& spring stands at the gate with her finger on the latch;

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for @Ragnar; the day before her heat

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it had been through no other fault than her own to let that delicate drowsiness lead her to the rose's rest the night last; nothing to be said for the way she'd found her way into his heavy arms as she had; nestling against the steadiness of him with her own worn, wearied hums. a fortnight, since their first questing touches; since he'd made her weak enough beneath the press of his mouth to her ruined cheek; since she'd given up the mask she'd donned always for impassivity's sake and let herself wilt at his shoulder with a small tremoring heart-cry. ...and how, only hours past, she had startled from that languor. how she had taken herself from the sanctum of him furled about her so easily; too easily, and how she'd run herself rid of him and her delayed, deadlocked court to where she is now —

lean limber muscles seizing as she rouses with a terrible snarl; shivers rucking through the lumine frame, thin shoulders cowled into her neck and the gloss of fur along her spine untangling in the upswell of a rude awakening. churning up roots and short iceland grasses when her pearlmade gaze lifts to the jut of stone and snow, hung over her like a roof without rafters save the meager foundations of earth itself.

farther, the nightingale could fly further; knows she could and can follow the frenzy of her thoughts over the very edge of the world. she scrambles about, scuffing her paws beneath her as she picks her ragged, roving body up; unexhumes herself from her temporary outpost ( a regrettebly clever cover, really ) and begins to march her way through the white, high-stepping weeds and generous clumps of what's been covered still by the late winter. let spring never touch these sacred northron climes.

let spring never find her.

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His backyard was a vast stretch of frozen ground, his front at the south, the sea. Out to the south his view was tarnished by the Dragonford wolves claim and the memory of his loss. So alas, again, he turns his back on the south and focuses his attention to the north.

Decending the lower foothills of his home, out from the evergreens which surround and into the icy open winds of the tundra. He had seen plenty a roaming northerner in this open flatland and today would be of no exception.

He sees the withered soul, a spidery little woman and the tarnished face which let's him be certain exactly who it was. “Riannon...” Her name a whisper on his lips, to carry with the winter winds to her. Ragnar had seen little of the recluse. Had seen much more of her followers then anything. Perhaps it was best, given the uncertain relationship they now wore.
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[narrow width=800]even now, with her innards set simmering and the edge of her season stirring therein, she remains cool regent; cowl of chagrin falling away as a drawn look of measured impassivity takes its stead. how her name rasps from the nothron lord's tongue has her ears falling away; and for all of her efforts to piece together some form of composure, there's a pinch that snags in her snout. wariness at his frank appeareance ...or at something wretched and long worn between them. she should remark on their meeting not at all; should remove herself from his very presence before everything has a chance to take root.

so, with a prim snip of "ragnar," and a proud arch in her waxen neck, the nightingale turns her shorn cheek his way as she begins to march on past.

... assuming he'd allow her to.[/narrow]

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The relationship between Northfall and Frostchant was an unspoken one. One which had formed long before Riannon had her followers and her children were still very young. Now, whatever alliance they held was not even spoken of through their ranks. Ragnar had met wolves of Frostchant and they did not known him as ally. They shared no victories, hunts or feasts nor celebrate the comings of new seasons. 

Ragnar had secretly taken up to train her boy Asriel as well as hunted and formed a pleasant relationship with Olive. However, his connection to their Queen was rocky at best and it showed now. She who refused to offer help when Northfall needed aid to run Dragonford off before things got worse for them... Surely, their battling nature should have been obvious to Riannon, who had engaged in spar with Northfall's Regent to prove her strengths to them as an ally.

Riannon had become either fickle or fearful of her own failures.

She cast him a small glance through the pearl gaze of a tattered cheek. A small word for him before she turned way, making off on the path which she had chosen. Ragnar would not move from his place at the edges of his claim and instead watch her as she'd go...
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