Rosewater Oasis the palatine has all but fallen now,

dracarys wanders.

there was no use in remaining in the stone circle, it had became apparent to him that with the lingering absence of draugr that warhall was never going to become anything. though annoyance blossoms beneath the siren prince's chest, he pushes forward, sticking to the lowlands. the trinkets — dried bones and stones — he'd taken clacked together in the fox fur he had clasped tightly in his jaws.

he finds respite in the oasis, wondering as he sits his belongings down gingerly in the green grass beside him — this slice of paradise surrounded by a sea of sand — if perhaps he should call himself the prince of the sands. though, what good was a prince without a people? a home? here, in these wilds, he was just another wanderer. a grifter.

he laps at the cool, lapis lazuli waters, wondering if he could make this place home — perhaps temporarily — as he considers his next steps beneath the hot sun.

Wolf. She smelled him before she saw him, and slowed down a bit, wondering if this one would be friend or foe. Oh, what she would give to make her bigger cousins always friendly toward her. Hmm…

She saw him now, up ahead and still aways away, his head dipped toward the water, drinking. Hello, there, she called, just loudly enough for him to hear, not wishing to startle the wolf. Not until she had gotten the measure of him. She kept her tail at a slow wag, her face friendly, but her eyes wary. Would it be a game of cat and mouse, she wondered. Only one way to find out, yes?

though not a creature made for being idle, he enjoys the time sunbathing; feeling it warm his back, dry his fur from his swim in the crystalline waters, coupled by the dry wind blowing off the sands. his eyes close, nearing drifting off in what could only be considered a cat-nap, dracarys stirs from the almost-slumber at the sound of footfalls. soft. not as heavy as another wolf's.

he cracks open an eye to look at her, his sense of hearing proven right. her scent tells him she is a coyote. his meetings with them had not been pleasant thus far in his life, but curiously enough this one greets him in the common tongue.

rytsas, rasps the siren prince in his native tongue, before a mirthless half snort leaves him. for a moment, it was easy to loose himself, to think he was still in the territories of his home region. greetings, dracarys repeats in common. i have never conversed with your kind before. he admits in a low drawn, heavily accented common. he means nothing ill by his words, only stating his truth.

S’ari grinned at his words and sat down lightly in the sand, her dainty paws ready to fly again like a startled bird if he showed aggression. She’d really rather not, however.

Well, it is easy if one tries, yes? All one must do is open one’s mouth… and speak. She flashed him a coy grin, turning her head to look at him askance. Ready? She paused, and said, Coyote’s name is S’ari, born of the desert sands. She swept her gaze across the landscape, always smiling. The sands picked her up and carried her here, to a sister desert, yes? Her gleaming brown eyes landed on the wolf once more. And the wolf is from…?

he flashes his teeth in a saccharine grin at her words, as she continues on to show him how it easy is to speak to coyotes — his own encounters with her kith kept close like a hand of cards. mostly, they had been thieves trying to steal from the fjord ... and the siren prince had no interest in speaking with them. but he cannot decide yet, if s'ari is an outlier of her species or if his encounters of them had led him to forming an unfair stereotype.

for now, dracarys chooses to humor this encounter.

s'ari of the desert sands, i am dracarys of the icy fjords of the far north. the siren prince offers in return. and how he'd found himself here was less than heroic ... and irrelevant. so very different than the basalt, sea and ice of his homeland there was some dark secret, something archaic and powerful, perhaps an ember planted by the stranger that keeps him rooted in the lowlands.

Oooo, S'ari replied dramatically, leaning forward a little as she listened to Dracarys, her eyes bright with interest. A land of bitter cold, ice and snow. So very different from Coyote's home. She cannot imagine, no... She gave a shiver, looking around herself and imagining snow falling all around. S'ari stays far away from places like that. Those of the Tribe die in the cold, away from the light and the heat, the spark of the Desert, our Mother.

As if to prove her point, she tipped over onto her side and rolled in the hot sand, coating herself in its warmth. Later, she would swim in the oasis to rid herself of the tiny kernels. And what is one from the far north doing here? Is this one some... intrepid explorer? A dashing adventurer? She looked at the man upside-down, on her back, her head thrown back to see him. A dangerous position if he wished to harm her, but she was still far enough away that if he moved an inch, she'd fly, and her dainty little legs would carry her tiny frame farther and faster across the dunes than any wolf could ever run.

once upon a time dracarys might've struggled to picture a place like this — a place like what S'ari describes as she struggles to picture his past home but now he has known the grit of red sand, the warmth of it beneath his paws. the dry, tangy air of the desert. worse, he thinks, because he likes it.

he watches her with bemusement, unsure of how to take her and how to take the trust she appears to place in him by showing her belly. but dracarys has no interest in wasting energy he does not need to. he would fight only if he needed to.

i have many older brothers, vying for our father's rank, speaks dracarys truthfully. i was tired of living in their shadows. so, i left to find my own way. forge my own path.

Ah, political machinations, S'ari said staring mock-wisely at the wolf, still upside-down, which only made her look ridiculous. This is not S'ari's strong suit, no. She has no wish for leadership and no patience for scheming, unless it is for fun. She sighed, looking away from the wolf and up at the clear blue, hot sky. The Tribe, her birth pack, is free of such things... usually. It has no real leader, and so there is no rank to fight for. And when one wishes to leave, one can do so with no worry for retaliation. The Tribe is like... water, yes? It moves and flows freely, and if one drop comes or leaves, it does not affect the whole, much, but it still leaves its mark. So it is with each grain of sand that makes up the Tribe of the Desert. S'ari grew restless there, and so she left. And then she went back. And then she left again. This is normal for those of the Tribe.

Thus, S'ari went on about her family's home, talking, as she was wont to do, generally uncaring if the others actually enjoyed listening to her. S'ari did not speak for them, but for herself. It was a weakness of hers, and she owned it with pride.

she launches into her own explanation, offering him details where he offered her enough vague words to get his point across. she speaks of her home, that which she called the tribe and how it operated. political scheming can be fun, dracarys offers with a wily grin, there and gone in the next following moments. but scheming for fun versus political scheming meant the difference between the lives and well-being of oneself and other wolves. a leader had responsibilities and actions and plans, no matter how well executed, had consequences.

dracarys enjoyed it ... the power, the political scheming, the war planning. he'd been in his element but going against his elder brothers and his father's wishes had seemed like too much trouble.

how does that ... work? having no leader? dracarys asks, unable to fathom a 'pack' built without a clear and decisive hierarchy; but that was all he'd ever known.

S'ari grinned at the wolf. This is true. Political schemes can be fun, she admitted. However, they are only fun if you are on the winning side, yes? Otherwise... She trailed off ominously, winking at him.

How does that work, having no leader? he wanted to know.

She looked away in thought for a moment, staring up at the blue sky overhead. The Tribe has elders that help to guide it, when needed. Otherwise, it runs on a code: Everyone within the borders cannot attack, steal from, lie to, or otherwise act unkind toward other members, or they will be thrown out by all the rest. S'ari sighed. Coyote supposes that if one large and evil bastard wanted to take over, it could happen, but many of the Tribe are like S'ari, yes? Generally lazy and relatively good-natured. Thus... why would we let a big bastard take us over? We would rather scatter to the Desert winds and reform somewhere else. And what is a pack with no members?

heavy lidded, the grin that tugs at dracarys' lips is serpentine. then you make sure you're on the winning side. murmurs the siren prince. sometimes, you win by knowing when to walk away. a small cant of dracarys' head is given. but he was a tactician by nature. he knew when to push the front lines and when to withdraw. especially when he knew the strength of his opponents, when he knew he was outnumbered and that his elder brothers would have no qualms about wrestling the claim for title and power from him ... coveted by all the men in his family line, apparently.

whether this toxic trait was learned or passed down from father to son, dracarys couldn't say.

hmmm, drawls the siren prince thoughtfully. more of a noise in the back of his throat then an actual word. big evil bastards are useful to keep around. fear is a strong motivator. sometimes, the big evil bastards are good protectors.

S’ari rolled so that she was on her stomach now instead of her back, eyeing the wolf with interest. The more they spoke, the more she got a sense that this was not one she wanted to be friends with, really. But nor did she want to anger him. A game to play, it seemed.

The evil bastards are only good protectors so long as they like you, she said. The moment they no longer find you interesting… She glanced away, then back, then away again. Somehow, coyote gets the sense that this one has had run-ins with evil of his own. It does not do to walk on the dark side, friend. The ones who travel the dark are only there for themselves, and will do what they can to shove you down into the deeper dark to keep themselves afloat.

its never that simple, offers dracarys. there is a lot of shades of grey between good and evil. but he wasn't interested in debating morality. not really. she leads a lackadaisical life that he could never live, too dependent on strict heirarchy and clear cut rules. he desired militaristic rigidity.

well, s'ari of the desert sands, i hope you avoid evil bastards. he didn't particularly want to leave the oasis, but he senses that this conversation is coming to it's natural end. he casts a last, perhaps longing look at the clear oasis waters.

good fortune. dracarys offers as a way of 'goodbye', ready to turn and try his own fortunes elsewhere in the lowlands, leaving behind his spoils taken from the mesa, having no further use for them.