caribou

He carved a path among the roost's deep slopes. One might need to be foolish to face their varied peaks in order to come into the claim, yet he wished to make sure that none would.

If he placed his heavy scent along certain trails, there would be no mistake that wolves began to gather here.

He wished for no brave hunter to come pick upon their herds — or for a mighty explore to think they could waltz freely.

It was why he carried on through the sparing trees even as the rain began. His dark coat darkened only further and he was painted into the gentle background of stone. A living depiction of the mountain slopes he protected.

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She stalked after him as she would any prey, picking up his scent on the path she picked 'round the Roost. She did not know his scent, which meant she did not know him. Despite the fact that he wore her brother on his coat, Savan would meet him for herself and judge him as she judged everyone. With a critical but fair eye.

The rain dampened his scent, but by the time it began to fall and patter against the ground around her, his dark form had already come into her line of sight. Her strides lengthened then, moving at a pace that allowed her to catch up with the wolf that bore the scent of the star-chosen vale.

“Ao konīr! — You there!” She called to him, her voice rising to reach out to him. Would he stop?

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“Ao konīr!”

He did not know this tongue and it raised each hair along his spine. It was not the voice of prvi lovac — first hunter that called to him and it only served to further disgruntle him. How had one been wily enough to slip in beneath the noses of the men?

He had not considered that she had been brought into the fold — nor that she was the blood of prvi lovac — first hunter.

So when he turned it was with a swing of his mass, sharp and pointed. A bull prepared to charge as he stared her down.

“Who?” He demanded at once with a sharp flare of his nostrils. A stranger before him felt more like failure than a future, in that moment.

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Ah, he was quick to get aggressive, quick to demand her identity. She leveled that icy star at him, appraising his posture, his demeanor. Yes. This must be the man that Faust had told her about. Savan approved of his protectiveness, of his immediate move to defend their home.

“Savan. Faust’s sister by blood.”

It was all she said before she lept forth, snapping those shiny teeth at his face or his ear, purposefully missing. Turning to face him again, she lowered her front half slightly with a challenging grin, her attitude saying everything she needed to.

Spar with me.

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Faust.

Sister.

Savan.

Yet she did not ask after his own identity. Did she already know him then or did she think of her brother the same way Prvak did? That it seemed unlikely the hunter would let a stranger stalk their slopes.

Still she sought to strike him like a match, set the tender threads of his ferocity aflame. He was an easily provoked man into any action. Which was he lunged too now, not with snarls or snapping teeth, but with his mass. They were not built so differently despite his only-slightly taller height.

He only wished to see if her own mass could take a blow.

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Just like everything before, the man was quick to react. She let him barrel towards her, ducking her head to push her shoulder into the oncoming freight train. It rocked her backward, made her dig her claws in to hold herself in place. Her muscles strained for a moment before she changed tactics; a train pushing against a train would result in nothing more than both of them getting tired. Instead, she threw a leg over the back of his neck and sought to grapple him down to the ground.

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She did not humor him with the primal smashing of body against body in challenge.

Instead, a limb was draped over him and his head was lowered from the added weight. She could send him to the ground if she so wished, but he wished to remain dangerous even beneath her.

Which meant he snipped and snapped at toes and limbs. He did not seek to directly harm her in any way. He simply wished to test her responses to his unruly ways.

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There, he was on the ground, and yet he did not hesitate to still use his teeth to ward against her efforts to best him. Dancing backwards out of the reach of his nips, Savan instead took this moment to lunge closer and grab his tail with her own jaws. There was no pressure beyond a tight hold, opting to drag him through the grass on his back, an amused glint in her eye.

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oops phone post! sorry if short and messy

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She dragged him.

His tail stiff between her teeth as she moved him across the ground. To try and roll free might snap off his tail in the twisting! Although she hardly held so hard as to do so, but he still considered the idea.

Instead he only kicked out a hind leg rudely in her direction.

Yet there was a sly look upon his face all the while.
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A kick to the face. It smarted, of course, but it did not hurt in the way it would have if they had been doing anything other than sparring, in the loosest sense of the word. Savan barked a laugh, turning to step away and shake herself off before circling back and looking at him with a shark-like grin.

“Faust did well to recruit you.” Pride in her voice that Faust's judgement was so consistent and reliable. “Skoros iksis aōha brōzi? What is your name?” She spoke in their mother tongue first, and then translated for him; if he was to be one of them, to live among the stars with them, then he would speak like them too.

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Now she asked after an identity.

He only knew for the way she stated name. He rolled himself free of the ground first (unless she sought to keep him there, what a thought!) before he offered a low roll of his tongue.

A name.

“Prvak.” His voice did not shine with heavy pride or gaudy titles following. It was a fact, a strong one, but a fact of life.

“You,” He drawled in rumbling warmth with wild amusement. She must have a name in his tongue, as he had done for her blood. “Prvi ratnik. — First Warrior” If her blood was prvi lovac — first hunter then she was certainly prvi ratnik as a counterpart.

The siblings complimented each other kindly, he thought.

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Prvak. A foreign name, the likes of which Savan had never heard. She wondered where he was from. Then again, did it truly matter, now that he was here with them? Not really.

Her tail flicked as her chin raised, eyeing him with that icy — and in this moment playful — stare. “Me,” She parroted confidently, ears thrusting forward to catch his next words, ones that she certainly did not speak. But the born-again girl had a way with tongue, catching on to them quickly when guided through them. “Prvi ratnik.” She rolled the words across her tongue, and then adjusts her consonants and tried again. “Prvi ratnik.”

And then, once again in her own language, along with a translation for him. “Skoros gaomas ziry nūmāzma? What does it mean?”

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It rolled an unruly hot streak of pride down his chest and stomach to hear his language upon another's tongue.

She had her own mother tongue, but he had infected her for a moment. Left his mark and —

She sought meaning. His head rolled softly to stare sidelong at her for a moment. He was not brave enough to try her own tongue just yet. Perhaps he could goad her into using his own more, if he told her the meaning of the things he called her.

“You are called first warrior,” He drawled it warmly across his tongue. “To me.”

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First warrior. Savan's innards writhed proudly, a fierce grin take her maw for a moment. It was a more real expression than most got the privilege of seeing. “Again,” She would demand, as sharp as a snakebite. “Say it again.” This, she sought to learn, an aggressive thirst for knowledge always having hold of her.

“Tell me of your story, Pravk.” Another demand, as she turned to begin walking the path 'round the Roost marked with all the telltale signs of a pack freshly formed.

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So he'd say it again.

The title would roll off of his tongue as many times as she might demand to hear it.

He followed after her with a strong gait, prepared to treat this as he would any border patrol — with honor and strength. Yet now she sought to pry free a story from him. He was not a man who gave such away with vigor. Why would it matter who he had been before Velaris anyway?

“Meet Faust. Hunt together. Stay together.”

A chopped version, but it was sincere and truthful. His gaze turned towards her tall figure.

“You?”

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She snorted at his answer. Secretive then? She’d pry it from him eventually. Savan would make her mission to do so, as she did not like being denied the things that she wanted. And what she wanted was his past. What made him him. She would have it, the starblessed girl decided. In time, she would have it.

Her story, however, was one that made that fire within rage, a supernova burning brilliantly, fiercely, dangerously. Her eyes gained a hardened edge as she glanced to him, wondering if he knew what he asked and knowing then that he did not. The glare was not for Prvak but for the man that had littered her soul with such scars.

“We grew up together. Faust and I. All our friends here: Tamir, Tove, Raenar… We lived a good life.” Until that day. “We always knew that our father was…” Her brow furrowed as she drew in a breath and pushed it out. She hadn’t actually told the story to anyone, she supposed. Faust had seen it first hand, and then she hadn’t been around after that.

“I found him abusing our mother. Hurting her. Unspeakable things. I attacked him and he… bested me. Broke me.” Her own voice cracked, and her face turned involuntarily, as if to hide that mounting anger, the pain, the scars. Savan wasn’t ashamed of them, but more ashamed that she’d failed to protect her family. “He tortured me in front of them all. Took my eye. Ripped apart my throat. Hamstrung me. And then he killed me.”

Yet, her head lifted proudly. She’d gone down protecting the ones she’d loved, as much as she could. “Here, I was reborn. Upon that peak,” She indicated it with her eyes and nose. “The Star Mother saw fit to reunite Faust and I, to give us another chance at happiness. So I will see that it happens.”

It was odd that she felt lighter for sharing, for telling someone about what had happened. It had been unspoken thus far. A weight lifted from her shoulders. Savan looked to Prvak with an intensity that burned as brightly as her rage. “I will let nothing stop that from happening.”
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It was a tale that he pieced together with his minimal language skills. There were large key-words that he plucked up, names and titles.

A hurt mother, a terrible father.

Savan had died and Prvak was not sure he understood how. Yet perhaps he felt it somewhere in his own bones, that he too had been reborn or displaced. The Roost had not been where his life had started, but it had become where a new life had.

Oh, but her story was not about him or his own woes.

He gazed upon her with a silent understand for violent throes in life. Perhaps a touch of admiration for the fact that such a man had not snuffed out her fire. That she had stood strong into the unknown, reunited with the family that cared for her as such.

“Prvi ratnik.” He spoke once more. “I see you, first warrior.”

A contemplative silence fell over him as the sky slowly rolled with thunder up above. The young woman had been through so much — enough for him to wonder if all the souls around him were older than the bodies they inhabited. An odd idea, but not entirely misplaced after her tale.
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She tripped, stunned. The two toned girl caught herself, barely, before whipping around to look at him. Her blizzard cast eyes were sharp, suspicious, and… glassy.

I see you.

Had Faust said such a thing to him? Did he know how important of a phrase that was to them? Did he know the weight it carried?

She closed their distance, watching him as carefully as she might a snake. There, stopping before the man, she looked into his eyes and held his gaze for what felt like an eternity. Savan hesitated, only slightly, before she leaned in and touched her forehead to his.

“Nyke ūndegon ao. I see you.”

She lingered for a moment, surprised at this… feeling. This connection.

And then it was gone, broken, as Savan stepped back, clearing her throat.

“That is our custom. We do not say such a thing lightly, ever. Nyke ūndegon ao.”
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He had hit a soft spot, it seemed.

Yet at first her proximity made him wonder if she meant to toss him aside again. Perhaps grab his nape like he was an unruly child, to pull upon his tail like she was an unruly child. It was not so terrible an idea in his mind.

Physical exertion might help the aches of the heart. He knew such a thing from experience.

Only her teeth never came. Her forehead upon his own. Jarring enough that he did not pull away. Instead he lingered, frozen. He could smell the amber rich forest scent she carried. The smaller scars that littered her facial features.

He knew he had not been wrong in his name given for her.

He rolled her own language against the rough of his tongue. Uncoordinated, but making a sincere effort. Even as she pulled away like she had been shocked by electricity.

“Nyke ūndegon ao.”

Uncharacteristically his voice had grown soft and careful. Thoughtful.

“Not said lightly.” This he sought to assure her of.
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His pronunciation was not the best, but it was not something she corrected him on. It would have taken something away from this moment and while Savan felt far away from most, there was a closeness suddenly; as if he was reaching out to her across that chasm.

She did not reach back. She couldn’t.

Her wall solidly back in place, Savan nodded. “Correct. Now come. We will make a round of the borders.” And just like that, she was cold and proud once more, turning to resume their walk.
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He could not know he made a misstep or pushed her away.

Such was the beauty of being a man with the bluntness of an overused sword. Instead, he only gazed at her distancing figure for but a moment. Admiration for her quickness to return to work. It stirred something within him.

Appreciation folding into his admiration, perhaps.

It was enough that it riled him to bound forward and close what gap there had become. He wanted to shoulder her, click his teeth near her but never on her. He wanted to infect her with his energy once more.

Might she take him up on the offer?

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Ah, he made such effort. It was a sad thing that the energy would be wasted on her; perhaps he'd find another creature to turn such attention to, but the star-spotted girl was not willing to be that creature. Their moment of closeness had let Savan lean in before she reeled backwards and cemented that barrier between them. There would be none other than a select few men that she would hold close to her heart, unwilling to trust another masculine soul so implicitly again.

She would snipe back at him with those glistening teeth of hers, though her own gesture was one that sought to convey a get back to work style attitude; short and firm. A solid click!

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Was he unwelcomed now so swiftly?

He ceased his energy at once. Paused in his movement and once more allowed her to get distance ahead of him.

He did not wish to pursue her further. Let her take her own path, let her cover other borders different than him. He would only steal one last glance at her before he curved his own path upward and away.

Prvak knew they would run into each other again. Perhaps he would not be so childish again, a good thing to remember. This was no one's fault but his own.

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