Ouroboros Spine lxiii. if i said i'd be good would you even believe me?

posting with permission since it seems he's going to be accepted into MG. @Makan

The cloudberry's children had been warned away from her hearth -- for a time. It had grown still and quiet there, without the boisterous presence of six teenagers. She found she missed the chatter and the flutter of sign language moving from her youngest's paws. 

The shadow was not a man to fear. He had been a good guest, this was how Lótë viewed him. He was no more captive than she. He was not as the boy Nuak had been, not a prisoner. The obsidian he-wolf was quiet, he cowered more often than not. 

The doe approached him as she often would upon returning to her ulaq in the evenings. She dropped a piece of game, a quail, at his paws and retreated from the man as one would a wounded animal. Settling on bear-marked haunches near her bedfurs, the herd-stalker observed him. 

Breaking tradition, Lótë spoke up in soft tones -- reluctant to frighten the skittish raven. 

"Do you speak the common tongue?"

He had proved to be a willow tree of a man.

Often he swayed in the breeze of Lótë's presence, quivering and finding comfort all at once. She tended to him. She fed him. She sheltered him.

She was strong.

He was weak.

But it had become ritual for them, him hiding in the deep depths of the ulaq she owned and her dropping sustenance for him. A life line threaded between the two of them.

Makan would not have survived without her.

Yet he is still so feral, so cradled by nothing but bare instincts. They have not shared many (if any) words that he is startled to hear her voice shatter his protected silence. But she is soft spoken. As light as a dove feather.

And he does not quake or quiver nearly as much this time around. Still he was low, the feathers of the quail sticking to his face. Softening sickly features into something more...comedic. Lighthearted.

Hard, He rasped out in a voice that was not fitting for a young man his age but surely fitting for his state of being.

The doe blinked, surprised he had spoken -- the dark man was not one of many words. She dipped her buckskin crown silently, not wishing to bombard him with a string of verbosity. I understand. 

She had known wolves who were deaf, feral, blind. Her own daughter was mute. Lótë could accommodate his broken syntax and whatever had damaged him so. 

"I am called Lótë," the two-year started with something simple, hoping he might offer something she could call him in return.  

Lótë.

He had never heard such a word spoken to him, the sounds she made foreign on the grain of his brain and tongue. He was unaware of the grand culture that surrounded him in this place.

Only that the bear-marked hunter, now named Lótë, tended to him.

She was, in a sense, his world. Any influence Moonglow may have had upon him was only through her these days.

He did not understand that she expected something in return though. Unaware of the social delicacies that came along with speaking verbal languages.

So he offered a brief, small wiggle of his body towards her in friendly acceptance of her words. Quail-feather dotted face looking upon her for what she was — his world, his life line.

The cloudberry could not help but smile, it was good to see some positive emotion in the shadow's thin features. A tinkling of wind chime laughter escaped her in amusement as the she-wolf chuckled beneath her breath, tail thumping lightly on the floor of the den. 

When she had regained her composure, the woman inclined her head to meet his sapphire gaze curiously. "What are you called? Did you have a name? She cocked her head, wondering just how good his grasp of spoken language was -- if he'd had a title in the past. 

Name, she asked of him.

Suddenly he felt...keenly aware of how out of place he was. The sunken features of his face and his feral ways were a stark contrast to the cultured woman before him.

Makan, He croaked, dull blue eyes suddenly looked away from her.

Sheepish. Wishing he could hide within his skin, even though the tightness of it exposed him entirely right now.

The bird-watcher cocked her head as fallow ears splayed in contrition, wondering if perhaps her laughter had hurt the man's feelings. She'd not intended to be cruel, it was just endearing to see the shadow's face light up in such a manner. 

Hesitantly, the dove inched closer, sliding down so that her underbelly and chin were flush with the pelt-padded floor. A soft whine escaped her. I'm sorry.

"Makan, she whispered, as if to test the way the word would shape her tongue. 

He was like a blackbird with a broken wing. Lótë feared he might take flight if she moved wrong. 

Even so, the cloudberry woman crawled ever closer -- peridots searching him for signs of fear -- and reached out to bump her nose against the blackberry of his own. 

Closer and closer, crept the peacemaking dove.

He was paralyzed. For once, not by outright fear, but by some sense of awe. Some sense of wonder that she — with all her rich words and lively ways — would creep so close to him. A feral boy not yet worthy of the title of man.

Their noses would touch.

A foreign experience to Makan.

His eyes brightened for it, to feel a moment that was not plagued by the illness of his mind.

Lótë's features softened, scanning his own as best she could at such a proximity. There was no terror in Makan but he was still, as if to move would shatter the moment between them. 

"You're safe here," Lótë breathed against him, wondering at the way her words shifted the fur of his inky muzzle with each breath of oxygen that escaped her maw. A lump swelled in her throat, wondering what he'd been through. 

"Our village is called Moonglow." She told him this only so he would have the knowledge, imagining he must feel lost somewhere in the prison of his own skull. There was light in the raven's eyes, a spark of intelligence that told the dove he was not witless but had suffered some accident or tragedy. 

"I have offered to Kukutux -- the pale woman you met, my sister by love -- that I will care for you and protect you. It's going to be okay, Makan."

Safe was not a word Makan heard many times. Its use, very often times, seemed to be followed by his disappearance shortly after.

He wondered briefly — despite the kindness he had been shown — if this too would be short lived. If she might turn from peacemaker to warstarter.

Kukutux, pale woman of love.

Makan, safe and cared for.

A sound strummed his vocal chords. A wordless appreciation for her words.

He shuffled, awkward and weakly, until he might find himself tucked against her. If she would allow such.

We can fade here or with your next post if you'd like? :) Or we could continue here/start a new one for a Chronicler thread. Up to you!

Lótë stilled, curious. He folded himself against her ribcage not unlike a child, though his warmth along the length of her was welcome. Hesitantly, the artist dipped her head and began to groom his inky pelt -- hoping it might put the he-wolf at ease in her presence. 

After a time, when her eyelids began to grow heavy, the mother lifted her fawn-colored dome and asked, "Would you like to hear a story of my people?"

let's fade here and maybe she can tell him more stories in neverwinter? :D

She groomed him.

His heartbeat slowed, his own eyes heavy with the threat of slumber. Her presence tended to have this effect as time went on.

His head bobbed softly. Happy to listen to her tales while he undeniably found sleep once more.