Blackfeather Woods where order is wild

looking for @Maegi! your open threads were all taken and i didn't want to interrupt any of them so i made us one. for the quest "your secrets lie in my heart" :D.

wintersbane does not know the name of the grotto he'd found in the northeast corner of blackfeather's claimed lands but he remembers it being concealed by thick and writhing fog. except it has risen this morning in the grasp of dawn still young. with a furrow of his brow and an persistent itch to venture into it's depths and explore it overtakes him. the swamp is silent, eerily so, and rather bleak. moss carpets the forest floor, vibrant and green despite that autumn has dug her roots in to make way for winter.

the further he ventures, he pays more attention to the faint pale blue wisps that writhe before his eyes. at first, the tundrian, teetering on that edge of skeptical isn't sure what he's saying. fireflies, perhaps. the lights are not consistent as they dance to a silent rhythm that he cannot hear. they flicker in and out of existence brief and all around him. one drifts across the bridge of his muzzle and he recoils. not in fright but as it subconsciously triggers his 'fight' instinct. except he cannot fight something that he is not even sure is real.

his perspectives on things have begun their heavy handed shift and yet still he clings to the edge, teetering precariously on the thin edge of a knife's blade. whether they are real or not, whether they are fireflies made to look like wisps in the remnants of fog that linger is unknown and matters little. he is undoubtedly fascinated and ventures boldly further into the grotto as if drawn in by the faintest and barest of siren's songs luring him.

He intrigued her, greatly. It was his pelt. She had never seen anything like it before--blacks and grays all muddled together, with a thick, silver ruff around his neck. Oh, perhaps it was the way he carried himself, too, like a warrior who knows each step before they take it. There was a surety to his shoulders that she liked.

But who was he? And why had she never seen him here before?

Maegi limped closer, giving a low chuff to announce her presence. Each step was agony; she hoped he'd stop or at least slow, so that she did not need to expend much energy hurrying after him. She wondered if he was an intruder. But what intruder would be this bold? Could be this bold?

Well. . .if anyone could, it was this man, she thought.

he should have heard the uneven footfalls behind him ...and being taken off guard by the low chuff instead left him disappointed in himself. in lieu of losing himself in the bewitchment of blackfeather woods as he sees it through new perspectives aside from an arrogant and defiant child's he's losing his touch as soturi and that was not a good thing. frustration at his own self etches a deep furrow into his brow that smooths by the time he turns to face the owner of the chuff with stiffened and steeled shoulders. he does not recognize her ...and suspects that if he'd ever seen her before he'd likely remember because he's never seen anyone like her before.

her ivory pelage is not a particularly new sight ...the little shadow's sister is as pale as a spirit. the dark master is ivory colored as well. perhaps there are others but these are ones that he's seen of even if in small glimpses in passing. rather, it was not her pelage that draws the attention. she has a malformed forepaw and a glasgow smile on the left side of her face, revealing sharp and dagger-like teeth. maybe her appearance should unnerve him. but he's a warrior and while the malformed forepaw is something new to him it's not as if he's not seen corpses torn open revealing flesh and bone beneath.

his glacial gaze takes her in slowly, assessing. the delta is left with the assumption that she is new. "hello," the tundrian greets her, letting his gaze drift to the wisps that dance around her and between them. still a strange phenomenon that he does not have an explanation for ...but maybe it's not up to him to rationalize the wisps existence. maybe he's not meant to question it. just like dream lotte. it still seems impossible to him. yet, he remembers it vividly as if it were an actual conversation held with the nightingale queen and he didn't question that half as much as he's questioned everything else.

his gaze returns to her, focusing on the un-ruined side of her face out of what he hopes is courtesy, noting that she's rather pretty all things considered.

She did not miss his gaze lingering over her injuries, but takes it in stride, merely shifting so that the unblemished side of her face is presented to him, rather than the ghastly wound. He offered her only a greeting, and she nodded, a quick cant of her muzzle downward before responding. "Hello," she parroted quietly.

Blue hovered nearby, in the trees--she felt his presence rather than saw the flash of blue. She had some faith that this man would not try to capture him; even if he did, the grackle was smart enough to evade quickly and silently.

"Who are you?" Maegi questioned. "And what are you doing here? I'm assuming you're new to the woods," she added, eyes narrowing slightly. If he was a spy worth his salt, he'd keep up the facade. But the smell of Blackfeather was heavy on his pelt; he had been here for some time. Probably not an opportunist, then.

she parrots his greeting but follows it up with a question of who he was, followed by an assumption that he's new to the woods. ironic, because he assumed the same thing about her, not knowing her history with these woods. he's not new, not in truth, but he looks nothing like the cream puff cub that nyx had found and briefly taken beneath her wing ...and he'd left long before the girl before him had been born. but he wasn't privy to sharing that particular bit of information. no doubt 'kahlil' was named a traitor. it wasn't truly personal...wintersbane abandoned everything, eventually. it was his calling card. the only one he'd had any issue with was vaati and that's only because the other boy's superiority complex ground on wintersbane's nerves. but for the sake of appearances, he was kind of new. though the newness should surely be wearing off by now.

"i've been here about a month? i don't keep track." did it really matter?, he wonders. time was ...what it was. was someone's worth determined strictly by how long they remained in a place? he didn't think so. he hedges towards annoyance as he replays her question of what he's doing here and interprets it to be an accusation. next time someone told him he didn't belong they'd meet the sharp edges of his teeth. wintersbane grew tired of feeling like an outsider, of being treated like one. he belonged where ever he wanted to belong and that was that.

"i'm exploring." he answers her simply, judging her reaction. "i assume the same of you. i haven't seen you around before." he points out; and he's seen all of it's wolves at least once in passing. at least, the wolves that had been apart of the pack when he joined. of course that number has obviously grown a bit since that time.

He seemed a little disgruntled at her questions, and she supposed that was fair. If someone was interrogating her, she might react the same way. She regarded him coolly, smiling slightly as he threw her queries back to her.

"I'm Maegi Melonii," she introduced herself, hoping he would give her a name as well. "I was born here. I went looking for my father and brothers after they left. It didn't go well," she added, turning the left side of her face to him in illustration. "I lived on an island for a while, and now I'm back."

She shifted her paws, relishing in the soft ground beneath them. It reminded her of the sand, so malleable. But this was soggy and fetid; she could not pretend she was at Undersea, now. The barest sunlight filtered through the trees, and the birds that cried out were ravens, not gulls. So different.

"How do you like the woods so far?" Maegi asked.

i've changed this post at least five different times while writing it. i'm still not sure i'm happy with it. :/ sorry if it's rambling rubbish, lol.

maegi melonii, she offers him. he recognizes her last name. it was familiar within these woods ...and he thinks she is the last of them to remain here. of course, he doesn't realize that the little shadow he's befriended and her sister bear the melonii name as well. in the end, it matters little to him in honesty. legacy is what each individual builds of it. he is anbjørn and fearghal and yet there is plenty of potential to build something of his own there. his own family name. something that does not belong to either of his parents but is, instead, wholly his own. then again, his views on families and legacies is a bit askew ...never really having either growing up.

"wintersbane." he offers her in return, simply. coolly. he's still trying to come down from his vexation at the interrogation. it hadn't really been an interrogation but that's what it'd felt like to the tundrian and if there's one thing he dislikes it's the need to feel like he has anything to answer for.

"i'm sorry." wintersbane offers simply, sympathetically though less to her infliction and more to the fact that he assumes she hadn't found her brothers or family. his own family was scattered to the wind and though he bore no physical inflictions such as herself, he shoulders a certain amount of guilt now that his suppressed memories have come to light once more. it's unexplainable, this guilt ...and yet wintersbane cannot help but wonder ( when he does think of it ) if he was not the catalyst for the misfortune that befell his family for lotte's death was the gravest misfortune of them all.

wintersbane does not realize he'd been staring at a stray will-o-wisp for a bit until his ears perk and twitch at her inquiry and he's drawn back to the present, glacial gaze flickering back to refocus upon her. this time around? a hell of a lot more than he had as a stray cub. "i like it a lot," he replies truthfully. "i like the wolves here." he has yet to officially meet all of them: but he was close to achieving that goal. a few more might've been drawn into their fold since he first arrived — maegi included — but he thinks that, with time, he will meet them all. it was easy to paint them all as evil from the outside with nothing but reputation to go off of. they deserved the reputation and perhaps that was exactly what they wanted but ...the he did not look upon any of the wolves currently residing in blackfeather woods and think 'they're pure evil'.

they were a pack, known for blurring moral lines and taking no shit but that didn't make them evil by principle. they were a family. they had families. the voice and actions of one did not reflect the voice and actions of the whole. it'd taken wintersbane a long time to realize this but now that he does ...it's challenged and changed the way he'd previously thought. "i seek to learn more about the religious aspect. it fascinates me." he admits, thinking back to the rite he'd attended with the listener. he's decided, this time around, he wants to be more than just a peon. he wants to be immersed into their culture in full.

nothing you write is rambling rubbish hush now

Her lips stretched slightly in a smile. She liked the name; it was both beautiful and fierce, not simple yet not overly complex. Easy to remember, and hard to forget. Maegi shook off his apology with a shrug and a slight exhalation through her nostrils. It hadn't been his fault, after all. There was no one but Maegi to blame for her scars.

He was a bit spacey, but he started to come alive as he talked about the woods, and his desire brought a renewed interest to her eyes. "What have you learned so far?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "Do you know about Sithis, Mephala, the Void. . .?" She led with the basic tenets of their faith, trailing off in a delicate query. It was one thing to instruct newcomers; to have them grasp for the knowledge themselves was another thing entirely.

It was exciting. Really.

♥

"not much," wintersbane rumbles in honest reply. he cannot remember if nyx had ever truly taught him anything other than their names. he'd spent so much of his time spurning the deities of these woods and their ways as a child that he might've intentionally caused himself to forget anything she might've taught him beyond their names. "i know their names." it's ...something of a start, though he cannot help but think that names are sort of useless if he cannot associate them with the proper deity. wintersbane offers her a curl of his lips into a sheepish half-smile.

"it's a bit daunting," he admits, speaking in a low voice that is almost whisper. as if he's afraid the gods might hear his secret. he cannot help but feel intimidated by the deities and hopes that they can forgive him his past transactions. there wasn't much wintersbane was intimidated by but the aspect of religion and gods who could favor and take away that favor at their own whimsical desire left him a bit hesitant and respectful of what he was desperate to be apart of.

She returned his expression with a lopsided grin, admiring his willingness to learn, despite the enormity of the task. Maegi, herself, had much knowledge still to seek. The daedra, their prayers, the rituals. . .it was all seemingly never-ending, an eternal font of wisdom from which to drink.

Most drank when they were thirsty, but her thirst was never slaked.

"It's all right. We'll start with the basics." She blinked up encouragingly at him, settling gingerly on her haunches on the soft, damp ground. "Mephala is the Night Mother--the mother of us all. Lies, secrets, murder. . .she assists with all of it. Sithis is the Dread Father, the ruler of the Void. The Void is where you go to die--it's an empty place."

Maegi sucked in a breath, hoping she wasn't going too fast. "Got it so far?" she asked, cocking her head slightly in gentle inquisition.

if maegi looked down on him for not knowing the daedra of the woods intimately she hid it well ...although the encouragement he sees in her expression tells him he assumes he's being judged for no reason. the woods is not how he remembers it as a cub; though his social circle now is vastly different than the one he'd been introduced to the pack through. In many ways, Wintersbane is glad that Nyx, Damien and the others are gone. Not because he feared the extremely unlikely chance that they'd recognize him as the same cream-puff child they'd known but because without the rose and gratitude colored glasses of a young, naive child he can shift through his memories with more clarity and he doesn't like what he remembers of them. For having been 'adopted' he'd been kept away from knowledge and places that mattered. An ill-crafted impression of belonging that would easily fool a child.

maegi draws his attention back to her as she begins with the basics of the pack's daedra, naming them and telling him what they did. it was a bit unsettling to hear that they believed when wolves died they went to a void of nothing. he thinks of lotte and struggles to accept that particular belief. he does not want to think that when she left her corporeal body that a void of nothingness swallowed her whole and nothing of her remained. he'd seen her though; in a dream, yes, but still. and yet, there is soft furrow of confusion as he replays her words. "i thought mephala and the night mother were two separate deities." he admits which is largely tori's own mistake because she evidently wasn't reading the pack page clearly enough oops.

Maegi shook her head, brow furrowing as well. "No. . .not that I've heard," she said, beginning to second-guess herself. Gods, what if she was feeding Wintersbane false information? What kind of priestess was she if she couldn't even keep her lore straight? "Mephala is the Night Mother. That's what I was taught." (Cue Emily triple-checking the Blackfeather Woods pack page.)

The girl shook it off, letting her face relax. "Anyway, those are the two main gods, but there are many more. Peryite, god of pestilence and disease--that's who I'm named for," she added, pride evident in her voice. "Sheogorath, god of madness. Molag Bal, who's this demon. . ." Maegi trailed off with a shudder, remembering how he had, in the form of Skullchaser, marred her so.

"It's a lot to learn, but I can help you," she insisted. "I want to help you." He seemed sincere enough, and kind, and he wasn't bad to look at, either. Besides, she had taken up the role of daedric historian, albeit an unpracticed one, as a pup--why couldn't she do so again?

she remarks that she was taught that mephala is the night mother; and wintersbane chalks it up as his mistake ( because it is tori's ). "i think my confusion stems from the fact that some call her mephala and others just 'the night mother' so i assumed they were two different daedra." he explains with a sheepish twist of his lips. now, he thinks, he knows different. now, he's been corrected and it's not a mistake he'll make again. she continues on and he welcomes it, trying not to pay mind to the burn of humiliation at his mistake as it settles beneath the dark fur of his cheeks.

she speaks of a god of pestilence and disease with such pride that wintersbane is disarmed for a moment. vanity has always been a driving sin of his and he can't imagine why anyone would want to be named for such a god. disease ravaged the mind and the body. but he looks to her again, eyes assessing, seeing her disfigurement and wondering if it was why she was named so. the tundrian doesn't comment because to each their own. "is it ever daunting to be named after a god?" he inquires out of curiosity. he is not named for any deity and while he thinks it might be a constant pressure to be named after something holy he doesn't actually know. perhaps it's a name like any other name. only a burden if it's made into one.

"i'd greatly appreciate any help you're willing to give." the delta confesses, head lowering in a demure bow of appreciation. the movement is brief but earnest nevertheless. it's been some time since he'd learned anything other than new battle tactics or medicines to treat wounds on-the-go; and despite how daunting religion seemed wintersbane was eager to rise to the challenge.

She dipped her head, nodding in understanding. She couldn't fault him for any misunderstandings; she had been corrected more than once in life, after all. And he was learning--that was good. Maegi smiled at his query. It was something she had never really considered. Peryite had been a part of her for so long; Peryite was one of her limbs, at this point.

"No," she answered simply. "It's just my name--I grew up with it. And Peryite isn't a very important god to many wolves," the girl added, then, with a sly grin (both corners finally matching), "but Peryite is important to me. Peryite is more like a friend, always with me."

She hummed quietly, tunelessly, to herself, staring into the trees. "Some voices here are louder than others," she remarked. "If they choose to speak to you, you need to follow which one whispers right into your ear. That's Peryite, for me. And you. . ." Maegi pursed her lips, thinking of what god best fit the man, who reminded her much of Vaati.

She shook it off for now, shrugging. "Do you want to see the Temple?" she asked, gesturing that way.

wanna fade this out? :)

thank you for the thread! :-)

her replies to his inquiry are simple and forthcoming; patient even. a name is just a name. still, it's an interest concept to name something so very mortal after something holy. was there purpose behind it? to earn favor? the tundrian's curiosity, now that he's sunken his teeth into the whole religious aspect of the dark woods is far from sated; but he tempers it lest he bombard his companion with rapid-fire questions — some of which might end up being more personal than he'd mean for them to be.

and you, she begins but trails off. glacial eyes study her for a long moment almost nervous as to which she would name. yet, she doesn't name any god. she leaves it a mystery and though that is only a mild annoyance to the tundrian he doesn't pry. maybe ...maybe it's better if he didn't know yet. thus far, he does not think any of the gods have tried to speak to him. "of course." he replies, motioning for her to lead the way with a gesture of his muzzle. he does not tell her that he's already been to the temple, called to attend a rite with the listener not soon after his arrival. it would be nice to see it while he didn't feel like he was disturbing anything holy.

wintersbane follows after her as she leads the way, mulling over her trail off on what god would whisper in his ear.