Qeya River we got money ... we got dreams

he'd hung around since getting back, returning each night good as his word. it was odd and he hated it, but colt briggs felt if he played his cards right, he might be able to get more out of it.
this evening was no exception. the pack was tiny: miz amalia, some man he didn't care about, couple kids, and the scarlet lady herself. he enjoyed thinking of her that way. it was why he'd preened his scraggly fur and straightened his chest and come down the river to find @Sakhmet, bringing a pair of cardinal feathers.
there weren't no man of the house around. you could bet your bottom dollar he'd noticed that straightaway.

She had intended to fish, but the shadows grew long and she grew tired. Pensive. Amalia had gone to Moonglow and although she had told the woman to pace herself, she could not help but fret already.

Frazzled by the turmoil of the ever changing Natigvik.

Now Kigipigak was gone.

A strange man in her home.

She kept her gaze from him often, but tonight he cut into view of it. Preened and strong. Feathers in his mouth. There was betraying approval in her gaze despite the composed state of the rest of her.

Is this to make up for the lack of pelt?

"would take more'n that i reckon," colt said, though he reined in his usual rakishness. she was a leader, after all, and though briggs didn't take kindly to women, her beauty intensified her fierceness. mayhaps he was a little smitten. who wouldn't be?
"foun' these near the eastern part of the glacier. lots of red birds. gotta be eggs in the springtime too. but what was real interestin' was the snake-holes under the tree. didn't know snakes cared for snow."
he grinned.

Further approval.

It glowed in her moon gaze, set hard against the earthen state of his coloring.

He spoke with the knowledge of a fine hunter, but not one accustomed to the land of the taiga. Her lips lifted ever so slightly.

I believe you'll learn more about what lives in the snow, the longer you're here.

They had not spoken at length of his stay, but it was open now.

there it came. here it stood. colt saw her words for what they were. sakhmet did not seem a woman inclined to press. she expected him to obey.
the thought rankled him, and yet it did so far less than the rogue had expected. "yew want me for the wintertime then, miz sakhmet?" his voice gently fell an octave, edged in smoke. 
would she play along?

no need to match length ofc!! she apparently had Feelings™

Want him.

It squeezed her throat, but she remained still.

She remained the image of Issumatar.

But it was not him she feared. It was herself. This ugly, raw version of herself. Lost in the vast icy sea of her own needs and the needs of Natigvik.

The smoke of his voice reminded her of dark woods she had been raised in. It was then she realized they were closer than she might like. Serpents ready to coil and strike. Colt Briggs had come in on the backbone of the devil and appealed to the nasty things Sakhmet had closed a door on.

A man who drew blood and offered her the skins from it.

Are you telling me you'd stay, Colt Briggs?

Her chin tilted up, but only to offer him a half-lidded look that threaded into something of that dangerous allure.

Smokey eyes. All the time spent looking away from him had only made her greedier for the time to see him. Hungry for true colors. His eyes of blood like her coat.

<3!

colt regarded her through sly crimson gaze, pupils dilating as they found the answering smoulder in her own. had he a concept of leagues, sakhmet would have been far beyond that. but he had only his own swagger, his own confidence.
both earned and unearned.
"not forever," he demurred. "not built for this life. makes me restless. but i'll be yer winter huntsman. say the word."
colt had come closer.
the feathers, forgotten.

It was for the best to not be forever.

These things she did not speak to him, but she gave him a glimpse of herself.

It once made me restless. They were not older than one another. Even if he was worn by travels, but she had been worn by tragedy.

Where was the difference, again?

Lines blurred.

She allowed him close — and whether he cared or not for lengthy words, she spoke to be heard all the same.

There is a title. Sivullik. Her heart thudded in her chest. You have gone for the blood of wolf and beast for me, without my asking. Things that are the blood of Natigvik.

She leaned, closer and daring. Perhaps the plucked red feathers should have been a warning sign.

Stay and the winter hunts will be yours.

He was not a man of the north — but neither had she been.

her words were not lost but they blurred beneath the closeness of sakhmet. colt touched her reverently, ready to jerk away if she turned serpentine upon him. the fact that he didn't know if she would titillated briggs — almost as much as the idea that he was taking her from another man.
but that was why he'd leave in spring, before she got the notion he was father material. colt was good for one thing. maybe two. 
"i'll stay, beauty." his dangerous gaze searched her own. "tell me more about sivullik." she spoke in poetry and colt was too rough to appreciate it.
"but first — first let me show you yer not wrong to make this choice." he was always bartering.

Beauty.

She wished to sneer, but no such thing found her face. They danced like serpents now, no longer striking.

He wished to hear more about the place she offered, but first.

A glimpse of teeth from her, but not in his flesh. Not as a threat. Something wild danced within her.

Before her.

She stayed silent for a moment.

a wooing.
she was a queen, not a common woman. colt did not know this dance, but for the grace of her touch he would attempt. teeth found the juncture of throat to shoulder. he blew warm breath through her vibrant pelt, then turned.
the side of his own neck bared.
fair was fair; the cowboy waited in position to see if she would recant and lunge.

She was a bloodshot sight.

Hackles prickled at the touch, but she did not turn upon him. Not yet.

He exposed tender flesh and she sought it with a fever that dwarfed his own. She wished to hold it for a moment, as if she might feel the very pulse of him.

When she released, very soon after, she did not pull away from his side.

u can title him anytime :D

his heart raced as she turned her mouth to his throat; she would feel the thrum of the rumble in his chest. colt would not order her off. but he did lift his head and glance meaningfully at the wild forests which clung to the banks of the qeya.
or he could have her here.
she led. he followed — for now. his touch became more insistent, tongue dragging against the back of one ear.

Amaguk until Sivullik is better discussed heh <3

It was a dance.

She had done it before, time and time again. With only one other.

Her heart riled in a dangerous rhythm. Where he sought to woo and be kind, she sought to rip for the wild things he had brought to her door.

For what use would she have had ever seen in a man like him if he had not proven so wild?

She aimed teeth for his throat. Never seeking to puncture.

he will have to earn it!

colt growled, but he let her hold him.
for a moment.
he was a feral beast, after all, and proved this in a swing of his muzzle, red eyes burning. their chests butted together; he stepped where she did.

She never tried to step around him.

Rather she stepped into him. Their chests met once, then she sought to connect their shoulders.

She danced them towards the water. He was not a man of snow, she wondered if he'd falter in the slick of the river.

colt did not intend to falter.
he followed her, and when the earth changed beneath his paws, when the frigid water ran over them, he winced. but he did not capitulate.
she burned red fire against the icy river. colt stood for a moment only to look at her with admiring eyes.

She would keep him steady.

Not that he was not larger than herself, but she had scaled this river time and time again. This was her home. Her land. She would show him how to dance along it.

He looked at her with admiring eyes.

She looked to him with heavy eyes, fire and hunger.

Now her teeth aimed for his ear.

sakhmet was testing him.
here he'd told her he was good for nothing more than pleasure and she quizzed him anyway.
one hard foot planted in the water; he let her teeth grip his ear and then tore aside, leaving blood and her mark upon him.
colt's breath came ragged; he was shot through with pain and with lust, and the two blended inside him. 
he advanced, head low, jaws snaking for her breastbone, not to harm but to hold.

His ear.

Ripped.

The taste of his blood on the tip of her teeth. Now she knew it to be true.

He had shed the blood of another for her. He had shed the blood of himself. She did not view these acts as some grand devotion of selflessness.

She saw them as the greedy, wild moves they were.

She welcomed them all the same.

He held her and she rumbled, deep and warm. She could feel it in her bones. The closing call of their dance.

who was she?
colt released her. he stood ankle-deep in the water and watched her dancing flame. 
she was unlike the others. briggs was acutely aware she too could kill. perhaps she had.
he lowered his muzzle toward her own with an insistent snort of dark amusement.

It was ugly that they complimented one another.

His muzzle near her own, the pale of her furs against the dark of his.

She turned sharp and cut her path for the upper woodlands, near the glaciers overlooking the valley. A place that would likely be silent with other bodies given tasks for the day.

She spared him one look.

It was clear she expected him to follow.

and colt followed. swayed. dripping. aroused.
he did not reach to chivvy her flanks as he might have with another. his touch was reverent, a thrall padding in the wake of his queen.
at least for now. at least until he had made her understand his propensity for a roughened pleasure.

She would not be kind.

She was not a woman built of soft things and kind words. Those had been reserved for very few.

Colt Briggs was not one.

But she could see this for what it could be. An exchange, a barter. Especially until Amalia returned with words from Moonglow. She could keep him for the winter, a fine hunter.

Kick him come spring, before new life bloomed.

She would dig teeth into him, entertain him in the wake of his following. This could perhaps be the easiest thing she had dealt with in a long time.

fade? <3