Fire is such strange power,

@Adonis

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Åshe had woken early this morning. The pale one had mentioned to her a proclomation, an issue of duty that would perhaps supply her with a greater duty. A sense of purpose that she so desperately longed for, and couldn't find it within the reaches of Hrafnsvaktin. That was to no fault of his own, but Åshe always beckoned for more.

So to say that she wasn't interested would be a lie. She carried herself down the the first of many ridgelines on the mountain before stopping herself. Let him come to you, if he so wills it. There weren't any women with such a distinct feminine scent such as her own. And if he truly knew what he wanted in a piece of heaven, then it would lead him directly to her.

Åshe wouldn't make this easy for him. As this wasn't easy for her. To ask her such a great task as to leaving her home, everything she knows, for a complete stranger. However, she did trust the pale one's judgement. He wouldn't agree to this if he believed this daunting tyrant of the peaks in the south was undeserving of her. That much she trusted.

So the matriarch would wait. Patiently. She sat upright on a ledge of the ridge, teetering on it's edge. But there was no fear. No. Just a callous, cold nature that seeped with a regal authority.
 

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His meeting with the pale one had been well, more well than he'd expected. Adonis had never been... nice. He was all grating edges and he boasted a compulsive, violent nature; to his core, he was a creature bred from the ash and flame of Vargrheim. The coolness and the ice of Winterhelm and his late wife had sizzled against him, and had quenched that flame until it was nothing but sodden embers. Eloquent he'd been forced to become, regal. Regal when his soul wanted nothing more than to be unabashed and wild. 

The King had left his domain in the hands of Aruna and Cain while he was away for his travels. Overhead, he felt the shadow of @Ivori cloaking above him, and every so often, he saw her shadows blend against the snow he trekked through. Adonis had been lost, a sore thumb within the territory until... something caught his attention. Nose to the wind, a surly, feminine scent beckoned him closer. It carried itself boldly upon the wind that blew past his fur and Adonis grumbled fiercely, shooing Ivori away with a mere flick of his tail. He set off in the direction the smell called him to, and there, set upon a icy slope, he saw her. 

A woman of lethal appearance, dressed in the silver of the stars and the inky darkness of midnight. There was a sudden clarity as he looked upon her, but it was quickly replaced with something darker, something more... cold. It was lustful, alluring, and the Viking approached her with a sense of purpose riding his tremendous gait. Before her, the man offered her a bow of his large head, his sapphire eyes glowing coldly as they raked from her delicate paws, upwards to her beautiful crown. 

He had no doubt of who this woman was.

“The pale one failed to mention your beauty, but not your name.” He spoke gutturally within his native tongue. “Åshe.” Her name was spoken like the fire of the morning sun. 

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Åshe had been surprised when she saw a man swathed in the shadows appear on the forefoot of the mount. She thought for a split second that it could've been Bartel, but those impish, childish feelings would have to roll over at some point. He wasn't coming back. Åshe convinced herself that much. For him to have the nerve to abandon her too was unacceptable in her eyes.

Before her, emerging from the vale of snow, was a man that simply breached her expectations. She didn't doubt the pale one, but his tastes may not hold to her own. She preferred dark coats, to he preferring the light. She preferred savagery whereas he preferred them feisty. And to first meeting the eye, this man was rugged and utterly divine in the face of the Nords. He was clean cut from stone, shoulders broad, steeled with strength beyond her visible imagine. He was covered head to toe with scars— but that didn't refute any ounce of allurement that dripped from his presence alone.

Safe to say, he has her attention.

He smelled smokey, cold as ice that matched the expression on his face until he reached her. With a deep bow he'd greet her, going as far as almost kissing the snow with his tantalizingly wet nose. Manners, did all men come with them? She had not been accustomed to such lovely, respectful treatment with the men back home. They preferred to treat her like a doll, a tool for survival. Her lip wished to curl at the mere thought. She was better than some fucking toy.

"I was afraid my Jarl would disappoint me," Åshe purred, her own native tongue seeming to match his. She had been momentarily shocked when he spoke, fearful that the pale one would subject her to a life of speaking common tongue.

Åshe rose from her ledge, jumping down to meet him. He towered above her, seemingly so, just based on how he carried himself. But the matriarch had daunting height of her own, and she'd stand tall before this raven colored king. "Adonis." She would greet with a light dip of her head.  

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For many passing of moons, Adonis had only been smitten by a single soul. A woman of silver fur, blessed by the moon's embraced, her crown kissed by the stars; crafted from the ice and snow of her domain. But this woman... Adonis watched behind masked sapphire eyes, almost admiring the way her lean physique hopped from the ledge she had placated herself upon. She descended from her place of dominance above him and came to join him on level ground, and though Adonis' mass poured over her, he didn't exert it. The man lowered his thick crown, gentle in his mannerisms despite the barbarity that breathed of him.

He would be gentle, until he was not. He had promised the pale Jarl he would bring no harm to the woman; and the titan born of midnight kept his word, for it was his bond. Åshe's voice was a feminine coo, one that lured the titan closer, his ears twitching with please in response to the mother tongue she spoke with. They shared a language, one that was forged within their heart and souls. He lifted his head and a small smile of amusement grew upon his gruff features, though it didn't fully reach his eyes.

“He did not, then?” The brute questioned, voice gruff and harsh like sandpaper. Adonis' tail came to relax gently amongst his hocks where it gathered comfortably, and his thick shoulders flexed as he slowly moved, turning to join the woman at her side, his own stare coming to glance out over the reach of Morðfjall. There were plenty of similarities his own nation shared with this one, but plenty of differences as well. Northfall's summits reached to the very clouds, icy and dauntless in their peaks; he wondered, if she were to come to his Kingdom, how she would adjust? He observed her closely, his stare pinning curiously to the side of her face.

“It is my hope...” Adonis trailed off briefly to gather his words and his thoughts. And to shove away the ones that were less pleasant, ones that whispered of betrayal or infidelity against his former love. Former... something cold hardened like a case around his heart. “that you will like me.” Adonis' cheeks almost burned with something like embarrassment; it had been too long since he'd been in the position of having to woo another. He laughed at himself and watched the visible breath that billowed from his mouth. “Tell me, Åshe, what do you picture for yourself?”

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She knew that he had been watching her. How could she avoid his icy stare? It was clear to her that he was born of not these mountains, but mountains nonetheless. Only those who have seen the mightiness of a peak could possess such rigidity.

His voice was deep, gravelly against her ears. She liked that. Men with whimpery, belly-up tones that wouldn't get a single step further in this world would bring a sour taste to her tongue. But Adonis' had been oh, so very sweet. Dangerous too. What lingered behind his sapphire depths?

"That is yet to be determined." She challenged, clearly sizing him up with the slow lifting and lowering of her eyes across the shapes and points of his body. She even swore he flexed his muscles. Sheesh, what a way to a girl's heart. He seemed to relax, deeming her not a threat. Maybe that was a bad thing. Did Åshe wish to be feared? No. But if this man was supposed to be her husband than she did not wish to be trampled on.

He joined her at her side, looking down at the expanse of the deadly mountainscape. A picturesque world that the pale one had built for his family— for her. And she had the nerve to leave it all behind. All behind? A stupid thought. She was going to be a queen.

"Let us hope that you are like-able, first." Åshe would play her cards as playful, for now. To let a man's guard down would be her ultimate victory. Not that she wished to hurt him. "I wouldn't have any doubts there, Adonis. I'm not here to make you miserable."

She listened to his hearty laugh. A sound she imagined herself growing used to. Yes, she thought, this could be it. Life. The very life that she desired. It was laid out here. He was handsome, capable by his size, and had a heart. While the last option wasn't always a requirement, Åshe suddenly wished that all men could state their wishes as plainly as he did, then ask about hers.

Where does she see herself?

"With a family." Was her first answer. The main truth of it all. But her eyes got lost in the expanse of Morofjall, traipsing the territory and wondering what it would be like to have been her own.

Her demeanor turned cold. As cold as the winds that brushed past them then. A harsh gust.

"And a throne." 

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He watched the woman of the mountain with baited breath as she lost herself in the depths of the mountain. It was if she'd sent her soul out to frolic and she remained back, a cold glaze coming to encapsulate the entirety of her being. Adonis saw the frigidity in her and he was sure then that this would be. That this woman was the perfect one to stand at his side, to rule as the other half of his whole — unfortunately, now it felt almost unobtainable. Moving on and past the ghost he loved would be a difficult slope to climb, for once, he had promised her his eternity.

He came to terms with his loss, but now he had to accept looking forward. Forwards towards another — it wasn't like he was getting any younger.

“That I have no problem giving you.” He had come not to make promises, but assurances. To his core, Adonis was a man of family. He was loyal, though brutal, a stoic and stern leader but an even more stern father. Just as he went to speak yet again, her final request caused his eyes to briefly widen. An ambition that was cold and strong, respectable and wrenching. Adonis couldn't help but find himself admiring her, breathing in all that made her... her.

Magnificent, cold, truly royal. “Truly?” The man asked, taking a bold step forwards and bringing himself to turn to face the woman of equal dark stature, his frigid stare searching through her eyes. “All you must do is say the words.”

And he would give her the world and more, all in pursuit of forgetting her. To move on, to create more of his life than a lonesome monarch upon a bitter throne.

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Åshe had to move forward, too. Bartel wasn't going to return. If he had, she wasn't sure she could forgive him for such a long period of abandonment. She wouldn't let him into her open arms again with a smothering kiss. No. The next time he saw her it would be with a crown on her head, and the only memory of their growing love buried in the snow of these mountains.

She turned to look at him with her uttering of words. A statement that she had wished she shied away from— would he think her greedy? A tyrant-ess in the making? Maybe Åshe over extended her reach. Maybe her role, afterall, was meant to be as the Hrafnsvaktin Vala and nothing more—

Åshe's words shocked him. She could see that on his face.

He took a daunting step closer to her. A binding step. Åshe didn't move backwards— what was there to fear? All of him, the dark, the scars, the rugged nature that clasped against his shoulders and made him whole. But none of that had her fearing him more than it did attracting her.

'Say the words.' He was so close to her. She could feel the heat of his breath against her cheek.

"Has that not been your purpose?" She asked quietly, a rhetorical, teasing question as she didn't fall away from his domineering presence. Her mouth drew close to his ear, enough for them to look each other in the eyes.

"Take me then," she breathed, breathless. "Take me to Winterhelm and make me your wife." 

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There was a sudden closeness between the two of them Adonis had not been expecting to happen. What had he expected? He didn't exactly know, but it hadn't been this. There was a raw confidence that bled from the woman, something wild and untamed, a spirit that sang freely — and Adonis found himself riding the high that came with her, his heart singed with something tainted.

Her eyes brushed hungrily against his and he felt her breath, warm, against his cheek. Thick, unruly tassels that shaped his cruel, carved face relented beneath the soft caress of her own and the man's calculating eyes followed her own, finding himself searching the depths of her bloody soul. She spoke a simple demand, but it set the man on fire. Melted the ice that had carefully froze across him, bringing it to pool around him.

She was breathless and a soft growl sounded within the titan's throat, something like a cry of war or a declaration of desire. He desired her and it was written, no, scrawled across his whole being. The dark wolf moved suddenly and pressed his nose against the nape of her neck, breathing in her scent with a heavy inhale, his eyelids fluttering closed briefly. Her smell was one that was intoxicating and when the male opened his jaws to speak, there was nothing but a breathless growl, guttural within her ear. With her command, the man wrapped his head around her neck and brought her closer towards him, beckoning her to follow.

And quickly.

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