Northstar Vale a grin as sharp as a knife (mtr.)

he's in the hotspring area. maybe @Andraste? no obligation ofc. open for anyone. ♥

the veiled entrance of the cavern beneath the earth of the vale was stumbled upon by mere accident; and though the tundrian is a beast of the harsh and cold north he is lured into the darkness by the warmth he feels emitting from beneath the thick vines and roots. the cavern is well lit and offers refuge from the light snowfall outside. near immediately, whatever snow has accumulated upon the wispy hairs of his spine and nape have melted and the dry fur of his silvery-blue mane at his chest has begun to curl as he follows the path of stone.

worn in some places, jagged in others, dry and slimy with condensation makes for an interesting trek down to the crystalline pool. steam rises from the calm waters and wintersbane wastes no time stepping into the waters and submerging himself in its warm embrace. of course, after this bath he wouldn't be able to leave this cavern until his fur dries but lest his presence is needed urgely he has no designs of leaving the cavern any time soon.

gives u a 5am post anyway

The fairylight's step from her reserved Rest is weighted and she is, at the moment, far too impartial of hushing into some manner of sneakery; not as she unveils what vestiges of Undómiel lie upon hunched-thin shoulders and eventually comes to drape rawboned figure aft the terrible intimidation of him  —  whom as of yet has not a new, as-sworn monkier  —  with a riddled chin that finds reprieve upon two knobby wrists. Though she so evidently wilts at this excruciatingly early hour, Andraste will not allow her own efforts to be thwarted by cottony time;
yet, adamant in remaining so awake as she is, the cloudthick study of the frostfallen ruff, the backs of his faded ears is preformed with the cusps of the unseeing eye that has too soon welded itself shut. The other remains to stare with some stupor; and for now, the fée is content in with the quietude of his deep-dawn presence and of lying near water's edge. Until:
"How is Cuiviénen to your liking, Valitúrë?"
the enquiry drawn from the spathe of a waxen throat strained with rather recent somnolence; halfsights heavy-lashed and limned with the gloss of it.

by slip of attention as he focuses on the hidden treasure of the vale; he misses the fey queen's presence entirely. it is only her words rising through the cavern over the sound of splashing water as he prowls thru the hotspring. though he starts with unbridled surprise at realizing he wasn't alone, her presence only adds to wintersbane's enjoyment of how the water laps over his shoulders, the way the heat loosens his muscles. it's relaxing ...and he cannot say for certain when the last time he'd relaxed has been.

a long time, then.

he assumes that cuiviénen is the name given to this place and he plays it around within his head as he turns to seek her with glacial gaze. it is a hidden treasure, he responds, ears fluttering back to rest atop the curve of his skull. it's ...relaxing. he answers truthfully; not surprised that he's given voice to his thoughts but instead feels surprise at how true it feels as it resonates within him once more. cuiviénen...what does it mean? wintersbane asks her, taking a step nearer to the edge which she is sprawled out upon; enchanting him.

you never did settle on what you would call me, princess. he reminds her with a devilish grin and a slight cant of his head that dips his muzzle beneath it's lapping surface before he pulls it back up. — though i guess 'princess' doesn't suit your station anymore, does it? though it is not hard to keep in mind that she is his leader; he hopes she is not abolished with the familiar way he speaks to her. given that, i suppose i should address you more properly.

“Waters of Awakening,”  words, wisping;
quivering flesh beneath lune hide has felt nigh frigid where she had been pressed against him and against another’s; the purling, underearth air trendiling around the severed parts of them with an unassuming hand. The coldness of her ailing heart suggests that she should swan into the lukewarmth with him; alights the imagery therein of cradling herself against him, ribs ensnared; of resting her desecrated cheek upon stout shoulder. To enter the calm, rippleless plane of glassy, robinsegg water, glimmering; to enact upon the fairyring'd fragments of what-ever was leftover that still limned the very vessel of her;
staring and sleepy-eyed, even when presented with the devilry of that trademark skullgrin. Some amusement was to be had, then, in the reversal of privy roles: he seemed captivated in some manner of loquaciousness; she, rocked in a fathomless hush. This early in the morn, she wishes nothing but to be so.

But cobwebbed lips part to parry his evident and knived coquetry:  “I will consider such a name that is befitting of what you are,”  (that is, as best as she is able to conjure in such a lethargic hour)  “only if, however, you vow to ne'er call me queen.”  Aiolos; Dagwood; all, it seems  —  this insistence to end such beliefs was of a paramount, personal matter. She would not have minded, had she still been a whelp;
but she was woman, entire; an irrevocable truth that she tended to heed evermore when in the presence of followers; flames. To be queen  —
how could she be, with all that is wretched within her?

waters of awakening.

should i be worried i'm going to have some grand, life-altering epiphany bathing in these waters? the tease rasps from betwixt his lips playfully, lightly. why not just call it 'hot spring'? the tundrian prattles on annoyingly, trying to rib her from the vestiges of slumber she clearly lingers in. oh, how lotte might be disappointed in his entire and complete lack of imagination! and now surely you understand why i am no bard.

i'm no tale weaver and i lack the imagination to compose song as my mother could. perhaps, he thinks, it is the first time he's spoken of her to andraste; and maybe it isn't — a lot has happened between their prior meetings, including but not limited to the entire, if not brief, vanquishing of his memory. and what i am? wintersbane prods for more information. what do you see when you look at me, kuuhaltija? he murmurs, plucking the new nickname for her in tundrian without needing to consider it.

Let him speak;
her eyes are she does not now have the nerve to again part her lips and quiet the warlord’s meandering musings. He jests of place names; wonders wry of epiphanies and figments; again waxes faux apologetic of his ineptitude as minstrel, storyweaver. He tells her that his mother was the songstress of his life, then, and though wilted as she was an enquiry of her own perches upon her shorn lips ... it is his own that croaks first, and so Andraste unfurls heavied lashes; ponders.

In tones deepened with drowsy dramatics  (for his sake):  “Wrath and ruin. Risk,”  heeding his pestering with movements made to rest her upon elbows; to study nearer the make of Wintersbane with fogged halfsights to linger o’er froreglim of his,  “risk and peril.”  Pleasure and possibility, the broken creature churrs within her breast  —  but she fears and dreads this thing that has come to loom and linger from the depths of a bleeding bosom.

She would not now become her brother.

hmm, wintersbane rumbles in quiet contemplation as she tosses adjectives at him that she sees when she looks at him. wrath. ruin. risk. peril. he considers it, perhaps more seriously than he should but ultimately comes to the conclusion that there is nothing that she has spoken that is untrue. i don't disagree with that, wintersbane speaks beyond his boorish grunt; cannot even be mad at her for it. he has never fancied himself the heroic type, after all. i've never been the silver knight meant to sweep damsels in distress off their feet.

for a second he peers down at his shoulder where all remnants of the dyed red paw print had once stood out like blood upon the bluish black of his fur. now, with no need to refresh it, it is left unmade. like, perhaps, the part of him that had been in blackfeather woods. the part of him that had loved it's pale priestess, relmyna. that wintersbane had died with his lover. who risen in his wake ...well, that was still a path of discovery. but what is life without risk? you took a risk to form courtfall, didn't you? was it worth it? sometimes, it's worth the leap of faith.

“Rather, you are ze maker of distress,”
impling glimmer coming to prance within somnolent eyes,  “who keeps us off of our feet, all ze same,”
and with a hitch in hurting dead gone inkheart, she might have delved deeper; might have simpered at how, once upon a time, she had so very nearly knocked Wintersbane o'er from his own footing. How he had tormented her; plagued himself; a flicker within thinskinned hip at the reminiscence of his glutting, his giving; and the vulnerable varmint guided her gaze to the make of him  —  the truth of the warwelded, bloodhewn northron majesty of the male before her  —  and the traitorous figure of her quivers; he is as boreal, as uncharted as she;
it was good that he was not knight.

But! it is what he proposes to her that has her quiet; list her eyes from the roguish and reasoning of his own. Whether the enquiry is rhetorical or no, the fairylight is helpless in the consideration of it ... and she cannot continue, lest he be—  “Melkor,”  and henceforth she crept lambthing ever toward the stone's edge; lips weighted with some manner of telling that she could not, could not yet entrust to his ears entire:  “If I have ze means of giving sanctuary and stronghold to those impoverished, then ... what worth there is will be found in ze perseverance of it.”

Such a leap, taken for the faith of what kuunheku had felt she had had to become and to part from;
she rests her chin to ruddy rock, silenced; the pink of nose wriggling absently at the steamed waters. 

you are a maker of distress, andraste tells him and a low snort pushes itself free from black, leathery nostrils to further accent the slight furrow of his brow as he contemplates those words; coupled as they were by her following statement that he sweeps damsels off their feet all the same, ears twitching forth as she speaks 'us' as if she considers herself in that mix. he is quiet for a moment longer, submerging himself entirely in the warm waters before breaking the surface with the rise of his head, blinking droplets out of his eyes. that sounds terribly complicated. he rumbles, perhaps a touch apologetically.

melkor.

wintersbane weighs it as the gods weigh the hearts of the dead, judging it. melkor. he repeats, watching as she creeps nearer. it sounds strong, he comments upon it. unless of course you just named me 'rat's ass' or something, he jests with a low rasping laugh. ...it doesn't mean that, does it? he asks seconds later, uncertainty drudging seriousness to the surface. then from now on i shall be: melkor ansbjørn, of courtfall. he must admit that it rolls easier off the tongue than 'wintersbane' even if shedding it feels a bit sad, though the revival of lotte's sirename prior to her binding to arturo still ensures he carries on her legacy in some manner or another.

i suppose, he replies in response to her answer to his inquiry, even though he feels like it's a dance around to giving a direct 'yes' or 'no'. for now, he accepts it and does not push any more on the topic of risks.

It was terrible in itself; still, was the blame to be placed upon her slurred words, or the remnants of slumber that made her eyes numb and lips dumb? Either way:
"No. It wounds me to say that ze birthstongue I was raised with is rather pristine. I would have called you rat face, nyarro anta ... which hardly sounds insulting."  Now was a rare moment, where the fairylight's features whorled in a voiceless message of  See? It is infuriating  even as the tundrian continues to redub himself beneath her proferred suggestion. Wryly,  "Give me ze rest of this moon to remember it,"
before he finishes with a surname that she, in her histories, does not think she has ever heard before. Then again, she had not stayed with her own blood and would-be claim, so removed that they had all become of another; and how, in turn, she had repeated such.

But Andraste does not wish to think of  next time, I will be better  or, heartrendingly, who would be the begetter. Not this moon. Not when this unearthed gem of Cúivenen was meant only for easement  —  not for the past upset that had too early occurred. Why had such a happening not crafted her into some spiteful serpent?

Why did her soul remain ever-softened, for all her sorrowing?

Unsteadily, blearily, she rises; her own brow furrowing as she wonders how, percisely, she might join the fiendish warlord. A snowshoe paw wavers in the air, stilled by her mind's mustering to meet again with her movements; but her riddled lips press thin, unsettled. The fée turns the tapestry of her spine to the waters, then, and gingerly begins to retreat Wi- Melkor's way; the foot of one hind flickering catlike at the warmth of said water;
soon, though, she eased, and now appeared very diligent  (perhaps to the point where it was unnecessary)  in bringing the rest of herself into the currents;
asking aloud and more herself than him, with chords pitched in drowsy mistrust,  "Is this all right?"

winters— melkor lets out a laugh; unexpected and sudden and robbed of the boom it might've once held in the wake of the marring flesh of his scarred throat and neck. instead, it rumbles like first thunderfall in the great distance. no, he murmurs in amused agreement. that doesn't sound insulting at all.

glacial gaze watches her rise and hover, uncertainly over the waters as if she is warring with herself — and perhaps, he suspects, she is. eventually, he notes, she submerges herself after what he considers teasing her for seems like a lot more contemplation than is required. i don't bite, kuuhaltija. melkor purls teasingly to her. well...not usually. a chuckle rumbles in his chest, glimpsing at her over a broad shoulder.

"No, surely; but you bit kunnhehku."
The unthinking snip of her words is nigh instinctive, what with how warrented she feels she is to his incessant plaguing. But it is not until her shorn spine shivers against the woad-woven musculature of his own and an old stirring comes to perch thereabouts her loins that Andraste ... fancies what manner of error she has just made. Evermoreso, now that she has stepped into Cúivenen and now rests with sensitive shoulderblades against what-ever middling part of his back. The fée is as thin as parchment, so much so that oft it seems the worldsun shines through her;
and she does not doubt the very truth that Melkor might feel the flurried strum of her heart, rooted in the chambers of her breathless breast.

Flustered in a manner that is not at all like the siren who had initiated him; but escape, however fleeting, is to be found in the relieving lurch from skinship in favor of working the waters o'er throat and ruff. There is some paltry excuse of  "You never did tell me wh— ah, what such a word means,"  praying that this might divert his knowing of how she had fallen percisely into her own snare.

she snipes at him; and it does not go unacknowledged as being well warranted. he bites back any retort that dances upon his tongue, refusing to allow passage to vocal chords and into the air between them. instead, he favors blessed silence, thoughts trailing to how her presence stirs the water 'round them, causing it to lap at his chin and rising and falling along his nape, like mini and softened waves.

kuuhaltija? the tundrian word rolls off of his tongue as he looks back over his shoulder at her pale form, delicate and lighting touched. it means 'moon sprite'. i thought it fits you ...but if you'd rather i call you something less informal i can come up with something else. he supplies the offer to her, wondering — if she doesn't like it — what the hell he might call her since 'queen' was off the table.

To look o'er thin shoulder and meet his gelid gaze would be nothing short of falling to petrification; but as the silver studies the faded, fickle mirror imagery of herself ... perhaps it is what is needed. To do that which she has never believed she would become so affrighted of; the few myriad truths with two-parts transparency; the tasting, the testing; she is all but half-listening to that which the tundrian conveys. What-ever anxious aching within her soon ebbs with the arrival of something rigid and resigned in her way of breath;
such was touch; such was love; loonful for none, for both, for all. Ever spurned by the sea; since scorched beneath her own spires  —  blast it!

"You are no knight, Melkor,"
softened sighs come to stir the sapphire ribs forthwith; steeling herself against the delicate churn within innards and saltglint behind lashes as she swiveled 'round. Breast bedding upon woad flank, reaching about him as a faint, fanged, half-chaste kiss came to peck into the tender give of his underarm:  "Ze less informal, ze better,"
rests shorn cheek against the crook of inked elbow; awaiting the thrum that would be felt with his hiemal musings; quieted.  "I insist."

you are no knight.

this, he knows. this he accepts and speaks as such. he wasn't cut from such a noble cloth. not with a cunning father and a mother whose main profession was to twist words into fanciful song and ignite the imagination. to call me such would be an insult to knights everywhere. he murmurs in stilted agreement. he feels the warmwater lap against him anew as she moves, the soft rippling of it as it's unsettled with her motions.

and then there is the press of her chest against his flank — a warmth different but equally as pleasing as the warmth of the water — and the feel of a kiss placed against his underarm. a rumble springs forth of his chest, trapping itself within scarred throat. i could always call you andraste, it was her name after all ...but for some reason melkor doesn't want to call her by her name same as everyone else. he wants something special. something that is theirs; from him to her alone. but i'm personally partial to kuuhaltija. he turns his head then, lips passing over her ear with the temptation to nip and then remembers his promise of 'not biting'. instead, his lips dwell there; lingering against velvet eartip. do you like it?

"No,"  chords sifting, strained.  "Sweeter."

A fairy queen for her vood elves  —  galvanized by that mountainshard wisp and dismantling begun by the cooing cruelty of the tundrian, Andraste feathers delicate the shorn temple further along those waiting lips, unquelled and aquiver; the elusive ache from several dawns before again rousing within starved stomach; meandering lower, lower, as cobwebbed lips mouth the blue down of throat-latch. It does not occur to she, with salt limning halfsight, that the warlord could very well strike her down for such an invasive, impassioned endeavor upon his person, no;
her tongue has found the lacerations to throat and now laves deep, each; holding herself now against heavied forelimb, arched along his shoulder; a shivery, weak warble fluting from the irregular beat of uncoveted heart therein.

The lukewarmth that they linger amidst has gone heady; the fogged essence of robinsegg water cloying. Lungs of cotton; she is tremulous, and does not swan about with what-ever seductress had possessed her in their last meet. Indignent, perhaps indecent, this; still, Andraste is suffocated with all that she fears of and feasts upon. What might be between the faerie and frontiersman, she does not know ... but it is welcome.

It is whole.

no, the word strikes him like a blow of an anvil. sweeter, she commands of him.

sweeter. how ever does she expect him to shift thru vast tundrian vocabulary with the tantalizing trail of kisses she leaves along his throat; the breathless croon that she entices from his lips as he feels each attentive kiss to his marred flesh. felt keenly in a way that is different from the feeling upon unmarred flesh. it is a feeling that causes his toes to knead into the unyeilding stone underfoot; a shiver to slither down his spine slow and drawn out. 

thickly, melkor swallows, trying to gather thoughts which have became cottony and consumed by her ministrations. tonttu? he croons out to her, awaiting her judgement with a shift of his weight, as if it might settle the low stoked fire in his loins elsewhere. instead, it spreads and he shifts his weight again, pressing against her ...wanting to be nearer still.

That heave within the atrium of his breast, sidling through the hall of his throat; the resounding declaration that rumbles through his chords  —  tonttu  —  and while Andraste does not want to retreat from this, this enamiling on the evenhour canvas of the tundrian, this daubbing at the throat with kisses incessant and riveted, she must, if she is to answer to him. And so she raises wanting and woeful halfsight to his dusked, doting guise, breathless; dark lashes crested with tears unshed;
the minikin fairylight is gossamer, gauzy; staring for what feels a life-age, as she finally reaches with rosebud nose  (in some effort)  to brush its tip against the mouth that has so procured an endearment:  "That does not sound so terrible,"
and gather herself to Melkor that she yearns, and adamant to have him remove himself from her try at tormenting that she be, Undómiel stills, with breath bellowing lethargic. Rests, with lips to dark chin, to dark mouth, to dark nose, letting the simmering ache within her settle, settle ... and wend its stifling way throughout the labyrinth of her sunknived, somnolent figure;
savoring the very restraint  —  and the strength of him that she has not had for herself so many a moon.

her scent consumes him, some mixture of almost fruity and floral sweetness; but in truth, there was no part of her that does not consume him. incessant kisses continue, only further derailing his train of thought. it was already difficult to summon tonttu; and can only hope that she does not require him to speak for much longer. should she keep up her teasings, the ardent bathings of her tongue against his flesh his ability to form any coherent words will be chased away entirely. already, it is more than half gone.

with the tip of her nose brushing against his lips she murmurs her acceptance of the word ...if that doesn't sound so terrible could, indeed, be considered full acceptance.

the muscles in his flanks, in his hips twitch with carefully chained restraint, despite the weightlessness the water warmpool offers. the ache grows, the yearning spreads like wildfire, defiant at the idea of being contained. melkor moves then, not breaking the contact of their bodies but instead, bidding her to be still so he could press a kiss to the ruined corner of her mouth, to nip at the junction of her jaw, to nibble at the tip of her ear; almost cat-like at the affectionate nips he leaves, soothing with a sweep of his tongue.

what would you have of me tonttu?

She is not thinking;
or, rather, the thoughts become an instinct in its own primeval edict; can he not scent her? Remember what it felt like to be nestled against her? Within her? Her mind is filled with him, brimming, brimming, and when he finally stills her, dark and hulking; ravaged, ravishing her; and to feel the stretch and swell of sinews of this ensnared beast, tonttu reaches out. Reaches until her pale, pinked nose, for the second  (third? fourth?)  time again presses against the evespun, scarred ruff of his neck, the rigid muscle therein and she feels the enquiry that startles her, arrests her; so much so that she is held in raptured imprisonment. Until:

“Only this ... and truths, and trust,”  breath wilting in throat upon the edge of an anguished hum; somehow speaking past the wishful worrying of teeth. Lashes unfurl, ache ebbing in a moment of entreating; gazing up at him from where she is tucked against the midnight alcove of his breast.  “I must have them, if I am to give my own,”
knew that he wondered towards the corpreal of them; if she would wend herself 'round him and he twine with her; a tethering; but if they are to, she thinks, hold and heal another, the fée only longs for such equality that had been bereft of her, when last she lie in her Rest.

Trilling caught between lungs and throat, she, while awaiting his answer, nips elfin at the misted air just shy of his chin.

her answer draws forth the cup of his ears, and the contemplative noise that traps itself within his chest and throat; never breaching. admittedly, his inquiry hadn't meant to be so deep and yet the answer that hangs between them is so much more in depth. truths, trusts, this. this, this was easy enough. the tender touches and wistful kisses and a lover's warm embrace. if i didn't trust you, tonttu, do you really think i'd be here? in courtfall, he means. surely she has come to realize that he is a beast who is only where he wants to be, only follows those who he thinks he can trust and are worthy.

if other men have left you cold, feeling untrusted and been untruthful with you ...then that is their loss. melkor rumbles his thoughts upon it freely, assuming that this is where her words stem from. they don't deserve you. he murmurs. not that he exactly thinks he does, either, but all the same he moves, nipping at her shoulder; testing and hoping to entice all the same.

She hears him as if through the murmur of creekwater: distant, distorted by the rending of spirit from skin, and into him. She cannot pull away; gums and tooths at where she rest near neck; feels the prick of fang upon shoulder and shivers, faraway. Potent and impassioned; as mighteous as the moniker she's bestowed; enlightened of another in a way that is pure intimacy and through snippets that veil themselves in his permafrost undertones. He is alive. He breathes not the tales of a dead or divided male — but instead is a waking saga. And yet;
though heal wounds all that Time might, how in heavens would she press past those once-fond thoughts of the plinth and the lair; shrug all sweetwords from faltered shoulders as if undonning from a devoted mantle? How would she pluck forth another, and drape 'round her that of Melkor?

The fairylight trembles, at this timid rightness; hoping;
“And, what of you?”  she wisps, peeking up at him with eyes that shy and a shoulder that only rolls ever into the mischievous mouth.  “Do you think yourself ... worthy enough?”  The words are strange, when said with her own tongue; as if it is a half-truth, a half-belief of herself. And though she has not sworn herself to the tundrian, ever-liberal that he is, she ...
turns from him; hides once-lovely features into the woad of him.

thoughts, ever lingering and wondering, cannot help but ask the unspoken question if she thinks herself worthy of that kind of affection — of love. her romantic history ( at least the most recent ) is largely known to him but it is obvious enough that she has had her heart torn apart and stepped on as if it were of so little importance. the women that he had loved in his life: lotte, his mitten twin, relmyna ...they were loved in differing ways and yet he could never imagine purposefully hurting any of them.

melkor could not imagine hurting the fey queen before him.

it would be a lie to claim that i do, he answers in a heavy sigh; and hadn't she just asked for honesty? i can't claim that i'm worthy of anything, in truth. he had his own fair share of mistakes. but that wouldn't stop me from trying to spend every breath trying to be worthy. if he's learnt anything from relmyna's death and the resulting break of his heart: it was to not take for granted.

Hesitance that comes with honesty  —  is a small fare to pay for this, for his touch, the lay of his lips against her, the press of them together like molten stars, nevermind all chances of, perhaps, never finding another again. Though Andraste understands nigh nothing of the warlord, the wash of himself overwhelming her guard, cascading over the levee, it is sweet; saccharine, like his endearment. Soothing; everything; until his heft of sigh parts them from another and the startled lack of touch has her breath rasping. Irregular heart, galvanizing without her own accord; vessel, ardor-limned—
“I wish to be worthy, with you,”  Undómiel whispers, breathy and thin with thrill; swiveling fluted neck to sculpt her rubied brow along his own. “Better, with you,”  (please, make that be okay…)  “feel your stories. Feel you.”

Hurting heart, yes; unpromised, 'til she herself can conjure up a final choice of all this. She speaks with the insistence of how Melkor weaves into her and takes root in a way she did not think possible; wars again with herself, as once she had upon their shared eve. But it was in remaining apart of a thrashing will to flurry upon him with fanged kisses; to nip at his nose; to continue to gaze into the gelid eyes and wonder if ... he is willing to try.

i wish to be worthy, with you, she speaks to him. 'and what am i' he desires to ask. he is nothing more than a male lion is: wears the undeserved title 'warlord' with pomp. a majestic figurehead who is nothing without the lioness he would call his own. a fierce albeit tender soul to temper his stormy rumbles of a personality as unpredictable as the sea. for all his might, melkor has always admired the reign of women.

together, is what he gleams from her words. a thrum of his heart is given, vibrating through the cage of flesh and bone that holds it captive, that restrains it within his being. then feel my stories, feel me ...as i would feel you and yours. the tundrian rasps in a baited and breathy tone.