Bitterroot Valley take a gamble that love exists

for @Barrett ? <3

the woman moved through the open valley with long strides, each one softer, quieter than the last. lost to her prowl, her head was low and nose stalk cold against the wintery pelt blanketing the floor.

the bitterroot lay dormant now, though she could smell them beneath the earth, their fuchsia blooms waiting for warmer seasons. yet, ravah knew this land that sega had picked for his band held life even in the thick of winter. such life, even now, it clung to the rocks, buried itself in the dry soil, hid along the river edge.

and even limped.

she had picked up the elk’s trail hours ago. her hoofprints dragged as if painful, and the uneven depth of each step, spoke to her more than laying eyes could. she was a wounded doe, not young, but not old. strong enough to run; she would make for a good hunt, and her death would preserve the rest of the herd.

cull the weak.

ravah’s silver coat blends against the pale ground as she follows the doe's winding path. her eyes have turned to thin slits of focus, ears angling forward with each soft sound ahead.

yes ma'am!!

Ravah was not the only one who had picked up the scent.

Following closely behind was the outlaw, his steps hardly as quiet, as stealthy as hers, however they carried him far, carried him quickly as his head craned downwards to follow hoof-beat and scent-mark.
It was then that the valley's newest arrival, the friend of Sega, had her presence made clear. Her wintery scent intermingled with that of the herd, and when Barrett truly focused forwards, he could see her, a pale dot on the horizon; stalking after the herd with a hunters poise, and skill, undoubtedly so.
He would not run to her, not assume a place by her side, not yet, anyhow. She would know his presence soon—when the chase commenced.
For now, he simply followed.

she is perfectly attuned to the hunt, lengthy frame gliding in and out of view of the herd. through the sparse trees surrounding the small valley glen, the woman lurks.

it is from there she catches sight of callahan in the distance. her head turns only enough to glimpse his way, a fractal of something gleaning through her silver gaze. but overall, it is unfeeling.

she shows no recognition. the huntress does not let the man disrupt her, turning her eyes back to the trail ahead. she slinks away just as fast, lean body pressing forwards through the iced elements of the plains.

then—

she bursts from her cover in a sharp spray of snow, paws slicing through frost; electrical currents shooting through sinewy muscle as she launches into the open. the doe startles ahead, stumbling into motion, limping hard as she bolts.

a staggered gait, the hunt would be over as soon as it started. and with no qualms from the herd who are all too eager to leave her behind, the fate of the wounded doe is impending.

a swift mercy.

Snow shot up. Ravah vanished from sight, and Barrett surged forwards, as he knew the chase had begun. Snow turned underfoot as he sprinted, full-tilt, towards the woman, covering the ground that laid in between them and finding himself next to her, albeit with quite a bit of room between, in a matter of moments. He was an outlaw, afterall.
Powering forwards, Barrett snapped his jaws, teeth finding purchase on the soft skin of the doe-belly. Blood trickled into his mouth—that metallic taste that meant injury. His tail thumped as he tried to pull back. Tried to slow her gait. Allow for the huntress of Great Sky to join in, as well.
He let go for just a moment, pulling up closer beside the elk so that he may latch onto the crevice between her arm and her side, furthering the struggle in which she fought. He knew that Ravah would be able to take her down in one, swift movement, just as Sega had.
He only made it easier for her to do so.

she is joined in the hunt, just as she had expected. and she would save her compliments for when they had felled the doe, but still, her mind ventured. he impressed her; in a way few ever had.

a strong man, a strong hunter. natural, perhaps with more sense than some of the men back home in big sky.

the moment that callahan tears from the belly of the two-toed and shifts to the side, opening the doe up, ravah seizes it. the huntress angling in hard, cutting toward the exposed shoulder; pale body slamming into the doe with controlled force.

jaws unhinging with pearled teeth to clamp down upon her neck, right where her pulse throbbed the fiercest; top jaw sinking into the flesh behind her ear, and bottom connecting upon her meaty jugular.

the woman holds fast, anchoring her hind legs against the churned ground as the elk lurches and flails.

She held fast to the doe, and when Ravah had found her claim upon the doe's weakest point, Barrett moved to mirror such purchase, teeth meeting flesh, meeting the deep thudding of the ungulates quick-beating heart. Slowly, it staggered, tried to rear upwards, but was only met with the force of two unshakeable beasts. Tried to fight, but already, the gaze of the creature went cloudy, moving, now, in a way comparable to that of a tired newborn.
In but a mere moment, it came crashing down to the earth in a thud, giving a last cry before the life slipped from the beast. Barrett released his hold, breaths coming in long, deep pants for air. He looked to Ravah, now, maw bloodstained and tussled, and gave an approving nod, before gesturing with his nose so that she may eat first. Keep the pelt, he breathed. No waste.
Turning away from her for just a moment, he would raise a paw and wipe it across his mouth, trying to clean his face in any sort of way.

the hunt winds down, a closing brought on by the teeth of two formidable hunters. snow packed to their paws and shared breath fogging the air around them.

callahan's words are at first lost upon the ears of the woman. she steps around the kill, nudging him out of the way with her hips. either ignorant to his presence or knowing, and uncaring of it. either way, the woman lowers her head to the nape of the doe. inhaling a deep gust, and then working her way around once more to her backside.

her head bows, and in a hushed whisper: your body stays, but your spirit walks. go now—go fast, where wolves do not follow.

silence, for a few moments, and then ravah looks to the man. huffing at him, head cocking slightly to the side; that enchanting stare of hers glistening with something she does not yet know. a vulture found with carcass. as if to say 'obviously.'

her face juts in his direction then, a sarcastic turn of her chin.

but you good hunt. strong. her eyes drop to his shoulders, wide, and then the blood upon his chin and snout which he had missed. she finds it oddly endearing that he had attempted in cleaning himself, where most men would not care that their pelt was shed in crimson. why i keep? she asks.

argumentative. it was what she did best, after all. that, and hunting.

man can take pelt, no? you thinking that because i woman i get hide?

The woman said something that hardly registered as words in his mind. A tongue that only she and Sega shared, of which he had heard only once before, during their reunion. He thought that he would like to learn, but, though he was curious, he was unsure of how much purpose it would serve him when he could hardly grapple english. Now, he moved out of her way further yet.
He meets her eyes once, those silver pools swimming like starts captured within a lake. For a moment, he finds himself silently taken aback, though his face, nor his mannerisms betray this, for he just stares at her quietly. That gaze fell to his shoulders, then rose back to his maw. Under direct study of the huntress. His tail twitched back and forth. But just as quickly did he scoff.
Keep it like, 'don't make a mess'f it,' he pointed out. I think you bein' a woman ain't got nothin' to do with it, words came in a huff, single brow raised as he shot Ravah a look that read 'are you serious right now?'. He moved back towards the pelt, checking it for any marks or scuffs that were not the wounds they had already inflicted upon it.
For the most part, it seemed clean, and the man nodded himself. His gaze returned to Ravah. You gonna help me drag 'er back, or you busy actin' all indignant? There was almost a slight humour behind his words, should he not have been the quietest bit offended at even the mere suggestion that he might think lesser of a lady. Something of the thought turned his belly.
—Boiled his blood, and then some.

if ravah had noticed the way he looked at her, she made no effort of making it known. rather, was more focused on the way he quickly went about correcting her assumption.

her eyes narrow upon him, and when he scoffs, they widen right back to their former position, accompanied by her lip twitching up in mild agitation. and so you are thinking that i make mess? she shoots right back, stepping over the carcass with a long foreleg to close some distance between them. 

when he looks away from her to glimpse over the carcass, she is only more inflamed. she had already done that! 

she has no clue what his last words mean, but they roll right over her. even though he sounds slightly humored, they only earn him a short-snipped scoff from the huntress as she moves from the carcass and places herself before him.

i carry myself. stubborn. stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. you go, now. not needed.

?!?! IM CRYING LOL

What was this womans problem? A question that he may have genuinely asked her, should he have had any sort of energy whatsoever to put up with her defensiveness. Her righteousness, more like. Her assuming nature and her misunderstanding, or, more so, her lack of interest in understanding at all.
She moved between himself and the elk carcass, stubborn in her words and frustrating in her mannerisms. Are you serious? He scoffed, brows drawing together as his nose wrinkled upwards. A mix of irritation and genuine confusion. He did not move away from her. Rather, looked upon her with squinted, narrow eyes, breathing heavy through his nose. It was like this for a few moments, him simply searching her gaze for something representative of a joke, of some sort, before he moved away with another scoff leaving him.
Have fun takin' all night, he slung over his shoulder as he stalked away. Irritation prickled every hair in his body, tracing down his spine and shooting into his tail, of which would give a single lash as he went.
He shook his head and regretted finding her in the first place.

i love hate them

same lawl

she bristles.

she bristles in a way that one had never bristled, ever before! watching with a smoldering, fury-filled stare as he goes. watching, watching, watching.

even more annoyed that as she does, she finds herself admiring him. it is an agitating thing, oh, it boils her blood and twists her gut into taut twine. locked up like the racks of two great stags.

men. she spits after him, unwilling to admit when she is wrong and certainly capable of holding a festering grudge. and something she wouldn't even consider: regret.

in the morning she would wake up with plenty of it.