Permafrost Hollows my fathers blade

aw! just right outside the borders of Darukaal

A storm wages war inside the wildling woman, violent and contemptuous. Stemmed from the threat of war and now the news of the man she'd yearned for having staked his claim on another woman. Frivolous, as she had no claim over the baskaan. Perhaps once, when they were children...

But those times are gone, and she is grown. A woman who must not allow herself to be swallowed whole by emotions she hardly knows how to handle. To hunt and to fight is what she knows best; it is a default she could always depend on. 

And so the white sparrow blazes past the borders of the glacier and into the wilds of the north. Stalking through snowdrifts and dead brush, simmering with anger that she must unleash in either a spar or a hunt. She moves with precision and with purpose, driven by the itch to sink her sword into something that would beg for mercy she would not give.

---

— what the silver sword finds is a black dagger.
having cast himself from up high, where the vultures of winsook circled, he walked now with no purpose. he debated his own mortality. he debated his whole existence.
he did not love @Elowen. he never had. she had been something to protect, to live for when he no longer had a direction. but these lands now offered plenty of direction. so what tethered him so fiercely still to the woman? his dove?
his son. his son, who he loved fiercely. his son, who he would do anything for. even leave... if that is where the stones were cast. his teeth grit in thought and he too storms through the lands, awaiting collision.
collision that comes in the form of the woman who had started this entire inner conflict. lorcan feels the breath stole from his inflated lungs at the sight of her, and then he snarls.
you.

The winds stir with a ferocity that might have matched the stir in her chest and in her heart. With it comes the arrival of a man dark and troubled—familiar. As if his name balanced on the tip of her tongue. Tall and honed and he would have been handsome, if not for the curl of lip and flash of teeth he sends her way. 

You. The hair along her spine bristles. Muscle shifts beneath her pale fur as her stance subtly broadens. She doesn't like his tone, the fury in that one eye of gold that's scathing. A dagger pointed at her heart, ready to plunge and twist.

 

Steel is drawn in the form of a sneer. Lips curling to reveal teeth she aches to use, her tail lashing at her hind with energy pent up. She does not cower—she never would. She simply raises her head taller so she can properly leer at him with eyes as cold as the glacier she came from. 

"What do you want?" Svalla spits with venom. Fighting words, as she simply doesn't have the patience for the dramatics of pompous, angry men. A bold step closer, a bash of her shield. It is then recognition flickers across her features, before they draw taut. 

The married man who she almost bed with long ago. With a smirk, she goads him. "Trouble with the wife?"

---

— prepared first to have quarreled, but he realizes he is simply too exhausted—mentally, emotionally—for anything beyond barbed words and cutting glances.
her comment, however, scathes. lorcan lurks now like a shadow, appearing from behind a tree and spitting upon the earth that shreds between them. you could say that. a snort. casting her a lingering stare before it drifts off, loitering in the distance.
gazing in brooding at the peak of winsook. he sees her draw closer, raising shield, in the periphery of his view; but he does nothing more than show her his defensive shoulder and cast her a long-faced, arrogant look. she will not earn the upperhand here—not against him. so with a tsk and a click of teeth, he angles towards her and pins arrogant stare upon her. what man did you find to ruffle your feathers? a rogue's smirk.
moving at once, suddenly, with a snake's prowess, to begin circling her. this, this, this was most natural to him. the chase, the thrill. the push and pull of taunting and bantering and flirting and then... simply... leaving.
he snaps his teeth a hair's breath away from her tail. you've caused me issues, wildling.

The man is serpentine with his movements. Winding down from his perch, coiling through timber like shadow incarnate. And like a coward, he does not meet her shield with his dagger. Circling around her, leering with one eye of smoldering gold. Svalla huffs, either out of amusement or irate. 

"Why? Worried that he satisfied me in ways you never got the chance to?" If he wished to play a game with venom and words, so be it, as her bark was just as harsh as her bite. Her tail flagging, swaying high in the breeze as she takes to mimic his movements. Her steps untethered, treading on the border of careless. Reckless. It is only fitting, for it is how she feels tonight. 

With a tilt of her head, she grins. Sharp-toothed and humorless. "Winsook must have a tight chain on you. You practically headed their command like a dog." She might have sneered, if she wasn't enjoying the barbs tossed effortlessly between them. A different kind of spar than what she is used to, but one that keeps her sharp.

Those teeth glint in the moonlight, just inches away from the fur of her tail. She clicks her tongue to her teeth, sways it along with her hips just to tease. "It's a shame, how little I care about your problems. I wonder what your wife must have thought, when your masters told her of our failed tryst. Is she making you sleep outside, rogue?"

if he satisfied you, he murmurs, circling still, then i’d hate to see what disappointment looks like.

his steps are smooth, controlled. the cold barely touches him. while she dances, begging for a reaction he would surely give her. enticing even now—and she had no clue he no longer saw fit to resist her.

he echoes with a snort, amused now. better a chain than a collar. at least mine doesn’t come with a leash between my legs.

her hips sway, and his eyes track, unbothered, unimpressed. there's been countless women... and she'd need to do more than that to stir any sort of lustful gaze from the rogue. and still, something in her—bold, ruthless—draws him closer.

the mention of his wife strikes deeper than he lets on. jaw tenses. nostrils flare.

my wife, he says, stepping in close enough for his breath to warm her fur, doesn't control me.

he leans in just enough for his voice to curl hot against her ear.

and what’s more pathetic—sleeping outside? or barking up a tree no one ever asked you to climb?