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--- erasmus [2010/06/21 23:37] – thf
+++ erasmus [2017/05/27 18:56] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 His distantly leonine features should have lent his face a certain softness. Instead, the barely-noticeable fur on his cheeks was patched and ragged, and his slightly slanted eyes were yellowed and tight.
-Agerzam looked across the fire at what was left of the Pride. Lemtuna, his mate, was sitting next to Erasmus, their last surviving son; her hand covered his. She didn't bother murmuring words of false comfort. She knew this wasn't the time. She always knew. They'd lost all three of their other young in the past year. Two to a wolfpack. One to the Clench, the same illness that had taken Thiyya, Erasmus' mate, last night. In the end, every one of her muscles had pulled in with such force, her teeth had shattered. As she broke, so to did Erasmus. His spirit, anyway. She'd mustered enough will to grunt a few words, at the end, so Agerzam could record her final wishes in his shaman's book((Every Pride shaman keeps a battered red leather book, in which he or she records the dying wishes of the Pride members. Sometimes the Shaman would leave the Pride briefly to accomplish the task, though most requests were simple -- delivering a message, paying off a debt, distributing possessions and the like)). "Protect my family." At least, that's what it sounded like to Agerzam. Breaking that promise had hurt terribly.
+Agerzam looked across the fire at what was left of the Pride. Lemtuna, his mate, was sitting next to Erasmus, their last surviving son; her hand covered his. She didn't bother murmuring words of false comfort. She knew this wasn't the time. She always knew. They'd lost all three of their other young in the past year. Two to a wolfpack. One to the Clench, the same illness that had taken Thiyya, Erasmus' mate, last night. In the end, every one of her muscles had pulled in with such force, her teeth had shattered. As she broke, so to did Erasmus. His spirit, anyway. She'd mustered enough will to grunt a few words, at the end, so Agerzam could record her final wishes in his shaman's book((Every Pride shaman keeps a battered red leather book, in which he or she records the dying wishes of the Pride members. Sometimes the Shaman would leave the Pride briefly to accomplish the task, though most requests were simple -- delivering a message, paying off a debt, distributing possessions and the like.)). "Protect my family." At least, that's what it sounded like to Agerzam. Breaking that promise had hurt terribly.
-Come morning, Brokenstripe Pride was down to a grand total of three members. Thiyya's sister, uncle and father had run off during the night. Agerzam fingered the claws bearing their names, still hanging from the staff. Twelve claws hung there, one for each of the Pride((Shifters are born with a single vestigial claw on the left wrist. A swirled pattern of darkened ridges on the claw is translated into the newborn's name by selecting the idiogram it most closely resembles, and the claw is carried by the Pride member for the rest of his or her life. The Shaman of the clan keeps the claw on the staff symbol of leadership until the Pride member leaves or dies)) that had started out two years ago when Thiyya's family and a pair of sisters from the northern prides had joined them during The Flowering.
+Come morning, Brokenstripe Pride was down to a grand total of three members. Thiyya's sister, uncle and father had run off during the night. Agerzam fingered the claws bearing their names, still hanging from the staff. Twelve claws hung there, one for each of the Pride((Shifters are born with a single vestigial claw on the left wrist. A swirled pattern of darkened ridges on the claw is translated into the newborn's name by selecting the idiogram it most closely resembles, and the claw is carried by the Pride member for the rest of his or her life. The Shaman of the clan keeps the claw on the staff symbol of leadership until the Pride member leaves or dies.)) that had started out two years ago when Thiyya's family and a pair of sisters from the northern prides had joined them during The Flowering.
 Two years. Nine lost. Catastrophe wasn't the word. Power and position as Pride Shaman? It didn't seem to have counted for much. The next Flowering was just six months off. Every Pride within a month's walk would gather to trade goods, tales, and to break apart a few Prides and knit them back together. Finding a mate was hard, as they rarely saw other Prides out in the wild, but the Flowering was more than a market for cleverly-carved totems. True, fewer and fewer seemed to gather every other dry season, and none would dare join him now that he'd lost nearly everyone. But Agerzam knew what to do now. Finally. He would give up his staff, his shamanship, and combine Brokenstripe into another Pride. Perhaps the Tufts. They were strong. And kind enough to share directions to one of the few oases still showing signs of life on the eastern edge of the wild.