Iktome Plains no snow here

Leaving behind the river to travel adjacent to the blue swell of the coast, Dagfinn found that he did not like this sunny landscape as much as he had hoped. He would follow Laerke's scent a while longer, but very soon, he would be moving inland once more. This was no place for a wolf of the tundra - even one with as much wanderlust as Dag.

Dragging himself across the plains in the heat was far more work than twice the distance in the frozen stretches of his homeland. His paws felt the sting of heat as they never had before, and he did a little dance to keep them from staying too long on the sandy stretches of his paths, and went the long way 'round to stay on the grass whenever possible. Probably, it was a strange gait to any that might look on, but Dag had never been worried about his image before.

Bouncing this to present day as discussed ♥ A bit before this thread.

Coelacanth, like Dagfinn, found the summer weather oppressive. Her impenetrable inky fur drew the heat inward, encouraging it to soak into her tender skin with suffocating invasiveness. Today her slender muzzle was curved gently around a collection of three beautiful shells — the last of Amoxtli’s great hoard — and she dared not part her lips to pant lest she choke or drop them. The pale pink scars that winged from the shadowed hollow of her throat and collarbone were invisible now, for her feathery fur concealed them completely — having regained her natural stride, she moved with sylphlike grace, but the recent wear upon her body would have been evident to those who knew her well. The smooth, supple lines of her compact frame were stuttered and angular in places, emphasizing the weight she’d lost in the weeks she’d found herself without appetite and unable to hunt. Now, though, she was learning to live for herself. Amoxtli, she knew, was not dead; their pas de deux had simply come to a temporary end.

The flatness of the territory she now found herself in made it easy for the Corten girl to spot the dark wolf whose stutter-stepped, staccato gait brought him from patch to patch of bunchgrass. She watched him quietly, her cerulean and turquoise eyes dimmed with the miasma of melancholy that so often claimed her these days; and a flicker of their innate brightness returned as a smile tipped the eloquent corners of her currently chipmunk-cheeked muzzle. Bending to place the shells at her paws, she lifted herself to her full height where she stood and called to the tall, tender-footed male with a beseeching whine that was all air, no tone. Lest he did not hear her, she punctuated her lonely cry with a soft whuff of air. If he steeped his paws in mud, they would not ache so much when he walked — and there was a river just west of where they stood that he could sink his aching paws into.

It could not rightly be said whether it was any noise from the female that drew his eye. Her scent, her sound, the lovely sight of her all caught his attention at once, and his tail began wagging almost before he'd registered her presence. And without thought, he started toward her in a steady lope, tail pluming and shoulders rolling as he displayed his rangy, virile body for her to admire.

"Rakeet!" he called to the svlette and striking woman, his voice like rolling thunder in the oppressive heat of the day. "Your loveliness knows no bounds!" he remaked as he drew nearer, admiring the fine form of her, and the strange tufted tips of her ears. She was like no manner of creature he had ever seen before, and he found himself desiring to lay prostrate in her presence.

First, however, he would have to convince her that he deserved to draw near enough to do so.

"Tumma kauneus!" he sang, "te yllättää minut! 
silmäsi kimmeltää kuin jää!
siro hirvi, älä pelkää minua
Näen sydämesi; ei lihaa!"

Hopefully, his makeshift song would be pleasing to the woman. And, hopefully, she did not speak his language. He was a bard, but a young and untried one - and it was so hard to focus on creating proper lyrics in the presence of pretty women!

Phone post. Please excuse the brevity.

A frail flutter of joy brushed Coelacanth's tender heartstrings as the tall, long-legged stranger turned toward her with a wagging tail and jovial expression. His greeting bore an exotic lilt, spiced with an accent she could not name; she added it to "ahoy, matey!" in her burgeoning lexicon. Thanks to her beloved grandmother and the travelling trio of Serein, Sirimiri, and Brontide, the inky sheepdog cross had been exposed to a variety of languages and could understand several of them quite fluently. That it was a lost skill -- something like teaching a fish the alphabet -- did not matter to the girl. She loved languages and music and found that understanding them enriched her life, despite not being able to respond verbally.

He spoke of loveliness, looking upon her with eyes that shone a bright and wintry blue, and Seelie shyly dipped her streamlined muzzle as her velveteen cheeks grew warm. Her tufted ears fanned forward upon her slender skull as he drew nearer and lifted his voice in song -- the breath caught in her throat despite the awestruck way her ink-lined lips formed a tiny "o" of wonder. Seablue eyes shimmered with an otherworldy brightness mimicking the bioluminescent plankton that set the coast aglow by night. Dainty paws tiptoed forth with catlike grace as she helped to close the distance, making it abundantly clear that although she was far from wrapped around his dewclaw, she was eager to listen.

Though he liked to believe himself a true speaker of souls, Dagfinn had nowhere near the experience necessary for such a title. For while his brother Laerke would have no trouble identifying the twist of the lovely wolfdog's features as an expression of sorrow, Dagfinn could not. He had no basis for the look - all his life had been joy, and joy was all that he knew. Even when warriors had died, litters perished, winters languished, Dagfinn had remained largely untouched, folded into the happy bubble of his family. War had been but a distant dream to the dark youth - and a good one, at that.

So he discounted the strange expression as a feature of the woman's delightful otherness, and drew a few steps nearer when she seemed receptive to his charms. His voice grew low and throaty as his song reached an apex and died into a few stretched and stringent chords.

Song finished, he sought to gain more information about this child of beauty. Later on, he would invent more songs in her name; the fey grace of this creature would become that of legends, if he had anything to say about it!

"I am graced by your presence," he said grandly, offering the young woman a deep bow to display both his esteem for her and his harmlessness. Instead of straightening out of the position, he pressed his belly to the floor and looked up at her, more lyrics whirring through his mind as he took in her tufted ears, her oceanic eyes, the feathery weight of her pelt. "How can I serve you, pretty one?" he asked, still enchanted. "I am an adventurer and a bard. I will sing any song, tell any story, deliver any message for you, free of price. The price is an easy one - only tell me your story, and I will be at your command!"

The inky ingénue tilted her finely-sculpted head from one side to the other, tufted ears drawing questioningly forward upon her velveteen crown as the effusive bard swept her a deep bow and remained there on the ground, gazing up at her with wide, winter-blue eyes. He was a handsome specimen, his larger size evident even given his prostrate position; her seablue eyes roved over him appreciatively, memorizing the unique gradation of ink to smoke that claimed his thick, heavy fur and the splashes of cream upon his chest and lips. His eyes were stunning, even startling — she had wholly forgotten his tender, heat-scorched paws that had brought him to her in the first place — and his genial mien buoyed her heavy heart. Her lips parted in wonder as he continued to speak, but her expression grew crestfallen as he spoke of his “price” — a sum too great for her to afford.

She wanted his stories — his songs. Selfishly, she did not wish for him to carry a message for her — not even if the message were to Amoxtli himself! — for she craved his companionship and his nearness. As she had not done since she was a young and ignorant puppy, “What is your name?” she tried to ask, shaping the words with her reverent mouth as she pushed air from her lungs. It was desperation that had driven her to such an inane attempt, but she was not surprised by her inevitable failure — air and air alone spilled from her lips, and trailed from them in a soft, toneless whine. She could not pay him, and perhaps he would leave her now; hesitantly she glanced down at the shells nestled protectively between her paws, and stepped away from them. Amoxtli had collected them, but his spirit was not within them — she did not need to carry them with her — she forced herself to believe it and leave these relics of the past for the present.

Seelie offered Dagfinn an airy whuff, backing away from him and quirking her muzzle in invitation. In case the encouragement to follow did not get through to him, she danced a ring around him, pirouetting on her catlike paws and bounding westward before circling back to him. Again she backed up a few paces, bending her forequarters to look up at him in turn, fixing him with a luminous gaze of lonely seablue eyes.

This is reminding me of The Little Mermaid

The dark beauty opened her mouth, and Dag had not been holding his breath, he would not have heard what little came out of her pristine throat. Although he had never encountered such a thing before, the dark youth knew at once what afflicted the mysterious girl before him.

"You cannot speak," he said, made almost breathless by the swiftness of his empathy for the fine creature before him. His throat tightened in uncharacteristic despondency at the tragedy before him. It seemed almost... vulgar that such a fine creature should be robbed of something so innate, so neccesary. It was like one of Laerke's stories in its horridness. The awful, poetic injustice of it made his heart twist in a pain that was very real.

It was so much more terrible to see stories in action than to hear tell of them later on.

"Nevermind," he murmured, face heating as he realized how painful his price was to the young woman. "There is no price, pretty one. You have paid enough." More than he could even imagine. What was it to go through life without being able to sing? Without being able to share your burdens, your worries, or even your joys? And how could this girl, this beautiful woman have come to this place alone? Was it not enough that she must be alone in her muteness?

A burgeoning protectiveness of the woman overcame him, and he was... angry on her behalf. It was not right. It was not fair.

He moved toward her again, ears lying back as he crawled forward on his belly. "A story, then? Or another song?" he asked softly, speaking slowly enough to read her response to each suggestion.

The woman, however, seemed to have other ideas. She was going somewhere, and he was invited to follow. His decision was made almost as soon as it was presented to him - he would keep her company, if she allowed it. Several steps in her direction made this clear.

My brain has turned to mashed potatoes.

“You cannot speak,” realized the Ansbjørn boy, his sonorous timbre made small and frail by the weight of his discovery, and Coelacanth ached for the fumbling, faltering way he backpedaled and redirected in a brave attempt to soothe her hurts. She, in turn, set tongue to teeth and softly sighed — “shh,” she whispered as comfortingly as she could, her ink-feathered tail scribbling a note of goodwill, fluttering against her slim hocks with a flourish that hinted at apology. Her bright seablue eyes were warm and hopeful as they regarded the nameless bard who assumed the posture of an acolyte before his goddess and crawled toward her with thickly-furred ears nestled tightly against his skull. He offered her anew the things she craved, this time devoid of price — “A story, then? Or another song?” — and she gave him one glad pirouette, a deft twist of catlike paws, before leading him westward toward the river. It was not her river, but it would suffice in cooling his sunscorched paws. There would be time enough for songs and stories when she had seen to his comfort.

With a final forlorn glance at Amoxtli’s collection of shells, the atramentous sheepdog cross led her rime-eyed companion across the plains and through the moors, the occasional tree or shrub affording ample shade for his tender pads. She stopped only when she reached the river, finding a tranquil bend where the bottom was soft mud and moss instead of grating stone. Slowly, with great deliberation, she repeated the gestures that had seemed to convince him to come with her: circling around him, bounding toward the river, then turning to face him as she backed carefully into it. A toneless whuff leapt invitingly from her jaws, her coral pink tongue lolling as she wriggled appealingly before him. Come here, she thought at him as loudly as she could. Her tiny form left more than enough room for him to dip his paws in, if he was not inclined to fully submerge himself.

Dagfinn followed blithely after the young woman, tail waving happily the entire way. He was content to let her lead without question, as she seemed to know where she was going. It was nice, he decided, to have a guide through these strange and twisted lands. There were so many different landmarks all so close together - it must've been a place very easy to navigate by those used to such things, but for one who'd been born on an endless tundra, it was much closer to a maze. Having the woman there to lead him allowed him to get lost in his thoughts, as he was his constant wont. He wondered where she came from and what her name was, and whether or not she had anyone to care for her. Maybe... maybe he could care for her?

They stopped at the river, where the woman had no reservations about slinking right in. Dagfinn's eyes tracked her movements, narrowing when she offered him the spot beside her.

With another wag of his tail and a lot more splashing than she'd caused herself, Dag settled beside her with a wide, toothy grin, tongue lolling gaily out of his mouth. With their sides pressed together, it was easy to match his breathing to hers until they became one black furred, blue-eyed, eight-legged sea creature.

"I will call you Murhe Sala," he said at last, nosing at her cheek to make sure she was paying attention to him. "And I have thought of a story for you - it is called "The Wolf with Eight Legs". Now - there was once a lonely creature, with eyes like ice and fur like the night sky..."