Moonspear lawmother

he is heading to visit the babies but can be intercepted by anyone! <3

ariadne healed. chakliux continued to search for the children of marina on his excursions. today's was a foray into the mountain. the good taste of snow filled his mouth, for it was upon the wind.
with him he brought fish from the sea, and the seal hunter crossed the borders without a thought, though he slowed his step to appear more affable in the eyes of sialuk's people.

The open-border policy was something new to Myna, but welcomed all the same- though she had yet to learn the scents of the folk who could freely come and go. She had tried to make note of the scents she had detected along the borders, and discern which ones shared a collective trait. Their visitors were many- the pack, she assumed, was highly social in nature. 

She had been heading toward the borders when the scent of the man crossed her path, and gave her reason to pause. He smelled of the ocean and of fish; she licked her lips appreciatively. Some had smelled like him who had passed the borders before, and thus she assumed she should not shepherd him out. He was likely drawn to the mountain for a reason that had nothing to do with her- but she was curious to see, and learn his scents. 

She searched for him, meandering along the foothills, hoping to catch a glimpse of him as she moved, slinking and shy.

the seal hunter knew the step of another. his ears slanted backward, but he flung them forward in the next moment. if the watcher did not wish to speak, he would not address it. this was not his village; eyes were sure to be on him.
instead, chakliux drew himself up into a proud step, inclining his muzzle so that the autumn light poured across his scars. his shoulders too, inviting, and at last he turned to look toward the moonspear wolf who now watched.
from their distance, he saw the curl of longer fur, and was intrigued. chakliux did not stop, only offered a flashing grin of tease as he continued on.

When she saw the wolf, he was gallant; bright-eyed and strong, carrying a fish in jaws that smiled, tilted back. Along his shoulders were wounds that flashed with his movement, long, straight scars that must have come from sharp claws, and down the bridge of his muzzle, two more that drew her attention to his face. She blushed when he finally turned his deep, wildflower gaze toward her, feeling as though she'd been caught fawning over a stranger. She gave him a shy, girlish smile, and her tail swayed in the feathering of her hocks. 

It felt rude to interrupt his mission with conversation, especially when the fish he carried would taste much better if it was fresh. Not wanting to hold him up, she lowered her head and began to scout for the last of the summer's berries in the tangle of raspberry canes, hoping to blend back into the background so that when she turned again, she might catch sight of the tail end of him as he continued on.

taking liberties :o

she was sweet and reticent, and his heart quickened to see her eyes on him in what looked like approval. she did not press forward, and chakliux did not turn. acrux and maggak held his focus, as did the rainstar, but this woman did not leave his mind during the time he spent at the densite.

***

when chakliux had finished there, he set his sights upward. the man meant to put himself in the hot springs for a time before he went out to hunt again. yet before he did either, he paused along the berry-winding where she had gone, trailing quietly along the only trail he had of her to current date.

Late in the season, the few remaining berries were small, soft, but sweet. She pulled raspberries from the stem with her teeth, careful to avoid pulling the berry off with its white, bitter rind inside. She enjoyed the flavour, though she found that quickly her tongue began to feel soured and her cheeks puckered from the amount of sugar and natural acids of the berries. Plucking a couple of the few remaining green dock leaves from a plant nearby, she began picking berries and setting them on the leaf, with the intention of stowing them away for later or finding someone to gift them to before they went mushy. 

She looked up when could smell another approaching, only to note that it was the magenta-eyed man, venturing again. Coquettishly, she wondered if she should duck and simply spy on him as he passed, but she found it more alluring to believe that he'd come her way on purpose, rather than leaving the same way he had come. When she spotted him, she licked the berry juice from her lips and waved her tail, expression curious but inviting.

to his pleasure, chakliux discovered the woman there among the sweetness of autumn fruit. 
her lips were fragrant with it, her breath a study in raspberries. the seal hunter inched closer, nipping at the nearest for himself. it dripped like blood upon his chin.
swipe of tongue faded the bright color to an easier rose. "i have not seen you before."
the berrybright eyes, frank. appraising. appreciative, lips curved in a snow-white grin. "this means you are new. we cannot be strangers."
her eyes, so close, were both silver and gilt, moon and sun mingled in soft eclipse.

He came forward, drawing closer, attention momentarily caught on the thorny bushes and the sweet fruit they bore. She tried not to swoon as he licked the unruly bead of ruby from his lips, feeling her cheeks flush beneath his calm, unfaltering gaze. His voice was pleasant to her ears, but summoned no words to her lips at first; silenced by a light awkwardness brewed by those first words, a statement and not an inviting question. She wondered what he thought of seeing her, a stranger- and yet, his tone implied her newness did not offend him. 

Her low, crooked tail waved at her hocks, perceiving an invitation implied rather than spoken. The suggestion of knowing one another drew her forward, tufted ears back and trembling lightly, light trepidation in her step; like the first doe to emerge into a meadow after sunset. She kept her gaze directed toward the lines upon his shoulders, catching the glint of magenta in her side-eye as she offered herself to be scented, murmuring:

"Peace be."

"peace — be," chakliux repeated, brow creasing but only for a moment as he lipped another berry into the pocket of his jawline and kept it there, juice leaking beneath his tongue. she was responsive in all the ways he liked; the seal hunter looked at her and understood they saw one another, and this heated him with a sped pulse.
his muzzle ticked softly along her guard hairs, chakliux teasing her skin with an exhale of warm fruited breath along a soft nape which carried the stories of moonspear.
the seal hunter offered himself in the same way, mouth holding its amusement.

She shuddered as his breath tickled her withers, and caught her breath to hold back a girlish chuckle. She should be better at this! But being the fifth of ten girls left her buckling under the attention she now received, as welcome as it was. She was too shy to touch the guard-hairs of his fur, not wanting to earn herself a tarnished reputation and become the centre of gossip among women she had yet to meet. 

She took in the scent of his people, with soft inhales. "Ocean." She said, just above his hackles. A drop of her muzzle toward his ruff, and she smiled faintly. "Fish," The gift he had brought earlier still clung to him; it it caused her lips to moisten. She raised her muzzle to the corner of his lips, and drew back, tufted ears finally lifting. "Zurburries," A quiet peal of laughter, as her eyes dropped from his eyes to his lips, and back up again, mischief causing them to sparkle.

"mountain." his teeth glittered in wild want that still kept itself somehow muted as her eyes moved between his mouth and his gaze. "stone." paused, softened; gentled for her and the careful exploration of the pretty wolf with the curled edges.
"woman," chakliux dared last, slipping into the seal hunter words for a husky moment.
his breath mingled with her own.
"chakliux," he said of himself, not moving to touch but keeping himself centered, close as he dared, as she dared, attuning to the subtleties of her gaze and the answering emotion of her mouth.

She was flattered that he mirrored her first words, her curiosity stoked once she realized he might describe her. Already, she felt a dizzying want to hear more from him, and as the second word was spoken she found her chin lifted, revealing a glimpse of trust as she craned to make out the third word. She blinked, and her head tilted, to hear a word so warmly spoken, in a tongue she did not understand. She inferred that it was a compliment. She felt fey and yet deliciously shameful to think she heard longing in his voice. 

Another word- spoken with a puff of raspberry breath. She smiled, her eyes finally softening, allowing her eyelids to flutter and relax as she held his gaze for a moment. Her gaze fell, and with a private smile, she considered his name, and then hers, as well. She thought of how her nickname seemed to be preferred by Njord, but decided not to forsake the dainty white flower for which she had been named. She peered up, knowing that however he spoke of her now, he would know the name to say. 

"Simbelmyne."

simbelmyne. chakliux had never heard anything like it; thus he had no comparison for the name. but its sound was spring wind and the peaceful outlook of sea cliffs, of high rocky places and wildflowers dotting warm plains.
"simbelmyne," and though chakliux was careful, his seal hunter's accent made the word clipped, guttural, a glissade of frost over the taiga. 
boldly, playfully, he nosed for her hackles once more and then stepped back, savoring the delicious tension between them. chakliux glanced high, up and up along the slopes that tullik had abandoned to become a seal hunter wife. "do you walk high? do you prefer low?"

He had an expert tongue, capable of speaking more than one language and pronouncing her name right on the first try. She would keep her nickname to herself then, perhaps; or keep it as something to be earned as she suspected already that the fisherman might be a sportsman. 

Unbidden, her chin tilted back at his touch and the fur lifted, springing up like moss under a light drizzle. By what he said, she assumed he was inviting her to go for a walk, and for a moment, light concern tightened the muscles at her brow. "I am new, I...do not know heights," She said, though the slight wave in her tail expressed an interest- so long as she had a skilled tourguide.

"it can be very high. we will go slowly, and not all the way to the top," chakliux invited. 
he did not show off this time; the seal hunter showed carefully how to climb to the first crag. already he was exhilarated, as much by this prospect as he was by his company.
"first i lived by the sea. then i lived in stones. after, i healed on this mountain. and now i am beside the sea once more."
his mouth smiled! how much he had seen! how little.

It would be the first peak of any notable elevation that Simbelmyne had ever climbed. A creature of the low valleys, she had seen such monoliths in the distance and had marveled at them, but had been told dreadful stories as well of their unyielding winds and dangerous avalanches. Still: the thrill of living on one herself and calling herself a mountaineer overshadowed the perils, at least until she witnessed one herself. Those who told the tales had survived and thus, so would she. 

She followed after him, noting how paths led in switchbacks up the steeper parts, making it easier to climb than going directly up the slope. The terrain changed, becoming harder beneath her feet, and cold too. She panted as they climbed above the treeline, ears flicked forward to sup on the tales of his adventures eagerly. "Traveller," She noted almost breathlessly, hearing her heart thundering in her ears. "Why heal?" She asked, wondering if it had something to do with the scars on his shoulders.

her sunmoon eyes fell to his shoulders, and chakliux did now preen slightly for simbelmyne's gaze. to heal! to tell the story of a younger man even more foolish than he was now, only some small time older!
"i made a mistake. i was punished. bone broken," he said, in devilishly small snippets of a story in which he had been quite wrong. "sialuk healed me. i paid her for the medicine," and now his eyes darkened quite pointedly.
chakliux climbed higher.

Simbelmyne fretted in silence, hushed by his confession. A broken bone could mean death for a wolf- and if that was the consequence for his actions, then what exactly was it that he had done? Now he led her up the mountainside, a place where he was capable and familiar, having lived here once before. 

Whatever his trespass had been, he suffered for it no longer, not that she could see. But had the lesson been learned, or was he simply leading her somewhere that prying eyes could not find them? He had been flirting with her earlier, she was certain of it; was there too much of a rosy hue to the lenses through which she looked at him? 

She tried to dash her fearful thoughts aside; he would have lied and told her it had been from a hunting accident if he had done something truly sinister to earn that punishment. She tried, but she found it impossible. 

She slowed, and stopped, gazing over her shoulder. She panted still, but with her ears dropped back and her expression slightly whale-eyed, now. She needed a moment to catch her breath, and collect her thoughts.

the roots of his pelt rippled with her worry. "na, look at me," chakliux said to simbelmyne, remembering too late that he had slipped into his seal hunter words. "look at my eyes, yes?" he said, thinking all her trepidation the fault of the mountain. "we will not go so high, nitjutsiak."
he himself did not move again for another ridge; he held himself between she and the wind which now howled overhead, touching his ruff with brief cold hands.

Her soft panting ceased for a moment when he spoke so she might hear him better, but once again he said something she did not understand. Before she could register that he'd slipped into another language, her head had quirked to the side, and her ears pricked. She reminded herself that not all wolves spoke her tongue, and relaxed her expression, just in time to catch the explanation in her language. 

She uttered a soft, breathy laugh that lasted only a moment. Where else could she look, after all, when he turned those eyes on her? How could she be expected to shun the glittering magenta of his gaze? Surely, she thought, he was used to being looked at, bathed in fond gazes so often he was perhaps numb to the suggestion of fluttering lashes. 

He shouldered the cold, casting her in a warm shadow. She felt embarrassed, and wondered if perhaps she had judged him so quickly. He was knightly, sure. Maybe she'd been hasty to put up her defenses. Luckily, she could pass it off with the huff and puff of her breath, earnest in its yearning for oxygen. In the meantime- she had a question for him. 

"What was that?" She asked. "Your word for me?" Tagged on at the end of the phrase, she wondered what it meant, and if it would be considered endearing or not.

"ah!" the seal hunter did not answer at first as a particular gust of cold breath poured along his spine. "it means 'land walking girl. or 'girl on land.'" he did not intend for it to be mean or received poorly, and looked closely at simbelmyne for any evidence she felt this way.
the wind squealed again, a keen, and chakliux grinned. "that sound, we call it siutsuk. and when it comes, we know we must repair some lodge-roofs in the morning!"
he looked at her again, allowed himself the pleasure; he wanted to see the pretty emotions transform her face once more. "there are more seal hunter words, many more. i am happy to teach them."

She could see the wind ruffle his fur, lifting it to show layer after layer of fur, rarely allowing even a glimpse of his skin, except where the wounds marked it like riverbeds in a deep valley. She felt she was beginning to grow her winter coat, but hoped that the cool breeze here might usher it to develop more quickly, if she was to survive these gales. 

She uttered a small, lightly embarrassed laugh when he explained what the word meant, and dipped her muzzle down, nodding faintly. It was a polite way for him to point out that she was not very good at mountaineering, but she perceived no disdain in his tone. After all- being a 'land walking girl' was nothing to be ashamed of...But she hoped she might be able to shirk that name for a new one, once she had become acclimatized. A gust blew, nearly moving her to take a step forward. Her brow lifted. "Better girl on land than girl in sky," She commented, surprised by the wind's power. 

He mentioned a name for the wind- perhaps not the gust that had pushed her, but for the high, whining one that whistled over the crags. She wasn't sure what a lodge-roof was, but assumed that it perhaps meant some wolves had an above-ground lodging, that might need some repair. Concern came to her face. "Will it do much damage?" She asked. And this early in the winter season...Was this a reality they faced, that their homes would need to be constantly repaired? She had chosen for herself a den deep in the ground, made of earth and rock- and she suspected it would be fine unless an avalanche hit. 

"You are seal hunter?" She asked. "You hunt seal with...Moontide?" She asked.

simbelmyne was buffeted by the wind; chakliux enjoyed the way their bodies had almost been moved closer, and took it as a fine omen. "it will tear skin from trees and leaves from their branches. but no true hurt, not for a powerful mountain. seal hunters know how to repair a lodge," he boasted, though there was not a true arrogance in it.
"i have not yet hunted seal in moontide." the wind rose again; he dropped his muzzle closer to her ear. "i am waiting for the cold snows to come, the ice. that is when the seals arrive. i will hunt them then."
so close, again he breathed in the pinewood and loam which wound through simbelmyne's coat.
"have you tasted seal fat before?"

She felt the warmth from his body swept toward her with the gusts of wind. Privately, she mused that he might have been kept busy, mending lodge after lodge, belonging to longing women who prayed for the winds to shake their hold loose. She thought of herself one day, waiting and pining at her own threshold, held there as she waited for the seal-hunter to arrive and fix it up. There might be some benefit still from learning to build a lodge, rather than digging a den, if it meant she could summon the carpenter to help her. 

He spoke of seal and her eyes widened to hear of the ice shelves on the sea. The arrival of the seals would be soon and it excited her, though she could only smell the saltwater from the curls in his pelt. "I have not," She said, though she licked her lips, as if to invite the flavour to them. "I would, though," answered the willing woman.

"maybe you will allow me to come back and bring you seal fat, simbelmyne." his eyes took on a different tone; his teeth flashed in a grin, and then chakliux drew aside. "my first son will become a man when the ice comes to this place."
he had flirted with her a while; now if he wished to proceed, he knew he must be open. he was not ashamed of his family, nor his intentions to expand it.
he caught the pretty land-girl in his sight once more.
"what do you hunt?" he asked, rising on his hindlegs to test the side of the mountain with his hard forepaws.