Shadowwyn Moor addir melek

In moments, as she stalked the moorland and watched the caribou, Sulukinak noticed a change beneath her feet. It was as if the soil opened to her steps, sucking them down, and at times she was slick with mud or arms deep in water; frothy, frozen, or fetid.

As she drew along to a seemingly stable area she felt her hackles raise as something caught at her ankle, and she turned with frustrated snaps to scythe the air, knowing by now it was only mud but too much mud.

Elongated, serpentine where she stretched, Sulukinak freed herself yet again and hoisted herself to the roots of an aged tree, coiling herself there with a brooding stare.

Skirting the pack that occupied the lowlands beneath the looming ridge, Winter’s Wake found himself walking on softer ground. It was not pleasant to feel oneself slowing and sinking and stagnating between steps. He knew at once that he did not wish to settle on this side of the neighboring packs, though he made a mental note to visit this stretch of land again in the summer, where it would be drier and therefore more traversable.

In the distance, sharp eyes picked out the shape of a dark wolf struggling forward. He watched with mild amusement as they plucked themselves from the mud and then found a hard patch of earth beneath a tree, where they settled moodily.

Ave! The wolf called. The ground is firm this way!

The roots of the tree afforded enough grip and enough space for her to sit and not much else, but she tucked her tail around her feet where they were cloistered, while tight shoulders bunched and lifted in to her neck furs. The seasonal changes of a wolf's body had only begun to happen to Sulukinak for this winter—but already she had noticed a deepness to her coat in both color and consistency. Now she looked feathered around the neck as if by a boa of shadow, but otherwise ragged with mud; not that she was the type to take notice of superficial aspects of herself or others.

All this to say, she looked odd and out-of-place where she was.

But, someone took notice. A voice carried across the moors which Sulukinak flicked an ear at, then with a draught sucked in through her nose, turned where it had sounded, spotting a not-so-distant figure. It was not a familiar one. That was not the issue, she surmised immediately upon hearing them comment on the firmament—it was the way she envisioned the caribou might react if they were near enough to hear it too.

Thankful in that instant to be soaking with mud lest her winter coat puff with her emotions, Sulukinak gave one last glance over the opposite shoulder to see if anyone of the Saatsine had noticed the stranger or, fates forbid, the caribou had been turned back by the voice—and she peels herself from the roots to pluck her way with careful high-steps, closer to the other.

Unaware of his potential faux pas — for neither wolf hunted at this exact moment, but the caribou-hunters were loathe to be far from their precious life-givers — Wake lifted his tail in a social wave, encouraging his company as close as they dared. He moved back himself, allowing them plenty personal space as slouching mud gave way to pliant earth and then solid ground.

If he had knowledge of such a creature, he might’ve thought them a little lion for the feathering of their ruff. He observed the way they moved, the jaunt of their mud-spattered hips, and the gleam of their eyes fixed upon a blunt, duskshadow face.

The scent of them reached him last, and he recognized the telltale musk of Saatsine, along with the aroma of the opposite sex.

You are one of Sun Eater’s wolves, yes? A chaser of the reindeer? They certainly seemed prolific in this area, at least for now. I am Winter’s Wake.

Sulukinak halted a short distance away, her limbs caked in layers of clinging mud that cracked as she moved. She stood at an angle, her stance more braced than poised, her weight balanced as though expecting some shift in the land or the stranger before her. Her copper eyes, warm as burnished iron, fixed on him with a steady, unreadable intensity.

One of Sun Eater's wolves, the comment repeated in her mind. The mud itched against her skin, but she ignored it. Her eyes swept over him in a careful, deliberate way—no stranger to assessing potential threats. His words carried that calm drawl, the kind that made her hackles want to lift out of principle. He had the air of something sharp and cunning, she thought, like the glass shards left in riverbeds.

He is my uncle. She shared. Maybe a part of her wanted recognition of that fact; maybe by linking herself to him repeatedly before strangers, they would take what fear they had of him and include herself. Was there fear there? She did not know. The man looked so self-assured; he had certainly encountered the Saatsine at some point, to know of them, to see how they followed the caribou. It left her wondering.

What do you seek, if not what the Saatsine chase? There was her curiosity coming alive, tugging at a thread of knowing.

It would be clear to any wolf, experienced or not, that this feral creature was of the no-nonsense variety. She stood at the ready; not so much as a refined militant, but as a conditioned hunter, prepared to spring at any moment. The mud, also, lent her an earth-kiln quality — as if she had only just pulled herself from the primordial ooze.

Wake would’ve hated to be prey under that hard metal stare.

The sharpness of her felt similar to that of Sun Eater’s. It stood to reason that they were related, if not by blood then by mien. Snowmelt ears flicked thoughtfully at her pointed question.

I seek knowledge, he answered frankly. Of these lands, its prey, its wolves. I must know them. Wake studied her features nakedly — green eyes unabashed in their ransacking. And I seek bonds. If I am to live in these wilds, then the wolves also here must know me. She was likely more keen to stick to her own, as most wolves were, but Wake had no qualms with fraternizing beyond what would be considered “normal.”

We need not share a pack to be associates.

The way he looked at her was familiar and unsettling, although she gave no indication that she was bothered by it, because the girl's proprioception had yet to catch up to the rest of her recent growth; but he looked, and she stared back dully, and she thought she saw something like her mother's madness in the sheen of his eye, which redoubled the sense of urgency in her pulse.

He spoke of what he wanted and she was only keen to hear it because she could not close-off her ears in that moment. If he wanted to know of the Saatsine, he would be better off running to her uncle for a crash course; or to chase the caribou alongside them. But he concluded with the truth: that he sought connections. A conclave. The words tumbled from her lips before she could help herself, believing she understood—and maybe not so distant from her mother's memory after all.

She began to walk again, stiffly at first. There was room upon the solid ground for him if he so chose to follow, although there also carried a predatory edge to the arc of Sulukinak's body; welcoming him, to a point. Watching him, too.

Questions? Now was his chance to ask, although it was unlikely she could answer in a suitable way for him. Maybe the questions would be too dull for her, or maybe she would be called away to hunt—for now, she was showing signs of patience which were rare to her.

An understanding, Wake clarified, brushtail wagging slowly as he now followed her to hard-packed earth. The nature of his intended relationships with others did not necessarily need to be symbiotic; a simple “you leave mine alone, and I’ll leave yours” would also suffice. Though, now that she said it, a conclave did not seem far beyond his vision.

The snowdevil watched the huntress ahead of him with a raptor’s vigilance, eyeing her leonine prowl, the flex of her lean runner’s build, the not-too-subtle threat of her posture. He wisely maintained the distance between them, hoping to avoid even an inkling of threatening her, and yet he could not stop his mind from wondering…

At what point would she reject him?

How close was too close?

The nameless gorgon opened the floor to him. Are you born Lanzadoii? Or did you become one by choice? A second thought followed: was she a spiritualist seeker like Suliya or a mechanical hunter like Sun Eater? Are you one of the religious, or do you follow the reindeer out of tradition?

That he knew the word lanzadoii was a minor surprise lessened only in the moment he spoke of the Sun Eater. This man appeared to know much, or at least had been present long enough to observe the horde of caribou as they migrated; the wolves flowing among them would be difficult to see but not impossible. He did not balk at the mention of a conclave which was of larger interest.

His questions came flowing along quickly, and she took each with a pause, digesting, as if to determine their taste to her palate. My father is known to him, she offers as an answer—but she doesn't know if she is in fact lanzadoii, sharadoii, or this thing Sun Eater spoke of—muradoii, ice monster.

She considers the differences without fully knowing their depths. My mother bore me in the everdark. Far, far north. Where running goes across ice, and ice across sea. It is surprisingly easy to speak on this.

Uncle found me later. In a village, west. This memory had her abruptly tight-lipped. She did not want to invite the spiritual eye of Kukutux, as if speaking of the past might summon her attention. Sulukinak grimaces and puts aside the topic, judging it to be an apt telling. Not too much, not too little.

Saatsine follow caribou; so, I follow. That part at least was simple.

The girl stops hiking to look plainly upon the man. He held a winter coat, plush, not quite pale like snow. There was a healthy lustre to his cheeks. Sulukinak appraised him as one might study a prized holstein ready for slaughter—but if she held questions of her own, they went unspoken.

It seemed things were not as simple as being born to it for the shadowburn. She was at least half related to the Lanzadoii, either by birthright or kinship, but she came from a place named for its darkness and relayed as a place of glacial atmosphere.

“Where running goes across ice, and ice across sea.”

She was not so forthcoming about her second home—a village, she called it—to the west. Winter’s Wake brows rose curiously, but he did not press for the information. It would likely only serve to sate his nosiness, rather than provide him with any meaningful information.

He nodded as she confirmed her lack of a metaphysical relationship to the caribou. This was easy to suspect of her; she seemed incredibly brusque of character. But this did not mean there was nothing deeper to her actions.

Have you chosen to follow the Saatsine so that you are closer to your family, or is there another reason? What makes them worth following? Is this your true fate, domina of the everdark?

i know i made a lil jokey joke instead of a glowing kudos lol, but you had suuuuuuch good lines in your last post!! i reiterated one of my favs above, but my other other fav was: "She did not want to invite the spiritual eye of Kukutux, as if speaking of the past might summon her attention."

Family. Yes. She answered, cutting through his question unnecessarily. But he spoke onward, and even her little blunder did not stop him.

She opened her mouth to say more—but he said a word she did not know, and so she faltered, and was curious, and could not stop herself. Domina? And in the way that dogs sometimes tilt their head to cup a sound with their ears, she goes one way and then another. The word rolls back and forth within her brain.

A sigh. It plumes from the corners of her mouth and wraps as mist around her shoulders.

Uncle's ways are father's ways. I learn the Saatsine way to know my father. In this manner she divulged something fundamental about herself and didn't even realize it: that she was in fact bereft of connections. That she did not know this father figure who had helped in her creation. That the Sun Eater was the closest she had come to the same.

It is better here than the everdark, she concludes—and her stare becomes something uncanny as she looks upon her companion, partly transported back to the ice fields in her mind. There is life here.

Oh, gosh. Thank you! :> Trying to keep up with your tasty, tasty writing!

Sedately, he smiled.

It means mistress, Wake translated. Woman of power. Did she understand her power? I called you ladylord of the everdark.

Bird-of-prey eyes carefully studied her reaction. He expected a rejection of the notion. She did not seem the kind to accept an idea of herself as lord of anything. But Wake’s superiority was too large to be condemned to a single body; he also projected his lofty ideals onto others when he found them interesting. Wherever he looked, he could always see power, or the potential for it, even when others chose not to see it in themselves.

The nature of her decision to run with Saatsine was intriguing in itself. Though it boiled down to daddy issues, Wake saw an implicit vulnerability to take advantage of. A clay doll lay in shadow before him, and he need only reach a claw forward to find out if it was still malleable or had already been dried stiff by the sun.

In my culture, you would be named a wolf of the spring, he told her. For your persistence when there is little. There must have been some life in the everdark, after all, if she had survived there long enough to remember it.

A wolf of the spring, she repeated, the words rolling off her tongue with measured cadence. The title tasted foreign, yet familiar. Her voice was neither flattered nor dismissive, carrying the kind of evenness one might expect from someone accustomed to wearing masks of indifference. A wolf does not ask permission to survive. They do it, and that is that. Why title the act? Did not everyone try in their way to keep alive? To give up and to die — names and titles, they died with you. Persistence rewarded itself.

Her sharpness came not from indignation but from curiosity—a probing, exploratory blade seeking the soft spots in his intentions.

He wasn’t one of them—not running with Saatsine after the caribou, not bowing under the banner of the Sun Eater, not grounded in the shared roots of their traditions. Wake was an other, a man from some other place, some other life, and his presence here felt as alien as the call of a bird long extinct. She did not know how to treat him. Politeness seemed too weak a tool, and aggression unnecessary. What remained, then, was caution—abundant, deliberate caution.

Yet there was no denying her curiosity. Wake spoke like someone carrying a secret too grand to keep and too dangerous to share. It drew her in despite herself. Sulukinak knew her survival depended on suspicion, on keeping a sharp edge between herself and the unknown, but Wake’s strangeness gnawed at her defenses.

You speak like a man looking for something, she said. But not as a hunter. Not of caribou, not of wolves, not of anything that bleeds. A small, fleeting smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, the closest she came to amusement. What is it you think you’ll find here, Wake? And do you think it’s looking for you too?

She tilted her head slightly, meeting his bird-of-prey gaze with an unflinching stare of her own.

Despite the deadpan of her tone, it was clear to the winterwolf that there was true depth behind those fathomless bronze eyes, that she was not as shallow-minded as he may have thought. He welcomed her surgical probing; luckily for them both, his inherent sedation made it easier to endure the cuts of her investigatory scalpel.

You would prefer the things that come naturally to us go unacknowledged? Wake countered good-humoredly.

Whether he was being philosophical or facetious, he stopped waxing poetic to speak plainly to the caribou-chaser. We speak these things to show appreciation for what something is, instinct or other. Sure it is natural to do the things we must to survive, but not all have the ability to do so. Not every wolf survives what you have, nor does every soul carry your strength of mind and body. He searched her face for understanding.

It is imperative in my culture to show appreciation for these things. One should show pride in continuing their existence… so we give title to it. We acknowledge it. We speak gratitudes for the ability to do what comes natural to us. And we make sure to never become apathetic to it.

To him, it boiled down to a lack of faith and imagination on the nameless shadow’s part. Yet, he could also understand why she and others might find no utility in the way he saw things. He’d learned that those who’d lived lives of intense scarcity or abuse often had little time to think about anything other than what they needed. He wondered which category she fell under, if either.

She asked him something profound then, and after a beat of genuine surprise, Wake’s expression morphed into a coy smile, entirely reminiscent of the cat that ate the canary.

You have seen me, he praised, amused. Lowering his voice, he told her: I believe my true fate is here. I hear its call getting louder all the time.

Sulukinak turned her gaze to Wake again, her dark eyes narrowing with a blend of skepticism and reluctant curiosity. His words lingered in her mind—his true fate with the Saatsine. It sounded like conviction, but Sulukinak couldn’t see how this wolf, with his calm demeanor and soft words, might fit into the harsh rhythm of their pack.

The Saatsine don’t carry those who slow the hunt. She rose slowly from her crouch, glancing past him to where the caribou still struggled in the snow. He hadn’t followed it, hadn’t shown any intent to prove himself in the ways that mattered to the Saatsine. That puzzled her more than it should have.

Even as she spoke, she couldn’t quite shake the intrigue that clung to his words. There was something about his calm defiance of their way that both frustrated and fascinated her.

You’ll find no place here if you can't run with us. Sulukinak’s dark eyes lingered on him for a moment longer, weighing his presence, his words. He didn’t follow the caribou; he didn’t move as the Saatsine would. She couldn’t see his place among them now—perhaps ever. Still, she felt no urge to drive him off. He would either find his way or become another lesson in survival.

A flicker of dark humor crossed her mind, unbidden. She wondered idly what quality of pelt such a pretty man might make. The corners of her lips twitched, curling into a faint, sardonic smile. Something glinted in her eyes—a fleeting spark of something unreadable—as she turned and began to stalk away, her gait smooth and deliberate.