself to be a male of average stature and foreboding coloring - prowling closer as he introduced himself. 

"Ethos," she drawls, " tell me, are you an ethical man?" There's a teasing twist to her lips as she says it, for if he is then he's most surely in the wrong company. 

"They call me Pixie," she whispers daintily, knowing that the sweet name doesn't fit her in the least. 

When Pixie had asked Ethos if he was an ethical man, with a teasing tone to her voice, Ethos shook his head. "If I was, I'd be one." He said, his expression showing absolutely no emotion whatsoever. "My father was quite ethical." Eventually the female had said her name was Pixie, and questions began swimming in Ethos' head. Pixie? Why would such a wolf doing ritualistic sacrifices or whatever have a name like that? Wouldn't she have a more darker name?

Ethos did.

Ethos then sat down, one of his ears twitching with annoyance as some kind of insect or whatever began crawling on it, and it went away. "Fun fact about me, maybe two, I was an assassin, and also a member of a pack called the Tribe of Night. However, I believe I must fulfill my mission as an assassin, and I'm great at being one." He said, in an almost casual-like voice. Of course he felt it was his job to be an assassin. "I became so stealthy I was given the nickname of Tasalul, Arabic for 'stealth'. I was known as Tasalul since then."

The male is too lackluster to have any fun with. 

Pixie finds his emotionless drone uncompelling and zones out as he speaks of his father, yawning. Her attention is briefly caught by his confusion over her name but other than that - he's shown little emotion in anything. 

The bitch raised her brows as he tells the tale of his life story, not impressed. "Forgive me if I don't quite return the favor with a "fun fact"." 

Ethos honestly didn't care really what Pixie would say, or do. She's just a wolf, a normal wolf with a demented mind like me. He thought. Let her do what she wants. The phantom-like wolf then noticed some kind of rat or prey animal of some kind scurrying by, and he crushed it with his paw like it didn't mean anything to him, staring at it. Ethos didn't know what to do with it, maybe treat it as just a plain piece of prey? 

Ethos then decided to get his expression and voice not looking or sounding emotionless, and he decided to ask a question. "Are you planning on joining a pack, or are you just solitary?" He asks.

She blinked a sapphire eye at him lazily in response to his question.

"A pack? Hmmm, I doubt they'd want me amongst their ranks," she spoke casually but the truth was, the witch wasn't likely to be welcome amongst any of Teekon's inhabitants. She knew this but preferred keeping her plans concealed, particularly from wolves she'd just met.