Dawnlark Plains Tûnuck

More have come.
She cannot help it. She thinks of home. Of Ashēer, and how they were all but eradicated by the Wide Fangs who took their rivers, their kootsin, their women and children and lastly their pride.
But home is no longer Ashēer. Home is the mountain, where her sure-sword hung his arms. They would not be cowed. But the huntress is not so much a fool to confront the thick assemblage. She pursues their gathering scents along her hunt-fields, eyeing from a distance where she hunkers in sharp-blade grasses.

tuhin left darukaal's glacier behind, after a time. it would serve well to map more of the nearby lands, and no simple answer to a question served as well as experience.

and he had not made it far before the scent of deer reached his nose; a scent that promised something alive, instead of cold carrion. he was hungry, and thought it prudent to at least test himself now, knowing well that it was what was expected of him. so he turned, muzzle lifted, and followed, scattering the tiny herd of deer when he found it and chasing until he found the one that was the easiest to scare from its fellows.

he found a muted pleasure in this; not in the act of hunting so much as the act of pursuing. and it felt good now, to do what came naturally- to chase, to tire, daring darting bites when he felt he had the moment's opportunity, just enough to tear wounds in legs and hindquarters. he had no desire to test himself against its hooves.

tuhin did not count time in the snow. he measured it only by the steady burn of his muscles as he moved, the way the deer began steadily to slow. his brothers and sisters might have taken the opportunity the moment they were close enough to spring; but he was not a creature made for such strength, and he ran instead, keeping easy pace, just as utterly remorseless.

and at last, his prey faltered and fell.

perhaps she had caught a hoof upon branches or rocks, or broken something upon landing; she barely reacted as they swept down upon her, nothing more than a bleat abruptly cut off by scything teeth. warm blood ran to stain the silversnow fur of their muzzle; thin held her as she bled out, head bent against the heavy weight, casting a greygreen eye out over the long grass.

can be a cameo, couldnt resist! lol

saatsine hunters filtered through the taiga. sun eater watched them come and go, feeling that the cache was not defensible. but it was not his to defend, and so he only enjoyed the prettiness of the sheltered place, hoping that his mate would find it soothing to her mind as well.

it was good to be out of the river. already veksar had roused more suspicion against himself, for sun eater had instructed that his hunters go to the glacier.

but he did not follow and he did not dwell.

there was the scent of tangled alpine and fresh blue ice, and his eye trailed the horizon until he found a running-built figure standing palegrey over a newly killed deer.

was that something beyond? sun eater tested the air again, tasting, standing open for the gaze of this one and the unseen watcher he only just sensed.

ty both for joining! <3

Fleet feet would take her from this encounter, return her to the mountain steeple undetected. What happens then? Do more wolves come? Marauders converging upon Nova in greedy droves?
Youth had sent Ayovi running. Would she run for eternity?
No, for she was alone no longer, and any life taking root inside her would know a mother who was fierce in her protection.
The gore of hunt is enticing as the younger of the two fills his belly, leaving the huntress to assume they are connected. There are no growls, no recriminations, and Ayovi does not lunge across the field to provoke aggression from men of silver and black. She only rises with a tail at half-mast and blue eyes to follow in watchful color.
“You are near my land,” she informs, voice steady but not commanding. She cannot command the man in black, instinct tells her this.

jaws free from the deer's warm, heavy weight, tuhin had thought to sing out, to summon any of darukaal's people who might not insist upon their teeth being the one to bring down their prey- but they had lost the scent of the icelands in the body, and in lifting their head they caught sight of the great black figure who had not bothered to hide himself; and then the silvergrey woman who had.

it brought them to an expectant halt over their kill, silently tonguing their bloodied lips.

did they hunt together? they considered this, for if they did, tuhin had made themself easy prey- but the woman's words swiftly dispelled such belief. they had not crossed any border, had not trespassed in any way. but faust had spoken, if briefly, of the packs whose claims hewed near darukaal's own...

tuhin mirrored her posture, tail held level with their spine, watchful eye kept upon the man whose own considered them in turn.

"i have not come to trespass," they said, deep voice loud enough to carry. "i am new to these lands, and my people, too, live near these plains. i came only to hunt, and to...acquaint myself with this place, with those who might also claim their homes nearby. you are one, i imagine, and..." and here they turned their muzzle to the darkfurred figure in silent question.

sun eater might have moved on were it not for the woman who rose in grace and claim. the single eye narrowed at her, for the scents upon each were different. it was the man who spoke first, dispelling tension, and the gaze that climbed his way was not threatening.

"i chieftain of the saatsine. we run here. for now." a wave of his dark tail for the sprawling, threaded herds which left scoured trails in the snow.

"we are caribou hunters. we follow."

she would not need to suffer him for long. but teeth glinted in a grin, for she was good to look at. was there a man here to stake stance with her? sun eater looked around in deliberate slowness as if to openly search for her guardians.

who exactly might keep his hunters from her weald if he wished otherwise?

“Then you run with me. For now,” the ivory glances long between men, mirroring the chieftain’s wording with a voice that dances in affable mien.
“I am Ayovi. We live on the mountain,” she gives no elaboration on ‘we’. It is most logical to broker some sense of peace with these clans, but it is wiser still to guard awareness that it is only herself and her husband on the mountain.
The leader grins. Ayovi allows her tail to sway, face carefully calm as she turns to address the silver who lifts his tail in equal assertion. “Where is your claim?”
She does not see, rather feels the single cold pulse of the band chief as he rakes the fields for her numbers.
She has none.

for a long few moments, tuhin watched and waited. he had stated his purpose, and the man seemed more intrigued by her. he did not mind this; it suited him just as well to take the time to judge the tension here and to take in what was offered, that he might make use of it later.

tension he did find; in the chieftain's shining grin and the slow sweep of his eye. tuhin scented the air, ignoring the deersblood, and tasted only threads of pine and glacial ice and riverwater. it did not speak of numbers, and tuhin did not know as a certainty whose he searched for- but the purposeful slowness of his movements did not signal goodwill.

he stood silent and motionless over the deer's steaming body, and dipped his head to ayovi.

"i am tuhin, of darukaal. we make our home upon the glacier; we have no designs upon the mountain." further promises than that he did not make; not because he did not know faust's plans, not because he was a stranger to lying, but because some part of him cautioned against revealing anything that might be understood as weakness to the eye of the caribou hunter who still watched them- as offers of peace often were.

nothing.

they understood one another.

his teeth gleamed in the cold light as strange man spoke of the glacier. of darukaal. each said: we; numbers. we; a leader who spoke for them? sun eater's mind leapt among the words spoken, then cut his gaze back to the woman.

something was familiar about her. not in terms of name nor blood nor look; a flickering knowingness that he wanted to indulge. he did not.

"i sun eater. saatsine take hospitality of ayovi," the chieftain declared, flaunting with care his growing grasp of their commontongue. "second camp for all, here?" and the question stood open to the darukaal man as well. caribou hunter wished to know if he would speak again for these unknown peoples of the glacier.

they tested one another.

For a moment the field is wordless, each tribesman exerting their own silent force. Ayovi feels her own presence centered within it, small yet solid.
She follows the chieftain with her eyes, wondering, watching his moves with intrigue and an even disposition. “You are welcome on the hunt plains,” and in silence does she say no further.
Then to the snowy face of Tuhin, “tell Faust if he wishes for skabe, he may speak with my husband here.” Yes, she knew of his leader, of the glacier, and if the silver man explored the hollow runnels of his home he would scent her there still beneath the glacial ice.
Husband. Eyes level a look to Sun Eater. Then the huntress departs, pursuing an eastward scent-trail.