Wapun Meadow pictoratus

first official tracking thread <3

it was his son which had named this place for the search.

curious. germanicus had expected her to make a bid for the seashore. they often did.

but this hellspawn sent her steps toward the tuktu. it was a wiry gambit, one that might have been most effective if it were not germanicus julius caesar upon her trail.

he had known this land in unconsciousness and the hinterlands were a boon of memory.

this was the meadow in which he had stood before the boy shardik led him to crowfeather.

he searched around for the edges of the witchscent, not knowing it yet but understanding he would find it close.

almalexia returned to the meadow.

the boy had gone, but a new presence lingered. prowled. the prophet watched from her distant perch, hidden among the trees at the corner of the meadow.

she ducked and settled, eyes burning.

for now she merely watched.

this place marked the only entrance to ursus.

germanicus moved in an unhurried way, sweeping its grasses and wildflowers with eyes that saw all.

he became aware of a presence, honed senses sparking with it.

the man began to walk along the far right edge of wapun, headed in time for the bearclaw valley itself.

the figure moved. almalexia followed...

with reluctance, as she had begun to recognize this place. this old place, this once-sacred land of bears and witches. merrick.

the man she had never acknowledged as her father. tattered robes trimmed in gold and stained by blood. the prophet pictured him still on his mountain, perhaps happy with the red creature he had chosen over his night-pearl. or perhaps not.

if he could see her now, perhaps he would regret.

her steps quickened with a new intensity.

the dark ears flicked.

the presence pressed.

germanicus gave no sign he had noticed. the eagle crossed the threshold of red sand and approached the boulder at its entrance.

once he had met a scarlet child.

once he had met her father twisted in flesh as well as mind.

and it was beside them he had gone to fight in the sunspire.

there were no remnants of them now. 

he allowed the primeval forest to swallow him. in its stillness he veiled himself behind thick foliage and listened.

deeper into the valley they descended. the prophet grew wary and allowed distance to swell between them. in this place of false gods she felt her power subdued, the voices of spirits dwindling. she could not allow this.

life bloomed inside of her. it was early still, yet she knew. children, druids, made from her union with ingram.

they would know divinity. she would see to it.

keep your false gods, almalexia hissed, and turned away for the meadow.

merrick was dead to her.

he can follow of course <33

the words were not for him.

and yet they were. he thought of his son's tormented face and the latin prayer which germanicus had at last remembered.

the eagle owed a great debt to mars.

the hunting of a witch could be such a fulfillment.

he listened to the woman's tread as it retreated. small paws, light gait. 

germanicus meant to be seen as he moved from hiding to take her scent. and when he looked down into the meadow, she was there.

darkmade. arachnid. 

he followed at a great distance, neither quickening nor slowing his pace.

the moon had been dwindling further from the sky each night as the prophet watched for ingram. soon it would be time to depart for her islands.

without him.

she would not mourn this loss twice, however, and cast him from her mind as she moved faster. a purpose to her steps now. he would not come, and so almalexia would defy the spirits as much as she dared.

it was time to return to her islands.

aware of her pursuer, she set her sights toward the mountains. she would skirt around them, emerge into the land on the other side and from there she would find the sea. almalexia did not look back, but she was alert to him and it showed in the occasional turn of her ears.

germanicus kept the slow hunt.

he noted how she stepped, how she moved. how the eldritch curve of her body spoke more than once of a nature darker than his own.

how ironic, she should be so close to the place of the bear-worshippers!

the witch's ears showed she heard his own step.

he did not relent, waiting only for the promise of a shadow.

the lazy pursuit crossed miles. time passed, and it became apparent that this nameless hunter intended to follow as far as the prophet led.

she could not allow this.

it was not until she reached the far end of the meadow, just beyond the treeline, that the prophet responded to the threat posed to her.

she turned to face him, a demand in her eyes.

burn the witch, aquillius had said.

the words clashed against the iron of his ordered self.

the challenge in her eyes readied him. "why do you plague swiftcurrent, lamia?"

the eagle's tones were hard.

lamia. the prophet delighted in this new title, spoken like a curse. they harbor something i desire for myself, haughtily, head lifting. an atrocity. bête noire to nature itself. tell me you would not sooner be rid of it.

almalexia was watchful. she did not step closer.

"that is not for me to judge."

closer, she was a wraith, all shadowbound angles and two glinting eyes. a gold sun caught in flame. a raw amethyst still dark beneath the earth.

his roman's suspicion had never cried so loud and he heard again the voice of his son, the way aquillius had turned in on himself with terror.

"i will tolerate no thievery from my allies." the tactician was unblinking.

she laughed.

stop me, then, he could not. foolish man; mortal man. almalexia turned with a lash of her tail, moving languidly now. the spirits screamed all around her.

run.

run now.

go!

yet she did not. in her arrogance, the prophet chose to defy the spirits she followed, for they had led her astray. to have waited for ingram was folly.

let the man follow her. he would take no joy in what he found at the end of her path.

you have my permission to powerplay as you see fit from here, including injuries <3

follow he did.

she did not hasten.

he closed upon her in five paces and hurled her slight body to the ground.

she gave fight but the roman knelt upon her, buffeted her paws away with his hard muzzle, seized her right wrist in his jaws.

germanicus broke it as if it were a branch in a windfall and in the same thought he struck her into unconsciousness

a moment to catch himself.

and then he would ensconce the witch in the valley, placing her ironically into what he did not know was the natal den of ursus.

the footmarks would have to be wiped, the stirred grass soothed.

akavir had not said she must be delivered. germanicus carried the proof in his jaws: blood staining the eldritch pelt from the witch herself.

as for her mortal form, germanicus meant to make an example of her before mars.