Raven's Watch Souärr

She crouches, listening to a fresh access of wind caught against the snow embankments, inhaling crystalline flakes and blowing free warm breath. With belly full and Faust keeping watch for black bears over their kill, it had been the first night she had some restful hours of sleep. Now her mouth thirsts and the pleasant trickle of snowmelt lures the huntress to the shimmering edge of a cornflower lake.
Ayovi regards the watershed for long moments. Her paws tense, remembering another self who would have basked freely in these cool waters. That version of her was buried with the Ashēer. Now she was wisened. She knew fear, and how all the world was an enemy to the lone wolf. The tensing of claws is only reflexive.
It is the squabbling of ravens which betray her senses, drawing her out along the banks before taking heed of what stranger lurks near.

she has not left to find the duck lake.

yet she had left the safety of the vale. left behind the promise of protection and a belly full. all in hopes of what? she did not know.

here is another lake. home to other birds. ravens. her gut rolls with a grand protest within her — and she is unsure if it comes from emotion or hunger. yet her throat is scorched by stomach acid all the same and her eyes are sunken again. a thin giantess come to pluck at meager things.

only someone else is here.

someone pale and befitting this place better.

there will always be someone who fits better than her. maybe that's what made it so easy to always leave things behind.

she licked her lips and chuffed lowly.

ty for joining <3

A voice. A gentle, deep call. She raises her head in skittery acknowledgment to see a long, dark figure part the snow. Her ears flatten– were all mountain wolves similarly favored? Not every giant was Wide Fang, but her eyes flick to the long, powerful legs then up into the face presenting a void and sets a healthy measure of doubt upon this encounter.
Still, the greeting is mild enough, and in an effort to avoid impudence Ayovi tries to raise her tail in wave– though she is too tense for such a casual gesture, and it makes her look briefly tremulous.
So in return she loosens her own croon; a quiet, dulcet address and cautiously lifts her nose to pull wolf-scent from the air.

her heart does something within her chest.

enough that she can almost feel the pulse beneath her own skin. it caused her mind to skitter and frazzle within itself. no words, she thought to herself. she would like to keep it that way. for herself more than anyone else.

her own sniffling is noisy and searching.

tentatively she took a step, two, closer. no more. she did not mean to push her welcome.

She might have taken the mountaineer as a transient voyager in the cut of a narrow frame if not for the traces of pack that spice the air. It aggregates the tension in her stance which shrinks into ritualized submission as those long steps draw closer.
But this wolf waits, holding themself with something which resembles understanding. It emboldens the passerine who in turn chances a single forward step while her nose works to identify– the woman.
Still she stands a healthy distance away, but with a tail swaying, the gentle presence having awakened a thrilling tone.

they rather liked this one.

but in what way? to what end? she should not think about it too hard, lest she crumble it underneath such heavy thoughts. no, she would be only soft with this moment. treasure it for now.

she lowered herself from such a tall height. lower and lower.

her dark belly swept against the snow-pale ground now. her tail swished behind her enough to stir up the freshest layer. slowly she leaned to the right, then allowed her shoulder to meet earth.

dark underside exposed like a void full of trust.

She leans into stillness among the high drifts of snow, blue eyes annular in the stranger’s attention, shifting between legs and face and the cedar-tipped tail. They were limbs that could have easily struck out, subdued the weary huntress under a single massive palm. All that strength, and they were folded calmly aside, to lay bare her most vulnerable place, granting trust. Inviting closeness.
Ayovi lathers curious looks, plodding forward on taut feet in a dance of restlessness and fear, the meld of both compelling. Her gaze trails over one paw, nose following it tentatively down into the belly, prising details from the scents she carried. But the one that strikes most is the feldspar gaze.
She rather likes this one.
The huntress licks her lips and bends her legs to play or flee, perhaps both.

mostly still.

they shifted maybe once, maybe twice. only to allow the pale woman a better place to sniff or to maybe even show off. eventually it was over. without teeth to her underside and without any words being passed between them.

this could work.

snowy woman showed a readiness to move, though. it is only bracken's thinness that allowed her to roll back upright with a swiftness — tail waving in the process.

she dropped into a bow and pounced. truthfully not expecting to catch the snowy huntress so easily! no, she wished for this to only be a start.

What transpires next is a flurry of excitement and nervousness, the shadowy lunge freeing both yelp and growl from wintry jaws. Bones that ache from the pilgrimage are forgotten in her fever, she dances just out of the grasp of willowy arms, protesting with huffs that warm the air in silver breaths.
A plucky smile narrows her eyes and they become a pair of waxing moons to lighten the path her steps carve beyond the lakebed– summoning a chase from the lean forest-woman. 
Her legs churn into a snowy gallop, muzzle thrown aft just once to see she was pursued. She braids with old groves of aspen, ducking once behind a trunk only to leap out at the woman, feigning a bite to alpine paws amid lolls of pink tongue.

chasing, reaching.

her teeth meet air many times over and the sounds that escape her are mingles of growls and barks. birds stir around them. the sky has gained many dark stars, fleeing in favor of the quietness of higher peaks.

down here it is loud, it is full of life.

so delighted by the moment has her thinking fall by the wayside. it was easy to be surprised by the sudden flurry of a snowy huntress feigning nips at her feet.

she is not graceful, so she decided to not pretend to be such. instead she sought to rush into the woman hopeful that they might collide.

uncertain what she would do next if they did!

The oaken wolf rushes again, though this time is different. There is an intent to graze which startles with a boldness Ayovi had come not to expect from her companion. Her riposte is a wild churn of limb as she collides softly with the powdery earth, the lithe woman not far behind.
Ice chills her spine but it is not so unpleasant with the heat from play. Ayovi reaches for a dark ear tip and tugs, lightly at first, then with a little more insistence, as if there is a small eagerness to show the greenwood woman she had once been a wolf of strength.
That she would be again.

the snowy hunter could have left a notch in bracken's ear and she would not have protested.

her head turned to lean into whichever ear was chewed upon. a large paw sought to find place on the ground, alongside where the smaller hunter might lay her head. not threatening, but nearly sheltering.

she wished to playfully nip at the woman in return, wherever she might reach. she had no wish to keep her new company stuck here, but the position was to her own advantage. she would be a fool to not at least try to use it as best she could.

Ayovi found she could not blight this gentleness with words. As a dark leg snakes forward she feels almost embraced in safety which had only existed for a time in Big Sky. The huntress disarms in entirety and sinks her cheek into the snow, wondering at her own boldness but mostly about the face with the deep, soulful gaze.
“Ayovi,” she chances on a whisper, “my name.” Hoping it might earn her one in turn.
Her tail swishes, upending snowflakes onto the billowing figure beside her.

words finally.

she wants to hate it, but she can't. there is something so soft and tinder in this now. granted she knew how many times this had ruined her too. is it worth it? speaking?

a lump in her throat.

a breath in through her nose to remember this scent with this memory.

bracken. dry and coarse, stones tumbling down a ravine are the words that come from her throat.

“Bracken,” she tests slowly on the tongue only to draw out each syllable in soft reverence and envisaging the dark woodland from which she might have sprung.
“I like your eyes.” Ayovi smiles next, nosing at the snow and blinking into the kind auburn, the true depths of which are only visible up close like this.
“Where is home?” There were others borne on the earthy coat— but they were only faint. Old.

her eyes?

she had never seen them. she had never tried. in truth, her reflection was better left alone in her mind. maybe this was what eyes had been made for — seeing another's own and thinking of how nice they were. what a shame it might be if this pale snow woman never saw her own.

i like your eyes. and although it is an echo of words, she means it in true. they are cold but she felt warm when held within them.

nowhere. everywhere.

maybe that was how it was meant to be.

Ayovi’s teeth glint into a small smile as she reaches to paw fondly at the woman’s shoulder a moment, then relaxes the limb within layers of earthly pelt. This closeness comforts when she is here, and will sustain her when she is gone.
The blue gaze freezes, face softening with a small ache of disappointment that melts into a sigh. Bracken’s pack was a place she might have also come to belong, too. But there is pride in a solo existence, or so Faust would have her believe.
“Is it lonely?” Ayovi asks, eyes wondering.