TEST Vivarium
PRP a dance with death - Printable Version

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a dance with death - Wardruna - 12/14/2025

skill: Soothsayer

Wardruna had never quite seen such a thing in all her life and though Sreda had done well enough to tell her about this magical tree, Wardruna did not believe that it's great magic had extended to its great size all the same. Its.... Well, huge. The northern woman really held no other word to offer as she marveled at it from just at its base, her neck craned upward as she looked to it with a squinted eye.

Her head then falling, she turns back to cavern which she had just stepped from and then beyond, across the waters which encircled the tree in almost protective barrier. Not only the tree had been magical, but her means of getting here...

After she had decided that she would go and, of course, have Sreda at her side to do so, it was as if the moment she had stepped from Northfall's borders, she had been pulled by string. A course which compelled her almost to the point where she felt she had little control. Much like she had when she had founded the rune with Vitus and how the wind had carried their path. A sign of the gods that Wardruna was on a right path, surely. It had led her to a cavern just outside of the Briar's Viel and from within, a trek which had her exit to exactly where she had wanted to end up.

Its magnificent. Taller then even the rise of some peaks of mountains, she felt. Moving around some of its large roots which jut from the earth, she makes slow steps into a hollow which rest from under it. There, in the gloom of dim lighting, the skeletal remains of a pair left in forever embrace as a tangle of ivy and flowering vines entangled them. Sreda - look..!

RE: a dance with death - Sreda - 12/15/2025

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Their travels had been swift and easy. It was as if they were drawn forward by some magical string — Sreda felt it. And from the steadfast way that Wardruna moved, Sreda could only surmise that her counterpart felt it, too.

The tree.

Sreda had seen premonitions. Her siblings, in fact, had been some of the first to have been ... born? Created? Of it. Sreda had, of course, known that her parents had used the magic for thesemves ... but she had not seen it with her own eyes ... not until ... now.

The warmer air of the South had greeted them upon their exit from the tunnel. It was a reprieve from the bitter chill of the mountains of Northfall, but it was hazy and muggy and heavy. The air was potent, as if spirits lingered just behind the veil to greet the two women who entered the sacred terrain. The sun was setting, too, drenching the atmosphere in the fire-fueled colors of orange and red.

It's ... quite impressive, Sreda would concur, amethyst eyes turning toward Wardruna with a flicker. And side by side, they would move forward, passing the threshold. Together.

The air felt even heavier, somehow.
With purpose.

The bough above them was, somehow, an interwoven collection of skeletons. Sreda's gaze would lift, admiring the way the roots mingled with the bones. And beneath the strange branches was a small, dark hollow ... and it called to them. It pulled the pair ever-nearer. And Wardruna moved without fear, leading Sreda even further through the maze of ivy and undergrowth and magic.

Without thinking, Sreda would find herself hovering against Wardruna's side. Warmth lingered in the space between their skin, and yet Sreda was still looking up. The tunnel at the end of the light ...

Sreda felt sure.

Did Wardruna, too?


RE: a dance with death - Wardruna - 12/15/2025

skill: soothsayer

The air was, yes, very heavy. Harboring a heat and thickness of fog even in winter months which the northern woman had not ever felt in all her life and in these moments, she realized just how little she knew this magical world and all the wondrous things beyond the towering cold mountains which was Northfall. A curiosity which pulled at her like strings in ways it had her father before her. Though also, like her father, she held now the weight of responsibility, of duty and, even more like her father, a selfishness to have it all. And that precisely was why she was here.

There had been one thing missing in her life, which she had tried and tried again to have, but time and failures had led Wardruna to believe she could not longer trust the idea of a happy love-life and marriage in mortals. Instead, she would seek the magic of the world and it's gods.

You ready? A rhetorical question as ever. Sreda Callosum did not feel fear or at the very least did not allow the pleasure of any mortal to know if it. If something was dangerous, if something was beyond knowledge and understanding, magical and otherworldly, Wardruna could trust that Sreda would be at her side without question or consequence.

Wardruna had been compelled by magic and gods before, so when the thought lingered there that an offering need be made to this Tree of Life, the Norse Queen would so give it.

Before the two lovers even in death, Wardruna would come to lay down before them, her front legs stretched out and opened enough that she might tuck her muzzle to her chest and touch her head to the earth. The ground seemed to pulse there with energy, or was this the heavy beat of her own chest?

To the Gods of Old, to the Gods of the Norður, All Mother of the Pentacle and the great guardian of Mythris, hear us. We pray to you, we give our worship and offering. Wardruna would lift her head and bring in her front legs so that she might bite around both ankles, enough so to allow them to bleed and once more she would stretch those front legs out so that her blood may soak into the earth there. We give blood for blood. Offer life, for life.

RE: a dance with death - Sreda - 12/18/2025

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"You ready?"

Sreda was always ready in ways that did not need words.

The woman would nod, curt and unyielding, for she did not fear whatever waited for them beyond this threshold. She did not know of consequence or reaction, only action. And she had made up her mind that she would be the one at Wardruna's side as they professed their faiths together. And Sreda, perhaps, could have convinced herself that it was a selfish action. That it was an experiment — a test.

But there was a part of her that knew she did this for Wardruna, too.

The air was potent with magic, lingering atop them like a weighted blanket, stealing their breath as if asking for something from them. Something more than just their presence. It was strange, the way the air felt. Sreda often dealt with deals in the darkness, praying for death and begging for understanding of the darker sides of nature. It was not often (or ever) she prayed for the opposite: life.

She waited, patient. Her eyes flickered toward Wardruna as the Viking-Bloodbreather began the seance. The words of the Nordic woman rang true in the hollow of the tree, echoing around them and twining with the weight of the magic. Sreda could almost see it, the way the notes of Wardruna's voice mixed with the breath of the skeletons around them. Blood poured from the new wound on Wardruna's forearm, the iron scent adding another twisted dimension to the sensory overload.

Sreda would inhale sharply. The spirits of Mythris. The Five. We do not make this offering in vain. Sreda would take a step forward, lifting her own forearm and using her fangs to slice her own flesh. Blood would twist with the golden twines of her fur, dripping from her elbow, before landing atop Wardruna's own sacrifice.

Blood-bound.

Her eyes would twinkle.

And the witch would echo her partner:
We give blood for blood. Offer life, for life.