Swiftcurrent Creek copper thunder

perhaps it had only been a dream painted by the burning of her body. a lovely dream, but one for which muskrat could no longer wait.

still, she felt a little foolish to have believed the woman from the mountains would come at all.

muskrat devoted herself now to monitoring any changes in her own body. despite her intentions upon leaving the creek for the mountains, the anger she had felt being approached by the creek men had spurred her defiance in other ways, and now there was a great chance she had conceived.

for now, her body remained the same and no illness touched muskrat. she knew enough to comprehend that the personal odor of those pregnant changed early, and took to urinating upstream or in other places of moving water which would wash away any evidence. 

there were only five plants any warrior needed to know, dropped to four if you were a man. but nothing of the swamp grew here, and so muskrat ferreted out black cohosh, saving the plant in three parts: stem, leaf, and root. 

dutifully she drank a bitter decoction of one part or another each morning, and today was no exception. the horrid taste clung to her teeth, her tongue, and muskrat set off to find sweeter fare.

There was something about the tiny temptress that lured him—inexplicably, inexorably. After some time and thought, he left the mountain (who would miss him anyway?) and followed the trail toward the creek. Her scent was stronger nearing the borders; she was here.

She had returned. To his father. Maybe.

As he stood just shy of the boundary, he noticed a slim agouti figure in the distance, questing as if after game. Hex lifted his muzzle just slightly and called for her, tail flagging behind him in barely-repressed excitement and anticipation.

He wanted the raider. Perhaps she would not follow him back—but he would try, at least.

what muskrat found was a shadow beyond the border, familiar and proud. her steps paused in surprise, but the sharp citrus eyes tried to ascertain why he was down from the mountains.

quickly it became clear that he was not here for akavir; his tones furled out for her. muskrat answered at last, changing trajectory to answer the nightblade with a grin, an arched brow. "you come to join?" muskrat teased, though she knew it was not why he was here.

the sunflower eyes were a study in wonder.

No, he replied, already bewitched by her grin, her stance. I've come to take you with me.

Hex stood, resolute, head held high as he regarded the tiny woman. He didn't intend to leave without at least an argument. He intended to herd her home.

I will never live here, Hex added, shaking his head. I don't belong here. And neither do you. So come with me.

muskrat's brow shot high, and she let out her breath in a low laugh that was almost a scoff. did he mean to carry her off? remembering what she had told him of war brides, the warrior gentled her expression with a true glitter of interest.

swiftcurrent creek did not please muskrat. arric and arlette were kind. akavir's rejection, which he had not known it to be, stuck in her craw. the subsequent pursual by both brothers, one of whom had not even been bothered to note her before, inflamed muskrat's wrath.

her thoughts circled back to akavir, to the night cries and what she had done with others on the mountain. it would only be a matter of days before her scent shifted, weeks before she knew if conception would keep. and then what sort of scorn might she invite? 

there were many reasons to leave. muskrat told herself she owed no wolf anything; she had filled the caches and kept the borders. she could depart, now, with him.

"i go as wife?" she asked the stranger whose name she did not know, her tones grating over wife as if she were primed to discard offal from a window. "or warrior?"

muskrat allowed herself to imagine a glimmer of that wild image beyond the borders.

tags for reference only

Lilitu was gone.

He did not sleep. He did not eat. He did not speak.

@Arric had tried to lure him to conversation—whether in the forms of a heart to heart, or gentle banter. His tongue felt like ash—his heart as if it no longer was there.

If Akavir had thought he grieved the death of his wife, that had paled in comparison to the insurmountable grief that clung to him like his own fatal disease. It devoured him—certainly, there would be nothing left.

So when the man had caught the scent of wolverine near the den site of @Arlette, it had been as if a rabid beast actually had been sprung upon it—the blood spread—it painted the man’s cheeks, chin and chest. His prize clamped in his jaws—the bites and tears the savage animal had given him glinting in the light of the sun as he stalked the lands, uncaring where he went.

Of course—until he heard Muskrat—“I go as wife, or as warrior?”

His nostrils flared, he turned—and he moved like a wraith to the borders edge—fierce gaze locking to the man she spoke to now—the recognition hitting him with surprise, but no sense of relief.

Warrior, he replied without hesitation.

Wife would leave, like Jakoul had.

Wife, he had no use for.

But what would you want—?

His query was abruptly severed by the appearance of a shadow, as if he looked in some distorted mirror. Older, well-muscled, more seasoned. . .

He gave Akavir a respectful, if brusque, dip of his chin, then turned back to the woman as if the man's interruption was no more than a fly buzzing in his ear, or a niggling itch in his throat.

Who do you want to be? Hex asked her.

For he knew he'd be better off trying to move the mountain on his back than order this spitfire around, no matter her diminutive size.

a deep pleasure unfurled inside muskrat to hear him name her warrior. she almost made her choice then, save for the fact that her ears caught the tread of her beleaguered leader.

akavir appeared there and she saw the night man's expression beneath his lacerations. blood glistened upon his jetstone coat.

the citrus eyes flickered between the pair; muskrat saw what had been and what would be, but also what she did not know and what she could not predict.

their gazes burned upon and around her. wickedness, to set them against one another. reckless to answer.

"warrior. have many brides if you want. but one equal in war." and as she spoke these words, muskrat thrilled, imagining for a moment that she was clan matron, that she sought to make a match for her own people in this.

would akavir move to keep her? muskrat enjoyed that idea also, falling into an expectant silence.

He watched a near replica of himself—eyes brighter, perhaps—stiffen when realizing his presence. Muskrat practically oozed her pleasure in this moment—clearly, his Delta was being poached by his son, and she was bartering just how it would occur, claiming a position as one of many brides.

He knew by now the little panther worked to rise his ire on purpose—and while the feral anger that burned in his chest at the unfair hand dealt to his precious eldest simmered within him—the blood still wet from a wolverine he had caught upon their lands, just as he had her—she would be sorely disappointed in his reaction, he was certain.

Dropping the carcass, unceremoniously to the ground, he gave a half-hearted nudge of it to her, a gleam in his gaze—challenge, maybe. “For the possible pups you’re carrying,” he offered—purposely. He did not know if she was with or without child—nor if they were his. Were they his sons, though? Why else would the young man be here, unless he had met her during her little adventure the prior weeks?

The irony of that almost drew a twisted smile to his face, and he swallowed a bitter laugh.

Instead, his gaze drifted over his son. “You look well, Jakub.”

She was enjoying this. Her gaze flitted between the two men, and she offered words of her own. Again, he had no need for brides quite yet—not while his foothold upon the ridge was so tenuous.

For the possible pups you're carrying, said Akavir, and the smell of fresh meat threatened to make his stomach gurgle; he tightened his waist, trying not to let a potential rumble give away any sense of desperation on his part. 

He was not weak.

And he was not that name—nor would he offer any other to his father.

Jakub is dead, Hex said coolly. His eyes remained on Muskrat. A warrior it is. You're carrying pups?

There must be others here with children; it was possible Akavir had mated with multiple women by rights as alpha. Her pups would face competition beside the creek. On the ridge, they would lead and thrive.

she saw akavir's gesture for what she thought it was: a gambit to assert his control over her. the citrus eyes shifted in coldness to the night man. "warriors have no pups."

if she had been pregnant at any point, muskrat fiercely believed it had been handled. and if it had not been, there were other things to be done.

jakub. a name murmured and then rejected. her attention returned to the younger man she still did not know by given title. "give to arlette," she murmured in quiet dismissal of the meat-offering, stepping around it to move beyond both men.

she thought now that she saw it: akavir, putting his claim to her, and his son turning away. she was as much a tool of force in this moment as gorseberry had once intended her, and muskrat rebelled. now her mind raced ahead, wondering if he had sent viinturuth, if they had intended to share her in efforts to keep her here.

"give all away," she finally pronounced in a still, icy voice. "antlers for arric. bones for pups. skins for arlette." was she only a womb to akavir? if she had never lain with him, would he be offering meat strategically in front of the one who had come to claim her? she would never allow it. her back was to the shadowmen, preparing for the mountain runner to reject her presence there.

tags just for reference!

Muskrat worried of him trying to assert control over her—he worried of where his daughter had laid to her final rest. An ear flicked at the coldness of her voice—and then she denounced the things she had called her own here—insisting Akavir dole them out to others and be done with it. Because none had become important to her here—and he withheld the shrug of his shoulders.

Fire and Water did not play well with one another—to stay would either douse her flame or dim it. “Give it to them yourself,” he offered, though his gaze drifted to Jakub.

Who spoke that Jakub was dead. A dark smile pulled at the corner of his lips—Lilitu, too, it seemed.

“I hear that’s going around,” he noted, and while the darker humor lingered, it reminded him of the ash upon his tongue.

Jakub had denounced him—for whatever reason. And Akavir was done chasing after the approval of his children when all he had ever tried to do was protect them. Mae remained—but even then, it depended on her mood of the day as to whether he was worth her time.

And he was done with that.

He paused—one last flicker of concern as he eyed his son. “There’s a disease out there, right now… It changes a wolf’s demeanour. Makes them extremely vicious… It kills you.” He pauses. “Just be careful.” No doubt, either youthful wolf would try to see this as an attempt at him controlling them—having them fear the boogeyman of sorts.

And with that, the man hoisted the wolverine up once more—moving now where he believed the newcomers, @Suzu and @Etienne had settled to—another pregnant mouth to feed. Like the shadow of the creek, he would leave it at their doorstep before moving away—

—another patrol on the borders. His gaze every so often stealing to the horizon where his daughter had disappeared in his last sighting of her—desperate that just maybe the boogeyman didn’t exist at all.

The woman rejected Akavir's gift, and walked away from his father—but it wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of himself, either. He glanced sidelong toward her retreating form, and was about to follow before Akavir spoke again.

At first, he knew it for a sick joke. . .but then the man continued.

Hex felt his blood run cold, a shiver traveling down his spine. He stared at Akavir, muted terror in the haunted hollows of his face.

"Hex," she'd spat. They'd turned on each other, and it was his fault.

Where? he asked quietly. When?

His pale beauty, stiff in his arms, a tattered tongue lolling to the side after having bitten it in seizure.

Don't go, he called over his shoulder to Muskrat. It was a plea, but his voice was firm. Wait for me.

He could not lose another to this madness.

akavir. she detested him because he was not cloud singer and had still caught her eye. she loathed herself for succumbing; to give the body was one thing, to share a sense of pain was another.

but muskrat had neither the ability to put this to a thought nor the desire to introspect. such revelations would be kept for another time.

she had thought this once-jakub would come with her, but he was consumed by what his father said, and muskrat almost reconsidered her decision, simply to see how the bond of blood still — affected.

never. never for her again.

she did not turn but she spoke:

"we call this sick phusuqu. white spit. cannot drink water. die not in head." instinct warred; they should stay here if an illness such as this roamed the land. but they could not, any longer.

ears swung forward. muskrat waited.

He paused in his step, stiffening—realizing, after a delayed moment, that his son was actually calling to him—requesting more information. He had almost missed the quiet question—but when he dropped the dead wolverine to now look back to dead-Jakub, the terror that flashed in the eyes of the dark wolf gave him pause.

“The taiga. A pair of wolves—parents of young pups. One of our own was bitten. She’s left…” He swallowed—acid in his stomach—acid in his throat. He would not vomit. He would not… “She came to give us a warning and she left to…”

No, he could not say it, and he found his eyes straying to the sudden halt of Muskrat’s steps, studying the curve of her spine. “It spreads through saliva. Once bitten, it’s only a matter of time…”

His teeth clenched. “Just be careful.”

But then Muskrat—her voice—it pulled at him. Phusuqu. White spit… He felt as if his heart stopped—she knew what this was. This was not the boogeyman.

“Is there a cure?” And he hated the desperation that laced his voice—that last sliver of hope—that Lilitu was wrong and there was something they could do.

The whites of his eyes gleamed bright 'round his golden irises. Just as Akavir struggled not to vomit, he struggled not to flee at once. His hackles were up, the corners of his lips trembling.

Muskrat spoke—she knew of it. And Akavir's question was for her, but Hex knew all too well the answer.

No, he said, his tone one of grave finality.

No one had survived, no matter the herbs he'd shoved desperately into their foaming mouths, nor the water he'd tried to get them to drink. Only crushed poppy had lulled Agrippa into a final stupor—but there was no longer life behind his once-sparkling gaze.

His father seemed distressed, and so he added, I'm sorry.

Hex shook himself, a great shudder moving through him, as if ghosts were dancing in his bones. He looked at Muskrat, then dipped his muzzle toward the range. 

We must take shelter, he declared quietly. Without another glance back toward Akavir and the creek, he took off at a trot, then a lope—too spooked, truthfully, to check whether the woman followed.

If she valued her life, she would. But he could not force her to do so.

her voice was lost in the crush of things unsaid between them, and muskrat felt akavir's harshness resting in her own marrow.

one of theirs; he spoke of a young family and her mind darted to arlette and her brood, the pups she had intended to meet and then did not. regret, again, darting into reality, but she dashed it against the hardened heart she presented now to any sentiment.

i owe nothing.

the shadowknife spoke and made for the mountains. muskrat lingered to meet akavir's eye. there was no apology there for her departure, only a softening for the anguish he allowed to lead him around by the nose. "no cure. give poison fast. less pain."

at a lope she followed the swallowed silhouette, feeling very much as she had the first time she had left behind the swamp panthers.

‘No.’

Never before had the word been delivered like the blade of a knife. Succinct—to the point. All but for his son to seemingly to put him out of his misery—though introspection of what he had done to earn the boy’s coldness wasn’t something he could contemplate now.

Maybe, with an ugly truth, he never would.

It was then the little swamp panther spoke, and his blood curdled at the final words she departed to him.

The desire he held to fight for her to remain was moot—for he knew she could never be happy here. But the callousness of her departure—that she had truly meant when she said she cared for none—

—well that simply made it almost a relief that she left, then.

And as they sank into darkness, he too turned, hoisting his kill back to his jaws, and ambling toward the cache. Only when the kill was deposited, and he was certain he was alone did the shadow runner seek further into the woods of the creek—and there, the contents of his stomach would once more be expelled—a lilting voice ringing in his ear:

‘Give poison fast. Less pain… Give poison fast. Less pain… Give poison fast. Less pain…’

Lilitu…