Arrow Lake why you rolling waves over me now, that's all i need dreaming

one more to her collection, which grew by the day. her sisters whispered of another relic, this one far less ancient and no less powerful.

qiao set east.

by morning she came to a glittering lake half rimmed in ice. the land bore few trees and held an air of irrepressible despondency -- as if it had been stripped barren years ago.

and yet, somewhere in this hulking rubble whispered a quiet voice just waiting to be reborn.

If this was meant to be private, lmk!

The rabbit, the Caldera, and the brief brawl with the brash yearling already seemed like they happened years ago. Such was life for Ephraim. He had not the luxury of reminiscing about his past, what little comfort could be found there, nor contemplating his future, for no day was assured. This left him mired firmly in the present, where things flew by in an instant and were overwritten by other, more pressing concerns.

There was little food to be had in the mountains. No packs to nick a bite or two from, and few travelers to trick. Ephraim might even have agreed to a joint effort and shared honestly if it meant a solid meal in his belly. He was forced to accept whatever meager offerings came his way while he crossed to the taiga. A rotted and mostly picked over carcass here, an unlucky mouse with a broken leg there. That rabbit would be as succulent as choice venison compared to the pathetic victuals Ephraim scrounged up, but in the snow, they were far too quick.

When he finally reached the other side, he looked even more pathetic than his typical meals. Thin, haggard, and bone-tired from traveling, it was all the little coywolf could do to keep from shivering with the slightest breeze. Yet he pressed on, alive despite the odds, to a little lake tucked away in the foothills. No chance of fishing, but he made his way out to the ice all the same.

And stopped, lifting his head to watch another canine across the way, shaped not so differently from himself.

so keen was qiao’s attention to the shifting voices and her search, she did not see her audience until she clambered upon a stone and looked around her. a  thin shape caught her attention. his condition neared the desperate gauntness of sheer starvation — but by make he seemed very close to her own kin. 

you have an eye upon you. qiao remarked to the stranger, turning slowly from the stone and regarding the rough state of his fur and flank.

around him, a thin aura had its own whispering quality. it disquieted the song of the valley — and it brought with it the sensation of eels writhing under a waxy moon. who is it?

Their eyes met in a brief clash before Ephraim glanced away and began to move again. That was the extent of most interactions between loners, and that was all the coywolf expected of this one.

Qiao surprised him by speaking. Ephraim swung one long ear in her direction, but was delayed in looking back at her by his own disbelief. Those who spoke with him often had nothing good to say. He was accustomed to that. Not to cryptic observations like what came out of Qiao's mouth.

Ephraim stared at her for a beat, swinging his thin tail while he tried to puzzle out what she meant by that. Then she asked who it was, and he blinked once, dumbfounded and wondering if he was hallucinating this whole thing. What Qiao said made no sense. The only eye on him was hers.

You, obviously, he flatly replied.

onwards the stranger marched, pausing in what appeared to be disbelief several seconds later. a wan smile appeared on qiao’s muzzle as she listened to his quip. sharp, this one.

but my eyes are not yellow. her reply came simply, as if it were the most mundane of observations. it was not her lot in life to convert the unbelieving. one either trusted the fates and believed it was the universe’s guiding to their appointed destiny — or they distrusted it. this one appeared to be the latter.

perhaps you can help me. qiao apprised his thin flanks knowingly, her gaze ending on the handsome mask that darkened his muzzle. in return, i can provide food.

Six words. That was all it took to drain the blood from Ephraim's face. At least, for an instant, that was all it took. How could she possibly know about that? How could anyone possibly know about that? He had never told a soul save Raleska, and Raleska was dead.

She might see the way it ticked behind his eyes and triggered a flash of panic, but within moments he regained some composure, enough to scoff and say, the most commonplace colour? How long did it take you to come up with that? It was clear in the nervous twitching of his tail and the way his ears swiveled around that Qiao had shaken Ephraim, no matter how he tried to hide it. Sometimes he could be clever. Most of the time, he was not.

She offered food. Part of him wanted to agree immediately. He needed a good meal. Part of him remembered the slice of teeth from the kid and grimaced. Why should I take your word for it?

he was such a scrawny thing to be favored by the taotaomona. then again, qiao had found more powerful things in lesser objects. she thought of the chipmunk's skull, alive with the malicious chittering of an undone soul. this boy, however, was far from undone. the aura around him unnerved her.

she hid it well, while ephraim's tail and ears betrayed his stumbling recovery. qiao said nothing.

unwinding her way from the stone, qiao sought to face ephraim eye to eye. there was something about discourse on level ground. it pulled all pretense from the speaker, and entreated fellowship. "hm, you should trust nothing. not even what your eyes and nose insist are true. but i shall tell you this --"  qiao bent and placed her paw in the snow. around the imprint of her palm, she drew arcane figures with a single claw.

"if i had any design to hurt you, that taotaomona would drag me to the overworld with it. not even powerful talismans can banish them. they are tied to the souls they watch by powers outside of our world. the one upon you is particularly strong, hmm. there are two things i do not mess with: taotaomona, and moose." she offered a thin smile.

"you are either lucky, or very cursed. either way, you need to eat -- and i could use food too. my name is qiao. what is yours?"

Suspicious eyes, yellow of a different shade, tracked Qiao coming down with all her sinuous serpentine grace. When she stood eye-to-eye with Ephraim, he noticed that hers were green and seemed to skim over him and their surroundings with a constant flitting. It was impossible to tell where they focused.

Coupled with the strange braided greenery around her neck, it only heightened his doubt. A witch. His mother had been a witch. That was about the only thing Ephraim knew about Caiaphas. She had two prominent titles. Sea witch was one.

He watched with a hooded gaze how she traced lines in the snow, symbols that had no meaning to him but made his skin crawl all the same. Or maybe that was the claims she was making. Ephraim snorted aloud and tipped forward his ankle, where Sphyra’s bite marks still burned red. Look lucky to you, witch? If there was some gods blasted spirit watching over me, it does not care what happens to me.

Later, when he was alone and shadows closed in around him, he would fervently pray that he was right about that and that there was no spirit and that it would not steal his soul in the night. If he had a soul any longer. Sometimes he was sure he left it behind in the grotto that day.

Ephraim, he said gruffly. She was undeniably right about one thing: he needed food. If she believed he was haunted by a malevolent spirit, she was unlikely to double cross him. That was what he had to believe. Whatever she wanted to know about it, he did not have the answers, but could fake it as well as anyone. Still... Something about the whole thing shook him to his core.

What do you fancy? Not crow spleens, I hope. That seemed like appropriately witchy fare.

hmm. qiao glanced over the fresh wound, bound like a red rope around ephraim’s thin limb. teeth. if you were cursed, that leg would have rotted off by now. a little gaultheria would do him fine, yet qiao found it unnecessary. it was her belief this taotaomona would protect its host. why else then, did that rippling aura scowl at her so vehemently?

no, no crow spleen. a light laugh. very poor meal. crows are full of bad humors. a hare will do. but first — she lifted her muzzle to the air and drank deep of the wind around them. the vale smelled of cold empty air, of frozen stones, of frigid water — and somewhere, the scent of stale carrion reduced to arctic rubble.

a stag, if she believed her nose. i came here for a talisman. she was already making her way between splintered stones capped by snow. come — we find it, and then hunt. and after, i treat that cut for you, hmm?

they hunted. for two wolves who could not be more different, they worked in a unison that inspired qiao.

and at last! there, laid carelessly around a wintering tree was her prize. a buck's half-rotted skeleton, one antler wedged firmly between a gnarled tree limb.

help me loosen it. qiao commanded breathlessly, her wondering eyes on the totem. whatever deeds this buck had done in life, it resonated with sanguine power. qiao must have it.

great effort came on their part, but with a final grunt the antler was wedged free of its stranglehold. qiao bore the totem aloft with a victorious cry. she would do tremendous things with this artifact.

hastily then qiao offered to tend the boy's leg. she did not trust him - or fate for that matter - to not steal the antler. it must be protected at all costs.

later that night qiao was seen as a silhouette slouching back to akashingo, the antler held tight between her jaws.