Emberflame Ridge Attawkǒnts

Ayovi stands vigil upon the snow-covered rock of their make-shift camp. The heralding stars now hover in the northern sky and mitoge rules in the sun’s stead, looking down upon the plains with a cold, unfeeling eye. Confident they are alone, the huntress turns back to @Skorpa, her usual warmth broken by eyes that brook a dour gleam.
“De forårsager begge denne. Jægers udfordring bandchef så græd grimt spil,” she shares what she has gathered.

---

more and more ayovi shaped herself into a fecund warrior, a delightfully curved blade that now turned its bite upon the warring clans. skorpa grunted from his place in their furs. "det har jeg også sagt til dem, men de vil ikke lytte."

had skorpa a blade, he would have tested its sharpness with one calloused palm, thoughtful. "faust løj. han tiggede og løj."

---

Ears swivel and Ayovi nods in agreement, pulling her paw to her stomach as a small force pushes against her womb.
“I Ankgunquint, hjemsted for mine jægere, slår vi lejr sammen for stjerne. Vi jager og handler og gifter os sammen. Jeg vil ikke have det her med Darukaal. Og ikke Saatsine. Saatsine og Darukaal fører krig. Ånder er vrede. De bryder sig om at gøre døde mere end at gøre levende. Jeg er naiv. Vi ønsker, at taigaen skal være fredssted. Jeg tror i stedet... at vi skal lave bjerg fæstning.”
She speaks bluntly, the only way she knows how to in norse-tongue. But her eyes ask for Skorpa’s mind in this, having walked longer around the hunter’s spring camp.

---

skorpa drank of her words, more shapes to be drawn upon their red-ochre wall. in passion, ayovi gave more of her than he had known, or had bound together until this moment. he had always seen her pride; of course the people who had begat her would be such.

her hunters. her clan? or those who had followed her name?

his eyes did not miss the way mother's-touch wrapped to the slope of the belly he had only just loved.

"en fæstning har brug for handel, selv med fjender, der frustrerer. selv med dem, der er tåbelige."

he sat up. "lad taigaen tigge bjerget igen." the umber eyes shone. "lad tåberne blive knækket."

"jeg er med dig, ayovi af winsook. vi vil bygge høje mure for os og for vores børn," skorpa declared in a husky voice battled by passion. "og det er winsook, der bliver magten i nord. ikke darukaal. ikke saatsine."

---

Ayovi crosses to where Skorpa sits, raising a tender palm against his face, thinking in feats of his own passion is where she loves him most. Her own mind rousing in response.
“Ja, handel, hvorfor i nord? Saatsine give rensdyr, vi jager rensdyr. Darukaal give... eneste problem. Syd har brug for hvad Nord har: stort kød og sne pels. Nord har brug for hvad syd har: særlig klinge. Du er ranger, så vi når.”
She understands the wisdom of his words, and still Ayovi questions if she can stomach playing nice with factions she could not respect. Saatsine seemed to crumble into dissent and at their best Darukaal was a loose cannon.
“Vide mening Winsook? ‘To fly’, my love,” and she studies the fever of lambent eyes with her cooling blue.

---

skorpa wished to explain that this was for the sake of their camps standing so close, but he turned instead to churned leather in the press of her warm touch. turning his lips to brush its core, flicking his tongue there to tease; "vil du gå langt?"

he asked not to dissuade, but to understand. they would trade with others.

to fly;

to fly, and a lazy grin flew to life. "så vil vi flyve." they could build no settlehearth without work, and ayovi had proven time and again she would not sit idle while it was done.

---

"Ikke langt, ikke før unger er stærke. Du har lovet mig havet, mand," she reminds him, lips holding apart on the cusp of both a laugh and sigh. Ayovi settles for her own kiss, passing a covetous tongue up the coarse jaw, enfolding her lips into the flesh there. It thrills her to speak like this, in equal standing with the rogue. To make decisions together.
“Du er stille. Er min nordmand så behagelig?” She asks, gazing just north of his jaw where the row of teeth are blood-red in their staining.
“Du møder Saatsine. Hvad udtalelse?” Another sweeping caress, then Ayovi pulls her nose to look at him pointedly, thoughts running wildly back and forth over what he'd said only moments before.
"Is it what you desire, Skorpa? Magt? Power?"
To be the power in the North?

---

he did not know, and watched ayovi with a solemn expression which said as much. for a long moment it was only they at their camp, watching the foliage. "jeg vil have et hjem, der er sikkert," skorpa murmured, flicking a pebble down the stonework side of their temporary settlement. "din nordmand er glad."

to punctuate, he turned toward her, palm to curved belly, pulling ayovi close for his own ravening kiss, one to wake but one to say all his love. "jeg vil have et hjem, hvor man kan se ud over landet og vide, at man er i sikkerhed."

"jeg ville bløde for sådan et hjem. jeg ville dø for det, ayovi." his turn to touch, to trace her lips with his own, to settle against the warm curve of her throat. "rensdyrjægerne, de er ved at bryde sammen. jeg ser frygt blandt dem. frygtsomme krigere arbejder på impuls."

"winsook - vores flugt - kræver, at vi bliver stærke. det kræver, at vi søger magt for fredens skyld." battleworn paw to cup pristine-pale cheekbone, claw reverent where once, once, he had threatened. "du har ret." his exhale was one of humour. "jeg lovede dig havet."

skorpa kissed her soft.

"så først skaber vi en fæstning mod ambitiøse nordboere og omvandrende rensdyrklaner."

---

“Mit hjem er Skorpa,” she tells him, still flush to his kiss, pawtips resting gently against the hollowed cheek. But she too had come to love the mountain, it’s cloudy tower and white cascades. And now as he speaks she yearns for their place; the little cave on the rise painted in danish.
He goes on and his wife listens, eyes flittering beneath the gentle ministrations. “Impulsiv er farlig,” she agrees, canting her chin back in a sigh to allow access to her throat.
“Høvdingekonen Star Eater sendt undskyldning til dig. Jeg ønsker at blive. Hjælp hvis sårede, hvis stemme kan ikke stoppe krig. Hjælp hundehvalp.” It is not easy to remain impartial— and she hasn’t, though it is not her place to voice so aloud. There was no love lost between she and Darukaal but Saatsine’s havoc was nothing she longed to commit to. She sighs into her husband’s kiss.
“Så vil jeg hjem. Med dig. At lave en fæstning. And if I have to play nice to get it— I will. For you,” a touch, “and them.”

---

his heart was resplendent with a love so fierce that skorpa almost did not hear all of what ayovi said. he stopped himself from dreaming, hearing his wife speak of staying even in the face of the reindeer-hunters' fracture. "hun behøver ikke at undskylde. hendes mand har en ordre, hun ikke bryder sig om. han er en mand, der søger lydighed."

he did not like it. it would never be the place of a northern husband to tell his wife what she might do.

"du er mit hjem. hvad har du brug for? urter? pelse? måske kan lydløssne og jeg bevæge os frem og tilbage mellem sletterne og bjergene." skorpa liked even less the idea of ayovi being alone at all, let alone pregnant and near a place of conflicting teeth.

but her passion, it was peace. yes? it was helping. he wanted to feed such interests.

---

He is not an Ashēeran husband to keep her within the den. Neither, she thinks, is he a norse husband, who might ply her with thralls and jewels in exchange for affection. No, he was a husband of the mountain; of Winsook, who understood what his wife needed before she voiced it. In admiring silence she stares at him, preserving this time alone with only the howl of wind to disturb them— just one moment longer before her mind returns to the corporeal.
“Behage. Strip skjul lave indpakninger. Urter her i cache, men har brug for mos fra Northwood og tebær fra slugten at stoppe brand hud. Behage  pleje @Elowen Aeloria og baby. Bringe kamille: tør hvid blomst i Stjernberg den.” She shifts and with a claw in the snow draws a crude shape: a flower with a wide center and many petals wreathing it. Then her paw stills. She hesitates, lip curling in bitter thought.
“Og Skorpa… tale @Lorcan? Skal vide valg. If that father leaves his wife and newborn to go fight another man’s absurd war then I want never to see him on the mountain again.”

---

stripped hides. moss. teaberry. skorpa only shifted with discomfort when ayovi illustrated her plan to send him as a nursemaid to elowen. to see men die, to see them cut down and bleeding; to take their lives and witness the greenish suppuration of an old wound — these things did not concern him nearly so much.

but the warrior nodded, for it was what she wished. and he was not so inattentive as to believe his life would be without work of other kinds.

lorcan. now that would be a discussion easier to have.

"jeg tager af sted i morgen tidlig," he decided, not wanting to squander any time with his wife if he was to leave her for any amount of time.

---

She is quiet for some time. Then she tucks to his side, settling in their blanketed furs. Her cool paw slides over his, twining pawtips. The woman swallows, she cannot rid this raw feeling of gratitude from her throat.
Skorpa was more important to Ayovi than anything, and she was going to make sure he felt it every day.