Ouroboros Spine evening star

backdated a day or so after Nuak's arrival - set early evening

her belly is full, but her company is gone. Karst has departed.

Avicus follows his trail, head low, breathing deep and steady like a bloodhound. it takes her, eventually, to the mountain, and she stares upward into the trees. a mountain claimed by others; the border is marked, clearly, pungent.

he has abandoned her.

little worm. he would not have eaten had it not been for her initiative. he would have starved to death out there—and no surprise to her when she eventually stumbled upon his body. but he had eaten, and now he has left.

her lips pull back to reveal still-young ivory teeth, a silent grimace up the slope. may he feel the heat of her ire. he has chosen the easy way out; he has found refuge with others and left his better to fend for herself.

well. she is his better; she needs no one. Avicus prowls along the boundary, looking for an easy meal, an abandoned cache.

nuak roamed the mountain. ilitqusiq slept within her den. 

the duck pulled a frayed martenpelt around her slim shoulders and slipped into the open air. she considered a cache upon the way, stropped her paws against the rough boles of pine trees. a tuft of her fur, caught in the teeth of an oak. moonglow was hers to nurture, this year's first child. she must not let it starve.

moonwoman's wanderings took her of course to the border. a foreign scent here, not one of her own. a frown crossed her smooth brow, and the featherbird's steps carried her after, until a flash of crimson appeared between the broken shadows. at first she thought it was only brother kayuktuk. 

but it was not; the shape was larger and shaped as a wolf was. a young hunter, perhaps, too visible against the marked line. kukutux barked to the fox-creature, a sharp, questioning sound. she did not cross to their border. not yet.

The boy lurked along the mountain paths few would tread in the daylight, though now it was a little grayer and there were less signs of activity near the ulaq, so he slipped out from his hiding place.

He witnessed the retreating figure of the moonwoman and was tempted to enter her sleeping place with her absent of it, perhaps to pilfer something from her collection. Without knowing what might be valued or potentially awarded by her magic, Nuak was unsure of what to do.

He grabbed for something small; clutched in his teeth like a crocodile might carefully carry their young, he made way along the ridge until it dipped towards the edge of the village.

It was there he heard the sharp call of Kukutux. Nuak thought he had been spotted so his gait increased, carrying him among the trees and in to shadow. The prize still held close, he gripped it tightly, vehemently, when he spotted Kukutux - then the ginger girl nearby.

Spotting Avicus was a surprise and his jaw then hinged, dropping the object in the dirt audibly.

the first to arrive reminds of her aunt; Avicus has to do a double-take to make sure it isn't. but it's green eyes instead of white, and the woman smells strongly of this mountain—and she is not whispering to herself and her gods.

Avicus returns her bark with a measured stare and is about to move along when Karst arrives, something slipping from his mouth. been eating well, she surmises, and an ugly sneer twists her lips.

him, she says, jerking her chin at the boy but still looking at the unfamiliar face. you take? or he come? 

she supposes that if Karst had been taken prisoner, it is now her responsibility to free him from captivity in whatever way she can. they are pack-mates (or were), after all, bonded by the hunt and by shared spilled blood. but if it is his choice. . .

running.w it :o

nuak was suddenly near, and kukutux inclined her head toward him — only to see what he carried. what he dropped.

a small disc of boartusk, worn smooth through carrying and soaks in the lake. she had found it one morning, struggling upon three legs in mismatched gait. uneven, a large chip; it had stopped her in anguished tracks and knew it had been a sign from the one who gave her the hunter's mark, a reminder of her own strength 

why did he have it?

the edge of her verdant gaze cooled only a fraction before kukutux had put her attention upon the fox-red stranger again. "he came here. i gave meat." testing, quietly, the hardness to so young a wolf.

Avicus looked angry. Even when she wasn't enflamed by any reasonable feeling Nuak saw rage in her, waiting, embers gathered in the coil of her body. This time was more obvious from the tone of her voice; the white woman answered calmly, carefully, perhaps in seeing the malignance herself.

Nuak quickly gathered the chunk of tusk and hurried close to Avicus, tail curling tightly to his belly as he snaked beneath her, sniffling noisily at her cheek and chin, before depositing the object at her toes.

She is a witch, speaker with boars. Like Merrick, like his bears. He raced to say, eager to placate, and the more he tried the easier the words came. I stole this from her altar. Her power is here, I bring it for you.

A small whine came then. He peeled back and down, against the dirt, his bulky gray body imposing despite its placement between the red girl and the woman.

of course. of course he would come here, take what was offered. Avicus can't blame him. perhaps she would have snagged the meat—although she thinks she would not have stayed. this is not their home, not their wolves. but then, where was?

before she can respond to the woman's explanation, Karst brings something to her, speaking fervently about things she cares not about. she gives the object a disdainful glance before returning her gaze to the boy, then back to the stranger; indigo shifting between the two with utter scorn.

it is a bone, Avicus says flatly. she is not impressed with gods or magic; power comes from the living flesh, from actions and deeds. bones mean nothing to her. they are dead, no better than trinkets. it seems as if this woman is of the same ilk as her father—fervent fanatics, obsessed with worlds beyond the one beneath their paws.

and now, it appears Karst has caught on to this silly notion.

no, she continues, and tightens her jaw. then to her erstwhile packmate, she asks, you stay here?

"i am not a witch," kukutux said firmly, loudly, cutting through the piggish snuffle of the boy an the way he groveled beneath the purple eyes of the crimson girl. "witches steal." her jadeite gaze now rested upon nuak, who she had given meat and hospitality. 

the boy did not owe her for these things, but if her brother lived in him, he would know the polite elegance of the ostregas who had made him. it was his to learn, so long as he made his sleeping place within the mountain. 

"i am moonwoman and atsak of this village," the pale woman continued, her steps forward resolute. "he is nuak to us. but it must be his choice if he stays," and now she too put her eyes upon the boy, angered by the desecration of the totemic item. and irritated by the harsh banter of the near-wordless girl. 

why did he act so, and wear so much strength? perhaps she had put a spell upon him. perhaps nuak had enraged the foxes and they had bound him to their fur. she was watchful, but kukutux would not be ignored and insulted upon her own borders.

The boys claim was immediately refuted by the pale woman; her denial cut sharply through the air while he focused on Avicus, wanting only her praise. There was none to be spared to him.

The firebrand was hardly impressed. She showed as much interest in the tusk shard as she would in an old toy; demoralized by this, Nuak scuttled the bone away from her. He drew back with it.

The question remained. Would he stay here? It did not feel right - but Avicus had scorned his efforts, and he did not feel wanted by her.

I... He starts to answer, hesitating. Looking to the witch and then to the foxfire youth. Merrick had kept him for one purpose - he was to serve the girl.

I go with you.

she smirks just barely as the woman reprimands Karst; even here, he is an underling. destined to be so forever, she thinks. but then the—well, if not witch, then what? moonwoman, she says. atsak. they mean nothing to Avicus.

neither does nuak. the choice she gives Karst, however, is perfectly clear.

her indigo eyes do their best to burn a hole through the boy's stone-hued pelt, and she is somewhat surprised when he casts his net in her direction. giving him a look that reads 'really?', she holds that gaze for a moment before looking at the border guardian.

we go, she commands, and begins to turn away, expecting Karst not far behind. there is nothing to be had here, not under the steely watch of the moonwoman.

they will thieve elsewhere.

pale auds wished suddenly, to lie flat against her head in consternation. perhaps even humiliation, to lose one of her own so swiftly.

no.

toteega's voice was firm within her mind, and kukutux leant hard upon the sound of it.

grandmother. he is cursed by a tupilak.

yes. think of the trader, now.

dying in anger and in blood.

if this boy had been born to his hearth.

but what if i am wrong?

then be wrong. it is still the right path to take for one who is cursed.

kukutux straightened. it was the place of moonwoman to know such things. some event had made the boy vulnerable to the curse of spirits, and this one could not truly shed her fox-skin.

"aulluk, nuak." the jadestone eyes were firm, disappointed. "i will pray you return before that tupilak leads you to death."

The manner with which Kukutux speaks gives the boy chills. He ignores the feeling as best he can - grabbing the boar tusk (omg that autocorrected to tush I am dead--) with a hasty bow of his head. Still, the serration of his scruff are evidence enough; Avicus might not have the same sensitivity to the paranormal but by now Nuak had cultivated a certain... superstition.

Her words would haunt him. Even as they fled, the mountain of a wolf chasing after the red pelted tupilak, there was urgency in each stride and worry curling his tail.