Moonspear a hunt

For @Sialuk.

The sudden loss of Elke's little immediate family came as a very heavy pill to swallow. For over a week now she had come to search, endlessly, tirelessly. She had continued on to a point she was certain her body would take much needed time to recover after and yet still she pressed on, as though should she stop her efforts it would be to give up on the two very wolves who had been a constant in all her life. After being separated from her father, loosing both her mother and sister was something Elke couldn’t in her accept.

And then winter had brought storms. Storms has brought hunger and rage. Rage had brought the beasts. Bears. Elke had never seen one before in all her life though only knew them to be great and massive beasts, with claws like the large cats, jaws then the largest wolf's ever could be and a coat so thick little could penetrate it.

The attack on Moonspear and the Glen had not gone passed Elke's knowledge. Deaths of their pack-mates and loved ones had been lost, including Elke's aunt whom she had enjoyed but had not the opportunity to fully know. Deaths… Losses, Elke moved through the heavy snows at the foothills of the mountain in mourning. Though wolf and a northern girl, a chill took her thinning body by the lack of food she had eaten, by the wear her body now took from her search. She wondered then if she would be the next to parish.

In her mouth was a small weasel Sialuk had managed to catch earlier that day. She had killed it with the purpose of honoring the dead, but when she picked up Elke's trail, she veered off and thought better of her original idea. Both Elke's mother and sister had gone missing, and Sialuk could not begin to imagine the hurt she must be feeling. Already she had lost her home, and now her mother and sister had disappeared. Sialuk had not asked the bones about them, fearing that they would tell her something terrible. If they did, she would not want to hide it from Elke, but she also did not want to cause the girl any more distress.

When she caught up to Elke, it was clear that her peer had not been taking care of herself. With nobody else to take care of her, Sialuk could not blame her. Gently, she touched her cousin's shoulder and placed the small weasel at her feet.

You need to keep your strength, she said.

She pauses in her trek, breathing deep the scents around her. Mostly just frozen waters of ice and snow and she could only smell her cousin by how directly near she was coming. The phantom faced young girl turns her attention to the other, meeting her almond hase with a solemn expression of her own. Though as the weasel is settled, a smile presses to Elke's features.

Always being a girl who had been kept to the outskirts of her birth territory, she had grown to be bot only reclusive but rather selective of those she reached out too. Elke was far more in tune with the nature of the world itself around her then making conversation with her packmates. Sialuk however, like Hydra, had become the beginnings of friendship outside her little immediate family who now, as it were, all were lost to her.

Thank you cousin... She speaks, her breath a quiver of weariness and tiredness. I guess I spend too much time worrying of others and not myself. She tries to make light of it, to joke upon her own stupidity, but it was obvious the loss of her family had effected Elke in ways she could not shake off and move on with. She wondered how @Hydra was holding up with this all too.

This is not a dissatisfying quality, Sialuk reassured her, but to worry about them, you must keep well. Without her strength, how would Elke be able to worry for her family? It was important to look after herself so she could be strong when they returned. And Sialuk did believe they would return. Her own mother had disappeared for a time, and she had come back. Sialuk remembered the feeling clearly, and how at least she’d had her father to talk to when Kukutux had gone missing.

If you think it would bring comfort, I could ask the bones, she offered. It had brought Sia comfort in that time, even if they had not given her a clear answer as to what was going on with her mother. It was also a good way to show her support for her cousin, she thought.

Elke nods, a silent agreement to her cousin of behalf of keeping herself well if she is going to be able to help at all with recovering her mother and sister. It was hard, emotionally, to take the time needed to sleep, drink and eat properly. She felt she was using up precious time, time which her family may not have. But how far longer could she press on, how much she have the strength to help them if she hadn't any for her own self?

Taking full awareness then of her youthful foolishness, Elke settled then onto the cold snowy ground and began to bite and peel at the skin of the weasel. Yes, Elke said then after a mouthful, You'd take me to them? She asked then, wanting to know, needing to know, if her efforts were in vain.

Tarot draw: the tower, the fool, the hanged man.

And so she led her cousin to the bones, shaking the bag as she always did and watching the way they fell in front of her. At once, she spotted the three that fell closest to one another. The practice itself was becoming more natural to her, more familiar with each reading she attempted. This one, she knew, was more important than some of the others she had taken on.

First was chaos. An upheaval. That one was obvious. Elke had been left behind. Whether or not it was choice was unclear. Second came a beginners mind. Perhaps the beginning of a journey. Lastly came peace. Contentment.

They do not answer me about your family, but they have spoken of you. You are to go on a journey, and this is how you will find peace with their departure. I think it may be that you find them there, or perhaps you find something at the end of your journey that comforts you. This journey may be spiritual in nature, not in the sense of actually moving, though it’s harder to tell with this one.

At last, Sialuk relaxed her brow and sat back, seeking Elke’s reaction. Would she gain comfort from these bones, or would they only make her angry for not giving more clear answers? Sialuk knew how fickle they were, and how frustrating they could be. But hopefully the reading would help in some way, even if it was not immediate.

Elke followed her family and friend, the rodent which had been caught by her cousin clutched protectively within her jaws. When they arrived to Sialuk's place here in the mountainous forest, the pale faced girl began at the kill if she were to recover anytime soon. Sialuk shook a bag of skins and tossed the bones out from within. Lilac eyes watched, both curious and afraid. Whatever word given, the priestess would not lead her astray.

She did not get a direct answer whether her mother and sister still lived. Truth to be told, Elke did not expect a direct answer, either. Sialuk spoke of a journey, mentally or physically. Elke didnt obviously think she might find her family just on a 'mental trip' as it were and if there was any chance they were stolo alive, Elke would have to go.

If I am to go on this journey, I know that I will miss you... She says with a weak smile. Hydra, too, she would miss, who had filled the void of the loss of her father who too she didnt think she would see again if she were to go. How do you know what the bones say is true, anyway? She is left to wonder. She didnt want to leave Moonspear behind if it was for nothing. Is it magic? Is it gods?

Sialuk smiled softly at the kind words her cousin spoke of her. Elke would be missed, too. She did not wish for her cousin to go, but that was part of the deal with the bones (and by extension, Sixsix). By allowing her to use them, it did not always bring good news. The knowledge they presented her was neither good nor bad. It just was. To explain was difficult, even though Sialuk had spent much time putting her mind to it.

In truth, I do not know. It is a feeling I get from them. Sialuk paused, then shared something with Elke that was a bit more personal than she would with just anybody. One wolf, Norah, told me—in so many words—that it was just pretend. I do not believe her now that I have worked with the bones more. They have meaning. Not everybody believed that, but Sialuk firmly did. Skeptics be damned.

She wondered where Sialuk had learned to even use these bones and where she had gotten the idea from. Was it her mother? Had her companion, Sixsix, give them to her as a useful sign? Elke wondered but did not wish to bombard her cousin with question. For now, she would listen and she would eat the rodent presented to her as she did so.

Ears perked, hearing the woman's name but not knowing her personally. Elke did not know many. She was a rather sheltered woman, as it were. Perhaps this journey of hers would change that in her. My father talked to me about magic before... She wanted to confirm it wasnt just something made up, that others believed other then Sialuk herself. That Elke believed too because she believed whatever @Mahler said to be truthful. Some animals are gifted with it. Sialuk, as it were, seemed to have been gifted. Elke could have only ever hoped to be so blessed. He told me I was named after a wolf who could create rain. That she had met a great reindeer in a meadow atop a mountain. That he created the snow.

She smiled as Elke spoke of her father, a wolf that she did not know much about. Why had he left her here? Why was he not here when Elke's mother had been here? She did not know, and again, Sialuk did not ask. Why a husband left his wife was business that she was not meant to know.

Your father is a good man, Sialuk assured her cousin. Whoever he was, he reminded Sialuk of her mother. The story of a wolf who could create rain, a great reindeer atop a mountain... those were elements that she could easily see fitting into tales woven by her own mother. She knew the stories differently, but the outcomes were the same.

My name has the meaning 'raindrop' in my mother's tongue, and what is that but melted snow? We are namekin as well as bloodkin, she said, smiling.

Elke smiles faintly to her cousin's first sentence, thinking of her father and their once home high upon the peaks of Nova. The northern girl was not even a year old and already she had held three homes. Soon, a fourth, if the bones were to be true.

They were both named in regards to the rain, as Sialuk explained to her. It caused her coal brushed tail to thump upon the cool earth and a pleasured rumble from parted, now bloodied white lips. There she said no more, content to spend these moments in some silent comfort with her cousin.

So long as Sialuk would allow it, Elke would visit and rest here often. She would carve paths in the foothills as she both worked for her pack and searched for her family. She would take it easy and wait for the next sign to come that would let her know she should move on.

Elke just didnt know just how big and terrible that sign would be...

Sialuk will welcome her back if she ever returns. <3
Thank you so much for the thread & development!

The silence that settled there was pleasant, comforting. She found a friend in her cousin then, more than she had in anybody her age. In the weeks to come, they would spend as much time together as their duties allowed. For now, she relaxed in the company of Elke, glad to have a peer her own age to share her moments with.