Silver Moraine three hammers

Set after this because I have too much muse. #vague

He didn’t let his perturbation disrupt his patrols, though there was a grim look on his face as Cambria circled the rise today. Whatever the outcome, he couldn’t stop thinking about the way @Mulherin and @Redd hadn’t pulled their punches. He favored the former, though he’d gone for his sister’s throat. And she’d fought back just as dirty.

You knew there was something wrong with them from the start, he muttered to himself, lightly shaking his head as he began drifting onto the nearby plain. No wonder that poor kid… Cambria added, not bothering to articulate his thought completely.

No matter how bothered he felt, Cambria had no intention of leaving @Ruckus or any of the other Redtails, for that matter. He had pledged his loyalty. Much as their customs confused and unsettled him, he felt kinship. Perhaps they were dysfunctional, though they were the only family he’d ever known.

He found himself at the cusp of the moraine. Perhaps it was his proximity to the maples or his thoughts about family that made his mind turn toward @Etienne. Or maybe such a thing was always inevitable, considering the strong feelings the man evoked in the yearling. Cambria rolled to a halt and bit thoughtfully at his lip.

set vaguely after pack meeting

sun eater's own hard talk of the future he would hew from among saatsine had another imprint: it reminded him of red leaf. he asked himself over and again what he might do if he saw her again, if he heard the sound of her voice again. he had not forgotten any aspect of his wife; he only imagined now her beauty employed in the ways she had defied him before.

rage had driven him early from the riverland; his stalk was forbidding to any who followed. only familiarity led him to the silver ribbon shining in the taiga, its overlands — the places he had kept ash and grey man.

ash and grey man. grey man and gideon. gideon and ash. he could not shake the sense of their connection, sharpening his assumptions as a man might a spear.

sun eater had not yet noticed his lack of solitude, slowly padding his way back down the moraine in the other's distant direction. all control in saatsine must be his; he must know all things, and the suspicion he did not consumed the caribou man for now.

He stood there a while, long enough for a growing appetite to make itself known. Cambria tipped his snout upward as his belly clenched and grumbled, sifting for any promising scents on the slight September breeze. His eyes almost immediately cut downward again, scouring the horizon at the powerful smell of an unfamiliar wolf.

His mismatched eyes soon pinpointed his location, ranging closer across the moraine. Cambria drew in a breath and watched the figure, noting both his similarities and differences to the Blod’s own leader. Even from afar, he seemed older than Mulherin, though certainly not past his prime.

The Dragonling suddenly remembered: the river pack lived that way. Was he from there? Did he know the she-wolf who’d come calling not long ago? If things were shambolic on the rise, their issues paled in comparison to what had happened in the river lands. What were the odds this could be the usurper himself? More likely, it was someone outcast by the upheaval.

But Cambria was wary in either case and did not call attention to himself, waiting instead to see if the dark man would notice him.

how might it go, when they went to find ghelan? how could be be sure that the pair he sent would not betray him, return with fighters to reclaim and to kill.

he must rely on their submission, though this was something kept only with the constant click of teeth. he was prepared to fight if he must, though sun eater wished also to show these riverwolves that he was able to bring them into peace.

another here. up the dark ears came and the scarred muzzle to follow, tilted against the greyed skyline until he found the thin tint of a stranger's presence.

across the moraine did the caribou man at last spot the other. he stood tall in silhouette, unmoving and unyielding in his stare.

Soon enough, sharp eyes cut him out of the backdrop. It was hard to tell their color from this distance, though Cambria could feel that gaze like cool steel. He returned it, shifting into a neutral posture out of pure habit. His own expression was curious, perhaps morbidly so.

The yearling licked his lips, weighing his options. He could try speaking to the stranger, find out what he could, or he could turn and make his way back to the rise without engaging. Cambria didn’t enjoy small talk much, though he hadn’t minded chatting with @Waawaashkeshi or, of course, Etienne.

His insides warmed as he thought of his—“crush” seemed like such a puerile word but the Dragonling didn’t know any other. His cheeks flushed now, his eyes cutting away toward the maples almost without thinking. He’d felt fleeting attractions in his time, though nothing like this, and the intensity of his feelings made him embarrassed for himself. He barely knew the man!

He cleared his throat as his mismatched eyes drifted upward again, catching on the stranger’s. Had he moved? Did he want to stop and chat? Cambria stilled, doing his best to ignore the warm tingling of his skin.

his sister had come back, their lanzadoii ways strengthening what he hoped by this time next year would be a full clan. healers, bloodhunters, tines. young and old following through time the everlasting caribou.

even from this distance was sun eater able to see the unnatural coloration of those eyes. his stare narrowed. the inclination to drive this stranger away burned hotly within him. but the moraine was not saatsine. saatsine was itself. this was only land.

shifting trajectory, the tall man approached with near-languid steps, noting the inquiry on that unknown face. young, perhaps close in age to sulukinak, with a long build suggesting a runner's edge. these details sun eater took for himself before his own look adopted the same questioning.

The swarthy man drifted closer. Cambria remained motionless, though his muscles tensed. All thoughts of Etienne emptied from his mind as he focused on the stranger. Neither one of them called out a greeting to the other. That didn’t imply bad intentions—at least, on his part—but there was a decided lack of hospitality.

He could change that, he supposed, but Cambria realized he just wasn’t in the mood to socialize. After yesterday’s events, all he wanted to do was be alone with his thoughts. He decided to offer the stranger a nod of acknowledgement, at the very least, before turning and loping back toward the rise.

He hadn’t even managed to tilt his head before a voice cut into the tense silence. It was the grumble of a hungry beast, demanding to be fed. Cambria blinked and barely resisted looking down at his own belly as the noise awkwardly shifted pitch to sound much more like flatulence.

no reply arrived. sun eater was content to let the other go, catching upon the wind a tangle of wolfscent, of others. he filed away the notes of that mark for a future which might include teeth. and yet he did not hope for it. sun eater held what was his. if the caribou camped beside a pack, so had the lanzadoii. if the denizens had come out to speak in peace, hunting was shared until the clan moved on.

but if conflict was immediate, the lanzadoii saw fit to raid.

his brow arched high as the sound begun, and by its end no small humour had come to rest on his face. "your chieftain not feed you?" sun eater teased, posture losing some of its formal tension as he laughed, and then laughed again.

His ears flattened at the first bray of laughter, though they quickly pricked again. Cambria watched stony features soften somewhat as he teased the yearling. He felt a small flush of embarrassment at the untoward noises coming out of his own body but, despite this and his surly mood, he found the laughter contagious.

I’m just glad, Cambria said through a puff of dry laughter, you realize I wasn’t farting in your general direction.

sun eater chuckled at that. "you glad? then i call you wind maker," he offered, the single eye crinkled with mirth. 

there was reason to be friendly, to share peace in the middle of a silver-rock ribbon. "where you and your belly walk now, hm, wind maker?" the lanzadoii man asked, not wishing to speak of saatsine first unless there was a proper opening.

Oh, great, was all Cambria could think to say in response to the nickname.

He supposed he could offer his real name, then collect the man’s. Much of the tension had dissipated, thanks to his noisome stomach. The yearling shifted his weight ponderously.

Redtail Rise, he answered the question directly, motioning with a jerk of his pale head before smoothly tacking on, What about you? Where are you from?

"saatsine is clan. we hold river," he told the other, gesturing vaguely toward the qeya which already ran rampant with bits of ice and frost on the furthest banks.

they held it. they would leave. they would return. he saw this cycle in his mind.

redtail rise. he wanted to ask many questions but held them all back for now. "you have hungry. we hunt," the lanzadoii man invited, stepping back to taste the air once more.

He tried to remember the woman’s name. Had she given it? Had she mentioned the word Saatsine? Cambria couldn’t remember, though how many river clans were in the area? Perhaps this was the uncle who’d taken the pack by force. The yearling chewed at his lip, staring at the missing eye and recalling some particular words from the exchange weeks back.

“I live by the river, there; my uncle is there too, and I don't know how to help him.”

“What happened to him?”

“Fighting.”

The man’s voice cut into his thoughts presently. Cambria didn’t know how he felt about fraternizing with a usurper. He sensed Mulherin wanted to keep the peace between the two packs and the Dragonling didn’t want to disturb that careful neutrality. But there was another thing.

I’m only comfortable hunting with my own pack, which which was the truth, mostly because I’m a liability, which was a fib. I was raised alone by a single mother and never had the opportunity to hunt cooperatively until recently. Another truth. Maybe some other time, when I won’t just embarrass myself. Thanks, though.

liability. sun eater did not know this word, but he gleaned its meaning from the wider context, and once more his remaining eye narrowed into scrutiny. why would a boy who knew little of hunting turn down the opportunity for mentorship? then again, the stranger was not saatsine. he did not belong to sun eater and was not his 'liability,' whatever it might truly mean.

"when i have your moons, i fall, hard, in front of entire clan. and woman i liked. running, hard running. then shame. but i put it in my head," the caribou wolf grunted. his mien accepted the polite decline and he began to saunter past the yearling. he would hunt before he returned, and now his mind turned to that end.

he was curious about the rise, however, as much as he should be. who were they? hunters? warriors? his inquiry was great.

The man—Cambria only now realized they hadn’t properly exchanged names—shared the tale of his own folly. It sounded more embarrassing than dangerous, though he understood the Saatsine wolf shared out of a sense of camaraderie.

Before the yearling could think of any riposte, the dark wolf sauntered past him. He sensed a dismissal, which was exactly what he wanted. His pale tail flicked as he turned his head to regard the other wolf one last time. He thought about exchanging names, then decided against it.

Good luck on your hunt, he offered.

Cambria swiveled and began loping back in the direction of the rise, keeping the swarthy figure in his peripheral vision until he dropped away into the distance. Only when the Dragonling faced forward again and pushed thoughts of Saatsine aside did all of his earlier misgivings come rushing back to him.

Troubled as he felt about the goings-on here, he felt protective of these perhaps maladjusted Redtails. Cambria ducked his head low and picked up where he’d left off on his earlier patrol. He officially began it with the lift of a leg, his two-toned eyes staring ponderously in the direction of the moraine.