Lion Head Mesa i worship ancient hungers

wintersbane does not expect a reply. his attention is not focused on the happenings of the world around him — a careless mistake for a warrior, he reprimands himself — and he starts when a female voice drifts from the shadows. the hackles along his spine bristle and his lips pull back to expose his teeth as he moves stiffly to his feet. he moves and reacts on instinct and once he processes that she's answering his meant-to-be rhetorical questions and does not appear to be hostile he relaxes. not fully of course, but enough. i thought i was alone. he offers as a gruff explanation though it lacked an apology for his initial reaction. his words were truth, at least. he hadn't seen nor heard her, wrapped up in his own world as he'd been. that slip up didn't happen often to the vartija who prided himself on his ability to be vigilant.

despite that the tundrian no longer necessarily views her as a threat he does not relax back into a reclining position again. instead, he favors a rigid sitting position. is the world ruled by chaos? perhaps it was a belief his younger self would have been all too eager to sink his teeth into. an older wintersbane, however; has taken surprisingly well to the religion of the dark woods. he's seen mephala and sithis. he's been visited by his deceased mother. all these things work in constant cooperation with one another to keep the tundrian's newfound faith strong and unwavering.

i have seen gods, he speaks simply, leaving out that he'd been temporarily high while he'd been seeing them ( except the lotte dream was still a giant mystery to him ). faith or lack thereof is not my issue, he draws in a deep breath. i look at the stars and moon and i see them for what they are. useful for for navigation, and guiding light to chase away the worst of the shadows. but he lacks the imagination necessary to see the constellations and to think that the moon has affect on behaviors ( or perhaps he's just blind to it; he's stubborn and that's never out of the realm of possibility ). what do you know of the phases of the moon? he inquires, a small cant of his muzzle skywards as if to emphasis his own desire to learn. he isn't sure she can help him with this quest but wintersbane's too pigheaded to quit now that he's came all this way in an attempt to learn something.