Lost Hide Scroll

Deepwinter Moon - Day 9
O ancestral spirit above... In the end, I donned the frost-grey robe.

The war burned down the Spring Priests' seed stores. The Summer Priests' dance bells sank into the marsh. The Autumn Priests' tally stones were scattered across the scorched earth. And those of us who survived... We must become colder than winter itself.

Today I interrogated a tribesman for hoarding hides. I merely scraped my Bone Flute with a fingernail, and he confessed everything.
When he knelt to receive judgment, I finally understood what Jima had said: "Sometimes... reflection is the greatest form of kindness." As he pleaded "It was only to save my fevered child..." I heard myself deliver the sentence, a voice not my own, but like cracking ice: "Under the Seven Laws-twenty lashes. "

Winter Priestess Jima... No, now she is a Dusk Priestess. She stood in the shadows and nodded. It reminded me of how the White Wolf once signaled its approval to a new pack leader.

There is no more laughter in the tribe. No one dances around the fire as they once did. Now, the only sound that remains is the cry of the Dusk Priests' Bone Flute.
It does not sing like a bird. It sobs like a wolf pup.

We are no longer servants of the Four Seasons.
We are the fangs that let the seasons turn.

(At the bottom of the page, a one-eyed White Wolf is sketched. Dark stains mark the edges of its mouth.)