Hoshor Plains made simple intricate paper bloom bleed red
i'll be damned if i end up playing Job with god's loving hand on my throat
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#1
All Welcome 


The thought had not left her head as she wandered, and her aimless journey becomes more pointed, sweeping down along the side of the mountain. Well. A little herb collecting is not a bad plan, at any rate. Her cache at Silvertip is good, but could stand some diversity. There's the Herbalists' Cache way to the East (she thinks she could find it)... but that would be a much longer journey than she accounted for. 

Perhaps she can bring Phocion with her there. Teach him some more. The idea reawakens an idea she has been staunchly ignoring. Carefully compartmentalizing that idea for another day, Poet noses through the gold-edged grasses, searching for something of better use.
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#2
there is no rhyme nor reason to the path that kjalarr takes. though he has spoken brazenly and confidently of reclaiming birthright the northman avoids territories with any lingering familiarity. he maps out the wilds as he once had. he remembers the paths, the shortcuts. but the wilds have changed. not the physical territories themselves per say but territories bear the scent of lingering claim or solidified claim that have not previously. the wilds is in a state of constant flux. nothing stays the same. perhaps for a few years but eventually, as kjalarr has discovered, everything changes.

his path takes him to the hoshor plains; a territory he has very little familiarity with. it is lush from the touch of summer sun and rains. the grass is varying in heights but it's golden color is rich with invigorated life. it brushes against his belly and underside where he enters the territory but as he heads deeper the grass stretches taller yet, rising like a sea of gold to his shoulders. he pauses briefly to draw in the scent of the bison herd that had very recently trampled their way across his path. he does not pursue. even at full strength, even having learned to navigate during a spar and a hunt with a functional eye and a partially functioning eye: he stands no hope of taking down a bison. not on his own. so, he turns blind eye ( ha ) to the trampled grass path and continues forward on his own unaware that his path is fated to intersect with another's.

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you still wonder if you're
a ferocious beast or a saint
but you're neither because
you're infinitely more —


i'll be damned if i end up playing Job with god's loving hand on my throat
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#3


She does not mind the bison nor the man approaching 'til they very nearly brush, at which her focus shifts abruptly, freezing mid-step to prevent their destined collision. Perhaps she ought to pay closer attention, the thought flickers across her mind for a moment before vanishing in the wake of the stranger. Poet does not know him (predictably) though she finds his stonewrought features intruiging, eyes lingering on the three scars cutting across his face longer than is, perhaps, strictly polite.

"Apologies," the ex-prietess offers, forcing her attention elsewhere, "I have been in my own head a bit as of late." A slightly self-deprecating smile turns her delicate mouth upward as she steps back once-twice, giving him space to continue his way should he wish (though naturally she is unopposed to conversation, as well.)
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#4
kjalarr's path soon intersects with another's once more. this time it is canis lupus. they almost brush but it does not come as strictly any sort of surprise to kjalarr. the golden grass sea is tall where they roam through it and it is easy to hide within. she shifts away and kjalarr's head swings in her direction. his partially blind eye — frosted and milky with the 'curse' of nifelheim — is particularly useless in the tall, shivering grasses. there is a permanent writhing shadow that melds and swallows all the shadows together so that they are near indecipherable. so his focus shifts to his good eye, sharpened from the extra burden it carries.

she apologizes and diverts her eyes. the scars upon his muzzle are the oldest and kjalarr is used to the staring. he has quite an impressive collection of them and each bears their own unique tale of suffering. and survival. whether she apologizes for staring or because they almost bumped into one another kjalarr isn't sure. it doesn't matter. he isn't particularly offended by either. "no need," he brushes off her apology. he does not take his eyes off of her, but his ears swivel, keen and alert. "i was not paying much attention either." the warborn admits, not in a self-depreciating way simply in a manner of blunt honesty. there had once been a desire to be a ranger but times have changed and kjalarr's passion for travel wanes with each passing year. he has travelled, flitting from throne to throne over the past three years. the conqueror is travel weary and yet, still, he continues to wander. he has little choice. there is much work to be done before he can truly settle in the way he desires to.

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you still wonder if you're
a ferocious beast or a saint
but you're neither because
you're infinitely more —


i'll be damned if i end up playing Job with god's loving hand on my throat
184 Posts
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Away
#5


He dismisses her apologies, bringing a faint smile to her expression as he mirrors her excuse. "I find," Poet says, tone slightly wistful, "summer is when my thoughts most wandered. Perhaps that is what compels us to travel physically too." She tilts her head, offering a thoughtful look, unsure if he will indulge her conversation. He has not tried to move past despite her allowance and so she assumes he does not mind company for the moment, at least. To that point, "my name is Poet," she tells him, taking a seat. Her tail comes to rest across the tips of her paws daintily, expression curious as she waits to see if he will continue talking to her.
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kjalarr makes a contemplative noise in the back of his throat — partially a grunt and partially a hum — as she gives her deduction that summer tends to cause her thoughts to wonder. she adds her belief that its why they feel compelled to travel as well. though it is not precisely why he travels at the current moment in his life, he cannot help but think that perhaps there is some truth to her words. there is a lackadaisical freedom to summer that does not exist in the harsher months of winter where food is scarce and the risk of freezing to death is a very real threat. food is plentiful and if one is growing overheated there are plenty of water sources to cool off in. these days, for him, travel does not hold the same allure that it once held. to a much younger, much more innocent kjalarr. he travels with several different purposes in his mind, each vying for his attention and demanding his time. some are more practical at the current moment than others. these days, he's travel weary. he's ready to find a place to rest for a bit. to finish regrouping and stake a claim.

his caribbean eye catches the movement as she settles down upon her haunches. it's been quite some time since kjalarr could be considered an overly social creature. it'd taken some time to get himself back into a good headspace after leaving potema and he knows he's still not the same. perhaps he never will be. the tip of his tail brushes the very edge of carving she left on his flesh left to the careless breeze and it jolts him back to the present conversation. partially blind eye, the iris frosted with pale ice and iridescent fog focuses on poet's writhing shadow though it is hard at times to find her shape among the shivering shadows of the grasses. "i am kjalarr." he offers in return as a platinum silver ear idly swivels to the side, alert for any potential nearing of a bison herd. it was a false alarm; the sound had been the noise of a grasshopper's wings as it flies past him and lands amidst the grasses.

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1/3 threads
you still wonder if you're
a ferocious beast or a saint
but you're neither because
you're infinitely more —


i'll be damned if i end up playing Job with god's loving hand on my throat
184 Posts
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Away
#7


The man is quiet company, which she does not mind. A stolen moment between two souls is sometimes all she needs; can be more valuable, in fact, than a conversation full of empty nothings. At any rate, he offers his name and she nods, repeating "Kjalarr," testing the foreign-sounding word in her mouth. It is rough and reminds her briefly of Sif, an association she quickly dismisses. For a moment she allows the silence to rest easily between them, eyes trailing the same grasshopper that's captured his attention. When she speaks again it is just to ask, "do you have a destination?" curious what his plans are in the way she often is, if he has any.
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#8
the question she poses to him is rather simple and requires, he knows, a simple answer. except, it isn't so easy to answer. nothing in kjalarr's world is ever simple. the list of complexities is near endless. yes or no would suffice here, but there is much that lingers in the vast grey expanse that lies between. does he have a destination? yes ...and no. his gaze flickers her as he debates with himself. "eventually." kjalarr's answer is horrible vague, leaving much to be desired in it's wake; but it's the best single word answer he can give in the stead of 'yes' or 'no'; and the best part was there was undeniable truth to it. eventually he will have a destination in mind but currently he avoids the familiar. he avoids home. it is best, he thinks, until he has a force or at the very least a plan.

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1/3 threads
you still wonder if you're
a ferocious beast or a saint
but you're neither because
you're infinitely more —


i'll be damned if i end up playing Job with god's loving hand on my throat
184 Posts
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Away
#9


Eventually. An oddly fitting answer, she thinks, for a man who seems bound up in vagueities, either wittingly or not. It is also an answer that suits her, for she carries the same tendencies towards mystery (unwittingly or not). "When is eventually," she muses, asking him, "or perhaps where?" For her the answer is, right now, a white-worn priestess on a mountain, but the implications in that are too tightly bound for her to unravel. At least not yet.
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she appears to accept the answer but also, to the northman appears to want to dig as she inquires when eventually was. "when i have a plan or those that would follow me." it gives more away than kjalarr'd originally intended to and while he has no qualms about being rude he decides that she doesn't deserve the lash of his biting tongue for simply being curious. evidently, he's in a rather charitable mood today. "my birthright," he does not wish to settle for less. stavanger bay was his by claim of birth ( in his mind anyhow ), it was where his father'd been laid to rest ...though the bones of ragnar no longer remain there. the ones that weren't ate were left scattered to the wilds. once upon a time, that knowledge sparked anger in him so fierce and hot. now, he sees it as irony. even in death his father leaves his mark by the scattering of his bones. unwittingly conquering where each piece of him ( half eaten or otherwise untouched ) lays abandoned. and maybe, kjalarr considers, the trick wasn't to reclaim where ragnar'd already conquered. maybe the trick was to branch out. to conquer something new. "or a new territory." he amends quietly, giving voice to a small strand of his inner thoughts. unlike when he was a hot-headed, stupidly reckless and impatient youth kjalarr has learned the value of the virtuous patience and that time and carefully composed strategy would be his best ally in his plight.

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1/3 threads
you still wonder if you're
a ferocious beast or a saint
but you're neither because
you're infinitely more —