I shall never get you put together entirely,

Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.

Silt dampens the bare knuckles that drag through the sandy delta. With a pelt dark and brown as that damp ground, Circe is somewhat hidden. But a machinery of sharp curves and linear limbs give her away in the muddy water. She is tired and the delta is miserable to move through. Mud relentlessly sticks and sucks at each step. Her movement is slow and deliberate. Circe does not know where she is going but knows which way to go. North. Then South. Now East. Possessed by some deep seeded instinct of migration the girl has returned to these primordial grounds. Of which she has little and vague memory. Of which she has found no solace.

Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles

Proceed from your great lips.

She has failed to fatten the sinew which had survived her soul this winter. Now she is too weak to hunt and is watchful in her travels for the chance carcass that will save her from this slow death. A small pot belly gives the illusion of fullness. Within it sloshes the dark water beneath her very feet. Jowls are dark with from her long and desperate drink. A feeble attempt to calm the fire of her otherwise hollow stomach. Regardless of hunger her temper is mild. A placid expression breaks only with the fluttering of her ears and the whip of her tail to keep away the flies.

It's worse than a barnyard.

She'd had little appetite as of late, her will to consume driven away by her homesickness for the mangroves, and mostly forced herself to eat only to stay strong. Mercury, however, proved as ravenous of a beast as ever, and even though she knew he could take care of himself, there were times she insisted hunting for him. This was one of them. She missed being able to hunt for her children, and compensated for that emptiness with this. Strong legs kept her gait quick and light above the mud, a plump rabbit lodged firmly in her jaws, head held high to keep it away from the mud. Attentive celestial eyes swept about as she walked, cautious of being seen. She didn't want her arrival in Alacritis to be too terribly well-broadcasted--she had "disappeared," afterall, hadn't she? A scoff left her throat and she shook her head. Optics captured a dark form carefully picking its way through the mud. Brows furrowed and she stopped moving completely, stunned recognition on her features. Deteste? No, this wolf didn't have the scars. Either way, the resemblance was absolutely shaking. Was she kin? She struggled to remember the pups he'd had with Medusa. How often had she seen them after they were born? She grasped for the answer to her own prying questions but her memory refused to offer them. Nevertheless, she shifted her weight noisily in the mud, waiting for the creature to notice her, hoping that if she saw its eyes, she could remember. Or know. Or... something.

Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,

Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.

There is a disturbance in the dark waters and the hair upon the girl's neck feathers while she turns to seek the disturber with an unfriendly grin of immaculate teeth. Flies settle and bite bitterly into her flesh as her body grows rigid. Orange. It is an unwelcome pigment. Her last interaction with a similar creature being rather unkind. Starving and hapless as she was, Circe was never lonely. She was a child of solitude and there had been nothing but interruption in her primordial quests. A vicious bark erupts from haggard lungs. Fuck Off.

Thirty years now I have labored

To dredge the silt from your throat.

Black lips shine as spit overcomes the walls of her teeth, another maleficent bark echoing in the thin emptiness between the wolves. Bloodshot eyes fall bitterly upon the hare between the stranger's jowls. Quivering but sure her forelimbs strike the mud hauling the girl forward. Not quite a trot her step is deliberate and quick. Skin folds delicately across her muzzle as she approaches. It is a false stampede for Circe will be no victor in such a fight. She knows not her intent but her desperate desire to be alone. In her flight the flies have alarmingly dispursed. It is action, Circe is learning, that rids one of their pain.

I am none the wiser.

She was met with hostility, which, in these lands, was almost refreshing. The woman had nearly grown accustomed to others greeting her with glee or neutrality, but rarely did any stranger ever face her with spite. Her chin lifted and a smile touched the corners of her lips as a bark burst from the lass' throat. Jupiter searched the she-wolf's cerulean eyes, seeking something familiar in them. Her mind, however, couldn't place what was so familiar about this wolf. Curiosity stayed her paws, even as the other began to charge at her. Nonchalance riddled her features as she watched the wolf's bluffing approach. Her weight shifted to keep herself from sinking too deep into the mud. Head lowered to set the rabbit between her paws, no longer caring for a bit of muck on it--Mercury had definitely eaten worse, that was for sure. "I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve," she mused, her voice affable and non-abrasive. "or what you want me to do. Do you want the food or do you want me to leave?" Though she could easily interpret the other's gesture, she wanted to see if the wolf would speak or continue with its threatening growls and barks.