All the things we've been missing

Hoping for @Ragnar but all are welcome (within northfall borders)

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 She had hunted well. It was the first time she had been able to take down any kind of large prey without the assistance of another, and for another. The area was empty. Birds had scattered, and even the ravens and crows were not yet aware of her efforts.
 Valmúa had taken an adult deer that was sickly. The mule deer season was short. The fawns would be born in the late autumn at best, but she had found one that had lagged behind. Tracking him for days, she had intentionally caused his nervousness to move him to this area. To Northfall.
 She had pushed him until exhaustion, and then she had taken his life for the pack. The fight had been hard, for even in his disabled state, a deer was always wanting to live.
 Valmúa brought the efforts of this fight to the King of Northfall. She knew only where he kept company because of scent, and followed until she found it. At this area she laid a hulking leg that she had not brought, but dragged from the kill site. It was full of muscle, and heavy, too much to pick up. Flies immediately sprang on it. Valmúa looked about, hoping for that northerner she respected, yet joked to.

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Ragnar had been lounging. Truth to be told, he was enjoying the benefits of what it was like to be King. It had taken much effort and he had gained perhaps equally as many enemies as he had allies. Those which stood by him, he praised, he protected and pledged himself to as much they had him. Former Gods and Goddess had joined him. His enemies ranks left their Ford to join him. There were many to hunt from the forests, rivers, mountains and sea. There was others which gwthered herbs and made their gardens. Their fighters trained, ready and awaiting their next battle.

Kingship had laid heavily on his shoulders and he had suffered the loss of it but now was reaping the rewards of it. He smiles, golden furs burning in the sunlight piercing down through the pines.

After a time of only sounds of the forest, he began to hear an odd dragging sound. Golden ears perked- curious, confused. He dragged himself upwards off the forest floor and towards the sound. The sound came with the scent of blood and the scent of Valmua. He froze. His hairs standing on end, his gut turning. Had their enemies struck again? Had they found her and @Kuhn?

Bile rose in his throat and he began to sprint. But as the scent grew stronger he realized it was not her blood or Kuhn's. He had smelt enough of it before to know it. And there she was, that beautiful redhead. He was slowing now to a walk, panting from his sudden sprint. “Oh Sunshine,” A mix of relief and surprise, “You've been quite the busy woman I see!”
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 The world had continued to turn when she had been holed up in the forests of the Tundra. Little had she known that it was @Vendrussel who was contending with Ragnar's claim. The dark mistress Valmúa had once hunted with had been speaking of Northfall when she talked of trouble near her homeland. She had even gone so far as to intentionally mask her location, something that the red warrior thought nothing of at the time (she didn't trust fucking anyone), but now seemed tricky and manipulative. It was not like the firebrand to acknowledge bias, and so her immediate reaction on @Kuhn mentioning the name "Vendrussel" was to assume her intentionally false and never to be trusted again.
 For the moment, she had brought the gift as a token of thanks, small as it was, for housing the pair of them. It was no ordinary leader of wolves that would gladly allow a large predator to roam his lands. Indeed, Ragnar had done more than that. He had willingly allowed Kuhn into a trusted circle, sharing information, even about his late daughter.
 Sunshine. Valmúa coughed, sneering at him as though greatly offended.
 “You love tormenting me with stupid phrases,” she observed, tossing her head.
 Indeed, she was behaving more playful than usual, sloping her back in an odd stretch as she moved past him. The food sat without garnish in the open; her mouth was stained with saliva and drying blood. “As if I am not always busy,” she flashed a look at him then, a hint of a grin playing at her lips.

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“I don't think it will ever get old.” A pause and grin. “At least, not for me.” He looked to Valmua, her face covered in spit a d blood. Still cute.

“Surely a lone wolf like yourself hasn't already grown accustom to pack routine?” His mouth forms into an 'o', giving a false look of shock. As far ad Ragnar had ever been made aware, she had lived alone with Kuhn in the Everfrost for who knows how long.

He sits, lifting a front paw and smacking it down on the large deer leg, sending flies fluttering every which way. “Now what's all this for?”
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 “I don't think it will ever get old.”
 “Of course not,” she huffed, flicking her tail as though he had given some great offence. In fact, she enjoyed his excruciating pet names and jests. They reminded her not to take herself all that seriously.
 His mention of her being a lone wolf caught her off guard. Not knowing how to respond, she narrowed her eyes, circling him slowly in a wide arc as he parted the flies. “Just a token,” she shrugged. “A thank-you for not letting me die.”
 She stood restless, staring at the ground before she heaved a great, stressed, sigh. Looking out to the northeast, she eyed the edges of the mountain that had changed form twice over. “The night we came to your door step, the storm had started. I had not seen anything like it before,” Valmúa paused, her ears flattening. “The gods took Morðfjall, the mountain that housed my brothers and the mountain I first met @Kuhn. I do not think this was an accident,” she explained.
 Somehow, she had angered at least one of the gods. Valmúa was not a pious woman, but she was not stupid. She knew that there were forces at work beyond her knowledge. Whether it was the taboo nature of her relationship with one beyond her own species, or if they had decided to favour Ira and Reiko, she didn't know. “Have you been to the mountain that sits in its place?”

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A huff and a flick of her tail up and out with irritation and Ragnar found himself chuckling at her expense. She was a bold, daring and aggressive woman, but she was not the type who was unable to have fun or take a joke, either. She could both dish it out and take it. Ragnar had come to quite enjoy the company of Valmua here even if it had come about by dire circumstances.

She spoke not of Ragnar questioning her 'lone wolf style' being broken and to this Ragnar did not speak of it again. However he did notice she had not answered him. So she really was enjoying her time here after all- not just because she felt she was owing him some sort of debt. At least this is what Ragnar hoped for. Northfall was a very beautiful place, if anything. Of course, there were many places appealing to the eyes he had come across.

“Well your welcome...” He breathes, a look of seriousness touching his icy gaze as she stood restless, turning her own attention to the distant silhouette of the mountains out to the northeast.

“The Gods took the mountain?” He questioned but she needed not repeat herself. He had heard her correctly. “The Gods have blinked most of us into existence here so I would think they could easily blink us out of it... I would not have thought they would make a whole mountain and its residents just disapear like that...” He was quite so shocked of the news, having not been to Morðfjall before and only passed it up a time or two. He had not seen the Moving Gardens either nor the new mountain chain which replaced the one prior to it.

“I have not...” Though in the manner which he looked to those mountains with curiosity, he did so want to visit them now. “Do you think your brothers could still be within?” She had not mentioned other family until now.
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 Valmúa looked back at him grimly, pausing to steal a glance at his cold eyes. They were the eyes of the north, the gaze of one wiser than he and might even have been considered cruel on any other person. But Ragnar had a goodness to him. He often surprised her with his humour and grace.
 “I did not think they would either, but it seems that I have angered them somehow. My brothers are harmless. They are far more God fearing than I am.” It pained her to think it. If they were angry with her, she did not understand why they would try to harm her brothers, who had never done anything against any god for fear of retribution. If she had caused their deaths, she did not know what to do. How does one seek vengeance on a god? The very idea both enraged her and sent a deep-seated fear pulsing through her gut.
 As for if her brothers might still be there, after all of the change... “I do not know,” she looked at him plainly, her face haunted by fear. She adored her brothers. They had been raised together. As much of a thorn in their side as she was, she knew that something must be wrong — they hadn't even bothered to visit her once when she had been in the Everfrost. The last she had seen either of them had been a quick visit to tell them she was leaving. Did @Stjörnuáti and @Solpallur think so little of her?
 “Come with me to see it.” She exhaled, not realizing that she had been holding her breath for some time. “I am afraid to on my own. @Kuhn has his own business,” she said, though it was not strictly true. It was accurate that he'd been wandering about and interacting far more than she beyond Northfall's borders. Apparently, his attack had not forced him to feel trapped the way that she did.
 She did not admit to Ragnar that he very much reminded her of her brothers in both appearance and mannerisms. Suddenly, Valmúa was at the northern king's side, watching him for a response.
 Also not unknown to her was that her hormones were changing. Playing with fire, she hazarded a nip at the fur at the nape of his neck, letting out a playful huff to soften her seriousness.

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A 'hrmmm..' slips past the black lips of Ragnar as she mentions her thoughts of having angered the gods and they then taking it out on her brothers. Brothers which would have done nothing to upset the gods, for fear of their wrath. Ragnar had made a mind never to mock or speak ill of the gods, for he was more aware now then ever of their existence and how in this world, they did not keep as a hidden, silent watcher to the mortals. No, in this place, they even walked among them in mortal life, just because they could, it seemed.

His golden ears turned back then, a frown rested on his features. She didn't know, which meant that there was a possibility that she may go to those mountains and see her brothers were no longer there, whether dead or lost.

And then she finally breathes out, stirring the quiet tension that had been in the crisp air. A sudden willingness to find an answer to Ragnar's question- were her brothers still there? And she also admits her fear to him, a knowingness that if she had not found friendship within him she would have never spoken those feelings aloud.

“Yes, yes we can...” He murmurs and smiles to her as he arcs his head to the side as she had taken to stand aligned with him. However the smile is weak, for her knows there is a possibility that disappointment will be at the end of their venture. And she nips at him, playful and he laughs then, waving his tail as she makes to wash away the gloom. “Alright, alright! Yes,” He speaks with more confidence as he shoved the length of his side into her own. “We can go- whenever your ready.” Ragnar wouldn't be himself if he said no to an exploration.
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 Valmúa grinned like a child who had taken something that did not belong to her and gotten away with it. Her eyes flashed with delight as his laughter lit her up.
 Her steps were playful as she bounced from paw to paw in front of him, showing him the reason she had been named "Poppy" and not "Fire" in her Icelandic tongue. “Þú munt alltaf segja já við mig — You will always say yes to me, my friend,” she said, tongue slipping over her lips as though enjoying a fine meal. Her actual words were cryptic.
 “Give me a few hours, and I will find you.” Almost demanding, she eyed him with no regard for their otherwise respectful relationship. A king he was, and that was sometimes how she saw him, but in these moments with just the two of them, he was something else. He was her brother in arms. He was a viking as he had said himself. He was beautiful and stupidly mannish in all the right and wrong ways. Some moments, she did not like what he represented: an end to her freedom. But there was more at work than that, and she wanted to tease it out of him.
 She turned and left then to find Kuhn, knowing the scent of her oncoming heat was growing stronger.

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Her excitement is both contagious and addictive, as she hops from paw to paw, as ready for the adventure ahead as Ragnar would be. Exploration brought a spark about him in similar ways fighting did and if he couldn't yet have one, he'd take the other.

His golden and blonde tail waved heavily behind him, his grin a devious one. “Um það efast ég ekki. — Of that I have no doubt.” His tongue rolls out the rough language and he too licks his lips.

Falling in a great heep to the ground, he listens to her final word and hungrily (for her or the deer??) rips into the large leg of meat as icy eyes watched her go.


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