Blackfeather Woods passing by the hills, 'til i hear the name

@Averna  backdated <3

for a day, @Relmyna's body was left where the listener had meted out her last breath. astara had stayed loyal as a shadow to her mother's gradually-colder body, until at last dawn broke and she jolted awake. almost instantly, it hit -- her mother was dead.

she sucked in a shaky breath, and with misery pooling her subconsciously like a freshly undammed reservoir, the girl set her teeth to her mother's scruff. between choked back sobs, she wrenched her mother's neck back and forth. when that yielded no movement from her dam, astara began to claw at her shoulders in desperation.

still, relmyna did not stir.

wake up,  the nightcub pleaded, pressing her cheek into the cold forehead of her mother. don't leave me. relyman remained motionless, her head slumping back to the ground as astara pulled away. she drew another shaky breath, tilting her head skyward. above her the canopy rustled, and she saw she had drawn the eyes of several carrion hunters. they stepped from branch to branch, tilting their heads this way and that, their beaks clacking. she heard a chatter rise up among them and her hackles lifted as a crow landed mere feet from her mother's inert form.

she stiffened, her head lowered as the bird stepped close. a low growl sounded from the girl's tight throat, and she charged belligerently at the corvid with a snarl.

The spirit on the other hand had realised right away that their caretaker was dead. It did something to her emotional world but not as much as it did the dark one. The pale youth herself cared less about the mortal world, for she believed herself to be a bridge between the real world and the spirit world, and this body, this husk of hers, merely an instrument to move herself forward and through this life. She had checked in occasionally over the last twenty four hours to see how her counterpart was doing but she did not care to sit together and sob.

The body was a thing that had admittedly intrigued her. There was only one thing that she could think of to do with it, but she was not sure, looking at the emotions that ravaged the dark one, if it would be a wise thing to suggest or to enact at the moment. So she bided her time and waited, but the dark one remained touched by emotion and seemed wishing to drag the body elsewhere.

Unlike the dark one, the spirit had learned some words. The dark master had taught has, as well as the large black one and the star-dusted wolf, the latter two who had left some time ago. Most everyone left, but the spirit was okay with that, for it was a part of life. Life brought you who you needed, and took away who you no longer needed. The caretaker was gone because her body had taught them all she could, so now she would stay only to teach them in spirit. But she wouldn't let Squeaky hear about that, of course, or there would be more reasons to cry for the both of them, no doubt.

The spirit watched as the dark one jumped at the bird. Then, as she stepped towards the body of their caretaker, the one who had borne them, she said: We eat for food, then put bones on altar for spirits. Then she braced herself for impact because she expected that Squeaky would react to this in much the same way she reacted to the bird.

as soon as the hellion sprung towards the crow, it gathered its wings and flitted easily out of reach of her hungering fangs. whirling back with a snarl, she came eye to eye with averna and stilled. 

her gaze drifted to relmyna’s body and her expression was slow to change - from confused and pained to deeply darkened as her sister’s suggestion registered. a great conflict assailed her — and drawing a deep breath, she gazed at the band of crows above, her stomach curdling at the very notion of them squabbling among relmyna’s bones.

The dark one looked conflicted by the suggestion. The spirit understood; wolves who were less spirit and more mortal might not understand. They valued the mortal coil too much, but what did it really bring? They needed to survive and it was a cold and harsh world.

No decision was made. Without further ado, the spirit moved towards the body. She moved to a hind leg, and glanced at the dark one. There was something weird and inherently wrong-feeling about this, she had to admit, but her senses told her that this was good, they needed this. And if her senses told her, then it was good. Her senses were linked directly to the very spirits that their caretaker had become part of, after all. She paused for but a moment, not eager to receive an unwarranted snap from the dark one should she take apart the body.

as the little spirit drifted over to relmyna's body, astara felt a dark emotion compel her. her hackles flared, and she wrenched her gaze from the crows to look full-bore at her sister, her aubergine gaze turbulent with raw emotion.

her sister, half-hung over her mother, was regarded coldly.

but astara did not move.

no hunger stirred in her bones to see her mother dismantled by her own wretched children, but astara understood the meaning in averna's intentions. wrestling with the incorrigible idea did not sit right with the estranged night-cub, but neither did letting carrion pick her mother's rotted body.

finding the idea of her mother ripped apart by lesser creatures brought a malign sense of despair to astara, and with a dark hiss she sat like a blackened sphinx before her mother, watching averna, waiting for her to commit her first inexorable crime against her own blood.

A lot was going on in the gaze of the dark one, her dark shadow. The spirit hovered over the unmoving limb and watched the dark one. There was a silent 'no' in the gaze, but knowing her dark shadow well enough, the pale youth knew that she would not be moved against. Or at the very least, that the risks were small. Perhaps because behind all of that raw emotion, the dark one also knew that this was the best they could do. This was what the caretaker would have wanted.

Words had never been their forte so without speaking the spirit looked down at her paws and closed her eyes, thanking the spirits around them -- and mostly the spirit of the caretaker -- for providing for them. She made a promise that she would make sure the proper bones were placed upon the altar.

Then without further ado she unceremoniously grabbed one of the hind limbs and started to tear the flesh. She would divide it into smaller portions so that it would not be so oddly recognisable as caretaker or wolf. It would only be flesh, then, and perhaps the shadow would not feel quite so cannibalistic and wrong in taking it for sustenance, then. They could use it to fill caches, so that they would surely last through the coming period of time with no trouble, despite being only them two. For now, tearing off the limb felt strange and wrong, but she knew that it was right in her head and so the spirit continued the task.

astara waited for averna to make the first move, dissecting her mother's limbs in the same manner she had seen her consume prey a thousand times. only, this was not prey, was it?

but it wasn't her mother anymore either, right?

astara watched with great conflict in her gaze, feeling a trailing of disgust -- but bit by bit, the corpse resembled her mother less -- until at last relymna's body was drawn into quartered bits of wretched fur and blood, and little else.

she reminded herself that she was not doing this senselessly as she reluctantly fell upon a piece averna had offered; this was the spirits' will, and so, it must be done -- but astara brought no joy from her task, and woodenly she chewed what she could and arranged the rest far out of the reach of carrion-pickers, moving about in a senseless way, her eyes unseeing and her movement that of a shocked or insensate being, simply doing what came as habit and carrying no thought along with it.

It did not matter to the spirit whether her shadow would eat or not. The shadow remained, but as the body started to resemble the caretaker less and less and became more and more just pieces of meat, eventually the shadow took a step forward to take a piece. The spirit, too, quenched her initial hunger since the pack had been ripped apart. There were not many left now to provide for them, so they had to provide for themselves and hope that the cold would pass soon. The blood of her mother marred her pale snout but she did not seem to mind it more than if it was some sort of prey. This was survival. This was just.

Once she had eaten her fill, the pale youth wordlessly started to take bits of the corpse and bring them to caches. Near the body she made a cache where she put in most of the body's remains, so that the birds could not easily take it while she carried away the rest. Then she divided the rest over various caches so they may always find something to eat across the territory.

Lastly, the pale youth started to pick apart the pelvis bone for it would be a holy symbol that she would place upon one of the blackfeather woods' altars.

it was easier to simply not think at all.

the girl, eating what she could and carrying the rest, mutely followed in her sister's example. some bits deposited here, some samples stored elsewhere.. when at last all that remained was the pelvic arch of her mother, astara sat behind her sister while she worked, her posture alert but eyes glazed and distant.

This was a task that the spirit took upon her and allowed her shadow only to help alongside. She nudged here and there to indicate what need to be carried, for her to follow, or for her to perform a simple task, but other than that the spirit did the work. She could tell that the loss of the caretaker had hit her harder than it had the spirit. While she missed the mortal body of the caretaker the spirit felt that she could always sidestep into the world of the spirits and commune with the caretaker there should her advice ever be needed. The pelvis bone would help them, too.

They had perhaps lost their mother, but they had received a powerful artifact and ally within the realm of the spirits, besides the Unknown one -- their father.