Stone Circle defeat the stymphalian birds

ingram offers a wide berth to the places in the claim of the stone circle that smell of many wolves, that smell of birth.

it cloys, almost tauntingly; thoughts of the listener and that if their union had been ... successful, that she likely would've given birth by now.

errantly, detachedly, ingram thinks about his possible children and then, like the curling edges of a letter held to a fire, lets it burn to ash. even if children had came out of that vicious night, the culmination of their obsession and betrayal: they would not know him.

nor he, them.

a shudder passes along his spine as he draws nearer to the stone circle; desperate to feel the pull of the commanders of the past, osiris or any of the others he had once worshipped in the bones that are told to lay beneath the earth.

She’d been resting opposite him, cutting her teeth on a freshly raised root and bearing witness to his approach. She didn’t miss the profound look as it passed over his features. This place meant something to him, as it did all who stood at the ancients’ heart.

“They’ll smite, you know,” She rises from the veld to hold his impossibly intense gaze.

“If they sense corruption,” she warns ominously with a quirk of brow before her lips break into amusement.

he doesn't see her. not at first. it isn't until she speaks that ingram even truly looks for her, gaze resting upon her silhouette, tracing out the shape of her face as he ghosts forward another few steps; slowing to a stop.

she speaks of smiting if they sense corruption and almost lets out a low snort.

if that was the case he should've been struck down a long time ago.

who will? the bones? ingram inquires, playing along.

“The stones,” she amends.

“I suggest you watch your back, oracle,” she teases as she steps towards him, sweeping her own nose to gaze upon the tallest of them.

“Incredible, aren’t they?” Her voice keeps light but comes earnest now. “There are hundreds of generations buried here, beneath our paws.” She is thoughtful for a moment.

“Suppose you could read my fate, then, if we dug them up?” Her head lists in question. She is not a wolf of faith, or at least, she is mostly convinced religions exist to help cope with death. Surely transcendence such as prophecies were mere coincidence; fates spun from chance. But all this did not quell her intrigue of this soothsayer- if she had a future to be read then she wanted to know it.

she speaks not of bones but of the stones.

a cursory glimpse is given to those standing, and those that had fallen.

a soft noise of low murmured amusement lingers in ingram's chest at her warning.

mhm, he murmurs in agreement, though it is hard for him to think of a place as sacred. for him it is in the tangibility of smaller, once living things.

not quite, ingram corrects softly. i have to feel a thread of connection to the bones i use, he explains. and it's not ... reading fate, necessarily. nothing so certain. there are so many choices that we make, big or small that could alter everything.

"A potential outcome, then?" She smiles. Of course, there could be an infinite number of those. She considers the specific conditions  required and with an idea is spurred a few steps away.

“There’s an old kill just bordering Prisnálund. A stag’s remains. Perhaps it will work?” She inquires and indicates through the trees with her muzzle, for the fates, or no-fates. Be it divine providence or mere happenstance. She wanted to know how this worked, for curiosity alone.

for one who has modeled much of a polarizing personality after reading his threadbones, he does a poor job explaining them to others. and it wasn't that ingram thinks that everyone should just understand. it was easier for him to show the process, even if it leaves him terribly vulnerable and exposes parts of himself that he keeps close to his chest, like layers peeled back.

perhaps, ingram allows loftily. i have my own threadbones that i've collected over the years. each has a significance to me. some much darker than others. if you are truly interested in a reading, i will take you to them and we can begin.

the invitation lays before them as ingram turns and makes towards the direction of where he's stashed his threadbones.

There’s a moment of hesitation. This has all been a game of sorts to her, stringing along an impulse as was her typical way, an indulgence of her fascination with this confident vagrant and his talk of augury. She didn’t believe in mysticism.

But then she can’t explain the trickle of fear that pricks at her limbs, already falling rashly behind him, without an idea of where she was to be lead and if this was someone she’d even trust to be alone with.

“Show me?” She asks anyway, and the strangeness compels.

her interest seems genuine enough, though whether there was truth to ingram's assumption in regards to her interest or not ... he didn't really care. she had asked and ingram, after months of avoiding the low spiritual hum of the threadbones was willing enough to read for her.

ingram's ears flutter back at the sound of her following footfalls; he is quiet as they walk. here. he announces when they near the place he'd tucked them away. he slips into the shadows of the thick bush, nudging away the prickling thin branches to shove his snout into the hole and grasp the weathered rabbit fur bundle.

the dried bones inside clack together as he pulls them, the bundle swinging from betwixt his jaws as he turns to face her.

seaglass blue gaze focuses upon her; steady. he moves nearer and drops the bundle to the ground, the soft hide unfurling, bones scattering.

his gaze zeroes down on the placement of the bones, as if scattered by the teeth of the commanders of the past. as always, his own personal bit of hell, perhaps, his gaze is drawn to his mother's ribbone. the strongest of the bones that call to him, tied by shared blood.

it is so easy — too easy — to let the world 'round them drop out of focus until there is nothing but him, the whispering bones and the tendrils of fate, intricately weaved and too easily snipped. knotted. the path easily diverted.

the four of ribs, his muzzle brushes over praimfaya's rib bone. it whispers of the tendency to take something or someone for granted. it speaks of apathy. he turns to the next bone: the megaldon tooth. the mage whispers of willpower. it speaks of true potential. that you have reached or are still reaching it. the last, the bird skull. the bird knight whispers of assertiveness. too easily, this bone speaks of negative traits.

it was not, ingram is sure, what she was looking for. she'd asked for a glimpse of the future but ingram could only read the threadbones ... and they were not always so clear cut. not always offering dreams ( or nightmares ) that would solidify what he read.

the threadbones ... they're fickle. sometimes they offer glimpses of a possible future ... and others they offer inward glimpses. rarely, do they give what you want.

In the middle of nowhere a low sun bent to strange ways from a twist of branch. When he names this place she draws the blinds over anxious thoughts and thrumming blood. Hush says the mind and she turns her focus to the oracle.

Dangling from his teeth is a heavy hide. She’s upheld by his fluorescent sight. The bundle is dropped; the objects scatter across the shallow earth.

It’s with great tenderness he engages his collection- the strange, dark keepsakes. There are some bones wholly unfamiliar, like one massive saw-tooth she could not conjure the master of. One disturbingly familiar, shedding light on the animal who once bore it. A wolf. She felt sick, but kept her silence as he spun his vision.

It was a reading of fear- great fears birthed first by a mind and now given winds in the spoken word and threatening to take flight. How dare he impose this upon her! What even designated it so? The angle of a rib? The tilt of a tooth? The sound which clacked all the sum of its parts?

“This is who I am,” She implores, “or shades of what’s to come? An apathetic… powerhungry, rank-climber?” Her resistance sheds to a shake of head, she pitches with a step away from him.

Apathy- for her unborn children? Cubs she wouldn’t bond with? For her pack? Or Taktuq, or Gunnar, whose vision of goodwill she could never fully shape to?

Willpower- a resistance to change? A toxic tenacity, to rise beyond Kvarsheim’s ranks?

Dominant- in a forceful way? In an unfair way, a self-possessed corruption?

Her nose coils, he’s misinterpreted.

“Read them again.” She insists upon it, a waver of desperation in her voice. He’s wrong- he has to be.

something he has said has perturbed her, ingram guesses.

only you know the answer to those questions. ingram replies, understanding that what he told is likely not what she wished to hear: on any account. the threadbones were up for interpretation: of the reader, of the witness.

in this, it was not up to ingram to tell her what they meant. she had asked and he had read and now she was left to face what the threadbones revealed ... or, she could disregard them entirely.

the choice was her's.

her's alone.

he gives a soft shake of his head, large paw gathering up the bones, into the cradle of the furs he used to transport them.

the reading will not change, speaks the oracle, deep, smoky timbre made soft. not pitying, for he does not pity any ... but not harsh. not as harsh as he can be, for certain. do with what the threadbones gave you as you will. or ponder what they've revealed and return. only then may the reading change.

Reading? This is a curse.

There is an explanation for this smear of character. The oracle is cross with her, he holds her in contempt for her pitiful attempts at seeking his aid on the Kvarsheim border.

She hikes her nose and composes herself, clutching to her chest the fragments of a crumbling ego. She refuses to become a mess in front of him. If it was all bullshit then it didn’t matter anyway- right?

“An impressive talent, Oracle. But that,” she indicates toward the dark man’s keepsakes as he carefully moves to stow them, “is a pile of old bones. That is not me.”

Her eyes are quickly upon him with insistence. She knew it was only to convince herself. This seer and his dark magic, he’s probably spun many foul fates- hundreds even! This is certainly nothing new to him.

she does not believe, though whether it is because she was unhappy with what the threadbones spoke of or because she was truly not a believer in her hearts of heart, ingram does not know.

and does not bother lingering on it.

if she believed it or not ... that was entirely up to her. she had asked for a reading and ingram had provided.

belief is in the mind of the beholder. if you say it is not you, than it is not. ingram says with a soft shrug of his shoulders to show that he was not offended by her spurring of the threadbones and what they revealed.

thank you I loved this!

“It is,” she will agree. Hadn’t this been, in so many words, what she’d once told Taktuq? This has always been her belief. There is power only where you believe there is. But then she wont know how to define the points of fear driving into her chest.

“Excuse me, Ingram. I have something I need to do before returning to Kvarsheim,” she trusts the oracle knows this forest well enough to find his way back without her.