Nova Peak ε

MR tag for ref! <3

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skorpa had insisted on carrying the caribou pelt and as much of the meat as he was able. he hated to leave behind the encampment that they had begun upon the glacier,  but he did not want the threat of faust hanging over @Ayovi.

ignorant, truly, to the changes which would soon be wrought in his mate, skorpa answered instinct: carrying what was heavy, breaking the higher snow so she might travel in easier paths, and eventually, stopping beside the den that quiet @Moon Runner had showed them, the place he had laid to heal.

skorpa did not exactly like the shelter for unexplainable reasons, but gestured with his muzzle. did she want it? or should they continue their search for the epicenter of their settlement?

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Their journey into the north was reckoned by the compaction of snowfall old and new. They’d made decent headway by stepping lightly on the thinner crusts until their weight broke into the drifts below. Skorpa had razed himself against the ice; a boulder cutting passage through dense snowfields while Ayovi followed, besotted with affection for the man. He’d rebuffed her attempts to help carry any of their stores, and so instead of contending she took the time to mark their path, saturating old snow with her scent and fastidiously pawing out depressions in the trunks of black spruces. Twice a place of belonging had been pilfered from under her paws, and now Ayovi intended to own this northern reach even if it meant turning tooth and nail upon her own wolfkind.
At last there rose the mount from a swath of rimed forest, where few slant rays illuminated soaring peaks while the highest emprise was clustered in lenticular veils. She wound her way through the switchbacks alongside the northman, movements betraying anticipation but with reflections of awe in the deep azure as it caught upon striking details. She stopped to take crisp laps from the creek which poured down the lower valley like the length of a gray mare’s tail.
Skorpa led them to the snowwoman’s cave where Ayovi’s stood crestfallen to find only scant traces of Nemage. She lingered in the forgotten denmouth, sorting through the aromas there— chapters of history written in worn scents upon the mountainside. The strange alloy of loss and hope that had thus pervaded her sense of self on the leave of red creek imbued now with a feeling of connection; a great sense of privilege to walk upon Nova.
Over her shoulder the bear’s look is one of question. Ayovi grins, astonished by the way her heart careens against her chest as she takes Skorpa within her sights.
“Leave it for now,” she nudges their things from his back, tugging the bearskin to free the scarlet shoulders, throat leaking a playful growl. There was much of this place— their home— to explore, and the huntress was heady with the power of the mountain. The kind of power she really needed.

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ayovi laid claim as they moved, capturing skorpa's attention the higher they moved. her determined aura refocused the man from his internal griping about the caribou hide's weight, or his sore belly, or even the land of plenty that they had left behind.

an emerald shrug of thick ancient pinewoods hugged the shoulder of the mountain as if it were a wrap, spilling out in an unbroken blanket in a southwestern direction. thinner trees climbed the southern stone face, now turned toward the travelers, growing scraggly and less pronounced as snow took over from tangled roots.

just east of he and ayovi was the scent of water and deciduous weald, and the starker reek of hog shit. wild pigs, a dangerous and gamy treat for strong hunters. tatters of cloud announced where winter might storm again. he threw off the skins and the meat with a grunt, having overlooked the nuance of his mate's interaction with the den.

they had not yet discovered the guarding tangle of thorns far from the foothills, nor the steep slopes of scree and shale on the other side of the mountain. skorpa turned in a protective angle, adjusting against the wind for ayovi, just a moment's time. her growl brought the light of curiosity to his eyes — and more.

they were vitally alive here, with alpine reaches and the sweet ice of cold water. skorpa knew the large beasts would travel the mountain on their various pilgrimages, and he looked forward to finding places to trap them.

for now he sighed loudly, shouted into the cold grey sky, and thumped his chest once. "regnvand!" skorpa exulted, grabbing her waist with the exuberant circle of one hard arm. much as he would have liked to toss her down among the pelts, he saw the sparkling want in her for exploration, and released her with a grin. where first? he would follow and forge. at last purpose had come for skorpa, and he clung to it.

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Upflung by his arms, she yelps! Laughing, correcting this resplendent display with teeth! No Ashēeran man would dare show such joy! She is timorous and yet breathless, driven to wildness by the man she cannot predict! A part of her seemed to crave flirting with disaster, making a game out of seeing just how close she can grapple with the bear and still escape.
She takes off in a tear, toward the immeasurable heights to convoy with the clouds, fearing to glance back at Skorpa lest it cost her the lead. The westward run is a dight through ancient borealis. Ayovi leaps onto the hull of a fallen tamarack, using it to cross a steep ravine, then over; winding out onto a promontory, where the heights are dizzying. She paces out along the white-step and gazes down into the air graven valleys and misted trees for an extravagant moment, then she is away again! Ascending; climbing! Up into cloudhead where the granitic spires stand alone.
She can climb higher; she doesn’t. Ayovi turns and flattens onto the ice; hiding away from Skorpa.

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next to her, his gait was lumbering, his stamina ugly. but it was these traits which skorpa used to keep sight of ayovi's darting form, moving higher and higher above him.

at last he lost her in the traceries of white powder, a queen resplendent in her stonewrought home. any other time he would be unthinking, would encourage her on. but they had not yet secured the mountain. bears slept high in icy reaches, large cats stalked the wooded recesses. more than wolves could be feared.

with a jolt of protective worry, skorpa threw himself into a higher speed and grunted as he came across ayovi's prints in the snow. but where ice gleamed, it was as if his rainwater had disappeared.

skorpa began to make a game of it, tracking her slowly across the frozen clutch; scratch of claw here, a place where tiny melt gave away the press of her paw.

the warrior drew close to the hiding place of ayovi but did not spot her, head down as he examined for any more to her trail.

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Naive to the predators which lodged in these high elevations, Ayovi remained at bay, eyes watchful. Father’s lambasting bleat on the wind for her ear; that she had lain with a Wide Fang and taken him as her mate. Scorning the lines of her family.
I care for him, her mind reasons.
He tried to attack you. He will do so again, comes Father.
Under the eave of a scenting nose she is soon to be discovered, though her fur melds with glossy white. She springs from the hidden bank to circle her northman, whisking her body along the firmness of his shoulders and flank before loping further inland. Here tall boulders create walls from the winded earth’s edge, and seen through them is a cradle in the stoneface.
“Skorpa,” she whispers, slowing her pace.

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skorpa caught at ayovi with his teeth as she swirled forth from the snow, growling softly, his ears tilted toward her voice. she was pleased here, happy; she proclaimed the element of claiming and he followed as rainwater's muscle.

crags of stone descended to expose a round maw there. snowy eaves gave way to the edge of the cave; unmarked snow had drifted against its entrance.

the warrior made a low sound as ayovi slowed, not ceasing his own pace to approach boldly the place she had found. his body fell to hunting gait; his eyes glinted, and spiked shoulders warned her to hold back, hold for now.

but the absence of prints in that snow said it was unused, and whatever animal spoor he did find was stale, bones cracked long ago by other jaws, mummified mouse scat against the inner walls.

skorpa pulled his shoulders from the den and smiled brightly at ayovi. "det er sikkert," he proclaimed, stepping back. "gå indenfor."

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Skorpa’s smile. An expression of warmth to tamper the ancestral voice. He steps aside and Ayovi approaches.
The cave opening looks mysterious. Welcoming, promising, forbidding. The sort of place that inspires puphood myths; carved from the work of water a hundred years before them. Her tail waves as she steps inside, but it freezes in mid-air and her breath catches, eyes wide.
It is only an ordinary cavern. Dark, cold, motionless. The silence is deafening. Here the walls once faceted and smooth are caked in a predator’s meals from a decade earlier. The bed is overgrown with gravel and earth and old remains. It’s still and musky and damp.
But in eyes brimful of dreaming, there is a large redcoat at the hearth dividing kootsin meat. Strong-minded girls and boys plod in through the mouth with learned profundities and too-big paws. Friendly faces behind them; pushing inside from blizzards. All this unfogged by the mere affect of pure sensation…
And him— the northman. Too different from Ashēer in how he looks. How he laughs, how he listens. How he adores.
“Skorpa,” Her eyes hold on his. Into the earth she presses her paw. Two symbols delineated; man and wife. Above she etches his shape— the long crescent above their heads.
“Is it home?”

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his eyes were soft, watching ayovi draw all details of this space into her eyes. he did not know it, but his own mind reached toward thoughts of a settled homestead; she round with children and he stamping snow from his shoulders at the doorway, bringing freshkill and flowers for the one with the evening in her eyes.

he had tasted battle and blood. he had even showed one side of it to ayovi, in a time that felt far away. and he knew should danger threaten their mountain, blade would be bared in an instant.

but they had not argued! he supposed it was because they had been otherwise occupied.

her paws were deft at the floor. he looked at the markings, then at her. there would be other caverns, feathered with pine and dusted in snow. but here he had seen her eyes light with potential, and here he thought he might be able to immortalize it.

there was more exploration to be done; he needed to search for water sources nearby, so she would not need to travel far. skorpa had not explored the trails above this den; he had not hunted its forests; he had not done any necessary planning, and his throat caught to say ja.

but he wanted that expression painted always to her face.

skorpa, brutish man who worked only in the tangible, now moved in faith, tracing the symbol which ayovi had etched over the icons of them. "hjem."

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“Hjem,” rolls the unversed tongue. She thinks she will weep and wants to press Skorpa with joyful words, but language stands between them. Instead Ayovi nuzzles the bottom of his jaw, arms curving over his shoulders like wings while her eyes fill with all the work that must be done to make the stone haven a suitable den.
But she likes the respite of the domed walls, the cavern mouth that allows for slivers of gentle light through relentless snowfall and contemplates their venturous undertaking.
The huntress drops an arm to trail a claw in the earthen bedrock. She etches a primitive ridge-shape— their peak— and pierces the dirt thrice to indicate light from stars.
“Nova mountain,” Ayovi names, looking into the man’s dark mask.  “How do you say it in north-tongue?”

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a rumble pressed against her throat, his tongue brazen to lave the side of her face. she was happy and he wanted to bring her voice to stirring pink life here in the hjem she had chosen. to hear his tongue in her voice pleased skorpa immensely, and for a dazzled moment he only stared with great fascination at her face.

ayovi began to draw again, and, tucking her close to his hip, the northman watched. they beneath a mountain, and starlight shining down. her voice questioned. she wished to know more. "nova moun-tain," skorpa tried, and then; "stjernebjerg." there were other ways to say it, but most apt for the two sounds she had given were these. "stjerne," and he touched the stars. "bjerg," for his brush of claws to the stylized peak.

remembering, a smile crossed the filthy crags of his delighted face. "ayovi bigsky. skorpa bigsky." it was the first word she had used to describe such a place.

how did she soften him? he was a man of the gods; the gods had thrown him from home and placed him beneath the testing teeth of another. had that been the work too of Odin? and see; skorpa had followed ayovi since then, protective and with no less want. yet he had not been entitled to her choosing, and she had given it.

remembering; recalling; his flushing skin raced hot in recollection, and he pressed a kiss very softly to the rounded place of one slim shoulder, but made himself pull away in the next. "jeg vil indsamle vores skind og kød," the man decided, jerking a gesture toward the path up which he and she had come. his smile promised a fast return, for he wanted that bearpelt beneath ayovi with a quickness.

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She would not release the norseman without passing her own mouth into his neck, wherein she murmurs, “Skorpa Stjernebjerg. Ayovi Stjernebjerg,”  and smothers a grin. She comes to burn against his hip and with coarsened fur underpaw. The languages they do know; how to hunt, how to pleasure one another. Skorpa too has begun their tryst with his eyes, watering Ayovi in anticipation to fit him. When he turns to leave she watches as the white day outside bathes him, pouring softly down to illuminate bloodred ridges.
Then he is gone, and the melody awakened by the northman strums, compounding waves of ocean that melt Ayovi's knees. She slants against the wall, saturated with desire for her husband to return; the paw that wishes to feel him reaching instead for herself with quickening breaths.
Flashes; flashes of him.

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ayovi stjernebjerg.

it lingered in his mind as he charged the slopes with powerful build, heading downward to the first den, the one found by the silent moon. gathering bearskin to shoulders, he wrapped the frozen meat in its caribou hide and bore everything back.

he did not count the minutes until he was exhaling icewind and inhaling ayovi; the northman brought blood and flesh and himself inside, flinging caribou against the wall, capturing bear from his nape and tossing it to the floor.

then his arms were around her waist against, his mouth vying against her own; his own palm moved to match her own.

a breathless growl then, an almost-playful twist of his shoulders as he let ayovi descend into the bearskin and looked down upon her glowing form there amid the dark hairs, eyes tracing her in da vinci admiring. skorpa had seen bloodstained grass, the crushed limbs of dying men; he had heard their screams. he had been the cause of many.

but now his touch shook.

outside did storms rise again over the place called nova, and at the entrance to their lair, snow began to flurry.

skorpa paid it no mind, waking each fibre of ayovi to her own pleasure before he sought his own; wakening with the single-minded intent of a priest stood in a graveyard.

nova mountain.

stjerneberg.

skorpa mean to see that her voice would flower spring up to its very summit.

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He gathered her unto himself, threshing to make her open, kneading until she was pliant and worked to deep pink. Skorpa loomed, and when her gaze did not roam his tautness she married their eyes, captivated by the heady look in his dual flames. Then came her own sacred fire; the most exquisite pain before the rush that squirmed her hips. She clawed ferally at the bearskin, sensual voice giving wild life to their den, thighs tensing. At once she layed panting, flushed, still and slick. She untucked her legs and sought equal worship upon Skorpa’s massive paw while spasms rippled through her. She admired him, and them together; enjoying the contrast of her ivory palm over his red.
“How do northern women please their men?” Ayovi asks huskily, a fierce sweep to her hips until she had him splayed to her ministrations, much the same way he had done.
They are together more often than not, and still he is new to her. She sinks her head along the span of his chest, kissing, lathing, aligning their mouths. Downward in narrowing circles she approaches and mouths, tracing and retracing while her own body implores for more of him.

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no matter how many times he had witnessed that lille død sweep in rippling pleasure through ayovi, skorpa never tired of it. each time it was different; each time demanded some new challenge to himself.

her turn now to stand above him, and the warrior's eyes danced with red fire, all of him open to her gaze. he enjoyed that his hunger for her was mirrored in the tight nipping of her teeth, the way she parted his jaws for her breath.

leaning back upon the bearskin, he heard her question. northern he knew; women he knew. did she ask after them now? his laugh beamed above them, hard paw cupping her chin with utmost care.

he flexed his own body beneath her wanting stare, flinging a brow high in suggestion. once or twice he supposed he had been surprised by the execution of an act unexpected and deeply pleasant. but as skorpa looked into the face of his own wife, he felt that even had he the words, he would not have known how to ask!

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Ayovi is mad to have— to feel, to scent. She tastes Skorpa's salt. He ripens beneath her touch, pressing the tautness of himself into her. She swills him under the reign of Ashēeran judgement, whorling navel with eager paws and rolling her tongue in a corkscrew as if speaking northern.
When the huntress can bear it no longer she lifts onto Skorpa with a rhythmic lunge, steady and slow in adjustment. Quickly his cadence is found and she grinds them, spurting whimpers into the domed blue granite above.
Ayovi desires to be fettered to him the remainder of the day and moans as much in numic.

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wildwoman dragged him to thinning edge and dangled him by gasping throat. any memories he might have had of others blurred now, dissolving as his thunderous groans stretched through the cavern.

readied, thus unmade, skorpa was hardly ready for her dominance, hopelessly caught off-guard by how her body had learned his dances.

ayovi crooned in her own words, white-coursed, silhouetted by the snow which fell in driving gusts into growing drifts just outside their door. winter cried onward but inside the cavestead was only he and her.

whiteclad, a pearled shimmer from neck to belly, the semi-shadow which veiled their joining. her limbs atremble, her pleasured face washed in watercolor sunlight.

treasures made of each passing moment, and he found himself with voice which struck in anvil weight against the arched ceiling of their home.

her answer was the clutch of claws to straining hips, skorpa devoted to wringing them both to dregs.

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