Ankyra Sound watch me

the day is ripe with a chill that creeps thru his thick, course winterfur and steeps into the marrow of his bones; that he cannot chase away. the whip of the salty seabrine surely doesn't help but as earlier in the prior year titan spire had extended it's reaching claim with the victory over the bay that neighbored it; absorbing their numbers into a sister pack so as to not stretch their resources too thin. kharybdis, having been tasked by his imperatrix with keeping a keen and at times, commanding eye upon them to be sure that their whimsical and yet ferocious third of their furies trio did let her whims ruin what had been given to her ( albeit bloodied and begrudgingly ), freely travelled between the two and grew accustomed to the salty air: a mixture of algae and fish and salt that had initially been an assault of stench to his senses.

in a soft swell of nostalgia, he peers 'round the sound whose beach he makes a trek along — staying clear of the frothing waves — and thinks of home. or half of it, anyway. a forlorn glimpse at the overcast skies overhead, the grey clouds hanging dismal and bleak overhead, wondering if it planned to rain ( and hoping it did not ); kharybdis pushes inland in the search of shelter.

Just gonna steal this one :> tags for reference! 

Nyra truthfully didn't assume she'd be out this far, so far away from her home, from the Saints. 
It hadn't taken much too long to get out here. Just...almost a week or so, but she'd be back home soon, she was sure. 
@Cian was somewhere in the area, the to-be, future imperatrix ( ;3 ) mused, but finding new wolves to socialize with was always fun in her mind, especially the likes of the pretty brute she sees in the distance looking for shelter. 
Picking up to a trot, Nyra carried herself tall and with a firm sense of authority and purpose. A radiance she wanted with all her soul to be able to carry forever. But, now wasn't the time for forever. Or so she currently assumed. 

Upon getting to an audible space from him, she spoke. 
"Hello there! Quite the weather, isn't it?" The Harbinger greeted upon coming a bit closer, not quite taking Donovan's route with doing direct introductions. Not just yet anyway.

in the drab swell of overhanging bleak clouds, the woman draped in a pelage of ivory — though she is large and bear-like — stands out in stark contrast against the dulled creams of the sand and the murky, dark depths of the ocean as it everchurns and froths upon the sands. she bears an strict air of authority that brings with it no surprise to kharybdis, of whom believes all women are more worthy than he. he might've been warchief in titan spire but he always bowed his head to the women in charge; he was the red righthand of the imperatrix and her council of three always.

mahogany red gaze studies her and then averts as she both draws nearer and speaks when the distance between them is not so great and it is easier to hear over the lulling roar of the waves. a storm brewing out upon the sea, the furie thinks.

hello, kharybdis parrots, knowing he will have to get used to speaking the common tongue, judging by the fact that she continues on using it. though he has learned it from birth alongside his the language of his people it has been some time since he's exercised it ( let alone practiced it ) and the word feels strange and heavy upon his tongue as it spilt from betwixt his lips.

❝kataigída sti thálassa❞, he muses thoughtfully in the draconian tongue. sea storm. he offers the translation after a few seconds, assuming that she did not understand it. or, he considers, maybe it was just overcast and gross without a brewing sea storm off the coast — but judging from the froth of the sea and the hard crash of the waves he was willing to bet there was a storm brewing. are you...na...na-tive? he stumbles over the word unintentionally, diverting his eyes — out of respect for he had just asked a prying question! — and slightly out of embarrassment; for it appeared perhaps his common was more rusty than he'd brazenly assumed it was.

He really is a beautiful specimen to behold, and Nyra smiles softly as he parrots her greeting back. 
Sea storm? Ah. Yes, the weather lately seems to have been coming from this area, and it showed in her agreeing nod. 
Then he stumbled over his words slightly. The Harbinger cocked her head slightly as he finished asking his question to her. 
Would she consider it a personal question? Not at all despite her ferocity.
"To these Wilds, no. But I've lived much further inland here for almost a full year." Nyra replied. Her tone still held some status to it, but was dipped to be more friendly, less I'll eat you and more...not that. 
"My name is Nyra." She offered after a brief pause, though her face more or less betrayed the question she wasn't asking, which was: where are you from? 

the furie was always less favored in the eyes of the spire's matriarch when compared to his sisters ...but he was, at least, more favored than his older brothers that came before. his sisters had always been sure that they were seen as a trio of retribution. even so, he'd had to abide by the strict hierarchy all the same. womenfolk's orders were not to be disputed and generally, his rule of thumb was not to question; especially not to pry. information would be fed to him as he needed it — or not at all; given his history with the spire.

nevertheless, the ivory pelaged woman with dandelion yellow eyes answers his question, explaining that she wasn't born here but that she's lived inland for almost a year. kharybdis assumes that she found a place she liked.

she offers her name: nyra. simple and surely a name even he can manage to reproduce. kharybdis, he offers in a blunt grunt. my name. he adds, finding the addition of 'is' and the repetition of his name to be too tedious and currently, finding out that his common is much more rusty than he'd assumed: he finds that it was best to keep everything simple and to the point.

She was visibly pleased by his returned introduction, a smile widening a little on her lips. 
"Kharybdis." She tested the name on her tongue, "Where do you come from, Kharybdis?"
She wanted to offer him a place among the Saints, but a part of her murmured, not yet. And so she listened to it, instead biding her time with conversation, and turning a little to invite him to walk with her. If he chose to stay put, then she would carry the conversation where they stood, all the same.

kharybdis' ears cup forth as he listens to her testing his name, curious how it sounds when not uttered by someone who natively spoke draconian. the sounds are a bit different, he notes; but otherwise the direct syllables remain the same, khar-ub-dis. for a moment, the furie contemplates offer her one of the nicknames his sisters call him but refrains. they are still strangers, though perhaps acquaintence was more accurate in the herenow.

nicknames imply both a familiarity and a trust that has not yet been established, he reasons to himself.

...from? he parrots the word, taking some time to arrange and rearrange the structure of his actual response: i from..., from west. far, titan spire far... or any other variation of those things, understanding that there are smaller and simplier words missing; thus attributing to the small furrow of internal frusteration in his brow.

titan spire. he offers with the bluntedged simplicity that does not fairly portray the painstaking amount of considering he'd done prior. feeling confident that the pack name will be of no consequence nor ring any sort of familiarity with her he hopes it is enough to tell her what he really means: i am not from around here.

As he parroted her, she nodded once, catching on quite quickly as he said his prior pack's name, Titan Spire, that he wasn't from these parts of the world. That is to say, the Teekons and maybe immediate surrounding wilds?
"Titan Spire," Nyra parrots thoughtfully, "What's it like there? The chain of command and such?" 
Truthfully the Harbinger was torn between keeping conversation more minimal, and carrying it like she has so far. 
On one hand it might be easier for him to answer in the common tongue, but on the other, she wasn't sure if he appreciated the effort she was more or less trying to make so it wasn't entirely awkward. 
Regardless, she was interested in his answers.

the woman — nyra, kharybdis reminds himself — appears to show interest in his birthpack; or so this is how the furie chooses to interpret her inquiry for an elaboration upon it. for a long moment kharybdis is silent as he contemplates how to word it, how to take the draconian that burns at the tip of his tongue to change into common. in the end, he supposes it matters little. no matter how he managed to translate it, his broken common would never do the spire the right amount of justice.

like ...rocks. he offers; he tries again. not moving. unyielding. like sea. strong. con...conquer. whether or not she could make sense of his broken attempts to explain titan spire or not was up to her. ah..., he pauses, skimming the incomplete dictionary in his mind. women rule. always. this, unfortunately, was the best that kharybdis could do given his present level of common.

Listening intently, Nyra was able to pick apart what he meant, or, some of it at least. 
"Ah, a purely matriarchical clan? Interesting, very much so." The mammothian woman responded, thinking about her own future and what she might become, if not a leader. 

Ah, yes, now might be a good time. "If you're looking for a pack at any point in time, I'm the second in command of the Saints. We live far southwest of here, in an oasis all our own that's completely encircled by mountains, save for a narrow entrance somewhere toward the north that also shares a river. It's right behind a vast sweep of Cedars." She was trying to offer as much as she could without too, too many details, in case he would ever want to join the numbers she stood within.

mhm, kharybdis responds as she is able to puzzle together what he meant — and as that was the most important part that he was trying to communicate, the furie does not get discouraged by the communication barrier between them. in fact, he gives a slight wag of his tail as she mentions that she finds it 'interesting'. of course, it is all he's ever known and while he knows from the packs he's conquered for his sisters to rule and extend the ironjawed grasp of the titan spire that it's not how all packs operate ( even if he strongly disagreed with that notion ).

you ...a-are warchief? he stumbles over the word as he second guesses if it was right or not as it tumbles out of his mouth. typically 'second-in-command' reserved for males in the spire, while the imperatrix and her council of three reigned above him. was she, like him, a wardog? the furie left loose upon enemies?

he tries to focus on how she explains it, tries to draw it to his mind's eye but falters. you, ...ah got imperatrix? he asks, a soft furrow of his brow a tell-tale of his brief wave of frustration at himself and how unnatural those words sound in his voice, how heavy they feel on his tongue. woman lead you? is your alpha a woman also? for nyra had said she was the second-in-command, after all.

Nyra shrugged softly at his first question "I'm known as The Harbinger, in my pack. A warchieftess of sorts, if you want to put it that way." She smiled.

At his second question, Nyra shook her head "Our Grandmaster is male. He has been a capable leader as far as I've seen, though one day I would like to lead a pack of my own." She offered, wagging her tail a couple times as she spoke

i ...warchief. he tells her a bit flatly, missing, as he typically does, the auxiliary verbs meant to go inbetween. nevertheless, he assumes ( even if he is wrong ) that she would understand what he is trying to say: that women should lead and that 'second-in-command's were meant for men. he blanches when she admits that their grandmaster is male — he assumes that's their form of imperatrix but to kharybdis it sounds lofty and pompous — and that he was a capable leader.

he cannot bring himself to follow the lead of a male; the idea was wholly preposterous to him. men were good for war and creating daughters ...nothing else. too many years of spartan-like conditioning leaves no room for kharybdis to change his mind. no follow men. he tells her simply. even if he tried, no doubt he wouldn't last long within the ranks because he'd be insubordinate from the get-go and he doubts anyone would put up with that.

Amazingly enough, Nyra catches his meaning, though barely. At first she is a bit confused, but as he goes pale and explains he will only follow a female's lead, it clicks. 
"No hard feelings." She responds easily, "Perhaps one day we'll meet again, and I'll be an imperatrix." Her grin is a genuine one, full of ambition. The idea of leadership was quickly warming up to her.

khary exit! feel free to either archive as is or archive with your post. thank you for the thread!

would the situation have been different, would she have led or she was recruiting for her pack that he did not doubt she was ambitious enough for — it is written in the unspoken lines of her grin — he would've been swayed. he gives a firm, sage nod when she speaks and takes her words to be an indirect dismissal. ❝ta léme❞, he dips into draconian, finding the way the words slip from betwixt his lips to be as smooth as the finest whiskey.

with that, he skirts 'round her and continues on his way, returning to the task he'd temporarily abandoned of finding shelter.