Set around 20:00, clear skies, slight breeze.
For
@Atka <3
Moving along an endless path of wandering, the hellhound finds a new way of life — a new place to slink around and call home. But this place? This forest? No, this is not it. Perhaps he will never find it, but his intuition tells him he’ll know when he gets there and yet, here he is. He’s walking a path to insanity and Banesteppe says he will only get worse.
Embrace it, Alduin. It will make you strong — invincible. Undefeatable.
Killable only when Banesteppe deems him worthy to leave this earth.
So Alduin accepts it. He finally accepts it. Accepts Banesteppe and his manipulative words. The insanity that comes with it. All of it.
Tulok will understand someday. Someday, he might even accept the hellhounds own sanity the way Alduin accepted Banesteppe’s. He went down kicking and screaming though and look at where he still ended up.
At the end of a ghostly man’s leash — at his beck and call — meant to obey every order.
He will do as he says and maybe then, he will be unkillable — immortal.
A god.
The sky gave life in the form of rain, heat, wind. The sea gave life in the form of fish. The breathing world all around them gave life in many other ways.
When the beast had left the wilds just a pup, the purpose bestowed upon him was the gospel. To spread it, to heed it, to fill the souls and minds of those who would embrace the concept with open arms. And to crush those that would defile it beneath his heel.
Now he returned a man grown. The Mother had breathed the strength of a thousand souls into him, given him the skills he needed to survive. She may not have birthed him, but she was his life-giver all the same.
The boy that was now a man stepped with great caution through the land. He had come this way once before, a she-wolf of golden sun at his side. There was no shadow beside him as he walked. The canid returned alone.
Atka was home.
Alduin moves through the night, blending in perfectly with the dark backdrop of bark and shrubs. The brindle gives him the beautiful surprise of camouflage, but his steps are heavy and lumbering due to his heavy weight.
He has nothing in mind through his wanderings, until he comes across a certain scent. Different, but familiar. But he can’t put a paw on who it is exactly. Truly, it could be anyone. So his curiosity gets the better of him and he follows it. Follows until he spots a mostly white coat owned by a large wolf, but… what is that? A curled tail?
Bloody eyes squint softly in the dim lighting as he approaches slowly, not bothering to make his steps quiet and not intentionally trying to sneak up on the supposed stranger.
Until he finds out they’re not a stranger at all.
“Atka.” Alduin calls strongly. “You’ve come?” He asks easily, but with a touch on surprise coloring his usually drab tone.
The Mother's herald was neither a creature of the night nor a creature of the day. When he was hungry, he would eat, and when he was tired, he would sleep. All this while carrying his mistresses' words deep within his heart.
But even he could admit the moon was exceptionally beautiful tonight. Atka could feel her calling to him, beckoning. Nature was a beautiful thing, the death that came along with it equally so. Suddenly he felt the urge to kill in her name, though Atka was not one to obey his primal urges...most of the time.
Enveloped by the great orb in the sky as he was, the canid did not notice Alduin's approach. But even when he did, the slow turn of his head showed no fear. What did he have to fear but death? It happened to everyone eventually, except Atka had not fulfilled his life's purpose, so death was not an option.
"Brother." Was the only word uttered from him as he took in his elder womb-mates dark form, the rippling muscles, curled tail. Of course he knew exactly who Alduin was, his image burned into the man's memory. Looking at him now, the moonlight framed his head, forming a sort of halo. An omen maybe? Curious.
Atka turns to him, just as the hellhound remembered him. Except he is a boy no longer, no, he has grown. Just as large as he and Tulok — a deadly, deadly weapon. It almost makes Alduin smile, but only a slight upwards tilt of his lips would reveal itself as bloody eyes gleam in the sickly light of the moon cradling his head. A falsetto halo — Angel of hell perhaps. A demon no doubt. A reaper — most definitely.
“Perfect timing.” He purrs ominously. “A pack or the forsaken, brother. Teeth for our arsenal. Join me and let the brothers of blood be reunited.”
A pause sound between them then. “And I hope you’re not of sound mind, brother, because no one else is.” He hums with a huff of a humorless laugh.