the pack was moving, but astraeus had not been seen in some time.
fearing somehow that the boy had left to follow one of the wolves who had departed sagtannet, mahler opted that afternoon to course the open lands nearest the mountain, retracing his steps to and fro as he cast about for the boy's scent, a frown rigorous and tight upon his scarred features.
A dark blotch against the warm tones of the dying valley grass, the female traipsed slowly westward.
Wandering aimlessly beneath the shadow of the mountain peaks which towered before her, Anarteq came to pause upon noticing another dark figure skulking the lowlands. Ears alert, she rose her head high and presented her self, releasing a neutral bark to catch their attention. Silently, she waited for the stranger to acknowledge her, her fiery golden eyes studying him from a distance.
a herd of pronghorn fled the hunter as he walked the wide valley, searching through the tracks left by strangers for any sign of his son.
astraeus would remain so until the end of mahler's days, but it did not change the man's own ineptitude. it shaped any vision of the future he had thus allowed himself, but he pulled his mind sharply from it at the sight of another. her voice carried, goldcoin stare measuring the man.
mahler approached, piqued by their shared similarity in appearance, but did not yet speak, shifting the boundaries of them both in a friendly way as he watched the huntress for any sign of affability.
The male approached her, stopping short of her personal space. She felt his lilac stare wash over her, his demeanour friendly and not intimidating. In the presence of the tall, dark stranger, Anarteq offered him a neutral wave of her tail before he brows furrowed softly in concern.
"You seemed lost." The smoke-cloaked woman commented, before asking. "Are you?" Golden eyes flickered with interest as she waited to hear his answer, her salmon pink tongue sweeping calmly over her charcoal lips.
the silversmoke spoke. he answered, rote. "not lost. looking for somevone." because he did not yet know who she was, he did not give a description of the tall aloof boy, but so far their meeting had proven to be mutually agreeable.
"you do not seem lost," the gargoyle remarked. with still some space between them, the nature of her pelt was unknown. but he had caught no trace of wolves wreathing from her coat.
wylla had left him. he felt guilt prickle beneath his spine, as if speaking of nothing to this woman somehow justified the reasons for that departure. he found, suddenly, that he did not know how to refer to wylla inside his own mind, that their time together had been marked by strife, not small loving names. pain blooming as he stood warmly impassive, waiting for the stranger's answer.
Looking for someone. Anarteq's ears pricked up, suddenly very curious about who the stranger was searching for, and why. The female bit back her tongue, letting silence pass between them for another moment before the male spoke up again.
A sheepish grin pulled at one corner of her charcoal lips at his comment, her cheeks suddenly growing warm. Now too embarassed to correct him, for she was in fact lost, the tundra female decided to focus the conversation back on him. Dark ears pressed back against her head, an expression of the anxiety felt delving into the stranger's personal affairs. "Someone you are close to?" She asked, almost timidly, half expecting the man to grow confrontational in the next instant.
where had she gone? mahler felt his hardened frame straining in the open direction of the taiga realm he had never explored, or had not in some time. out there upon the wild slopes housed the place she had gone. the man tightened the rein upon his impulse, a sideways shift in balance the only hint of an inward struggle.
yes, he wanted to say. but why unveil himself at all? yet in the veiling he would deny astraeus, and he refused to do so. "yes," mahler answered, feeling himself grow helplessly suspicious of the stranger's motivation for asking. "my son." voice as it was, demeanour maintained. "ve vere traveling across the landscape. so i mean to go back and look for him in it." humilation, self-deprecating glint in the stare he pulled away from her, as if he might catch sight of a small smudge of beloved shadow upon the horizon, coming back to sagtannet and back to him.