Duskfire Glacier Come a little bit closer

the wind was thinner up here.
high along the ridgelines, where the sun rarely touched and the ice never quite melted. it whispered through the stones like an old tongue, guttural and half-forgotten. faust walked with it, heavy paws cutting narrow tracks through snow-flecked gravel, the weight of a musk ox hide draped over his back.
it stank of blood and winter—fresh enough to steam at the seams where it had been torn free. a gift. or a burden. maybe both.
his breath curled from his jaws in thick spirals, green eyes sharp beneath the jut of his brow. they scanned the broken earth ahead—slopes and shadows, dark gullies where a clever woman might nest.
he hadn’t seen @Tikigak since dawn. he wondered if she’d found a place. a hollow, dry and tucked away from the wind’s bite. something safe. something still.
his pace slowed as the ridge opened into a ledge. paw pads splayed for purchase on the slick stone. he paused there, hide shifting on his spine, and lifted his nose to the air.
scouting for her scent.
for warmth.

Her hunt for a whelping den had not yet become urgent, but she would not allow it to become such. Tikigâk scouted the land of Darukaal for a place well secluded with plenty of resources along with that where she could safely spend her time the first few weeks in rearing the new life due to the pack. 

She maneuvered confidently through precarious locations to seek safe refuge that would provide her each thing she wanted—a bed of freshwater that their cubs could explore without drowning, some expanse of flat terrain for their cubs still learning their legs to grow confident upon, with a wall for them to learn to scale to build their strength… as for what else, she supposed she would know it when she came upon it. 

A change in the wind distracted her from this hunt—blood, and her mate. Tikigâk rerouted her path and picked her way over the ridge that would bring her to him, tail swaying behind her while she moved. 

Soon, he would smell her too.

he caught her on the wind before he saw her—sharp, familiar, undeniable.
her scent curled through the timberline like smoke, and faust, still cloaked in the hide of their last kill, veered from his patrol. snow broke beneath him as he hunted her not like prey, but like the only thing worth chasing. muscles rolled beneath dark fur as he picked up pace, eyes narrowing.
when he found her, it was with no word. only the low thunder of his stride and the heavy brush of his shoulder against hers—rough, claiming, unapologetic. a sound like a grunt caught in his throat, not quite greeting, not quite warning.
he moved past her, then stopped. waited. looked over his shoulder.
found anything yet? voice low, a rasp carved from cold air and long miles.

The rolling thunder of his stride met hers—their collision was again a brutal force of nature even as they drew against one another, she pressing into him with as much vigor as her mate. The noise she answered with was not dissimilar to the one he made, a primal echo of shared sentiment. Something powerful, something else their own. She lingered at his side to sniff at the heavy furs he carried for a beat, tail waving slowly behind her. As he drew past her she remained still, watching—as he looked to her, she turned and moved in her heavy step to his side. 

Musk ox. Her mouth watered; she scarcely could feel the saliva pooling before it oozed from the edge of her parted jaws in a thin string that was quick to snap and melt into snow. A meal she had not known she craved until he was awash in its scent. A difficult thing to hunt—her gaze turned to his, impressed. Tikigâk leaned to nibble gristle from where it rest in a tangle of his own fur, out of reach and caught in a small wind-formed knot.

His low voice was heard as she withdrew, shifting her weight. 

Not yet, rumbled the difficult to please brute, rolling her own shoulders. Tikigâk was still learning this land—she did not doubt she would find what she needed here, a land rich with resources. Tikigâk said with ample confidence, but I will.

She shook out her furs before a thought occurred to her. Show to me a place that only you can find, Tikigâk prompts with a sweep of her tail, knowing well that in the earliest days of whelping she would only accept food from him—and knowing, too, that his own longevity here would lend to him knowledge of paths unwalked by any but for him… that still had much to offer.

faust met her gaze without pause, a flicker of something sharper, deeper, passing between them. he did not speak at first—only motioned with his muzzle and turned, broad shoulders shifting as he began to walk. there was no need for explanation. she asked, and he would show her.
his pace was measured but firm, and he did not look back to check if she followed—he knew she would. they wound through narrow ledges and snow-thick trees, the kind of trail that bent just enough to be forgotten if not walked often. frost bit the air. silence reigned, save for the crunch of their steps and the distant moan of wind across the glacier.
then the path opened.
a hollow carved by stone and time, rimmed with shale and shadow, where the wind passed quiet and the world felt still. bones of past kills lay scattered beneath the ridge—old, cleaned, undisturbed. tucked away, unseen from above. a den if needed. a burial site, if not.
he halted.
here. his voice was low, solid. he didn’t elaborate. didn’t need to. this was his place—earned, remembered, kept. and now, hers too, if she chose it.