Dragoncrest Cliffs we want them to say, damn, these bitches can paint—

istg this was supposed to be a short sweet shitpost but?? bless whoever she sees first lmao

It would’ve been a day like any other of the cliffs — reclusive. Healing. Sort of. And though the skayona bore no ill will(?) towards those of the Sound, at some point during this particularly-peaceful afternoon, she condescended to give Ankyra a nonchalant glimpse. And that was all it took.

A scratchy, senseless wail of complaint clawed its way from the depths of the sequoian forest. The lament stomped after Aure, petering off into something peeved and plaintive.

Straggling and stalking through the scarlet and snow, every sliver of fur wisped with agitation; each step was brimming with a restlessness that remained inscribed into her ivory musculature. Firefly Ravine could choke, maybe — and so could all of those other near-death situations that’d taken place there since. If Jagtooth hadn’t snagged her, or Rosalyn with Raleska, she would’ve drowned in the waters she’s kept from for so long.

In simple terms, Bounkola was about to throw a gotdamn fit. And she was so fed up with almost dying, and how she felt so completely unable to protect herself — to fight back. If it hadn’t been for Natjuk, would Rakk still yet live? Would she even be here, carrying her mate’s children? Practically shivering with fretfulness, Aure decided then and there that whomever her sights landed on first would be her mock-adversary for today.

With a rather petulant peal of ”Ei! Vino aici! Chiar acum!“, the expectant she-wolf drew herself up with as much daunting dignity as she could summon, and hobbled her way on over through the late winter afternoon; steps wobbly, staggering through the trickster trails of snow.

It didn’t matter who she spoke to — not right now, as she scrunched her nose up at them in a convincing pout snarl; an entirely unrehearsed one that she thought was sure to have the perceiver rise to occasion.

Giving an impatient stamp-shiver of a hind, ridding it of clutching frost, Aure faithfully believed her enraged demeanor would inspire fury within the other. Why wouldn’t it? ”Fight me. I want to be foughten!” Silvered, scarred brows rose imploringly, eyes agleam with pluck. Or nerves.

blodreina was on her way to hunt some food for the caches, trying to distract herself from the on-coming heat season for her. she feels it in the heat beneath her pelage and the want. the want for ...something. something she had a feeling she wasn't going to find all the pleasant but wanted any-fucking-way. her days spent in isolation as she mourned heda's death have been ...good for her. at least in some ways. it helped her clear her head, helped her realize that the last time she spoke to verx and aure she'd been a total and complete bitch. which wasn't strictly new for her...but more-so than usual. and it falls into her consideration that she should apologize. it wouldn't excuse the things she'd said — and doesn't necessarily change how she felt about either scenario but now that the grief and aggression it's brought with it has been worked through she can see that perhaps it'd been better to keep her opinions to herself. she has a very strict view of things that no one else has and that makes her the outlier... the outsider.

drakru was her home, was her family. and it was high time she started to make amends and bridge those gaps she'd made ...if it was possible. get your shit together blodreina. it was easier if she imagined heda telling her to do it and it hit her harder to think that the commander would be disappointed in her for her behavior.

blodreina gives a start when she comes across aure — all scowling and blubbering something about wanting to be foughten. foughten? was that even a word, blodreina wonders. she's not too sure given her penchant for gravitating towards trigedasleng over common tongue. needless to say, seaglass gaze takes in aure trying to look frightening with the soft swell of her belly and instead of anything else a laugh tumbles freely from blodreina's lips. not a mocking laugh, but one of those unexpected belly laughs ...because there was something extremely funny about a pregnant woman demanding to be fought.

no one's going to fight you, aure. blodreina tells her seriously, despite the amusement that dances in her gaze. a stark contrast from how she last was with the pale woman. why are you trying to endanger the life of your goufas? though blodreina doesn't have a maternal bone in her body — despite the bullshit her body's putting her through as it gets nearer and nearer to her own heat cycle — she isn't going to risk the life of the unborn and she's surprised that aure is so willing to, if not, perhaps, a bit concerned.

The refusal had a little wheeze prancing from her lungs with indignation, and she was sputtering at the admonishment. "C-ce? Ce?! It- it is not funny! You shouldn't be laughing at me! You should be quivering with fear!" Another frustrated little wriggle, absolutely flabbergasted that her show of ferocity hadn't worked. At all.

”You told me once that your mother was small, like me. But she was also a great warrior.” Waddling through the snow so she stood along Blodreina’s path; but the gona easily towered over the skayona, like most here did. "If you won't, then at least teach me how to be fearsome. I am ze only kru on ze cliffs who isn’t!” A feathering snap of her tail, brow furrowing with her own frustration. ”I want my children to know how- how formidable I may be. What will they think if their mamă is not... not...”

Whatever she’d struggled to say went unfinished with a huff. ”What if I am in peril, before I’ve even delivered, then? How would I protect my belly? I... I cannot just crab-crawl from a fight, no?” Her eyes alit on Blodreina then, blinking wide and fervent. At the present, she seemed to have forgotten their last encounter entirely — for better, or for worse. ”I am so exhausted with almost dying all month!”

this took a different direction than i thought it was going to.

blodreina fights to keep the smirk off her face — because she still finds it amusing despite aure's best attempts to convince her otherwise. i'm not really the quivering in fear type. blodreina admits with a lofty roll of her shoulders. yes, i did; because she is a great warrior. blodreina reiterates as aure waddles closer to her, blocking her path. blodreina doesn't particularly feel threatened by the gesture but she tucks her chin and puffs her chest nevertheless. blodreina's mouth opens to tell aure that she doesn't know how to teach someone to be fearsome but she closes it again as the pale sylph continues on her tirade, choosing to listen instead of interjecting.

and then to blodreina's great surprise she feels her facial features soften as the amusement washes away — you are worried your goufa's won't find you formidable? how can they not? it takes true strength and courage to carry and give birth to new life. where in the hell did that come from? and more importantly why did blodreina believe it? perhaps it was out of respect for her mother and perhaps it was her form of apologizing for her impudent behavior last time they'd spoken. perhaps it is hormones; perhaps it is all three.

if you fight it would be at the great risk of losing your goufa's, blodreina protests, growing frustrated that aure kept pushing. was she trying to say she wanted to lose her goufa's? because that was the only thing that fighting at her state or her future state was going to bring with it. do you expect to be harmed in drageda? she asks, wondering if her own behavior last time they spoke wasn't the cause of ... this. blodreina was a lot of things but even at her worst she'd never attack a kru. kru is family. it's just because she's hormonal and jealous and has no idea how to process these things so she defaults to her natural aggression and hostility because ...it's safe.

if you are truly worried about the safety of your goufa's then ask a gona to accompany you. it's apart of our job to keep the kru safe.

this thread is sponsored by The Aure Effect™: Softening the Hearts of One Warrior at A Time. pls stay tuned after these messages

The notion of apology didn’t occur to Aure quite at that moment; she was too busy huffing at the gona’s words half of the time, and reluctantly listening on the other. The charter had always been, for better or for worse, willingly alienated from wolvenkind. It was only that she spent so much time of herself by herself; and it’d scarcely ever occurred to her to bring a guardian along on her little travels. No less believe that she, Aure herself, was strong — through motherhood or what have you.

Perhaps she’d known, even as a bairn, that to be a mother requires certain stuff; not simply the stuff of bringing new hearts into the world, but the tending and nurturing and teaching to them. If the one, prominent strength of hers lied within her earthen practices, then... she hoped she could be some kind of formidable when it came to these children — these “goufas”, as Blodreina put it.

It did, of course, make itself known in the form of a realization. Not only had Blodreina eased into an almost reasonable behavior, words and all, but it was her way of ensuring the herbalists’ well-being as well as apologizing for their past tirade. Aure, herself, couldn’t keep from becoming dewy-eyed as her own ‘tough’ act wilted into something more excessively appreciative. Well, more-so than usual.

Either way, the gona was receiving the brunt of her own stifled, pregnancy hormones. “Reinaaa,” Aure practically cooed, all full-moon eyes and quivering lips and doing her best to blink mightily against the surge of hot tears that now filmed her doting gaze. She gave a hearty sniff, then, slurring, ”I’ve been such fool, Theina. How could I have neverb known you’ve had such a kindest heart b-before?” Another sniffle, her voice starting to warble and words almost incomprehensible, ”You think of things I could never have; taking a gona with me— Oh, I’ve never been th-thought of as family before—!”

there is a habitual weariness to the way that blodreina watches aure as the pale sylph cooes out a shortened version of her name, followed as it was by the hearty sniff. oh no. were those tears in the pale woman's eyes? it reminds her of the last time she'd spoken to wildfire — there's a mental hiss when she thinks of the traitor's name — shortly after she'd given birth. she too'd been crying and blodreina feels the awkward surge of uncertainty, of not being sure what to do about it. blodreina hadn't meant to make aure cry — she'd only been trying to dissuade her from making a stupid decision that might've cost her the lives of her goufas.

blodreina's ears cup forth alert and then they flutter back to rest at half mast atop her skull, particularly when aure says she has the 'kindest' of hearts. i really don't, blodreina protests, not because she thought she was evil, she wasn't evil; just a salty bitch. she doesn't want aure to get any romanticize the fact that she's an anti-hero with a secret heart of gold. she's been far too cruel in her life to ever believe that was true.

you'll be disappointed if you believe i'm kind. she was capable of it, of course, but she'd always been driven by aggression, hostility and her own desire to make sure she didn't fade into the background. being the runt of her litter had fueled a competitive edge that has never went away. being forgotten about in the wake of ( at the time ) freyja's perfection had always been her biggest fear. freyja'd been the chosen one, the golden child. heda's favored pupil ...and she'd stabbed the commander in the back. life hasn't made me kind. it's made me bitter and angry and broken. but that was ok, because blodreina could handle it.

life had yet to throw her something she couldn't handle.

heh.

aure's admittance of never having been thought of family before sparks compassion in blodreina despite her talk of not being kind moments before. i'll accompany you outside the borders if you insist on venturing out. blodreina offers. it wasn't like she had anything better to do; she wants her old rank as wanlida back but has yet to actually talk to blixen about it. truth be told, she can't help but think that verx should be the one offering bodyguard services — he was, at the very least, ( because blodreina doesn't know if aure and verx are mated or not because she doesn't much care to know about other's relationships ) the father of the children. i've got the credentials. i used to be heda's cheka, once upon a time. a time that felt, in the wake of the commander's death, like a lifetime ago now.

Everything Blodreina had said had sounded welcoming, agreeable. But then, there it was — “cheka,” and Aure wilted. A moniker (a word, no less) shouldn't have the right to have such sway over oneself. Perhaps it remained true for the stalwart; and Aurëwen herself had attempted such. Had attempted to make herself all frozen and fury and unfeeling, as Blodreina herself proclaimed to have done. But she could not, for she felt too much, and to this day it remained both blessing and curse; could not smother what she felt no matter how hard she tried. So, she ended up like she was now: stilted, staggered, unsure of how to make herself all stoic and such.

Chekas. They don’t cry, do they? Her mind murmured to her, then, and she lingered before Blodreina with such a void, regret-ridden expression that made the silly tears on her lashes seem even sillier. The week-ago memories were murky and suppressed; but a tremor came to her marred façade as Verx arrived at the forefront her mind, all Stormborn and leaving her stricken with words of lightning. She almost felt the phantom kiss of his fangs on her muzzle, from so long ago.

Aure had known what she’d been poking at, despite the way it’d ended; had still tried regardless. Still missed him terribly; needed to soothe what was between them. What she’s done, as brave-stupid and stupid-brave it may have been. But... Of course they don’t cry. How else could have Reina become such? Of course they don’t. And it’d been her fault, her err, to remake that ideology.

All through this, she wilted. Eyes went heavy-lidded, brow eased, and her mouth pressed into into a meager frown. She didn’t know what to feel, but she’d deserved it, right? For all of her stars, her remedies, she was still a stupid, soft brana, wasn’t she? The silver had forgotten her place — and continued to do so, demanding a gona to fight her? Protect her? Brana brana brana, she was brana, undeserving brana. Unworthy of a cheka’s children, of- of speaking to the former one in front of her, of so much more.

Aure arced away from Blodreina, withdrew further into herself as the fur along her spine shivered to life. Kept her scarred eyes low, properly aversive, ”M-multumesc, Blodreina. I appreciate ze proposition. Very much so. It— it very generous. More than I could ever ask for, yes. E-excuse me.” With a thinly-veiled, weak smile, Aure shimmied a few steps away, as if meaning to flit from this.

would aure have asked her question aloud: do cheka's cry; blodreina might have admitted that yes. they do. had she not cried when kendra died? yes. she had. had she not cried when heda died? in private, but yes. despite blodreina's best attempts to seem otherwise she isn't a stonehearted bitch. she is but not because she's unfeeling. she cares and she cares a lot about those she allows herself to get close to. getting to that point with blodreina, however, took a lot of patience. her guard is built like an impregnable fortress around her with piercing spikes and motes full of starving alligators and a legion within it's walls as her last defense. she guards herself meticulously because she's learned in almost three years of life that no one else will.

she watches aure depart, eyes shimmering with tears and blodreina's not quite sure whether she made it better or worse. for a moment she considers going after her — you can't run away form all your problems, after all — but in the end decides to give the pale sylph her space. maybe she'd try again. maybe one day, she'll get it right and be able to tell whether she's making a friend or not.

with a soft sigh, the gona picks up her hunt, though her tracking is, at best, distracted.