Chapter 3 : Aglakti and Pandoval : Rude Awakenings!

[DSIGFUSS]

Agalkti wakes up suddenly on the snow. Pandoval, still in lemming form, is cuddling beside her in deep sleep. She can hear the little lemmings shallow breaths. All the Shaman can see is white. It's the same spot that Pandoval, Mya and their Ijiraat mother Furyok had fallen asleep last night. Now it was morning and there was no sign of the mother and her cub. Pandoval wakes up and looks around...

Pandoval quickly changes into a Husky pup and begins to sniff around. He quickly picks up something and starts to run in somewhat of a panic.



They went that way. C'mon Shaman! Hurry!

[Laraqua]

"Why the panic? What's wrong?" Aglakti puffs and huffs and chases the puppy, struggling to keep up even as her feet are enveloped in snow time and again.

OOC: I hope Aglakti's not too much of a pain. I know she seems trigger-happy, but what would you think if a weird hostile-looking dragon-ship approached your land and a foreign god of some other people demanded your help? I'd be xenophobic too!

[DSIGFUSS]

ooc- No way! Aglakti rules!b She's one of my favorites.

Pandoval calls back to the Shaman!

Keep up Shaman! They aren't far! Momma! Mya! Momma!

The two run for a short distance and Aglakti knows they are returning to the ocean, heading in the wrong direction where Furyok had originally planned to take them. The mother Ijiraat had plans to bring Aglakti to see the Big Man. He would know what to do. On the Shaman's spirit walk with Pandoval, the strange woman Sigyn had asked Aglakti where the Ijiraat was taking them, but Aglakti would not tell her.

Then the husky pup suddenly skids to a hault at the base of a large cliff. The cliff face strands some 100 ft over the clear blue waters of the Arctic Ocean. Pandoval sniffs.

Momma?

[Laraqua]

"No... That can't be!" Aglakti thinks, trying to figure out if there's anything she can do to find out what happened to them. Any spell or ritual that may aid them. She strokes Pandoval to calm him as she thinks.

[DSIGFUSS]

Laraqua reaches out to the ocean... summoning the strength of creation itself. She sees herself floating in a Kayak with her father.... He seems very angry or dissapointed in the Shaman. She wonders why and looks up to the sun's worrysome face; filled with shame and fear for her brother Aningan. Aglakti lookss back to her father, shooked to see the mad look in his eyes; filled with bloodlust. He smashes Aglakti with an oar and she falls over the side of the kayak. The Shaman reaches for the boat but her father pulls out his mother's carving axe. She screams "No!" but her father brings the axe down hard on her fingers. Her fingers fall to the sea and blood sprays all over her father's face. Still Aglakti holds on to the Kayak with her one good hand and again her father brings the axe crashes the axe down on her hand severing the last of her fingers. Aglakti finally let's go of the boat and begins to sink. She watches her father's face grinning down at him. He says something but the water muffles the sound.
The Shaman along with her fingers sink slowly into the water. Her fingers begin to writhe and grow. Meat and flesh form around them like cancerous growth. Slowly they change; bubbling and pulsing as if they were alive. They change into the animals of the sea and swim around her laughing and smiling. Seals and walrus, Narwhales and Belugas, Orcas and Polar Bears; all the animals of the sea.

Further and further she sunk into the dark sea until suddenly the ocean was lit up like a sun. Before her, no more than a whales length away was Sedna. Her voice echoes all around her.

ooc- Sanity Check 3/1d10 +3

Good Morning Aglakti! What troubles you? Be brief Shaman...this day your apprentice becomes a woman!

[Laraqua]

"I have four questions, I feel, are of utmost important and I most humbly submit them to you, to answer or not, as is your choosing," says Aglakti. "One, where is Pandoval's mother, so that she might continue to lead me? Two, what has happened to the Bear God, that is riddled with shadows and worms? Three, why are those foreign gods setting foot in our lands? And four, how might I best serve you in dealing with them?"


OOC - Sanity check http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1706499/ - 66. You know me so well.

[DSIGFUSS]

Sedna smiles...



You are my favorite you know...

Sedna approaches Aglakti, floating naked through the dimly lit sea.

One question I will ignore for I cannot bare to speak of such things... One question, you will need to know the answer... so I will tell you truthfully... One question I will leave the answer to you as I believe you already know it. And one question, I will lie to you for a Shaman should never trust everything she hears or sees.... .

Sedna runs her fingerless hands through Aglakti's hair and the Shaman knows how much pleasure she takes in this. Her payment aside from the sheer mental duress suffered by summoning the council of a god. Aglakti had combed the godesses hair many times before. Known the sheer extasy the experience gave her godess.

The ijiraat and her cub have been captured by her own people. Something has gone terribly wrong with the Ijiraat clan though they are not all to blame. Not all have left me... They have taken her to Mount Qual-puktuk. To the ruins in the moutain. Pandoval will know the way. Take care of him. He will be frightened....

The Vikings, as they are called in their own lands and those they rape and pillage, are here to wipe out your people and claim these lands for their own... to settle our Island for themselves.

Do what you believe is right my daughter. Follow your heart and protect the secret. Only his sister knows the truth.

[Laraqua]

"Thank you, dearest Sedna, I am your faithful servant. I will return to my peoples and inform them and the other shaman and then I shall follow Pandoval to this place."

[DSIGFUSS]

The dark sea around Aglakti begins to spin as she floats away from the godess. Sedna holds out one fingerless hand and it brushes against the Shaman's face.



Return to your people... Love them!

Then she is thrust upwards and spins so furiously in the sudden whirlpool created by her own magic. She blacks out to be wakened by Pandoval, in Husky form, licking her nose and weeping!



Please Shaman! I'm scared... don't die! Please don't die!

[Laraqua]

"I would not die, Pandoval, I will not leave you. I merely wished to find out about your family," she says, and then relates all that she has learned from Sedna. "We must return to my people to inform them of all of this and then we must go find your family." She looks around, trying to determine exactly where she is in relation to her village.

[DSIGFUSS]

Aglakti knowing the land well, easily finds her way. Pandoval sighs i relief and jumps up into the Shaman's arms, licking her face furiously.

ooc- Time passes (Unless you had something to say or do)

Aglakti and her Ijiraat companion make their way along the shore line to the Combing Ceremonial grounds; the birth place of Sedna. There on this day, Aglakti’s unwanting apprentice Yuralria will become the new Shaman. She will dive into the icy waters and comb the goddess Sedna’s hair. Then the godess (If she approves of her new Shaman) will grant the Dorset People the wisdom and direction they need to survive the coming year.

Nearing the grounds, Aglakti rounds the top of a small snow drift to finally see her people again. Over 50 strong, they stand in silent prayer as Yuralria dives into the water, naked as the day she was born. The memory of Aglakti’s first dive forces a smile to her worried lips.

She immediately recognizes Ogtuk-Luk, the Shaman’s protector, holding Yuralria’s furs at the edge of the water. During her own time, he had served Aglakti loyally for years until the Elders had banished her form the tribe. It was then that Ogtuk-Luk showed Aglakti where his true loyalty lied. He abandoned Aglakti and escorted her to the edge of the Dorset people’s lands, hardly saying a word in her defense.

Then Aglakti notices a Dorset Hunter standing guard close to her on his dogsled. He would hear him if she shouted, but he had yet to notice the banished Shaman. His name was Unulaq and Aglakti remembers him fondly. Always considerate of his fellow Dorsets, Unulaq was a well respected member of the tribe. Aglakti, always thought Unulaq would make an excellent chief some day.

[Laraqua]

Aglakti waits for the ceremony to be over. What needed to be done was urgent, but not so urgent as to require interrupting Sedna's ceremony.

[DSIGFUSS]

Aglakti's eyes wander over her people as she waits for Yuralria to resurface. She sees the backs of the Elders standing, pompous and proud in the front, closest to the water. They had banished Aglakti to the snowy plains some moons ago and there was nothing she could say. They were in their right and had the best interest of the tribe in mind. She lost the ability to travel freely in the Spirit World as the Shadow bear stalked her whenever she walked there. An evil had taken Nanook, god of bears and now, in his darkened form, he stalked Aglakti for some dark purpose.

Chief Kalituk paced behnd them with the chieftain spear firmly in hand. Chief Kalituk had always liked Aglakti... He often used his position of strength in the tribe to speak out of turn with Aglakti, but it was always in a playful manner.

Sashilla her aprentice. She looked something out sorts. Huddled up while her mother... consoled her? Even from this distance Aglakti could tell something was terribly wrong with her.

And strangely on top a tall four legged animal dressed in a shiny skins sat a tall white man with flaming red hair. He watched the ceremony with curiosity and the Dorset people payed him no particular mind.

Then she heard someone calling her name to her left. Unulaq was approaching on dog sled. He was on sentry, circling the tribe and keeping a watchful eye on his people's surroundings. Unulaq had always been friendly with the Shaman. She had watched him grow into a man and many believed he would one day be chief of the Dorset people.

ooc- Please go to the thread : Sedna's Comb...