Duskfire Glacier love will always be a lesson

The evening was warm even in the glowing embers of the sun as it descended into the horizon, setting the glacier afire with an orange glow as it disappeared behind the temple of ice. Mint green gaze studied it for a moment, admiring it's beauty with softened chagrin creasing his brow. A flash of fire, creeping and weaving, ciders and smoke curling skywards as it ravaged the woods of his birth; a jolt of adrenaline rushed through his veins at the phantom pain of the kiss of the dancing flame upon his fur burning and marring where it touched. A low noise rumbled from deep within his chest, vibrating through the thick muscles that layered the strong bone and he turned from the sunset. It was not a luxury he often allowed himself for the unwelcome reminder it brought with it.

With his back to the setting sun and the glacier he made his way towards the pines and the maplewoods the territory harbored, shrugging into the thickets melding into the darkness, pausing to sniff at the base of a maplewood, the scent of a fox relatively fresh. He pulled back for a moment, salmon pink tongue drawing across his chops and snout. A fox was hardly substantial food but for now it would do. The hunt was short and though the vulpine was quicker than Ishtar he had worn it down and when cornered he made quick work of it's death. With his prize between his front paws he settled down upon his stomach in a sphinx like posture and began to dine.

In the darkness of the shadow, in the night that he has not bothered with there lay a woman in wait. Her eyes seem to glow a brilliant cyan, cutting through the gloom like a knife slices through flesh, teeth through soft, vulnerable underside. They track his progress, strong, steely and ever-focused, the slender wolf that held them quietly observing. The wind that blows brings his scent towards her and she breathes it in, chest expanding imperceptibly, nostrils flaring. 

She waits in the dark - waits for him to find her, and a glint of snow-white teeth manages to show through the dark.

The sound of splicing flesh beneath the sharp edges of his teeth can be heard through the quietude that spread through the maplewoods and pines of the Glacier, followed by the acute crack of bones snapping beneath the power of his jaws. He worries the small bones for a bit, tasting marrow but disregards them into a pile by his large left paw. Another strip of flesh was torn making the once vulpine resemble very little of the fox it once was. It sated his hunger for the time being but Ishtar knew it would not be enough. He would have to hunt something bigger and hope that the outcome was favorable or tear apart whatever rabbit and fox holes and dens he could find until he had eaten his fill. 

The exact moment in which Ishtar was clued into the fact that he was not alone was indiscernible. He could smell her on the gentle, humid breeze that drifted through the woodlands of the glacier like a lover's whisper. The beasts' nostrils flared to discreetly assess her but he did not act. It was only after he'd finished eating that he finally made to address her though he did not bother to move from his sphinx-like position. Not because he trusted her, but because he did not fear her. “Do you intend to stalk me from the shadows all night?” Ishtar spoke before he licked his chops again, working to clean the blood from his muzzle, before he flipped his right paw over and nibbled at the pad for a moment, drawing his tongue across it as he awaited her response, ears cupped forth in an alert manner atop his skull.

She smirked; oh yes, he was an attentive one. But for him, she had noticed long before he did and even if he called her out first, she had been watching; waiting for her chance. "Perhaps it is not you I am stalking, the woman murmured, knowing her voice would carry. A minute 'thump' could be heard, and a flash of pearl white. She emerged from the dark, russet coat tinted with something - tang of iron in the air might have hinted at blood. From her mouth dropped a small carcass - small in comparison to her size, her long-legged, slender body.

The last light of the day illuminated its shape before the world went dark, and the stars took their place in the night sky.

"You looked hungry enough," Andromeda smirked, and sat down to eat her own meal.

“Why else would you linger?” Ishtar asked her with a curiosity that might befit two friends much better than it befitted the pair of them — strangers. His question phrased as if he were trying to puzzle it out but the truth was far more simpler than that: he didn't much care. Whether she chose to indulge him or not was her prerogative. He only bothered to speak out to her so that she understood that he was aware of her presence, just in case she decided she wished to try something on him. The colossus' head swung to face her direction within the small clearing he'd claimed as his dining room, ethereal mint green eyes studying her silhouette in the small distance between them. His ears swiveled at the soft thump of carcass upon the earth and soft sounds of her teeth tearing at the succulent meat she'd brought with her to dine upon. “I didn't realize I had invited you,” Ishtar did not speak it rudely, his deep voice intentionally made softer of his own design. “If you were hunting why not take your meal elsewhere?” The Glacier remained free territory so she could do as she liked but Ishtar did not like to be disturbed when he ate, and he did not know her well enough to claim he could enjoy her company. A twitch of his ear was given, a tremble upon his upper lip though his posture remained pacified and not outwardly aggressive.

Her eyes flicked up from her meal towards his face. They were seated comfortably almost - like they could be friends instead of strangers. Bemused, Andromeda merely waved a paw to the sky, gesturing at the stars. "Perhaps it is not you I am lingering for, she mimicked her previous tone, "but the stars." It was silent for a while, and she enjoyed the small quiet before his voice pierced the veil of silence once more. She shot him a glance, not irritated, but quite amused that he should think no other was allowed to be in the same place at the same time.

"Can a wolf not be struck by coincidence? I am already here; I think I would prefer to stay." Her own voice went to imitate his, though hers was not soft in a gentle way - hers dipped low, uncaring for his predicament. If he chose to move, so be it. If he did not, it had no effect on her. She bent down back to her meal, carefully picking at her kill. Squirrel. Too small. Ann's cyan locked onto his own, and she smirked, a curious lifting of her left lip only slightly, yet still enough to be noticeable if he looked closely.

"I was going to eat and look at the stars. Instead, I find you. So, pray tell, what do you call yourself?

It was to Ishtar's surprise that she responded to his errant questioning though the beast had left it open either way. She spoke of the stars and as if on some sort of silent cue ethereal mint gaze lifted to the heavens to study the velveteen and rich colors of the darkness, offering the small pierces of white dots in the veil an errant glance. The clearing did offer a nice break in the treeline for moderate stargazing but this explication did not placate him. “If it is the stars you seek to admire the Glacier is more suitable for stargazing then this small clearing.” And if she would have went to the Glacier itself then he wouldn't have been having this conversation with her and his meal would have went uninterrupted. Try as he might he could not shed the soft annoyance he felt at her during his meal. She may not have spoken to him but he felt as if he'd been interrupted all the same. 

“Most wolves respect another, a stranger no less, when they are trying to eat.” To come upon another when they were eating in neutral territory could be so very easily seen as a threat to the beast. Though there remained hardly anything worth stealing of his once vulpine and he held no interest in her meal. She seemed determined to dance around this with him but Ishtar held no interest in a dance. He could not forcibly make her move — these were not his lands to make commands upon, and thus far she had not done anything to earn the lash of his ire. He was annoyed, perhaps, but so long as it was not provoked it would pass.

His tail lashed behind him once, weight shifting upon the hard earth ever so slightly, to make it easier for him to maintain keeping her in his relative sights over his shoulder without compromising his comfort. “They call me Ishtar,” He spoke, noting the flash of cyan blue from the shadows as she dined. It was not his given name but it befit him more than the name he had been christened with nevertheless. 'Lachlan' ceased to exist these days, had died many years ago when he'd been but a pup. Ishtar had became his identity ever since. “Ishtar was a Babylonian god of the underworld. Of the realm of the dead.” He always spoke of it with muted curiosity, not to boast but because he was always searching for the stories of this Babylonian God of Death. He was not religious by any means of the word: his survival was his own and not predetermined nor guided by any deities' hand. Yet, there was power in a name and this the beast could not and would not repudiate.

"Or perhaps I appreciate intimate privacy with me and the heavens," Ann made known, and there was no more talk of the stars that lay above them nor the shifting colours of the sky. There was a lapse of silence where the woman stared up into the darkness so pure and black, untouched; unravaged by the light of the sun. "Annoyance does not suit your face, good sir." Again, Andromeda did not care for his irritation nor his displeasure since she had come here, not expecting his presence to already have established itself in the clearing. In a grove surrounded by trees, she was content with or without his massive frame obstructing her view of the sky.

"I did not go for your food, did I?" She smirked, lips quirking with a glint of white poking through. "That is respect enough." Amusement littered her voice - it seemed to be ever present nowadays, what with never-ending sources of it. Shrugging pointed shoulders, Ann let her eyes fall to her paws, glancing "demurely" at the slender appendages. Bright eyes flicked back up to the man's, taking in his form for the first time.

"Ishtar," She tried, and let it roll off her tongue. It was thick - heavy with an accent when he pronounced it, different from their spoken language. It was smooth, flowing off her vocals as she spoke - but it was so, so drastically different. A foreign, beautiful mess of sounds. Ishtar. "Was? So, he no longer rules, then?"  And Ann grins innocently as if to suggest there is a new king. "They call me Andromeda."

Ishtar did not respond when she spoke of intimacy between her and the blazing orbs so very high above them. He'd already reiterated that if it was intimacy of stargazing she sought there were much better places to do so then this small clearing where he'd happened to be dining. He saw little purpose or use in circling one another about it. He'd made his displeasure known and thus was finished with the matter. Nipping banter was only serving to rile him further and he did not have the intention of letting his ire get the better of him. The glacier seemed too pure a thing to spill fellow canine's blood upon and thus Ishtar did not wish to taint it with such a thing. “And pray tell what suits my face, instead?” A soft snort of amusement left his leathery nostrils moments before his salmon pink tongue drew across it. His ear twitched away a moth that fluttered carelessly past it on it's charted course of bouncing around the clearing, drawn by the soft light of the moonbeams that cascaded down through the thinned canopy above them.

“For a lesser creature, perhaps,” But Ishtar did not perceive himself to be a lesser beast. Dining in a pack was one thing: the alpha's ate their fill first and then followed the subordinates in their strict hierarchical order; all were present for that. That was different then hunting for one's self. He called no pack home and her touching his meal or not was an irrelevant fact despite her insistence to bring it up. A soft, deep chuckle rumbled in the strong contours of his chest, bemused. “You speak it with a conviction as if it matters. I hunt alone, I eat alone.” For now, such was his rules. 

The beast had settled back into the silence, contented to keep a watchful eye on her as she tried out his name. Her questioning would have been expected of anyone who kept a faith. Ishtar did not and thus found himself subtly astounded when her question as it posed itself to him. What does it matter? “Tell me does a God really exist if he is not believed in? I do not believe in such fairy-tales. Whether Ishtar the god rules the realm of the dead or not is for you to decide,” Ishtar had deduced long ago that he decided not to believe and thus neither existed to him. “He is a story to scare young pups,” Ishtar spoke his opinion as he'd always had: dauntlessly. “I am what gives his name merit.” With that information she could do what she would. 

“Names can be very powerful things, was Andromeda given to you or earned?”

"A smile," the woman spoke bluntly, and they left the matter to rest, lain in the dust, abandoned in pursuit of others. Ann merely smiled as he answered, holding in a soft chuckle. Oh, he thought of her as if she believed in other things. No, she too followed her own rules, and the rules that she spoke were hers alone - they were different and with that, the talk about food too was laid to rest in a grave.

"If none believe in such a god, then what of them? He is useless to me; whether I have my own gods or not is for me to choose." She snorted, and buried the remains of her meal into the ground where it would decompose and fertilize the ground anew. "Figments of the imagination - those are all stories are." For a while, the two shared a moment of cynical snark, a return of wit regarding that religion and Ann found herself wanting more. It had been long since she had met one who would take up the mantle of debate and she was loath to lose it now.

"Allow me this: how many know this Ishtar? How many children have you visited and scared in their beds? How have you brought to life your namesake?" Andromeda let herself smile, in thought at the question he posed in return. A query for a query - it seemed fair enough. "Both."

It was short and simple, but it was the truth. "Andromeda was a powerful warrior-queen of the past. I earned such a name through merit, before I was granted the responsibility."

A smile. A smile was not something she would probably ever see from the mighty Ishtar who disregarded her response with a flippant stretch of his body before he shifted again, squinting at her for a moment before his shoulders rolled carelessly. “Some believe; enough that his name has been remembered through the generations of my natal pack, revered enough to bestow it upon me.” But Ishtar's ideas of what made a deity real was within one's own perception. He didn't believe and so they were not real and yet this might not be the reality for one that followed (a) faith. Ishtar respected this different line of thoughts enough to let them be. If they wanted to believe in a guiding deity then fine, so long as they did not attempt to force it upon him.

“You've mistaken me,” The beast drew a dry chuckle in his throat, his words nearly dripping to a mockery. “I have no interest in the terror of pups. They are complacent and impressionable. It is those who are grown of my home that had been my target,” As they revered their God, perhaps. Usurper. “Given what I have told you of Ishtar, I assume you can make the connection on your own.” God of the dead. He gave an errant gesture of a large paw. He'd killed plenty in his years upon the earth and he ruled Spectre Ravine with an iron fist; after he'd usurped Tamzi and left his father and previous alpha crippled. 

But this was not something he wanted to divulge in any sort of depth with her. She was a stranger with a name to him and she'd done nothing to garner his trust. Scarred leg shifted, scraping against the hard earth a phantom pain blossoming as he spoke of his past. The beast would have none of it, and took control of the conversation steering it away from those unwelcome reminders. “And you?” Ishtar inquired, pressing her for information. “Are you a powerful warrior queen?”

"I'm sure I can," the woman chuckled dryly, low and though it was non-threatening, there was the spark of darkness within it that had earned her her name at long last in her past. "Oh, to lie? I think not. No, not a queen, but I have been and I am a warrior." Ann made to get up, letting the male know their conversation was over. "I do hope you enjoy your meal," she purred into the darkness, and then the cyan orbs disappeared with a turn of the wind, and Andromeda was no longer.

using orbs here because I imagine its dark enough for the colour to stand out (I mean eyes are round balls)

Andromeda offered him a response to his question and then a statement that suggested that she was about to leave. He glimpsed at the disregarded pile of gristle and bone — all that was left of the vulpine he'd devoured, before his gaze zeroed back in upon her form as she rose, the movement giving stir to the underbrush around her. He caught a flash of her bright blue eyes before she presumably turned and vanished into the darkness of the forest that surrounded him leaving him to the solitude he had wanted when he'd been eating. A soft growl rumbled in the confines of Ishtar's deep chest, a broad paw stretching out to draw his pile of bones closer to him. An abrupt pause was given for him to bite at an itch on his foreleg before he nosed through the pile before he found it's hip bone and drew it betwixt his teeth and began to worry it, savoring the sweet taste of it's marrow, intent to thoroughly polish off his meal before he left what few scraps were left for the scavengers and continued on his way searching for a place to bed down for the rest of the night.