Shadewood haagax ⚘

kukutux had expected cry's removal, but not his coldness, the burn of his ice-eyes like shards into her. nor did she expect the promise of death, and her eyes widened with a pained shock she could not hide. how could he do this? threaten her as if she were nothing? breath shuddered in her throat; for a moment, kukutux felt as if she might weep at his sheer erasure of her.

but she had shed enough tears, and though they prickled at the corners of her cooling mint gaze, the girl faced upward into the face of cry and realized she felt anger outweigh her fear. "then judge me in two weeks when i return, qugax," she cursed softly. "i go to find a husband. and if he can be persuaded, i will bring him here. but if he cannot be," kukutux warned, her gaze flashing with a contained wrath, "then i will stay with him. either way, i will show you the courtesy you do not show me, and i will return to tell you."

then you may kill me, the duck added silently. "there are plants in my den for amaya to study. she too enjoys the study of plants. you will not need anything else that is there," she added in defiance, knowing full well that cry could claim all the things she had painstakingly gathered, and refuse to return them. 

"i do not belong to you. i am not yours to keep," kukutux finished, daring him to disprove her, strike her down, and she held the full weight of his glacial eyes in the silence that followed.