in your journey

with his breakfast of rabbit keeping him sated, asriel, emboldened and brave with the foolishness of youth, ventures down from the claim of frostchant to explore the territories below. it was one thing to cast his weathering gaze upon it from atop the kingdom of the clouds ...but exploring what secrets it held was another thing. a temptation too strong for him to ignore. the afternoon is bears with it a cool kiss that the northborne boy is equipped for with his plush pelage, but the sun combats the eager, hungry nip of the shadows cast bu the mountains rising like teeth 'round the hollow he explores. in the autumn months, the colors have begun to dull; the green siphoning from the grasses and foliage underfoot as he trudges towards the heart of the hollow. asriel lulled to the pooling of snow and ice melt from the capped peaks of the mountain the hollow's nestled into; lapping at the cool, fresh water until his thirst is sated.

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The longer they stayed the more he felt himself relax. It was touching that @Elowyn worried over him the way she had, but, their claim needed work and he had a group to take care of. The borders needed to be established and Tetsujin was steadily combing them when he spotted the silvered figure. He let out a low sound as he approached, posture stiff but not aggressive. They were new and it was obvious this wasn't an adult, he'd wait to see how the youth responded before adjusting his actions.
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ignorance, asriel appeared to have in sobering spades. the water is cold as it pools in his stomach and a small shiver slithers down his spine; refreshed and reinvigorated by the sate of his thirst and the crispness of the clean water. for this moment, he believes his is alone in this hollow —

the moment is there and gone; like a missed opportunity to catch a vase before it collides with the floor and shatters.

startled at the low noise; asriel's head whips up and around; glacial gaze falling upon the shadow cloaked stranger. “uh, hei?” he almost stutters over himself; common and tundrian mixing into something almost sounded like a conlang; and beneath that words that felt more archaic than both. “is this...ah, sinun — your hjem — home?” more sputtering words of his trilingual abilities or perhaps the lack of as he cannot seem to settle on one but mixes all three in the hopes the stranger might shed some light on which he spoke.

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The King's approach had an immediate change in the youth. It seemed that he was startled and not expecting to be found; Windmere in it's infancy hasn't staked the sharp claim of others in the region. They had more numbers than Seeker's Bluff but it wasn't by much and Tetsujin wasn't exactly rushing to change that. Things would grow in time, he didn't want the sprawling vast reaches that Northacre boasted and the numbers and headaches that went with it. Tetsujin can't help but tilt his head in a near puppy like manner of his own, confused for a moment by the unfamiliar words the youth spoke. There'd been enough common tongue and the surprise gave him a hint of what he was getting at but stil..

Tetsujin cleared his throat, straightening himself back up. “You've reached Windmere, my name is Tetsujin.” He offered, gesturing around them. “My family's claim.” Well. His, his wife's, and what would make up their court. He couldn't quite tell who @Elowyn might feel the most comfortable with as her ladies and his wife had more prospects than he did. It would change, surely. “Do you live nearby?” He asked, given that he'd run into a few wolves along his time in the area it was a safe assumption for him to make.

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[narrow width=800]from this dream, when she wakes fraught with terrible shivers and heaving, mouthing breaths, there is no one for her to melt into.

there are only phantom kisses and diaphanous touches at her ribs, her hips to soothe away that dream that too often she returns to; that soft murmur of a thousand hushed voices follows her still; through these strange, hissing stars, like the very heartbeat of the earth and just as primal. like raingathering and war-make. she is half-haunted, always. always.

and when she rose she had seen her will-o-wisp of a son fancy a path that led down down down from their court on high.

so she follows, heart-thrall, some good ways behind; enough that he could come into his own on his own, way ...but not so much that he might know her so near as to quite fully scent her.

the sun has not cleansed her of the soured cobwebs of that dream as she would've liked. it's when her frostback child whirls to face the great dark tetsujin of highvalley that she moves; emerging out from behind a gold-laden tree with sturdy, listless steps toward this ... lord, she supposes, with rosebud nose snuffling absently over the blue crown of her little adventurer.

"you have wandered some ways," her voice lilting and low as ever, more observatory than consterning ( thus far ) but as for tetsujin's inquiry ...she would see how her son would answer.[/narrow]

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after asriel's strange mix of conlang hangs in the air between them, there is a soft clear of the stranger's throat and common flows from betwixt the older male's lips. understanding ( and a bit of relief ) washes over asriel as he knows which tongue to settle upon; though he lingers upon the name of the place — a sheepish look coming over his face — and the stranger's name for a few moments that extend his contemplative silence. “oh,” the fjordic boy breathes; ears tapering back sheepishly. “sorry, i didn't know.” he says, glacial gaze darting around in search for any others. his mother comes into view and the uneasy tension in his shoulders eases only slightly ...though it is quickly chased away by concern for her.

perhaps it was one thing for him to wander accidentally into a claim ...but for her?

asriel bids back the panic back, steels his spine and seeks to be the protector; offering his mother an apologetic look as she approaches; preening a bit beneath her touch. “i'm sorry for wandering into your claim, herr — sir. it won't happen again,” the promise snakes from betwixt his lips like an unbreakable curse. he knew better, now. knew, perhaps, not to be so ignorant of where he walked... but while he was here... “i am asriel, of frostchant. we claim the cloudrest.” he introduces, gesturing towards where cloudrest is nestled in the cradle of the mountains above the hollow; wondering if perhaps this was a chance to make allies, especially since they were kind of neighbors.

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^^As the boy appropriately responded, the King subsided a bit. He offered the boy a small smile, nodding at his actions before a woman approached them clearly looking like the boy. Her maternal touch solidified Tetsujin's assumptions, and he did not change his posture in response to the second wolf's approach. Rather than offer her own answer, she allowed the boy to take the lead and the King was amused by his reaction. It was clear that this was a lesson, even if the boy didn't realize it, and it was one that might be the first of many in inter-pack relations. “No harm done, we are new; it's hard to pick up much off us so far.” Hopefully this would help assure them that he had no intentions of causing trouble in the same way that others might.

“Your Cloudrest, it's near?” He was assuming so if the child had come this far. Even in Northacre he hadn't been allowed complete free range over where he wandered until he was closer to a year old. “We haven't even been here a full moon cycle - so far most of us are still growing accustomed to even being in these lands. So far most we have met woke here, I assume the same for you?” The King's gaze turned to the mother then, although she hadn't given her name yet. Asriel, as he had given, had provided the answers so far for them.

While not expecting an attack from a woman and her child, he still was protective of his Queen and his subjects. It didn't mean that he would be hostile at all, but, just wary. His silver blue eyes turned from the woman to the boy and back, hopeful to make a friend of them rather than foe.


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[narrow width=800]the silver was taken by tearing high spirits as the words of scrambled remorse fell from her son's lips, further brimming over with a fierce sense of tundrian pride as he went on to relay their custom location and assert himself as one of frostchant's. she listened to testujin respond in kind while a low, churring growl of approval rose from the middle of her breast for her son; taking this moment to give a decided, gentle nip to one dark ear.

"quite near,"  her voice almost a purr of sly knowing as one silver eye fell upon sinikello before she turned to fully address the thane himself.  "it does seem to the be the manner in which many ...arrive, but i cannot say so for all."  she didn't mean to deflect his question, no; only that despite the waking that appeared to prevalent with them all, the manner of which they'd arrived was even more varied. there were those who had been sent from the skies, or spurned from the seas as she.

it was at his mention of him and his own not yet becoming accustomed to these lands that made her mouth split into a sharp smile, though; and with a wide, gesturing shrug of shoulders that encompassed the view of his vale she lofted:  "i would not worry too terribly its wilds, yet, aldaron — king of forests. the land has seemed to give itself to you. ...but, if you are in need of eyes from up on high..."  the shrike's teaseful grin thinning into sobering contemplation; the dark arch of brows resting at a half-draw above the gray gaze as she quieted.

then, giving voice to her name in the stead of her title:  "i am riannon."[/narrow]

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asriel's concerns about causing an accidental diplomatic incident are quickly laid to rest by tetsujin's words; carrying with them the relief that washes over asriel, made ever the more present by his mother's presence. last thing he wanted was to be the catalyst for some sort of war and to have her witness it. the conversation seems to make the natural shift from being for him to his mother. it is better this way, asriel knows, for he is still young — just shy of his six month mark and having just woken up here not too terribly long ago there is much he does not know still.

asriel falls to contemplative silence; eagerly watching the exchange between the two ...the volley of questioning and how his mother elegantly responds. quintessentially regal. perhaps he is not entirely involved in it this time, he is nevertheless content to study and learn from this exchange what he can.

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