Stone Circle i do not deserve to be a phoenix, i deserve to be consumed

Wardruna stirs awake, feeling a shiver shudder down his spine as the chill of the autumn morning seeps in through the mouth of the den like an unwanted, stealthy intruder. The northerner goes still for a moment as the last vestiges of sleep are chased away and the tense of his muscles ease as the …events of the previous day come back to him in a rush. Of course Wardruna thinks, it explains the other body in his — no, their — den. For a moment he does not move, does not dare to breath as he listens and feels for the steady rise and fall of her chest to assure himself that she breathes still. She is not exactly in any sort of fit state when he found her and it will take weeks he thinks, of eating and drinking to regain what weight she has lost, for her fur to shine and the spark in her eyes to re-ignite. He is extremely loathe to let her out of his sight at all and is not keen on the idea of the pack chipping in to help nurse her back to health. He hopes that they will refuse, that they will let the burden to him. He has brought her here, she is his thrall. Therefore, she is his responsibility; but he is in a unique and troubling position that he cannot deny their assistance if they come to him with it.

He knows he should get up and pick through the nearby cache for the freshest meat for her but he’s comfortable. Her body is too thin against his, too frail, he believes but it does not stop him from stretching out and burying his muzzle into the fur at the back of her neck. It’s a lover’s gesture though their relationship does not transcend that of lording master and reluctant thrall. Part of Wardruna is hoping that the action will antagonize her …that he can ignite that echo of a fire he’s seen in her already. It’s a hollowed echo, like the girl herself, but Wardruna suspects it’s still there, somewhere. He pulls back as if it was innocent: as if he hadn't meant to do it. "@Noma," Wardruna murmurs, hoping to stir her from slumber if the burying of his muzzle against her neck hasn't done so already.

It doesn’t really settle into view until he makes her sleep in his den, forcing her inside the cramp space and shrinking down to fit in the back. She has her small size, in addition to her lack of weight, but when he settles in she realizes she has no way out. He takes up most of the space, causing her to fold in on herself in order to rest. It takes a long time for her to get her mind to quiet enough for her to rest and fall into a light slumber that is easily disturbed by the brute’s stretching. When he twists back and puts his head against her neck, a low growl vibrates her chest but she does not move from her spot right away.

When he says her name, she does not respond right away. Her eyes flutter open and she stares at the dark wall behind her, thankful to be turned away from him. She shifts a little, slightly untucks her legs and tightens up the ball she’s put herself in as if he isn’t here at all.

She lets out a low growl and the northerner’s salmon pink tongue lashes against his jowls. There the spark was. It lit up bright and then vanished as she smothers it just as quick as she shifts, pulling herself into a tighter ball. “You show me a flicker of your flame and yet —” but Wardruna never finishes his thought aloud. He does not feel that he needs to. Still, he can’t help the smugness that radiates from him; a twisted sense of pride washing over him that he’d managed to get a growl from her. Perhaps she was not as hollow as she first thought herself to be. A hollow thing would not care. “Get up. It is time to eat.” He speaks in a softened command before he slinks from the den, stretching in full once he’s clear, right eye squinting against the sun as it burns bright and golden in the early morning sky.

He speaks and she ignores him. She hasn’t had a flicker in a long time, not until he’d crossed her path the day before. If she’d stayed in her den a little longer, she wouldn’t be here. At first, she does not stir from her spot even when he moves and slips from the den, creating a wind of cool air. She begins to shiver uncontrollably at first, unwinding herself slowly as he gives her a command. The thought of food causes her stomach to turn to knots and she supposed she can’t get out of it. It will be difficult to force her to eat but her stomach urges her on anyway, slowly slinking from the den as if she’s old and arthritic.

Wardruna frowns as she ignores him. He supposes, in actuality, he wasn’t speaking for the purpose of expecting any sort of response in return from her. Still, it does not sit well with him that his thrall ignores him so brazenly. Yet, he reminds himself, that was what he wanted: a not meek mouse. Meek bored him and he wanted the challenge that Noma presented him with even though there were times where it grated on his nerves. Wardruna is about to stick his head in the den to ensure that she’s going to come out but she slinks from the den before he has the chance: slow moving. He knows that there’s little that can be done for it: it will take weeks of patient nurturing for her to get back to full health. “Come on.” Wardruna encourages her as he circles around her and presses his blindside against her’s: to share his warmth, to keep her from blowing away like a leaf on the wind. Luckily, Valette placed his home very conveniently near a food cache so the pair does not have very far to walk before they reach it.

It takes a long moment for her to step out. She side eyes him as he moves around her, pressing his thick fur from his left side against her. There’s a quirk to the way he does things that she hasn’t yet figured out but she follows allow anyway. Once she gets going and her joints aren’t creaking anymore, she pulls away from him and puts a foot or two of space between them. She doesn’t really know where she’s going and follows him by her peripheral vision and her head slinks low. It is not long that he comes to a stop and she slows, too, glancing in his direction as she plants herself firmly in her spot.

Wardruna does not say anything as she moves away from him a little bit into their short journey to the food cache. There is a terse flick of his tail against his hocks, a ruffle of his hackles that could easily be dismissed as the chilly wind ruffling his fur. There’s a method to his madness but he does not feel very inclined to share it with her. Perhaps, in time. Perhaps. There is no telling what future that the Fated Three have spun for him ( and by proxy her ), but now that she’s broken contact with him she is hidden from his sight and though it goes against all of his rules he does not move, does not herd her to in front of him or to his right side. He can hear her steps beside him: a second drumbeat upon the earth and as displeased as she may or may not be with her predicament — though it occurs to Wardruna that it’s possible she does not quite understand what they’ve agreed to ) the northerner does not think she’ll run away. Mostly because she’s in no physical condition to do so.

Wardruna glimpses at her as she roots herself firmly in place as the duo reach the cache and he can’t help the teasing of a smirk upon his lips. There it was. There was the good thrall. He turns to the cache and goes for the freshest meat first, plucking the meat right from the top. He nears her and places the meat upon the ground with a bow of his head before he noses it towards her. “Eat, Noma.” He encourages but the underlying command is there, laced through the encouraging tones that ring in his lilting, accented tenor. He turns to the cache again and digs through it a bit taking the oldest meat for himself figuring it would do better to eat that up first. It’s a very poor substitute for fresh kill but Wardruna’s left himself with little choice; besides his odds of succeeding in his hunts is not very good at the moment and will likely remain so until he's gotten more practice at functioning without the vision in his left eye.

She sees the smirk on his face when she glances at him but she quickly looks away and stares at something else. While he steps forward and digs through the cache, picking out something for her to eat, she sits there and watches until he puts something in front of her. The command is partially covered by encouragement but she doesn’t move for it right away. Her stomach urges her forward, already empty from the last meal, but she fights against it. He goes back in and grabs something for himself and she licks her lips, masking the saliva that has pooled in her mouth. ”No,” she says after a moment, taking a step back from the kill and sitting down.

No. Wardruna lifts his head from his meal, his salmon pink tongue drawing against his jowls as his head turns sharply to face her so he can fix her in his functioning jack-o-lantern orange eye, his pupil narrowing viciously as he watches her turn away and sit down. The northerner lets out a low huff that rumbles into a growl in his throat. It is as if in their short acquaintance that she has learned how to push all of his buttons ( and possibly then some ) because her eating wasn’t up of negotiation, nor was it a suggestion. This was a first, admittedly. Wardruna has never had a thrall say no to him like they were in a position to do so and none of those thralls had even belonged to him! “Eat, þræll.” Wardruna does not bother to conceal the command this time. It tears from his lips roughly with a sharp precision, having already decided that he will not tell her again. Wardruna is not exactly sure how he would make her but he hopes that she understands that her life would be a lot more simpler with him if she did what she was told; but he’d seen a preview of what he’d gotten into with her the day before and he’d still proceeded anyway. He turns back to his own meal, the consideration rising in his mind that if she wishes to be stubborn that she can watch him eat and he’ll take the meat he gave to her if that was how she wanted to be …but he suspects that it might give into her and he automatically rejects any notion of giving her what she wants. That wasn’t how their roles work, anyway. Wardruna tears off a strip of his meat and chews it with a bit more vigor than he means to, his left ear swiveling towards her attentive even as he returns to his own meal. She may want to be stubborn and not eat but he's hungry and he will sate his hunger.

She doesn’t realize the bear she’s poked when she declines the meal. He gives her the second command to eat and her ears fall back and she stares up at him from her lowered position. She notes the way one eye constricts and the other does not but she doesn’t think much of it. He uses the word again that she can only gather from context but it is still wholly uncertain. It is not a good thing she can determine from how he speaks to her, as if he has the right to order her around. His threat lingers in the back of her mind and she does not doubt he will stick to his word and she does not fight him because she cannot, but she in Easthollow. She is home.

It does not wholly protect her, for he can easily kill her or do damage if he wanted to but she knows he won’t. Noma licks her lips are a pause and he’s gone back to eating. Her stomach churns in silence and she closes her eyes, still refusing to take the meat. ”That word means nothing to me,” she finally tells him then snaps her teeth shut with a few chattering clicks as if she does not have full control. The girl stiffens, folding on leg into her chest as she settles on the ground away from the kill.

Wardruna does not fail to notice that he does not hear additional sounds of eating and he rolls his functioning eye at her — though as that side does not face her he is confident it goes unnoticed. He hesitates: torn between the unspoken threat he’s made in the last command and his honest desire to finish his meal first. Why should he have to sacrifice for her stubbornness; but it is not fresh meat and so a few minutes makes no difference in quality of the meat. Frankly, it’s disgusting. He wants fresh carrion, he desires the warmth of freshly caught food and the taste of blood upon his tongue. Not the bottom of the cache because it will be spoiled and he’s so fucking desperate that he cannot face the humiliation or the consequences of going hungry. Wardruna needs his energy, he needs his mind sharp and not dulled by the lack of food; he needs to be on top of his game, to be the a viper hiding among garden snakes. For the moment, he deduces: he will humor her. Allow her to turn her nose up at the food: the freshest he can find at the top of the cache no less while he sups. Once he has polished off his meal, however, was a different story all together.

“That means you’re mine.” Wardruna explains ‘thrall’ to her between bites, tearing another chunk of meat. His translation is not perfect but he knows that she’s smart enough to understand what he means. It was, in comparison, a nice way of putting it. Vague but effective, he believes. He returns to his meal to rip another chunk free and chew, left ear pivoting towards her, attentive, almost …eager to hear what she had to say to it. In the end though, it remains true. They’d struck a deal, after all and he stands the victor — though he acknowledges that if he cannot inspire her to eat, to stop fighting his attempts to nurse her back to health his victory will be for naught.

For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything. She has time to settle on the ground and look in his direction; unfortunately, she misses him look at her with difficult. He’s eating away at whatever kill has been left in the cache—she can’t even distinguish it—but she looks away. Her stomach reminds her of what she wants. Oh, how easy it would be to just eat what is in front of her. It is what he wants and she will not give him the satisfaction.

Noma is about to open her mouth to say something, or scoff, or… well, she isn’t really sure and she doesn’t have to figure it out. Wardruna explains, albeit vaguely, what it means. You’re mine. Her dull eyes narrow briefly as she glances at him, trying to determine what that actually means. Having already determined the common tongue in the teekon is not his primary language, she wonders if more is coming. She has a lot of questions but she does not have the patience to ask them and hear the answer and, thus, she remains silent and lowers her head to the ground and closes her eyes.

this post probably makes no sense because i was falling asleep writing it, lmao.

Wardruna nurses surprise in the form of a soft frown that turns into scowl as Noma entertains her silence. He expected something from her when he declared that she’s his but he’s met with ( he suspects ) the same stubborn silence that keeps her from eating what he has given her. Left with no other choice Wardruna chooses to accept her silence as acknowledgement to his staked claim upon her. Whether she agrees or not doesn’t truly matter but still: she knows some of it. Perhaps the most important part of it. Wardruna polishes off his meal and swipes his tongue along his teeth and across his jowls, attempting to clean up any bits of meat before he turns to face her fully, fixing her in his gaze. He takes a moment to assess which course of action would better inspire her and wonders if threatening her with violence, or even snapping his teeth close enough to give the effect but not close enough to grasp or pierce flesh would even faze her. From what little Wardruna has been able to deduce from spending the last twenty four ( give or take ) hours with her that her life is not much of a motivator. He sees what he believes is proof in her refusal to eat though he knows that she has to be hungry. If he wasn’t absolutely sure it would be effective it seemed like a waste of energy to go in for that first.

“We made a deal, Noma.” He hisses at her, rising to his paws, ghosting towards her and then moves to circle around her slowly, stopping when he's standing in front of her, staring down at her and the meat left untouched expectantly.

He gives her a few seconds of silence while he finishes his meal. Green eyes close and she shifts once to make it more comfortable, waiting for whatever he wants her to do next. She thinks of unfolding herself and returning back to the den where the air is somewhat warmer, if only to get rid of the chill that bites at her thin fur. Her eyelids feel heavy even though they are closed, making it difficult to really stay awake but something in the back of her mind continuously reminds her of Wardruna’s heavy handed presence.

When he stirs, her eyes flicker open briefly but close just as fast, attempting to ignore him the best she can. When he speaks, however, she finally opens her eyes to look up at him without lifting her head. She licks at her chapped lips and flexes her jaw. “I’m not hungry,” she lies while picking up her head and staring at him like a teenager giving their parent the subtle but dramatic leave-me-alone stare.

crap post is crap but concluding & archiving this. :-)

She announces that she’s not hungry, giving him a petulant stare to affirm her statement and his lips twitch in a silent growl that never vocalizes. “Fine,” The Northerner hisses and moves forward. He grasps the the meat in his jaws and carries it back to the cache where he drops it, unceremoniously, back into the pile before he covers it back up. “Then starve.” He snarls wondering why she’s so bullheaded. He can only do so much, after all, and he is trying. Trying to feed her, trying to nurse her back to health but she’s making it extremely difficult for him and testing all of his patience in ways it hadn’t ever been tested before. Yet Wardruna knows that he will not give up on her, because, in his own way: he’s just as stubborn. “Come.” He commands of her and heads back to the den expecting her to follow along where he intends to sulk until he’s gotten tired of it and ventures out to patrol expecting her to tag along when he does go.