Overture Downs not my friend but i wont say no

screengrab from arcane. for @Ulfric

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The forest was cloaked in an early morning mist, the damp air filled with the scent of wet earth and decaying leaves. The winter had withered bitterly in the months she'd parted from Velaris, thwarted by the new season. Where much of the land was washed with green and flushed with blossoms, it was caught between seasons, even as the promise of renewal hung tantalizingly on the horizon— a kind change of pace for the princess, a sliver of ease passing through her mind.

The quiet felt eternal, broken only by the occasional rustle of brush or the distant call of a bird. Gnarled branches swayed against the morning breeze as Gjalla lifted herself over the twisted trunks and sprawling roots that protruded from the patchwork of frost and mud. Wet auburn leaves flatten beneath her feet. Her breath formed small clouds of hoar, dissipating swiftly as she padded toward the treeline.

As she reached a clearing, the mist parted slightly, revealing a small, frozen stream that wound its way through the landscape. The water's surface was a mirror, reflecting the muted, gray sky and the sparse foliage. Gjalla paused at the edge, her periwinkle eyes scanning the horizon, lost in thought. The wind shifted, carrying an unfamiliar scent—pinesap and iron, mingling with the morning dew that clung to the forest. Her ears perked, head swiveling with a renewed sense of alertness. It would pain her to admit that she'd hoped for another's presence, so she let the thought rest in her head as she stared at the stranger's silhouette in the fog.

Fallen maples cracked and broke from underneath the nomad’s paws, an icy breeze combing through his thick-grown coat. Winter had begun to finally pass as icicles dripped into the dark soil below, wetting leaves and ferns along the woodland floor. The tormented yet prideful folk of Brightreach were finally behind him, with their gilded gates of lies and sheep-clothed serpents at Ulfric’s back. His services had been requested by the marquess to solve the disappearance of her lover… a male who was, notably, not her husband. A monster, she’d exclaimed, a creature had surely killed him. But, as Ulfric had furthered his pursuit for answers, the monsters within Brightreach were not a fantastical phenomenon.

They were noble lords and ladies, gossiping duchesses and dukes all with a secret to hide and an ax to grind against those they’d dine with during the day—pompous devilish snakes, the lot of them. Now, the outstretch was before him - the path of a new place, yet it brought him no further joy. A new town, the same problem. A new problem, the same end result. Ulfric’s life had become an endless spiral into the abyss’s whirlpool, a never-ending cycle that blurred the nights and days into one.

But something was out there, in the distant fog. Bright blue eyes narrowed upon the blurred shadow of someone - a young woman, he’d come to realize. And she was staring right back at him, like a nightingale beauty of the moon. Her blue-ish roan coat contrasted the pale scenery around them, taking space like an apparition that would disappear if he looked away.

Stale snow and dried yellow grass crunched beneath distant footfall. The fog parted around the beast’s shape, eyes narrowed pitifully against the early morning haze. A mirage of muted oaks and deep chocolate, lumbering about like an ill-mannered bear with its small, golden eyes. The scent accompanying him was foreign, unfamiliar to the northerner's nose, and a slow, creeping caution curled in her chest. Tufted ears twitch and swivel backward against the nape of her neck, a burst of white formed in the air like swirling steam as she forced a puff of breath from her mouth.

The drifting breeze billows curled fur forward, spindly curls swaying like tendrils beneath her chin. Gjalla studied his face for a long moment, from the hard lines of his cheekbones to thick brows arching over his eyes, but it sparked no recognition from description or memory.

But she suspected he wasn't from here at all. He hinted at it by the way his gait carried the weight of something far more burdensome than mere travel, restless fatigue clinging to him like a second skin. Too tired and too weary to be from lands like these. Too peaceful for the likes of him. And yet, something called to her still, threaded into the earth like invasive vines in the undergrowth, there but unseen, a feeling she could never quite place. Perhaps it was the solitude, the burden of their lives etched into their bodies, like an unspoken language they both knew too well.

Before the silence could become uncomfortable - awkward, even, her lips parted, “You look miserable,” she mused flatly once he was in range, lashing her tail.

The cerulean maiden, however, did not disappear as Ulfric drew closer into the thick clouds. She wasn't armed with guardsmen nor poised in a stance to attack him when the distance was far enough. The strange woman was quiet, her lips unmoving, yet something about her roared like a leopard in the snow - cold and fierce. It was her eyes, he'd realize, bright as comets in the dark cloak of night. Ulfric could see her silently analyzing him, taking in his scent of urdwood and cloves, and he could not blame her as the huntsman had surely done the same.

So perhaps she wasn't a doted princess, but that did not mean she wasn't of nobleblood. The older man could imagine her in a court of Lords, discussing matters of politics amidst galas. But these weren't answers, they were assumptions of only what the naked eye could see. When he was close enough, the woman spoke of his travels and their insufferability. Ulfric stopped in his tracks, feeling his silhouette catch most of the snow specks and cold winds from flowing into the roan stranger's face.

He wondered loosely what her mind had made of him—what her naked eye could see and make judgment upon. Those concerns never previously crossed the man's mind, and yet here he was thinking about them. Better to snuff it out now rather than allow it to consume him.

“Your eye is as keen as an arrow to it's target, ” he replied, his voice filled with a gruff raspiness that revealed his laden exhaustion—like he'd prefer to be anywhere but in those fields again. Half lidded eyes stared down to her, his tail swinging low as he'd taken a long inhale. “The good folk of Brightreach left much to be desired. But I doubt someone like you would know anything about that,” Because, frankly, Ulfric had never seen anyone quite like her within the town.

Gjalla’s breath curled in the air, wisps of warmth swallowed by the cold that encased the clearing. The stranger’s voice reached her, gravelly and weary, like the crack of stones against an ancient riverbed, and it mirrored the same exhaustion etched in his frame. His presence, while unfamiliar, did not unnerve her—it was the exhaustion hanging off him like a tattered cloak that pulled at some distant, well-guarded corner of her heart. It was a comfort, to see one with pains that mirrored herself. She didn’t move, save for the flick of her tail, ears angling toward him as she drank in his words with a muted sense of intrigue.

Her lips curl into a contemptuous sneer, huffing the start of a laugh through her nostrils as she sets her gaze on the distant pearly gates. “I do. Though I've never heard of this Brightreach.” She suppresses the desire to gloat at the fact. Brightreach. A name so positive nearly promised discontent, as if it had a way of leeching the color from things. She'd had plenty experiences with kingdoms hiding beneath the guise of ivory and gold, though hollow at their heart. There was a coldness to her, a frost over the surface of her being, but even she couldn’t bring herself to be so unbearable.

“A good thing, I trust?” she pressed, her voice quieting as she took a step forward, rounding his quarter like she was sizing up her next meal, paws leaving faint imprints in the frost-dusted ground. A pity she wasn’t yet hungry. Her lips twitched slightly, not quite a smile but something close, a faint acknowledgment of the absurdity of it all. Her tail flicked once behind her, sweeping a thin line in the snow.

Neither, she’d said, with a hint of repressed pride in her tone. A quirk twinged at the edge of Ulfric’s lip, “Lucky you then.” Unfortunately, he hadn't shared her fortune — but the gods could always be crueler. The mercenary’s graying muzzle furled along his words with a subtle frustration, not directed toward the stranger before him but of being reminded of Brightreach’s detestability. “A word of advice then, bluejay,” Ulfric remarked, “as it is best to stay clear of those lands, they are best left behind you as quick as a fox’s trot. It’ll offer you nothing but disappointment and deceit.” Though, somehow, the disgruntled traveler could tell she’d already had a sense of such things. Perhaps from his exhaustion and tone.

Bright glass-blue eyes followed the blue roan woman as she’d grown closer, stepping around him like a vulture’s death circle. He’d lost sight of her for a moment, shifting his body to follow the stranger’s gait. She was a curious one, albeit rather covert about her line of questioning. Ulfric’s tail curled loosely as he’d turned to fully face her once more, drawn to her silent siren song. “I had business, and such is done.” He replied, curt and short enough. Noblemen were rather frantic when it came to the secrets of their pack's problems, and the nomad had no desire to be criticized for letting out details of his ‘work’.

Then, a soft chortle, “Shouldn't a girl like you be off wandering in the meadows, singing to the birds and catching the eye of a brigand?” He would not blame her if she’d taken offense to his accusatory tone, a dry spell of sarcasm that often left others feeling taken aback and falsely ridiculed. Another deep exhale blew from Ulfric’s lips that tempered from a scoff, leaving clouds to seep through the air. His short ears remained open, moving only to the sound of the stranger’s steps and voice.

Bluejay. The moniker struck her as strange, to be coined something much softer than herself. She supposed her appearance made up for it. Catching  her tongue between her teeth, Gjalla sucked in a breath as a gust of wind was thrust into her face. As she circled him, she noted the way his body shifted, eyes trailing her form without hesitation. "How polite of you." The princess retorted. There was no fear in him, only watchfulness. It was a shared thing—mutual curiosity wrapped in the guise of something predatory.

The princess lets out a noncommittal hum in response. The sarcasm that followed earned him a quiet huff of a laugh, the sound escaping her before she could stifle it. “I’d like to think I’ve got a better reputation than that.” she scoffed, half amuse, half derisive, voice dripping with incredulity.

She had been prepared to leave, to let this stranger be a passing figure in the haze, but now she found herself hesitating, curiosity piqued by the tired weight in his voice and the lines etched into his frame. At last, she loosened the breath in full, a plume of frost swirling from her lips. Shifted her weight, her claws curling into the frozen earth as if to ground herself, her eyes cutting back to Ulfric with renewed sharpness. “Shouldn't you be sulking off to your den for hibernation, beast?” she added, her tone evening out.

Angling her head, the woman swept her gaze over him once more, “or are you the brigand I'm expected to catch the eye of?”

Seemingly, the peculiar woman found some bit of humor in the huntsman’s words, replying to her with a short grunt. “I wouldn’t know,” Ulfric remarked, “I look at you and see no reputation worth remembering.” Frankly, he’d never seen anyone who’d looked quite like her, and there were much nicer ways to say as such than what he’d bellowed out. They shared a distance from one another, a habit taught amongst those experienced in the wildlands, and yet he could smell her as if this noblewoman had pressed along his face and neck. “But my assumptions of you don’t feel so off-kilter anymore,” he’d left that statement up in the air, curious if she’d latch onto it.

Her voice mellowed, like the gentle ocean waves after a cataclysmic storm, and Ulfric could not bring himself to be so disgruntled by it as he often would be. Pacified—a feeling he’d yet to have in this solemn conversation. Ulfric’s paws moved as he paced only a few steps closer, tilting his neck slightly. “You're one funny girl,” then, “real damn funny.” Dry as sand un the blazing, bleeding sun..

Beast.

 He liked that. However, the mention of of him as a troublemaker had been a soft stab to the Eurasian, quickly looking away from the maiden and out into the vast fog behind her. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know. So, instead of growing hot with agitation, Ulfric chuckled dryly, little more than a scoff, before giving a snide answer, “My work is hardly the same as harassing women on the dirt paths, but it is just as shrewd... Would you believe me if I told you that was enough for me?” Icy blues glazed over her once more. “Is it enough for you?”

For a moment, Gjalla’s expression did not falter, though something flickered behind her eyes—too quick to discern, too stubborn to linger. The huntsman’s words hung like frost in the air between them, sharp enough to scrape against the quiet. She did not answer at first, letting silence deepen while she collected her thoughts. Her gaze flicked over him as if assessing him for a second—third?—time.

Finally, she spoke, unhurried but pointed, like the measured draw of a bowstring. “Enough isn’t what I’ve ever aimed for.” she repeated, the word heavy with doubt, the faintest edge of bitterness curling around its syllables. “It’s what you settle for when the fire’s gone out.” It was a cold truth, a harsh one, though she wasn’t certain that he needed it most.

When he chuckled—dry, dismissive—it grated against the silence, and she found her irritation pricking at her, threatening to boil over. Yet she kept it at bay, sharpening her words instead. “Your work might be a fine companion, but I doubt it’s good at conversation.” Her smirk was faint, a glimmer of mockery.

“Enough is a word for the contented. The comfortable. Wolves who don’t need to keep moving.” she continued, her tone measured. Her shoulders rolled back with quiet ease, but her gaze had not softened. If anything, it burned colder, like frost forming along the edges of a blade. She had stepped closer now, her figure cutting a dark line against the pale mist. Not too close—never too close—but just enough that the distance between them seemed to hum with tension. Her voice takes a lower tone, then. Intimate. “Are you comfortable, beast?”