Sawtooth Spire i love only that which they defend

though unease and uncertainty linger in the tension that tightens the muscles at the junction of praimfaya's shoulders as she ascends to where the wolves of sagtannet call home, she is relieved, at the very least to be back; even if she bears nothing but bad news. no thade, no hide nor hair seen, no whispered heard even when she asked the strangers she came across. the saints were now their neighbors. praimfaya had been content to warn their original neighbors but now that they dwelled so close to her own home she cannot help but bristle with hostility that rises slowly within her chest. her talk with renard only made her more uncertain. there was already discord within their ranks and though there was the departure of the woman who had attack her to consider it didn't sound like donovan was trying to be much better.

she gave a chance but in truth, it wasn't her's to give. she would speak with her leaders about them but she could not control what the eisens decided to do. a very large part of praimfaya hoped they would move to extinguish the saints where they lay in their canyon of redsand and another part of her wonders what she will do if they refuse to involve themselves. the sunspire was beginning to feel congested and praimfaya knows, barbaric as she is, that she will kill for viable hunting grounds.

as a courtesy, she lifts her head as she steps within the borders of her home and lets them know she's returned with a short and straightforward howl.

praimfaya's howl found a sullen mahler coming up from windholme. he remained grateful for her travel outside the land, but less hope remained in his soul as the days had gone on. 
now the gargoyle approached, skimming the craggy paths with an expert step as he bore down heavily upon the scarred yearling, and stepped silently into her presence.
she was unreadable as always, but mahler prepared to know the worst, and waited for her to speak.

as she expects, it is mahler that comes to greet her. she dips her head to him, going thru the words she will speak quickly in her head; trying to figure the best way to deliver each blow she had to give. admittedly, she wasn't looking forward to it — any of it — despite how obvious it appears that she did not find thade. as you asked of me, i went to nightwalkers. the pack is no longer there though a few remain, still clinging to a past that would not return. i spoke to them and the wolves i met on my trip there and back. there is no sign of thade, praimfaya hesitates here. i am sorry, mahler. sincere words despite her uncertainty. telling a father that his son has more or less vanished into thin air wasn't high on her bucket list.

and i have more news. she adds quickly, figuring it was best to get it all out at once; like ripping off a bandaid. quick as to not prolong the pain. praimfaya's lips mash into a terse line. when i was passing along shadow mountain i came to learn there is a pack that has claimed redsand canyon. i was never told the name of their pack but it was their female leader that gave me these scars. she doesn't bother motioning: the scars nemisis left behind were tell-tale enough, different in nature from the methodical killmarks on her left shoulder.

she attacked me when i was trying to pass thru ravensblood forest, when it was just two of them. according to one of their's she left them without warning or word. and yet, for wanheda it is not enough. jus drein, jus daun. from what he said, there appears to be discord in their ranks. i don't think their leader, donovan, is truly any better than his bitch. cruel terminology, for a woman who's blood praimfaya demanded; but wanheda was unapologetic even if she wasn't sure mahler would approve.

i had warned the coastal wolves of their presence and suggested they extinguish them. apparently, instead of getting the hint, the wolves of the canyon chose to settle on our sunspire. a pause is given. i don't think they should be taken lightly. they pose a threat, of that i do not doubt. but maybe donovan will surprise me. or maybe he wouldn't, in any case, praimfaya wasn't going to hold her breath for a slim chance.

what mahler and wylla decide to do with this information was up to them but praimfaya didn't plan on sitting around and waiting for them to either crumble from within or make a move on sagtannet.

mahler listened impassively, fighting each rear of anger and fear in his spirit. he grasped the reins of his wildhorse notions, drew them harsh and back and so was a stone when praimfaya had finished her missive.
"thank you," the gargoyle murmured after her report was finished. lilac stare shifted left with his scarred muzzle; he gazed off for a moment before his attention returned the battle--honed young warrior.
so she had gone perhaps further than scouting, but with valuable information she had returned. an organized use of her time, and his appreciation tempered the tightening in his gut.
"i vill inform vylla," he said vaguely, half-turning aside to invite praimfaya with him. "who did you visit upon the coast?"

i spoke to yuèlóng's leader and i stopped by kaistleoki on my way back. they had clearly taken action against the saints and the result now was their claim in redsand canyon. as she follows mahler at his invitation, a radical idea begins to take shape; stirring from even before this moment. praimfaya knew she would have to do something, even if it meant cutting herself off from sagtannet. her vendetta with them was personal, she knows. it wasn't as if they've done anything to sagtannet yet. her tactician's mind is as sharp as a blade and it works now in a way she never thought to view her enemies.

mahler, she speaks suddenly, almost breathlessly. i'm going to try to infiltrate their ranks. she informs him, keeping her momentum before she can be talked out of it ( though stubborn as she is, it's unlikely, heh ). i'm not asking sagtannet to go to war with them, i will disconnect myself from you all, to protect you. she knows they don't have many fighters and they have plenty of young to think about. my issue is personal, i know; but if i succeed... i can learn how they fight, how they think, how they coordinate attacks. the best way to best one's enemy was to become one.

war may be coming to them from the other packs. if i can aid their advance then i want to. the spirits of the commanders assure her it's a good plan, the right choice despite the serious risks it poses to her. i have a responsibility to, she adds, more firmly. i think i was the one that planted these seeds by warning these packs. and thus, it was her job to see it thru to whatever end.

as they moved, mahler's mind once more turned to the eternal inventory of sagtannet, its remaining children, its quiet inhabitants. wylla. 
he would have dipped toward mournful contemplation had not praimfaya revealed her intentions, a rush of breath carrying her words forth.
the eisen's countenance grew increasingly more dour as the girl spoke; he turned his hard stoneflower gaze upon the young warrior. had praimfaya not reported an attack by them? wounds? 
"the canyon is scarcely a day from sagtannet," mahler growled. "vhatever duty you believe you have, your loyalty belongs first to this pack." the reticence of the sawtooth wolves, coupled with their lessened ability to protect themselves led his tongue to this path.
mahler had traveled the mountains long before praimfaya had been born. the hardened yearling beside him, he realized, had ambitions that he found untenable. but that was the way of youth, and in the end, each would do what compelled them.
"i think it is a foolish thought, praimfaya. our proximity to these dangerous individuals means that vone misstep is to invite their teeth upon our head. upon those of the pups."
the man inhaled, dark plume switching at his heels. having stopped to address the innate danger of the actions the younger wolf planned to take, he pressed his paws into the good earth of sagtannet now.
"i forbid it." had he ever given such an order? he did not believe so, and it pained him in a way he did not understand. but no war would move him; mahler felt his ties to the mountain, their depth. this war was not his own, and therefore, was not praimfaya's to fight either, though youth made for headstrong tactics.

whatever praimfaya had expected, it was not mahler's response. granted, she supposes it makes sense that he's against it, but she has already expressed that she would keep it so that sagtannet would not come into harm. what she brought upon her head was her own burden to bear. sagtannet will not be apart of it, she emphasizes again. i'm a warrior mahler. if i can learn things that will keep you and the wolves that would rise against them safe, give them an advantage i must take it —

i forbid it.

this rankles wanheda, unable to help but wonder if it is she he is concerned about or sagtannet.

i am wanheda. i am the commander, mahler. i know that means nothing here in sagtannet, but this warfare is what i was born for. it is how we will survive. she protests and steels her shoulders. i cannot and will not be swayed from my decision. i'm doing this for sagtannet and for the other packs i have set on this path. and i wasn't asking permission. i'm sorry to go against your wishes mahler, for she does respect him even if in this present situation the gargoyle and wanheda do not see eye to eye and it may not seem like it. but i have to do this, and you have to let me.

she turns to make her leave then, suspecting that his disapproval will likely not change, and that she may be closing the door to sagtannet forever. still, praimfaya does not feel apologetic, believing as the commanders of the past did: that she is doing the right thing even if she's the only one that thinks that.

;;;

it mattered not what she said, for she was too young to care beyond herself. mahler too had been such at this age; his present state of impassivity as she passed not one, but three challenges before him had been cultivated. he began to understand the nature of blodreina now, and the place she had once come from. and yet it did not matter to mahler.
she was a child, and he nigh upon his fifth year. and she was not within her natal realm, and blood, and kith; but upon his stone and earth, in his forest, in the rakish open air of sagtannet, demanding from him that which she had no right to ask.
in his heart, he did not trust her to keep this land protected, for he did not believe in her mission. that was the end of it for mahler, and yet praimfaya brought her selfishness to bear all the same. it was not for sagtannet she acted. it was the intention of a youngster not yet tried in ways he had been. though he did not suspect malice existed in her heart, he was intolerable, at once, of her statement that she was commander while standing before her leader.
in a fluid motion, he lunged for her scruff, intending to yank her down onto the hard-packed loam. rangy and honed though she might be, scarred from her own battles, he had a great and terrible presence only carved from his time in these now-cursed mountains.
mahler was not unaware that part of his ire was misplaced. praimfaya had served sagtannet well, and for that he had considered a multitude of ways in which her future might be enhanced in the feral woodlands. blodreina had too been a fierce warrior, and ingram a man faithful to diaspora.
but thade's loss studded the back of his mind, always, and now it swept to bloodstained screaming, wailing of lamblike babes as unknown wolves clawed up the mountain to eradicate the closest threat to their dominance. diaspora was over; mahler no longer wished to hold all the sunspire, desired only for the safety of all the cubs upon the sawtooth face. 
they were too close to risk such, and praimfaya insisted she would do it all the same. he knew the nature of cruel wolves; he knew the evil in their kind, and trusted no word but his own on that matter.
the time for words was over. the time for submission had arrived, and if praimfaya wished a devil's hope in heaven to return, she would honor the command he flew now with a coldwrought snarl and the upflung banner of his crest, muscles bunching and hackles flaring toward the skies as he sought to cast her down.

mahler lunges at her when her back is turned to him, when she takes her leave. his teeth grasp ahold of her scruff and she is forced into submission beneath him. anger warms her like the steady rise of magma. after all she's done for sagtannet, this is what she got? his teeth in her scruff? his form forcing submission from her? she might not be a commander to him but that didn't change her nature, that others wolves saw her as such. respect began to choke like teeth 'round her throat. she hating how she just takes being forced into submission. she hates it just as much as she hates being forced into submission beneath him. being forced into submission felt like a slap in her face: because she had obeyed him and wylla, she'd bent over backwards to search for their son.

let me go. she doesn't beg, but she does ask. let me leave. even if i am successful, you have my word i'll never return to sagtannet. a promise she thinks will appease him in light of the display of dominance. in the face of this situation; because right now she wanted as far away from the spire and him as she could get and yet hates herself for knowing that she still intended to go thru with her plan because she assumes it would keep them safe.

mahler did not immediately relinquish his hold; he let her lowered form slake the urge of his cold insistence. her pride, perhaps, the same that turned her back arrogantly upon her leader, did not make for an apology. but she had done as he demanded, and he wished no fight. unseemly of him to grapple beyond this with a yearling.
surely it would harden her heart, and this passed before him with a brief regret, but mahler released praimfaya with a snort of hot breath. "you vill learn that you do not know everything." whatever mission she took, whatever step, mattered not at all, for he meant to give her now over to the wilds, as was the lot of any nachkomme who outgrew their birthplace.
mahler stepped back then, though his aura continued to pulsate with the promise he would meet any challenge; head sank between his muscular shoulders, chin tucked and tail waving as he silently bid praimfaya depart immediately. 
and until she was lost from view, mahler would follow at a distance, righteous in his fury and regretful in the moments to come, the twin ego that lived within him warring once more.

praimfaya does not linger, even without the heavy insistence of mahler's presence. there is nothing and no one to gather. she is alone once more and still believes herself righteous in her cause. she takes her leave of the spire, each shadowing step of mahler behind her grating upon her. another lash of a blade to her pride. she doesn't stop to look back, reminded of when she'd fled diaspora following blodreina's death. she leaves sagtannet behind, all the while sets to work putting her plan in motion. if she succeeds then at least she'll know they're safe even if the door remains forevermore closed between them.