Larksong Grotto sleeping dog beside you

Sivaak watched the snowwoman with unblinking eyes, her head tilting slightly at the words that rolled from her tongue—collected, calm, steady. This one did not flinch, did not cower. She stood firm beneath Sivaak’s crimson gaze, speaking of fear and prey as though she understood the primal language that lived in Sivaak’s blood.

The compliment that followed caught her off guard, not for its meaning but for its boldness. Arnaq kappiasuktuq. Her scars—beautiful.

A low, guttural chuckle rumbled in Sivaak’s chest, sharp and humorless. “Beautiful,” she repeated, her tone cold and cutting, though the glint in her eye betrayed something deeper. "Sivaak is not." A correction, though not ungrateful. She had never been called beautiful. Such a thing Sivaak was not. She was strong. Ugly. Eyes full of beady malice, of hunger, of depravity. She was Blood-chief of Cragblood, Muradoii woman who led Hunters. Such a thing unheard of before.

She stepped closer now, her bulk looming as she closed the distance between them. She did not lunge, did not strike. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, studying the smaller wolf with a gaze that was no longer purely predatory.

"What people does Nanuralaaq hail from?" She rumbles out, voice like that of the gravel beneath the black sea's thick currents. "Bearwoman alone. Not safe."