Herbalists' Cache blue

There was something that was just too enchanting about Komodo. She had thought him at first to be a simple man of simple desires, for often their days before their departure for Meares Island had been spent border marking, napping, and cache filling.  They did not talk often (which was a relief to the mute woman), and when they did it was simple. It was only just before they began their trip to visit the Cortens that she had begun to realize the subtle but oh so real depth that the angakkuq contained.

His rituals intrigued her. She often stood alongside him and mimicked his actions and tried to pick up on the powerful feelings that emenated from him.  He was too deep for her to grasp; everything he did, it felt like she was just grazing the surface of his substance.  She was comforted by the constant steady drumbeat of his paws against the earth, always in the background.  She enjoyed rubbing her angled jaw against the soft brown thickness of his fur, she enjoyed preening it with her teeth.  At night she would shield herself from the cold by pushing her nose beneath one of his heavy forepaws and worming her way into his embrace, Yakone tucked in the curl of her mother's body.

One night during their return as she nestled into his dense and heavy-scented pelt, she felt something within herself that caused her to withdraw from the angakkuq completely and from that moment their budding relationship very suddenly split among an invisible fault line and shattered.  

Since their travels had begun the pair had been inexorably close, and now she treated him with the cold, standoffish indifference of a stranger.  Still, she encouraged her daughter to interact with the druid and never dissuaded the earthstalker from showering the young girl with affection.  Even more strange, she would slip away when she felt her absence would go unnoticed and imitated some of the queer things Komodo did.  But it was no longer just the man's rituals that intruiged her. It wasn't the way slurred way he talked, or the gentle roll of his shoulders when he walked.  It was him.

That alone was not enough to cause her to disentigrate — no, it was the bold thought that she might have attracted his molten gaze that caused her to push him away with such ferocity.  What confused her even more was that she did not understand why. Why? She was not as beautiful as the graceful inkstained sheepdog that occupied Wheeling Gull. She was not smart like Maegi.  She was not a good, kind woman.

And even still, if she did succumb to her desire — if the earthstalker even loved her (although that was thinking much farther ahead than they presently were) — would he run straight into the arms of another woman when the breeding season came, like Xan had?

It did not matter.  She would not let herself be used and manipulated like that again, even as good as the Angakkuq was to her.  She did not deserve, truly, how good he was to her.  Perhaps now that he had seen Xan and her children with his own eyes, he might understand.

The trio arrived on the bridge of Morningside late in the evening, but even as close as they were it seemed as if Yakone was becoming tired.  She was too difficult to carry now, as big as she had gotten; they'd have to settle down in the forest for the night.  She settled her baby down and got her to sleep, but that meant that it was just the mother and @Komodo... and she was not about to acknowledge him first.

Their trip to visit the Cortens, and their time upon the island, had been nothing but fulfilling. Sure, he hadn’t particularly enjoyed the news that he and his raven were tasked with sharing, but it was fulfilling in other ways and 99% of that was at the hands of the silent woman at his side. She had melded quite seamlessly into their society during their short stay, and the man found it quite fun to tout her around and show her off and indulge all the fun parts of life that were so difficult to do solo. He introduced her to Sirimiri and Serein, both of whom were green with a chummy sort of envy, demonstrated various ceremonies and indoctrinations to her and Yakone, and he might have considered it a grand bacchanal if it were not for her change of heart upon their return.
 
Less and less time was spent with the raven, and more time was spent with her child. He was good at babysitting  apparently, but it did not mean that he particularly enjoyed it or wanted to devote his time to it. Nonetheless he did often seek Yakone out to engage her in play [or simple juvenile conversation] whenever her mother did make one with the shadows and leave them by their lonesome. 

Despite this, life, at the moment of here and now, was easy. Many might think the life of the vagrant to be cruel and harsh, but the angaqquk’s experience could be nothing more opposite. The freedom nourished him as would a fine liquor, lubricating his body as well as his soul and making even the most mundane tasks. The absence of hierarchy, the man found to be very in line with his values [though he though himself inclined to leadership, he never took particular joy in asserting himself or his ideas over another, which was a thing power had a tendency to do to a wolf]. He blossomed under the influence of a woman’s affection  — that type of surly confidence that came from a man that knew he was truly wanted. It was a nice change of pace; not having to try to convince a woman of her latent desires. 

— but apparently, as of recent, that was not so!

The trio had decided to make camp for the night, and as the raven put her child to bed, the man watched her and wondered. He’d try tonight, like he’d tried every night, but he wasn’t sure how far he’d get with the voiceless woman. At times she was as consistent as the phases of the moon, but other times her vicissitude of emotions more closely resembled the churning waters of a river’s rapids — flaring and swirling in places he did not expect, and challenging his ability to stay afloat. Perhaps that's what enamored him so about the raven, his inability to figure her out, as well as the subtle feralness that belied almost all the things she did. It was a part of him that he saw reflected well within her, and so the earthstalker was not so quick to label it as bad. In fact, he often wished to nurture it; if for nothing more than to see where the wilds might take him. 

She was ignoring him, but Komodo was firm in his belief that he could ignore louder. His molten gaze simmered upon her as she swayed and moved about their dwelling, knowing full and well that she could feel the weight of his heavy-handed attention despite her turned back and reluctant willingness to acknowledge him. The raven liked to play these games, but she rarely succeeded. It was a sacrifice that came with the earthstalker’s courtship, for he was a man who liked to get his way. 

So, he stood there and stoked the growing discomfort that might force her to address him. It would happen eventually, and he was fine to remain reticent until that happened.   

They were locked into what might seem like a stalemate to an outsider, but both of them knew that Komodo's resolve was stronger than hers.

She wasn't angry with him.  Perhaps she wasn't angry at all; there was a rolling fire in her belly, yes.. but it was more a concoction of shame and embarrassment than anything else.  Alexander had humiliated her.  She fretted over what had transpired — in front of Komodo, in front of the kids! — between herself and that vindictive child she once had called her husband each and every night.. and thus far she had been too frightened to acknowledge it.

All she knew was that she had started to heal.  Misguided as that alabaster man might be, their children were loved.  They were hers no longer, but they were fat, growing, and attached.  If they wanted to seek her out as adults, she would not spurn them... but no longer would she grasp desperately at straws that were quite plainly out of reach.  

And while that helped her with the wounds of her past, it didn't help the nervous energy that collected in her present.  The fretting, the anxiety.  If he had tried to comfort her — and he might have; the winter raven was notoriously obtuse — she had missed it completely.

Yakone drifts off into an easy slumber and she untangles herself from around him.  She cannot meet his gaze (hah!) but she does take a reluctant step towards the Earthstalker.  Her ears slick back and she struggles to find what she wants to say.  Words for her are hard, abstract feelings are even harder.  Mm-mo-do?

Komodo loved things shrouded in mystery, but he sincerely wished that he could peer into the mind of the voiceless girl and know what she was thinking. He was not a dense man, and he could easily piece together that her reticence was left over from her meeting with her ex-husband and ex-children; an ex-family. Though Komodo was fairly certain that he had fathered a number of children over the years, he did not want their burden and they certainly did not want his, so the man found it hard to imagine what it would be like to shirk ones that were actually loved and actually wanted. Without her words to explain it to him, empathy was not his natural response… but try he did!

“Whut?” he encouraged her to continue despite his guarded tone, despite her discomfort. Nothing good ever came from playing it safe.

She grappled with some kind of response.  She could not tell him the magnitude of grief she felt for her babies.  The wound was healing, but Reigi would likely never be completely over the betrayal of finding out that not only did Xan hate her for leaving, he had pawned off their children — her children — on the woman who caused her to run in the first place.

She knew that it was her own fault that she wasn't involved in their lives, but she did not understand how nobody else could see that it was theirs, too.  Her only solace had been Yakone and Komodo, and she had spurned the latter.

Am, am very sorry.  The line of her mouth tightened as she sighed, knowing that the answer was not sufficient.  Am hurting, Modo.

Komodo lowered his simmering gaze, suddenly quite aware of her attempts to connect with him. She was so like him, in many ways. She had sheer will to pull back when the going got tough —  it was not an easy thing to do, but was this a strength or a weakness? He might never know, even inside himself. The raven also had the ability to apologize, and admit her wrongs — but were they truly wrongs, or were they both at fault? There was an extra hurdle of her nonverbal tendencies, which was a hardship that the earthstalker might never have to cover on his own, not matter how many times he may coach the voice into silent womens. In many ways, she was stronger than him, especially in her capacity to love, and her capacity to let go.

In this way, the woman managed to frighten him, in a way that he had rarely felt before. If she could [willingly, albeit painfully] bid farewell to her children, then what kept the pair together besides their animalistic attraction and their will to get back to Undersea in one piece? Was it only an eventuality that she may say goodbye to him too, and take solace in the arms of another man? If that was the case — he would surely seek these answers from the gods, later — Komodo decided he must savor every moment that was offered, and stonewall no longer. “Whut hurts, chickadee?” he asked, upturning his gaze towards where she stood, looking every part a small, sorry pup.

Komodo did not yet know the kind of longlasting loyalty that came with taming a creature as wild and fierce as 'Io of Undersea.  His concerns matched with her own though neither of them knew it.  She resented Komodo because she cared for him, and what had happened the last time she had opened up to a man in this way?  He bedded another woman!  He punished her with his fangs!  And now he had given the one thing she loved — her children — to the very woman who had sought to see Reigi banished from the valley.

She did not know Komodo as well as she would like.  But she did know Alexander, and she did know men.  He had the same look on his face that Xan had always carried when he tried to convince her to stay with him despite the obvious lack of care for her wellbeing, or for their children.  She hated that this good, sweet man could reflect anything of her former husband.

Ah.. she began quietly, unsure of how to begin.  It was not a physical pain that ailed her, it was nothing the Angakkuq could fix.  It was an emotional scar that had been brutally reopened and bled dry.  Even if she could speak to her fullest potential, there were no words to describe the magnitude of devastation she had faced.  She had lost her home, she had lost her babies.  She had watched someone she once loved turn into a creature filled to the brim with animosity.

Komodo had done nothing to deserve her caution; for now, she would bare herself to him.  But if she looked back and it seemed as if she were reliving her days in Bearclaw, she could build her walls back up quicker than most.  She drew her paw up to her chest, and it wavered there, unsure.  My babies, h-home..  She placed her paw back on the ground, ashamed of her words.  She wanted to scream why?, but she knew the Angakkuq had no answers for her.  He hurt, give my baby to Redleaf.  Baby call her mama. Love him once, no more.

She paces towards the earthstalker and whines, tail swaying as she lowers herself to a crouch.  She smooths her angular face against the healer's plush fur.  Was 'fraid, Modo.  Tired?  Of.. being hurt. 

sorry sorry sorry to make you wait for a post that is literally only speech

Komodo listened and nodded, but these were not things that he did not already know. A story of love and loss, but it was almost as if her belief that he could not heal emotional wounds was an unspoken challenge to him — perhaps put into the karmic cycle through her subconscious beliefs and manifesting within him as very a real desire to heal her and take away her pain. It was the job of an angakkuq, was it not? Shamans healed by deconstructing reality and leveraging much more than the physical healing arts, or the ephemeral imperceptibility of sheer intention — it was both, always both, intertwined and never existing without one another. He saw the wounds she wore upon her soul as if they were slights and blemishes against her corporeal physicality. The brutish man crept towards her, breaching the barrier of touch, and held his raven tight as he recited the words of the ancestral angakkuqs.

“If’n yuh come to me as uh victim, ah will not support yah.
But ah’ll have the courage to walk with yah through the pain that yah’re suffering. 
Ah’ll put yah in the fire, ah'll undress yah, and ah'll sit yah on the earth.
Ah'll bathe yah with herbs, ah'll purge yah, and y’all vomit the rage n’ the darkness ‘nside yah.
I'll bang yer body with good herbs, and ah'll put yah to lay in the grass, face up’n to the sky.
Then h'll blow yer crown to clean the old memories that make yah repeat the same behav’yuh.
 
Ah'll blow yer forehead to scare away the thoughts that cloud yer vision. 
Ah'll blow yer throat to release the knot that won't let yah talk.
Ah'll blow yer heart to scare fear, so that it goes far away where it cannot find yah.
Ah'll blow yer solar plexus to extinguish the fire uh’ the hell yah carry inside, and yah’ll know peace.
Ah'll blow with fire yer belly to burn the attachments, n’ the love that was not.
Ah'll blow away the lovers that left yah, the children that were stolen.
Ah'll blow yer heart to make yah warm, to rekindle yer desire to feel, create and start again.
Ah'll blow away the garbage that yah collected trying to love what did not wanted tuh be loved.
Ah'll use the broom, and the sponge, and the rag, and safely clean all the bitterness inside yah.
Ah'll blow yer hands to destroy the ties that prevent yah from creating.
Ah'll blow yer feet to dust and erase the footprints memories, so yah can never return to that bad place. 
Ah'll turn yer body, so yer face will kiss the earth.
I'll blow yer spine from the root to the neck to increase yer strength and help yah walk upright.
And Ah'll let yah rest.

After this yah will cry, and after crying yah will sleep, 
And yah will dream beautiful and meaningful dreams, 
and when yah wake up I'll be waiting for yah.
Ah'll smile at yah, and yah will smile back
Ah'll offer yah food that yah will eat with pleasure, tasting life, and Ah'll thank yah.
Because what ah’m offering today, was offered to me before when darkness lived within me.
And after ah was healed,
Ah felt the darkness leaving, and ah cried.

Then we will walk together, and ah'll show yah my garden, and my plants, and ah'll take yah to the fire uh-gain.
And we’ll talk togethuh in a single voice with the blessing of the earth.
And we will shout to the forest the desires of yer heart.
And the fire will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.
And the mountains will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.
And the rivers will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.
And the wind will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.
And then we will bow before the fire, and we will call upon all the visible and invisible guardians.

And yah will say thank yah to all of them.
And yah will say thank yah to yerself.”

Then the man stopped, and wondered what she would make of such a promise.

  

He said so many things that after some time, she'd begun to lose him.  She tried desperately to understand it all, but most of it was over her head.  But there was something in her that desired to please him, and something inside her that trusted he could make her free.  She cast one glance over at her daughter, then eyed the angakkuq from the side.

O-okay, she said haltingly, turning her angled face up to him, But, when home.  Not here.  She wanted to be back at the island before he did to her what he promised, for she did not quite understand everything that would happen and it would be safer for Yakone to be in the hands of Coelacanth than alone out here.

There was a part of Komodo that knew this was all too much for the raven, but there was nothing that he had thrown at her yet that she hadn’t been able to handle, so she figured, why not push the limits? Why not give her everything he had, everything he ever was or had been — if for anything, why not just see what she was capable of? The woman did have a way of constantly surprising him, anyways. 

He stood over her, chest heaving as he drew breath, finding equilibrium after having spoken so many words. The angakkuq understood the concern for the child right away — the things he knew were not for the innocent; they did not yet need such realities to stain the pretty soft silk of their consciousness. He grunted in agreement, but could not offer her any other comforts in that moment. He would do for her what he could, and whether or not his magik took hold depended entirely upon her. It always did.