Iktome Plains tooth and scale

Silaluk moved as Meteora did, and as the other withdrew so too did Silaluk. She had not thought to speak on the familiarity that Meteora herself connected, but as the other spoke the words Silaluk recalled the stories she had been told. Had she seen them for herself? Silaluk could not recall. She had absorbed cultures, she had ended them. But the Nereides, she had been taught, were wolves in which Siku—the Issumatar, their own Matriarch—respected, and made note of, quietly, in their Great History. Aktaie Nereides was a woman who did not intervene with the Nameless Ones heinous fit, which made her wise, which made her a wolf. Silaluk had been taught to not bother with trivial things such as alliances. Pack was pack, and that need be ones only concern. Tartok had amassed such a number now that their small beginning could be smiled upon, now—but Siku's appreciation was to be as respected as her wrath.

More saw the latter than the former, as Siku's respect was given to a very select few.

Silaluk's own accent was different than the Grecian lilt of Meteora's; hers spoke of the ocean frozen over in a place of perpetual winter, and of mountains that knew only pine, oxen, bison, and snow. To hear the name Nereides brought something known, in some way, to this strange place that had been discovered by her own relatives a time ago. The Nereides were of the few that could know of their being there, despite their secrecy—they knew of their origins, and so what was there to hide? Silaluk Tartok, she greeted in her voice, rough with its lack of legitimate use, and then she spoke her own tongue readily enough, her tail waving behind her, and in a sentiment that would likely not ever again be expressed or shared, she genuinely responded—though her tone was as monotone and inexpressive as her cold features were—to the other, Katigatkit quvianaq. She nods stiffly, and looks the other over, openly admiring the others sculpted features. She had heard that the Nereides could be Warriors, too, as well as Mystics—Silaluk, for her own part, was a heathen, as was the rest of her lot. This one wore scars that Silaluk admired without refrain, and so she assumed that she was perhaps a part of the warriors the Nereides were said to have. The Nereides are known to us, Silaluk spoke succinctly, her own glacial eyes at last moving to the face of the one called Meteora. Aktaie, and Thetis, were well respected by Siku. Her mother, though one would only know by looking at her. It was not something she shared, verbally; she earned her respect by action, not by whom she was borne to.