Permafrost Hollows she names conquerors, and the servile regimes they birthed

the viking and amazon hybrid does not expect to come across another. it is far from uncommon, these wilds had been vastly populated the last time he was here and no doubt that population has grown after all; not to mention there is a pack just upon the glacier not but a territory away... and yet he cannot help but feel taken aback nevertheless. what takes him more aback is that it is one so young. it is hard to guess her exact age but she couldn't be any older than three to four months. it does not fall beneath the serpent king's notice that she is probably a coywolf but he puts no stock in it. it doesn't matter. what matters is she is out here in the permafrost hollows, smelling of the pack that tezcacoatl's been avoiding as he traverses, seemingly alone.

"hello," tezcacoatl offers her kindly, softly, unable to shake the fact that when he looks at her he sees his now-grown daughters when they were her age. she does not look anything like them but he is and always would be a father. those awoken paternal instincts did not leave just because one's children were grown and forged their own paths of greatness. "you've wandered a bit from home pipotzin," he tells her, the nahuatl flowing off of his tongue without much thought as he lifts his gaze from her to scour the trees around them. part of him waits for an adult to come charging through them like an angry bull. none do and his gaze lowers once more.

"i'm tezcacoatl," he introduces himself and then wonders if she'd be able to pronounce his name. "tezca, if it's easier." he offers her with a soft smile. the nickname 'tezca' brings back a brief flashback that cannot quite form. his memory has remained hazy at best even after all these years. he knows he'll never regain it in full and there is a lot of time and memories lost to him. the flashbacks are brief and fuzzy and he does not try to grasp onto them. they will bring him no clarity, they will not guide him forward to his future and he lets them go without consequence. "what is your name?" he asks her.