Kvitrafn — other family ofc welcome!

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The girl would wake from her nap at the crest of dusk. The sun would dip, lowering beneath the edges of the distant mountains, and the birth of the night would bring with it the relief of a cool breeze spilling from the surrounding peaks. And the moon, full and bright, would wake from slumber, growing brighter and brighter in the sky. The clouds themselves would part, making way for the silver light that blanketed the landscape below.

Mazikeen would pull herself from the den, legs growing long and eyes growing wise. Age had begun to give her grace in her form, her adolescence erasing the roundness of her childhood and replacing it with the sharper curves of her Viking heritage.

In her jaws she clutched the black quartz given to her by her Matb — her talisman, as Sreda had called it. It was imbued with energy, a connection to those of her past and those of the other side. Her guides that she could not see.

But she did not need to see them.

Achlys had taught her that you did not need to see in order to know.

Mazikeen would find a small clearing behind the den. It was a place she’d been coming to for the past few nights. The moon seemed to peek just right through the canopy above, drenching the ground below in a charging silver light. In the center of the clearing was an old tree trunk, hollowed by time. Tendrils of vines slithered between the decaying bark, and Mazikeen would blink a few times before placing her quartz at the edge of the trunk.

She had a few more things to gather.

She had to have everything right.

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Kvitrafn loved the evening time. When the sky was dark, the world quiet, and only the glow of the winter-touched moon twinkled secretively in the sky. It was, perhaps, the only time when the White Raven found peace.

Quite often, she slipped out in the comfort of the shadows and explored their homeland in solitude. It was during these times that she often brought back gifts for her siblings and her mothers; sometimes a withered flower that had certainly seen better days, other times it was nuts and fruits she had found fallen beside bushes and trees, but more commonly, Kvitrafn would bestow a gift to those she loved through the rotting and decomposing corpses of the animals she found and killed.

Sometimes it was a mouse; other times, a vole that had seen the grave misfortune of crossing her path; and frequently, an assortment of birds who had not been quite quick enough to flutter away from her snapping teeth.

Tonight had been no different, as her paws happily pranced back to their family den with the dead remains of a rather plump vole between her jaws.

But before Kvitrafn could decide whom to give her newest treat to, it was Mazi’s scent that had quietly piqued her interest. It faded from the den in a direction Kvitrafn was not too familiar with, and without much more reason than unfettered curiosity, she decided to weave in that very direction.

She didn’t quite know what she expected.

But what she did find was her sister moving around a great big ol’ tree like one of the mice she often caught—determined, erratic, and deeply entranced in whatever work she believed she needed to do.

Curious, Kvitrafn dropped her dead vole to the ground at her paws and uttered a bark in her sister’s direction: Whatcha’ doing?

Kvitrafn —

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A soft hum slipped from her lips, idle notes slipping from her mouth as she trapezed around the clearing. The light of the moon grew stronger above, the clouds slipping away as the clear silver light began to pour through the snow-covered canopy.

It was beautiful.

And it was the perfect night to make Moonwater.

Did she have any idea what she was going to do with the Moonwater once she'd made it? Uh, well, not entirely, but she had hoped perhaps that it would cleanse her Talisman, and perhaps even open her mind to the other side.

She didn't know, really. But she was good at pretending.

As she strolled, the familiar scent of Kvitrafn distracted her, only briefly. But Mazikeen grew warm, smiling in the silver light as she turned her gaze toward her sister. Kvit! Mazi's head would lift, holding a twisted vine between her jaws as she turned back toward her Water. "Whatcha' doing?" As Kvit spoke, the bloodied vole hit the earth with a pronounced thud.

Mazi's eyes glittered with wonder, a soft smile touching the edges of her dark lips. Her tail would wave, eerie and spooky, as if accentuating her next words: Makin' Moonwater, she'd hum, half play, half faux-ominous — Mazi flashed Kvit a grin.

Her eyes then wandered from the stump, to the quartz, to her sister, to the vole.

Wanna help?

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