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Pup Event! When the pups make it to the lake in Twilight Grove, they are greeted with hundreds and hundreds of scarlet ibis!

Caan Engii  Yesbaa  C’eghaan  Nen'tah  Yanggadi Saghani Tsaałi  Kon''  C’izaeggi  Tatsaaye' Eha Iŋnisiq @Aevar

skill: vagabond

Yaalk'ali would be there waiting as the children made the finish stretch of their first march into the wetlands at the far southern reaches of the continent. Though he could not hear it, the smell of salt lingered in the air. The water was brackish here in parts. The long salt was near. Certainly Caan would guide their path to view it. A sight of the ocean down here would prove far different then the dark, icy waters and bitter straight line winds in the coasts to the north. Far more pleasant, tropical, yet hot, especially so now at the height of summer. Winter had lasted far longer in this land than he had ever known before. He wondered if summers would be the same.

Yaal was settled along a slab of sun-bleached rock which sat on the lakebed of a great, large lake. Flapping along the shallows and poking for food within its marshy banks were hundreds and hundreds of bright red ibis. The vibrancy of their color would be a finish line for the children and their work. Sacred of color. Ice Raven smiled upon those who had made it thus far. Now, they had but to do it all over again in order to get home. Ice Raven smiles, but he also laughs.

Nothing would stop him. The storms, and not the rocks! He may have fallen. The rocks may have beaten him, but he got up. He continued. He would not let them slow him down, even if it meant the very blood in his veins.

And he did indeed sacrifice the blood in his veins. He remembers the very spot that took it, the very rocks that wronged him. He will return to them one day, once his seething anger calms to boil.

His determination was as hot as her anger, and it drove him forward each and every day. The pain in his shoulder did not slow him down. The pain was the punishment, and he sneered at it as a reminder. Of course, it wasn’t THAT painful in the grand scheme of pain…types of pain he had never experienced before, but what did he know of real pain yet?

The temperature was a change, and the air was moist AND hot. The humidity covered him like a blanket, and he had not decided if he despised it or not. The longing for snow was real in this moment as he broke through the wilderness. The sun clung to his pelt as sand touched his toes. Head raises to the sky as he inhales the salty scent, eye closing to really absorb every smell, every piece of information he could.

Eyes open again, and paws carry him step after step. Yaalk'ali comes into view, along with colors of red in quantities he had never seen before. He stares for a second in awe at the sight, never having seen such vibrancy yet. Can the world be so different? So vast? He charges forth then, panting as he breaks into a jog towards Yaalk'ali, a few birds taking flight. He looks up and watches their movements, finally a grin crossing his face with a lollied tongue.

"Yaalk'ali, what are these birds so bright?" he calls out, feeling the burden of tiredness that he had been fighting. Was this the end? Have they reached their goal? He looked behind him for a second, to see if any of the others were here to join him, before looking back at the view.

skill: trickster

His brother is seen in the distance somewhere along the lakebed. Though it is the first child to arrive into view that draws in the uncle's full attention. Not one of the band's Darkfang, but a son of the Chieftan. Yaalk’ali scoffed under his breath. How could he have ever expected anything different! He had four, after all and it was not as though the slaves brood would have made it firstly!

Yet it is a daughter of Meleys which comes second, then another of hers at third! The pups ask questions as they begin to draw nearer, the vibrancy of the birds unlike anything they were quite used to further north. Still, the Elk's Crown was still more colorful than anything they might find up north, to his and soon their dismay. Yaalk'ali for all his magnificence as a caribou hunter, felt as colorful as he was, he didn't quite fit being so hidden away in the north.

Ice Raven's messengers. He begins to weave as he lowers his head (although some were nearly his size now) to the pups. They are blessed by him. He sees and hears through their eyes and ears. He is here now to see who has succeeded and who has failed. Completely something he made up on the spot, but who's to say the story could not hold truth!

skill: vagsbond

The old crone had joined with the rest of Saatsine towards the end of their pup's ‘mini march’. The long march was still yet to come.

Along the grove lakebed, she took note of her two brothers across the way and followed the trail of their eyes to where the first of many Saatsine youths of the season began its arrival.

The first, a son of Cen, to be easily expected. Yet the next two were not further sons of the chieftain, but daughters of her own womb! Pride swelled there, simmering silently in the mother. This litter held the first times she had ever felt pride for her creations.

It was caribou spear and Tatsaaye’, daughter of her own spirit, who she watched now silently. Awaiting still if her fire-land son and death-touched daughter would soon follow or if they had ultimately fallen behind.

skill: naturalist

He had crossed beautiful deciduous forests. Forests of pine and heavy fog. Tangled forests with forgotten ruins. He had smelt bear, elk and horse. Now he was in a new place. A very loud and active place of birds and bugs. It was hot here and the land soft and loose. Ahead at a great lake Aningaat sees the incredibly vibrant birds in the hundreds, scattered all in the water, the lakebed, the trees!

Arriving far later than the rest, Aningaat stumbles on tired legs a bit close before falling to a lazy sit. He needed a break, evident in his labored breaths. Besides, the rest were just over there, which meant he was close enough. Their so bright He exclaimed on the birds between little pants.

Skill: Naturalist

Nen'tah would not be far behind. There was so much to see, between the great hanging curtains of spanish moss and eerie lakes with their heavy veils of fog obscuring the far shoreline; curious new creatures, bugs he had never seen before, huge bugs with gnarled horns and gleaming wings. There was no shortage of tree frogs either, their song a steady chorus against the living hum of the marshlands.

He had liked the forest, but this was even better.

The humidity was only a mild irritant, his pup-fur not yet long enough to be a true nuisance even as it plastered wetly to his skin. Exploration and journeying were inherently a messy business; Nen'tah's awe of the world around him easily overpowered his discomfort.

But what were those?

Bright feathers in a shade he'd never seen before danced enticingly just beyond. Yaalk'ali seemed wholly unbothered, and Nen'tah swiftly closed the gap as he crowded in with the rest of his kin.

They had already asked what burned at the tip of his tongue; Yaalk'ali gave an answer which surprised him, and the boy's eyes widened as his gaze snapped back toward the gathered flock.

Ice Raven... judged from the eyes and beaks of neon swamp-birds?

Nen'tah swallowed, then straightened.

He should have been more respectful.