#blutothinn

[the-rat-plays-games]

ISERA - SKYTR (SCOUT)

“Oh, we’re just a bunch of fucking animals -- but we’re afraid of the outcome.” - Architects, “Animals” “Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.” - Henry Rollins

Who knows where she comes from? When did it matter? Never. Never. 

Not to her, anyways. 

And sure, the new pack, Blutothinn, they ask, but Isera, she doesn’t care much about it. She doesn’t remember the old place much. Just remembers some old man with a limp who couldn’t fucking keep up, who fell behind, who starved and died. She remembers the winter, too, the harshness of it, the driving hunger in the forest. Remembers jumping to catch a bird in the air. Like a weasel would, right? 

Or a bobcat. 

Speaking of: she gets her first scar from a bobcat, the scars across her eyes -- boom, a right claw, the stripes of blood down her face. Isera reels. Sure, she kills it, but -- but -- fuck. Fuck. It hurts. 

But the scars, they make her feel alive. It’s weird. 

Isera can’t help how sharp-tongued she is, either. She doesn’t mean to be so shitty to Vilhelm, and the other hunting team crewmates, but they’re clumsy, and Isera gets into an actual fight with Vilhelm on the trail one day, which ends fucking terribly, ends with an elk kicking Vilhelm, and --  -- well.  The bobcat scars?  Nothing compared to what happens when they bring her to Yvar.  Yvar rips her face apart. Rips her open. Kicks her off the hunting team, too, when it’s done. 

... but then Yvar makes her a scout, instead. 

She doesn’t say why. 

Isera still ain’t sure. 

She’s not planning to ask, though. Ain’t worth the trouble. 

[the-rat-plays-games]

GALDA  - The Betrayer ; The Waterstealer ; The False-Smiler

“Galda, with her eyes afire, did then step forward and speak with the rumbling force of a thousand sandslides: ‘You have only led me to weakness, Euldis,’ and as she spoke, her legion sprang to their paws. ‘And I cannot abide by this.’ Her flower crown shook with pollen, but instead of life, the pollen sunk death deep into the ground below her feet, and this is why there are spaces where only the hardiest plants can grow and the sun never stops shining, for Galda’s hubris scorched it deeply.” 

They worshiped her once, these wolves. Many still do, for they do not know the truth of things. There are packs where her name is a song, and Euldis is a demon, and this is right and just and good. But there is a pack where her name is said as a curse and the earth is tainted with protection against Galda’s most holy weapon of all.

This will not do. 

She will look to the wolves with their sunbanners and whisper between their ears: should we not fight the darkness? Look at her, with her single eye and her glowing mane and her blood-hunger. Rally the people, my Child, and sing.

It is not the blood that bothers her -- but the revealing of her vice, the knowledge of her truth. What right do mortals have to know her as she is? 

None. 

None at all. 

[the-rat-plays-games]

KVATCH -- HONARGA (HONTSAVAR - MITGARRA)

Finisher of the ‘Bear’s Tenacity’ Hunt

“Your blood’s gone bad / We knew it would / Death is coming to purge this town / I know your name / And I’m / I’m gonna cut you down.” - Ruby Freidman

“I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.”  - Stephen King

Kvatch is born last. By all accounts, she was born smaller than the others, too, not that many remain from her litter now. Her father, the lead male of a small nomadic pack, was pleased with all of his pups but the littlest one, and he vowed to watch her, but Kvatch grew, outstripping her brothers, her sisters. 

Thicker. Muscular. More powerful in build. 

Both Kvatch’s parents were forest wolves. Her father accused her mother of many things, but it was no concern to Kvatch, who passed her Rite of Adolescence with flying colors. Let them squabble and fight. She focused on herself. 

Until it came to blows. 

Until her father struck her mother down. 

Then it became her business, and Kvatch, young though she was, already stood her father’s equal in size, and still had overlarge paws and growing to do. She already possessed strength beyond a wolf’s natural bounds. She dug her teeth into his neck and broke him. And then she left. 

That night she dreamed: a she-wolf with green eyes, a glow beneath her paws, vines and roses undulating along her coat. Green turns white turns grey turns red. A muzzle touches her own. 

There are many blessings in the wolf-world. Kvatch carries hers close to her chest. She cannot hide her power, her strength, but she hides the other things: the keen sense of which prey in a herd is easiest to fell. The way that the weak joints on wolves glow when she looks at them right. 

Kvatch looks at Vilhelm when he joins the pack and she knows she is facing her opposite; he sews, laughs and flashes his teeth, he is a jokester, bright and happy. She is a reaper, brought to bear by the goddess of Cyclical Life. Yvar knows, of course -- it is why Yvar makes her the Finisher, the Mitgarra. It is why Yvar asks her to join on the front line of the push to eradicate the Greymanes so the mine can be taken. 

It is why, when her jaws close on the head of the Greymane leader, his skull crushes like dry leaves beneath her teeth.

[the-rat-plays-games]

EULDIS - The Evermother ; the Deathkeeper ; the Shield Against Raging Light

“And so Euldis beheld her wife, with her glistening teeth and sungleaming coat. At once, Euldis understood what had taken place. A great mourning wail escaped her jaws -- but the mourning-cry sprang legions to their feet, the outcasts, the fallen, the hungering for vengeance. They stood behind her, forsaken and burning, scarred by Galda’s brutal light; Euldis wept when the legions sprang together, her own forces having risen to defend her not from an oath sworn but from love for the one who protected them so, who gave them a place to rest their weary heads. Her ways were bloodslicked, but those who followed them understood her love, and here they rushed to shield her and her young from infinite yawning jaws.”

Her coat is tattered and torn but she sleeps beneath the earth. Once, her slumber was disturbed by heathens who marched blindly across her hearth-home; now, true believers, her chosen, keep the grounds safe. 

In the mountain-home, there is a shrine of teeth and jaws and cold so bitter it twists the brain to warmth. In her slumber, Euldis governs as best she can. She reached to a young wolf who screamed out in fear from plague and death; she held Yvar, and gave her a blessing that ensured no God could touch the promising youngling. 

She needs Blood to rise. This is the way of things. 

She wards as best she can. There are spirits that gnash and growl and scream: the Greymanes, with their ancestral-kin. The Flamebacks, hungry and ambitious. A traitor in the ranks of the many. 

But through it all, Euldis protects. The young are brought to her side. A denmother who died to protect the pups that weren’t even hers, made a Goddess in the aftermath of a great disaster. 

This is the way of things. This is Euldis’ way. 

It is not perfect -- but the wolves who follow it know that they are Seen.

[the-rat-plays-games]

GYDA - GUUTRAO  ( Godspeaker )

 “I know you would make me happy / I found my way out / I found it at last” - Stuck In The Sound

The dreams do not come at first. Gyda works herself to the bone to learn the leaves and plants of her home territory, the swamps where even light disappears when you go far enough into the trees. She is devoted to her pack, as is her place. Her sister hunts. Her parents are guardians with tattoos carved into their flesh and fur. 

Life is good. 

But it isn’t the life Gyda wants. She stares beyond her swamp home and wishes there were something more to her life; here and now is so... droll. So boring. There’s hardly a shred of wit among the pack. They’re all focused on survival. They don’t understand. 

(At least Gyda thinks they don’t. She’s never asked. She doesn’t care to.)

Excitement comes like this: she can whisper into an ear and watch a fight. She can stir dust. She can do so many things. It’s easy. Like pulling strands of flesh from a gator’s leg after a good hunt.

Then she dreams of flashing teeth and a gaping chasm and blood welling from the earth and the Mother Beneath, her dark coat rippling with bloodstars. She dreams of a borealis rippling from a screaming shoulder. Gyda watches a wolf’s face split into an abyss that winks red. She watches the Mother Beneath gather her Children, alive and dead, and then -- that face, impossibly large, turns to look at her, and  Gyda wakes in a sea of blood. Burning. The packlands are burning? It’s impossible. It’s impossible. But there’s gold among the dark branches, and there are wolves with searing suns upon their faces, and her flirty smiles don’t work. So she runs. She has to run. 

If any of the pack make it out, she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t wait. The goldwolves scream about a Hvasyr -- a Daemon. 

As she travels, she sees things in her sleep -- messages from somewhere Else, somewhere deep beneath her feet, a wounded creature banging at the ceiling to break free / the crackling of ice / the snarling / the rotting legions rising.

In the end, Gyda is the last to find Blutothinn -- but she is the piece that locks them all in place, the six founders. 

But as the pack grows, old wiles come back. They always do. It’s so easy to win a stranger with a smile. 

[the-rat-plays-games]

Yvar & Svera in Full Decor!

[the-rat-plays-games]

Weddings

Blutothinn is a pack of many traditions, and many of these traditions are savage ones. This is not so with a wedding. 

While weddings are not mandatory for wolves to have pups, after a wedding, things change. There are two roles within a wedded pair: the Brynskjal, or Den-Wolf, and the Svarraskjal, Trail-Wolf. Notably, these terms are not gendered in the tongue of the region. In a male-female marriage, the female may be the Svarraskjal while her mate remains the Brynskjal. All these terms mean is that one wolf, should they choose, is able to wander and have pups with other wolves; this is primarily a tradition kept for the sake of surrogacy. The Svarraskjal may “take to the trail” to find a partner for a litter if their partner agrees. The Brynskjal does not do this. While Yvar is not particularly pressed to see that the Brynskjal doesn’t wander, other packs have been known to forbid Brynskjal from leaving camp. 

It does not matter who the Svarrasjkal partners with to produce a litter; the litter is considered the rightful litter of the wedded pair, without consideration for the outside partner. 

Weddings are a three-day affair. The first day is private, with only Blutothinn wolves attending, because it is a day of celebratory sacrifice; prey animals are caught and killed before the intended pair, a symbolic display of support for their union. On this day, fighting is forbidden, and should someone begin a fight, they are punished for it; should an outsider try to pick a fight, they will be driven in to the swamps and left to disappear. On this first day, the pack sings song and joins in dance; celebration is already fierce. Should an ally show up on the second day with a live prey animal to kill before the couple, it is seen as perhaps the most impressive sign of alliance-- save for allowing a pup to live within Blutothinn. 

On the second day, there is no sacrifice save for those an outsider may prepare. Instead, there is a great feast, with the couple’s choice of fish and flesh and berries; sweet fermented juice is downed as well, and pelts are painted in bright flashy tones. It is a day of revelry from sundown till sunup, and well through the day. 

The third day sees the ceremony itself take place. The pack, and their guests, assemble down within the town of Alageda, deep in the mountain mines. They stand before a shrine, marked with runes and ritual bones, and the Guutrao leads the pack in song while the pair descends through the mines together. Once they stand before the shrine, the Brynskjal presents a crafted gift to their partner, and the Svarraskjal presents a scavenged gift. The wolves touch cheeks and then touch noses, and the Kriegskjal drapes both wolves in cloth the color of the night sky.  After this, the pack vacates Alageda entirely, spending the night beneath the stars while the couple are left alone within Blutothinn’s holy ground. 

[the-rat-plays-games]

SVERA - KREIGSWEIF - SPEAKERWIFE  OTHER RANKS: SKYTR (SCOUT), SKJALMOTTIR (WOLF-MOTHER) The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. - Anais Nin

This is a gift / it comes with a price / who is the lamb and who is the knife / when Midas is king / and holds me so tight / and turns me to gold in the sunlight - Florence Welch

Her firelicked coat tells a story: Svera is born in a desert. Her father is a drifter, a rambler who has no interest in sticking around for long. Mother is quiet, overfocused on survival. Svera, who is named for the sound of falling sand, learns to watch. The litter fights in the sand, kicks up dust. Mother does not name them for sentiment but to tell them apart better with her failing eyes. 

Svera learns to wait and hide; she lets the stronger siblings squabble out their dominance and topples the winner. Pragmatism and cunning come to him by equal force; she’s a natural observer, a sweet-eyed smiler with fangs that drip blood. When she is still too young, Mother falls to sleep and never wakes, and so Svera strikes out on her own before any of her siblings discover the corpse. 

There is a pain in her ribs when she turns, once, to look back over her shoulder and regard the desert. There’s a pack there somewhere, she knows from Mother’s rambling, her pains, that threw them out when they discovered Mother was pregnant. The Flamebacks, Mother called them. 

But the Flamebacks are the past. Svera runs from the desert, its unforgiving sun, the pains of her mother, the Flamebacks, the teeth of her siblings. She runs from it all. 

It is Svera who meets Arhaw Greymane, living in a mountain mine, but the Greymanes are cautious and have no desire to allow a single wolf to stick around. Svera lives on scraps and scavenged kills. She looks towards the sky and wonders what makes the lights there shine. She sings to herself as she navigates the swamp on the minemountain’s west side. 

Meeting Yvar is like some romantic beginning: their eyes lock across a river. Svera has a weasel in her teeth. Yvar is carrying a bird. 

(Svera smiles slightly when she tells the story. She never tells how Yvar spluttered at the sight of her, spat out feathers, sat down hard, stared, beheld, smiled so beautifully. That detail is for her and her alone.)

When Yvar introduces Svera as the Kreigsweif, there is no opposition.  Svera thinks: good.