The Tangle airë

aw but maybe @Marina ! <3

The days bled together in a monotonous haze, but Astier did not stir. War was not a beast that rushed to meet its master; it required patience, precision. So he waited, silent as frost creeping over stone, his breath lost in the glacial air. When the stillness stretched too long, he moved; not out of restlessness, but calculation. The sea was near. He had seen it once before, before the glacier whispered his name and he answered. Now, he would see it again.
His passage was swift, soundless. Nova loomed in the distance, but he spared it only a passing glance: allies. A word that meant nothing until tested. Politics, diplomacy; he would deal with those when necessary, not before.
The ground shifted beneath him as ice gave way to jagged rock. The scent of salt thickened in the air, sharp and bracing. Astier inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the cold sting of the sea before exhaling slowly. Then, without hesitation, he continued forward.

It was a rare thing that she left her children to hunt; rare, but necessary. To keep them warm in her absence, Marina had left a grisly companion: a hare, hamstringed, its tiny teeth knocked out and claws pulled from its paws. The creature could hardly move, but it lived. Its dying warmth would keep her children alive.

Aware that her time was limited even so, she slipped from the sound in search of prey.

What she found instead was another wolf. He moved silently, as if engaged in a hunt of his own, but there was no quarry that Marina could see. She stilled, ears tall as she watched the stranger from afar. Wariness had not left her; any unknown could be a threat, even now.

cameo, won't join unless tagged;)

she had been searching. far and wide, she wasn't entirely sure— nîsîmis was still no where to be found, though they'd travelled far and wide together. always, always together! yet here siamiituuq was, wandering aimlessly through the tundran landscape, nothing afoot except the frost betwixt her toes.
the scent of salt had been there, lingering. she traced it like any huntress had, traipsing the steps of the woodland floor until there had been a breaking in the lumber. curiously, she looked beyond, finding the staunch white male and another— female, fresh with motherhood. her ears flicked, had it been nikawiy'sis season already?
it did not feel that way in the tundra, forever frozen, held in place. siamiituuq swallowed, lingering far.

you're more than welcome to join! <3

What might have been a day of quiet solitude by the sea unraveled into something else. Not that he minded.
Astier turned his head, catching sight of her first; the mother, draped in silver, her back veiled in frost-kissed strands. Away from her pups, no doubt, scouring the land in search of sustenance as any good mother should. And yet, she was thin; too thin. The soft curve of her ribs pressed against her skin, an unspoken testament to struggle. His gaze moved upward, meeting hers; eyes like the tide, vast and weary.
He stepped toward her, measured, careful not to drive her off. Unfortunate, that she sought her quarry here. The cliffs were merciless, their prey scarce, and those who misstepped were claimed by the depths. He did not intend to explain to wailing pups why their mother never returned.
„Your search for flesh is in vain.” His voice was even, cold but not unkind; a warning, or perhaps merely an observation. Whether she heeded it or not was no concern of his.
And then, another; more delicate, younger, untouched by hardship in the way the silver mother had been. Draped in ivory, lingering at the edge of his periphery. For a moment, amusement flickered in the ice of his expression. Was this fate’s favor? He found himself surrounded, the lone wraith amid the tide. And both of them, in their own way, might have suited his tastes.
Not that he was ruled by something so fleeting; if ever he were to court, it would be by his own design, his own customs, slow and deliberate, as all things of worth should be. But first, he would see them, understand them.
His gaze settled on the pale one, sharp yet unreadable. He inhaled deeply, the salt lacing his breath. „Did hunger call to you as well?”

So sorry for the wait! <3

A pretty man, it was true, yet the prettiest of men often understood the least. Marina took his comment with only mild bemusement, a faint flicker of a smile. He did not see that her search could not be in vain; too much depended on her, and she would not return to her children with nothing but empty jaws. She had survived more barren landscapes than this.

Ah, but he couldn't know. Hunger calls us all, she murmured, But it's the cries of my children that I answer. You might be surprised at what blood a mother can wring from stone for her children. She let her gaze linger on him, paying no mind to the girl who stared from Marina's periphery. Marina had no time to coax a shy slip of a thing out from the shadows. If there was any help to be found here, it would be from the starwrought man who'd addressed her, she was sure.