Bearclaw Valley peccato meo munda me

in her fourth pregnancy, the beardog was without wonder, gratitude or curiosity. there was only growing irritation as she counted days, kept a calendar, tracked moon phases in search of a single, desirable answer - soon. later than a rabbit's, but sooner than a cat's. 

she needed only that.

once the pains were done with, living or not, the pushed out foetuses would find their uses. only the firstborn was of any importance. the rest will suckle on her as she concocted plans to leave; them, and this godless place.

she seldom left her hovel, her dark hole dug beyond mosskeep. today her body was in the universe's mercy, as she woke unburdened by draining fatigue.

too long had she been underground. what of ursus?

bernadette waddled and limped dragged by the weight of her fur-obstructed belly. had she luck, the clan had dispersed as she pondered and relaxed. what a gift that'd be!

out the woods, and she spotted a wolf.

the beardog gave a single bark.

"you." the rumble of her voice carried well within the valley. "ursus. does it endure?"

for @Cyril

a disaster of a woman, nearly rounder than she was tall. he stared at her for a moment, star stamped forehead pinched slightly.

you are standing in the middle of it. he informed her with a grumble. who are you? beady black eyes settled against her hard as he considered his options. it would be easy to snip at her, he imagined. surely she lacked grace with such a roundness.

there was a miniscule creasing to her already wrinkled face as her hopes turned too idealistic for the reality of this predicament. if only merrick were still living...

the beardog waddled on forward, not considering danger a possibility. as she approached the wolf - two shades brown, marked by morning mass cross of white - she spoke, not looking at the recipient, but at her overburdened feet.

"bruin-heart. bruin-jaw. what of them?"

his question was, at the time, irrelevant.

now he was not in love with ursus. he was not some grand devoted being, but this was his home now. he tended to the garden with @Arielle and he respected the position of @Aventus — this rotund thing? didn't know jack about her.

i asked who you are. his lips peeled back to expose yellowing teeth, an unfriendly posture swept over him as he stared her down.

bernadette stopped, raised her head towards the stranger - as if she'd merely heard an interesting bird call - and in the shade of her brows, blinked with mild confusion.

"i am bernadette. supplicant." that was stated done-dryly. "am i to assume you're not of ursus?" she couldn't conceive the reason why a packmate would bare fangs at her pregnant self.

why are you asking so many questions? just go see for yourself, supplicant. he cared little about her state of being aside from the fact that it made her an easy target. dead weight. but if she felt good enough to waddle on out here and bother him, why couldn't she go do the same to their bruins?

all of it was beyond him, and he felt ready to dismiss himself at any given moment.

her eyes narrowed - which really, didn't change her expression all that much - and she watched the wolf over. young. bear-brown, but not likely bear-tested. she hadn't been in her hovel long enough for a new adjutant to rise.

"...i shall assume, you are only acolyte, then." there was a tinge of superiority to her monotone baritone. "and not yet learned, that supplicant ranks above you."

the dog kept her ground, and a wish that her tail was straight enough to dominantly rise passed her.

"i am, in no condition for travel. least, that is expected, is for you to answer questions. with honesty."

buh he's the worst, apologies ;;

he snorted at her, a roll of his black eyes with ease. like two obsidian marbles. her tone or lackluster look didn't change much in the way of his feelings about all of...this.

are you really above me if you don't even know what's going on in your own home? he pressed, eyes narrowing some. there was a sudden push to challenge her further. you could have easily called for them if you cared so much, or did you just think you'd roll out of the ground and pick on the new guy?

local man fights heavily pregnant woman, more at 11

irritation. he irritated her. one eyelid twitched.

she thought to explain her situation - but the idea of making excuses to appease a willowy flyaway only made the black of her lips twitch and show herb-yellowed white.

"you. are. irrelevant." it came out a growl, her head bent so her eyes were in shadow. 

about half a dozen ways to voice her slowly boiling pot of anger went trough her head before she decided no, she would not waste words to a waste of good brain material.

she intended to pass him, walking with force and towards some spot on the horizon she couldn't see for the tilt of her head and the protrusion of her brows.

nuh-uh. he had no interest in her having the last word or waddling off into the sunset like some sort of happy ending to a movie.

that's pretty fucking bold coming from the woman who had to ask if this is still ursus. verbal pressing more and more, if she would not stop for his words he'd only follow hot on her heels. you're the irrelevant one. clearly no one visits you in your little hideaway if you roll up asking about the base line state of things. and what happened to not being fit to travel, huh?

there was temptation for an actual challenge, to somehow shove his way into her stupid rank just so she would think twice before waltzing out making demands. acting like she was a bruin.

It was not so unusual for Aventus to have eyes on his packmates without their knowledge.

He was a master of stealth, having watched his mother and practiced since he was very young. Even in his current haggard state, the man could slip fluidly into the shadows and pass unheard. It was harder to hide his scent these days, but any wolf worth their salt knew to stand downwind.

He hadn't been listening so long. He meant only to pass by, but the raised voices drew his attention toward Bernadette and Cyril. Aventus watched with a flat silver gaze from some hidden hollow, debating whether to make it his issue or not. He was almost settled on not, only Bernadette decided then to call Cyril irrelevant.

Since Merrick's death, reminders of the bear spirit made him feel sick to his stomach. Chief among those was the fat, grotesque little bear cub dog thing that was Bernadette. It did not help her case that she had contributed nothing to his knowledge to Ursus. She had not helped on the Rivenwood raid and she had done nothing when he commanded the deaths of Indra and Abel, at least as much as he could remember of that day.

She was, in his opinion, utterly useless. His tolerance for her came to an immediate end to hear her speaking to Cyril in that fashion as if she was some authority in Ursus.

He emerged in a flurry of foliage, lunging for the ugly little dog with his tail arced high over his hips and his face contorted in a severe snarl. He would stop a mere two inches from her, glaring into her beady eyes, demanding immediate submission, lest she learn just how a wolf treated a burden.

were it not for the sag of her stomach and the now retuning pain in her back, she would have bared fangs at the annoyance. would have. would have.

they yapped at her heels like a puppy, and each line from their maws chipped away at her patience until, aggravated, the beardog whirled around - staggering and tripping, yes, but the final upwards swing of her head was defiant as she came to stare straight at the annoyance.

they were smaller than others of their kind, but still she was the dwarf. the tilt of her head let light into her eye sockets, showing two dark orbs - not as black as theirs, nor framed by white - bulging with anger.

a word-snarl was forming in her mouth, when another drowned it.

the bruin-heart was like shadow gives thickness, parting from the landscape on long legs flashing fury in silver eyes. for all her subdued manner of thinking, speaking, acting, the beardog was at once jolted, backing away sideways from the full-grown he-wolf.

over her own paws she tripped, toppling onto her side, but there was little doubt she'd be permitted to rise, or shift in a position permitting her to protect what she carried.

as a reaction, tiny ears flattened back - and that was the extent of communication her body, stunted for human aesthetic, permitted.

as if on cue, here came the warhammer of ursus. his care of himself may have dipped but strength was still shown here. enough so that even cyril reeled back, guarded but not aggressive.

it was in this moment that he felt something deeper for ursus. to be known that aventus, too, had thought this rotund woman had overstepped her own boundaries. cyril was not stupid enough to think he had done no wrong either but...well, look at the scene.

his beady black eyes soaked in the sight of her on the ground.

Bernadette's tumble and subsequent stillness appeased Aventus enough that he merely stood over her, growling low in his throat, and did not attack. For the moment, Cyril was forgotten. It wouldn't have mattered who Bernadette hurled her insults at; even a lowly wolf pup stood higher in the Bruin-jaw's estimation than this mutant his father had taken into their ranks on appearances alone.

Who are you to call anyone irrelevant? he boomed in her face, lowering his nose toward hers so that their whiskers brushed in the minimal space between. You take the food we hunt to fill your fat little gut. You contribute nothing in return for being permitted to carry young and take our resources. And you have the audacity to call anyone irrelevant?

The irrelevant one is you, Bloodstain, he snapped in her face, rising just a little. The thought of Arielle and the pups she carried flashed through his mind, and on its heels, a hot flash of indignation that they would waste their hard-won resources on Bernadette's pups. There were not so many of them to hunt. Not so much prey to go around. Those resources should go to his children, his wolves. Give me one good reason you're not more useful to me as food.

heart beating fast, inhaling deeply with mouth tightly shut else teeth bare on accident, bernadette stared not at the wolf's face, but at some unspecific spot on his larger body, else he see what brewed deep in her gaze.

first, there was fear. now, as jaws did not clench about the furred thickness of her throat, there was anger.

savages. 

her ears twitched with each enounced syllable of his speech, gaze still kept far away from his. the words pelted her like hail, fist-sized clumps of ice hitting her body, blows softened by the thickness of her fur.

her convictions.

idolaters.

a part of her, an internal part, curled up with shame at faults so bluntly named by the bruin-jaw. but the rest felt only a defiant simmering of temper.

his name-calling, the final demand for a sufficient answer, had her wincing, before twisting and setting the side of her face on the ground and speaking in a strained voice into the dirt, lest he think a smidge of defiance was within her.

"i am, a scholar. memory of a crow. everything taught, i've learned." bernadette clenched her teeth and sharply exhaled. "it is, just, that learning the wolven ways, cut into my studies. as did, my body's nature."

of bear and children...

her eyes rolled to look at the bruin-jaw. "my firstborn, was promised to the witch. in exchange for its litter. the pact, remains. query your wife."

so sorry for the hold up!

the words of aventus were heavy hammer strikes against the thick, ugly beast. cyril remained still and silent. the bear-creature offered more unnecessarily complex words. something about a firstborn offered. it built further disgust in his mouth.

he stared at aventus briefly, wondering what the man wished to do about any of this. especially since the rotund one had brought his wife into this.

yikes.

I don't care about you, your firstborn, or whatever my father promised you. You forget yourself, he snarled in her face, seething over her. He could believe that Merrick made such a pact, but Bernadette's first mistake was thinking his son would have any part of that. The second was expecting him to have some prescient knowledge of the agreement. He didn't care so much that Arielle was apparently aware of it, though he was annoyed she was brought up. You expect respect and recognition for some pact you made with a dead man? I care about your actions, not your psychopathic brand of worship, and you have done nothing here but laze about like a fat toad.

Aventus straightened and stepped back. What esteem Bernadette previously held with Merrick and Ursus was demolished in an instant. Do not ever let me catch you behaving that way to a superior again, or you'll wish for wolven legs to flee with. Your days are numbered. You best find some way to make yourself useful that doesn't involve killing newborns for your sick pleasure.

With a last long, withering look, Aventus turned in disgust from the dog, his gut roiling at the idea that his father would make a pact on the lives of newborns, and anger simmering that Bernadette would assume he was anything like his father, or that she would speak of Arielle as though his mate was as bloodthirsty and insane as his father. That was the worst part, he thought. He gave Cyril a meaningful look on the way past and cocked an ear back to listen for protests, but did not look back at the dog on the ground.

There would be no sacrifice of newborns, only the impending death of a useless dog if she did not shape up in time for their birth.

how dare he.

how dare they.

her breath came heavy, and she shook like a bitch of smaller breed.

pacts and prayers and sacrifices, they were everything! as close as they - feeble mortals, sacks of blood and shit decaying even with hearts still beating - could get to harnessing divine energy, making use of that which lurked beyond the non-negotiable confines of reality. this- this brat understood nothing of the esoteric occultism which his father was privy to, the workings of spirits, the way violence and death could be used to earn a glance from the powers greater than they.

but no, this atheistic brat who was handed the reins of his father's cult couldn't conceive that he was shitting all over the legacy so graciously handed down to him by virtue of witchblood. how many would kill to be sired by the seed of such a warlock!

and many more thoughts shot trough her head, but outwardly - bernadette was quivering.

she made no motion besides it. mind thick with thought only a small piece of it registered that the bruin-jaw -- the ungrateful brat - left, alongside the whole reasoning this outing went the way it did.

fine, then. the wife had more sense, more respect in her. she could persuade him to listen, to honour what was promised. and the bearwoman would wait, every single day, within her hovel for a true devotee to arrive and help her ascend beyond the minds these simple savages.

and if not, then may ursus burn.