Duskfire Glacier mahtar

set after the meeting!
aw btw <3

Though he had already dismissed the caribou hunters as little more than fleeting embers soon to be snuffed out, he would not step into battle without knowing the enemy. Who were they to think they could stand against them? Who would crumble first beneath his fangs? Who would beg for mercy before the end?
The Kaan’s summons had not been without revelation. Many had gathered, himself among them, yet some stood silent, hesitant. Unsurprising. Every stronghold bore its fractures, every empire its weak-blooded. He had given his loyalty, but never blindly. Astier was no nameless sword, no beast led by the throat. He knew what he was stepping into, and when the dust settled, he would still stand; unchallenged.
Now, his search turned to @Faust. The questions searing his mind demanded answers, and the wraith would not be left wanting.

faust’s gaze found him, sharp and steady. there was no hesitation in the way he turned to face astier, no surprise in his approach. he had expected this. wolves like them did not fight without reason, without knowing the weight of the war they walked into.
you have questions? his voice was low, even, but it carried weight.
his green eyes burned, though not with impatience—no, he wanted to know what astier sought. what he needed to be convinced. faust had no time for those who wavered, but he respected those who thought before they bled.
ask them. a pause. then tell me if you are prepared to kill for darukaal.

As if his summons had been anticipated, the Kaan’s response was swift. No hesitation, no wasted breath. Good. There was much the wraith sought to know, and only once his questions were met with truth would he offer his own in return.
Lowering his head in a measured salute, he spoke, his voice as even as the glacier itself. „Kaan.”
His pale gaze, sharp as a blade’s edge, lingered upon the dark sovereign. „These Caribou Hunters; who are they?” He did not believe them to be mindless killers; even beasts had purpose. He knew little of them beyond whispers in the wind: nomads without land, without titles, tethered only to the herds they pursued. But perhaps they were not speaking of the same hunters.
A pause. The ghost shifted, settling upon the frostbitten stone, his presence deliberate yet not intrusive. „What drove them to strike?”

they are nomadic, from what i understand, faust said, his voice even, steady as the frozen ground beneath them. he did not waste words, did not fill the silence with anything unnecessary. the weight of war pressed heavy upon his shoulders, but he bore it well.
they simply hunt the caribou—until they did not. his green eyes flickered with something sharp, something bitter. blackfell is my cousin. gjalla, his wife. mortally wounded by the chieftain of saatsine.
a slow breath. a measured exhale. he had already repeated this too many times, but the more he spoke it, the more the rage solidified in his chest.
from what i understand, he continued, it takes very little to anger him.
the words were spoken with a grim sort of finality. a monster had been allowed to roam unchecked for too long, and now, the consequences were bleeding into their lands, staining the snow with fresh war.
what drove them to strike? astier asked.
faust's lips pressed together, jaw clenching as he thought. pride, he finally said. and weakness.

Faust's words only confirmed what Astier already suspected: they were nothing. A nomadic band, chasing prey and shadows, with no land to call their own. No roots. No legacy. Wolves like these vanish with the snow, forgotten and stepped on by the hoofs of the very caribou they chase. The wraith offered Faust a curt nod, though his gaze drifted elsewhere when a familiar name cut through the air: Blackfell.
Astier had crossed paths with the man days prior. Rage followed him like a second shadow; bitter and all-consuming. And yet, his mate now lay bleeding at the fangs of another, while he stood here, among them, when he should have been by her side. What kind of a husband abandons what is his to the teeth of a monster?
„Why was his wife in the heart of this Saatsine?” The wraith’s voice carried the weight of ice and stone, cold and measured. It was not curiosity that drove the question, nor concern: only the quiet pondering of a mind that sought to understand if this war was inevitable… or folly.
The other name, Saatsine, meant nothing to him. But the story that followed... it painted a clear image. A man who leads by fear is not a leader: he is a tyrant awaiting collapse. Astier’s gaze lifted to the distant peaks, where the sky bled into stone. Cold judgment stirred beneath his breast. Men like him are carved from rot; and rot must be excised. Pale gaze returned to the Kaan, expression devoid of warmth. He dipped his head once more, the faintest glint of a smirk pulling at his lips.
„Then we prosecute a good war.” For any beast who spills the blood of innocents to feed his own pride deserves not death, but the slow and certain decay of his legacy.

the woman he attacked... faust's voice was steady, but there was an undercurrent of something colder beneath it, something settled deep in his bones. was her sister.
gjalla, bleeding in the snow. blackfell, exiled. saatsine, crumbling beneath the weight of their own hubris. the pieces had fallen into place long before faust had even called his wolves to arms, but now, the board was set.
his lips curled, but there was no amusement in it. a war we will win.
astier did not speak in riddles. faust liked that about him. the wraith did not ask foolish questions, nor waste breath on hypotheticals. he simply sought understanding, clarity—the shape of things before he carved them apart. faust met his pale gaze, searching for any hesitation, any flicker of doubt, and found none.
blackfell's wife was saatsine. they called her traitor when she did not kneel. his head tilted slightly, considering. he should have known better. there is no mercy in men like that.
his tail flicked once, a low hum in his throat as astier’s words settled like iron in his chest.
faust exhaled, slow and measured, before finally nodding. yes. we do.

exit Astier! <3

The man's certainty in victory exuded of a leader's pride; a quality Astier begrudgingly respected. Yet the wraith had already drawn his conclusions about this war, and where his allegiance would lie. This was not a battle to reclaim honor, nor to right the wrongs of a man too weak to guard what was his. No, in his eyes, this was an extermination; a purging of rot that had festered for too long.
Astier’s pale gaze lingered on the man, cold and unreadable, as silence stretched between them. „A war we will win,” he echoed, though the words held no fervor, only quiet inevitability, an answer to his earlier inquiry.
With that, the wraith rose to his feet in one fluid motion, graceful and quiet. He inclined his head, a subtle gesture of respect, though distant. „That is all, Kaan,” he murmured, voice as chilling as the wind that whispered through ancient peaks. „If you'll excuse me.”
Without awaiting a response, Astier turned on lithe paws and drifted toward the cavern he had claimed as his own, shadows trailing in his wake. He would not stain his fangs to amend Blackfell's failures; he would fight to strip the Saatsine of their weakness and carve out something far colder, far greater, from the ashes the chieftain would leave behind.