Seaside Moors crow feathers and obsidian

tagging @Erzulie & @Aningan for visibility!

for some reason that wintersbane cannot identify, he does not stop when he draws near the towering spear that moonspear claims. he’s told several wolves it was where he would go when asked now that the door to sagtannet is firmly closed to him …and yet something tugs him wayward despite that. in truth, he knows no explanation for the spontaneity of the decision to venture coastward. not to himself and not to anyone else.

a chill nips at his thick pelage, coarse and fluffy with his wintercoat. in many ways, the tundrian looks forward to winter as a reprieve from the heat that has plagued the summerlands. he is grateful for the changing of the seasons, the subtle transition to climates more agreeable with his tundrian ancestry. the salty tang of sea air sticks to him, floating ‘round him in greeting as his pace begins to slow; nearing pack borders.

he doesn’t recognize it …though there is, maybe, something passively familiar about it; but nothing concrete enough to spark forth any true recognition. their numbers smell small …much smaller than the bolstering numbers of the spear, scented upon the wind as it carried down from the spear.

for a moment wintersbane considers but knows the choice has been made in his mind as he lifts his muzzle and lets out a low howl, announcing his presence.

cameo unless directly talked to!

Grímnismál spent days simply wandering, collecting various herbs to her cache, and small-talk to any other Rusalkian she found. Though not too many, as usually she would only make a bit with Erzulie, or Raleska, before scurrying off to her lonesome self. A rather secluded wolf-

who happened to came across right as the man howled. Origially she was going out to scout for more medical plants, but stumbled right across the large bouldering man howling for her pack. As the reaper was no ambassador, she was gonna moon-walk right back into the moor.

Not today, it seemed.

a great man on the borders. rusalka had returned to the moors. for now, she supposed, for in her heart she knew how tempestuous sea-winters could be. erzulie trotted across the rolling carpet of browning heather, frost threatening more aggressively with each passing week.
the harlot paused some feet away from the striking creature. he was iron and the cut of mountains; his power brought her to mind of disappeared rosencrantz, whom she missed in her bittered heart. erzulie made no word as she took stock of him, openly committing each detail to memory before she shifted to one curved hip and glanced at silent grímnismál. 
"dis be rusalka," the woman intoned, turning her attention back to their guest, "and i be erzulie." the two-toned gaze was watchful, greengold appraising him to his very breath.

it didn’t take long for someone to appear …but this pack wolf did not extend any sort of greeting to him; not even a chuff. glacial gaze splices thru the air to study her, unsure what he is to make out of her lingering and staring. would his mood’ve been more jovial, would he have been the jesting type: wintersbane might’ve joked that he knew he wasn’t handsome but that she did not have to stare; he, however, is and does not.

thankfully, he does not have to ponder the silent, monochrome woman’s strangeness for two long as someone else appears and this woman, draped in a pelage of warm cinnamon and creams does address him. glacial gaze moves to her then, assuming her to be a leader as he dips his head in a display of respect and difference, melting the previously neutral posture he previously held. rusalka. erzulie.

i am wintersbane, he introduces himself in his smoky timbre, the soft rasp of scarred throat and scarred vocal chords never again to croon the richness of velvet; instead cursed to murmur the rough and rasping melody of whiskey as it burns on the way down. and i’m in search of a home. for the last time, he hopes. he’s spent too much of his life unsettled, sometimes of his own making and sometimes because life is cruel and sees to divert his path; this time, he's made up his mind, he was choosing his own path and sticking to it thru hell or high water.

"erzulie." perhaps wintersbane was the way to describe the pre-winter chill in the air. but this man was not autumn's cold breath; he was carved from a glacier. arctic. a massive guardian to serve their equally colossal boy king. for as erzulie reminded herself, rusalka was embodied in her. not she within it.
his voice melodic and etched in a thousand tragedies seen by men of his age. primed. hale. weighted by a shadowland that only the most trained could drive from a man's spirit. powerful, the aura of him, and she did not like it. rusalka had held its peace and no more of the endless challenges had come in a long time. suppose this leonine brute saw fit to disrupt them.
but erzulie was nothing if not confident in the ability of she and her wife to maintain the way of their growing clan. it was foolish to pass upon an experienced beast, with children in the pack still too young to hunt, and snows fast looming.
"what will you give for a place wid us, wintersbane?" her gaze, weighing him.

from everything wintersbane can see, it's a standard border interview. he's conducted many and more of these himself pre and during his brief leadership stints; and would she have brought up concerns of his presence here, he'd have been quick to soothe it as best as a salve as his words alone could ever be. he wants a place to settle, a place to defend — if necessary — but more than that, he wants what life has denied him time and again: a chance at a family. no more being the coveted secret in the thick of night never to be seen by those borne of his seed. he did not want to be the father that met his children, like @Quellcrist, out of nothing more than sheer and rare coincidence.

he needs something to devote himself to.

perhaps, he realizes, he always has. that had been the allure of andraste after all; a goddess that he could whisper sweet prayers to.

in this, wintersbane is wholly his father's son.

i'm a master warrior, the tundrian begins. i can and will defend the borders from unwanted visitors and trespassers. i can hunt, evidenced by the fact that he is hearty and healthy despite his lone wolf status. and i'm good with children. i can help teach and pupsit. i'm a father, though my daughter is an adult grown. he quickly quiets the pangs of nostalgia as he realizes that this coming winter he might very well have grandchildren.

erzulie had expected talk of battleship and fighting from this man. he wore it, after all, a sword-rugged mien that called to rocky wars fought in cold earth. 
it was his talk of fatherhood that interested erzulie. had he scented the growing rusalkan pups in his trajectory toward their land — or had he suggested it for the sake of her femininity? cunning, if so. bemused by the idea, erzulie considered whether or not he should be tested. but she had offered that to no others. those who were loyalists would remain; those who were not would remove themselves.
"do you aspire to fat'erhood in de comin' year?" the harlot murmured with an arch of her cinnamon-masque brow; a wicked pallor of a smile crossing her features as she sought to draw something warmer to the planes of his impassive face.

short post before work~

out of the things that wintersbane has offered skillwise, it is the ‘pupsitting’ one that appears to have grabbed the leader’s attention; or so he makes this assumption based upon the fact that it’s what she capitalizes upon. wintersbane considers the question, for it is a weighty one. there are many things to consider …factors that he cannot possibly know the result of until things are more concrete. but aspiration? yes, wintersbane responds. if it’s applicable, but those months would soon be upon these wilds and he understands well enough that it’s a privilege that needs to be earned and not a right that is given. if i can earn that privilege.

a satisfactory answer. erzulie turned aside and invited him across the borders with a single step. considering whether she might reveal why she had asked, the harlot opted not to a moment. instead her gaze skimmed across the windblessed land, and she gave a long sigh of contentment. 
"have you lived beside de ocean before?" she asked of the glacier-man, aware of his immense size alongside her own as they moved. surely he had. wintersbane held the air of someone who had lived in more places than she perhaps. and yet she did not want to pry into him, thus left open the option to speak.

continue ignoring just had to,

Though despite somewhat fleeing, her gaze couldn't help but notice the golden coat fluttering toward him. Grímnismál was still young and rather childish, she didn't want to meet the burly man, nor' interrupt as so. Instead after fleeing, she sought herself in the bush. Gleaming, red eyes peering out with a curious glint and a nervousness. 

She was a peeping tom, at the moment.

while it was true that living beside the ocean wasn’t exactly the thing he aspired to — for he could not stand the grit of sand — he figures it’s not as if he has anything to lose. he’s tried everywhere else, pretty much and as lost everything those times. perhaps living near the ocean is where the key to his happiness lay buried. i’ve lived in forests, tundras, mountains and vales, but i’ve never lived beside the ocean. there was a first time for everything, as the saying went.

he falls into step a pace or two beside her, deferring to her leadership and knowledge of the lands. the movement of their silent audience of one fleeing briefly captures his attention but is not destined to keep it for it rests back upon erzulie.

had grímnismál seemed interested at all in this wintersbane with the smoke in his throat, erzulie would have gestured her closer. as it was, the young medic only followed. each of the trio appeared content with this, and so the harlot shifted her attention back to their joiner.
"it will be a new type of t'ing for you den," she smiled. "here in rusalka, i lead wid a man named aningan. my wife was part of de leadership but stepped down. howevah," erzulie went on with a cant of her head, "when you meet her, you will see dat she is unabated in her role." so far as the spice-wife was concerned, her pirate was part of every decision made in rusalka.
"do you have any questions for me?" wintersbane did not seem the sort of man who would wish her to guide his thoughts upon rusalka; he would draw his own conclusions.

yes, hale tundrian agrees at erzulie’s mention that it would be new for him. raptly, the nomad heeds her words, particularly the mentioning of her wife and that said wife was to be given the same courtesy afforded to her ( erzulie ). becalmed by her accent, the golden woman easily charms the stalwart tundrian; bearer of tragedy written upon his flesh in each scar —

from wedmarks to scarred throatflesh.

he sees no reason to draw into question this method; striking him as a bit strange aside. i don’t think so.

last for me <3

a dip of her muzzle. he was an experienced man, and would come to know their history as the months passed. "den i will leave you to it," erzulie murmured pleasantly, gracing his stone-handsome features with a warm smile. 
a tilt of her head to @Grímnismál, and she was moving across the moorlands, to continue the patrol she had begun, intending to consider what his presence here might do for the wolves of rusalka.

oh- she was spotted. Perhaps not the best hider, especially with dark colors and a bright, cherry-gaze of looking out. When Erzulie nodded to her so, the bush gave an audible shake from her surprise; and immediately fled somewhere.