Bonesplinter Ravine who thought she was a nightingale

for timeline consistencies: takes place before this thread. one creepy boi coming up.

a lesser beast might have felt that the bonespliter ravine was a place of horrors, tucked betwixt the strath and the barrier mountains grasses stained with muck from recent rain and bleached bone of skeletons littering the ravine's floor, scarab took it in with a breathless sort of wonderment. he has never feared the dead and this ravine was proving to be a treasure trove for the deathreaver. he abandons a small, splintered section of some unfortunate beast's spinal chord for a peculiar skull — fox, he thinks — covered in mosses that made it their home. he drops the section of spine and crushes it into pieces beneath his paws as he inspects the moss covered skull, sniffing it and taking it betwixt his jaws.

the taste of musky, mossy earth combining with the sweet, nutty flavor of bone causing him to salivate against the crown of the thing.

at home among the skeletons and half-eaten corpses that vultures abandon at his prowling, scarab seeks out a gold veined cave to tuck away his newest prize, wondering what other goodies this place has for him to savor.

✹☾❂

 

These days, Eleuthera lived less out of intention and more out of whim, folly and sloth. There was nothing to do and nothing to worry about. No pack to work for and no family to seek. So she roamed the lands as she was won’t to do, chatted with fair strangers as she came across them and enjoyed a swim if she came across an appropriate body of water, but for the most part she slept and let the edges of the days blend together in an amalgam of time that no longer made sense.

So when she came across the ghastly sights and smells of a boneyard, Eleuthera didn’t immediately turn and avoid the place. Instead, without anything better to do, she entered the diseased ravine — carefully so that she did not become one of the corpses herself — and began to pick over the bones as if they were shells on the beach. Whenever she found one with something resembling a face, Eleuthera found herself wondering what the creature’s story was, and how they came to find themselves here, dead and broken and decaying… and then, she wondered grotesquely, if her mothers had suffered a similar, dismal fate.

With that thought fresh on her mind, Eleuthera continued to peruse and imagine the lives that had once been lived, but now, had been ended.

like anubis prowls the underworld, scarab prowls the dark corners of the veined cavern, lapis lazuli gaze following the golden veins with a greedy curiosity. he moves chunk of wallrock that has fallen loose from the cavern's walls, edges smoothed by the years of trickling rainwater that no doubt eroded it away from the rockbed. in the ravine, scarab does not feel the keen absence of company. the ghosts of this place dwell in every shadow, in every whisper of wind thru the cavern, in every stirring breath of dank, musty cavern air that he takes. he does not fear the dead. cannot. not when he has nearly touched their world twice over. not when he has devoured his own ilk.

he, better than any, knew that the real things to fear was wholly the living.

the sound of footfalls in the muck draw scarab slinking from the shadows; from whence he emerges with unbridled curiosity like the lord of the underworld. lapis lazuli gaze studies her limelight; lithe, lovely, a breathing lilac grey shadow who's presence feels at odds in this place.

or perhaps it is merely scarab's conviction that there is none that can understand him that leads him to this conclusion.

he croons out a low 'woof' to garner her attention, though he lingers near the mouth of the gold veined cavern he's taken temporary shelter in, content with the distance that lingers between them.

✹☾❂

 

Eleuthera slunk along, feeling disgust towards the collage of dead things, but not the extreme revulsion that one might expect to feel. She chalked it up to the fact that, at times, she felt envious of the dead. They had paid the ultimate price, and found everlasting peace, while the rest of those left living were strung along the oftentimes painful vicissitudes of fate. Hers was a world of extremes, and theirs was a world of nothingness. How lovely that must be! 

Her foot overturned a rock which tumbled down a rocky slope, clinking hollowly against the smooth, rounded exterior of a cranium. Eleuthera followed it first with her gaze, then her entire being, and came up close to the skull, prodding it with a lilac paw until she was face to face with its half-rotted grimace. It was almost as if she could see the life that once danced inside; all the thoughts that had ever been thought by the brain that once inhabited this now-hollow place. Eleuthera looked and looked, then turned away and saw the brute in her periphery.

Certainly she had not expected to see another living thing here like she, except for the carrion birds which lined the rocky exterior like the audience at an amphitheater. She lifted her crown curiously, as if that might afford her a better look. He stood in the dark entrance of a crag in the rock, and his entire being was shadowed. Eleuthera took one step closer, then another, not bothering to wonder why another soul was in such a disparaged place. After all, she was here, and she meant no harm. Still, the distance between them was great so she felt she must call out —

“A ghost?” the woman questioned, half-seriously. “Which of these bodies was once yours?”

scarab does not expect to find another living soul amidst the graveyard of the unfortunate; such unfortunate souls! she drifts closer; smelling of warmth and woman, not a lost spectre come to haunt him. he hesitates, almost receding back into the shadows of the cavern, to his moss covered skull, to the gold veined rock — never mind that he has no idea how he's going to transport both things out of here ...

her lips part and her question shivers in the air between them, drawing golden filigree ears forth. she thinks he is a phantom of this place. though, perhaps, not an entirely wrong assumption, at least in some way, scarab almost laughs. the stirrings of it chirrs in the base of his throat, black nostrils flaring as he scents after her again.

he lets out a breath and prowls from the mouth of the cavern as if to prove that he is solid muscle and bone. that life and blood still rush hot thru his veins. a throaty, noise beckons and invites. i am no ghost. the sound of his voice very nearly startles him. he has forgotten what it sounds like; perplexed even further what it is about her — a perfect stranger! — that draws it from its desolate and ironlocked chamber within. it sounds like it belongs to a stranger; too deep to be the lilting treble of his childhood.

though i have held death in my arms. rather, it was the other way around but what was the deathreaver without a bit of pomp?

✹☾❂

 

Eleuthera watched unflinchingly as he drew forth from the cavern, closing the space between them by a negligible amount — something that she had become aware of, if not grateful for, because she still did not totally believe him when he stated he was not a ghost. Was there another reason, besides a morbid curiosity, to be here? If there was, Eleuthera did not want to conceive of it.

The woman was unaware of the significance of his words; really, the mere presence of them at all. To her, they were the answer to a question, and one that nearly summoned a laugh from her throat (as, unknowingly, her question did to him). Eleuthera could only wish that she could cradle death in her arms — but she had never been able to. Instead, everyone she had ever known that had died did so far away from her, and she was always too late for it. The last memories she had some were nothing more than simple nothings, unintended to be their last interaction. There was no closure to be had from it.

“Death has touched us all,” she stated plainly, suggestively, gesturing with a pointed, greyscale maw to her left, then her right, at the death that engulfed them on every side. The two living souls were no better for it than the scattered smattering of countless skeletons.

so it has..., scarab murmurs in placid agreement, unknowing that the first time death caressed someone whom was tethered to his life was the death of the man whom sired him. his gaze leaves her to flicker lazily 'round the valley of death they stand amidst. grass and muck and the errant bloom of a wildflower whose seed was dropped by a bird overhead. each word scourges his throat raw, as if words were sandpaper against the butterfly wing delicate vocal chords. there is nothing wrong with them; nothing but his own selectiveness.

his own clemency for daring to devour the divine.

would she consider herself fortunate, scarab cannot help but superciliously wonder, if she knew she was the first to hear him speak in ...months? years? he can no longer remember.

age was ...nothing. life was better counted by achievements than years lived.

death must touch us so we can know life. it is a take and a give. the wilting of life so that the seeds of the hereafter can take root and bloom into blossoms.

oracular words spoken by someone who has only ever preferred the company of the dead and the dark; the twisted by the terms of their society. a sweep of his paw is given, dispelling muck and splintered bones; theatrical.

✹☾❂

 

Bloom into blossoms… her mind subconsciously repeated his words, hoping that they held some true meaning for her. It would be so nice if there was a reason for loss, wouldn’t it? That it wasn’t just random happenings; coincidences of the saddest kind? Eleuthera had her doubts, especially now, after revisiting Hushed Willows and finding a new family settled there. Calling her home, their home. She had her doubts…

In truth, the lilac sprite would have felt fortunate for knowing the truth of his voice. Having now heard more of his words, she had begun to suspect that there was something more to this man — more reason for him to be in this place than she, who was here based upon a wandering, wanton interest. All wolves had their story, the woman supposed and shrugged inwardly. In her travels across these contiguous lands, she had met many a wolf and each was more strange than the next. It didn’t make them less worthy of her attention; instead, it made them far more interesting. Eleuthera never shied away from a challenge.

The woman gave a small, indignant snort as she prepared to refute one small part of his assertion — most, she reluctantly agreed, was spot-on. Things had to happen, all living things must perish, but to what larger scheme? “Are we better for it?” she mused softly, glancing at her toes, then back up at his looming, golden figure in the far-off distance. She walked her forelegs off to the left to turn sidelong, her lavender eyes watching him from the corner, to see if he’d come closer if she silently invited him. 

“Look,”  she beckoned towards the skull that had captured her attention just one or two minutes prior; the one that danced with life, and thought all those thoughts. “It used to be someone.”  and, honestly, she didn’t even know what this creature once was. It had decayed to such a point that it was likely unrecognizable even by that creature’s loved ones. What a sad, sad end. “Now…”  she grit her teeth, “it’s nothing.”

her musing might not have been meant to be bitter, but this is how the desertwitch takes it. bitter. like death as touched her and she mourns for it. when he had thought the tidal wave that blocked him off from his family had killed them he had mourned. and he had surrendered to the darkness within him as he dined upon the flesh of strangers. his will to live was stronger than morality which has become so grey; to the point where scarab envies those who can see life in simple terms of black and white. right and wrong. good and evil.

yes. he blinks slowly at her, as if he does not understand how they could not benefit from death. there is nothing to fear in death. life is cruel. it demands. it is chaotic. it is hard. death is easy. quiet. peaceful.

scarab looks to the skeleton; the remnants of a life long snuffed out. to him, she appears to mourn the life that lived and lost. scarab does not. a soul who no longer needed its broken body anymore. if it does not serve why keep it? why linger in suffering and pain? though he had once suffered with eating fellow wolves during his darkest hours ...looking at the body as a vessel and nothing else erased the torture he felt. the stranger(s) were dead, they would not miss their mortal flesh.

✹☾❂

 

He was right about many things, but there was something he was most right about: Eleuthera was bitter. It was not without reason, for there were many things to be bitter about! She was not a pure, featherlight soul that never did wrong or experienced wrong done to her. At this point, the hand of her karmic retribution, she feared, was going to be very, very heavy.

— but what vexed her most upon her return to these lands certainly had much to do with death and what it had taken from her. Who was she to be so indulgent that she was not here when her family clearly needed her most? Why was she out feeding her whims and whimsy while Elysium was smote out of this very existence, with so little explanation. It was as if her own blood had been stolen from her, and she hated these lands for it as much as she loved them.

But the way the golden brute spoke about it was oddly comforting. It was nice to think that death was a peaceful thing. She had assumed it was an experience closely related to pain — but maybe it was more closely associated with nothingness, and moreover, the relief of pain. Perhaps, one day she might even make friends with death, though its hand in her pocket was a ruthless thief (where the living were concerned, at least). “If that is true, then perhaps I might like to die,” she mused almost dreamily, to no one in particular, holding the empty, locked stare of the half-rotted skull. The lilac fae fell silent as she wondered who was the more fortunate soul; she with her internal torture, or this dead thing with its nothingness. 

Eventually, she blinked and looked over to the man at her side. “My mothers are dead,” the woman admitted. Her voice still held a clear, demure sadness about it as she spoke the words. “All of them.”

the woman's revelation and words might've shocked another, might've brought about a furrow of concern ...but not scarab. this epiphany does not draw any sort of emotion except ...understanding. take comfort from knowing that you will, one day. lapis lazuli gaze blinks owlishly at her and then drifts 'round their surroundings, over the discarded dead, before it rests back upon her. life can be beautiful, too. such a contradiction, he is! speaking of the peace of death and the chaos of life only to shift gears.

the admission that her mothers are dead and it is these words that break scarab's unperturbed nature. it draws in a sharp breath thru gritted teeth. he understands that torment of loss ...for though both of his mothers are most fortunately alive there was a time when he believed it not to be so.

i am sorry. he speaks this truly. how glad he'd been to know that the suns of his life drew breath still, even if it hadn't been enough to bid him to abandon his spiritual journey to the ( believed ) underworld. there was a time when i believed my mothers dead. he admits, fighting against the sharp pain in his chest at the thought. i was fortunate to be wrong. but it does not escape the desertwitch's knowledge that such would not remain forever. eventually, anubis came for them all.

✹☾❂

 

 
The man was surprisingly stoic, given that they were speaking of matters of life and death. His voice had seemed as if it croaked to life and carried the weight of a thousand lifetimes — with philosophies and ideas which sought to revolutionize the way they looked at what was alive and what was dead. Eleuthera regarded him gingerly as he stood to her side, unsure who this wolf was, who had so many ideas about death, and seemingly lived amongst death.  

“A win-win situation,” she corroborated, appreciating his duality fully. What a wonderful perspective, that everything had the potential to be good; if you chose the mindset to see it that way. “How optimistic of you,” Eleuthera said brightly, the irony dancing a tango on the tip of her tongue. Again, the same question crossed her mind — who was this man?

But, no matter how you could rationalize it, Eleuthera’s heart couldn’t change overnight. The thought of her mother’s lights snuffed out made her profoundly sad, even if it was merciful. She couldn’t help but intuit that Olive and Seabreeze and Ariel had not wanted to die and they fought against it — it was just a feeling, and it made her uncomfortable to think about. Bad things happening to good wolves was something that, in a wheel-of-life kind of way, shouldn’t happen. Eleuthera was a bad wolf; Eleuthera could have borne the weight of their punishments for them.

The gilded stranger tried to relate, but his own parents were still very much alive and thus, he could not. To know that one’s family was out there alive — or to even maintain hope that there was a small chance they were alive — was a sense of comfort Eleuthera no longer had. There was a finality to knowing that struck the lilac fae hard, and her heart suddenly leapt into her chest and began to claw its way up her throat. Tears sprang to her eyes, quite unbidden and quite unwelcome. Eleuthera quickly turned her visage to the side, facing away from the man who seemed so wise that she doubted he ever let his emotion get the best of him. 

She knew it wasn’t her fault, whatever happened to them, but what if she had been able to do something? Eleuthera held her breath for a moment, then quietly she lamented. “I wasn’t there when they needed me. I’m never where I need to be… and she didn’t turn back around to face him. Almost as if she didn’t deserve to even look upon him.

try as scarab might to understand her loss, the desertwitch only understands it behind a veil. sympathetic because he mourned the suns of his life ...but held onto the seed of hope despite how he might protest otherwise all the same. the veil of his understanding is sheer: he can see it, the manifestation of pain but he cannot part it. fingers slip against the shimmering, translucently pearlescent silk but it will not part. she looks away from him, and the desertwitch ghosts forward, dispelling remains and sloshing thru sticky muck only to recoil as he realizes he is subconsciously reaching out towards her as she mutters about not being there when she was needed.

this he understands.

had the suns of his life ever needed him? had he been gone for that time? did they miss? did they mourn —

it would come to pass that yes, yes they did but that was yet to be revealed to him and presently scarab must wonder.

if he'd been having doubts about seeking out rusalka, this encounter has dashed them away.

looking back is only prolonging your torture. what is done is done. he does not mean it to sound cruel but he cannot blame her if she takes his words as flippant. forgive yourself. forgive yourself because it is likely your mothers forgave you long ago. it's arrogant to say as such, but he thinks of his own mothers and cannot imagine them holding anything against him even if he causes them great heartache.

✹☾❂

 

Eleuthera was fully absorbed in her own woe, lamenting internally even as the tawny stranger spoke of forgiving herself. She knew she must — Séamus said the same exact thing. He was just as culpable as she, in so many things over and beyond this, and he just plodded ever forward to greet the future. Eleuthera was not like that. She was a gently suffering thing, and she felt the full force in a land so fully consumed by corpses. But this is what she wanted, right? Reckoning — that’s why she came back, wasn’t it?

Eleuthera let her lilac crown hang for only a moment longer before deeply inhaling and giving a long sigh. She looked at him over one willowed shoulder, her eyes heavy with the weight of her own expectations.

Her voice was hushed, afraid it might break again and she’d devolve to tears once more. She was not usually this way — so vulnerable — but there is something about this witcher that made her so. She cracked wide open at the easiest of his prodding. “They’re buried in the mountains. I keep thinking, if I go…” Her soft, sorrowful gaze flitted from the man to her side, to look somewhere past him, beyond. What did she hope for, if she went? Forgiveness? According to Scarab, she already had it. So, what more could be possibly want from it?

Her gaze snapped back to him. “Who are you?” she questioned, noticing that he had drifted closer than he was before. The man was a difficult book to read, and he already knew so much about her — would he allow the tables to turn? “A wiseman?” she further prompted, quite sure that, to this, he should reply yes.

So let’s just say this is before she pledges to SC!

she trails off in her rumination, that her mothers are buried in the mountains, that if she goes ... and scarab is left using his imagination to figure out what she'd meant to say. he can't and doesn't linger upon it too much. go if you feel you must, if you feel it will assuage your turmoil. scarab encourages, only to level his gaze with lingering warning waiting in the wings. the dead, however, will not speak. her forgiveness must be her own, as he has mentioned before.

who are you?

a wiseman?

he almost laughs at that, feels the breath grating against the barest reaches of his throat, never to bubble to the surface.

i am ...the deathreaver. the desertwitch... accolades, the both of them. i am scarab.

✹☾❂

 

He waited a moment before answering, leaving Eleuthera in a ghostly limbo. She was silent, patient, as be began to list his monikers — titles, and the greycloud sprite could only guess and grasp at their meaning. She almost suggested a new title, perhaps after this place — Bonesplinter - but when she learned that his name was Scarab, she felt compelled to offer her own.

“Eleuthera…” she greeted, unfurling from her protective, energetic curling in on herself. However, her name alone sounded so simple, so singular, so she added “Shakti-Singing-Sunlight” after a beat or two. It was only her surname, but it would have to do, for now. Maybe later she might come across her own impressive-sounding name, but as far as Eleuthera knew, the were reserved for wolves who had truly earned them. Wolves of excellence, even if the thing they were excellent in was death and dying.

It was at this point that Leu started to perk up a small amount. She was a suffering thing, yes, but she was suddenly eager to rid herself of this limelight and melt into the intricacies of this man who stood across from her. “The dead don’t speak, even to you, Deathreaver?” she questioned demurely, as if it were a forbidden question. A secret.“Then why be in such a place?”

sirenames are not something scarab thinks about ...though he has a combination of two of his own. they've never seemed necessary to use when introducing himself, and he learns that she has three. shakti. singing. sunlight. the desertwitch makes a noncommittal noise in his throat, not commenting. not a single one of her surnames rings with familiarity to him. once they did. he speaks this hoarsely, not wanting to admit why it was the dead spoke to him. because he'd eaten flesh of his ilk? because of the fever? it was hard to tell. they have been silent for some time.

because i am comfortable here, among the dead. the dead could not harm you, could not betray you or your trust. they would listen, solemnly blessed to never have to answer.

✹☾❂

 

Again, Eleuthera could not help but notice that there was something about his voice that stood out in her attention — at this point, she had heard him speak enough and pondered it enough to have a clue what was going on. He spoke in a way that was heavy, dripping with meaning — yet unused, creaking back to life before her eyes. For this to even be noticeable to her, she thought, he must have a wicked cold or he must have not used his voice in a long, long time.  Gosh, how long has he been living here? she wondered, her heart and eyes softening like butter.

He explains that he likes the company of death, and Eleuthera wished she didn’t understand — but she did. He had opened her eyes to the possibility that there was more to the afterlife, as well as the other lifes, after. It was eerily similar to ideas she had heard her mother preaching so many years ago, and to hear it now, Olive somehow felt close. She had always had her head up in the clouds with the gods, and Scarab has his in the earth with the dead. In the end, it was all the same. “I understand," she spoke, holding his gaze quite stoically and seriously, 

“completely." 

Eleuthera looked around the ravine they were in, mucky with death and sticking of rot and flies. The only disgust she felt was towards the possibility of contracting any disease, and nothing more. Her proclivity, insensitivity, to death was something she had known since she was a child, after he brother bled out right in front her as an infant. It had fucked her up a little bit; not that she was ever going to tell anyone that. “If you know where your mothers are," she advised carefully. “You should go to them," If both life and death were wonderful, and he and his mothers were currently alive, should they not be enjoying the simple closeness of their kin? Eleuthera would give her own life to embrace Olive or Seabreeze, or Ariel and Séamus, Lily and Oaxaca, even only once more. “…before they are stolen from you too." and, without much else to say, the two bid adieu and Eleuthera found a nearby stream and took a long, long shower.