Nova Peak β

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a waving ribbon of white, ayovi swept up into the invitation of this cold mountain. skorpa followed at a leisurely distance, protective but somehow not wishing to give that appearance lest regnvand came to feel he wished to press advantage.

another thing unadmitted was that skorpa did not remember the last time any had touched him with  such care. in the manner of a half-wild dog which knew only the kicking and shouts of its master, he had climbed out from under a proverbial table not to blows but to a taste of nurturing. the remembered moment came with a recollection of that exquisite and searing pain; ayovi pressing demon's sickness from his angry flesh.

when she went away, what would he be?

where there was one drengr, more would gather. surely there was a settlement somewhere; skorpa knew he would be able to find such a place. but somehow, amazingly, the concept of returning to be among filthied brutish lewd rutting men like himself did not hold the same appeal as the vast wild skies and ayovi running beneath them.

when he wended his tall body and its bearskin among the trees, breaking among their number to emerge among the talus and the scrubbed grass, regvand was approached in interested manner by another snowspot wolf. annoyed that healing demanded a humiliating amount of rest, skorpa settled with a mulish grunt against a spruce-trunk, the bearpelt sliding off his shoulder in a way that frustrated him further. he grappled with the hide but not for long; skorpa flung it with unnecessary violence and velocity away from himself into a nearby drift, a show of anger that comforted his emotional unavailability with a further message that ayovi had his protection from whoever the stranger meant to be.

and then the man sat down again, and then lay down beneath the spruce, having completely winded himself and hurt his belly enough to now be nauseous.

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