Sawtooth Spire light be sinister

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A soft rain begins to fall and Kjalarr takes shelter beneath a sharp outcropping of jagged rock upon his mythical kingdom of Sawtooth Spire. Lingering upon this mountain, a carved tooth of some ancient and long dead dragon surely, was not exactly progressing him towards his initial goal when he left behind Neverwinter Forest: find a place for him and Arrille because his plan to take full custody of his son is still in his mind. It was his intention but such selfless acts make no room for his selfish tendencies. He does not much fancy the idea of bowing to a leader he does not know, does not like the idea of submitting to a stranger on the belief that Ondine will just give him Arrille. As much as Kjalarr desires to be a good father he desires the power he came to know intimately much more. His father’s famous words: power is dangerous. Kjalarr agrees with the sentiment but unfortunately it is much too late for the scarred northman. He has known it and he refuses to relinquish that which is his birthright, that which the Gods and Norns have writ as his fate over and over. So he sits in his stone citadel, exploring and planning. His exploration is cut short due to the foul weather which earns a scowl from the crown less king as thunder booms overhead: a strike of Thor’s anvil. The outcropping offers respite from the rains which have picked up since he has ducked beneath it and as soft rain turns to harsh downfall the viking settles into a sphinx-like position as he waits out the storm.

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In her blood ran the power of the ancients. Those that came from the stars, those whose blood had fallen on battlefields, those who had claimed mountains and forests and spires of ice - she bore them all in her blood. She knew it too. Without question, there was nothing but perfection in her DNA - even with the shortcomings of her family members she knew it. She drew in a deep breath as the rain began, making her way along the tooth of the spire. She was drawn to it, for whatever reason, and the rocky edges of the mountain were familiar to her as her own Palisades. Lightning light up the sky above her and for a moment the soaked Tyr lifted her head to watch the way it bounced from the rocks along the ground across the water that flowed down - all of it. 

There was a beauty, in a sense, in the chaos of the storm and in the way the world opened up for it. Needy, greedy, the world took what it needed and the rest - well, it didn't care. In many ways, Eshe was like that too. Determined as her father, cunning as her mother, and even those she had not known she knew she had touches of others in her too. Another boom of thunder and she snorted, the stories of the Odinson had never impressed her. She returned to her climb. 

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The storm rages outside the outcropping of rock that the northman has takes refuge beneath though it does not protect him from the spray of rainwater that carries on the wind. In the midst of Thor’s rage Kjalarr thinks of his failings: of Saltwinter’s disbanding and of giving Neverwinter Forest to Ondine where she has chased away all that made it Neverwinter and instead made it into a stranger that he did not recognize. It ceased to be home. He reflects that things were handled poorly in both packs, that perhaps he is not and never will be the great leader that his father was. He grasps for a legend that is not and never was his. He is not Ragnar. He is Kjalarr; and perhaps Saltwinter and Neverwinter Forest have failed because they were not his. Not really. He did not build them up and they did not reflect him, his beliefs, his culture, his laws. He tried to adhere to what was already there and it begins to make sense to him that all along both were destined to fail because he was not Scimitar and he was not Caiaphas. He can’t make himself into someone and something he isn’t. It is a lesson he has taken too long to learn but now that he has learned it he plans to utilize it.

Ears cup forth atop the crown of his skull as he picks up footfalls over the rains and the thunder, the stinging and heated hiss of lightening as it strikes from the heavens, leaving a lingering scar upon the sky before it fades. Someone approaches. He holds no claim to Sawtooth Spire but it has been his home for many days now and territorial as ever Kjalarr rises to his paws, piercing and glacial Caribbean blue eyes sweeping the deluge of downpour as platinum silver hackles bristle, guard hairs along his spine rising as electricity lingers in the air from the most recent strike of lightening. It strikes far away and sometimes closer to the peak of Sawtooth but it is close enough for Kjalarr to swear he feels it on the air. He takes a ghosts forward at the very edge of the outcropping he lingers beneath and when the other comes into his view — a mixture of creams against the dark stone, emerald greens and deep browns of the small oasis within the bowels of the Spire it is hard to miss her.

He strides out into the rainstorm to meet her, drinking in what he can of her scent as black, leathery nostrils flare. The smell of damp earth is strong but her perfume is unique and woman, devoid of any illness that would otherwise cause the viking to chase her off. “Who are you?” He asks her, accented voice rising to drown out the rumbling storm overhead. “Why are you here?” They are old questions and ones that should not come from a crownless kongungr within an imaginary kingdom but he asks them anyway because old habits die hard and the truth remains that Kjalarr has no intentions of relinquishing his ways despite of circumstances.

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It was freeing, to be so close to the storm. From here she was close to the skies, the stars, the chaos of the storm; everything was below her. Where it belonged. Eshe's proud head did not lower when she was addressed. In the darkness the male strides forth and Eshe's teeth were a flash beneath the storm - a warning to him. Small she might be, but, she would not be broken. "Eshe FeralHeart." She stated the name with pride, every syllable measured and weighed before it was spoken. "What are you doing here?" She asked instead, because she had taken no refuge and had not hidden away from the storm itself. 

"It called me." She offered simply, and whatever he decided to state in response would make it all the easier for her to take the measurement of the man before her. He was an impressive looking sort, but, it would not tell her much until he was no longer the drowned thing that he was. She was not her usual resplendent self after all, soaked to her bone with only the lightning to display her - he would no doubt see her in a different light once the storm had passed and the skies had broken. 

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She gave her name to him aplomb. Eshe Fearlheart. Yet, it meant nothing to the northman who had never heard it before or even it’s like. At least, not her sirename. Her first name was all too familiar to the viking whom if had the capabilities of doing such would have paled. Platinum silver pelage keeps this from being visible but he does feel his heart drop to his stomach. Eshe had been the name of Scimitar’s second wife. Second and deceased, just as the man himself. Kjalarr did never gotten to meet his (adopted) step-mother and it is a fact that abhorrently haunts him. He doubts meeting her would have made a difference to their fates as both were stolen cruelly by a mighty bear but life is not without regrets and Kjalarr has plenty of them to learn from. “Kjalarr Lo∂brok.” He offers his own, including his father’s earned name passed down as a sirename from him to his children despite that he was not asked. It had been some time since he had included it for he feels Kjalarr speaks for itself. It is one of Odinn’s many names, after all; as if it is somehow proof that he is descendent from the king god as his father had once boasted.

“This is my home,” The viking declares to her, hackles weigh heavy with absorbed rainwater still they bristle like clumped spikes along his spine. His words are true in a sense. It is his home in the way that free territories are home to other lone wolves but it does not yet bear his scent nor his claim. That does not mean he will not try. “and when I gather those that will follow me, commit to my culture and religion I will claim it as mine.” The northman adds seeking to clarify. Kjalarr has no illusions that conversion will not be an easy task but he is willing to undertake it. He would see his father’s failed vision come to life: a truly viking pack instead of the mixing pot that Stavanger Bay had been. It is his fate. Kjalarr cannot say what draws and keeps him to Sawtooth Spire but it feels right. He feels the thrum of the Gods in the earth here, feels the heat of Mjölnir’s sparks as the anvil strikes from Thor’s forge. Sawtooth strikes him as the conversion point, sacrosanct. It is here he will fulfill his own legacy or die trying.

Eshe speaks that Sawtooth called to her and glacial Caribbean eyes take her in. She is petite and though her fur is soaked he can see the strong curvature of her body. It would take a blind man not to see that she is ethereal in her beauty even looking a bit like a drowned rat as he is sure he, too, looks. The scarred northman’s muzzle rises ever-so-slightly but not in any pretentious nature. “It calls to me, too.” He responds after a lengthy stretch of silence and he ponders what that means. Is she to be his competition? Or are their fates woven together in a different way? He does not know but all he can do is trust in the gods and trust that his legacy will far surpass his father’s own as his dreams have told him since he was a babe barely able to understand them.

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[table width=80%][tr][td]The name rings of promise and she responds accordingly, a new gleam of utter scrutiny as she stares at the male. Kjalarr is not a name used lightly after all, and for her, one has to earn such a distinction. Of her father's tribe there was a wildness to them, and the Palisades were full of beasts borne of both their ranks and the Stormspire. Her mother's wildlings are a different sort, cunning and brilliant and made for so much more than the mere lust of war and battle. It is from them that Eshe was formed, equal parts of skill and fable. "You have a lofty title." She mused, mostly to herself, before he went on to add that he was going to claim this place.

Her eyes drifted from him again to the summit of the tooth, her tongue briefly flashing across her teeth. "Would you be pleased with converts or would you seek those who are born to such rights?" Eshe tilted her head just a bit, watching to hear his response. It would tell her a great deal about him and how he thought; but it was also a clue to her own elitist thoughts. She had no time for inferior wolves. She had no desire to fill her ranks with wolves who were mere placeholders.

"Years ago my own father and aunt spent time in these wilds. My father carved his legacy in my homelands, but he spoke of this place with promise. I am here to see what he saw; to surpass his dreams with my own." Eshe was not a weakling despite what her size might have suggested and in her there was a cunning and a need for more. Where Kjalarr would fit into that, if he did at all, was left to be seen.  [/td][/tr][/table]

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Kjalarr’s ears taper back to rest at half mast atop his skull as she muses to herself about his ‘title’ and raises his lips at her words. He desires to argue that it is no title, that it is a name given to him by Odinn himself (or Ragnar who might as well be one in the same now) but doubts that she will even listen. He does not need her validation. He has been Kjalarr for most of his life and has no inclination to change it. He is Kjalarr and that is that. “Not everyone can be born a viking,” He speaks simply. “if they are willing and the gods are willing to accept them why should they be turned away?” Her statement shows just how new she is to Teekon Wilds and the northman lets out a low snort. “Besides, you will come across very few northmen and women in these Wilds. There is no where near enough of us to make a pack of true born vikings.” Kjalarr knew of one other he had met that was not related to him but whether the man remained or not was a mystery. Gyda remained, as far as he was aware (despite that he is far out of the loop as far as family goes, oops), but he doubted she would leave what she’d built on Sleeping Dragon to follow a younger brother.

He listens to her words but they mean little to him. Her father and aunt might have spent time here but they have not stayed. Eshe speaks that her father carved his legacy from her homeland not the Teekon Wilds and Kjalarr cannot help but think that if he is as elitist as his daughter it is no wonder why. Kjalarr cannot be an elitist without being a hypocrite. His mother was a convert viking as was his father’s second wife: the priestess; and it is as he spoke to her: she would be hard pressed to find a group of viking wolves just meandering about the Wilds continently looking for someone to follow. If there was a group big enough no doubt they would have already staked a claim. “We are alike on that single thing, then.” Both striving to build a legacy bigger than their father’s before them; Kjalarr cannot help but wonder if it is enough? Clearly, the gods ordained this meeting but where it is fated to go is still a mystery to Kjalarr though he believes already it is leaning towards competition than affiliation. She can do what she wants, join him or attempt to make her elitist viking pack but she could do it far away from his Spire because the only way Kjalarr was going to relinquish it to her — or anybody for that matter — was by being pried from his cold corpse.

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The counters her thoughts with the fact that they are far from their own kind; theirs as she has taken Kjalarr to mean one of the northern tribes wayward sons. He says the words she is familiar with, feels them in his own breast and she could smile at that but she feels that many, if not most, are beneath her and her efforts. "They cannot be born vikings but they also cannot simply bend - that is not what we do." She explains simply. It is not a legacy that she would claim, to fill her ranks with those lesser beings. "Fodder cannot be accepted. Either the spark is there or it is not." Eshe felt that in her bones, she knew it to be true. What Salene and not seen in her own son Antares was that spark, but he had proven himself through his merit. 

Most would not see the world so black and white but Eshe had not been the sort to thrive in the grey. Things are simple, in her eyes, there is, or there is not. She was pretentious, and she was haughty, and she knew these traits and claimed them. "You were born to these lands, then." Eshe makes the educated guess based on the way he has spoken of the wilds as he called them. He was still a mystery, and she could pick apart the way he felt or the conviction of his eyes but another rumble of thunder steals her attention for a moment. "And how are you planning to carve your legacy?"  There was a lilt of curiosity to her and she wondered what the male was wanting. She did not expect a pack of worthy creatures to just stumble into her view but she knows - at least in this male - there is potential. 

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“How would you decide if prospect wolves had this spark or not, hmm?” Kjalarr asks her, mulling over her words. Kjalarr, whom more often than not lives in the are a of grey between black and white knows that life simply isn’t as simple as she deigns to make it. He is not a cannibal but he has partaken in acts of cannibalism during the famine; grey. Most of his childhood and into his early adult hood had spent seeing the world in varying degrees of grey it only seems logical to him that grey is a very important part of the world that would otherwise be stark white or black. There was good and there was evil and there was perspective. “Or is that something the Gods would decide?” He inquires with a cup of his ears atop his skull in muted curiosity. “In a territory upon the coast called Stavanger Bay.” It matters little now, he knows. His time spent as leader did not afford him much opportunity to travel, nor did his time going from leader straight to fatherhood. Arrille had needed constant attention and supervision for the first couple months of his life.

“I’ve already told you,” The viking draws simply with a shrug of broad shoulders and a twitch of scarred muzzle. “I am going to claim this Spire and raise what my father couldn’t.” A pack of vikings. Ragnar had tried but he had not enforced his customs and culture and religion and to Kjalarr that had been his father’s grievous mistake.

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[table width=80%][tr][td]For a moment Eshe was quiet, bi-toned eyes carefully observing him. There was a moment of just observation; something she didn't commonly do, and it felt almost like an eternity. "Right now I am assessing you." She explained. "We sound of common mind, of common heritage, and no doubt you are doing the same to me - and you know, somehow, my worth." Somehow because she professed it, a sonnet spilled from saccharine sweet lips. Still she did not have a direct answer for him, because it was far easier to label someone lesser than it was to explain their worth. That was proven. That was shown. 

A Bay did not sound like a place of hardened wolves but then had their kind not been warmongers of sea and sand and earth alike? She would see this bay, at some point, and try and see it as he had - a home, somewhere that children would play and run and grow. No doubt it was mythic to him as the Palisades had been to her. Things were so different there, and he had already told her she would not find wolves like them along those parts. 

At his words she smiled coyly, giving a little shake of her head. "No, no. You said that part already - what I asked is how , dreams do not become reality just because. I would love to hear your plan. How you'll start, what you'll do." Would he confess to a small bundle of wolves he found to be quality or would they need to search and look?

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He is quiet as she speaks and remains so. She is not wrong. He is assessing her — it is only their nature, after all. He has yet to decide what she is, how he is to think of her. He wonders if he once sounded how she sounds: superior, marking herself higher than wolves she does not yet know. It nearly makes him cringe. Yet, he is nothing short of a hypocrite. He still grows, he still learns even in adulthood but his conceit goes no where, not truly. It is hid behind false masks of compassion and a desire to poke and pry for information until curiosity becomes invasive but he knows he bears the arrogance of Ragnar’s heir. If he did not he knew he would not be here. He would have rested and moved on, lowered himself to groveling to the packs of the Wilds (that he is welcome at) until one of them agreed to take him and his son when he returns with him. Kjalarr does not gravel, does not beg; in that simple truth is his answer. He cannot humble himself, not even when the life of his son lingers in the balance.

“I will build it,” He declares with a grandiose gesture of muzzle and accompanying flick of his tail against his hocks. “I will spread the word and I will only accept those who can and are willing to prove they will become Viking, they will merge into the culture and religion like they have always known it but they have to prove their worth. To me. To the Gods.” Conversion in Kjalarr’s mind was not just slapping a title to oneself. It was becoming the culture, the religion. Living and breathing it. And when the time was right he would return to take his son, to bring his son home — whether it was on this Spire or elsewhere. Kjalarr had made a promise, after all.

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The rains could not drown out what she saw in him; what she felt on the mountain standing before him was resolute. He had a purpose, and though she could not promise it was aligned with her own she knew that somehow, someway she had been called to the Spire and thus to him. Neither wolf had relaxed in the presence of the other, both assessing, both demanding knowledge of one another and of their beliefs - testing the ways that they aligned and the ways they were opposed. It was nature, but then, there was a step beyond that that boasted her Northern Pride as well. 

"You would be wise to test them. The Gods will, even if you were lax, they will supply the proper rituals and demand their sacrifices." Eshe presented this almost as a tease, a coy statement that boasted her own ideals and understandings. The Palisades had not dealt in sacrifice - they had rarely needed to. The blood was claimed and taken in the battle fields. "It would serve you well to be pretentious - after all, one does not fulfill a destiny by being idle." The FeralHeart does not think him the type to be lazy; at least not at her first impressions of him. 

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Kjalarr is soaked now — possibly to the bone — but thankfully the day is not cold and though it is humid with the dampness of the rain there lacks a chill. The longer tendrils of his guard hairs and nape have begun to curl in the heat and wet but he hardly pays any attention to these things now. His avoidance of the rain has been rendered useless when he had moved out to greet her. The scarred northman cannot say that he regrets his decision. Though they have different perspectives he harbors an inclination to believe that though different they can be compatible enough to align. He is not certain of it, however, but a tentative willingness to give it a try is better than shutting it down because he is a greedy and believes that he is right. He is not always right — and he is trying to learn from his hubris as it has only brought him trouble in the past. “I will heed to the will of the Gods.” Kjalarr tells her. The Æsir are superior to him as they have always been, as they always would be and he would see to their demands personally. “I have no intention of being idle.” He informs her with a flick of his tail against his back hocks. On that, Eshe did not have to worry. “What of you?” He asks her, subtly inquiring as to where she will go (or, rather, if she will stay) and if she does stay what role she will take for herself.

He listens intently to her response and after a few more minutes of conversation the pair split to go their separate ways.

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