Greatwater Lake belongs to the sand

@Rowan (side note: this is majorly forward-dated due to the current BWP, and is set for about eh, 01/30/2021)

Though the storm had trapped Angakkoq upon the archipelago for the last turn of the moon, the medicine woman was quick to take up her wandering again once it (finally) broke. The island was swept with frigid winds, like sharp fingers raking over the land or as if the inua cackled with breaths of ice overhead. It was not a place she desired to reside in for long -- especially when the typically lush rainforest proved to be half-frozen and decimated by the harsh gales. 

From there the shepherd continued west along the coast, turning away at the land bridge stretching towards another distant isle (as it was scented heavily with many trails) to follow along the icy river. It had led her through a land of withered steppes -- their thin grasses tipped with casings of ice that glittered in the light like quartz. 

Somewhere near the river's end, the waters pooled into a vast loch -- which Imaq thought small only because of her familiarity with the sea. Truly, it was a lake of impressive proportions, just not to the golden northron.

[size=14px%%%]The buttercream shepherd glided over the pebbled shores with soft clatters accompanying each step, fluffy pelt snagged and tugged by the disgruntled breeze. She paused at the edge of the waters, navy and inky to the point of becoming atramentous, to slake her thirst and cast a calculating seaglass gaze across the immense pond. 

It was clear to the Waterwitch that the great lake was not frozen over, not by half, and would be impossible to cross. 

It would take longer to skirt around its edges but the shaman did not mind so much, her jade gaze flitting about curiously like the rapid wings of a hummingbird as she drank in her surroundings with a keen eye. The lands, even in the midst of winter following a blizzard, were so exotic compared to her own that they seemed artificial, surreal, to her northern eyes -- like the makings of her mothers' fantastical stories, whispered on long winter nights while they curled 'round the den.[/size]

Sorry this took so long to get to!

He trailed out. The storm had died, it having left overnight in complete contrast to how it swept in.
He wandered to the lake, wondering if it was frozen. 
It wasn't, not fully anyway. It looked liquid towards the centre, but the edges might be frozen enough to walk on. But he wasn't going to risk it.
His plan was to pass halfway around and cross back across it, but that wasn't going to happen now.

Most of his way around, he spotted...a shuffling fluff. A sandy cloud in the sparkling expanse of Kintla. 
He clocked his head, pausing for a moment. 
Then, Rowan decided it was probably just a funny-looking wolf, and chuffed, trotting closer with a waving tail and head dipped in greeting.
He grinned when he neared.
"Hey," he chirped. 

you're good!

Imaq couldn't have pinpointed a singular moment where she became aware of his presence. He was just there, when before he had not been, and the tiny huntress halted in her tracks instinctively -- stones clicking together softly underfoot as she stilled. 

It was her presumption that he would wish to speak to her, maybe even inquire after why she traveled alone as a man of the north might have. The golden merle waited patiently, floppy auds perking expectantly, as her small frame shifted subtly, habitually. 

The shaman greeted him with a small bob of her head, shoulders lowering and legs hunching vaguely in the body language of submission. Had she a tail, Imaq might've wagged it welcomingly. A hushed noise left her throat, something like the chirrup that left his own lips but reedier. 

" -," he greeted as her seaglass gaze flickered to him, taking him in in bits and pieces like a sort of puzzle. He was younger than she but towered over her by a head or two, as most lupines did, and was fashioned after rainy dawns cloaked in misty fogs. The spiritualist didn't recognize the word (though it sounded somewhat like the word for greetings in his tongue) but there was an easy confidence in the man's gait, a warmth etched into the ashen marble of his youthful features, that inspired her to speak. 

"Hello," she lilted back to him, gaze rising briefly to watch him curiously --wondering if perhaps he spoke the tongue of her people.

She lifted her gaze, seemingly not expecting him.
No expected him to appear.
Was he invisible to all until he made sound?
Did Mephala shroud him?

She shrunk in on herself. Withdrawing from him.
He blinked, pausing. She paused too, and spoke.
Foreign words he didn't understand. He'd never heard someone talk...jibberish. He'd never heard another language, so really Rowan thought this woman had something wrong with her.

"Um...hello?" He repeated. Unsure of himself. Of her.
"Are you ok?" Maybe she was sick.

The waterwitch felt her brow furrow at the sudden shift in the rusted silver's demeanor, pulling back half a step uncertainly as her bicolored optics flickered over his features in search of clues. The blonde shifted her weight between tiny white paws, agitated at the thought of provoking him. 

"Um..hello?" He reiterated in tight tones of concern as his gilded gaze pinched with alarm, much like her own had at the inexplicable change in ambiance. "- you okay?" 

These words Imaq knew, and it was quite clear he could not speak her family's language, so the aureate wildling bobbed her creamy crown in affirmation and allowed a reassuring smile to spread across her lips warmly like a spill of slow honey. 

"Eh..'ello," she tried again in the common tongue with a nervous dip of her head, like a little golden bird -- her words warbling with clumsiness and thickly accented, as if the raspy sounds came from deep in her throat. "All vell," was how the shaman answered his question, lacking grace or poise in this dialect. 

"Imaq not..." what was the word? "..talk vell." 

"I come from far to the north, from over the ice seas. I lived on a huge island there called Kalaallit Nunaat. We speak Kalaallit tongue there," the flaxen fae switched back to her own language as she tried to explain, unable to relay her thoughts in his and hoping to make him understand that she could not speak it by weaving together a few more lyrical sentences for the male to dissect. 

Seelie's 'cracked', tropical gaze darted over his dovedown countenance before falling to rest neatly upon the creek gravel shores stretching between them, half afraid he wouldn't understand at all. 

She repeated back to him a greeting.
One he could actually understand.
He tilted his head, thinking.

So she wasn't insane. Just different.
Imaq not talk well.
He blinked as she warbled on in her own tongue. probably trying to get him to understand her. Or to explain herself.
 Some words sounded like they might resemble some of his, but he wasn't sure. North. That was one that caught his attention.
"So you're from the north?"

Maybe she'd understand. Maybe she would teach him her language.
He sat down with a slight smile. She seemed tentative and perhaps shy.
He wanted to help her, being in this land where many wouldn't understand her wouldn't be too easy.

"- you- - - north?" Came the next query, fragmented like the pieces of a puzzle waiting to be arranged. It was almost as if the duo was not conversing at all, instead playing at some guessing game. Tearing the words apart and piecing all the bits back together in a mosaic, each hoping the other could make out the picture hidden in the colorful whirls of glass. 

"Jah!" Imaq nearly crows in her excitement, the exclamation brushed with broad strokes of bright relief at managing to express herself. Feathered paws dusted in snow tap a happy, rythmless tune -- stones tinkling and clacking smoothly against one another. "Imaq, north."

"Ice sea," she tells the muddied silver, aquamarines scanning over his cream-masked features, even though she knows he probably won't know what she means exactly - that the witch is trying, again, to tell him of Kalaallit Nunaat. 

The confection of buttercream cocked her head, ears flopping to the side vaguely, as the ruddied male sat with a reassuring smile which was a language in intself. 

See? his kind expression and content posture asked. I won't hurt you; you can relax too, the molten glint of his strawspun gaze promised. 

Emboldened, the golden piebald crept forward a few steps -- lopped auds twitching to attention though her legs remained lowered. It was intstinctive, a natural drive of the submissive canine's to make herself seem smaller and less threatening though it could hardly be deemed necessary. Despite the years between them, the shepherd's head barely cleared the middle of the yearling's chest -- which only became more apparent as she drew shyly near - and she could not ever recall being deemed a threat. 

The dog's jade optics had gone hard, like verdant gems though they lacked the harshness of stone. Instead they were warm but intense as Imaq approached, blotchy tongue swiping over her chops once, anxiously. 

The gilded gypsy stopped shy of touching him, though a strong breeze would have tangled her coat in his, reaching out hesitantly on tiptoe to sniff at the pulse in the curve of his neck where his scent gathered. Then, her maw darted upwards, mottled tongue brushing against the underside of his chin faster than a mouse's heartbeat. 

"Imaq," the shaman rasped softly as she stepped back, speckled muzzle dipping as if to point towards her own pale chest. Then she straightened, pointing to the varnished, earthen male questioningly. "You?"

thank you for the kudos! <3

also, I wasn't sure if this was confusing or maybe just contradictory? But anywho, as a lil side note: a lot of Imaq's behavior is based on realistic canine/lupine body language. I.e. lowering herself closer to the ground to seem smaller/shorter than Rowan, lowering her ears/eyes, licking her chops, touching his chin, etc.

An excited confirmation had Rowan grinning and tail thumping.
They were making headway at least. They could understand bits of each other. More words meant more to learn.
To potentially understand.

This dainty floof was called Imaq and came from the north.
She crept closer, daring to ignite friendship fully. She was tiny. Smaller than any of the wolves he'd seen. Real wolves.
She was mixed with some things that made her pelt patchy and ears flop.
He found it sort of fetching, though.

She sniffed his scent, and he did too, inhaling the scent that marked her as alone. A female, older than him. He almost touched her, wanting to see how thick her plushness really was when her tongue swiped across his maw.
Rowan touched his nose to hers, his own tongue lapping her.
Friends.

She pulled back to talk. To share more; no, to ask about him.
"Rowan," he replied, then tilted his head back to the woods, catching the dark splotch of a shadow in the distance. "Home. Woods." He stood, turning to the side to show her, to invite her along with him with a tilt and bow of his head and soft wag of his tail.
Even if his words didn't work, his body would.

"Rowan." It wasn't quite like anything the cur had heard before; her auds perking to attention attentively as if to commit the sound to memory. 

"Home. -." The youth, Rowan, turned side face -- gesturing with a sweep of his bronzed crown towards the distant tangle of dark woods on the southern horizon. Perhaps this was the word for a forest. Imaq's fractured gaze flitted restlessly between him and the shadewood, wondering if it was wise to follow him into unknown territory. 

There was a tangle of scents perfuming Rowan's copper pelt, alerting her to the fact that he belonged to a Kalaallit of sorts. The outcast knew that such family bands were rarely so warm with strangers near their homes, never mind inviting them over their threshold. She was wary but it was tempting -- what if he meant for her to stay? 

The waterwitch, cursed by death, had been turned away for more than one change of the seasons. Too different, too blemished, too small. The road had been incredibly lonely and the shepherd wasn't sure when another opportunity like this might present itself. 

"Jah," she answered after a calculative deliberation. Her eyes flickered back to him, her hesitance not entirely hidden beneath a facade of composure. It had been some time since the exile had interacted with such a large group and she was vastly uneducated in the ways of this land. Imaq dreaded the thought of blundering, shaming herself, but hoped at the very least to learn more about Rowan and his people. 

Selkie mimicked his posture vaguely, dipping in a wriggling, playful bow to smack her paws lightly on the ground. An excited grin unfurled upon her merle lips, a pale paw reaching out to bat at his own silver-ticked appendage.

Let's go! Her mirthful seaglass gaze seemed to say silently.

I believe this is the last from me! We can have a thread with Rowan showing her BFW if you're up for it? :)

I'm down! I'll start one for us!

She paused, thinking.
He didn't blame her. Following a stranger to their deep, dark home who can't even speak the same language.
He didn't push. Just waited for her. Tail still softly waving. He was patient.

Then. A soft confirmation. Jah.
He grinned wide, dropping to a half play bow. Inviting her to run across the flatlands for a little bit.
Mirroring her playful posture. Her excitement from being asked or something. He wasn't certain why, but it was better than begrudging or wary.

He took off towards the woods, sure the woman - Imaq - was in tow. Slowing just enough to not lose her in the swarths of brilliant white marring the landscape.