Shadow Mountain This Trecherous Safety

Massaraq had grown lean in his travels, his hunting far between even though the winter allowed him to scrounge well enough for the sickly and the frail. But he had also grown wiser in the ways of wandering and though he had turned from nuutuittuq and instead travelled westward he had traversed the mountains long enough to know that despite the verdant landscape the stones were treacherous beneath and he was careful yet daring as he traversed the broad peak of the Shadow Mountain. And yet even as he wandered he did not feel ready to dream, no instinct called him. So he continued to walk on. Until a scream escaped him and he felt himself tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down.

made a couple assumptions - please PM me if anything needs changing!

Ohanzee turned sharply in response to a wolfish scream, compassion winning outright over his more skeptical nature. In fact, he hardly had any misgivings at all as he bounded deftly across the mountainous terrain, trusting his paws to land him securely upon the uneven surfaces sloping beneath him.

He scrabbled towards the sound of a body giving way to rock, arriving only moments after the terrible thud. Hey! He ran up to the crumpled gray body,  panicked eyes searching for injuries. Can you hear me?

A moment of blackness starburst with pain and she thought he heard a voice. But it was strange and unfamiliar. Where was he? "Ki-valuk?" He asked even though he had grown out of the need to break up the older wolf's name like that for some time now. Perhaps he had taken a kick to the head in the hunt. A face darker than Kivaluk's swam into view, somehow that did not seem right. Massaraq winced, tried to rise but his head swam and he could feel his limbs protesting. Must have been a very large ungulate that kicked him.

There was a sickening moment of stillness, then a weak stirring came just before the questioning voice ached forth.

Ki-valuk?

It sounded like a name, but Hanze couldn't be sure. The dizzy syllables could've just as easily been some innocuous foreign language. I don't understand you, he replied, flicking an ear back in mild annoyance. It would be harder to help him if he couldn't understand what the wolf was saying. There was also the possibility that the fall had just knocked him silly.

Tsk, he tutted irritably over the dazed wolf.

Stay still, he urged with a press of his nose against the wolf's flank. You fell down the mountain. Hanze began to scour his body for injuries, but he smelled no blood and saw no wounds — not on this side of his body, anyway. Still, that didn't mean something wasn't broken. Can you move your legs? He gently nudged one of the wolf's hind paws, testing its sensitivity.

The voice was warm even as the face was unfamiliar. Consciousness swam at the edges of his tremulous awareness. Can you move? He tried. A whimper as his muscles twitched thena  stretch and a creak and his legs moved, kicking out weakly but moving. The effort brought forth a fresh wave of pain and his awareness was hazy again but then cleared to the razor edge. A mountain. He had fallen down a mountain and this was. "Who are you?" He looked up, still splayed out on the ground, voice curious and pained but not suspicious.

A pang in his head as he felt it ache. He must have hit that on the way down too. "Agh." He tried to look around but moving his head made the world spin again. "Sorry, my head....hurts." He tried to focus on the other wolf, bring his face into view but though the details all made sense he could not tell whether he knew this wolf or not.

Hanze watched as the wolf tried to reanimate his battered limbs. Beneath all the trauma of a quick descent, there was a long-bodied and lean musculature about him, and despite the pitiful display, Hanze knew that this wolf was strong. Handsome, too, he thought jealously. Some wolves had all the luck and yet still couldn't watch where they were going. Maybe they all thought they were too beautiful to be careful. Or maybe good looks made up for bad brains. 

At least when the fallen wolf spoke again it was in a language he understood.

Hanze, he replied brusquely to the icewater male and sat neatly beside him. You're dazed and a little banged up, but you aren't bleeding and nothing seems broken. He hadn't screamed or anything when trying to move his limbs, anyway, which was a good sign. Just rest a moment, he half-demanded, half-scolded. Get your bearings first.

Hanze cared, but he wasn't exactly nice about it.

Massaraq took the advice without thinking perhaps because for all of his playfulness he had not been an overly rebellious child or perhaps because he was still dazed and doing what the voice and now the face attached to it said seemed like the best idea. Slowly the world came into more focus, his head still pounded but it lessened enough for him to follow the threads of the conversation. A wry smile on his lips. "Sound advice. Thank you."

"Massaraq." He added after a moment's pause, realizing he had not introduced himself. His voice was easy, perhaps a bit self-deprecating sitting in the room of his mouth as his tongue twisted over it.

Massaraq.

It was a name that sounded as familiar as it did foreign to him. And he was suddenly reminded of the strange word Massaraq had uttered before. Hanze studied the icecap wolf for a moment, turning over the assumptions forming in his thoughts. Who is Ki-valuk? Friend? Family? Patron saint?

He had more questions, of course, but one thing at a time would have to do for now. At least this way he could judge whether the wolf was concussed or not.

"A brother." He replied honestly, though Massaraq was not born to Sakhmet or Kaluktuk and Kivaluk was not born to Kukutux or Aiolos he knew that his anaa had considered Sakhmet a wife and Kivaluk was close like family to his anaa and tataa. Memories of the wolf teaching him to hunt and track and follow the herds as Massaraq fumbled trying to learn, and of the elder coming to play filled his mind. "He is first hunter in Moonglow." He added, because Kivaluk had earned the title and it was an honor.