Ouroboros Spine Allagí

There was a shift in the weather. The air had started to chill. The heat of summer was finally fading. Autumn was on the breeze that whisked through Moonglow. It promised the falling of leaves and the coming of winter. 

Antigone had not grown to love the strange village. The moonwoman was kind enough. She treated her members as family and she seemed deeply invested in their lives. He had done what he could to avoid her. He wondered if she had noticed his solitude. 

The red-hooded man lifted his snout to the wind, searching for @Chickadee.

chickadee could not keep from grinning half the day. no matter what task currently engaged her, she would often pause to gaze skyward, as if contemplating some sweet and inner secret.
antigone had stayed, and this joyed her. he was a good friend, or had been; she didn't like that they'd fallen off. somehow they searched for them both, and she danced toward him, glowing. "how's the day, antigone?"

She was cheerful and full of light as she pranced to him. Her voice was full of something he had never heard on another wolf’s tongue. Antigone grew frustrated that he could not place it. Familiar and yet completely foreign to the young man, he pushed it aside. 

The day is fine. 

Crimson hood turned to Sorcha. 

Do you smell it? The season is changing. 

Antigone wondered what it meant for Moonglow. He wondered what it meant for the restless anger he felt inside of him. Could he last through winter on his own? 

Could he leave the girl with greenspring eyes? He did not think so.

her companion was taciturn today. chickadee nodded, taking a good long inhale of the winter promise in the crisping air. "makes you want to go hunting," she commented, unwittingly giving voice to the instinct which rose inside her.
her eyes darted back to antigone; she could not stifle another foolish grin, but cleared her throat after. "we could, you know. go now. hunting, i mean, if you wanted."

Alright. Let’s hunt. 

It would put his limbs to work. It would occupy the mind. 

Antigone did not miss the smile she wore. The dark blue of his eyes rested on her face. He thought that she was beautiful with the expression she held. The man’s mind continued to pick through possibilities. 

You are happy today, he observed aloud. An ear swiveled to her, wondering if she might share the reason behind her giddiness.

didn't he know? chickadee would have thought everyone knew, with how proud kukutux was. "uh, wellllll," she started with a grin, sauntering over the ground littered with autumnfall. "kivaluk asked to court me, and i said yes. and i guess," she rushed on, "it's like, this whole process here, you know? with gifts for families, and dowries, and a bride price, which i think are the same, but i'm not sure."
now chickadee swung her glittering smile toward antigone, hoping that — hoping that maybe her friend would have something warmer to say than her own sister had shouted the day kivaluk met her family for the first time.

The crimson-hooded figure halted in his tracks. 

Memories of Reyson and Meadow rushed to his mind. Antigone gritted his teeth together. The hairs along his neck bristled, heightening with the surge of anger he felt. And he cursed himself for feeling it, for letting it take hold of him by the throat. 

And what if someone else should ask to court you? 

The edge in his voice was dangerously sharp.

whatever she'd expected, it wasn't this. chickadee stared, dumfounded, as antigone drew up hard and rigid. his voice cut at her as it never had before.
he asked about courtship, but frustrated tears had begun to sting her eyes. this was a big moment! kivaluk in her life was a Big Thing, and she was tired of the reactions to what she wanted to do.
"i don't know," she shot back, trying to match his emotion. "i guess they'd have to do the same thing!" she stepped away from him, eyes hot, sides heaving. "what is your deal, antigone?!"

Gods, the rage he felt was great. It had filled every inch of his body in white hot fire. The memories of Epoch that still lived in his mind, tormenting him. Wishing that he could forget and knowing that he wouldn’t. Not what happened in the vale and not what happened on the spine with Sorcha. 

What is your deal, Antigone? 

The boy’s lips peeled into a snarl. 

The emotions that played on her face were met with dark eyes that held nothing behind them. 

Antigone turned from her. He looked to the western terrain while a plan formed in his mind. The hairs along his spine flattened. His expression shifted from sun-licked rage to something void of any feeling, any sense of care. 

Goodbye, Sorcha. Best wishes to your future husband. Ice cut sharp on his tone. 

Antigone did not look back to her. He cut a course to the west, to land that had no memories. As his legs carried him, he could not help the images of fire that roared in his mind, consuming Moonglow and Epoch in its wake.

<3

if someone had asked her to describe this scene, the immediate death of chickadee's relationship with antigone, the souring in her gut that now threatened to be permanent — she couldn't have found the words to do it.
ani. stratos. dwin. antigone.
when he was gone, she pushed hot tears out of her eyes and ran the opposite direction, to find solace in the farthest recesses of the territory.
everything had started to go bad when she left brecheliant, and it was the one regret chickadee found herself unable to put down.