OOC: Tags to
@Hungry Hippo . Sorry for the long delay!
The fox watched with curious, bright black eyes. The men were foreigners, new to this land. The had come up from the south, a troop of armed Connlaothians, the fox thought. Though what brought them up here, it wasn't sure. It crouched behind a rock; it was spring and it's white fur was coming in grey, making it more difficult to watch unseen without hiding. The earth was still half frozen, half thawing, blanketed with patches of melting snow and patches of spongy earth. The men complained bitterly about both. But that wasn't what interested the fox.
What interested the fox was what
else they were saying. Th fox understood enough Common, and was troubled by what passed between the soldiers. Talk of greater political unrest in their own land. Of the need to move the "camps" outside Connlaoth's borders, so they could continue the "important work" they were doing unhindered. It wasn't a soldier who said this, but an unarmed man in black. A religious man, the fox thought. And what was to be kept in these camps? Mages. That's what the fox heard. And it knew enough of the tense relationship between Connlaothians and their magic-born. More than one mage fled north through the taiga and the tundra to seek refuge in the wild, or in Hyoite. The fox had helped some of them, in their passage. The talk here was troubling indeed.
Having heard enough, the fox turned and started off to return the way it had come. And once it reached the copse of stubby, weather worn pines that provided some shelter from the open expanse of the tundra, the fox changed. As if by magic (and it was, indeed, by magic) the fox changed, mid-stride, into a young woman who was taking off a fox-fur cloak. It was near here that she had left her trust sled dog, Kanut, and a small sledge, disguised much as she had been beneath an enchanted cloth.
Nuna Akkilokopok was so preoccupied by what she had heard - what to think about and, perhaps, what to
do about it - that she did not notice the lone Connlaothians soldier, sent to forage, who had seen the entire transformation. She'd only just heard his cry of, "Witch!" and looked up in time to see him rush her before he'd struck her over the head with the butt of his rifle, and everything went black.
When she woke again, the first thing she was aware of was the pounding in her head. Then of the stiff gag nearly choking her, and certainly keeping her from crying out. Finally, she realized that she was slouched on the cold ground, bound roughly with her arms pulled behind her around a splintery wooden pole. And where was her cloak!?
Cautiously, she opened her eyes. The brief spring day was over. The sky was dark and clear and, above them, a weak aurora danced in the night. It made Nuna think, with a pang, of her sister. But it made the soldiers, she saw, look wary and uneasy. Frightened. But the priest caught sight of her and walked authoritatively over.
"Were you spying on us, witch?" he asked, knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to answer. "You're lucky that Sgt. Collins caught you. When we begin our work here, you can be the first soul that we save."