Ankyra Sound out of the will came life

the morning is partially cloudy, warmer than it's been.

scarab emerges from the grotto — explorations taking him deep into the underground haunt to squint lapis lazuli gaze against the sunlight as it drifts over his face. it is warm and he resists the urge to burrow back underground. the grotto has taken new shape; once familiar tunnels collapsed while new ones opened up and revealed themselves to him.

after his altercation with the stranger; chasing her from his his his sound he has taken refuge in the familiar chambers of his birth place. the warm baths, the bejeweled chambers, the ones covered in vines and mosses. that is where he sleeps, upon a bed of moss and draped in tickling vines, sharing the space with the fruit bats that dwelled in the darkest corners of the chamber. scarab does not mind their company. they investigate him and he allows them their curiosity but mostly, they let the seawitch to his own devices.

mine mine mine

the sound, this grotto. it was his. his safe haven. his death. his rebirth.

scarab stretches languidly, working out the stiffness of his limbs from his slumber and heads to the beach where he gathers up fish unfortunate enough to be caught in the seaweed that litters the beach and came in and left stranded on the high tide.

The sea was far for the witch to wander - but wander she did. Her potions and spells needed items from the great watery salt bed an thus the mission would begin no matter how far she had to go from home. Ebony paws padded through the soft sands, finding it different footing than solid ground or the muck of home that sucked her into its murky grasp. 

Pawprints in the sand carried her attention as she gathered seaweed, grasped betwixt midnight lips behind ivory teeth, smiling sweetly as she found the owner of the prints in the sand. Base little wolf, what are thou searching for? She approaches smoothly, weeds hanging from her mouth as she speaks, hanging by the canines that curved inward like some kind of sea demon she was not - no, she was from the marshes, not the sea.

haply I help thou. She cooes softly. Youth, ah how she loved it. Though the yearling was bigger than she was, Evanora knew a yearling when she saw it even in a species bigger than she.

base

base base base

though the sound of footfalls is swallowed by the sea, by the engulfing sand, by the call of the gulls the voice calls out to him; strange vernacular and from the throat of something that looks wolf but ...isn't.

searching searching searching

what is he searching for?

food; paw steps upon a fish which flops amidst the tangle of seaweed. merciless. indifferent. he does not care about its suffering. feels nothing. it is prey. food. anything is prey. anything is food. one only had to be hungry enough ...and scarab, well, he was no stranger to hunger —

his voice; lost lost lost. might he find it among the tangle of seaweed? locked away in a seashell by some murky witch of the deep? except ...he is the seawitch. or a seawitch? dead and reborn like the gods of old. an abomination. there was no fairytale solution for him because he was not the hero.

the woman draws nearer with an offer to help him. help him how? lapis lazuli eyes study her rapidly, tail sweeping against his hocks; uncertain. a small curl of his lips is given. stay back. like the woman before her: she talks too much and scarab twisted lost broken doesn't trust anyone who talks too much.

Adjusting the seaweed in her mouth so it would not slip and fall onto the sandy ground, she offered the boy a curious sideways glance as to try and figure him out. Cat got thy tongue? In a quick motion, her head tilted, wide dual violet eyes peering at him almost blankly. She couldn't fathom why someone so young wouldn't take her up on her generous offer.

Do not be afeard little wolf; potions and spells, luck and hexes, love and poison, allow me help the youth with the freebie I be offering thou. The energy she could feel from him was what kept the witch here. Negative and guarded, Evanora couldn't help but be drawn to the boy. The witch wasn't in love with children, frankly she found them annoying and most of them useless alive - but would this boy be that exception to the useless rule? Or would he better mushed up into a paste and added to a youth potion for some bitch to come to ask of her?

her taunting goes unappreciated; acknowledged and judged with a slight curl of his lips and low snort.

if she hoped to drag a vocal response from him she was going to be disappointed. giddily, he looks to her hoping she might wallow in it; sardonic and assholish as he is.

afraid afraid afraid

i'm not afraid of you, he makes known with his body language; posturing shifting to communicate this, hoping to enunciate with an annoyed snap of his teeth. he wasn't afraid of anyone anything. not he who stared death in the empty caverns pitless eyes and was returned to the world of the living.

she offers him things. potions. spells. luck. hexes. love. poison.

things he can conjure on his own. he shifts to study her in full; his attention solely upon her, head canting ever-so-slightly to the side as if to ask what do you think i need? curious as to what she might come up with.

He doesn't chase her off - though his invitation was null as well, he seemed curious enough to allow her to speak more, and speak more she shall! Lacking a true instinct for self-preservation, she was quite fearless in the face of larger beasts, even if she did not have poison coating her fangs right now, it did not matter. Her large personality and sheer might of arrogance were enough to keep her feeling safe right here and now. 

Then a protective spell for the primy one? to shield thou from the malice. He did not clarify what he might want and so she offered what might be nice for someone like him. join, join, we shall gather the ingredients for thy taste  'i  witchery and keep thou safe from harm for the next few months She was a little demanding, as she prepared to wander the beach for her ingredients.

Already finding one thing as she pounced on the crab that scuttled across her path, crushing it under her paws even as with its dying breath pinched her paws - a small price to pay for the first perfect ingredient to a shielding spell. A crab for armor. She murmured.

she decides that he needs a protective spell. to shield him from malice, she says. scarab lets out a low snort under his breath. if he is shown malice he no doubt deserves it ...for how many times has he been malicious in his life? everything was a balance. a scale. you could not give it if you did not expect for it to be returned. it was how life worked. but he, of course, doesn't vocalize this — can't or won't he doesn't even know anymore. if it'll make her happy then who was he to take that away from her?

she is demanding but he shrugs and follows after her to aid in the gathering of ingredients. he wonders what she will expect in return for this. safe passage? shelter for a few days? maybe longer? he figures, at this point, he couldn't deny her it. wouldn't. especially if she was making him a spell to protect him for a few months. the thought makes him, a hermit by choice, a bit uncomfortable but he'd pay the price.

should i help...? frusteration knits his brows again as his tongue feels heavy against his mouth, his teeth as he tries to vocalize. a warbling noise is all he manages, followed by a small grunt and huff. he finds another crab and smacks it around — like a kitten with a spider — before he crunches down on it's shell with his teeth, bringing it over to the coywitch for inspection.

With the weeds and the now crushed crab in her mouth, it became obvious enough to the witch that she might need a place to depose her ingredients should she desire to make something potent enough for the little wolf boy. Piercing eyes try to scour the lands for someplace good, only to get distracted as the boy decided to take it up on himself to hunt another scuttle bug and bring it to her. With a nod of approval (mouth too full to speak), she tilts her head to invite him to continue following while she sought a place to put their stuff and search for the final ingredients.

A stone is what she chose. Flat enough with which she could crush them all up later, she spits out the stuff and turns to him once more. Only a few moe things, wouldst thou like to join me or guard our stash? With a curious twist of her crown, she leaves it up to him to either stay or come with her while he hunted down the final things... I want shells, sea snails, and moe crabs. She pondered out loud should the boy be listening.

And off she went to go and gather each ingredient, every time her mouth became too full she would bring them back and run back out. it was only until they found enough of everything did she begin to stomp on the things, the shells cutting into her paws but it didn't matter... One moe thing behoveful. She looks to him with a stern eye. Thy blood, to assign the spell thee.  Just some few.