Blackfeather Woods with all the taste i desire
feather heart
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All Welcome 
maybe @The Ghost? for reference he's in nightcaller's temple.

as scarab makes his thru wispmother's grotto, lapis lazuli gaze noting the small illuminating sprites that dance around the spindly boughs of the witchtrees, he worries he's losing grasp on reality. a concern solidified by the presence of the illusory spectre — a looming, partially skeletal omen. ever since the burning fever, despite how scarab has recovered from it, the phantom of his dreams boldly crosses the fade into scarab's waking hours too. not always ...but more and more days are spent in the chimerical omen's presence. scarab cannot help the stray of his gaze to the stone alter that emerges before him thru the thick fog that writhes around him like a breathing entity at the grotto's center.

the spectre bounds ahead in a fizzle of lazily drifting cinders and appears upon the sacrificial alter, though the rains have mostly washed it clean there are areas of the sacrosanct stone that remain blackened with old blood. get off of that. ordered only after looking this way and that to assure he was alone — lest he be caught talking to something only he can see. the lounging spectre stretches, sprawling out with all the leisure of a cat basking in sunlight, studiously ignoring the haunted golden prince. a chill creeps down his spine that has little to do with the cold that permeates the morning air.

a raven swoops down then, perching upon a low hanging branch, causing it to scrape against the stone. scarab's gaze flickers to it quick, watching its beady black gaze take him in before its head turns to the spectre and the raven lets out a loud caw, startling the silence. two death omens ...wasn't one enough? scarab cannot help but wonder.

nanowrimo: 291
it's a quality of the gods
to see a creature with its back broken
and be unmoved —
1,293 Posts
Ooc — Talamasca
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Light rain spattered at the naked boughs of the trees. He crossed beneath them without a care; his strides were long and light, knowledgeable enough of the terrain not to make too much sound as he drifts. In the days since returning among the Blackfeather wolves it has been Mou's solemn desire to keep the little family safe. He has spent hours mapping out the borderlands of their home, eager to return to it. At times he drifts deeper, almost as if he has forgotten the tumultuous nature of the season, and is met on numerous occasions by obstacles that he cannot pass. Trees uprooted but intact; earth which has given way to sinkholes; caches left exposed and rotting in the open air, leaving a noxious scent trailing ominously. There is too much work for one creature to do alone—but he investigates in silence, never bringing the destruction to the attention of Maegi or Jakoul. They have been through enough without him; fairer, then, that he try to remedy the situation on his own.

He has not seen the temple in more than a season, though. In the summer he had glimpsed it but the sight did not elicit any emotion from him. The altar had been lit by a spotlight of sun, and upon it baked trinkets that made little sense to the ghost. Bones, mostly. Stones, which made him think of the lost Relmyna and her twin girls. In the days that followed it would be surprising if the altar remained intact. When he was passing near where the temple sat, Mou deviated just enough so that he could cut across the old path; here, he found the fresh scent of Blackfeather and wondered if there were other ghosts left adrift—and in following the path left by the boy he did not know, Mou found the temple. It was intact, for the most part; the boy stood out among the debris, a glimmering gold the likes of which Mou had not seen since the warm seasons.

They appeared distracted, and the ghost did not wish to disturb whatever was going on. He intended to slip on by the boy and continue his exploration, yet it became clear very quickly that there was no longer a route of egress where once there had been multiple. The pale wolf was left to drift for a bit, aimless, lost, until he realized he'd have to double-back the way he'd come and creep by the boy again. With a disgruntled little huff he began to do just that.
feather heart
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deserving of the death omens or not, scarab finds himself near constantly in their presences nonetheless. for now, the plagued prince finds it perturbing ...hoping that as time pulsed on that it would fade like the ache of a bruise. the first time the pale wolf makes his way past scarab, his presence goes unnoticed by the golden dahomey-riviani as he tries to ignore his own internal war and focus on the bones littered about the stone alter. they appear strategically placed, if not a moved a bit by heavy winds; yet that is not enough to keep the would-be bandit from thieving them for his sparse collection.

though the petrified sandpiper was his crowning jewel, it paled alone. other treasures and trinkets were needed to reassemble it as the apple of scarab's eye ...despite that he still clutches to his sandpiper as if it would bring back the innocence that he had slaughtered in the name of survival.

the second time the pale wolf passes thru, scarab is nosing about the bones left behind, picky about which he will take. the footfalls bring about the cautious flick of an ear — there is a feeling that he shouldn't be taking from this place — and scarab's head snaps in the direction of the older male, lapis lazuli gaze hardening. he does not play innocent as a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. these bones were presumably abandoned and thus they were his.

finders, keepers.

the spectre rumbles a low, perhaps sultry laugh that only falls upon scarab's own ears with twitch errantly in the illusion's direction before they cup forth towards the stranger, his stance becoming possessive over the alter. just in case. what're you doing here? the plagued prince demands, as if this stone altar is his kingdom and this scarred stranger is trespassing.

nanowrimo: 311
it's a quality of the gods
to see a creature with its back broken
and be unmoved —