Ankyra Sound hūrenkon

With the snowfall came the ghost, as if the ice took on a mortal body. Materializing from nothing but dust. The snow would not linger long where it had fallen - and nor would he, drifting as he did. Soon enough the specter would be somewhere new again, and winter would follow at his heel. 
For now things were calm. It was not yet morning, but the full-dark of the night had faded too. There was a grayness to the world, a dullness. The forest before him was dark too - holding on to the night perhaps, willing he stay upon the beach until the sunrise - it was old, it was gargantuan, but the ghost would not be slowed. The Teekon would soon be engulfed by the winter, and he would finally be home.
The wolf would eventually find his way out from the ancient forest of giants; he would cross in to the north with the hopes of pursuing the familiar chill, that which he was most fond of. For now, the creature would linger - would haunt - until he was satisfied.

Most of the redness has been drawn from her skin and toes and the cool air chills her faster than usual but the burning desire to claw through her flesh has long since died out. The phantom of scratching sometimes pops up in the back of her head but is often able to ignore it and even if she isn’t, she doesn’t have to chew herself raw to feel better. Now all she needed is her fur to grow back and protect her from upcoming winter chill and it may take a few weeks before she notices any real differences.
 
Now that she’s gotten relatively used to being in Drageda and having somewhere she can call home again, she isn’t too afraid of traveling beyond the borders. Most of the time she finds herself on them anyway and occasionally she slips away to investigate something or another. Today has pulled it further south but into a territory she has familiarized herself with a few times. Mostly, she spends her time on the water to see the florescent stars in the waves and share but as the night wears on into morning, she decides she needs to make her way back.
 
Not quite convinced in her return, she weaves through the giant trees that mimic those of the redwoods in Drageda. They are different, she can tell as the light begins to filter in for the upcoming day. The gray haze remains and her eyes are attracted to a sudden, slow movement, that causes her to flinch, tense, and look ahead to find the ghost floating through.

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The ghost drifted around the trees at a leisurely pace. He navigated the circumfrence of one, then two, then three of the massive old things before he took notice of the shadow.
She was his antithesis; there is a nervous energy hanging about her that he detects on a glance, and then he stops his gradual drift. He is the mist clinging to the trees, slipping in and out of the greyness as he approaches the wayward girl.
Has she been injured? There are wounds upon her skin - no, he thinks, just superficial. Patches of her shadow-self have crumbled away. Is that was has her so startled? There is barely any change in his demeanor as the specter closes the distance. He has no fear of her, or of this place.
The sunlight catches across his snout finally, and proves he is alive when his eyes alight with fire; but he winces back from the glare of it, ducks in to the gray, and sits waiting for her to make first contact. Whatever sort of situation he has found himself within, the ghost puts the power in to the girl's hands - for he knows how he has been received in the past, and will not put himself at risk again.

The consistency of first meeting wolves has not been something she is used to. Each wolf she encounters is much more different than the last and this wolf proves to be no different. His approach is distant and forbidden, keeping her rooted in place for several seconds before she does anything else. She isn’t as close to Drageda that she is certain a call will be heard and if it is, likely not close enough to do much help. Having someone with her—Eske, Étoille, or Blixen—would make her feel significantly better. 

When he is close enough that the sun lights up his amber eyes, her head retreats in surprise. What little shred of belief he may actually be a ghost she has left is wiped away to a small sliver of uncertainty. Still, his display of vulnerability warrants a few steps closer in his direction. “Are you okay?” she calls out, finding the reaction to the sun strange. Her head angles to the right to get a better look at his overall self but from. Her distance she can’t quite see enough. And even if she did, she wouldn’t know what to do about them. 

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He is not a fan of the sunlight. There is nothing wrong with him for having a preference, although it is odd that such a creature would be so obviously avoidant; he seeks the cool shadow and watches her from the safety of the darkness, letting his eyes adjust again. There are blots of blue-orange across his vision but they fade, and she comes in to focus again.

Her question is odd to him. The intonation, the evidence of care present despite their lack of connection. Why did it take hundreds of miles of travel to find such a creature as this? But the ghost does not dwell; he refuses to make connections between this shadow and the last - although he is reminded of a name suddenly, as the wind sweeps between the cedars - Sithi.

Looking briefly to the sky, he watches the last of the autumn leaves tremble. It is as if the wind is giving away a secret; when he glances at the stranger (curious if she could hear what he could, if the stories of the north had been brought this far) and he only sees concern upon her features. There is no understanding. Good.

The specter clears his throat softly and with a breathy (if a bit chilling) tone states, Finne ajjin jin? Then, with a frigidity reserved only for the cold-blooded, he watched her with an expectant - perhaps even hungry - glint in his eye.

He doesn’t answer her right away and Furi stares at him for a moment. Perhaps he does not understand her. Most wolves she encounters speaks the common tongue and Drageda seems to have their own language, as her mother and father had their own respective language. Still, she has never had a problem with communication—even when she hadn’t been vocal herself—and the silence feels awkward between them. 

As he clears his throat, her ears cup forward in anticipation. He speaks finally and her eyes widen, recognizing them to (sort of) be the tongue her mother sometimes spoke. Privately, she would speak the words with her mother but she did not often use it. To hear it (horribly butchered) by the stranger gives her a weird shiver up her spine. She thinks of Lotte, fighting a frown from her features before she realizes what she actually heard. She’d gathered a few not-so-polite words from her mother under her brother and easily figured them out and when she registers what has been said, her mouth hands open in shock.

“Kuka on Jin?” she asks in surprise, trying awkward to use a language she has not used in a long time but if the other does not understand the common tongue, she’ll have to try her best but she does not understand why he would tell her something so personal.

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There is quiet, and then she answers - looking less concerned for himself specifically, and much more confused overall. It dawns on him at this point that the northern isles are probably too far removed from this place. Maybe they do not speak the same language? But he does his best to appear harmless to her; he is not outwardly warm or inviting, he does not wag his tail or do any physical thing to indicate that he is an ally (because he is unsure of that himself), but the ghost does not grow impatient or angry. He merely waits, and when she speaks... There is confusion all around.

Se guēsin iksis brōztagon Jin? he murmurs in response, and it is as if the chill has dropped from his voice. The language has shifted too, for in his surprise the ghost has slipped back to the old tongue of his mother - yet in hearing his own voice speaking the tongue aloud, he seems to falter, to think, and is suddenly grim. He slides closer, smooth as ice as he ducks around the sunlight, and adds: Iksis bisa aōha lenton?

He is closer, and so it is easier for him to detect the truth. The shadow is layered with many scents and while the forest is among them, it is not the strongest. There are others - many others - and the familiar mark of mountain among them. 

She isn’t able to read the other’s expression but he continues to speak and this time she realizes she does not know what he is saying. None of these words sound like the tongue of her mother and either he is far more advanced for her or they are words of another language. One that does not sound like her own or her mothers of Drageda and she is just as lost as she’d been before. He steps out from his position but does not close the distance completely. Furi does not offer any closure in response and stares at him in bewilderment instead.
 
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she finally says and licks her lips. Her ears falling back against her head and out of reflex, she takes a step back. His blank expression makes it easy to project her growing anxiety upon and she feels a churn in her stomach that knots up uncomfortably.

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Something he has said has caused her to pause, to look at him with new eyes, and he wonders if perhaps she does not understand him after all - if they do not understand one another. When she pulls away from him the ghost merely stands there and watches. He does not try and explain nor does he give chase; if she is more comfortable away then that is where she must be, and he remains the observer. What little hope he held that he was not alone, that perhaps his wandering would be over, has been extinguished. The mist withdraws then - sliding backwards, ducking head, murmuring something in his foreign tongue to himself with a grim tone, and moves as if to depart. The spirit would rather leave her guessing than expose himself for real - to try and make this work - so for now he retreats.

The wolf doesn’t have anything to say to her statement, nor does he offer anything else and awkwardly she stands there waiting for some kind of response. He does not and her ears fall flat against her head as he begins to retreat back into the woods. Furi does not go after him, more concerned than anything, and nervously she looks over her shoulder and it is only when he is gone from view that she steps back to return home.

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