Nova Peak τ

for ayovi, other tags for ref :D

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her blood was in his mouth.

it was the stuff of sticky grit, of hope's death and love's cursed sorrow.

her blood was in his mouth.

skorpa plunged himself over and again into the water, clawing ice against himself, dipping until dirt lifted from his fur and he felt that he could forget —

no. he would not.

he could not forget the sink of his teeth into her.

to distract himself, skorpa went out with gifts he had gathered. taciturn these days, unwilling to make more than the tiniest conversation, he nevertheless left his things where the others might find them.

for @Elowen Aeloria, two velveteen stoat-skin wraps in transitional coloration, summer-brown broken by patches of snowy white winter coat.

for @Silatuyok, an herb-drying rack of pinewood he had pulled from an old fir, three pronged branches stripped at the lower of anything too sharp.

and for @Ravens Call, a carefully removed deer-stomach pouch, emptied of its digested contents, soaked thoroughly in the stream, and set on wet moss to keep.

they had saved the skjaldmaer of the mountain, and he would not ever forget it.

bearsword left boundary-haunting to others in winsook; he devoted himself to @Ayovi's appetite, bringing whatever rich fare and early berries he was able to strip from their moorings. melted snow and chips of ice, strips of elk meat and suckling calf.

today, however, it was a spray of flowers which skorpa gathered back to their den; fragrant crocus and bright bleeding heart, elegant sprigs of lilac and pink sweet pea blossoms — the bounty of spring, carried with wry smile and arranged with silent focus around the bedfurs where his beloved rested to recover.

---

Morning streams into their longhouse, it’s luminescence tempting her to forego sleep. But she doesn’t, shutting her eyes and stirring only when her ruddy man gazes in at her from the bright ingress, as if sensing his nearness. She watches him work, refulgent, painting her bedfur in florals. He brings spring into their home, wildflowers of all colors, fresh and bright like sliced fruits, with the whole day ahead of them.
But he does not see her yet who flickers her eyes to a soft close when Skorpa nears. Only when his face is bent does she note his infinite expressions— grinning and quiet, sarky and gentle… His looks contradict him, the hulking jaws of a bearskin honed for conquest in battle, holding so delicately those blooms which would easily bruise. A watchful guardian, except she’d never seen a guard like him. He’d bathed, bringing youth back into his face. Desire and love waves through her like heat, curling down to her limbs. Her body aches but her mind feels clear again. Cornflower eyes trace finally up into her husband’s face.
That’s mine.
Ayovi reaches an arm out to catch him, certain it’s a wrist, and kisses it.
"Du badede," she grins, coaxing him to her.
The air smells like lilac.

---

a roughened paw stroked the edge of one fineflower as ayovi's indigo eyes detailed him in undoing. skorpa hovered near the edge of their sleeping furs, tentative palm slid to cup her jawline, and for her forehead, a kiss more chaste than he felt.

was it wrong, he wondered, to lust after a woman who had only just been split by his teeth?

skorpa did not want ayovi to see the stricken remembrance upon his face, and the bearsword lowered himself down to gingerly encircle her with a brawned arm wishing for more gentility. he was not sure how to touch her now; he readjusted to keep his embrace from resting too heavily across her abdomen.

but the fine hairs at the back of her neck were now his to kiss; skorpa breathed the good living scent of her mingled with the fragrances of bouquet and felt something at last ease inside his chest. "jeg følte, at det var tid til et ritual i det kolde vand," skorpa rumbled in languorous vibration against ayovi's nape. "hvordan har du det, søde??"

---

She does not answer at first, her lips parting only to inhale what she can of his breath along her nape. His words have a rich vibration. Skorpa’s voice is always like that— rich and slow. It shivers down her spine, awakening her again.
Is it so wrong to want him even now?
She turns her face into the hollow of his throat, where the ice of streamwater still clings. A paw, unhurried, finds it’s way into the ruddy tangles of his neck as she shifts. “Better, now,” she whispers. "Jeg tror, jeg snart vil være i stand til at amme dem."
Her eyes hold over his. There is something almost imperceptibly haunting in them. Almost.
Ayovi notices.
“Skorpa,” her voice, rasped still from blood-loss and sleepless nights, comes firmer now. She turns against him until their chests brush, their breaths crossing paths. "Du reddede dem. Jeg kunne ikke - de ville være døde," a paw lifts to hold his cheek, nose grazing his own.
"Jeg har aldrig set dig så stærk," a paw lifts to graze his cheek.

---

for a long moment skorpa was silent, emotion climbing the craggy slopes of his face and settling into its shadow. his chin began to tremble, and his broad paw shook again, cheekbone turned into her palm, his touch settling to press her own closer against his face. chest swelled; eyes filling with the bittersalt memory of that striking, horrible terror. "jeg havde aldrig været så bange," uttered in hoarse quick lest the sob overtake its sound.

a long breath composed skorpa, though he made no move to wipe the few tears which had escaped all the same. exhale to regnvand's wrist, eyes closed as he kissed her pulse there beneath white satin. "jeg har været i for mange kampe til at tælle dem, ayovi."

indigo to the embers of a burning forest.

"ingen mand har nogensinde stået så stærkt, som du gjorde." quick smile, pulling reverence down over his face. "ikke engang mig." a shieldmaiden. a winterblade in more than her own right, this warrioress split in twain and life lifted bloody from beneath her heart.

---

His chest swells unevenly beneath hers and suddenly she is breathing in the same occluded pattern, “Jeg vidste, at du ikke ville lade mig gå.” Her eyes glaze.
Ayovi tilts his head, drawing him into a kiss. Their lips press and through it she can scent garlands of lilac and bleeding heart, surrounded by color and swathes of light.
Their love could not be coincidence. It was not simply the act of choosing Skorpa over Faust the day of her heat.
What they had survived—
It was holy.
It was clarity.
She may have chosen Faust, but she would have always been Skorpa's.
Ayovi kisses him now, warm and close, as if making up for that moment's pause on the edge of a lifetime in which they had only just met, persistent until her throat has worked itself, swallowing all of which she did not know how to put into words, or what she feared would never stop once started. The huntress tucks herself beneath her husband’s chin, starting pleasantly as one of his claws inadvertently grazes her hip. Her arms reach around his torso to smooth down the width of his back.
“Tror du, de vil opføre sig som dig?” She asks suddenly, unexpected brightness in her voice. “Modig og vittig, med poter for store til elegance?”

---

no. skorpa had not wished to let her go; in fact, he might have torn through Hel himself to ensure she did not remain in Nifelheim. a small voice asked why he believed she would have ended in his world, which brought more anxiousness that for now he did not try to unsnarl.

for now; for now, he mimicked the caress, broad paws spanning the curve of her slender spine. "synes du, jeg er vittig?" the whitejaw chortled, truly charmed. he did not think a one had called him such before.

and brave; his eyes were soft upon her own. "de kan få mine store fødder, så længe de har dit hjerte."

he drew ayovi close for more of the same, florality and blood-pique roundabout as he tasted her kiss again, his senses wavering with her, only her. "men jeg undskylder nu," skorpa murmured, refitting her return, back beneath his chin. "en af dem vil hade at bade."

---

“Ja. Når du vil være det.” His smile is endearing. Her pawtips move to trace its bend. There has never been much lightness between them. Their months together had been a series of intensive moments. She coveted this, and allows Skorpa’s love to overwhelm the agonies of what came before— the strife in the North, his teeth tearing her open. The dull pain still in her flanks.
Her paw, so small against the breadth of her husband’s chest, flexes. “Ikke hvis jeg har noget at sige,” Ayovi laughs, brows quirking but her voice is only half-joking. It is hard enough keeping the den clean with one noisome norseman. “Desuden er der ingen uvaskede mennesker her.” The huntress nuzzles into his jaw, breathing in the cleanliness. She’d never admit to liking his foul, virile scent. For a moment she is content in their quiet.
“Skorpa. Når jeg er helbredt, vil du så lære mig at være nordkvinde?”

---

skorpa wanted to argue, to tease, to tell her that he planned to roll in the hogbelly mud and return to her at dawn. but the press of her paw against his heartbeat, the sight of her indigo eyes softening for him; they limned the winsook-man in deep pleasure.

still, surprise found its niche among his heartstrings.

"hvad kan jeg lære dig, som du ikke allerede har vist?" a kiss for her chin, for the cheekbone uplifted to open air. "jeg kan fortælle dig om Frigg og Freyja og de andre. og jeg kan vise dig runerne for dem, og hvordan du laver deres altre."

his eyes caressed those of ayovi, her mouth, the slope of her brow; "jeg vil endda vise dig den drik, vi bruger til at kommunikere i deres rige."

the sight of her blood would never leave skorpa, and he did not wish it so.

"men jeg kan ikke lære dig at blive en kvinde fra nord. jeg kan kun vise dig, hvordan du når frem til de gudinder, der bestemmer den slags."

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"Jeg vil vide det hele, alt, hver gud, og hvad de står for,"  Ayovi murmurs, the tip of her muzzle nosing down into the plush collarbone.
"Vores børn er halve. De burde kende min ånd og dine varer. Men...mon ikke de er ens, bare ved forskellige navne. Det guddommeliges stemme er stærk her... Jeg tror, de prøver at tale med os." The huntress is quiet then, swallowing back something she isn’t sure should be revealed yet to the norseman.
But she is eager to dispel the secret. Ayovi lifts her maw to watch for a temper in the ember-flame eyes.
"Skorpa... Jeg tog til Aspa inden ungerne blev født. Hun velsignede deres fødsler. Hun sagde, at der ville være tre. Hun havde ret i alt."
Would it make Ayovi a skjaldmær? Or was it solely the blood in her womb that responded to a norse sorceress' rituals?

---

his brow knit, but not in the thunderhead way of before, when the saatsine wolves had fled to their mountain. even now they inhabited the valley, inviting those wild warriors far too close. ah!

the sorceress was another thing entire.

skorpa remembered how ayovi's skin and muscle had given way beneath his teeth, and sickness leapt where anger should have been.

but he could not be angry, not when she had sought a witch's blessing in the way of any danewife.

skorpa exhaled.

"så talte guderne til dig gennem aspa," bearsword decided. "du ser, hvad de tog. hvis guderne har valgt dig, så kan din vej have flere udfordringer." his kiss nestled between her ears. "og mere belønning."

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