Bearclaw Valley chthonic

awareness dawned upon the unchild in fleeting daybreak snatches and moonbright threads of clarity. instinct reigned, yet a deeper cognizance stirred beneath; torpid, languid as if waking from a deep slumber. the demon within roused ever so slowly, grumbling, yearning for the vessel to match its fanged soul. yet asperas, for all her umbral hellfire and all her astral gloam, was still merely a child. composed for now of needling claws and soft salmon maw, she knew little of the world she'd been thrust into, and less of the ways of the dominance and destruction that would define her adult life.

that did not mean that she was not learning, however.

the unchild pieced her first lesson together swiftly, finding herself frequently disturbed by a wriggling warmth distinctly separate from what she'd come to regard as The Feeding Wall. within days, asperas had identified this being as competition. like a shark in utero, she met the perceived feud with brutality; as much as a neonate was truly capable of, at least. feeding time became a battleground, a frenzy of fierce kicks and doughy toothless chomps — a full-on assault launched by a child born without capacity for notions such as generosity or cooperation. today asperas had been particularly unrelenting, violence incarnate in name and in deed. eating greedily, the girl angled herself for another vicious kick of the limbs in response to the vague feel of foreign fur brushed against her own, void of any feeling save her instinctual drive to dominate.

dated for 06/04/2021
brief newborn thread for @Apophis if you're up for it. open to @Merrick & @Astara as well, of course. no pressure to respond; i'll archive after a week if no one joins.

<3 mumther can maim him for this ok

had he ever tasted the blood of a newborn?
the slick inner taste of something not meant for his tongue, coating aventus —
aventus, bruin-jaw.
pride, shimmering, before once more it melted into a solemn pointed focus.
the den.
he had crowfeathers caught in his mouth. the bird's limp head bumped against his jawline. 
mine mine mine m—
he cast it at the threshhold, thrust his slim-scarred shoulders inside, hardened by a thousand words; he picked the spindly strange child up, not a tooth nicking the odd spiderling body, and put them on the ground just outside the lip of the den, between his calloused pads.
a grub, but one of his own, he saw now.this time. doing better already, merrick, he congratulated himself, before he began to invasively pore over the cub, eyelid tightening in preparation for whatever blow might fall as he sought to ensure that this one would not need to be culled.
ursus had no charity.

unlike his sibling, apophis was not born to dominate. at least not as quickly. when she shoved, he took it all, occasionally with a small push back but not nearly so strong and destructive. what was this thing that his mother allowed so near him? he lacked the strength or awareness to take it on. today a limb kicked him and he emitted a silent whimper. but there was little other movement from him beyond an uncomfortable wiggle. but then the warmth beside him was gone. he was content with or without her there, and merely suckled more eagerly, not knowing how long the lack of competition beside him would last.

that first taste of violence was sweet; an appetizer for the child created to feed on war.

war —


interrupted! thwarted! the changeling shrieked a protest at the feeling of prickling nape and only air beneath tiny voidspun paws, limbs wheeling for a fraction of a second. then, an uncanny stillness, a focus all too evasive to the typical newborn.

asperas was not a typical newborn.

angular limbs found the ground again, needle-claws flexing into the dirt. the unchild waited, tense, filled with rage for he who would dare play god to the fateweaver. another touch, the spongy feel of a nose — and asperas lashed out, muzzle wrinkled, mouth stretched wide and shaped in an 'o' as puppy mouths were wont to do. in the spiderling's mind, the assault included teeth. in reality, the child could only aggressively gum the wolf that would one day become father, with a side of few futile smacks by graceless paws.

for now, merrick was only an insolent oaf, a sacrilegious lout seeking his own death. nevermind that he was many times greater in size than asperas. nevermind that he possessed the pointed protrusions the unchild so coveted, the tools of death that the shadow would one day find pride in.

for now, he was only one of many false gods asperas would encounter as she grew —

and as with all the rest, she was determined to cast him down.

but there was nothing wrong with this one.
merrick chuckled deeply, lowly, a wraithine smoke that drifted over the struggling, defiant newborn. this child belonged both to him and to whatever dark spirits had formed his perfect raven.
they each did.
his love's blow did not come. merrick dared to put the child back against the other, nestling arachnid body against the roundness of the obsidian brother. something like fondness crossed his gaze and then he was turning away,
not for fear but to hunt, to bring bloody meat to his heart-star's threshhold and guard his newborns with malevolent prowling along all their borders.