Duskfire Glacier [m] Tshärr

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When next she awakens it is in a cradle of flame-red arms and everything comes flooding back in a grim realization.
“No,” her cry ruffles both their furs, “no no no no.” Limbs rake to detangle, she wrenches from the northman and sidles into the glacial blue wall opposite him with a whine, staring at @Skorpa like he’s a stranger. This isn't how it's supposed to be!
“What the fuck have we done? We don’t know eachother! You— I— we can’t even speak to eachother!”

---

ayovi wakened and began to bugle. skorpa's eyes had flown open in rapidity, thinking the warrior near, but it was only the rainwater gasping.

she acted as if she feared him. he remained very still, then shifted and rolled to his large paws. there was a long silence, broken at last by manful decision.

"du er nødt til at spise, ayovi," skorpa grunted, and began to clamber skyward.

"jeg vil give dig mad," he called down into the cavern of ice, high wind buffeting his heavy hackles and thick chestfur. universal sign for come with followed that bellow, and skorpa turned away not in anger but determination.

he would feed his woman hot blood and rich flesh. yes. she would come back to herself and then a way to speak might be found. he had grown lazy; he had only plucked up a few words of her own. they must do more now, skorpa thought with awe and prickling dread. a great wave of protectiveness washed over the swordsfang, and he glanced back along the brawn of one shoulder to see that ayovi was in sight or remained hidden.

---

Restlessly she trails him, dismayed by his composure, “damnit Skorpa, how can you be so calm?”
The northman’s putrid scents coat them both. Blood; it is all she sees, on him and her both. Swathes of deep red line her coat, her paws, her belly, her mouth. And sickeningly she remembers how tightly she’d held him the night prior, how she’d left no space between them.
“I know how. It’s not your first time.” Now Ayovi follows the northman up the sculpted ice corridors and out into a single opening which blasts daylight upon their ice.
The huntress grits her fangs, winding her way forward to snap at the air near bloodied legs. Her eyes flare into blue hearths and she prays their fire is enough to cloak the true sheen of adamant fear. She shakes her nose, flicking fresh powder from ivory tresses. His own flames shake her nerve on their backing of midnight.
“You’ll leave. You’ll leave— and I’ll be left to do this on my own.”
It’s what men did.

---

still she was vengeful! ayovi followed and skorpa was glad for it, but not for the bite of her teeth nor the way she commanded his attention from the hunt. beautiful burning bountiful woman; she annoyed him in this moment.

he shushed her with a growl, then moved to seek her cheekbone with the same mouth she had sought in fevered ardency. "jeg kan ikke gå på jagt, hvis du skræmmer alle fuglene og vildtet med din vrede stemme."

now her eyes; now he stepped back, smiled in full delight at her lovely figure, and turned back to his stalking.

skorpa hoped she would not speak again; he could not hope to reassure when his own stomach was empty. why did she fear? surely women had told her what might happen with men. maybe she had seen bigbellied wolves turned out with no husbands. such things happened; he could not force himself into a marriage that ayovi did not want.

but he would tend her. it was right and it was what he wished to do. women had choices to make, and though there were no soothsayers or healers here, he trusted in the mystery of the divinely feminine and accepted that there were ways not for men to know.

---

His maw strokes her gently, as though smoothing the finest pelt, and the billow between her legs shifts impulsively. When he pulls from her to step back the dark face is glittering amusement that freezes every rebuttal where they wait on her tongue. Somehow what he has to say sounds wisely pragmatic, but now her cheek is raw and cold with his absence.
“Fine, quēogånd-man,” she grunts.
Dear father, do not hate me.
Ayovi turns and races, a nimble northwards sprint to partner with the bear. 
They tread out along the glacial blue, a gleaming shelf still powdered by a lack of hoof and paw; no grass, no trees, no place to hide away prey. Eyes trace beyond to a granite mount and wooded foothills before flicking along Skorpa.
She can smell him. He is everywhere; in her hair, her mouth, the soles of her feet. Even here, in the flat white, his decay still finds her. Her stomach turns a moment and she slides an arm down her muzzle, the solid stroke steadying her. She needs to get away from his smell—
Because all she can think about are flashes from last night and the images of him she’d been hoarding.
“Don’t you ever bathe?” Ayovi makes a flaring gesture with her nostrils.

---

like water she transformed again, and skorpa found himself moved in that terribly ponderous way. he mimicked her words, rolling them in the good breading of his accent as he savored her own.

perhaps once a great massif of ancient stone and far evergreen had spanned this place and left behind the mountain. good forage was covered now with drifted snow, but as he and rainwater moved higher he saw where the wind had become involved.

catching her expression, skorpa laughed aloud. "du kan ikke lide min parfume," he teased, but the man was pleased. more than pleased, for the word 'bathe' was similar between them. "men du havde ikke så meget imod det før," came his growl rife with suggestion; he caught her eye to pierce and then reached to kiss ayovi. "jeg vil bade, når floderne og søerne begynder at tø."

his eyes danced; skorpa made himself return to their hunt.

here was a flat plateau, elevated and flat, naked to the sweeping eye. ptarmigan burrowed beneath the blanketing, he knew, more than willing to rely on their high nutritious numbers until larger prey could be killed.

there was something larger, lurching through larch far below he and ayovi, a ruminant and wounded. his pulse flicked up, and now he rested while he took time to consider what they must do.

toward the wide plane of white he tilted his head, then toward the coniferous sprawl in descent from their current perch.  "ayovi," skorpa grunted, her name smooth and comforting. he arched his brow to ask which? and in his moment of waiting the desire swept over him again as he feasted his gaze upon her expressive features.

---

Quēogånd, she hears him say. Bear. She turns her head to hide a smile. Conceals even more trembling when he kisses her lips, and the huntress falls away, putting distance from that strangeness there was between Skorpa and she.
He guides them further out along this eastern stretch where the sun pours down onto their coats, and Ayovi is grateful the language of the hunt is shared between them. Her name off his tongue commands attention. Grouse rolls thickly in the air here, but it is the second prospect which draws nose and eyes from the ivory. She ambles stealthily, gaze flicking back over shoulder to the northman. Rock fowl would ease their appetites for a day; but a larger kill would stake their week’s claim to the ridgeside.
Ayovi presses forward with ears cupped; a decision plainly made.

---

ayovi turned to the foothills and skorpa followed, wintry wind in teeth bared for a smile. a terrible nervousness had come suddenly over the man, a fear that possessed aught to do with their hunt and all to do with the fact he might possibly be a father.

it was not something upon which he had mediated a great deal, but something about the cold day kept him in such cups of musing. such events had never been part of predicted life; he was a northman but also a rogue, and settling had not played a role in any contemplated future.

now it spread before him, this new path. rather than explore it, skorpa leant himself to their hunt; he touched smears of blood among the cold needles, saw blotches of it upon the beaten snow. cloven hooves and a dragging leg. caribou. reindeer.

fatherhood. bearman dragged his mind from that thought and jerked his head toward the wavering larch just ahead, eyes shifting to ayovi.

---

She follows Skorpa’s attention to the treeline with a stilling of everything but pulse and breath. Far ahead there is a weighty disturbance in the bracken and her spirits quiver. Ayovi’s brows lift as she regards the bear-hunter, his reaction seemingly altogether different from her’s. Gone is that redolent humor, castling stone in the eyes and mouth of the man. She’d have contemplated this further if windborn wounds did not rouse her deep hunger, stalling for a moment baser appetites so long as she had the scuffle of tracks to follow.
A nose returns to the blood-trail. If they are quick, they’ll ambush a few bites before the creature can gain proper footing. With a signal of intention to Skorpa, she shoots forward, body a crouched streamline to devour distance in short, silent strides. The beast in the trees is enormous, a vast shape that lumbers along the bottom of the duff, movements slowed by the drag of an injured limb.
Ayovi gives tongue and teeth like a mountain cat, blitzing a latch to the nape and tearing her head to open skin and score muscle. The creature resists, kicking sheets of snow and mud from beneath hooves, dislodging it’s pursuers and rapidly drawing away, tundra hide fading into the dark depths of the woodland ahead of them.

---

ayovi flashed forth, and skorpa followed. her teeth skimmed to ailing flesh and thus did blood add its bouquet to the billow of scents around them. he shouted! a man of the white jaw burning now for battle.

reindeer were great beasts, but it was ayovi's speed and swiftness needed now. as the caribou darted ahead, skorpa took their lead, lunging through snowdrift until he came near to its shoulder.

heavy step thrust him close, and now his teeth peeled blood in shuddering skin from their quarry.

a cry of pain bellows to the air and he matched it again with another snarl of his own, falling back as his burning eyes flickered, assuming ayovi would now capture the third leg of their relay. run down, the caribou had only minutes before adrenaline flagged beneath bloodloss.

---

Synchronously they fly, trading strikes, one diverting kicks and hooves away from the other’s onslaught. It’s a well-timed duet buried within them both and Ayovi feels her marrow sing, heat trilling within her veins. Instinct comes and takes her. Blood bolsters the huntress’ entrachets, no longer is she offended by the northerner’s reek, but excited by it. If they hunted their way through days and nights, they’d set the ice on fire.
As Skorpa falls back in recovery she hammers up towards the beast’s opposite, tugging a forearm to slow his gallop, lending enough delay for the bear-man to aim the death-blow.
Her braying is high; loud and bold. A call for Skorpa as much as for herself.

---

fearless! fearless! easily he could see her in battle as her strong muscles shone beneath pretty fur; she was locked to the beast and to the fall, to its hooves and her claws dragging trenches into mud and frozen mud.

skorpa took a long breath, filled his lungs for the leap. he fell back into crashing step and brought his hard arms down upon the creature, to crush, to shatter in his own inexorable clutch.

teeth felt for nostrils and nose and mouth as he drove his shoulder into gasping throat and hooked his tooth into vital throat.

a final struggle, one that put him to tested limits and the bulge of commanding arms.

---

Felled by Skorpa’s strafe, the creature writhes and screams and Ayovi is called to sever it’s hide with long bites; pulling at chest and nape until rout singes her nose and heartbeats dwindle to conquering growls. Warm blood floods her mouth, smothers her maw. The huntress laps greedily, wetting her tongue, fraying sinews.
But it is not enough.
She whirls, cavorting wildly, latching those hot-soaked fangs to the side of the northman’s cheek and pulling— not intending to draw blood. But the same cannot be said of his shoulder, where she presses her scent with furious insistence.
Next week— next week his glib tongue may be something she runs from.
Today she canters about him, turning the hunt on the bear, darting a tongue from flank to thigh, and jerking away.

---

blood livened, blood evoked. to see ayovi painted with it caught his heartbeat into a hard drum. to feel her teeth and witness her wild eyes had the bear in an artful lumber, casting himself in lunging that was only half playful.

she spun him around, around; skorpa ran at her then, head low, shoulders rounded with effort. he wanted to catch her in his rush, but rainwater speed suggested an easier evasion.

but he would catch her, his eyes said, his mouth promised; he would catch regnvand and have her here against the cooling hide of their triumph.

---

“You are lucky you hunt well, coarse man,” Ayovi fires, words mingling with the sounds of straining breaths. She chances another nip, this time to the crook of his elbow, remembering how pleasure looked on him. She knew his roseate skin and the husk of his chest.  She spins, cupping their bodies, pressing herself back into him for a blissful note before rounding the caribou once more.
Another bite; another rollick of hips as she falls to elbows in a luring play-bow. “What else do you know?”
The snow is sharp and bitterly cold but the passion makes her an animal in their own world, where nothing exists beyond this shaded ridge.

---

a dove winding around a bear; light snow upon the teeth of a mountain cat. when ayovi pushed into him, skorpa rumbled, and when she danced away again, one of her languages sounding, he bunched his great arms and leapt over the caribou to confront her in a flurry of flown white.

now the firebrand eyes were amused, and he feinted to keep her; left and then right. in a flat run, regnvand was far faster should she outstep the power of his initial stamina.

but here; he fell into a bow, stance widened. would ayovi take them into a running all the same? or would she grapple him? his mouth formed a suggestive moue; he waited with waving tail, captured again by her fragrance now mingled with the sweet blood of their kill.

---

She does not put them to flight, instead with the same veracity in which she’d sought the deer her mouth opens upon his, taking blood-sweetened breaths from Skorpa’s throat. She grunts his name, it blows through her as she explores all him under daylight, drawing lines with her kiss. There is a rhythm he likes, she learned last night, and in setting herself astride the rogue she grinds to find it.

***

Eventually they separate and Ayovi peels away from him, feeling full but catching her breath around the flank of their kill. There is silence then, and she does not care about her damp pelt or the swell of her lips. She grooms the taut caribou hide. Eyes trickle back over the northerner. Obsession roots in this first man, her only, but when desire soothes she wonders how many women share this with her.
“You must have a wife on each mountain peak,” she stops her licking long enough to muse aloud.

---

almost skorpa had been asleep, caught somewhere between a doze and wakefulness. the rush of their kill followed by ayovi's elaborate hips; it had put him into a wonderfully soporiifc state, and he watched with one open eye the trajectory of her tongue upon the caribou.

he had heard her say this word before. "wife," repeated skorpa, though he made it more wondering in tone, a question asked. it must be something of high importance for him to hear it so often, and now he wished to know.

skorpa knew the drengr was close. this land held riches and would be claimed. they should butcher and dress, skin and be done back to the lone mountain, but instead his paw raised to warmly skim her flank. an answer might give him more insight into what shape their future might take.

---

She goes still when he takes her belly under paw, in full acceptance of their tryst’s outcome; for once there might not be cubs, but many times now had they tethered. That rebelling fear is tempered by the calm intrigue imbued in the northern face and she reaches past his arm for the snow, returning to their form of communication through mark-making.
In the glistening powder she smudges out of pair of oblong figures; one small, the other larger, topped with pointed ears.
“Wife; mate,” Ayovi indicated to the smaller, blue eyes searching for comprehension from the bear. “She is claimed by a man. She keeps his den, raises his children, studies healing.” Next her paw grazes the second. “The man— husband, he hunts and protects them. It is an economic arrangement.”
Her throat tightens, for this was only the structure within Ahsēer. She glances long into Skorpa’s face, mind brimming with all the questions she cannot ask and the silent furor that a pack would not want her if she was discovered to be carrying a rogue’s cubs.

---

he was at last brought to understanding by her picture marks in the snow. one icon was for him and the other represented ayovi herself. while skorpa did not comprehend it all, its gist was clear. "húsbóndi," he said of the larger dot, and the words were much the same.

now he gestured to the smaller marking. "konæ." skorpa looked at ayovi then, tapping his broad chest with a massive paw. "húsbóndi til ayovi."

with the daring came a rush of strong warmth in his chest, honeyed affection. but now it was his turn to reach toward the snow, to add two tinier dots and then set an inverted triangle over them all. "langhaus."

a husband. a wife. children. land. it was the hope of every northman, and he smiled to think that their aims were not so different.

---

Can too much tenderness bring pain? She stares at two small marks made by his hand with eyes that melt like the running brook, and when her gaze reaches for his there is a sincerity that makes him look years younger than she knew he was. Though his ways are hard and coarse and his edges may wound her, she believes him.
“Ayovi is Skorpa’s,” the huntress smiles, true and wide, bled willingly by the flame in his eye. She wanted this, she always had. But now she wanted it with the bear-hunter.
At the end of the day all they had was this ritual of passion.
And that, she thinks, will be enough.