TEST Vivarium - Spirited Highlands

nameless

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:12:17 -0500

Rinon slowed as the land ahead began to change, the air tightening around him long before the borders themselves came into view. His ears angled back in mild irritation as he took it in, intellect and instinct aligning. His long legs slowed him just on the edge, head high and posture composed despite the slight bristle along his spine. He shifted, a low, measured exhale left him. ❝ Here we go again... ❞ he muttered under his breath almost bothered that Mythris had brought him back. What did he have here? A broken, lost family, a pack that barely knew who he was.

All well; they were all he had.

He lifted his muzzle, drawing in the layered histories written across the ground dissecting them with practiced ease. He had matured in his time away, youthful still his mind accelerated beyond his few moons. With a restrained, precise flick of his tail he straightened and called for the wolves of Elysium, and sat to see who would come.

─
❝ speech ❞

a different beast

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 08:16:26 -0500

He doesn't remember his time away, but he's certain it must have been important, called into the folds of the underworld to perform his duties and then spat back out to the land of the living to continue this experiment of mortality.

So when he wakes he's not alarmed, but he is lost. The scents of this place compared to the death and decay in mothers den; it's all wrong. Here the air is salty and his mind flashes images of stark blues, cool and bracing as the colors roll and collide into the ground below his feet.

The boy yawns, stretching his lanky limbs and dropping his nose to the ground tail high─his mind fixating on one thing.

Find his mother.

He moves with a slow intent doing his best to navigate and despite this constantly shoulder checks trees and catches his feet on roots raised too high, which cause him to trip and stumble. It's annoying, but he's too focused to care. He lets his instinct guide him best they can, but not really even knowing if he's even going in the right direction.

─
❝ speech ❞

The Birds are Singing, and I am scared

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:08:04 -0500

She didn’t want to leave the den, but at times, she had to. Early in the morning, Eilidh had left to go see Auntie Stardust about getting some perfumes. It took all of her courage to do so. Auntie Stardust was intimidating. She looked so different from her family, and she had heard her yell before, though not at Eilidh herself. Stardust had always been nice, but it still took a lot to approach her.

Stardust gave Eilidh the small parcel of perfume and set her on her way. It felt like a long trek…but it really wasn’t in any capacity. Eilidh stood still at first, crouched down, her eyes fixated on the trees. Stardust stood at the mouth of her den and simply watched silently. Eventually, Eilidh moved along, her form naturally tight with its movements, crouched low and never standing tall.

She felt her breathing increasing in rate as she quickly moved now, eyes wide as she tried to hurry back home. Her heart beat. Faster. Faster. Above her, a bird peeped, and Eilidh hit the ground. Ears pulled back, and she dropped the parcel in the dirt.

”This one hears you,” she whispers, teeth reaching to pull fur out of her front right paw, already missing patches. She leaves the fur in the dirt, drawing a circle around it three times. It was a small, silent promise not to ignore the sky again, like she ignored it before. She looks around desperately, quietly, shaking for a moment.

”This one hears you, this one hears you,” she completed the three, before grabbing the parcel and dashing for the mouth of the den. It was like torture. She swore she could feel something following her, like the hairs on her back sensed something. Yet nothing was ever there when she looked…but what if it was spirits? It could be! Thus she moved as quickly as she could, as close to the ground as she could, until she finally reached her destination and hurried in without any hesitation.

She is out of breath. She breaths so quickly as she rushes to her brother’s side, immediately laying next to him as she shook. A fear touched her eyes, but seemed to soften a bit once she was next to him. She blinked hard, three times at him, as a greeting when her mouth did not want to speak.

She takes the parcel and slowly opens it. It was the scent of lavender, berries, dried wood, and dill. Her shaking slowly began to fade away, as a hesitant smile crossed her brown maw.

”B-b-brother, I went and got you some s-smells!” she finally said with a crooked smile, pushing them closer to him now.

”The…The birds were already o-out,” she said with a small frown claiming her face. She was trying to avoid them by going early…but it was not early enough. ”I..I need to wake up e-earlier next time,” she reminded herself, as she started to groom her already raw ears with her paws.

the pale oracle

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:46:59 -0500

In his seaside grave, the former lord awoke to a lungful of black ooze. A click in his throat, a gargle, and then a wretch of his stomach as the inky bile rose to his throat. When he went to open his eyes, all he can see is...nothing. Black, empty, void.

The sensation of the same inky substance leaking from between his teeth burns his eyes. It pours like honeyed tears, viscous and burning.

All he can feel is the ache of a ghostly pain, a sting in his blinded eyes. The cold sand that cradled him, and the bitter winds that make the sea churn with ire. Behind his eyes, it feels like his skull is splitting in two.

There's quiet, disjointed whispers that fade in and out of his ears. Some familiar—the croak of his bastard father, the terse rasp of a justiciar—while most were unknown. Muffled like white static enough for the words to be lost.

Another lurch of his stomach has Cicero relieving the oozing contents into the cold sands. Water lapped at his dusky tresses, swallowing whatever poison that'd lived in his lungs. He cannot see where he is, but he knows that this is not home.

A woman's voice, haunting and broken, came to him. Along with it, a memory.

His father dead in his chambers. Still and rigid, with a pool of blood so dark like midnight. A pale, veiled specter kneeling before him. He couldn't see her face, but she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She wiped his tears, soothed him. Smiled at his father's corpse before she'd swallowed it whole.

He remembers the promise she'd whispered. The power she could give, the end to the suffering he'd endured. His father was the first half of her toll.

Cicero remembers the white-hot, roaring pain as she took his eyes. The window to the soul, cradled between pallid bone fingers. He didn't weep. He didn't miss them. She offered the power he's never had, and he made the oath. He became her Nightshade.

But he doesn't remember dying. From his bed of sand, he rose to shaky limbs. Wiped furiously at his eyes, at the black ooze that wouldn't leave. The taste on his tongue is better like decay. He does not weep.

Was this her plan? Was this his destiny?

Pallida Mater? He rasped. All that returns is the distant crash of waves.

cadeau ༄

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 08:37:13 -0500

Just as well as she knew the sound of her own name, Eliana knew the sound of hunger. The way it hollowed the chest, curled up like a ghost in the belly. Kōvah had given to her when she could not give to herself. Had fed her like one who understood hunger without needing to ask, never shaming her for need, and she had done nothing in return.

In truth, she had done nothing for him. Nothing worthy of his presence. It was a wonder he stayed at all, and sometimes… she feared he wouldn’t come back from his daily wanderings. That he’d vanish into the grasslands like mist.

It was a fear that twisted hotly in her gut, made her chest burn, made her blood pulse with something frantic and unspoken. It was selfish, perhaps—but she wanted him to stay. Forever.

She sucked in a breath and let it out in a slow sigh as Imp shifted atop her nape. His claws twisted in her fur, sharp but careful against her skin. He’d pecked at her ears several times once he realized what she meant to do but she was stubborn.

Creeping forward, she kept her muzzle low to the ground, nostrils flaring, trying to untangle scent from scent. It was slow work. Frustrating, and she marveled that anyone was able to do it at all. She ignored Imp's mutters until the wind shifted, and then his feathers ruffled with something new. Tension, then an excited approval.

She didn’t know what it was. A mouse? A mole? She didn’t care. It was real. It was hard not to lurch forward so soon, and though she would never be a hunter, never be good, she knew enough to know that patience was important. Time crawled by slowly, and it was only when Imp’s beak began its soft, rhythmic chattering did she lunge.

Too slow, too clumsy. Her shoulder struck a stone, her teeth snapped shut on dirt and fur and nothing. She tried again. And again. And again. Imp stayed with her, his sounds guiding her way, encouraging her.

Eliana lost count of how many times her teeth met air or earth. She grew breathless and frustrated with each passing attempt, until finally something soft squirmed beneath her paw. She froze, her heart thundering in her chest. She couldn't believe it! A delighted smile curled her lips, and her tail thumped behind her, dirt twisting in her long furs there.

It smelled of blood already, faint but fresh, as if something else had tried first. Perhaps it had, but it worked in her favor. Eliana bent her head, touched it with her nose. It squeaked, squirming in her grip. A rabbit? It smelled like one.

She didn’t know if she could kill it.

But she thought of Kōvah’s tired voice. His warmth beside her. The way she ached for him when he was gone, and even sometimes, when he was near. How she was no longer lonely, no longer always afraid. How she was learning what it meant to be happy for the first time.

So she bit down, missing the mark, her ears pinning back as it squealed in protest. A snort left her, pained and angry, and it took all the strength she had to bite again—harder this time, jaws squeezing—until the rabbit went still.

Imp danced around her. She could hear his feathers ruffling as he cooed and chirped, his claws clicking against pebbles and digging up soil. A good job, then?

The rabbit hung limply from her jaws as she began her search for Kōvah. She didn’t know where Kōvah went when he left. But she would look, even if stayed silent now and her lungs burned from her efforts.

It's Not Like Me, To Worry

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 21:49:01 -0500

Some extra blankets, a decent meal, that was all she needed. Lyra would be right as rain, then.

Well, and after a day of rest. It'd been a long night, of course she needed to sleep off the exhaustion of bringing four screaming children into the world. Not that they seemed inclined to scream much. Mostly they laboured for breath, and she told herself it was only the chilly air.

More blankets, then. Christ, but it was cold out. She couldn't stop shivering. And hell, her head hurt.

Just some rest. Like weathering a storm, you had to stay awake or you'd sleep forever, and you felt a part of Jone's crew after, but the nap you earned when clouds broke and the ship was safe came like no other. A true font of restoration. Her ship was safe, here. It was. She told Mal as much. She was... she was pretty sure she told him, anyway.

He only came in now and then, and he spoke mostly gibberish. Sometimes she repeated gibberish back to him in irritation.

Dusk came — or maybe it was dawn. They looked the same. She'd not slept long enough. But her throat was dry. Lyra kept getting up, and sating herself, and then waking to realize it'd all been only a dream. Maybe she was still dreaming.

Maybe she wasn't going to wake up.

Maybe, just a little more rest...

◟ kîkisêp

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:49:26 -0500

The morning is quiet as it is long. Kōvah awoke to the sway of long, golden grasses and the deep bellows of the bison.

Eliana lays tucked away in the glade with her troublesome dove. He'd left her to rest with the promise of returning with a fresh bouquet. What purposeless life he'd lived before he'd taken her under his wing is gone with the dust.

Now, he awakes every morning with the thought of her milky eyes and her safety.

He thinks of Light, too. The bitey little thing whose spirit belied her size. Even the bison gave her a wide berth. She'd taken teeth to his ankles already, but it hadn't stopped him from trying to mend her broken leg. Even with the disability, she was a difficult thing to track down.

His routine is sacred. Guide the herd to fresh pastures, wrestle with the growing young bulls. Deposit a kill for Light, if he could find her lurking about, then visit Eliana til' sunset. He'd thought about bringing the two of them to the herd, but it feels too soon, and he often feels foolish for wishing the different halves of his mending heart to come together.

He is torn between the herd, the blind, the fierce.

The thought of family feels far too raw to entertain. He is pensive as he strode between the bison and their young, a bundle of flowers between his teeth and the sun warming his back. How could he embrace a new clan, when he still grieves those he lost?

fern

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 08:19:30 -0500

when lestan had assured himself that kirain was back at the den with their children, he told them all he would go hunting. it was high time that all of them learned, but their family had been compromised in so many ways that the witch found himself too afraid to take them out of doors.
but he assured them he would be back, and told himself that with this hunt, he would wash away so much bleakness. they could start over, bellies full, start over with the mending of one another.
a buck startled in the black hours of midnight and though such a hale creature was not lestan's first or even second choice for a solo hunt, he gave chase. the pursuit took many hours, stalking, racing, running, lunging.
at length he felt the sun bright overhead and realized that he had come out into a beautiful glen. morninglight showed the forms of sunflowers mummified by frost, and through this floral charnel house the mayfair walked, mind at a comfortable blank for once even as crazed tears ran steadily down his face.

The Ox-Bow Incident

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 03:04:49 -0500

For :3

Nate returned to the river and the rushing current, faintly tinged in lavender. Drowning was an awful way to die, and drowning in water that melted skin from bone must be worse, he supposed. But he couldn't deny a kind of fascination with the thing. Having woken to a blood-soaked sky in a new body, under new stars... there was clearly more to the world around him than met the eye. And here, some kind of epicenter. He tread down pebbled shore and watched the current broil.

He didn't really expect to see Stardust or her raven, here, again. Just, couldn't shake the feeling there was more to find. Maybe he was asking questions to the wrong sky, again, like Hestia suggested. Curiosity got him into trouble more often than bad luck.

[BIRTH] A Road I've Never Seen Before

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 05:15:31 -0500

Skill - Warrior

Tonight. Tonight in the bitter cold of a winter snow — because really, how could it be any other way?

Maybe there should have been an instinct to warn her, and she simply lacked it, being unsuitable to motherhood in many and more ways. She woke in the night to sudden, terrible pain. Alone — but wasn't she always? As blood and water soaked her flanks, she committed herself to a new kind of battle, one where she was sorely outnumbered.

Lyra didn't know much about having babies. Ships weren't the place for it. Once, on a slaving voyage, she had seen a new mother strangle her infant to spare it the slow, sickly death most of them found in that rotpile of a hold. And Lyra, though barren (or so she'd thought), had made some effort then to learn to keep the newborns breathing. Because each head was coin; the sharks following the vessel had no interest in paying for their meals.

But of the birth itself — it turned out there was little worth investigating. Ships had limited space, and midwives had excessive needs. So it came to what it always came to, in Lyra's mind — the ones strong enough to survive would do so. The rest were chum.

And she, now, must endeavor like any other. Free of chains around her wrists, but in ignorance, the outcome just as uncertain. No doubt some primitive god was laughing at her.

An hour passed...

Lyra didn't cry out. Didn't whine. Only crawled to the corner furthest from rattling wind and seeping cold as her body battled itself.

Pacing or growling might tell Mal, asleep in the next room, of her struggle. She didn't want him here to see her shaking. Even if he could have helped, she wouldn't have let him.

Two more...

Weren't the bastards meant to be coming out, by now?

Panting, Lyra stood. Circled. Each clench in her gut brought a pain worse than lashings, and that seemed to be all. She bit her own forearm to stifle the whimpering — distracting herself from a pain beyond her control in the only way she knew how. Maybe she'd die, this way.

Time grew fluid, inconsequential. The rest, eternal.

The wind picked up...

Lyra's son was born past the point of her hopes, so still and so small she thought he would never breathe at all. But his arrival brought relief from the agony. She didn't even bother to wash the dead thing off — just sprawled on the floor of the inn room and shut her eyes, struggling for breath of her own.

Until a wet wriggling like an eel tickled her hind-paw, and she nearly kicked him in a sudden fright. Lyra stared at the dark little tuber, dumbfounded.

He would die tomorrow. She was certain. Nothing so frail had a chance in the fucking world. Nothing that had caused her such pain had the right to get away with it.

But it was a soft, harried tongue, not the vengeful mercy of fangs, that she laid upon him. She pulled him to her belly, and tucked her knee up close to shield him from the weather. He wasn't hers to name, but she thought his birth-wet fur gleamed black as blackbird's feathers, and knew at once what she'd call him if she'd had the right.

Another sharp stab like blade to her belly made her know this ordeal was not yet over.

The wind roared...

Pain could only shock the body so long. Lyra had dozed through stab wounds and the fever of a lashing that really ought to have killed her. So even this, after a while — after an age, she felt consciousness drift.

A girl came then. somewhere in the fog. Dark like her brother, and pitifully small, struggling to cry. In a haze, Lyra cleaned the scraggly bitch and brought her next to the first.

Ugly little things. Lyra curled tighter around them and clenched shut tired eyes.

Ice covered the windows...

Still, it didn't end.

The second girl fought against being born, even when halfway free. But Lyra wasn't strong enough to stand. The very attempt stole her vision. Worse — in this weather, even a few minutes left parted from her warmth and she doubted the others would survive.

So she strained, breath hoarse, and wondered if Mal would find them come morning wrapped in her corpse. Whatever he was paying her for this, it wasn't worth it.

That made her angry, and in the anger she found the will to persevere.

Three pups.

Mottled, this girl. Not as dark as the other two. She took longer to cry. Lyra couldn't really blame the brat for being unimpressed by the new world she found herself in.

Of all the lives now tangled in this poor bargain, the pups surely had the worst end of the deal.

Frost like spider-webs up the walls...

Lyra slept. A choice made for her. And when the fourth child came, a raggedy little girl come out in a slush of red, it was barely noticed. Blood had frozen on overtaxed thighs and left Lyra numb. The ache inside was constant and loud, enough to forget how it felt to be in any other state.

But in bleary exhaustion, she pulled the whelp closer.

Small. Smallest of them, maybe. This runt could hardly reach a teat, and her legs wouldn't straighten. If the swift death of any would be a mercy, surely this one...

But at dawn, Mal would find Lyra, filthy from birth, had brought all four to her bed and wrapped them in her motheaten blanket.

When she saw him in the doorway, she growled.

a game of dice

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 12:09:36 -0500

The further from the North they traveled, the more the Witcher wished to heave his bard off a cliff side. The bastard's ankle still woefully twisted—Declan was reminded every time he tried to deposit the bard back into the snow—and demanding that he be carried. The Witcher had half the mind to drag by the skin of his ear. He's still very much livid; it's evident in the square of his shoulders, the gravel of his voice. It's in each scathing glare he sends the bard, whenever he tried to hum a tune.

And gods, was that often. Every bend and every dip in the earth had Kieran belting out a journey he's told a million different times a trillion different ways. The bird Kieran had acquired had joined in, too, and Declan was at his wits fucking end by the time they'd reached a moaning, howling riverbend.

Get off. He gritted between his teeth, before he unceremoniously let the bard slid off his back and plop into the freezing waters. Serves him fucking right. His back aches, a migraine nips at the back of his eyes. He needs rest, water, food...

There's a glimmer of blue hidden within the trees, just off the crossing. Declan leered at it with a grim expression. Magic? A spell? A trap? He should be happy to see a vestige of his previous life...but he's never happy, and he's lacking the tools he once utilized to handle weird shit like this.

Stay. Came his passive grunt. He knows, as he stepped through the river to search for that blue glint in the snow, that Kieran indeed wouldn't stay put. He's pretty sure he already heard the light footsteps splatting onto wet stone.

The closer he got, the warmer the air became. Unnaturally warm. There's a hum, too. Something low and drowsy but somehow strong enough to rattle his teeth.

And there, through the boughs of the pines, roared a small wall of blue flames.

niceties with sharp edges

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:01:44 -0500

⠀⠀⠀
Dusk, the perfect time for Sobek to wake from his little nap (hiding from the daylight since almost dawn). The wyrmling stretched his paws out and let his toes curl as a loud yawn rippled through his maw, purple eyes blinking open at the end. It took a moment to acclimate himself, but he found his eyes adjusting to the dark quickly, as he found his paws to his paws and exited the homestead that was becoming far too cramped with the three four-month-old year olds, and their parents. Some days, Sobek found sleeping spots in hollowed-out logs where bugs loved to crawl and under large jungle leaves that didn't let the light through. He couldn't wait to be old enough to find his own den.

On the boy's walk to find something to crunch on, he caught wind of 's scent, the third of their litter. Sobek, usually, found ways to pick at him or demean him, but his mother constantly nagged, wanting the children to be close, when he would do such things. And today, maybe from the overdone nap, he found it in his little rotten heart, to try. Now, what came of him being "nice" was probably not "nice" the way some considered, but they were not really like normal families, were they?

A hunt, together, that would be nice, right? And informative, to see if he was worthy of the time of day from Sobek. Giving a loud hoot, and then a holler of Khyannn! Through the jungle, while following the scent trail as best he could, he searched for the stained child.

Will you take thе bait while you suffocate?

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:21:03 -0500

Skill:

Cai had decided to take her own adventure that evening, venturing out towards the beachy sands as she padded through the autumn chilled forests. The sky shone reds and dark purples down onto the covering above her, casting shadows on the floor as she bravely made her way towards the beach.

She remembered how to get there as she'd followed Pappa and Momma that day, she'd taken trips there with Pappy Cree and snuck her own way there. Happily she made her way weaving through the oncoming darkness, wondering what she might find down there today, hoping for a shell of a crab she yipped loudly once and picked up the pace.

This is my last resort

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 05:51:03 -0500

Backdated to around 11/15 give or take

The tunnel seemed endless as they wandered through pitch darkness. Sarge hated every second of it, but he pushed forward regardless. There was no point in turning back, not with depending on him.

When the light at the end of the tunnel finally began to grow, he hesitated. Where was this leading them? Would they emerge into hostile territory? His teeth ground together as he steeled himself. Whatever waited on the other side, he would protect his partner to the end.

With careful, hesitant steps, they breached the tunnel’s exit, both of them squinting against the sudden wash of sunlight. By some stroke of luck, they had emerged somewhere… quiet. Too quiet, if he was being honest. He didn’t trust it, but he still felt a small flicker of relief loosen in his chest.

From there, Wisp guided him toward what she claimed was her home. Trees, she had said. Tall trees to be trusted. He wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that, but at this point, not much that came from her made perfect sense.

He walked all day with her on his back, stopping only when she asked him to. They crossed a vast meadow, wilted beneath the breath of winter creeping steadily inward. Aside from scanning for danger, and the possibility of future hunting grounds, he paid it little mind. His golden gaze remained fixed on the trees ahead.

They were tall. Evergreen. Imposing against the horizon.

By the time they reached the forest’s edge, night had fallen. Sarge finally slowed and stopped, staring into the darkened depths.

Is this where we’re meant to be? he asked quietly. That tunnel scrambled my sense of direction, but I think this is somewhere northeast.

He shifted his weight carefully, mindful of her weakness. Do you remember the way from here? What should I be looking for?

He hated putting pressure on her, she was still so fragile, and it twisted something in him to lean on her now. But this was her home… or the closest thing she had to one.

As he waited for her answer, his sharp gaze dragged along the tree line, searching the shadows for movement, for threats lurking just beyond sight.

Roots

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 02:47:58 -0500

SKILL: ORATOR (1/5)
Wishing to join camhanaich <3 open to members and leaders alike!

The morning air bit sharp against Ruadhán’s nose, crisp enough tae wake even the dead, though he welcomed it all the same. Frost clung to the heather and bracken around him, each blade glitterin’ like it had been kissed by stars instead of cold. He stretched out his limbs, a low rumble slipping from his chest as he shook the night’s chill from his fur.

Aye… that’s better, he muttered to himself, voice rolling like distant thunder.

He caught a scent on the breeze—warm and unfamiliar. Someone was close. His ears pricked, tail giving the slightest, cautious sway. His posture was not hostile. Just… curious, maybe, in that cautiously hopeful way.

Ruadhán huffed a soft laugh. Alright then, whoever ye are. Come say hello before I freeze my arse off out here.

He stepped forward through the frost, quicksilver eyes bright with that easy mixture of gentleness and boldness he carried like a birthright, ready—always—to meet whatever came next.