「❂」Breath back life into your veins

Tag for reference. Forward dated to the 18th

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Azon had just finished making his rounds in Empyrean for today and would decide to stray from the mountains for now, his leathery nose and powerful legs leading him deeper into a place unexplored. He did not remember visiting these tall, smokey conifers back when he'd still been traveling with @Leigh in his first months here -- whatever had become of the woman, the Phoenix hoped she'd found what she was looking for. Because god knows he has yet to find shit yet. That "shit" being the lanky white yearling that was still far from his trail -- still out of his reach.

To where his searches would take him next? No one knows, but if finding him meant the sire had to walk the earth until the flesh of his feet wore off, then everything would be worth it...

His travels would come to a pause as aching haunches sought rest and his forest-fire gaze spotted the comfort of a flattened-topped boulder -- to which he slunk forward to rest on with a soft groan of relief. There was a faint -crunch- to sound beneath his chest as skin met cold stone as well....did Azon just lay on a bug?

Oh well -- too tired to check now...

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whenever possible, she sought distractions from everything happening around them. waves of change came and went, leaving clusters of time to be untangled as it held desperately to its own disintegrating form. desperately did she ache for some sense of relief, a sudden wash of calm that could take away her building anxiety, but ying knew better than to wait for miracles. she kept herself busy with mercenary work, an effort to find her own peace without having to beg for it from someone else.

she’d been able to keep up with most of the empyrean wolves but there were still some that ying hadn’t gotten to meet yet. as luck would have it, āzon was one of them, which was convenient considering that they would have bumped paths here anyway. see, ying had been sitting nearby finishing to her daily grooming when she heard the crunch of an unfortunate insect. she stepped out into the open to investigate, chuffing a friendly greeting to her packmate.
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He too, had yet to meet a handful of Empyrean's wolves. It would probably be appropriate to get a head start -- saying hello here and there, asking how the weather was and shit, exchanging...words -- yeah, that. Āzon didn't really consider himself the formal or polite type, so he wasn't really sure how the mountainous settlers would react to him in an actual conversation -- that's what he'd been most anxious about. It all boiled down to not really knowing anyone here well enough to approach in a way that was deemed okay. Still, running from his problems permanently was not the answer.

So what a coincidence that the presence of a stranger came closing in, which had the Phoenix on guard at first, but the smell of Empyrean wafting off of the small female calmed him down somewhat when Ignis turned to her. "H-" sitting up to greet them, Āzon noticed the crushed remains of an insect's wings and exoskeleton fluttering off his plume, and he'd look down briefly with a grossed out frown before turning back.

'Fucks sake.

"Hey...Empyrean wolf, right?" The tundrian asked with a slow tail wave, self-consciously using a paw to wipe off bug remains from his chest fur. He was actually smearing it and making it worse, but his attention was on the she-wolf who stood infront of him.

"I'm Āzoniol. A new recruit."

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the commander watched as he struggled to clean himself. it was quite amusing, actually; while her face remained stoic and still, ying laughed inwardly to herself, noting that he’d missed some spots on his otherwise pristine white coat. “hard for me to say”, she apologized with a careful dip of her head, “do you have another name?”

while waiting for his response, an appraisal was made of his form. he was a well-built male with an attractive potential as another mercenary. ying might have preferred another hunter, someone she could commission to teach qiuyue, but assumed by his scar that his primary interests lay elsewhere. 

ultimately, these quickly formed guesses about his constitution wouldn’t matter. she’d surely find out soon enough what he could handle.

glancing up, she introduced herself: “yingyue. if it’s hard for you, ying.” a light-hearted comment made with a smile, as she hoped that he might not think she was rude. always a flirt by nature, she seemed.
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 As the foamy white she-wolf dipped her head apologetically, he was quick to shake his "No need t'worry miss, I don't know why th'hell my parents named me that either t'be honest..." he responded, an easy chuckle exiting the baritones of his chest. Though the general thought it necessary to introduce his full name now that he was a pack member, there was a reason why he preferred his nickname instead; "You can call me Azon instead, if that suits ya better." 

 This encounter was going suprisingly well so far despite his anxieties. So let's just hope he doesn't go and fuck it up soon.

 Only when the Tundrian peered down to look from his platform would he take a better look at her own features; small as she was, he knew muscle when he saw it, and how much he could not tell from his standpoint -- honed to their own mysterious degree. From the length of her spine and scruff painted the inkish tints of charcoal and sea boulders -- not to mention the mysterious scars that marred her face, overreaching just afar from a pair of rainwater optics. 

 'Yingyue' she introduced, a name easier to pass through his ear than repeat from his lips -- was she a warrior like him?

 Of course he was not going to repeat the more complicated part of her name lest he wish to make a fool out of himself in front of his first acquaintance, so the easier route was chosen instead -- though not without a bashful grin and a more thorough laugh than before.

 "Ying it is then! Readn' through me like an open book, I'll admit I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't give th'pronounciation try..."

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“where are you from?” yingyue asked. āzon had an accent that she couldn’t quite place, despite her prior assumption that she was more worldly than most of her peers. she considered some of his possible answers before deciding that it was really inconsequential.

she grinned, accepting his unnecessary excuse for not trying to pronounce her proper name. “that’s fine”, ying replied, “it’s not made for you to say.” in other words, you don’t speak my language; i don’t expect you to try either.

yingyue found herself growing more comfortable with her packmate’s presence, enough to settle into a seated position where she’d once stood. she had more questions for him but ultimately decided to save the more personal inquiries for later. “what’s your talent?” ying asked, despite already having her own assumptions.
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 "Oh, me?" he stretched out his forelimbs with a yawn, lips outstretching around an array of sharp canines that hid beneath his maw before closing again. "I'm from th'Tundras, err...not these Tundras, but...it's complicated." More complicated than it should've been -- and this would be much easier if he actually knew where he was. "I guess what I'm tryna say is that I woke up here one day away from home and...the rest is history, y'can say." the accent was probably what gave it away to Ying, wasn't it? He noticed by now that not a lot of locals here shared the same "Northener's tongue" as him.

 Which made the Pheonix question Ying's own origins -- her name and accent certainly wasn't something he'd ever heard thus far in comparison to these locals, so he'd been curious to find out what it was that made her stick out. "Ah...wouldn't call it much'of'va talent other than a job..." he stated softly, looking down at his fiddling paws like a bashful child. "But I came here to Empereyan as a guardian. A scout as well, since I tend to move around a lot." and speaking of which, it might do him well do a bit of his own scouting soon.

 "What about you, miss Ying?" the general then asked the warrior, turning his gaze with a playful grin. "Wouldn't be fair of me to yabber on 'bout myself without gettin' to know you too, don't ya think?"

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this thread is somewhat outdated (my bad!), do you wanna end it and start a new one? your choice! if you reply without archiving I'll assume we're good to continue.

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yingyue solemnly nodded her head, wholly understanding what azon meant. it seemed to be how most, if not all, came to be in this strange realm. she hadn't been the most social creature since her own awakening by any standard, but she still understood how odd it was to have not yet met one single person that could claim a birthright to any part of this land. it begged the question: where had they really ended up?

but questions without answers served no purpose in her universe. it made more sense to focus on things that were tangible, that could be measured, like one's skill or lack thereof. she nodded approvingly, jokingly responding: "if you cannot also hunt, i have you beat." ying's accomplishments as a huntress, mercenary, and scout were held dear to her heart, if only for their unlikely achievement by a woman with her upbringing.

this was most of her reasoning behind pressuring qiuyue to do better, as she saw it, than the menial "feminine" tasks she seemed to have an affinity toward. there was too much potential in that girl for it to all go wasted, unrealized, while she stared up at stars trying to decipher a meaning where there wasn't one to be found. 

ying could think about that later, though. for now, she had an important decision to make: continue guarding herself, or try to be more open with her packmates? this one seemed alright enough, she thought. ​​​​​​​"my daughter and i come from a coastal place. we have more family, but they haven't found us here yet." the pair would continue waiting for however long it took, but shouldn't have been expected to put their entire lives on hold.
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