different names for the same thing

@Aarkron <3

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Oksana rose before sunrise. She washed her face and shook her coat clean. But she still couldn't bring herself to eat. She told herself she wasn't hungry, as she walked out into the chilly morning. Frosty mist wafted around her ankles, and a light breeze drifted inland from the coast. She could hear the trees popping as they thawed, and birds sang to each other in the silvery-blue sky.

She thought to find @Ragnar, to ask him where she could find Aarkron. She would be useful after all, she'd decided. Feeling a little of her old stubborn self returning. But she lost her nerve at the last moment and went down into the valley instead. She supposed she could gather some useful herbs to dry if she still wanted to do something worthwhile. And maybe… She bit her lip. Maybe she could find Aarkron later.

“божа крівця, нечуй вітер, лопу́х,” — god's blood: st johns wort, not feeling the wind: mouse-ear hawkweed, burdock she murmured, looking carefully and walking slow. She didn’t know their English names, but she knew what these and other helpful things looked like. Yellow flowers, spotted leaves, silver-purple burs. But deeper in the valley, in a boggy meadow marsh where the snowmelt had saturated the ground, she found a trio of tall slender flowers — not on her list — that made her smile. She put her nose to the little purple petals and breathed deep, thinking of handsome blushing faces and silly children's songs.

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He didn't spend much time in Northfall other than to rest - but the time he did spend here wasn't wasted. The dragonborn occupied his time foraging, filling the caches whenever possible or eating a few bites himself if he had no luck catching anything that day in order to keep his own strength up. There was a method to his madness... Eat just as necessary to be useful, store the rest for others or for himself for a lesser day. Clean out the old herbs that collected frostbite or use them himself for some reason or another.... it was better than letting them go to waste.

Marching back into Northfall with a bouquet of herbs he had collected a little south in the mountains, the sight of a strange woman sniffing at flowers caught his bi-coloured eyes for a second. She wasn't someone he recognized... but the smell on her carried by the slow-moving current between them suggested she was recently accepted into Northfall. Ragnar has been busy... at least this one didn't seem pregnant.

He stared perhaps a little too long. Wrinkles on his snout almost permanently placed there with his perpetually sour expression, clasping herbs as gingerly as he possibly could despite the appearance of tension in his jaws. It was all for show, unintentionally of course. It was his nature, but the lack of bruising or breaking of the stems proved his ability to be cautious and gentle when it was needed. Since she was not an interloper and was simply minding her own business, he chose to leave the woman alone... he had business of herb collecting and organizing to deal with after all.

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He made her jump when she saw him.

A hulking white figure, ursine and fierce but silent as the grave as he stood there, simply staring. His gaze felt like it pierced right through her, and his jaws were so tense and still that it was as if his face was made of stone. She barely noticed the herbs clenched gingerly in those jaws, or the whiff of Northfall on his person. But none of that, even had she noticed, would have made a huge difference.

Oksana’s eyes grew wide as saucers, and all romantic thoughts of flowers and boys disappeared in an instant. She held her breath.

Berserker. That was the only word she could think of as she stared back at him, like some warning call blaring at her from her past. Some critical reminder.

Last time, she’d run. This time, she couldn’t. She couldn’t move her legs. “Who are you?” She demanded, scowling, with her heart pounding in her chest. A tiny, rational voice in the back of her head told her he couldn’t be an enemy — not here, in the middle of Northfall territory. But she’d thought the same thing in Sievrosk, too, that day. The last. And she’d been wrong. She struggled not to sound angry and afraid as she interrogated him, but her voice betrayed her: “What are you doing?”

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As he was preparing to leave and tend to his usual business, she spoke. The fear in her eyes was nothing new - it was quite normal for someone to look at him that way anyway. It didn't upset him nor did he question it. Once you see it long and often enough, it becomes your normal, and being treated any other way was strange.

Instead of getting insulted or concerned for her fear, he was left bland, at least internally. Like unflavoured poridge. Tasteless, without any zest of life.

Who are you? She says.

“Aarkchron.” He replies with a mouthful. Paying little attention to the herbs he held and chose to speak around them somehow. Curling his blackened tongue around the stems to try and keep them in place. Shifting their position so he could answer the next. “Correcting herbz.” He drooled a little off to the side and far back of his mouth. “Need schome?”

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Her anxiety transformed into confusion; skepticism. Twisting in her gut. She frowned and shook her head faintly in disbelief. “No, you’re not… him,” she whispered, but obviously she couldn’t deny it either, and her voice trailed off.

She’d imagined Aarkron as some old, withered wolf; a physiker who’d traded his youth for the expertise of years of experience. Or, some middle-aged herbologist or black-eyed alchemist.

Not this… scarred, grizzled, drooling brute who’d clearly have as much ease breaking people apart as putting them back together. Vikings. Oksana wanted to cry.

Instead, she raised her chin almost defiantly and looked at him with a glint in her eye, like he was some kind of personal challenge. He couldn’t be a kind man, he couldn’t be a safe man, she thought; and she was not going to let him trick her, no matter how disarming he pretended to be. Still, she stared at the herbs in his mouth rather than look at him directly. “No, I don’t need anything. Ragnar said I should find you… to… help you.” She worked her jaw. “I know a little bit about plants and medicine. That’s why. I’m new to Northfall.”

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Pretty sure I am. He thinks defiantly to himself. He wasn't really certain why she would deny him his own identity. Something he had only remembered months prior to this after doing the trust fall in Dragonford... the only good thing that had come from there.

The fear in her eyes dissipated as it was replaced with something else. As though not only did she reject his identity, but was now challenging it.



It confused him greatly this whole turn of events.

When she started on the conversation, something he could actually understand what she was getting at - even if he didn't really like it. Spitting out his herbs finally as they scattered around his feet, he was almost hurt by her comment/offer to help him. “Why would I need help? I don't need help.” Brows went from arched, hurt and a sprinkle of dejection into the mix; only to morph into a frown. Was he being replaced? Why? Wasn't he doing a damn good job so far?

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He spat the herbs at his feet like spitting at a personal insult. Oksana startled a little, her reflexes still primed to run or defend herself, but she held her ground. Yet her pleasure at having… offended him? sparked his attention? … quickly turned to discomfort as she was forced to look him in the face.

She met his frown with a vaguely belligerent one of her own.

“Maybe he thinks you do,” Oksana said, hoping she implied something that might get under Aarkron’s skin. “Is that a problem?”

Part of her was scared she might put herself at risk of antagonizing the man; the other part of her secretly dared him to do something about it. Like she might prove something if he quarreled with her or Ragnar.

She glanced at the herbs strewn about by his paws. “Besides, you can’t do everything by yourself. That’s not how a pack works.” Her eyes flicked back up to him. “But if you don’t want my help, just say so. Ragnar can give me something else to do.”

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“Maybe he thinks you do,” with that the man's eyes narrowed at her. If he wasn't glaring before, he was now. He wasn't quite quick enough to realize she was only trying to get under his skin and instead took it all literally. An insult to his abilities. “He's wrong.” He spat back, quite literally too as he tossed his head to the side to spit on the ground away from either of the two talking as though the mere thought of this was disgusting enough to be spat out.

Oh so now he couldn't do it all on his own?



“I can.” Quickly he dismissed her. Turning to pick up his bundle of herbs again and only decided to work twice as hard now - if that was even possible - just to prove this woman and Ragnar wrong. With the herbs now in his maw again, gently picked up with both his lips and tongue before drawing them into his mouth to be clasped gently between fangs. “An I will.” Words muffled from his full mouth again, he was ready to walk off - insulted with a fire lit in his soul to prove he was more than capable to take care of the wolves here.

“Phind a diffwrent job.” He huffed.

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end?

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It seemed she’d successfully snubbed him. With her heart in her throat, Oksana raised her chin and withstood his glare, waiting for something to happen. She looked him right in the eye, and her whole world shrank to nothing but him. But in the end, he only dismissed her.

She felt nothing as she watched him gently gather his herbs. Where he was filled with fire, she was... empty. She contemplated her hollow victory, her lips pressed tightly together, wishing she felt more triumphant than she actually did. She didn’t try to stop him, change his mind, or apologize. She let an awkward, angry silence fill the space between them, instead. He didn’t deserve her disrespect, but Oksana didn’t have the heart to change that or to acknowledge she could’ve done anything differently.

She told herself she was happy with this outcome. She wasn't really sure why that wasn’t true.

He told her to find a different job. Fine, she thought waspishly, but by then she’d lost her nerve to say anything else, and merely chewed her lip. She’d let him go without a fight.

She glanced at the purple flowers beside her. It was hard to believe just moments ago they’d filled her with nostalgia. She scowled faintly, wishing she’d never been taught a single thing about them. She turned on her heel and padded hastily into the long grass of the meadow marsh. Headed in the exact opposite direction to him.

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