Ravensblood Forest ketos

Whusss, whusss, whusss... the sound of raven wings cutting across a clear sky, followed by the sigh of tree boughs as the bird lands. There is silence for a few minutes after. When the bird croaks a call it carries far. The sound resembles that of stones being thrown in to a river; at least that is what the nameless boy thinks as he prowls after it.

Far off among another forest, maybe winging over the mountains, comes a reply; the raven turns to listen and for a second the wolf below pauses, straining to hear it too. He can't hear anything clear enough, and startles when the raven he has been trailing lifts from the treetop and flies off. The sound of the branch shaking makes his skin crawl and it serves as a distraction.

When he finally stops his cowering and looks up, seeking the raven's shape and the path it takes, he cannot tell where it has gone. A burning jealousy erupts within the boy. The raven could have brought him to a meal (that was how he'd found it initially, at a carcass picked clean), instead it left him abandoned in the woods.

it was with a lighter heart that she came away from the island. the duck found in her the notes of a searching-song. kukutux waded through sedges and found herself within a cawing forest.

black wings against the sky. tulugaq, the inner spirit whispered reverently. slender shoulders shivering beneath the greymarked rabbitskin she wore, the woman pressed gingerly into the weald. if tulugaq called, one was right to answer.

kukutux followed the sound of the spiritbird voices until she came to where they had been. but they were here no longer. instead, where she had expected to see the ravens gather, there was only a large wolf.

for a moment the moonwoman started, and then her scrutinizing gaze softened. tall, cut from rock. something familiar to the greystone of him, but just a boy. "i greet you, nuak," the duck said softly, staying as she was. muzzle tilted to the heavens; she looked again for the dark feathers and harsh voices, but none came.

was this where raven had meant to lead her?

The boy watched the branches of the trees. It felt wrong to hold his head so high, but he watched for the shape of those wings and saw only the tremble of those outstretched arms against an eager wind. The petrichor of a coming rain hung around him. When he could not find proof of avian life he resumed the sulking posture that had become the norm for his body, shoulders bunched and tail low but crooked.

The stranger's greeting startles him immediately — having not noticed her arrival, the voice penetrates the forest's shade and finds his ears as if to strike for them. They bend back immediately while the fur of his nape serrates, and he shrinks.

As nervous as he is about being found by another, some part of the boy is elated. Desperate is more his tune, although he cannot separate the two sensations. He dares to raise his eyes to meet her face and when he sees the white coat he thinks, Averna! — was she here to take him home?

What had she said? She had called him something but it wasn't a word he knew. That voice did not hold derision, nor did it carry the indifference and distraction that the ghost usually carried. It was lighter, warmer. He stole another glance and briefly matched his gaze with her's, noticing the sharp green, like fresh garlic shoots. Not white like ice.

The boy's body stiffened and he swaggered back a half-step, immediately shutting down any good feeling he held for being found; he did not know this woman and that made her dangerous.

his neckfur, blading. the boy retreated a step. kukutux did not approach, only clucked her tongue. aya, a large strong boy. but look how heavy his legs seem to be! her mother's voice, reverberating somewhere beyond her own ears.

it was upon the tip of her tongue to call to him, to soothe him by the raven-name. but he did not act like a proud obsidian bird. and so her mind made a place for him with the word of takkiruk: the act of waiting.

the duck sat down in her place, slipping rabbitpelt from her shoulders to reveal a single bite of ocean-fish left in its fold. boys were hungry. heart seared suddenly, to think of her lost young moonhunter.

"once a long time ago, there was tulugaq: raven." she gestured to the sky, then pushed the skin and its offering forward. "but at this time, tulugaq had no voice."

"one day, storm brother came to say that dove woman had been trapped by lightning mother. 'please,' he asked of all listening. 'she must be saved.'"

as she spoke, kukutux flicked her claws against the rich dirt of the blackbird forest, describing the scene in small minimal strokes. 

"when tulugaq heard this, he was very upset. you see, his heart had pined for dove woman. he told no one where he was traveling, and used his great wings to leap into the air. he flew and flew until he found lightning mother and dove woman."

"lightning mother had singed her! she cried out. tulugaq rushed down down down, into the fire, and pulled her from the flames."

if by now the silent anxious boy had gone, kukutux remained in the telling of it, solemn and gentle in the woodland.

"they escaped, but lightning mother's power burned raven's voice. that is why he makes the sound that he does. he calls dove woman's name, but his voice is ugly now. yet tulugaq does not mind this. he is content to continue his love."

He wants to run from her. To find solace in the woods and wait for the raven's return. She does not advance upon his position and settles instead, sitting, pulling something from off one shoulder that he scrutinizes.

As her tale begins the boy remains wary. He paces on the spot and his legs feel like cement. If he wanted to run he could try, but the longer he waited there and the more he listened, the less and less he thought to do so. The smell of fish helped; he had never smelled it before, and it was strong. It made him salivate harder than the old deer bones had.

The longer the tale went the more curious the boy felt. He knew not to drift closer; it was a trap, it had to be. The tale itself meant nothing to him except for the odd names the woman used. Were they gods? Were they lost spirits, like what Averna tried to teach?

The woman scratched the dirt and the boy stared down at her paws, his jaw tensing each time she scored the soil. Was she casting a spell? May as well be; he could not move and did not even notice as her tale tapered away at the end, not until silence welled up between them and he startled, blinking and wide-eyed at her.

Those dark eyes traced her figure, stared at the skin and the contents she had left as an offering to him. Back and forth his eyes would go, and slowly he inched closer, but did not reach even once for the fish. There was no trust to be shared here — the boy trusted no one.

takkiruk did not take the fish. kukutux felt as if she could sense his hunger, and her heart ached for him. her mind wondered what he might have suffered in his short life. then thoughts of the young one she had lost to the mountain, and for a moment her expression hung glasslike and fractured.

"this woman wonders why this boy is frightened. she is only a mother, only anaa." a whisperwind voice, and she did not look his way, seeking the formal and polite engagement. kukutux stood then, slowly, and then her jadeite stare tipped slowly toward the child. a curve to her lips, careful flick to the end of her whitespun plume, ears smoothed back to reveal the earnestness of her brow.

a glance to the fish nestled in the skin, and then moonwoman was floating into the treeline. "there was a stream, when she came through these trees. she will be there." 

perhaps he was a spirit. her mind shuddered, flesh beading beneath the ivoried pelt. she did not think so. spirits did not have mouths wet with hunger for meat. ears slanted backward, kuktutux listened for him, steps slow and unhurried beneath the gradient of shadow.

Despite the strange manner of her speech the boy did understand, for the most part, and when she called him afraid he was tempted to snap back that he wasn't; but he knew that was a lie.

He watched her more earnestly when she began to move away. The fish wasn't going anywhere. The woman moved slowly and with care which only drew suspicion from the boy, as it was unusual behavior. There was no way for him to tell if she was truly alone or baiting him somehow.

Unwilling to draw too close just in case, he waited until she was quite a distance before looking to the bundle where the fish was stowed. This he went on to circle cautiously. Any movement, shift of the wind, or any such change made him freeze or withdraw a step.

The boy was, at his core, a desperate and frightened thing; but if the woman returned she would find the skin empty and the forest too. The only sign that the boy had been there at all came in the absence of fish and his vague, lingering scent.

<3

when kukutux returned, it was with a cleansed pelt. the boy was no longer there, but the rabbitfur lay empty. for a long while she was silent, staring down upon it and pondering why the young stranger had piqued a knowing in her. 

he will be back, the inner spirit spoke. it is not something to be ignored.

kukutux turned and moved off in the direction of yuelong, though the boy's haunted face would not leave her mind in the months to come, pinned there by some power beyond that of the duck.