Sleeping Dragon Fire

Warbone's trip had been shorter than expected, but no less productive because of its length. He returned to Sleeping Dragon, bearing with him news of the newly formed Grotto and an invitation from the leaders of its inception to his own commander @Thuringwethil. Twilight met him at the borders of the keep, and he padded into the fortress without hesitation, under the starry cloak of night. He felt invigorated at the small notion of being able to cross into a territory he belonged to, but it also reminded him of his unsavory place in the ranks.

He moved in surprising silence as he loped through the territory in search of a place to race for the night. He was in no rush to deliver the message— to either the raven queen or her leading companion, @Gyda— so he called for no audience. It was late, besides that, so the news could surely wait. As he went, his mind ventured into conquest, and if he were to be approached that night by anyone seeking to exercise their rank (besides the aforementioned monarchs), there would be a shift of power in the Dragon ranks.

It was late but Gyda found that she was little more than restless, scooting around on the floor of the den, pushing the edges of her deer skin as she attempted to get comfortable, an attempt to soothe her racing thoughts. Nothing worked and thus instead of disturbing those around her by her restlessness she stood, stretched and headed out into the cool night air. It was a welcoming feeling against her face, and for a moment the shield-maiden basked in it, in the crisp air the velveteen darkness had to offer her. She moved then, eager to distract herself with something productive. She was close to her first heat cycle and had already began to notice small spots of blood on her makeshift bedding though no scent of heat had yet to emit from her. She did not tell Thuringwethil of it for the simple fact that she hadn't yet decided on a male to serve her intended purpose for him; and while Gyda worked to assure herself that everything was normal and on track the truth was that she did not know. Her knowledge of the heat cycles was extremely limited and she wished now more than ever she could venture down to Moonspear to speak with her mother — for her mother would have the answers that Gyda sought.

Yet, she didn't broach that either. She suspected Thuringwethil would be unlikely to let her out; not when she would be left alone to the wiles of lone males drawn in by her soon-to-be scent. Gyda found herself at the borders, staring out into the darkened lands that stretched out before her. She kicked up bits of dirt and grass to mark her scent upon them before she begun forth in a random direction and was surprised to see a silhouette in the distance. She did not immediately recognize him and the hackles along her spine bristled as she made a direct bee-line for him, her head high and her tail beginning it's ascension over her spine in clear dominance. As she drew nearer recognition, vague though it was, did emerge and she relaxed her posture with a soft sigh as she neared him. “Warbone.” She knew nothing of him aside from that: his name. 

To her, this seemed like a good opportunity to learn something about whom she assumed to be Thuringwethil's newest recruit.

I hope it's ok that I assumed that they at least recognize each other & know one another's names. xD

I figured it was like dat :B

From higher on the incline, he could hear the light, quick steps of a wolf meaning to apprehend him— he knew the sound well— and he turned to face his challenge head-on, lifting his head, tail, and stepping forward with intent before he realized who had come upon him. Recognition flashed across the small she-wolf's features, and he watched the gleaming silver queen as she breathed his name in mild relief. Yes, if he had been a trespasser, she would have had quite a fight on her paws indeed. He tipped his head at her, his entire body loosening so immediately and completely that it was a wonder he'd been taut for the attack at all. "Queen," he addressed her as politely as his grumbling tone would allow. His muzzle inclined in the same light sentiment of respect he offered her shadowy counterpart.

She was yet another young leader, just shy of sexual maturity and practically useless to the virile male. He took a deep breath, deciding to ignore his reproductive desires for the time being and not simply be on his way. "You are... smaller, than I imagined," he said offhandedly, his dull eyes taking a bemused shine within an otherwise unchanged expression. He was regarding her openly, having to work to erase the image of a slate Amazonian just as stark and long-legged as the other queen. This was not to say Warbone wasn't impressed with her. Touched by moonlight, she was particularly exquisite, and her cerulean eyes shined like oceans set in a finely petite face. But he licked his chops and blinked, mainly unaffected.

The brute called Warbone addressed her with politeness in his gruff voice, low and deep as it was; and as her body relaxed she noted that so, too, did his. His observation was not a strange one to the shield-maiden and coquettishly, the viking queen smiled as if she had a great secret. Warbone was not the first to make such a thing known — truly as if she was not aware of her feminine and petite stature; though admittedly, in all fairness, she tended to forget at times — and was hardly the first, nor would he be the last the suspected, to find it unimpressive. Nevertheless, the valkyrie was not insulted by it (though as a young girl she would have undoubtedly been very insulted by it). “Do not let my stature fool you,” Gyda warned him slyly, a playful rise to her muzzle as it lifted slightly, though her eyes glinted with the sincerity of her words. “there is always more than what meets the eye.” But she did not come here to boast of her accomplishments.

“Were you headed to rest?” Gyda inquired simply of him, if so she did not wish to keep him.

"I would never," he said of being fooled, his voice rumbling forth on a growl that verged on a chuckle. His ex-wife had been small, smaller than Gyda even, and one of the most fierce and intelligent wolves he had ever known. Size was an asset, but by no means a definitive way to win at The Game of Life. He contemplated her following question, watching her plaintively as he wondered how much of the truth he would tell her. "No. I was feeling quite lively actually. If anyone beside you or Thuringwethil come across me, I would have challenged them." He would tell her all of it, apparently.

He didn't know if she would be as amused as the darker queen had. Some alphas weren't keen on challenges amongst the ranks— where you were put was where you were put— but Warbone was not here to keep secrets or pretend that he was something he was not. Warbone was his earned title after all, it wasn't his name.

He assured her that he wouldn't ever be fooled by her size and the shield-maiden offered him a coquettish smile, small though it was as his growl danced across the line of rumble and chuckle. “Good,” Gyda affirmed with a tease in her accented voice, her tail giving a soft, perhaps even playful flick behind her. She knew little to next to nothing of him, but she admired his strong build — perhaps because it reminded her of Ragnar. Though some part of Gyda did enjoy proving others wrong. There had been something archaically gratifying about being the victor over Váli whom had seen her for little more than a pretty face: good for bearing children and little else. She had ended a tyrant and bigot, just as Ragnar before her had and it had felt good. The day she'd stolen his life was the day that she had extinguished the last of what made her a girl, of what childish innocence she had managed to retain; though Ragnar had not allowed her or her brothers to hold onto it for very long. He had prepared and trained them for their ascensions into the adult world of his culture and Gyda had been grateful for his teachings ...and those of Dagrun whom had finished what Ragnar had started grooming in her.

“You are ambitious?” Gyda inquired, though she did not see this as a bad thing. All men are ambitious. To some, such as Ragnar, rank had meant everything. Even Gyda herself had to admit that since she'd had a taste for ruling she had come to like it. She was too proud to be anything less then what the Gods had written her to be born for: a queen. Rank challenges had been normal in Odinn's Cove and she saw nothing wrong with them, but of course if she would have it would have been overtly hypocritical of her. “I know so little about you,” Gyda surmised thoughtfully with a small cant of her head. “Tell me about yourself.” It was an invitation, not a command and Warbone was welcome to decline it if he wished.

laaav geeduh

She asked of him, and though he felt inclined to tell her what she wanted to know, he was blatantly unsure of exactly what to say. He reclined thoughtfully, a storm gathering in head as he peered off into the distance, and then drew his eyes back down to Gyda. "I come from a forest— cold and evergreen yearround— and there I was trained to be a defender of the Mother culture, and a soldier to the crown, whose bearer changed almost as often as the seasons, given our lifestyle." Warbone smirked, giving an absently derisive snort as he remembered his birthplace. "I did not share their beliefs, so it was not long into my adulthood before I left them... Afterwards I spent a very destructive, undisciplined youth along the north coasts, and though I have experienced several periods of happiness, I would say that tragedy has claimed me for most of my years."

He ended slowly and toneless, seeming to be without opinion for the way his life had turned out or the events that had brought him to this exact night here with her, talking about it. The tip of his tail switched faintly against the ground, and he watched her, wondering if she wanted to ask him anything, and because his manners for conversation was poor, he didn't ask the same of her.

aw ty! <3

Most wolves were not so eager to delve into their pasts, Gyda had learned over her few years upon the earth. It had taken her forever to weasel Ragnar's second wife's own past and history with the man; and naturally Gyda inquired such questions without much hope that they'd be willing to talk. Sometimes wolves came to the Teekon Wilds to forget their pasts, whether it was out of tragedy or because they were running. In truth, the shield-maiden supposed pasts didn't matter. It was what they did in the present that counted. Yet, Warbone began to speak and commanded the viking queen's silent and rapt attention. “Do you follow different beliefs than them, then?” On that he'd left it a little unclear to Gyda. He had left because he didn't follow their beliefs which wasn't, she argued with herself (lol), to say he didn't believe in anything at all.

Her own faith was a solid foundation for everything that she did though, admittedly, she was not as devout as Ragnar had been and for that she felt a brief stab of shame in her breast. She owed much to the Gods and to pay her respects was the very least she could do. “Perhaps you will find happiness here,” with us. Gyda offered in a contemplative tone. “Tragedy leaves it's mark upon us,” Gyda spoke thinking of the unwavering grief she'd felt when she'd discovered Ragnar's grave — still yet something she was not over. Perhaps she would never be. “but I believe it makes us stronger.”

And then because she was innately curious she inquired, "Is high rank something you desire?" For Gyda there was no shame in admitting it, if it was true; but then again she wasn't so sure she had too much of her previously humble qualities from childhood left. This was not to claim that she was arrogant but she was no longer afraid of striving for what she wanted from life — nor from taking it.

"Yes," he breathed quietly. "I do not see the worth in worshiping something I have never witnessed with my own senses. I was never moved by their devotion to the faith, and so my own beliefs evolved to consider only what I am worth as a standalone wolf. My survival did not depend on the participation of anyone else, so I simply chose to only believe in myself." It could be considered the same as not having any beliefs, though Warbone did not think that of himself. He was capable of believing in something, but he felt he needed evidence. And there had never been any of The Mother Dragon, besides what he had been told as a child.

He watched Gyda, shining under the moonlight, appearing older and wiser a she was bathed in an otherwordly glow. "You never truly know yourself until you are faced with tragedy," he murmurs, thinking then of a specific event of his past, which he rarely did. She asked then if rank was something he desired, and Warbone considered it for a moment before answering. "I suppose," he drawled at length. "I feel that I am more inclined to coveting the respect that accompanies rank, rather than the rank itself. I have my own title to be proud of, so rank does not matter to me in that way."

Gyda could not claim that she understood how he chose to believe only in himself, but she considered herself a devoted follower of Ragnar's gods. If she had been raised by Crete instead she garnered that she might have been able to fully grasp what Warbone was saying because to her knowledge her biological father had no beliefs. She gave a small nod of her head, yet chose not to speak on the subject. His lack of faith in anything but himself was his own and though it was vastly different from what Gyda knew to be she respected him all the same. Ragnar had never pushed his beliefs upon the wolves that had devoted themselves to following him and neither would Gyda. Her silence continued until he spoke of wanting the respect of a rank but not necessarily the rank itself. This was interesting to Gyda who showed it by the subtle cant of her head. In a way, she thought she understood. The wolves of Odinn's Cove had taken to her rather quickly and she had earned their respect before she had challenged Vali; but the price of that respect had been her death match with the Jarl of the Cove; and they had decided that it had been well placed as she'd stood over the male's lifeless body.

“Title?” She inquired simply, trying to puzzle out if it was like how some had called her “shield-maiden”. Not truly a rank but something that was her's all the same. Or perhaps he meant something different all together.

i am sorry this post is poop. :c

"Warbone," he said in answer to her query. "That is a hard-earned title where I am from, not the name I was born with." The stone of his face softened as he regarded young Gyda— brimming with as much potential as he saw in the Dragon's other queen— and to him she appeared all silver and blue in the night, like a true moon to sit in holy reverence above her wolves; but she was not quite so invulnerable. He did not often choose to reveal his true name, not that he kept it a secret, he just hardly ever found a need or a want to. The feeling was absent even now, as he refused to divulge on the obvious next question before she could ask it, his grey face seeming mischievousness if one could see past the heavy layer of stoicism. "Are you only Gyda, the silver regent, or are you more?" he purred, eyes stolen with a disappearing sheen in the darkness.

The name that she knew him by: Warbone was apparently less of a name and as he described it his earned title. “I see,” Gyda spoke with thinly veiled fascination. Despite her curiosity, however, she respected his vagueness and did not press for further information that he was not willing to give her. As a small child that had been one of her worst habits: never knowing when to stop asking questions. His question caused Gyda to give a slight cant of her head to the right, her eyes assessing him in the limited light they were afforded by the moon, a soft smile playing at the corners of her lips. “I suppose I have several titles, Viking Queen, shield-maiden, valkyrie by some,” All of which were individual honors though two of them were not so transparent and tended to overlap. “and Átta,” She admitted softly, caught between a brief moment of fond remembrance and the pain of loss. Gyda supposed it wasn't much of a title: it had been the number she'd been given in Ragnar's language upon her birth, but it had always meant more to her than any title she'd ever been or would be given in her life. Occasionally, she'd been known to use when handling diplomatic affairs with wolves that did not know her personally during her time in Odinn's Cove, but Gyda hadn't seen the use in continuing with it in Teekon Wilds for the simple fact that she'd been born here and there was some small chance that some of the wolves that still roamed these parts would either know of her or Ragnar, at the very least.

Hope you don't mind me fading here <3

"Átta," he repeated in mild reverence, his mind pondering over the other titles she had given him: shield-maiden, valkyrie. He let a comfortable silence spread between them, finding himself at peace in her silvered presence. His imperial thoughts had fled him, and the entirety of his muscular body seemed so at ease that it was difficult to imagine that he wouldn't live there with the Dragons for very long. His eyes had fallen to their dark landscape, and when he looked back at Gyda, it was another hour or so of chatting before they parted ways. But before any of that, the wolf said: "My real name is Arkham Solothurn."