Ankyra Sound and if the devil was to ever see you

for @Kausiut. hopefully the sound works for you, if not i can always move the thread & tweak the post. just let me know! <3

armed with his rabbit fur cradling his reading bones ingram makes his way along the sound's shoreline. the soft 'click-clack' of the bones as the bounce off each other as he readjusts his grip mid-step — or pauses to set it down and re-grasp it when his jaw tires — was a comforting accompaniment to the soft rumble of the ocean.

the morning was sunny; a break from the bleak overcast days that had plagued them recently, but still cold. even so, ingram paces the shoreline, saltwater drying his fur in small clumps of fur, for a rock to lay his collection down upon. though he wasn't too overly eager to take them outside of blackwater — simply for the fear of losing them ( especially his 'crowing jewel' ) — he knows he will never hone the skill if he did not practice.

On their way back to the mountains the village made a stop not far from the oceanside. Some went to explore, Kausiut stayed behind, nursing her aching paws and sleeping the exhaustion away. The travel took all of her energy, leaving nothing for that anger that had usually kept her enginge running. She had gone from being unbearable to hardly visible to those around her.

She had down to the beach today, because it was the nearest place she could reach and unlike the cold hard earth, sand was quite soft to lie on, in case she grew tired again. There she spotted a stranger and, when she had hobbled closer, she recognized him playing with similar trinkets that her sister did. Curious and fearless she approached the man, eyes fixed on the collection of bones. She sat down and without saying a word, looked up at the fellow expectantly.

the girl draped in a pelage of sandy, rose gold — one eyed and with a twisted forepaw — approaches him boldly. this surprises ingram who rather thinks his demeanor is far from approachable. his ears flutter back against his skull, but hesitation as he watches her watch him. she is roughly around his age, if he had to guess ...and he draws in the scents that cling to her pelage but is unable to place name to scents.

these are not toys. not for chewing. he tells her gruffly when his seaglass gaze takes in the way she looks at them. they are embiklaka, the trigedasleng sounds like the serrated edge of a knife as it leaves his lips: a melding of two words into one. prophecy bones. he offers a translation a heartbeat later, assuming that not many ...if any speak praimfaya's tongue here.

not anymore, at least.

why he clings to it, given how he resented his mother ...ingram did not know and assumed it was because of wanlida's spirit taking his body as host; but these observations were for another day, another time.

Kausiut waited patiently for the young man to finish his speech. She understood the intonation and gestures, which spoke clearly of "this is mine". This she could respect. Not for eating was self explanatory to her. Death-bone had almost killed her and she had never tried to eat any of Sialuk's bones again. Or - her own collection of items - the lesson had been harsh, but very effective.

Her ears perked up at the mention of "embiklaka" and something akin' to a crooked grin briefly appeared on her features. Seemed that the guy was into nonesense-word creating himself. Then he paused, as if waiting for her to say something. "Work," she told him, looking from the bones up to him and back to them again. Intent clear. Do waste words. Do the magic.

the other youth strikes ingram as not much of a talker — a trait that the eyjolfur could appreciate. he wasn't either, in truth. he could happily go through his life being non-verbal but it was a necessary evil, he has come to accept.

work.

her intention was clear even if her execution had been vague.

he gathers the corners of the rabbit pelt, wet and clumped together from his mouth, gives it a few shakes of his head and lays it gingerly down upon the rock; nudging open the furs to examine the bones, calculating their meanings.

he is quiet while he does this, seaglass gaze intently studying the placements before he looks to her then; suddenly.

the spirits have spoken. would you like to hear what they tell me through the bones? he concludes and asks for her permission to tell her what they have told him; just in case. it was not too late for her to hear what they have told him.

Kausiut watched the youth's every move. From the way he picked up the bundle of bones, shook it and then let them fall on the stone surface. She attempted to follow every fragment of the bone, as it hit the ground, and memorized the formation. It was random, no order. So far it looked almost the same as Sialuk did. She noted to herself to steal a piece of pelt later to craft something similar.

He stared at the bones for a long moment and then met her gaze asking a question. She furrowed her brow and beckoned to the bones and shuffled impatiently. Go on!

she gives her permission with a non-verbal shuffle and gesture towards the bones.

reading the random placements of the bones to decipher what the spirits of commanders past told him was not an easy task and he is hesitant to give voice to her reading, even if the ones he'd done on himself had thus proven accurate. or realistically, showed and manipulated him to walk the path he did currently. either way how mattered little: only that he did.

the bones tell me that you are spirit touched; open to being in-tune with the physical and spiritual realms, he glances up at her before his gaze returns to the bones. there are opportunities coming to you, but you must be willing to reach for them. commit to them and your commitment will pay off. another pause as his gaze moves to the last bone: the large tooth the ocean had deposited for him. there is to be new beginnings and within you, the bones tell me, there is a readiness to learn something new.

with the bones read he takes a breath; the salty tang of the air lingering in his lungs before he lets it out; gaze watching for her reaction.

Not you too?

Kausiut frowned, when the fellow mentioned her association with spirits. That was the same tale her mom had told her, when she had complained about headaches and hallucinations (not in such precise terms and not in so many words). She was not content with the solution that had been offered to her. Time from time again those vivid unreal images before her eyes appeared again and no amount of wishing for them to go away or embracing them made them any less annoying.

Then it dawned upon her that for the most part she had not listened to, what people had told her, and she was still fine. So, she should not take this as an absolute truth either. Just because someone told you that you had to do something or would never do it, did not mean that you had to take this to heart. After all - she had been born with more confidence in herself than it was safe. From the rest she understood very little - some words here and there, and her intent gaze drifted away from Ingram's face to the bones, while he continued to talk in the background.

When he finished, she looked up at him, poked at one of the bones and asked: "Name?"

she is not happy with the bone reading ...or so this is how ingram chooses to perceive her frown. not knowing her in any shape or form — beyond what the bones told him ( and they could be wrong ) — he could only guess, in reality.

happy or otherwise, he wasn't about to let that affect him.

the spirits of the commanders had told him what they had and welcome or not, there was no undo-ing the reading.

he thinks for a moment as she ( he assumes ) asks for his name; wondering if it was wise to be overly honest. with blackwater growing in strength and those who were not yet initiated as druids; hesitation gripping him. his name was his name; borrowed from his grandfather. but names could hold power. the keeper. he offers her simply.

best to give his title and leave it at that, for now.

"The Keeper," Kausiut repeated carefully, eyeing the bone with intensity, memorizing its shape. When she wanted it, she could remember quite a lot of things. What often hindered her was the lack of inner motivation to act, unless she saw immediate benefits for the deed.

She then chose a small, odd-shaped vertebra and nosed it briefly, then looked up at the man, asking:"This one? Name?"

ingram has misunderstood her, he realizes too late. it had not been his name she had wanted but the names of his bones. he had not given them names — they are tools of his budding craft and little else. but to cover up his embarrassment, ingram continues to humor her.

she points to another bone in his small collection and he ponders for a moment; considering. he is committed now.

asfou — he murmurs in tridgedasleng. the inquisitor; for it only made sense that the smaller bones held the most power.

"The inquisitor," Kausiut spelled it out, scrutinizing the bone, but, while the word seemed somewhat familiar, she did not quite catch the actual meaning of it. "Questions?" she looks down at the bone then back at her teacher, asking him to clarify, what he had meant by it. She was taking his learning seriously, having not the slightest shade of doubt that all he was telling was truth. And not a game.

After receiving clarification, she went on to study the bones more and suddenly her face lit up - among this collection of mostly unfamiliar shapes and forms she spotted one she knew all too well. She reached over, picked it gingerly in her teeth and put it down by the youth's paws. "Death," she told him, looking up and giving him an innocent smile, which seemed somewhat unfitting in the facial features that were more used to furrowed brows and frowning.

the asfou, ingram's gaze drifts to the newly named bone in question. is the manifesting bone. it is the one you focus upon when asking the spirits. the leading bone. there would always be one with the most spiritual power. inquisitor ...they asked questions, but they were harsh and unrelenting in their pursuit. fitting, in a way.

she sorts through his bones, plucked one out and set it aside, smiling as she called it death. unfazed by the grim declaration. wamplei, ingram echoes in trigedasleng. death. he reiterates with a small tug of his lips into a smile.

Kausiut scrunched her muzzle, when "spirits" were mentioned, because the first association with this particular word was headaches and the colourful images she saw around her, when she had them. Very unpleasant. She glared at the bone, as if daring it to make it all happen, but it did not seem to have any magical power over her. Therefore she relaxed and looked away.

"Wamplei," she repeated and found this word funny. Turned out this guy was into creating words too. Okay, she could do this too. After a brief search she found a perfect candidate - a piece of, what had once been a rib. She picked nosed it, looked up at her teacher and told him: "Lutra. Water."

she picks a piece of ( one ) of praimfaya's ribs: a larger one had had chewed and snapped into smaller pieces. ingram's seaglass gaze remains focused on it for a moment; staring at it: at his teeth marks in it, a branding of sorts, and lifts his chin ever-so-slightly. the brief spell the bone holds over him is broken as she speaks, seaglass gaze flickering to her where it lingers. she names the piece she had nosed lutra, offering that it meant water. fitting, ingram thinks with a twitch of his lips.

lutra, he repeats in a soft rumble, offering her a nod of agreement. and this one? ingram inquires, nosing another piece of bone towards her. what should this one be called?

Kausiut would not have been too troubled, had she known the morbid history of the particular bone she had named "water". She thought very little of the past and future was just as muddled concept to her. Dead and alive - the same way. A dead wolf was no longer one of her kin. Plain and simple. Likely not the same for all.

He pointed at another bone and left the sentence hanging - a question to her then. Kau looked at the bone and thought hard. Then it came to her: "Crowgod." She looked up at him and smiled somewhat unpleasantly.

the second bone ingram had nosed towards her was also a piece of praimfaya's rib bone(s); curious as to what name she might come up with for it. lutra was a soft sounding name, guiding, he thinks. a nice balance to the harsh bones and names he had come up with. but she surprises him with this name: crowgod and knowing the history of this particular piece of bone: he almost snorts. he only barely keeps it at bay; seaglass gaze flickering down to the bone impassively. crowgod. he parrots, accepting its name.

no doubt, his deceased mother would've liked that one.

Kausiut's eye narrowed, when she noticed the ripple in tall dark stranger's demeanor. Either the item itself or the name she had given it, had made a slight change in him. She was unable to tell, what it was, but it struck her that this was a new development in the game, and something worth exploring further.

For now, however, she was done with doing the work for him. She chose a bone she liked, pointed at it, then looked at him and waited for his response.

she chooses the next bone: the last of his small, easy to carry collection. seaglass gaze studies it for a moment, letting the spirits of the commanders whisper the name in his ears: easier to hear now that he was in tune with them.

bleirona, bleirona, bleirona —

bleirona, he parrots them, the sound of his own voice drowning out the hissing remains of the spirits' collective voices. the sword. he offers its translation to her.

Kausiut would have enjoyed the game for much longer than it had lasted, but a summoning howl in the distance made her turn away from the assembly of bones and listen intently. It was one of the villagers, calling their members to come together again. Normally she would not have paid much attention to it, but she loathed the idea of being left behind. Travelling long distances was hard enough as it was already.

Therefore she shot the strange man an apologetic look, smiled innocently, while looking like an incarnation of a devil, and then left him. If fate would have it, perhaps, they would meet each other again in the future.

Thank you!