Duskfire Glacier leave behind your troubles and your worries

<3

Astier had begun to turn away, snow crunching beneath his paws, when the voice reached him; clear, smooth, laced with that curious lilt only those familiar with the wilds carried. He paused, gaze flicking back over his shoulder. The glint of his eye caught the fading light like ice catching sun. „It is,” he began, voice low, measured. A beat passed; enough for the silence to settle into something heavy, but not unfriendly.
His stance remained still, yet not rigid. The tension in him was of restraint, not discomfort. His eyes swept over her, observing, not scrutinizing, and lingered just briefly where petals and leaves still clung stubbornly to her fur. „You spoke with conviction,” he added after a breath, even if the words passed by his ears, „I thought it worth listening to.” It wasn’t quite praise, but neither was it cold dismissal. His gaze shifted toward the ring where the ceremony had taken place, the faintest trace of earth still pressed into the snow.
„I’m not devout,” he admitted then, simply. „But I don’t turn away what might guard a pack I serve.” A faint nod followed: „The pleasure is mine.” Brief, polite, but not distant. There was something watchful in his tone; a man who hadn’t yet decided if this conversation was a detour or a beginning.