Frostfire Ridge Echo

AW but looking for @Astier

the ridge was quiet, wind-whistled and silvered with late frost. faust moved through it like shadow and stone, broad form cleaving the mist as he stalked toward the next rise. the morning was sharp—cold against the scarred cut of his face, breath turning to smoke with every exhale.
he was hunting.
but not for deer, nor caribou. not this time.
no fresh scent had crossed the snowdrifts. not since the storm. faust had searched the glacier first, then the basin, now the ridgelines where the winds pulled clean and high. where a wanderer might go to vanish.
each step was measured. he paused often, nose to the wind, scanning for a flash of pale fur or the burnt scent of blood in snow. the kind of man who did not panic—only grew colder, quieter, more determined. the wind lifted the dark ruff at his shoulders, and still he pressed on, eyes narrowed.

:eyes:

The air was thinner here. High above the treeline, where the wind carved through stone like a blade, the wraith stood in stillness, half-wreathed in mist, half-born of it. He had not strayed by accident. This ridge, this silence, it was chosen. A place where only the wind dared speak; but he was not hiding. 
Pale gaze narrowed as a shape moved below, cutting through the ghost light with the weight of purpose. He recognized the stride long before he caught the scent. Few men moved like that, fewer still carried that kind of silence with them.
Faust.
Astier watched him ascend, a quiet calculation in his gaze, as a chess master surveying an advancing piece. He did not call out. There was no need. The air would carry his presence; it always did. Instead, he stepped forward, away from the jagged outcrop where he'd been watching the world fold beneath him. His descent was quiet, fluid; he emerged like an apparition through the frost, pale as moonlight, eyes locked on the Kaan with the steady weight of memory and consequence.
„You’ve come far, Kaan,” Astier spoke at last, voice low, edged with frost but never cruel. A flick of wind passed between them. „Is it blood you seek, or something colder?”
His tone was calm, but there was something in his posture; a question unspoken. An answer he already suspected.

the wind funneled down from the ridgeline, sharp and clean—cutting through stone, snow, and silence alike.
faust moved with purpose, not by chance. he had been tracking the scent for miles, and now, at last, it led him here—to the high reaches where the trees fell away and the sky pressed low against the world. the path was narrow, carved by hooves and time, and faust followed it without hesitation.
he found him near the crest, where the air turned thin and still. astier, carved from moonlight and memory, pale against the dark stone. not a ghost, not entirely. there was blood in him. and other things.
faust’s nostrils flared once.
a pause. the edge of his mouth curled with a weightless smirk, not mocking, but knowing.
busy? he asked, voice low and amused—because the scent was unmistakable now. not just snow and sweat and old ghosts.
a woman.
he stepped closer, head cocked slightly, gaze steady. was looking for you. and now that he had, the glacier kaan meant not to let the conversation slip into mist.

The wind scythed along the ridge, hollow and sharp. It sang through the gaps in the stone like a voice that had forgotten how to warm. Astier stood near the crest, half-shadowed by the overhang of weathered rock. Wandering was not his nature, but when the weather began to soften, he found himself drawn to the highest reaches of the range, where the air thinned and solitude pressed close.
When Faust’s voice reached him, a quiet curl of amusement woven into the cold, and the wraith allowed the stillness to hold for a moment longer. Then, slowly, he turned his head, pale eyes casting a glance over his shoulder. „Busy,” he echoed softly, like the word itself was foreign, curious, ill-fitting. „No. Not quite.” A breath escaped him, caught in the cold, and drifted upward like prayer-smoke.
There had been warmth; a flame long put out, but whose warmth had lingered on the walls of the cavern, and it clung to his thoughts like frost in the fur. A brush of voice, a flash of gaze, a shadow presence that had not yet dissolved into the dark. His gaze, as ever, gave nothing away; but something rested behind it, half-formed and withheld.
Instead, he turned his head slightly toward Faust, eyes narrow and pale as sea-glass. He stepped aside, a quiet gesture, not invitation, not refusal, but space made for one who had earned it.
„You’ve come all this way,” he murmured, the edge of his voice touched by frost, „So I imagine you want something more than the view.” His gaze met the Kaan then; cool, steady, without hostility, but also without surrender, „Speak it.”

you've proven yourself, faust said at last, his voice flat but not unkind. you keep to the ridges. you watch. you don’t waste words.
a pause. his gaze drifted back to astier, studying him—not for blood, not for loyalty, but for something quieter. substance.
i need more wolves like that.
there was no flattery in his tone. just fact.
if you want to rise, i’ll clear the way.
a beat. then, with a slight tilt of his head—
but you’ll have to step forward.
he didn’t demand it. didn’t order it. the choice, as ever, was left open. faust was a king who offered doors. what others did with them was not his burden.

The wind carved around him, but he did not move with it. There was no pride in the flick of his gaze, only thought; deep and deliberate. The wraith had heard many offers before, dressed in silk or sharpened like blades. But this one was neither, it was bone: quiet, bare, honest. He considered Faust not as a ruler, but as a man who understood what it meant to climb without being pulled.
A breath, not a sigh. „…I do not rise for the sake of standing taller,” he said at last, voice low as snow beneath boot, „But I will not remain where I’ve outgrown the ground.”
A pause, the faintest lift of his chin. At last, a flicker of something passed across his face; faint, but unmistakable: pride. Not arrogance, not vanity, the quiet pride of one who had built himself in frost and silence and learned the worth of his own shadow.
„If you clear the path, I’ll take the first step.”

faust nodded once.
no fanfare. no flourish. only the quiet understanding between men who had walked the long road alone.
his gaze lingered, pale and firm, as if weighing the promise behind astier’s words—not just the willingness to climb, but the strength it took to name the climb at all. this was no dog howling for rank, no brute clawing for stature. this was a blade, long buried, revealing itself to be steel.
then you are a warrior, he said at last, the words flat but not unkind.
and in darukaal, that meant something. it meant fire and ice, famine and feast, blood sworn before blade.
he would see that astier had his place among the glacier’s heart, where men who did not chase glory but carried it unknowingly were finally seen.
your woman is welcome on the glacier.

The wind, thin and biting, brushed past his narrow form as he held the mans gaze; quiet, steady, and commanding. He stood not as one who’d sought this place, but as one who had endured his way into it. Where others bled for glory, he simply remained, colder than the frost and just as certain.
Astier gave a faint dip of his head; restrained, yet resolute. A gesture that bore more meaning than a thousand words might, especially from a man who spoke seldom and revealed less. „Thank you, Faust.” he said first, the words carrying the weight of rare sincerity, clean, unembellished, and true, an offering of respect, not flattery.
There was no shift in his stance, no flicker of expression at the mention of her; only the faintest pause. A silence that might’ve gone unnoticed by any other man. But it was there. And perhaps that was his answer. When he finally spoke, it was low and certain, as if carved from stone and ice: „She will know.”
Not a boast, not a claim that demanded explanation, just fact. And in his voice, beneath the frost and steel, was the quiet pride of someone who did not need to say who she was. Only that she was. His.

faust’s pale eyes held astier’s a moment longer.
a slow nod followed—not approval, not dismissal. only acknowledgment.
the silence stretched, taut as a bowstring, until faust turned without a word. there was nothing more to say. the path was drawn. the choice had been made. he trusted the man would walk it.
snow whispered beneath his paws as he departed, cloak of mist and ice trailing in his wake. whatever lay ahead, astier would meet it on his own terms.
faust would see to the rest.