Whitefish River and the ships are left to rust

mastery thread—tracking

the small details. 

the buck, antlers cloaked in velvet. he tears at the undergrowth, movements small and efficient, the crunch and tear of foliage evident. a bird wings overhead, and he continues, unbothered. a branch snaps, distantly, and his sleek head rises to hang at half-mast, stilling, before the sense of danger passes and he continues his forage. 

she's followed him here from the stream, a shadow. she's rust - once, or twice, the deer seems to be aware that its solitude is not what it seems. but she's settled into her role as shadow, and he into being watched, and so they exist in quiet togetherness in the glade.

snatches

She’d been discomfit with the lack of — the impending arrival of the harvest did little to coax any good in her countenance at the foreseeable cold. All the herbalist could do was bite her marked lip, regardless of how much she longed for the chill once more, and so she had left the copses by the Whitefish’s many-forked tongues and made to return.

However — the grey loomer. The likewise pained. She’d come to the riverlands, she’s heard, and the silver hadn’t spoken a word since their initial meeting.

With a muted curse that was more hiss than anything — at all the dreary this one female made bearable — the pale herald rerouted the path which she deemed threadable. Wound a new one; a more silent one, for as Aurëwen eventually arrived to the shrouded huntress, she pressed herself low and into shadow. But she was small, quite small, and only offered a flicker of her gaze towards the once-wandering in greeting.

As once upon a time in Diaspora, perhaps Dawn might see the advantage of her diminutive figure ... whenever and if they would strike.

her gaze remained on the buck as the ivory woman slid near, pressing herself low into the shadows. "aurëwen." she breathed, ears tilted towards the woman. but she was not the only being to join the group in the glade; a gentle rustling of undergrowth, and a doe stepped towards the stag, who accepted it with a brief glance. 

"are you a hunter?" she wondered softly, words little more than a breeze as she breathed them through maw only slightly agape. she did not wish to drudge back the heavy things, the words they'd exchanged on the mountain, those lost. the small details. the deer before them. the hunt that would, one day, come.

“Moreso an ankle-biter, truthfully,”  the silver mused back, mind reshifting moons-ago memories to the only communal hunt she’s ever taken part in: that of the Diasporan bull. With the words came a wry curl, thumbing at the corner of her shorn lips; and it felt unusual, smiling. To have such a response elicited, one that wasn’t a thin and farcical mockery that didn’t reach her melancholy eyes, it was... “Have you been a hunter, for long?”

The mere exhange before them of acceptance without further complaint was so effortless, so easy, that the resentful lurch of uneasiness nearly went unsnared within her innards.

Instead, Aurëwen took in the flex of musculature beneath both hind and buck, momentarily removing herself of the predatory in favor of entering into a phase of pensive appreciation.  “I fear my specialty was once rabbits ... perhaps, I will try my paw with rodents.”

she accepts Aure's words with silence. yes, she is disadvantaged when bringing down the kind of prey the huntress prefers, but rodents, birds and hares would suit her well - she's small and quick and nimble, a lot of things that Dawn is not. 

"since I was a child." she replies, and shifts. this movement is not entirely missed by the deer, though they continue grazing - a flick of ears in their direction, perhaps made aware by their soft voices. she does not mind; the hunt is not her goal here, not yet. 

"and birds? you would be well suited. quick and nimble, much like them." unless she's working in a pair, or utilizing one of two well-honed tactics, birds seem to evade her much more easily than most prey. her gaze shifts to the woman, comfortable with the ease of their conversation.

Half-sight takes in the halt and quiver of the cervine duo before them, stilling just as they, and relaxing only when their rumination of the late summer growth resumes. Then, her mind wanders back to Dawn's tellings,  "It is becoming known to me, now, that if one begins at an early age, your craft becomes that much more instilled. It's only what I suppose, anyway."  Especially the more ... demanding arts. When the physical had not been her apparent forte, the at-the-time heiress had been turned to healing and the study of greenery. Aure hadn't favored that practice—not at first. "As for deer, I've only been able to overwhelm a few lame fawn, and one prong lamb; I try to strike from above, at ze very least."

So far, the force of which she befell her quarry at the neck to stun had been working. If only she had been born with more power in her jaw ...

"Birds?" she hummed, and at once a bitterness sat smack on her tongue and in her recollections; the scars writhed. "I asked to be versed in snaring them, once, but ze mentor was ... how do you say?" A heartbeat, then a scoff:  "A bastard."  The cream kru, he with a miserable, imperious pointedness had been one of the few that the silver smarted towards, and there would never be a love lost there.  "Perhaps someday, should I find one more suitable and without impasse."

the deer are moving on, slowly but surely—the doe leads the way, picking her way carefully through the glade and in betwixt the trees, the male following only after she's been swallowed up by the trees. she listens carefully as the woman speaks, though her gaze is on the deer, watching their movements until they vanish through the trees. 

when the rump of the male is obscured by a pine, she turns to the woman. "I could mentor you. birds, rodents - I have experience in most." her brow raises a fraction, the only indication of her mirth, and she adds, "I have been called many things, but never a bastard." her flowing speech is different than what she's used to, in truth, most of the woman seems to be the opposite of herself. but she's slightly fond of the woman, and makes the offer with ease.

Even prey had a mutual hunt — the leader and the led. Shaded half-sight followed the duet, and though Dawn spoke and this offered some manner of tutelage to the silver, her ears only casted back towards the grey warden. It seemed she could become either too focused upon following her eye’s intent as far as it would roam, or that words merely went through one ear and moseyed out the other. And then, as was usual and contradictory, it could be both and all.

It was when Aurëwen turned, tentative towards the argent, that she gave pause with scarred lips lune-ing into an absent  O  — an apologetic flurry of lashes, a faint flush moreso to the cheeks, and she finally replied,  “I would be honored, truly. I cannot remember a time where I was a student, but, I will do what I must learn all I may.”

And then, hesitant smile fading a tad from scarred features, her glimmering eye went back to the place where the pair had gone from them. Uncertain, to stalk, or no—

the woman agrees, and she glances once more to the place where the pair disappeared before looking back to Aurewen, allowing them to take their leave without following. "if ever you'd like a lesson, just find me." she has no other duties now, she thinks bitterly, and perhaps, in way, the chance to mentor another in the way she'd thought she would mentor her children is a blessing. without purpose to pour her soul into as she had her children, there is little to hold her to this earth anymore, or so it seems. 

she rises now; no sense in staying hidden anymore. they speak idly a few moments longer until the sterling woman makes her goodbyes, the pair going their separate ways a short time later.