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+--- Thread: Neverwinter Forest sarsen moon (/showthread.php?tid=65487)
sarsen moon - Jamukha - April 04, 2025
Jamukha raised his paw into the air. When he brought it down, the next stretch of journey was underway. An easy lope through the scattered springs, then out beyond the flatland, towards the tree-dusted hills of green.
He had forged this path up from the desert through mile upon mile of hard rock— the lonely province of goats and bedouin hunters. A year and a half saw the khan’s man campaign along the silk road, no longer conscripted to Alukhai’s leader, but loyalty is a hard thing to kill. What’s more, Jamukha had seen enough of the world to anticipate immense political variation, and for not but his own intrigue rides it still.
In exchange for koumiss, the horseman secures a bedouin’s goat and steers the animal to a shield in the wood where trees braid up in a walled fortress. Caught between pack-scent and rider, the ewe brays and Jamukha along with him; a winding, seeking song for the inhabitants of the wood.
RE: sarsen moon - Y'var'la - April 06, 2025
the goat’s bleating swept through the glade like a cracked bell—off-tune and oddly plaintive, just shy of pitiful. birds startled upward in wheeling dismay, a hare bounding off with a snap of twigs, darting past a silver and black pelted woman between her legs and scampering back into the woods behind her. y'var'la is the one to meet the cries, the last to leave the forest while forneskja made for the quarry, making her final rounds.
"maður sem kemur með mat,"
the voice came not as a greeting, tone flat as the stone it echoed from, and drier still. an expectation, when there is a man coming to her pack's doorstep. she stepped forward without ceremony, descending from a rise in the land like a shadow peeled from the hillside. languid but not lazy, a slow coiling grace.
y’var’la was all angles and sharp impressions: she hoped this red man would make a good one. a sliver of slate-gray fur across the bridge of her nose is the first to reach the light, golden rays falling upon her face. the wind rolled through behind her, threading through the canopy, and she closed her eyes just a moment to feel it pass—then looked back, lip curling faintly.
she paused a few paces off, giving the goat a glance, then the wolf. assessing. her tail flicked once. her gaze turned back to the braying beast, curious. "—lifandi líka, hversu góður," a pause. "what do you seek?"
RE: sarsen moon - Jamukha - April 06, 2025
Twice he snaps with repressive teeth at the air near goat hocks, readying his alms for their new master. When he turns back he sees the girl, still in her youth, silver fur bright in a slip of light over noble sleekness. A wanting muscle stirs a step, searching briefly for evidence of her squadron in the trees. But it is only she, a dark minaret silhouetted against the light a single warm beam.
“Hej,” the mongol greets in heavily accented traveler’s-tongue. “I wish for an audience with your leader. I bring a message of rapport from Qaidu, Khan of the High Steppe.” His eyes glint. The goat protests.
“And dinner.”
RE: sarsen moon - Y'var'la - April 06, 2025
y’var’la watched—head tilted faintly, as if appraising a relic. her expression held no awe for titles, no reverence for the formal trappings of men and their endless hunger for meaning. her eyes slid from the wriggling goat to the man, and back again. then she spoke.
"he’s not here." she does not elaborate, testing how would react to the words. eyeing for additional motive, if any. “solharr left days ago. we are moving to the quarry,” she angles her head, gestures west, but her eyes do not leave him.
she inspects him with appetite and scrutiny alike. forneskja could have use for him, if he was convinced to stay. perhaps. "i’m only lingering, making sure everyone is gone before i go." the wind combed through her again.
there was a beat of stillness, then a sharp click of her tongue. she had not heard of this qaidu, but she would not turn this stranger away so soon. "i can get you your audience," a pause, her brow quirking just so. “we eat first. i can take you after.”
RE: sarsen moon - Jamukha - April 07, 2025
“чи өлсгөлөн? The woman is hungry?”
Jamukha had intended his goat as a gift to the forest khan, this Solharr, as she named. But the horselord would not ride out with a woman on a wanting belly. With no elaborate debate he moves swiftly for the requisitioned animal, grabbing it by the neck before it can make a final bid for the trees. He throws it bucking onto its spine, pinning it down with heavy back paws and tears its belly open with his teeth. A snout thrusts into the animals’ twitching guts, all the way up to a darkened crown, teeth squeezing off the aorta to stop the animal’s heart. In a few moments the goat’s head has flopped to the side, dying with barely a drop of blood spilled.
He gestures wordlessly for the kill, an offering not for the quarry, but to the woman who would lead him there. He tongues at the gore on his maw.
“Jamukha. My name.”
RE: sarsen moon - Y'var'la - April 13, 2025
y’var’la didn’t move when he lunged—didn’t startle, didn’t even blink. she merely watched, expression hollow and still as standing water while the goat shrieked and was felled by the mongol’s teeth. it smelled at once of copper, sharp metallic on her tongue and smeared across his maw. he stood over it like a priest at sacrifice.
he was pretty in all shades of red, it seemed. her lip curled slightly, not in distaste, but in something keener, appraising. not a flinch to the violence—she’d seen worse by candlelight, heard worse in darker chambers. her gaze slid to his face as he raised it, red-wreathed, the way a king might wear laurels.
she dipped her head in respect as she walked close, curled loosely at his side. her tongue swept once along the edge of her teeth, then she lowered herself, crouching beside the kill, her shoulders folding inward like a hawk at roost. her nose brushed once, then she chose cleanly, tearing with precision—no need for more mess. she was methodical about her cuts, near ceremonial, but her eyes never left him.
“jamukha,” she echoed around a mouthful. the name settled like a stone on her tongue. “i am y'var'la.” she swallowed. licked her lips.
“if you lie about your message, he’ll know. solharr doesn’t keep fools. nor do i.” her voice, though even, was edged—a velvet wrapped warning. her gaze flicked, feline, inviting in the most dangerous sense. “what does your qaidu want of us?”
RE: sarsen moon - Jamukha - April 18, 2025
He settles into a languid lay beside her, the goat between them steaming faintly in the stroke of late light as she feeds. Travellers on the road drank more than they ate, and having fed the day prior Jamukha had no hunger for goat. His gaze falls over the silverwraith instead, slow as dusk. It was one of the great pleasures of his work, meeting all sort of appealing women. Y’var’la’s no different. He enjoys the way her slim body tucks; her tongue against the edge of her teeth.
“Sounds like I’ll need to be on my best behavior,” the horselord gives her a wry grin. Her words offer him insight into the mind of the quarry-dwellers; that they are a careful people, or otherwise have reasons to be wary. “The Khan is opening up trade routes into the North. Perhaps with your clan.”