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+--- Thread: Lost Creek Hollow There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana (/showthread.php?tid=65729)
There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 19, 2025
the snow had long since melted, but the chill lived on in her.
drífa moved like frost across stone—slow, silent, there one breath, gone the next. her coat carried the dusk with it, a bristle of dark and iron, mottled with the dull sheen of old scars and northern winters. medium-built, but dense through the shoulder and thigh, her steps were heavy only when she meant them to be.
she crouched low in the brush, body taut. her breath held.
the calf was alone.
not for long, but long enough.
its legs were too long for its body. still soft. still trusting. its ears twitched at every sound but never at the right ones.
drífa watched with stone-set eyes. said nothing. thought nothing.
just waited.
the wind shifted.
a good wind.
her claws flexed in the loam. her weight rolled forward. the stalk began.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 19, 2025
i hope you don't mind me! <3
though the lake was a far cry from the frothing waves of the sea, absent the tangy saltwater that had dominated the west of the fjord that had born the siren prince. but it is water deep enough to swim and that had to be enough. his head breaks the surface and he swims to the shallows and pulls himself onto the bank, the soft muddy earth giving way beneath his paws.
he gives a hefty shake of his coat so he didn't look quite so like a drowned rat, takes a long drink of the water before pushing forward. seeking nothing but to discover.
he comes across the stranger, her form morphing from the horizon, smoke and ash drawn with honeyed golds and dark amber accents. she's stunning, dracarys thinks, his frostbound gaze cutting sharply from the woman to the calf she was stalking.
he does not ask permission to join her on her hunt: not caring about the calf in reality, in stead given into the temptation of his own curiosity. but he would not block her from her quarry. if aiding her in taking it down was how he could wrap his teeth in the mystery she eludes then so be it.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 19, 2025
of course <3! ty for joining.
drífa's ear flicks, slow, like the twitch of a blade just before it bites. she doesn’t turn. doesn’t break her prowl. the calf still lingers ahead—legs too long, steps too loud, the weight of its ignorance thick as blood in the air.but she knows.
someone watches.
the presence behind her is not the wind nor the quiet murmur of prey. it is heavier. wetter. foreign. she tastes lakewater on it, something cold and brine-laced despite the sweet stink of spring’s rot all around. a swimmer. a stranger. and still—her paw does not pause.
this is her prize.
earned in silence. tracked with care. the blood of the fjords ran through her, not for mercy or sharing, but for claiming.
and yet—
she feels no threat.
her gaze sharpens. her spine tightens. she slides through the brush like shadow over snow, breath low and coiled in her chest. but when she moves, it is not to ward him off. not yet. her kill is near, and her body speaks what her mouth never would:
stay out of the way, or pull your weight.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 19, 2025
frostbound gaze goes to the calf then, long legged and noisy; broadcasting its location, unaware. untaught. easy ... though something in dracarys judges: it should be more aware. it should not have wandered from its mother, from its herd. it's poor instincts only aided the hunters stalking it.
easy targets were easily frightened, easily felled.
his gaze moves back to the woman, reading her body language and what it communicates to him: contribute or get out of the way.
a thrill runs down dracarys' spine as he watches the calf again, trying to map out it's movements, directions it could use to escape, how it might react. would it fight? or flee? he quickens his step to match her pace, sparing her a glimpse: looking for her silent orders.
it was her hunt, after all.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 20, 2025
the calf stumbled once on uneven earth, a soft misstep, and that was enough. drífa surged.
a flash of muscle beneath her thick coat, the coiled spring of northern blood turned kinetic—silent, lethal. she broke from the brush like a storm loosed from cloud, no sound but the thud of her paws and the startled bleat of a life too young to understand its ending.
the kill was clean.
her fangs sank deep into soft throat, a burst of hot blood against her tongue, and the calf crumpled beneath her weight, its legs twitching in the loam. she held firm until the last breath sighed out in surrender. then stillness.
she did not pant. did not gloat.
drífa rose slow, breath fogging the air as she stood over the still-warm body, chest rising and falling steady beneath the cold. blood speckled her muzzle, sharp against the pale tones of her throat.
then—her eyes cut to the male.
that frostbound stare, flanked in gold and dusk, pinned him in place. she said nothing, but the silence between them spoke. her jaw flexed once. her shoulders rolled back.
he had come. he had watched.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 20, 2025
silent orders do not come, so the siren prince hangs back for her kill is quick, clean — an opportunity afforded by the stumble of the calf, clumsy and uncoordinated. for a small moment, dracarys envies her the ease of this kill; there and gone before he can acknowledge it truly at all.
aderī asēnagon,offers the siren prince in a compliment when she looks to face him, deferring to his native tongue ... always eager to test if it was understood by the wolves here. his gaze rakes her in, her blood specked pale throat where it lingers.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 20, 2025
drífa did not answer his words—not with her mouth. she didn’t understand them, not truly, but she knew tone, and tone said he wasn’t foolish enough to try and steal.
she liked that.
the calf’s neck was still warm beneath her jaw when she tore the first piece free, blood steaming against the cold. it smeared across her muzzle, copper and heat, but her gaze stayed on him—calm, steady, testing.
then, without a sound, she stepped back.
just enough to drop the kill between them, bones still twitching, heart long stopped.
she didn’t speak his language, didn’t need to. the kill was hers—yes. but she did not mind sharing. he had followed, not interfered. watched, but never took.
in the north, that was enough.
drífa dipped her head again, teeth slipping into muscle, slow and unbothered. her body was relaxed, blood-slicked, coiled like snow pressed under weight—but her eyes stayed on him, cool and curious.
an invitation.
and a warning.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 20, 2025
dracarys' words go unanswered, though in truth they brokered no response... and without any evidence to back up, the siren prince assumes that she does not speak the high tongue. if there is disappointment, it is a small pinprick, lasting but a breadth of a moment. there and gone. to hear the stories, his bloodline, their culture had been encouraged to spread far and wide.
not far enough, it seemed.
that was his duty: to remedy that.
he studies her kill, placed betwixt them, reading her invitation and the warning slithering 'round it.
dracarys blinks, considering for a moment before declining the offer with a small, polite shake of his head, paws firmly rooted in place. his interest was not in the calf.
i am dracarys.he offers in the common tongue then, settling into a casual recline upon his haunches.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 20, 2025
her head tilts, just slightly, enough for the sharp arc of her gaze to catch the light. she does not answer his words right away—she does not rush for anyone. instead, she finishes her mouthful, the sinew pulling clean, tongue rasping once across blood-slick lips.
then she speaks. one word. her name.
drífa.
it is not offered like a gift. not laced with invitation. it simply is.
she watches him now, expression unreadable beneath the ice-toned mask of her face. her voice is rough with disuse, but not unkind. her ear twitches.
strange name,she says at last, eyes narrowing just a breath.
never heard.
it is not an insult. it is a truth.
drífa looks at him like one might regard an unfamiliar tool—perhaps useful, perhaps not. her body remains coiled over the kill, but she does not guard it from him now. his interest lies elsewhere. she knows this. she studies him as he settles.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 20, 2025
the melding of bloodlines and cultureslong ago had crafted something that was not northern and not draconian; but a mixture of both. old ways merged to become new, coming together in a strange coalesce until it is all that the wolves of the fjord knew; the separation dying out long ago. and dracarys stood, a product of that marriage, generations later.
her name lingers like something boneold and familiar in his mind, like something he should know but cannot place a finger upon. like the nails of an ancient, chained beast clawing at the cages of dracarys' mind where he has kept them hidden.
he is spared having to examine it further as she speaks of his own name, calling it strange and remarking that she has never heard it before. dracarys lets out a low hum in his throat.
strange to you, drífa,murmurs the siren prince, the grin ghosting at the edges of his lips flirting with the lines of being mischievous.
in truth, i am dracarys the fourth ...or fifth of my bloodline.he adds with a flippant gesture of his paw, as if it did not matter.
but it mattered.
there was power in names.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 20, 2025
her head tilted, the motion subtle but sharp, like a bird of prey catching movement on the horizon. his name—dracarys—still rolled in her mind like distant thunder, strange and weighted, gilded with lineage. fourth or fifth, he said, and she watched the flippant wave of his paw with the narrowed eyes of someone who had never known the luxury of dismissing blood.
a pause.
then, voice low, carved from snow-drift and ice-thaw, she spoke.
you are jarl, then?
not awe. not derision.
just the plain weight of fact, offered as one might measure the heft of a blade in their hand. her tone did not question his right—it questioned what he did with it. she had met jarls before. some were worthy of the name. others choked on it.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 21, 2025
sharing a name with dracarys the strong, the first of his name ... and the uncles and granfathers that had come after was no small thing. his family had a love of recycling names, what titles he bore behind his own name were solely his own. earned of his own merits ... or misdeeds. though kinkiller was massively unfair, given to him by the spidery whispers of his mother's midwives as a newborn babe simply because his littermates were stillborn.
jarl —
the word echoes familiar, her narrowed eyes studying him, he watches.
i am the fourthborn son. my elder brothers squabble over who will lead; not me. hence, why i am ...here.though he knows no name for these wilds; only that he is very far from the karstark fjords.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 21, 2025
fourthborn. the weight of that rolled off him in something like irony, something bitter and folded too deep for her to name. she did not pretend to understand the dance of his distant bloodline—but hierarchy? exile? the way power chewed its own kin?
that, she knew.
she nodded once, a small motion, firm and unsympathetic.
you become lowborn,she said simply, her voice thick with her own dialect, the syllables slow and broken in common,
like the rest.
a glance. not cruel. not mocking.
a shared truth between wolves far from home.
like her.
she turned then, teeth cutting again into the meat between them, saying nothing more. but she had not dismissed him. not yet.
he had fallen, yes—
but he had fallen here.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 21, 2025
at least out here out from beneath the far casting shadows of his elder brothers, dracarys can grow. can build. at least out here, he is not hindered. a blessing in disguise, perhaps, he considers with a flick of his ear — even if being called lowborn settles like a metallic coating upon his tongue that he does not like. it curdles and sours until he is grimacing.
no,he speaks with a fierce defiance then, the word a harsh whisper as it escapes his lips.
i am free. to make my own legacy, to forge my own bloodline.the power of knowing he could do whatever he wanted in that moment was almost overwhelming; manifesting itself with a sweep of his tail against the green grasses.
the gods have blessed me in a way they never blessed my siblings.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 21, 2025
her eyes followed the sweep of his tail, the rise of his breath, the sting in his words as lowborn turned to blessed. she did not smile. not yet.
then what legacy you wish to make?she asked, voice low, shaped by mountain wind and old snow. her common was rough but clear, the weight behind her question as firm as stone beneath ice.
not what he would take.
not what he had lost.
but what he would build.
she took a step forward, breath silver between them, not challenging—but not soft either.
free men still bleed. still die. so what you leave behind must matter.
a pause.
then, her eyes narrowed.
what does dracarys give to the earth, when he is gone?
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 21, 2025
she asks what legacy he desired to make, but dracarys had no answer. it was not why he'd set out from the fjords — not initially. sure, he'd sought to step out from the shadows of his brother and fathers, leaving his younger sisters to their fates of unhappy arranged marriages ( not without guilt ); but figuring out who he was and what he wanted when he stepped out of the burden of expectations was still progressing.
i do not know yet,the epithets he carries are heavy, and he could shed them here. or he could embrace them.
when put into that perspective, i do not want to rush figuring it out.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 21, 2025
drífa only shrugged, a small roll of her shoulders beneath the pale scruff of her coat, like snow slipping from a roof—inevitable, unbothered. she did not look at him when he spoke, only cast her gaze toward the distant ridge where the sun cracked against the peaks. his words were honest. uncertain. she respected that more than certainty barked just to be heard.
it will come,she said simply, voice low, shaped by wind and stone. not dismissive, just... true.
maybe it’s right. to run toward it. bullheaded.
her eyes flicked to him then, sharp and clear, though not unkind.
you are built well.
a pause.
then, quieter:
but a strong man can always fall.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Dracarys - April 21, 2025
dracarys' gaze is studious, contemplative as he stares past her, past her meal, past the trees and grasses and horizon. it fixes on something just past the horizon: not quite the past, present or future. where he imagines the great tree of the twelve sits; the branches coiling out into the aether. a quiet noise of agreement rumbles in dracarys' throat at her words.
it does not serve to fear our fate. all we can do is run to it.their fates were already written for them, he believed. the fate weavers have already decided it long ago.
which felt like a juxtaposition when compared to his own words minutes ago: that he wished to forge his own path, make his own legacy.
valar morghūlis, rumbles the siren prince in response.
all men must die.he offers the translation in the next breath, left ear giving a twitch as he pushes himself to his paws, stretching slightly.
smart men live a little longer than strong men but they cannot evade death forever.
a heavy pause is given.
death is all we are promised in life.
RE: There's delays on the planes out of Eastern Montana - Drífa - April 21, 2025
drífa licked the last of the marrow from her teeth, tongue slow, precise. her hunger was sated now—but not the ache in her chest, the one that pulsed quietly whenever she looked at him too long. when his voice rasped with fatalism, with old truths. all men must die. yes. she had always known that. she had lived beside it. kissed it in the snow.
she rose without sound, pacing over the flattened grass, and came to him—not with fanfare, but gravity. the blood on her muzzle still fresh. she lifted a paw to his face, firm but reverent, smearing a line of red along his temple, just above his eye. a mark. not of war. not of claim.
of witness.
then she leaned forward, breath warm, pressing beneath the thick fall of his nape with a low rumble in her throat. not quite a growl. not quite a purr. something older.
you are liked, dracarys the fourth,she murmured, the words thick with her accent, quiet but sure.
even if you die tomorrow.