Duskfire Glacier uglustrákur

Open to anyone, tags for visibility more than anything.

The goings-on between the children did not go without notice by Arius, so far the quietest of the bunch. He was aware of the fuss being made over @Veteran and @Makatza's fighting, as well as the stress strung about the adults over @Sikuliak. Did he care very much about it? No, not really. The boy didn't have a strong attachment to any of his siblings - or the other children - and took the fretting of the adults as an annoyance, but nothing more.

He was much more intrigued by the act of people watching on a day-to-day basis. Whatever the children got up to was lackluster, because he saw them every day, and their antics weren't as steeped in novelty as the behaviors of the adults. The boy tried often enough to sneak from the shared den, and with the latest commotion focusing @Wintersbane and @Tzila upon the other children, Arius felt a rare freedom that he could exploit.

It wasn't easy, sneaking away from the den, but he managed it more often these days. His legs were longer, his sense of direction a touch keener, and he knew to stay quiet and hidden away if he detected any footfalls; and so Arius escaped, and when he thought he was an ample distance away from the chaos, his caution ebbed away quickly.

Siku was healing though the incident had left him shaken. He was shyer than before, quieter. For the first time, she could see some of herself in the boy — a change that was decidedly unwelcome. She’d have given anything for the rambunctious child that reminded her so much of his father. Such thoughts went unspoken, unkind as they were. 

He was young yet. The dove could only hope that time would restore her son.

 She had taken a break from his side to wander into the wild wood surrounding the territory. The dog had not expected to see anyone, especially the children, but a glimpse of smoke flickered in the wood — too small to be any but Ensio or Arius, from here she could not quite be sure. 

The boy was old enough to wander she knew. The disgraced shaman continued on her path, intent on the Qeya river beneath Wintersbane’s keep, with the rib of a deer clasped in speckled jaws. If he spoke or seemed intent on company, she would stop. If not, she would continue on to the secret place where she left things for the inua.

The trees around him shuddered beneath a westerly wind, one which dragged itself heartily through the scruff of his neck, and then reversed so as to buffer his cheeks. When it finally died down the boy was pressed against the dirt with his paws over his nose.

The rest of him was puffed up while his skin quaked. When Arius lifted his head again it was in the manner of a sailor periscoping from a submarine - ready to duck at the first tremble. The wind eddied further afield and he took the time to shake leaves off of his head and shoulders, then continued on his way.

In that time someone had come across his scent and even gleaned his location through the gaps in the pinewood. Arius was aloof; he did not notice Imaq at all and set about exploring while he was unhindered by the scrutiny or rules of the adults.

It was the smell of something meaty that gathered his interest the most. Having long ago given up his mother's milk in lieu of more substantial filler for his ever expanding gut, Arius reacted in a characteristic Pavlovian manner to the smell: his mouth filled with saliva, his fear of the wind and the cold dropped away, and he began to track the delicious tendrils of it through the trees, as a hungry boy might seek a fresh baked pie from a windowsill.

He was not as stealthy as he thought himself to be, either. Imaq would hear him coming, or see him more easily, as he romped across her path, wove through passages of gargantuan ferns, swerved or doubled back a few times to confirm what he was following, all the while childlishly ignorant of what he was truly pursuing.