Arrow Lake henneth annûn

experimental.

The descent was a labyrinth of crumbling shale and forgotten towpaths, a physical manifestation of the chaos Aerith so despised. Any other traveler would have felt the grip of vertigo or the sting of panic, but Aerith simply narrowed her amber-gold eyes, studying the treacherous cliffs.
The helçariel moved with the weightless grace of a butterfly, her paws barely kissing the dust, a pilgrimage into the profane. „The stars have changed their positions,” she murmured, her voice like the cracking of fragile glass. „The wind speaks a dialect I do not recognize.”
Upon reaching the frozen shoreline, Aerith found that her pristine coat did not stand out as she had expected; in the heart of winter, she appeared as if crafted from the very snow, a silent extension of the frost itself. She observed the freshwater tide lapping rhythmically against the icy beach, yet she made no move to drink.
Instead, she sat with a rigid, upright dignity, her gaze fixed toward the horizon as if searching for a familiar star in an alien sky. Though a profound sense of isolation threatened to hollow her out, she did not let her posture falter. A crumbling spirit was no excuse for a crooked spine, and she would remain as unyielding as winter until this nameless world revealed its story.
’You are somewhere in this wild, unwritten place, brother’, she thought, her tail pluming behind her as a silver banner. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, reciting the names of her ancestors in a low, rhythmic hum; a spiritual anchor to keep her from drifting away in this strange, new reality.

maybe a smoke ^-^?

---

smoke caught her scent before he saw her — clean, cold, wrong in the way things out of place always were. he slowed on the mountainside, broad silhouette cutting against the pale stone, eyes narrowing as the shoreline opened below.

she was small. white as frost. sitting straightbacked at the water’s edge like the cold itself had learned how to breathe.

he didn’t advance right away. didn’t bare teeth or soften either. just stood there, beastly against her fine, rigid stillness, the wind tugging at his fur while he took her measure. adela was somewhere nearby — he knew that much — and that alone kept him where he was.

after a moment, smoke shifted one heavy paw forward, enough to be seen. enough to announce himself without threat.

mountain ain’t empty, he said, voice low and rough, carried easy on the cold air.

then he stopped again, letting the woman decide whether she’d turn, flee, or speak.

---

yes yes yes!!!

The shift in the air arrived before the sound did, a smudge of woodsmoke and heavy fur upon a clean, frozen page. Aerith did not startle; to react with haste was to concede control to the unknown, and she was a creature of ancient, rigid rhythms.
She took his measure with a clinical, detached gaze, her amber eyes peering at him as if he were a weathered ruin she was attempting to decipher. He was heavy, broad, and carried the unwashed scent of a world that did not know its own name, a beastly intrusion upon her fragile, frost-crafted stillness. He was a specimen of raw instinct, a stark contrast to the distilled, ancestral order she carried in her marrow.
The helçariel remained seated upon the frozen sand, refusing to stand. To rise would be to acknowledge his mass as a threat, and Aerith chose instead to treat him as a curious footnote in a nameless land. Her spine remained perfectly straight, a silver pillar against the iron-grey sky.
„So I am discovering,” she replied, her voice a cool, melodic chime that seemed to sharpen the winter air. „Tell me, mornothol of the heavy tread, does this wilderness have a name that was not given to it by the hungry?”

---

smoke didn’t bristle at her words. didn’t shift his weight or bare teeth. he just stood there, big as the mountain behind him, letting the wind pull at his fur.

his eyes stayed on her — pale against pale — measuring the stillness, the spine-straight defiance. strange one. not lost, exactly. just… elsewhere.

you’re in teekon wilds, ma’am, he said, voice low and worn, texas gravel carried clean on the cold.

a pause. one shoulder rolled in a small shrug.

name’s older’n hunger, he added. land don’t care much what we call it, though.

---

The name 'Teekon' tasted as coarse grit on her tongue, a blunt, unpolished sound for a place so vast. But it was his final remark that caused her ears to twitch, a rare, microscopic break in her icy composure. She watched him with a flash of genuine, sharp bafflement, as if he had just suggested the sun did not care for the light it shed.

To Aerith, the notion was not merely wrong; it was a spiritual vacuum. „A staggering sentiment,” she replied, her voice dropping into a register of cold, intellectual bewilderment. „To claim the dôr is indifferent is to confess a profound deafness to the world’s own heartbeat. Names are the anchors of existence, the very threads that bind a spirit to the soil. Without them, you are not a resident, you are merely an accident of geography.”

The woman tilted her head, golden gaze searching his broad face for any sign of a higher understanding. „To walk without acknowledging the spirit of the path is not living; it is simply…” she eyed him up and down, „taking up space.”

---

smoke stared at her a second longer than before. not offended. not bristling. just… taking it in. the way she spoke like the world listened back.

shit, he muttered, almost to himself.

his mouth tugged at one corner — not quite a smile, but close enough. he shifted his weight, snow crunching under a heavy paw.

i don’t know much, ma’am, he said, voice rough but honest. but you sure seem t’know a lot.:

no sarcasm in it. no challenge. just a plain-spoken admission, touched with something like respect, as he stood there — big, quiet, and suddenly aware he was sharing the mountain with someone who heard things he’d never learned how to name.

---

The reaction of the terrain to her voice was subtle, but her attention remained fixed on the dense mass of muscle and dark fur before her. A graceful rise followed, her body unfolding with fluid precision as she closed the distance between them. Each step upon the snow was calculated, the crunch of the frost under her pads the only disturbance in the silent air. The previous vulgarity still hung in her mind, a crude interruption of the conversation that signaled a profound lack of decorum. It was a concerning indication of the quality of these lands.
Amber eyes moved from his heavy paws to the broad set of his shoulders, cataloging his physical presence with clinical detachment. „My understanding of the world is not a matter of chance, but of discipline,” she stated, her enunciation crisp and formal. „I have traversed countless ranges and crossed waters that stretched beyond the horizon. However, even the most extensive records become difficult to maintain when a dôr refuses to offer its own history.”
Returning to the water's edge, she settled again into a seated position. A paw rose to her snout to smooth the pristine white fur, her movements methodical and repetitive. This grooming was a frequent necessity, a way to erase the grit of the world from her person. „Do you... travel, athal?”

---

smoke dipped his head once as she rose, then again when she asked. no offense taken. no correction offered. just the truth, plain and unvarnished.

yeah, he said quietly. i roam.

his gaze slid out over the lake, then the mountain beyond, following lines he’d walked more times than he could count. no den. no ledger. no names carved into stone.

been here a while, smoke added, voice low and even. ain’t much else i do.

then he went still again, letting the cold and the silence take back what little he’d said.

---