Nova Peak Niende Dag

@Skorpa @Lorcan @Vhagar @Elowen Aeloria @Anoré @Silatuyok @Ravens Call Nowke @Mitoge Kaldros @Chipeta Kürsat @Aspa Jamukha Ātoztli (?) @Sobeille Ulfric @Moon Runner

Guest lodgings within Winsook have been prepped for the evening! All are welcome to make a reaction post to the ceremony, then break out into individual celebration threads at the after party! Be sure to mark your threads with [nd] for tracking <3

The Ceremony

For nine days the new children of Winsook had drawn breath, and in each of their nights the moon had shone full above the whispering mountain peaks. The old women in Ayovi’s natal pack would have called it a sign. The ancestors of her northern husband called it Niende Dag: Ninth Day. And so the mother rose from her whelping hides and in the company of all those held dear climbed the stonebacks— those ridges like the spines of a god that strike up tall and fearless beneath a canvas of starlight.
By midnight a great circle is formed in the snow— a ring of hides, bones, feathers and flowers. Tribesmen, friends and neighbors alike were invited to paint their cheeks with elk blood and bear witness to the emergence of new life.
At the center stand the Ekawotsa; a slain ox calf packed with fragrant herbs between them. Upon a thick hide Ayovi lays with her three newborns, inviting forward the fourth, Kaldros, and his mother into the central throng. With calf-blood the shaman take turns anointing the crowns of each child, then both Ayovi and Elowen; the life bringers. Lastly, the father’s lips are marked with the slain oxen’s blood, marking Skorpa and Lorcan as the life sowers.
A low, guttural sound breathes up from the stone; a song learned long ago from the lips of Ashēeran grandmothers. Onlookers are encouraged to beat their paws against the earth in a thunderous rhythm, mimicking the heart of a child’s first cry.
“Nowkē. Mitogē. Chipeta. Kaldros. Let the spirit of puha hear these children and know them.”
To the sky all are directed to look now, for the reception of spirits hidden among the stars. There is no reply; there never is. But in rising twists of brilliant color shapes seem to form: a bear rearing high. A hawk mid-flight. A snake winding.
At length the huntress watches with tears of primordial awe in her eyes.

---

The Reception

After, when the children are tucked away safely into den furs with their caregivers, Winsook sings, their notes rising like smoke into the sky, thick with laughter and levity. From every den and longhouse comes an abundance of meats in great quantities to share: salmon, oxen, and pheasant. Fermented chokeberries and plums in dangerously high piles. Streamwater flavored with honey and fresh mint. A grand feast.
There are some hides and trinkets readied for exchange, and Ayovi has brought her own little stoles down to be traded; mink furs and glittering fish scales she’d cleaned while on her healing bed.
Wetted powdery ochres and sky-bold blue colors lay out in colorful piles for visitors to paint their arms. Beside them, fragrant florals for women to perfume their furs– all in invitation to lay down their blades for the night and celebrate life.
The ground shakes with dancing; colored powders lifting, snow melting. Ayovi hopes that everyone eats. She hopes that everyone dances.

There are no enemies at a feast this important. Only kin; near and distant, living and remembered.

---

so many gods walked winsook this night, skorpa felt as though he could hardly move for brushing one divine shoulder or another. guests gathered, and he felt a constriction of mistrust. yet this night was one of peace, and it was not for him. they drew together in celebration of young life, and for skorpa, tonight too was edda for ayovi's life.

elk-smear to his cheeks lifted the man's spirits; his eyes danced when he looked at the glowing hale moonbow of regnvand's winding through the throng, to welcome, to greet.

nine day.

her rhythms were in his blood. he nodded and murmured if addressed, arms filled with one child or another.

and the ceremony: ayovi was a goddess in a feral garden, a picturesque illustration of wildling motherhood. blood for the children; red-stain for himself and for lorcan. in this primeval peace was something that should not be broken, no matter how skorpa loathed to stand beside the man who had threatened ayovi, to stand beside and celebrate him as a father.

his great paws filled the earth with vibrations he had never heard, and whose sound filled his head with glory.

a child's burbling wail. the names of winsook's children were given to the spirits, and if ayovi was transfixed, the bearsword close at hand felt the same to see her face suffused with such radiance.

he cradled each child as they fell to sleep against the silken furs of the red den; skorpa pulled his fragrant bearskin over their tiny warm bodies and in reluctance, stole back to the side of winsook's rainwater shieldmaiden.

---

An earthquake of wardrums.

Between spaces of time, that of an infinite rest where the world is unmoving, and of a pull from something unearthly. Skylight dances over her. 

She is liminal.

Mitoge felt nothing, and then suddenly the heartbeats of her siblings raced across her skin. They have warmth, and moving bodies that belonged all to their own selves. They are individuals with their own desires and will. They too experienced hunger, exhaustion, and the crave to live. Veins pulse in the body, a tangle of webs in red.

When breath came in, she could feel her own belly expanding, feel the skin move back in when it ran away. Music of vibrations call to live.

Ocean blue eyes crack open, piercing.

Surrounded by love, soaked in aurora, she is gifted sight.
It's lovely.

she watched as green light bathed them and turned the slick pool of oxblood at their feet black.

the thrum of an ancient culture she had never known before pulsed deep underground, inspiring her lifeblood. and she a witness to it! a mere grain of sand held up to something immense and beyond her understanding -- the knowledge of this climbed down her spine and lodged coldly within her gut.

her eyes roved over the totems and sacrifices, hungry to learn more; above them, the shapes of old gods and hunters and killers moved in the dancing lights of green and blue and sharp, fleeting pinks.

to taste this primordial freedom, sense the sulfur and salt on her lips, the matte of blood seeping through fur; the wind and the cold and the scouring, ever-distant torrent of love.

tantalus, this moment -- she reached for a love that had only ever been evasive, and she saw it reflected first in skorpa's mistrustful eyes as he drew peltskin over the small bodies, and then in the soft, glacier-blues of his wife.

is this what motherhood feels like?

how many generations had this ritual played out? the energy of it exponential, shivering as it lit the joyous faces of each gathered. sobeille was moved by presence susurrating throughout them.

and in the epicenter, the very life they celebrated moved with the rhythms of birth and blood and suffering and joy; behind her soft eyelids, eyes that had yet to behold the world moved.

and when they opened it was as if peering into a glacier's heart: the cosmos entire held in the single skull of a nine-day old pup.

How many times had the horselord watched this same scene play out? He’d attended enough christenings to know the routine. There’d come some oration. A child would be elevated for all the spectators to adore. They’d be given a name or some other augury of greatness. A procession and a feast would follow. Didn’t matter the customs or language or age of a sept, these traditions were nearly identical in any part of the world.

Thus, Jamukha felt neither religious nor emotional awe as his jade eyes passed over each face of the assembly. He was more interested in discerning the odd mixed origins of Winsook.

For now he plays the role of humble guest, enjoying the many-faced beauty of the north.

they had ceremonies like this, back in the nameless days.

atoztli tries not to think too much of those hours as she observes the quiet beauty of this severe place. the blood against the stone and worn on the lips of men; the silksoft bedding; the irresistible and hale women.

feeling very much an outsider, atoztli trails jamukha -- but not so close an observer would note their affiliation.

for now, her eye is drawn to the dancing lights above: hawk, puma, wolf, fox -- and wonders if tezcatlipoca will be displeased to see his subject among a different echelon of gods and hunters.

he’s found himself a seat—a flat stone near the edge of the gathering, far enough from the warmth and cheer to gripe in peace, close enough to keep one eye on the pups and another on the food. ten-sons is dressed in nothing fancy. no paint, no feathers.

just the same piss-sour muskox hide he’s been wearing since before half these wolves were born.

the old man grumbles when someone bumps him. he snaps at a young wolf who gets too close with ochre-stained paws. watch it, paint-boy. get that sissy powder on me and i’ll roll you down the ridge.

but he’s quiet, mostly. chewing on some tough bit of ox meat. he settles deeper into his furs, bones creaking. watching the sky with one half-lidded eye.

ayovi's son feels something. in his bones. in his belly. something warm.

he doesn’t know what it means, but it makes his ears twitch. it makes his tiny paws flex. he squeaks, mouth wriggling in a milk-drunk protest. something shifts in him. he smells her—mama. and him—the big one who always smells like blood and smoke. their warmth is near.

his head lolls. small body nudging against fur. his mouth opens in a whimper, then closes again.

he doesn’t know he is Nowkē.

he doesn’t know this is his naming.

but his heart beats strong, loud, steady—
and when he hears the sound of dancing paws on earth,
he kicks his feet, just once.

A few glimmers in the sky, and the mortals saw signs within them. Aspa had, naturally, ascended to the peaks of Winsook to honor the three little warriors who had survived the depths of their mother’s womb, not without great difficulty. They were indeed three, though a fourth had joined the ceremony.
The child, whose head bore no bright star, despite the night sky being aglow with dancing lights, had nothing. Aspa had remained silent, but not still; she had observed the entire ceremony moving like a serpent, carrying with her, within a pouch, the gift she had promised the young mother. Later, after familiarizing herself with the crowd, Aspa would attempt to find Ayovi.

Winsook seemed to be surrounded by many allies—or perhaps merely curious souls who had invited themselves to the gathering. Strangers, people from the East, the inquisitive, people from the South…

he sits at the edge of it all—this whirlwind of color, music, flesh and bone—watching with a quiet that is not detachment but reverence.

the huntress gleams in the moonlight, her body wrapped in the warmth of motherhood. her children, wrapped in furs, are given names beneath the stars. a bear. a hawk. a snake. the old gods—his gods—whisper in these shapes, and ulfric feels them settle in his chest like cold iron.

he does not join the feast. the noise, the crowd, the paint—these are not things he was raised for.

his stomach growls at the scent of oxen and chokeberry, but he does not rise. instead, he stares skyward, into the auroras twisting above.

and for the first time in many moons, ulfric of skarvheim feels not alone.

It is an auspicious day, one worthy of all of the celebration in the world. Four children had been born to Winsook. Here they stood, declared to all present and the skies above. All four babes were healthy, and both mothers sat in the center of the ceremony to be honored for the sacrifice of their flesh.

What better thing was there to celebrate than life itself?

Elk's blood blotted the blackbird's cheeks. Blue paint made from crushed spring blossoms and berries danced down her forelimbs.

As Winsook danced for its children, Raven's voice rang into the air. She had prepared for this day with Ayovi, having practiced a Numic song for the ceremony. The words flow past her lips as smoothly as a river; one that reliably followed its riverbed to its destination. Song weaved through the air, and rose to the stars.

Her eyes light with joy as the stars answer. The voices of those distant astral bodies reaching Winsook not by sound but in the form of dancing light. Blues and greens threaded through the stars and the dark, night sky.

When the children were ushered away to be put to bed, to four sets of little ears Raven's Call whispered, The stars say, 'Hello!' They'll dance with you in your dreams.

The girl smiled at their parent's silhouettes until they were gone from view. Loyally, she waited for their return before moving to sing for those gathered once more.

Chipeta was calm as she was carried to the hide, but within moments began to fret. Soft, short calls for the warmth of her siblings, the heartbeat of her mother- all of which came without delay. It worked; the little singing bird found yet again that her voice might be her greatest asset. 

The pelt beneath her was soft and thick, and grew warm as she lay, little paws kneading. She felt little paws thump against her side- nothing new, and nothing to fret about. 

The novelty was the heartbeat that came not from her mother or her siblings, but from the ground beneath her. Racing and sporadic at first, only to grow more rhythmic and synchronized with time. 

Something grazed her brow and left her perfumed with a pleasant scent. She turned her head to her brother and sniffed. Her little pink tongue darted out as she tasted the blood that marked his brow. 

She would weather the spotlight humbly, and without protest. The singing and chanting serenaded the little bird who tried to sing along with quiet little coos- until eventually she settled in to listen, and allow their voices to settle her in for a deep slumber.