Larksong Grotto what gods desire

Backdated to 3 days ago!

She stank of carrion, of blood and viscera, her cloak soaked in them. She moved like a creature torn from the darkest of legends.

She was hungry, she ached, she was weary—but her gods had commanded her to press on, to not falter until she reached the place where she was meant to stand, where she should have been from the very beginning.

Her playing ground. The sacred land of her gods.

She straightened, drawing a deep breath of the glacial air into her lungs. This was her home—the wind murmured in her ears, the birds confided their secrets, and the earth itself thrummed with a rising tension.

"Blodet vil flyde her… lande skabt til at huse gudernes skue!" she whispered, a smile ghosting her lips.

She trembled, but not from the cold. It was exhilaration.

What a glorious day… And the days to come would be even more so

faust watched her.
she did not belong here, and yet she moved like she did, like the land had always known her. she smelled of blood and rot, a beast dragged from the belly of war itself.
he lingered at the edge of the grotto, eyes narrowed, shoulders squared. she was not winsook, not darukaal—but she was close to both, too close.
a gruff bark left him as he stepped forward, the glacier winds biting at his fur. you are close to winsook and darukaal.
it was not a question. it was a warning.
the one-eyed woman was watching, waiting. he had seen warriors like her before, touched by something older, something unshakable. but he would not yield the first move.
who are you? his voice was rough, curiosity edged with something sharper. and why are you here?

assuming backdated and italics denote her same language:)

The welcoming committee had not been slow to arrive; a colossal man in black, before whom she seemed but a pale figure in comparison. A wretched woman, drenched in entrails, standing before an immense warrior—a man from the north who understood her dialect and spoke it.

The stranger had pricked up her ears in his direction, her head tilted to one side. She had slithered toward him, her invalid eye sizing him up with quiet intensity.

"Winsook and Darukaal," she repeated, letting the names settle in, her eyes closed. They were pleasant to pronounce, gliding across her tongue with such sweetness it almost felt like a treat. She closed her eyes. Just for a moment.

"Jeg er Aspa. Gudene hvisker i mit øre, og jeg lytter." she confided to him. "De ville, at jeg skulle være her, de kaldte på mig, og så kom jeg."

Slowly, she circled him, her gaze tracing his scars.

"Og du, hvem er du?" she asked without hesitation. "Hvad har guderne bestemt for dig, kriger?" Her voice softened for the last question. She pondered, though she did not expect an answer from him.

“Tilbage så snart. Er du forelsket i mig, Faust?” Ayovi slinks down through the birches, eyes encountering his familiar force before settling with intrigue over the woman in gold. She is ragged and rough and pacing the northern flanks without any trace of fear. When she does speak it is of her gods, and the huntress is reminded of Skorpa.
“Er ligeglad med nordmandstruslen. Hans krav dags rejse mod øst. Du er kun i nærheden af mit bjerg, og jeg har intet behov løb du af,” she tells her in broken danish, a modest curl to the dark lips before the ice is levelled towards the man. 
“Kan ikke sige det samme, Faust. Hvad bringe Darukaal til Winsook? igen.”

maybe.
it was all faust offered, the word low, flat—without the weight of either confirmation or denial. he did not entertain the thought further, nor did he linger on the amusement that flickered across ayovi’s features.
his attention turned back to the one-eyed woman, to the scent of blood thick in the cold morning air. she was odd, that much was clear. a creature untethered, moving not with caution, but with conviction, as though her gods had led her here themselves. faust was not a man of gods. but he had met enough zealots to know better than to dismiss them.
following the herds, nothing more. his head gestured northward, where caribou would soon begin their migration. it was not a lie, not entirely. they would feed, they would track, they would move with the land. and yet, there was something unspoken beneath his words, a deeper purpose that he did not lay bare before them.
he did not threaten.
i do not threaten, he added, his voice steady. it was a truth. he had not come to winsook’s borders for war.
he met ayovi’s gaze, something unreadable behind his green eyes. she had questions, surely. he would not answer them here. not yet.
i am the kaan of darukaal. faust. well met, aspa. he didn't waver from ayovi's gaze, anticipating her own introduction.

A woman in white had joined them, her presence as soft as freshly fallen snow, yet her wit as keen as the razor edge of the blizzard’s strike. She was no norsewomen. Not in blood.

Aspa narrowed her eyes, intrigued. She paid no heed to the tension in the air—so thick she could have seized it between her fangs—and advanced toward the stranger with slow, deliberate steps. Her head was lowered, ears erect, her gait steady, her gaze alight with curiosity.

Without ceremony, as she had done with the towering warrior, she set about a swift appraisal. At last, she came to a halt at the woman’s flank, her milky eye widening as she studied her, brushing against her lightly with the edge of her whiskers.

"Du bærer ulveunger." No gift of prophecy was needed to see it.
"Guderne hvisker – Nordens børn. Krigere!"

She straightened, then returned to her place between the two warriors.

"Faust, af Darukaal." she acknowledged with a slight nod.
"Blizzardske dame er altså Winsook." She concluded, before settling down, her right eye drifting shut to grant it a moment’s reprieve.

"Nordmand har ikke truet." she then declared.
"Guderne har ført ham til mig, ligesom guderne har ført dig til Norden og derefter til mig." She nodded, as if to etch her words into the fabric of fate itself.

Faust teases and Ayovi hooks her brow at him in a manner that is one part amused, and the other irritated. She watches the gilt woman’s approach with a healthy dose of caution, though her wispy form does not pose a threat— no. There is no hostility in her prowl, only the huntress’ own curiosity aimed back at her. 
“Jeg er,”   and they were. Northern cubs, fathered by a norse warrior. But how could she know? Her gaze tracks the single golden eye where it sits within an angular hollow.
“Ayovi,” she introduces, though quite liking her new monicker. Her voice lightens, taking on a reverential quiet. She did not know the northern gods, only that her husband frequently referenced them in ways she did not understand. But the huntress had long believed that spirit-beings roamed upon this mount, and now she wondered if the strange woman Aspa could feel them in this act of fate. “Hører du ånd?”

Good question—did she hear them, those spirits? Did not all hear them? The strange, foul-smelling woman had cackled, amused by the inquiry, pleased by Ayovi’s curiosity, the Blizzard Lady’s keen interest.

"Ånderne? Hører du dem ikke?" she had asked in return. "Når vinden rejser sig, når rensdyrenes hove trommer mod jorden… Lyt, Ayovi, Blizzardske dame. Lyt for mig også, for jeg hører dem ikke." She had concluded more abruptly, her lips curling into a smile, teeth sharp as a blade.

"Jeg derimod lytter til mine hævngerrige guder, mine krigsguder, mine guder for velstand, vundet med blod!" she declared, casting a sidelong glance at Faust. Gods, madness, or deception—whatever force had guided her here, Aspa had arrived, and she meant to stay.

"Hvis nordens mænd, snestormens damer og de vandrende sjæle i disse lande ønsker at tale med guderne, så taler jeg på deres vegne." She bowed, slow and measured. "Jeg er deres ydmyge tjener, og dermed også jeres – hvis Darukaal og Winsoor tillader, at Aspa slår sig ned her."

After that, she straightened, her mirth fading. "Jeg beder jer, provokér ikke vores guder – imødekom min anmodning." She herself made no threats, yet her gods, perhaps, were less forgiving.

faust watched her, this golden wraith, this woman who spoke of gods with a certainty he could not share. faith was not foreign to him—darukaal itself had been forged upon the backs of belief, of tradition, of blood spilled in the name of what must be. he understood the value of it, the weight it carried among these wolves who clung to their gods like a blade in the dark.
he grimaced, though not in distaste. it was not her reverence that unsettled him, nor her promises of vengeful deities. it was the way she spoke as if the spirits were owed something, as if blood must be paid not by those who wronged them, but by all who walked beneath their sky.
superstition. but he would not say it.
instead, he exhaled sharply, tipping his head toward her. you are welcome on the glacier.
he did not bow to gods. but he would allow her to.

Ayovi smooths her face but it is more than mere superstition which shudders through the length of her tail. Gods and spirits— were they not the same under disparate titles?
From this soothsayer’s mouth springs blood and agony, that suffering in the north which had grown tedious to the huntress’ ears. Big Sky had culminated in death, but still she remembered her home in life and thought longingly of old comforts; banquets, stories before the hearth and grand kootsin hunts. It was these experiences she wanted again within Winsook.
But battle rent the northern skies, and she was not so naive to ignore it. Ayovi was prepared to fight for her mountain. Spirits could be vengeful, too.
She studies Aspa. Was she a zealous transient, or did she have a prophetic gift that would offer foreknowledge of the outcomes of war?
“Du skal tale med min mand først,” Ayovi resolves at last. A pretender would not last beneath the smolder of her husband’s eye.

She inclined her head toward Faust of Darukaal, who had granted her passage through what appeared to be his lands. Thus, if the whispers of her gods led her to the heights of the glacier, she need not fear the wrath of its mortal inhabitants.

Her gaze then returned to the Blizzardske Dame, perhaps less easily deceived—no doubt due to her own convictions, if Aspa was to be believed—who sought, above all, an audience between the keen-eared wanderer and her husband.

A smile curled upon the grime-streaked foreigner’s lips. If he was but another Norseman among many, as she was certain he was, then there was nothing to fear—nothing to dread.

"Meget vel, Blizzardske dame, før mig til din mand." she acquiesced before reaching up to scratch the back of her ear, feverishly.

faust exhales sharply, a scoff curling at the edge of his lips. you'll enjoy that lunatic, he mutters toward aspa, shaking his head. the woman was touched by something—gods, spirits, madness—he couldn't say, nor did he particularly care to find out.
his gaze flicks briefly to ayovi, the unreadable glint of something sardonic lingering in his expression before he turns away. his patience for prophecies and omens had long since waned; he dealt in flesh and steel, not riddles spun from the mouths of zealots.
good luck with that. the words are thrown over his shoulder as he strides off, pace steady, unhurried. towards the herds he'd go.

exit faust!

“Mand-barn lave vrede jeg vælger kriger husbond over ham.” Ayovi lifts her chin, watching Faust’s retreat with a crease in her muzzle. Their history was far more complicated than even the declaration would suggest. A tail strikes at the air’s ice. Too long had Faust and his kin aimed their barbs at Skorpa, who had the grace to disregard their taunts.
But for how much longer? Ayovi desired to sink her own fangs into the kaan’s pompous tail-tip— or perhaps to free him of another appendage.
She smirks and returns gaze to Aspa. Now the traveller woman would have some idea of what spectacles plagued the north.
“@Skorpa Den hvide kæbe hans guder også din,” the huntress explains before she turns and with a chin ushers the seer to trail her into the alpine wood.

The gods had not lied; tension hung thick in the air. Over a woman, no less—not even a norrøn kvinde, but an exotic enchantress who had bewitched the warriors. Men.
For the rest, that remained to be seen.

Aspa remained silent, a faint smile betraying her amusement, her ears fanned out on either side of her face, her head bowed as she followed in the wake of the Blizzardske lady

…

thanks to you two for welcoming Aspa on Teekon <3