Snowforest Taiga maugak ⋟

backdated thread @Gjalla

the dawn came thin and gray, light bending through fog and the hush of retreating waves.
kanuux stood before it, breath rising in ribbons from his muzzle, the taste of her still on his tongue — salt, musk, and something darker.

the ground around their bed of reeds was torn, flattened. the night had been teeth and silence, the kind that carried no promise of tenderness. now she slept, her body half-turned to him, fur black as stormwater. even in sleep she looked fierce, a shadow given form. the gash at her throat pulsed faintly beneath its shroud of curls — proof of what she had endured, and what she could inflict.

kanuux did not leave offerings. no seal oil. no strip of pelt. no words. such things were for women of ceremony, not for this one made of rage and frost.

he watched her for a long moment, the scars at his temple burning with the cold. then he turned.

they must have kept busy, with how quickly dawn comes for them.

gjalla wakes to a loss of warmth from her back—fortunately, his bulk is too large to disappear in the mist, and his scent too strong to escape her. he had turned away, but he had not gone far.

she rose slow like a creature being dragged up from deep waters, frost clinging to her coat like star spots. her muscles protested, but she ignored the sting.

by the time she is at his back, she puffs a greeting as to alert him she is there—though she is sure he knows her approach from scent. no words.

kanuux did not turn when her breath touched his spine.
he had known she was waking— the shift of her weight in the reeds, the faint grind of frost loosening from her pelt. her scent moved toward him before her body did: cold, iron-edged, the deep-night musk of a woman carved from storms.

he did not greet her with sound.
instead, his shoulders rolled once, a dominance cue softened only by the fact that he did not bare his teeth. he let her know he was aware— that he had allowed her close.

when she reached his back, he angled his head just enough that one icy eye caught her in its corner. a warning, a recognition, and a challenge, all in one breath.

his tail did not lift, but it did not lower. neutral ground— rare for a man like him.

kanuux exhaled, a heavy plume into the morning cold.
then he pressed his brow briefly against her shoulder, a touch that held strength rather than affection. claiming nothing, yielding nothing.

after, he stepped aside so she could stand beside him instead of behind.

he did not turn, but she saw the flick of awareness in the set of his shoulders. the woman cannot complain about the silence he gave—it suited them well.

when his eye cut toward her, she met it without faltering—a flat, unblinking stare, pale as ice. his brow pressed to her shoulder and gjalla leans into it without reservations, kissing the place between his eyes.

she moved when he moved, stepping into the space beside him. the morning wind combed through her fur, billowing forward. "what.. name?"

kanuux did not flinch from the brush of her mouth.

the touch landed like a scar laid over old ones— accepted, answered, though not softened. his breath pushed out slow, misting around her face as she stepped beside him.

her voice meant little in sound, but the shape of the question, the tilt of her head, the way she waited— he understood.

he straightened to his full height, frost cracking along the line of his lapels. then he set a heavy paw to his own chest, claws sinking into the dense fur there.

a name.
his name.

a low rumble began in his throat— not warning, not threat, but declaration. he struck his chest once more and let the sound form as close to speech as his tongue allowed:

kanuux muradoii.

the cold wind carried it, harsh and simple.

after, he lifted his chin toward her, eyes narrowed, searching.

then his paw shifted, touching her chest with the back of his knuckles— not intimate, not gentle, but unmistakably asking the same.

you.

her breath left her in a slow, muted drag— not surprise, not warmth. recognition scraped in behind her ribs like a blade being sheathed.

muradoii. the name struck a chord she did not want to hear. a seal hunter—not saatsine, she knew, but it is close enough that the back of her neck prickled. close enough that the ghost of sun-eater’s teeth flashed behind her eyes, the remembered crush of his bite sinking into her throat. the snow. the blood. the after.

she did not flinch from kanuux’s touch. instead she held still, gaze locked to his, cold and sharp and cutting— weighing every piece of him. her jaw tensed. a flicker—the smallest—passed through her eyes.

she tasted metal as she tries to recall more of their language, anything—the pronunciation is clumsy as she speaks. "not like lanzadoii," the woman nearly hisses it. "no lanzadoii here?"

she waits for an answer before she offers a name, lifting her paw and setting it to her own chest. "gjalla of stormrift."

kanuux’s jaw tightened at the sound of her name— gjalla — but it was the other word that made something harsher rise beneath his ribs.

lanzadoii.

the faint tongue of caribou-chasers. softsnow wanderers. wolves who knew nothing of icethick seas or the bloodprice of real hunters. his lip lifted slow, a curl of disdain that showed the edge of a fang.

he stepped closer, breath heavy with brine and musk, towering just enough to make the difference known.

her question was understood well enough.

kanuux’s gaze swept the horizon— empty grass, broken cliff, no scent of the weakblooded herders. the disgust thrummed through his shoulders as he answered in the hard, guttural cadence of muradoii:

if there were— a slow curl of teeth. they’d be dead.

he tilted his head, a sharp gesture, scars pulling tight along his temple. the question lived in his posture, in the narrowing of his stare:

how. why. who taught you their filth?

then, quieter— almost a growl, almost curiosity:

gjalla.

her name tasted like winter in his mouth.

his disdain for the lanzadoii hit her like a strike to the sternum. a flick of heat licked through her. it is immediate, impossible to hide. not lust—nothing so simple—old like instinct, predatory. the ferality of man—even seal-hunter—would always have her intrigue.

the lanzadoii had taken much from her. breath, blood, pride. even love, in time. the guilt of leaving blackfell still lingered. 'wenna, too. would they hate her, to see who she was with now? or perhaps they would be just as fine without her.

hearing kanuux spit lanzadoii's name as if it were rot sharpened something in her chest, a quick distraction that made heat rise in her belly. his head shifts in question. to answer, she tips her snout skyward so that fur will part to show the scar they had left behind. "lanzadoii not like me, kanuux."

kanuux stepped into her shadow when she bared the wound.

his eyes dragged along the pale slash at her throat— the mark of cowards, not hunters.

without a word, he lifted his paw. turned it.

showed her the scars carved deep into the pads and wrist— the ones he earned killing lanzadoii, not fleeing them.

the paw dropped heavy to the earth.

he leaned in, breath warm against her scar but not touching it, gaze sharp as broken ice.

you fight them, he rumbled. a flicker of something like approval passed through his posture.

good.

his head dipped once.

gjalla. not lanzadoii.

his words hit something low in her chest, something she feels she has been long starved of. since evenspire, since stark. good.

yes—good. there was little she enjoyed more than giving teeth to an adversary. his acknowledgment of it alone lights a slow, simmering heat beneath her ribs.

when kanuux lowers his paw, she let her chin tilt just enough for the morning light to catch the ruined skin. the expression that crosses her face is not a disapproving one. it is a display, she knows, and the thought makes her hungry.

her breath slid out slow as she lifts a paw of her own, presses it to his chest. “you strong.” she nods. “good.”

kanuux did not hide the way her touch fed something raw inside him.

the press of her paw to his chest— her naming of his strength— it threaded through his muscles like heat through ice, waking the most primitive parts of him.

his breath deepened. his shoulders squared.

her scar gleamed in the morning light. he took it in, the way she offered it without shame, the way she met him with her own violence. it pleased him. it stirred that dark, marrowdeep satisfaction unique to predators who recognized themselves in another.

kanuux’s chest pushed into her paw, a subtle, deliberate dominance— answering her approval with his own.

his gaze dragged over her with the slow certainty of a wolf who knew exactly what he was:

strong, brutal, worthy.

a low rumble built in his throat, not threat, not warning— pride.

his response pulled from instinct, not thought. it fed her just as sharply as her praise fed him. she did not withdraw her paw, instead she pushing firmer as if to test that wall of heat and sinew that he was. he does not falter.

her ears tipped forward to catching the rise of his pride, a smooth rumble that vibrated through her bones. she responds in kind, a soft puff of breath that mists as it leaves her nose. her gaze held his, hungry in a way that wasn’t soft and never would be.

“strong,” she said again. it is no longer realization but a cold, hard fact. her chin lifts then, paw setting down as she looks to the coast, then back to him in unspoken question—“come. hunt with me.”

kanuux answered her only with a slow, heavy nod.

her praise pressed into him like a brand; he let it, standing firm beneath her weight, the rumble in his chest settling into something colder, steadier.

when she looked to the coast and back to him, the meaning was clear.

he stepped forward once, brushing her shoulder with his in passing— a wordless yes.

fade and something new?