Duskfire Glacier nature, nurture, heaven, and home

Faded threads of scent tangled and scattered across the weather-worn paths of the glacial swath of land told a story of a pack that once lived upon these hills. His grizzled nose hung low, nostrils flared, as he took in the scene presented to him. The snow was melting away, revealing flattened grasses, and a collapsed den. He approached with purpose, pawing away the tufts of earth that had tumbled over the entrance, and poked his head in the hole he'd made. The trace indication of childbirth still remained, which was covered by a heady aroma of wolves, wolves, wolves. He smiled. 

This child of Skull could see the merit in the area, and with another glance to ascertain the mood of the overcast sky, he drove his claws into the loam and began to dig. Once upon a time there had been a family, and now there was nothing but ruined earth. But from this he could create a sanctuary for himself; where he could feed, hunt, and live while he waited for his sister. She would pass through here; there was no other route home. Summer was soon upon them, and with it fruitful times and plentiful prey. 

He could bide his time until the chill returned.

This was a place of Sangilak's preference. The Glacier was cooler than most territories of the Taiga, and on an especially warm Spring day she sought its reprieve. Her thick black furs could be burdensome in the climate of the Wilds, but for now she remained. Drageda was not at all high in its peaks and so she could not escape to its upper reaches in hopes for cooler temperatures.

Sangilak moved slowly throughout the territory, ear twitching as she heard the sound of earth moving. She paused, wondering if she should move in the opposite direction lest the animal be a predator. Sniffing the air she noted no scent of wildcat, so she continued on her path warily. She could hold her own against any, she did not doubt, if it came to that, and there was no pack that had selected this land for residence that threatened her away.

Earth flew past his hocks as he ripped through the soil. So far none of his senses picked up on the approaching stranger. Scent or no, Tartok knew how to avoid detection if the individual willed it so Sitiyok remained unawares as he kicked a few rocks up and over the lip of the den. His pads scraped at the dense terra firma until he pulled back violently, as if bitten. He backed out of the hole and lifted his left paw, spotting the wellspring of blood that dribbled from his digit. The offending rock was a sharp bit of shale embedded at just the right angle, still sporting a few crimson streaks of blood stolen from the wolf. 

Sitiyok stretched his legs out and curled his hindquarters beneath him. He placed his tongue against the wound and began to lap at it methodically to stop the bleeding, and clean the cut. He rumbled a short note of discomfort.

Blood was on the wind, then, and the sound of digging ceased. But the blood was wholly canine in quality; Sangilak calmed herself with this, and then moved into view without further delay. She had moved slowly as she had wanted to know what she was approaching, but the sharp, metallic scent of red was telling. As she drove forward, her eyes fell upon a wolf who looked as much as the terrain as she did. Her tail twitched idly at her hocks as she observed him cleaning the wound. To show she herself wasn't a threat, she casually looked away and placed her snout to the earth, visibly displaying that she was passing through. Her glacial eyes shifted back to him and betrayed her deeper interest, however. Still, her proestrus—something she was not yet aware she went through, herself—kept her at a distance. 

A shadow materialized out of the thicket and shaped itself into a great, savage beast. Twin eyes of glacial ice were pinpricks against a plane of dusk. 

His muzzle snapped up and he leveled the wolf with a mercurial look; the fur on his spine rippled, caught somewhere between threatened and unsure. The tips of his canines peaked out from behind terse lips. But the wolf—a young female by scent alone—was disinterested in conflict. He watched as she idly sniffed at the tips of the grass and said nothing to release the silence.

Sitiyok rolled forward to stand solidly on all four paws, even the injured one. It was mild enough that his brain hardly registered the fleeting bite of pain as the open wound shifted beneath his weight. His ears shot forward, "Lost?"

His deep tones were met with a blink. Found, she said matter-of-factly, for the other wolf had seen her. Did she know where she was? Location was relative. She knew her way back, and knew that this chilled place was a comfort in an otherwise very warm world. Sangilak was after the cooler temperatures the Taiga offered, and that this one proffered such meant her inevitable visitation. 

If his injury brought on any weakness, he did not display it. His weight was evenly distributed, though Sangilak searched him briefly. Having already shown she was no threat this day, Sangilak took a couple steps forward and sniffed the air deeply. She could smell no claim on this place, and so she would linger here. Her ears twitched atop her head as she searched for any outside sounds or threats. While she had the mind to head deeper into the territory, there was a strange familiarity and an even stranger comfort in the others presence that caused her to remain. 

The smart reply was met with a brief scrunch of his brow, which soon melted back beneath the peppered fur. He relaxed a fraction, slowly coming to accept she was not here to haggle him over his (lacking) resources, or bully him out of his little den. However, he was uncertain if he would stay here now—she stood on the threshold of where he would sleep, and it didn't sit well with him; her knowing that. He didn't mention it.

She stepped forward again and was met with no resistance. Sitiyok huffed and pretended to look disinterested, turning a bit to take in the small mound of dirt he'd already kicked out of the den, though his coppery eyes still flickered back over to her every few seconds. There was a familiar air about her that he didn't want to place; he didn't want to be wrong, but a large part of him wanted to broach the subject. He didn't believe in fate, and wasn't about to preach about it now.

"You call the smoking mountain home," he commented; the smell of sulfur was trace upon her fur, but it was there. "but you are here. Why?" He could not fathom why wolves wandered without purpose, and quietly hoped she was not one of them.

It was not without reason that she wandered. In fact, she wandered for a particular reason, but one she could not articulate then and there. In fact, she herself did not know; unable to see her posterior end, there was little explanation for her to give. But this was instinct, to wander now. And soon, her instinct might very well take her away from Drageda. Sangilak perhaps flirted with disaster as she took some steps nearer to him, her tail waving loosely in the wind. There was a familiarity to him, too, that kept her from ignoring the question entirely. Her mind was certainly not in one place. From here, she kept her distance. 

She owed this wolf nothing, though. He asked questions not his right to know, and her mood shifts to one that is irate. For the impending changes that came, it made sense; she is further aggravated by her being perturbed by anything at all, when few things bother or annoy her. It is not for you to know, stranger, she answers coolly, and then begins to move along toward the cooler portions of this territory. Her impending heat causes her body temperature to run higher, and she begins to pant; unwittingly, as she moves past him, her tail twitches and what is to come is exposed. But she is not receptive, yet, and so is truly a wildcard.

Stranger said in Inuktitut! I can't get the translator open right now fml.com

A sense of something off was alight in the air. Like an ember escaped from a fire. But it was not so warm that he could pinpoint exactly what it was; like the preamble of a budding shift in the world. 

Sitiyok wanted to dig in, uncover it, and covet it. His heart skipped forward a few beats as she stole more steps from the space between them and boldly breached his (admittedly large) bubble of personal space. The skin on his back prickled as his hackles silently stood on end, and his liquid copper eyes hardened at the sight of the stranger she-wolf's proximity to his striking range. She was on the fringes of it, and his blood boiled at her unabashed gall. A great, powerful part of him prevented his teeth from even sliding out behind his lips and silenced the growl in his throat before it had a chance to even form.

She moves forward, closing in, and he is stuck standing stiff-legged at her advance. She passes, waving her tail, and lending him a passing remark that is punctuated by the familiar lilt of an altogether foreign language in these parts. He inhales sharply. The anger recedes immediately, and is replaced with something cold, dark, and tangible. 

Sitiyok whirls, gaze lingering on her posterior for a beat, before darting up to the back of her head. "It is when she speaks in this tongue with such expertise, and wanders MY reaches." He rumbles assertively. "Where did you learn it?" A few steps fall in her tracks as he reaches out with his nose to sniff, again, in her direction.

Sangilak moves up until perhaps the fifth word he has spoken, when it registers that he speaks in a tongue she was born into. Her glacial eyes—reminiscent of her mothers—turn to hold the man firmly there, though as he sniffs at her Sangilak moves to snap at his face, whirling out of touching distance instinctively. Her aggression was growing by the day, though would abate soon. There is something that burns in her, but it is dull, more of a pain now than a yearning. His reaches? Had she missed his markings? Your reaches, she pressed then, demanding he explain himself. It was certainly not yet claimed; it was empty, barren, though the land certainly had much to offer. The only scent here was his, but there had been no borders to cause her to pause.

I know I do not trespass. For surely she would have been attacked, as the man before her did not seem soft. There was a certain air to him that exuded authority, and she was captivated by this... and yet, it was not for this place, was it? A place merely of rest, she deduced, as she looked to the earth he had been digging. And so she stared coolly at him. My kut, she informed him, vague but honest in its delivery. She presumed the same went for him, but she was compelled now to linger in his presence. Instinct bid it, and there was a strange magnetic pull to him. And yet, instinct also bid her to go, to snap at him, to keep him away. A push-and-pull war within her that her impending estrus provoked.

He's a grumpyface.

Sitiyok stands, unwavering, even when her teeth unsheathe from behind her inky lips, and she aims a warning snap at his face. He merely pulls back and levels her with the same piercing look. He can't see through her, not unlike the others he'd met thus far, and the fact she speaks in the same language as that his father reserves for the Issumatar gives him great reason to believe she is far more than what appears on the surface. Hulking, strong, and bold; that much he can understand, but the need to dig deeper dares him to take another step toward her. 

He wrinkles the skin on his muzzle in a sneer, "No, not yet." He growled flatly; maybe soon, he meant. "They have failed to teach you manners, then." Though he slung the insult, it almost pained him to do so. The odd magnetism she presented prevented him from barreling her over and forcing her away from his hovel, but it couldn't quite temper his foul moods. A beat, an ear twitch, and a sigh. He yielded as best as the sooty male could: by breaking eye contact, and looking towards the mess that was to be his sleeping area, though he could not understand what demanded him to submit to her. 

The scent in the air was one of many things that fogged his mind.

PRE-HEAT CONFUSION

 

Sangilak snorted at his words, perhaps proving his point further: manners had no place in the wild, and even less of a place in her world. But she thought on his words: not yet. They brought a thought into her head, and Sangilak rumbled with interest. For a reason foreign to her, Sangilak lumbered toward him to sniff in heavy droughts of him. Her own addled mind could not depict any one thing in particular from him, but Sangilak knew she wanted something she could not put her finger on. Her plume lifted slightly as she looked to him, and she was thoughtful. Not yet. Not yet. Soon, she half-queried, half-prompted. Sangilak had been searching for many a thing, though she could name none of them, not even to herself. A wild call she could only answer by moving. By now, they were chest to chest, and Sangilak feels too warm, bothered. Soon for many things, but not yet! Her tail lashed behind her as she thought for a moment. And then, she began to trek toward the ocean. Perhaps the sea would cool her; she could think only of the warmth that came, and that not even this place had cooled her. 

The mysterious beast drew near him again and, once more, he remained still. Bade by something beyond his grasp that he be patient with her mercurial mood swings. He, tentatively, inhaled the air she exhaled and a quiet, placating note rattled in his throat. He, too, lifted his tail and waved it slowly. Her remarks drew from him a whine. Why not, he wanted to argue though he lacked a reason for such a wild thought. The soft peppered fur of his chest met her own for the barest of moments and, for a second, his skin was aflame. Scorched. But then she moves past him without another word, leaving him burning alive with no respite. 

Sitiyok watches her go for a long moment before picking up his feet and following dutifully in her footsteps.