Bearclaw Valley spirits of the dead

as if making up for lost time, she is in perpetual motion.

since returning to the valley and recovering from her infection, Avicus has been restless. the sight of Evien's corpse had made her even more so. her absence had been nothing but bad for Ursus, and so she now goes above and beyond her normal effort.

winter continues, though the snowstorms have abated. the caches need filled. there are less hunters now than ever before—the striking-eyed man, for instance, has gone. other faces, too. they are few in number.

sporting a still-prominent limp, she makes her way across the territory, keeping to the shadows of trees to remain hidden. her fiery coat against the snow only gives her away, a warning beacon to any nearby prey.

there had been bucks, before. where are they now? and their does, some, perhaps, pregnant. . .

Avicus stops at the edge of one of the copses, lifting her nose, tasting the air. naught but the scent of pine and chilly damp. maybe the deer have fled, and they will go hungry. 

(not, she vows fiercely, on her watch.)

Wallowing. That's what he was doing. Drinking in the herbal scents that hung like incense smoke within the belfry of a church.

The caches of supplies were beginning to thin. Tuur, Karst, whoever he was today — the boy, — caught the sight of a ginger body coasting by his hovel while he did another monotonous count of the remedy stores.

He recognizes her. Avicus; he thought their presence to be gone from this place. As if he held an iota of good fortune for himself; he chuffs a puny laugh at his own misfortune and then curtly silences.

Her focus was on the wind and the many scents that could be found upon it; for a moment the boy was frozen in place, wondering if she would find him beyond the pine, or if perhaps the spirit of Evien and his precious plants would save him from her ire.

the little runt. she smells him on the air, faintly, even cloaked as he was by herbs. she knew he was there; he had been there since her return, and perhaps even before. his brother is long gone—dead, she hopes, for there was no use for orphan weaklings here. but Karst still remained.

she should not be tempted. her mind should be on the hunt. and yet. . . hers and Aventus' cruel pursuit of the younger children was a kind of hunt, and the game was afoot.

Avicus winds 'round trees: sinuous, wormlike. her nostrils flare as she changes course, his aroma growing still stronger. was he. . .would he come out, would he face her? perhaps he would meet the same fate as the previous healer; but he doesn't deserve it. Evien had been many-fold the man the runt would ever be. the bear had taken Evien's head and perhaps, perhaps, this boy's head belonged to her.

her tongue runs along her teeth. come, she calls out, close enough to the den that perhaps she can trap him inside. each step brings her nearer; her shadow will block out the light—

come out, she says, and it might have been teasing in any other voice but hers is flat and cold.

Karst did not know how to be pious, but he did find himself praying fervently to the spirit of Evien for protection in those interim moments, which in the end was futile. There came the serpent from the grove of ash trees, winding along the scatterings of pine, not to strike immediately but to call to him an order.

Come out, she rasps at him knowingly, hiding any true intentions behind a monotone wall. Karst is standing with his back to the entrance and he is as still as stone; turning towards the summons within seconds. He ducks towards the light outside and is left squinting as he emerges, snared by the girl's attention, wanting nothing more than to withdraw.

at least he heeds her order. she sneers at him, but does not pounce quite yet. he's grown larger—he's well on his way to surpassing her in height, and he's already nearly as bulky. the time to throw her weight around has perhaps passed. does not eliminate the possibility of psychological torture, sure. . .but there will be no more easy pickings with this one.

fight me, Avicus commands. maybe he can be of use. he certainly can be of use to the pack, if not to her. they need strong warriors now more than ever; it seems counterproductive to the pack for him to sit around in Evien's old den, doing (what appears to her) to be nothing. 

and if he can somehow best her in this spar, perhaps the girl will hold more respect for him. he will still a pudgy bastard child, in her eyes—always will be. but at least he won't be a complete waste of flesh. 

she moves closer, rolling back her shoulders, lifting her chin. fight. the word is clipped, icy. she will not take 'no' for an answer.

Of course she draws him out to punish him. He has not done anything to warrant it, but Karst rarely earns his beatings, they just happen to appease the violent whims of his superiors. Avicus has always been superior to him and they both know it; she calls him out beyond the safety of the hovel and demands he participate in something that will, undoubtedly, cause him harm.

He does not want to. It is better not to resist when others want things. As Karst steps away from the entrypoint of the medicine cache he moves towards Avicus with stiff strides, pausing when Avicus moves as well. She draws closer to him and demands again that he —fight.

Her body is poised to spring forth and strike at him. With a bit of awkward maneuvering of his own body Karst mimics the position she has set for herself, his shoulders tensing, his body aliging low to the earth with his chin guarded. Behind him his tail is limply hanging, pulled close to one of his legs.

He is afraid to make the first move.

at least he postures, rather than cowering. that's a start. but he does not strike, and Avicus eyes him narrowly, waiting. a heartbeat—then—well?

to hell with him.

his hesitation had better be used for strategizing, for she springs forward (she has to move; her coiled muscles demand it). she stops just short of his body and aims her teeth at the scruff of his neck, all the while raising her foreleg to hook 'round his shoulders and pull him down.

their sizes are still comparable enough that at least, if she can take him off-guard, her tactics will work. but she braces herself for the possibility of hitting snow and sodden dirt.

Avicus would be successful, if only because Karst's response to violence had one trajectory: downward. He did not faint so much as give up on contact, and as Avicus reached for him, he did not resist or retaliate. Those limbs hooked him, those teeth flashed around his face and then pulled at his shoulders, and he fell immediately while the ginger girl straddled overtop of him.

Karst hit the dirt hard on his side, and it was the presence of Avicus' weight that destabilized him further, forcing him to his back so his belly was exposed. It was not a sensation he enjoyed; especially so with his growing body now gathering bulk the way his parents' had. He wheezed and issued a small whine, wanting to be released, yet without the power to force the issue.

usually his submission would satisfy her, but Avicus finds herself getting angrier, the lower he sinks in the dust. it is not, after all, what she had wanted from him. she wishes him to bite back, to show some sort of spine. she already knows he is a worm; he does not have to prove it further.

fight me! she mumble-hisses, teeth muffled by his flesh, then releases his scruff, though still pinning him to the earth. fight! why?!

she is flummoxed, perturbed. she stands above him like a vulture atop a carcass, looking for the choicest bit of meat to sink its beak into. her gaze burns into his, seeking answers if they are there.

he has the muscle, the power, to shake her off now. would that he do so. . .

It wasn't enough. The red devil releases his scruff but doesn't get up from where she's settled across his body, yelling at him, demanding action. Karst is not a man of action — he is a boy of indecision, more of a host to some alien invertibrate. He'd rather sag in to the dirt or slide his way to the sea and return to the single-celled organism lifestyle.

There is something there, though. Something inherent to that body; an instinct that runs on a long fuse. It has taken this long for that fuse to light and burn down, and while it has a ways to go, he feels the sparks beneath his skin as he comes closer and closer to the explosive end that Avicus demands of him.

He trembles. At first it is fear, then it is adrenaline that burns him from the inside. He quakes as he tries to stand up and fight back against gravity and the sense of danger the devil exudes; it does not take much effort at all for Karst to rise and while he feels some strain from Avicus' body being lifted he is too busy being surprised at his own strength. He does not want to hurt her — what would happen to him, this lowly worm child, if a princess of Ursus were to be harmed?

like a seed sprouted into green from the earth, the boy rises, and Avicus with him. beneath the outrage, she feels a flutter in her stomach—it's akin to lust, though she knows not that; it is sheer exhilaration that he is finally fighting back.

no more cowering. no more half-measures, sitting in his own piss.

he will be a worthy Ursus wolf. she will make him worthy.

she slowly slides, the last grasp her teeth still on his nape. then she releases altogether, and rolls into the dirt. before he even has a chance to process his rebellion, she strikes, snakelike, upward toward his belly. 

crush me! she commands silently. his weight can suffocate her, would he use it so.

No matter how antagonistic Avicus became Karst was not the kind of creature to lash out without premeditation. In the heat of the moment he was distracted by the heft of his own body and the effort to keep it steady while he stood up, barely registering the result of those events. Avicus released him and hit the dirt but she was not down for long — launching herself up at his belly, landing a glancing blow that made him teeter and gasp. Karst stomped around like an elephant as he tried to stabilize, unaware of how close his punches came to hitting Avicus; if any of his kicks landed they'd bruise and batter her.

bruise and batter they did; she felt paws ricochet off her, one landing on a shoulder, the other on her ribs. she knew she would be tender in the coming days but she welcomed the blows. the worm was finally fighting back.

she spits a glob of his fur to the ground and rises, wincing. he is stronger than she had bargained for. 

good, Avicus says, eyes glinting as she gives him a long once-over. he has earned her respect—a meager amount, but at least something. in Ursus, we fight. we kill. her muzzle wrinkles. Karst, she utters, remembering the strange, single syllable he had offered at the bear-cave before.

if that is to be his name, then so be it. it is more noble than the monikers she has assigned him so far: worm, grub, piss-baby. . .

she gathers herself and shoots a gimlet, regal stare his way, then turns—though not without remaining keenly aware of his presence behind her. should he choose to assault from behind, she will be ready. . .and satisfied, to boot.

Avicus finds herself grinning at the thought.