Sleeping Dragon there's an old man sitting on the throne

hunt roll was a fail. :-( a hunter thread for eske!

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Excitement and adrenaline had thrummed through the Goufa's veins when she'd unintentionally cornered a lost, small and sickly fawn. A runt, no doubt and not long for the world Eske couldn't help but think. Wildfire was still healing and though experienced enough to keep herself well fed she was still an aspiring huntress and her inexperience with game bigger than a rabbit, fox, etc showed. She chased it, snapping her teeth at empty air, so close that she could smell it's fear but in the end somehow the sickly fawn managed to escape her. Disheartened and utterly ashamed that a small, sickly little fawn had managed to avoid her, her ears slicked back against her skull as she let out a low noise of frustration. Her annoyance bubbled up and seethed beneath the surface of her skin as her tail lashed behind her.

She'd gotten arrogant because she was stronger and healthier than her prey. Arrogance, she realized, had no place in her world. Confidence was healthy, and it worked well for her on the borders and in time, with proper training, it would work well for her when she hunted. Arrogance, she was coming to learn, was something very different than confidence. She cursed lowly under her breath and took to pacing, wondering if she should try her luck with hunting something else or if she should just slink to the borders. She would not pretend that she hadn't failed because Eske knew that she had to learn from her failings or else she would be doomed to repeat them. Slinking to the borders felt like surrender and that wasn't a word the warrior princess had in her vocabulary.

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Freyja had taken a momentary break from taking care of Seff to stretch her legs. After leaving the den that she was temporarily sharing with the Apprentice of Blackfeather Woods, a gentle, albeit icy, wind carried a tempting smell to the resident Fleima. Quickly changing her course, Freyja soon found herself tracking the sickly fawn that had happened upon the mountainside terrain. Tracking it had taken longer than she had anticipated and soon enough she found herself along the borders.

It was as she pulled to the borderline that the smell of her sister wafted upon her and she turned towards it, noting how it laced so effortlessly with the trail that she had been following. Traveling towards it, she soon crossed paths of her downtrodden sister.

“Sis,” she called, oblivious to what had happened mere moments ago. “Yu ai op trilipa?” Her question was accompanied with a gentle sway of her tail.

the english didn't translate super well to trigedasleng so i made do & improvised a bit, lol.

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It was Eske bent her head towards the ground to sniff out a trail of a different creature to hunt that she heard approaching footfalls, her ears perked and alert atop her skull. Her head rose and it swung to face the familiar form of Freyja as her silver sister came to rest in Eske's blue-green view. It took all of Eske's willpower not to roll her eyes. Of course it would be Freyja. The set of Eske's lips was terse for a moment as she contemplated giving up her hunt all together. As far as she was aware Freyja wasn't aware it was her choice in secondary trade as Eske had only told Wildfire and though she did not the Bandrona well she didn't think the fire kissed woman would betray her confidence like that; and what was she going to say to Freyja? She certainly had no current intentions of telling her sister that she was trying to fulfill the homework Wildfire set out for her. For now, her pursual of the hunter trade was her (and Wildfire's) secret.

Except Freyja hadn't asked what she was doing, which was a relief. Instead, the silver girl had apparently been on the same trail of the sickly fawn as Eske. At least, that was what Eske had came to assume as she did not think Freyja ignorant enough to go after a full grown deer all on her own. “Strik? Nou os? Sha, ai op em.” Eske told her with a lazy gesture of her muzzle in the direction she'd lost it.

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Freyja’s interest peaked despite Eske’s apparent disinterest. Her chestnut colored eyes followed the lazy lope of her siblings muzzle and soon enough Freyja found herself trained on the area as her tail wagged stiffly. The scent was still relatively fresh, despite the wretched smell of sickness, and perhaps with the two of them they could bring it down. Freyja knew that she couldn’t do it alone and knew that she needed her earth-colored sibling to be successful.

But, despite this, Freyja also knew that eske was not a hunter-- she was a warrior. Warriors, it seemed, did not enjoy the thrill of the hunt as the hunters did and perhaps this mission would not interest her.

But, despite these thoughts, she turned back to her sea-eyed sibling with a hopeful expression upon her gentle features. “Gaf in homplei?” she asked, expecting a rejection regardless.

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Eske had thought that Freyja would follow the lazy cant of her muzzle and leave her on her way to suffer through her own failures — though her first mistake had been going after it on her own and in this ignoring Wildfire's rule to not go after anything bigger than a rabbit on her own. She was eager to step out of Freyja's shadow and prove to the Bandrona and Heda that she could shine just as brightly as their golden child. A scowl had unconsciously began to form upon her lips, though this likely worked in the warrior princesses favor to keep her true ambitions and why she knew about the exact fawn that Freyja had been hunting herself.

As Freyja turned back to her, a hopeful look in her eyes Eske had not quite managed to scrub the fierce scowl from her face. She'd always been bad at controlling her emotions and her aggression. Sparring, training and patrolling helped: it gave her a healthy outlet to release all her pent up aggression but Eske was just a fierce and aggressive young woman by nature though whether this stemmed from her father's culture or it was the viking in her she would never truly know. She was not dainty. She was not elegant, nor gentle. She was sharp edges, cutting glares, blunt words and feral. Eske almost rejected Freyja's offer. The no was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't really want to turn it down. The want to reject it was a knee-jerk thing, afraid that if she accepted Freyja might somehow find out that she aspired to take on huntress as a secondary trade. Which was silly, Eske knew. Unless her sister could read her mind there was nothing to give it away. Hunting was crucial to her survival and she did know how to hunt for herself as all wolves did.

“sha.” Eske finally agreed with a light nod of her head, gesturing silently for Freyja to take the lead.

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She was all too concerned about the doe getting away to realize the expression that was upon her sister’s face. Instead, she lingered in their silence as she waited for rejection. Though, to her surprise, said rejection never came. Her face lit up to this and the turned quickly towards the scent, hopeful that they would be able to hunt it down. She knew that time was of the essence in this and that she would do everything in her power to ensure that they would make it to the easy target.

She loped off at a quickened pace, her tail lifting as she advanced on the trail. Turning to her sister, whom she had not seen since their parents had left, she offered a faint smile. Despite the urgency in all of this, she knew she needed to make time to check in on her younger sibling.

“Shopta?” she asked vaguely, giving the goufa a once-over as they jogged. She hoped though this expression that she would get some insight of how her sister was faring.

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Eske didn’t particularly want to turn away an opportunity to (secretly) work on her hunting skills. They were passable, of course, but they were not those of a master huntress. She had yet to decide if she was going to master the hunting trade as her primary concern would always be mercenary but she figured that she had plenty of time and first thing was first: she had to earn the trade before she could think of a specialty and become a master at anything. If Eske were to let them her ambitions might get the better of her and she was quick to reel them back in under strict control. Eske noted Freyja’s smile as her sister looked at her but the warrior princess did not return it. Instead, the agouti warrior offered her sister a slight twitch of her lips not quite a smile but not any real improvement from her concentrated look, either. Though she followed Freyja’s lead in this she deigned to take some mental notes. Eske’s ears twitched as Freyja’s question hung in the air. “Ai laid ku.” Eske responded, pausing to draw her salmon pink tongue across her lips. “Shopta?” Eske repeated the question to Freyja an ear cocked in her silvern sister’s direction to hear her response.


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Much had been happening in Freyja’s life, so much that she couldn’t even begin to wrap her mind around everything that had happened in the previous days. Shrugging with these thoughts in mind, she replied with a soft, “ait”. Decidedly, this was the best she could offer in that moment. With this said, she turned back to the road ahead.

The scent of the sickly prey was growing stronger with every stride the took and soon enough, it was intense enough to cause her halt. Stiffening, Freyja glanced to Eske as her body grew rigid and her face grew expressionless. From her sister’s face, Freyja glanced before them and he eyes fell to the figure in the distance.

Quickly, the former Feisripa devised a plan. “Gyon au lesad,” she said, beckoning to the direction. She knew that Eske would be much more successful in bringing down the doe than she, given her siblings brute strength. “Leda der.” She beckoned to some foliage near where the deer wandered off before turning back to her sibling again. Freyja would be the one to drive the prey so that the aspiring Gona could strike it down.

“Shoun raun,” she decided, hesitating her approach on the prey in favor of hearing what her sister had to say on the matter.

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Freyja’s response was just as vague as Eske’s own, though this did not exactly surprise Eske. Neither of them seemed to want to share intimate details of their life with one another. Eske certainly was keeping her desire to hunt and the fact that she would learn under Wildfire’s mentorship from Freyja; thus Eske did not expect anything big or earth moving to be admitted from her silvern sister. They were better than they were…but they weren’t exactly close. Then again, Eske wasn’t close to anyone really. Eske accepted Freyja’s reply with a bob of her head and didn’t push for further information just as Freyja hadn’t pushed her.

Eske halted as Freyja did, her steps ceasing just in time to narrowly avoid colliding with her sister. For a second, Eske was about to grumble, only to bite on her tongue to still it and keep her silence as she followed Freyja’s line of sight to the sickly fawn. There was the insolent prey that had, despite it’s illness and impending death, managed to escape her jaws. It was an insult! To be outrun by adolescent prey clearly on it’s way to it’s death bed. For a moment, Eske’s expression darkened as her gaze locked upon it, only to reluctantly move back to Freyja when her sister gave out orders. Eske did as Freyja directed her: going left of her sister and lowering beneath the foliage her sister instructed her to hide behind. With ears alert atop her skull she peeked over the greenery at their prey.

For a moment she feared that it might escape her grasping jaws again and this time her sister would get to see her humiliation first hand but she shook those thoughts away. You do not fight thinking you may lose, Heda’s words echoed in her head. Her tail gave a flick against her hocks as she steeled her shoulders with determination. Those words could easily be changed to fit this very situation. Eske gave Freyja a curt nod to let her sibling know she was ready and that she agreed on their assigned roles in this hunt.

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