Nova Peak [m]elancholic winter

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: conception stuff!

some assumptions made, let me know if this isn't okay <3
estrus: 5-14 days long (numbers pulled from a combo of wikipedia and wolf country)

They would find a way.

They always did, it seemed, and the peak welcomed them for it. Forests and frosted slopes, the northern edges of a burnt forest covered in the ashes of winter. Snow. Abundant and thick in the northern reaches and amplified by the spell of winter still upon them.

So tell her why she awoke that early morning to the touch of flames on her skin that went so far as to light her mind on fire too. A buzz all through her nerves that demanded she move.

Lean limbs unfurled to pull away from her sleeping place, the pelt lost in her sleep and not yet placed back upon her, almost positive that she might disrupt @Kigipigak with it but certain that he might understand if she explained. If only she could explain. Instead she sought to find a snow drift and sink herself into it, submerge and hope that the cold might seep through to calm the flames.

It would not work that way, but she held out hope.

The mountain stood alone against a backdrop of white noise. It was impossible for Kigipigak to tell if there was more to the chain than this singular peak, but he was mightily distracted as well.

The pair had left the tangle. Sakhmet had told him of the red-furred girl, the nearby packs; this coincided with his own tale of a coastal pack that he had come upon, but he did not tell her of the failed deer chase. It was enough that they were on the move again.

Kigipigak had found a spot at the base of the mountain to make their next camp. They slept bundled together until the morning, when he awakened to an emptiness; she was not there with him, and immediately, groggily, he rose to find her.

Her path drifted through the snow and away, but he found it and he followed. Her scent was strongly enticing, but the man did not know why it should be this way, and he did not see a reason to wonder.

He found her near a snowdrift and with a crooning note, sought her silhouette.

He crooned and her head turned, tucked tight against her snowy shoulder to cast a moon pale look at him.

Slowly she made her way free from the snow drift, stood but not with fierce pride or feverish joy like the day before — and all the days before those with him. Instead she sought to make herself small (-er, really) and tuck into the safety of him. Welcome him with a tiny croon of her own, soft and lilting.

Foolish, perhaps, but it felt even worse to pull away from him any more.

You weren't there when I woke up, he murmured to her as soon as she was wedged against him. Kigipigak loomed at the best of times but he tried to hold her close now.

She was everywhere; in his thoughts, in his dreams, the very air sang her name. How, Kigipigak did not know or care to know. He felt the strength of his attraction to her and was drunk with it.

Guilt, it gnawed at the lining of her stomach and lit her ablaze even further.

She never wanted to be apart from him — with the rare exception of when he went to hunt and she stayed behind to 'guard' their safe havens, even those moments were pitiful — but she had pried herself from him this morning.

I'm sorry, and she meant it in the mewl of her voice. I felt different today and I didn't...I don't— She exhaled with the weight of her confusion.

I'm glad you followed.

Even if she could not align her thoughts or make sense of even the basic things, there was comfort in his presence.

She seemed so small beside him. He wanted to refuse her apology because they were signs of weakness, and he refused to let her be weak any longer; they were together now and that made them strong. Yet he felt a stirring in his belly when she spoke, and rumbled a pleasant note in his chest, unable to make the words flow.

Kigipigak drew in a breath of her and lightly groomed at the fur between her shoulders, which was much more physical contact than he was known for giving, but he could not help himself.

I'm glad you followed.

I'd follow you anywhere. He replied as he lifted his teeth from her russet fur.

She leaned into it, leaned into him.

A soft, slow wave of her tail behind her. Lost entirely in the thought of him — of them really. She thought of the places they had left to go and of the places they had been. She thought of how she had wept to @Kukutux of him injured in her village with her unable to see him. She thought of how he had mended to return to her. She opted to not think of the time apart because that was not the time that mattered when she had returned and heard his words.

He had picked her.

Over a village, over kin, over a life he had built while she had been away.

I know. Some bubbling start of confidence, of certainty spoken aloud.

And I want you wherever I go.

The feelings that she could never explain seemed amplified in her head, a deafening pound of her heartbeat, as she sought to somehow press further into him. Not that she was positive such a thing was possible.

The pull that Sakhmet held over Kigipigak was strong regardless of the season; that was proven by how pervasive his hunt had been for her, and how long she had waited for him. They were united in their adoration for one-another.

As strongly as he felt now, as electric as her touch became against him as she pressed as close as she could, Kigipigak would not give in to that final primal desire that her presence awakened within him. He was much too cautious for that; worried in some small part of himself, that he might hurt her, that he might drive her away by mistake.

Do you promise? He finds himself asking. It is as close to a proposal as the northerner can muster. He barely gives her a chance to answer before he returns to tugging at her fur through his teeth, giving her small possessive nips and tiny, shy kisses.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: The Sex!

Some part of her feared that she would wake up, as if all of this was conjured into a lifelike dream.

And maybe she would wake and the fire that set her ablaze would be nothing
more than the heat of Kigipigak at her side. Maybe he would be dead silent, truly asleep at her side, not asking the things she heard here. Yet all of this felt too real. Their scents, his touch, the rapid thump of her heart against the cage of her ribs.

She had to speak or the moment would be gone, lost to the wild winds of the north.

I promise. Forever.

And she meant it, for the time apart had not stilled the way her heart beat around him or the mere intoxication of his presence. Season or not.

Be mine. A softly worded request to him. She wished for there to be no room for another in either of their hearts. If nothing kept them apart any longer, she did not wish to be apart in any manner.

She did not have worries of quickness in such an ask or rejection. Only anticipation for his reply.

They shared the same fear; it went unspoken, but perhaps it was the reason they both held back with their bodies, sparing glances and speaking so carefully.

Kigipigak could feel her heart beating through her skin, they were so close. Her voice was quiet but it was also a summons, of a sort; pledging to be with him, and asking something in return.

The man was bashful, silent — and in the next moment, fumbling, letting his body do what it wanted to do without any restraints.

Her heart raced; he found that his was soon a matching drum beat. The care he took not to hurt her slowly slipped out of his grasp, as Kigipigak's more gregarious nature unfurled itself, and he lost himself to the bliss of it all.

time skipped for an emotions post but we can fade or keep going :)

She was certain, in those moments where no space existed between them, that she had made the right decision. Even when it was all said and done she still felt that way.

No shame, no regret, no creeping of ill feelings.

Bliss and she undeniably glowed in it. No trace of the sad girl she had been in the summer. Nothing of that Sakhmet existed here and now by Kigipigak’s side. It almost felt silly to say — think, really — but she felt brand new. As if their little dance had somehow…changed her. Although she supposed it had because it had certainly changed the concept of them.

There were no words that could explain the depth of emotions that had been buried in her.

So she merely casted him a thoughtful, affectionate sidelong look from wherever they may have laid to rest in these first new moments after.

I'll archive. :)

They shared a physicality that transcended what Kigipigak understood about the world, and about himself most of all.

What strengths had been born to him for chasing, hunting, gutting, and fighting, had a capacity for tenderness that felt so utterly alien to him; yet it brought such depth of feeling also, unifying the two of them beyond all reason.

After an untold time, as they lay in the snow thrumming with this new togetherness, Kigipigak did not know if he should speak; he was made mute by the pleasure they had shared, and by the sheer adoration that had thus overwhelmed him.

He felt the tremble of her movement. He saw a flash of her white eye, and greedily hugged her close, burrowing his face in to her dark furs.