a hunter's oath

Damien

my fire is starved of oxygen
a flicker in the howling wind

The world thinned until it came down to stone and breath and the weight in his arms.

He carried the cub across his chest, wrapped in a small blanket. Aria’s tiny paws flexed against the wool; her eyes were half-lidded, curious and cautious in equal measure. Damien could feel the heat of her body, the small, fierce beat of her heart, and it felt obscene and holy in equal measure.

The snow leopard pelt lay over his other arm. He’d kept it from being a spectacle—no flamboyant spread, no preening of a trophy. It was a thing you couldn’t look at and not understand. Dried blood stitched the fur in places where it had clung; the scent of iron rose off it like a memory. He’d treated it to keep it from rotting, to preserve and not so much as to bone it. He had not had time for tanning, for ritual softening. The offering was raw because the moment was raw. That, he thought—fingers worrying a loose thread at the edge of the hide—was the point.

He set the cub gently on the shrine’s edge, tucking the blanket so the little creature could burrow a fraction deeper. Aria blinked up, gave a puzzled trill, and settled. Damien’s fingers lingered on that cloud of fur for a second longer than was strictly necessary. Then he laid the pelt across the offering stone, not draped like a garment but set like a thing returned. The spotted hide gave a soft, animal smell up into the carved air, honest and raw. His palm flattened on it, the action half-ceremonial and half practical: here is what it cost. Here is what the night took. Here is what I bring in trade.

He didn’t have prayers memorized for this. He had the way men like him learned to ask for things—no gilded verses, no begging to be saved. He spoke in the short sentences the world had taught him to trust. “Frey,” he said, the name rough in his throat, used as an opening and nothing more. His voice hovered in the shade and then slid away, the way small sounds do in a big room.

He set his jaw and tried again, this time letting the words be what they needed to be: not polished, not perfect, just true. “I’m asking you to bind this cub to me. I ask for a bond—something that’ll let her follow the sort of life she’s meant for. The Fangs are rubble; she’s got no mountains to hide in, but I’ll see she grows up safe. I will be responsible for her. I will see fair measure for what we took..."

"I give you what was taken from her mother.” He touched the pelt where the fur was still matted and cold. “I don’t expect—” he swallowed. “I don’t demand. I only ask you to see what’s been done and what might be done in return.” Then he stepped back, a small, deliberate retreat so the offering could be a thing laid and not a thing thrust.

Aria nuzzled the blanket and made a soft, contented sound—no prophecy in that, only the small certainty of a living warmth. Theea’s presence at his side was another warmth, human and reckless and terrible in its gentleness. Her being there did something slippery and dangerous to the blunt edges of his voice, softened them where he’d never meant for softness to live. He kept his eyes on the carvings—on the mark for the herald of nature—and waited in the way a man waits who is used to waiting for the wrong things to happen.

---

Damien is asking Frey for the cub to be his companion. Theea will also be here

Regional Score bonus: +13 in all shrine visits, drops, PQ+s, KQs, etc. (You must post this at the bottom of any post where a +13 should be included). Residents cannot be cursed at shrines in this region.

Accepted receive +20 and roll with advantage at all shrines. Include this at the bottom of all shrine posts.

beware the night is closing in
and if i fall asleep, the shadows win

Theea

and that was how i learned to live
when you can run but you can't hide

I match his pace as best I can, two of my steps to one of his, the ground steady under me again the way it hasn’t been since the Fangs. It feels like walking out of winter and back into a morning that knows my name. Aria shifts in his arms, a small pocket of warmth folded in wool, and I can’t help the soft ache that comes with watching her breathe—like holding a candle cupped against the wind.

I keep catching his face when he thinks I'm not looking: the jaw set hard enough to cut stone, the the hard line of his brow weighted by what it cost us to get here. Then he looks down at the cub and the change is so simple—everything gentles, melting like a snowflake in a child's palm. The cold parts of me loosen, as if someone tilted a mirror to angle sunlight where I’d been standing in shade.

At the shrine I fall back a pace, letting the space belong to him. The pelt on the stone smells like iron and snow and the night we survived. His voice is rough honesty, the kind that doesn’t hide behind pretty words, and I stand still and let it work on me. I remember my own prayer, thin and shaking, the day I promised to be worth the chance I was given; I wish quietly for his steadiness, for the way he can set a thing down and call it true.

I slowly approach the shrine after him, and I leave perhaps a macabre offering: a piece of bloodied thread from my now-healed ribs. Not as large, but I hope an equal offering to the pelt. We have paid for the sacrifice of Aria's mother to survive, and through Aria, would continue.

If Damien glances my way, I meet him with a small, certain smile—nothing bright enough to pull the light off of what he’s doing, just enough to say: I’m here, even if things go wrong. Then I back up a few paces, and I wait with him, the way a person waits for sunrise—ready for revelation or for nothing at all, trusting that the world can be changed by either.

Frey, I silently prey, hear him like you hear me when I was kid. Please. Damien needs this. So does Aria.

---

Accepted receive +20 and roll with advantage at all shrines. Include this at the bottom of all shrine posts.

how to feel trapped in a tunnel
but come out the other side

Frey

Nothing happens for a few moments. But then, as the wind howls through the buildings and streets outside, a ghost of it swirls in through the shrine, lifting the hem of the blankets where the cub is nestled and ruffling the fur of the snow leopard pelt.

Then suddenly the pelt itself is moving, rising and twisting until the nature deity stands before them clad in spotted fur, their skin shining and opalescent like the aurora that haunts Halo's skies at night. "All seasons can be cruel," they intone softly, leaning down to scoop the cub in her blankets into their arms, "but such is the circle of life."

Straightening - and as the pelt shifts with them, Theea might see that it's held together with delicate, bloodied thread - they cradle Aria close. "A bond like that is earned," they say. "So I will give you an opportunity to earn it."

Silently, they offer the cub out for Damien to take. 

---

Damien has received a quest! He must:

1. Complete a thread spending a night tracking a snow leopard across its territory without attracting its attention.
2. Complete a thread gaining Aria's trust in whatever way feels most appropriate to Damien.
3. Complete a thread with another character who has a companion and learn how their bond was formed.
4. Complete a thread introducing Aria to another companion. (It may be the same companion as in 3., but they must be two separate threads).

Damien

my fire is starved of oxygen
a flicker in the howling wind

Damien’s eyes didn’t leave Frey’s form, even as the aurora-light shimmered across skin that seemed almost unreal in its calm, unyielding presence. The world felt both too large and too small all at once: the wind in the streets, the pelt rising, the cub cradled in those impossible hands. It was awe, yes—but tempered. He had no place for overt awe. He had a cub to care for, a bond to earn, and the lessons of survival etched deep in him.

He drew in a measured breath, his gaze sweeping back to Aria before settling again on Frey. “I understand,” he said finally, low and steady, “That is the way it should be."

He moved forward with deliberate slowness, careful not to jostle the cub. His hands rose to take Aria, careful, certain—his weight and strength measured. The warmth of her tiny body pressed against him, and he felt a flicker of the responsibility, the promise, settle deep in his chest.

“I’ll see it done,” he added, voice even, almost a murmur, but carrying the weight of what he meant. “Every step. Every night. Every moment she needs me. I’ll earn this bond.”

He didn’t reach for thanks. He didn’t seek approval. What he felt was a quiet recognition of what the path required and what he had already begun to understand about the world: that some things—life, trust, protection—were not granted, not borrowed, not taken. They were carried, moment by moment, until they became part of you.

Aria stirred against him, blinking up with those bright, unguarded eyes. He allowed a small exhale, not relief, not pride, just acknowledgment. He’d begun. And that was enough.

He glanced at Theea briefly, meeting her gaze with the faintest nod.

Then he looked back at Frey, voice steady, carrying the weight of both promise and respect: “I’ll not waste what’s been offered. I’ll see it through.”

And without more, he adjusted the blanket, cradled Aria more firmly, and stepped back a pace, giving space as he always did: respect in motion, patience in posture, readiness in stillness. The work was ahead, not behind. That was the only truth he needed to hold onto.

beware the night is closing in
and if i fall asleep, the shadows win

Theea

and that was how i learned to live
when you can run but you can't hide

The wind ghosts through the shrine and Frey is there—pelt rising, aurora caught under skin—and I can’t look anywhere else. It pulls the breath right out of me, the way sunrise sometimes does when it clears the ridge and lays gold on everything that survived the night. I remember seasons ago, the way I stood smaller than I feel now and asked to be aged, to be given a chance. No quest, no trial. They simply looked at me and found something worth sending into the world.

They look at Damien now and I feel the same surety settle in my chest. He’s worthy too. The difference is only that this bond isn’t Frey’s alone to grant; it’s Aria’s to accept. He’ll have to prove it to both of them—day by day, warm hands and steady care, the slow work that turns promise into truth.

When Frey gathers Aria, I finally see the stitching: fine, bloodied thread holding the pelt together. It’s the same kind of red I cleaned from my ribs in the den, the same pattern Damien had sewn into my skin with steady determination. Something about it knocks against my heart hard enough to sting. I don’t cry at the poignancy of it. I let the feeling pass through like light through glass and I hold onto the part that warms instead of burns. When Aria is given back to his arms—when the Herald of Rae sets a path and calls it an opportunity—I can’t help the small smile that lifts at the corner of my mouth.

Damien glances back and I meet him, steady as I can make myself, and nod once: go on. You’ve got this. Then I lift my eyes to Frey, all the brightness in me kept soft and small so the moment stays where it belongs, and offer only what feels right to give.

"Thank you," turning eyes up to Frey when Damien turns back, and it's for more than just answering us today.

FIN

how to feel trapped in a tunnel
but come out the other side