The Sunspire we are not made whole by pain

the mountain that looms in the nearing horizon as the early morning sun rises, casting the world in a soft golden light, is easily one of the tallest that splitskull thinks he's ever seen. it's at least three times larger than the hextooth spires, at least. perhaps that's why he finds himself gravitating towards it: it reminds him ( a bit ) of home. the bounty hunter felt the most at home on mountain ranges ...or close to them at the very least. at some point, the scent of a pack clinging to the territory he might come to know as sunspire becomes apparent as he ventures in the neutral territory bordering it. his pace slows, becoming more leisurely and less evident with clear purpose as he draws nearer to their border. the scent grow stronger with every mile marker he passes and his pace slows a little more each time.

splitskull's too old (ehem, too experienced he would argue ) to bear the recklessness that once plagued him in his perpetual youth. he can still hold his own in a fight: he's far from decrepit, after all. he's a man just hitting his prime but with his age came a lot of newfound respect for things that he previously held no respect for. his steps slow to a cease all together as he turns bi-colored eyes to the territory, ensuring that he leaves more than an acceptable distance between the pack's scent markers and his body. he's not entirely sure that joining a pack ( or trying to, rather ) in foreign lands right away is the best move: but he's craves the structure.

he draws in a deep breath and lets out a howl to announce his presence.

"Bloody hell..." Wraen groaned, when someone in the vicinity of her sleeping quarters (more like the first spot she dropped dead tired from her last hunting trip) had the insolence of yelling at top of their lungs, this early in the morning. She might be mistaken about the time-frame, but at this moment anything that clock was showing now, would have been wrong. Simply because she was tired, sleep-deprived and someone had woken up, when it should not have. 

The squeezed her eyes shut, muttering under her breath - please, please, please, someone take care of it - wishing that either Rannoch, or Terance, or Treason, or whoever else's business it was to patrol borders and take care of the visitors, callers and what-nots would be here now. And deal. But minutes went past, no one came, the guilt and lamentable sense of duty crept up from her limbs to her brain. There it hit the right spot, making Wraen sigh in resignation, get out of the den she had occupied (and which was pretty close to, where the caller was located) and went to greet and have an exchange.

On her way - though feeling far from very happy - she managed to muster up the "polite and interested" mask, though the "irritated and grumpy" was just beneath the surface, grumbling and growling - this better be good Within a shouting distance she spotted the visitor and sighed. Great. The one time there is a big brute that people his size should be handling, the dwarf has to deal with things. She shook her coat and this along and approached.

"Greetings, stranger! You have arrived at Sunspire and I kindly warn you not to take any step further," Wraen said in a polite voice and with a friendly expression. Though a small vengeful voice in the back of her head said - like you could stop him, if he tried to, "I am Wraen - on of the leaders - please, state your business here." Or get lost and disturb someone else's sleep. This heretic thought remained strictly within her mind and the smile she offered to the stranger did not betray anything.

splitskull isn't kept waiting long before a woman approaches him from within the borders. she is a mottled dark grey, brown and silvery-white. small and lean. he appreciates the punctuality. she gives him every pretense of being friendly and polite as she greets him and follows it by asking him not to step any closer. "of course." the bounty hunter murmurs in response, returning her politeness with a small dip of his head. she introduces herself as wraen and states that she is one of the leaders of this sunspire. she looks young still, he thinks idly. he'd once thought, years ago when he was a young man, that leadership was wasted on the old. he would have much rather followed a more sprightly leader than an older one. becoming an 'old man' himself ( despite that he's still got plenty of good years left, bah ) has left him with a shift of perspective of the world around him. it challenges the way he used to think, and physically challenges the way he fights and moves. it was seemingly never-ending journey of discovery for him.

"i am called splitskull." called not am. he'd went by a different name once upon a time ...but the ritual of ascension into hextooth spire's leadership had left him stripped of his name and bound him by blood ritual and oath to go by splitskull. regardless of if he stayed in the spires or not. "your mountain reminds me of my previous home," splitskull murmurs contemplative as he lifts grizzled muzzle towards it ever-so-slightly. "and i was wondering if you have might room for me among your ranks."

Splitskull, huh? Wonder, who bashed you on the head... Wraen's mental heretic voice remarked, while the Wraen in charge kept her face straight and official. With all the self-control that the young leader had mastered lately, especially the part, where emotional turmoil-talk was not something you spoke out loud, the part of her that was blunt, lawfully evil and did not give a damn, what others thought or felt, had begun to evolve into a person of it's own right. Call it an alter ego or dark twin or whatever, but it was there. And, while it was mostly annoying little voice in her mind, you could not say that the good Wraen did not find the things the other had said amusing.

"In that case let's get straight to the point - what good would you be to us?" she asked, because, depending on, what his answer (and it had to be correct and convincing) was, she would tell him, if there was place for him in the ranks or not.

the bounty hunter's never been ashamed of his title. why would he be? he's earned it. though it means nothing to wolves outside of hextooth spires ....to his natal pack it means everything. to him, it means everything. yet, he can see, objectively, how it might turn skeptic eyes to him. splitskull. it's a bit of a gruesome name. but ...they all were. meant to be intimidating, to strike fear and inspire awe in others. in lands where they had to fight for resources, you wanted a leader with a name that might cause pause, might sew doubt.

she, evidenced by her words, didn't seemed inclined to beat around the bush and splitskull was subtly grateful for it. idle conversation was not a specialty of his. "i can fight and i can hunt. i can be a guardian or a warrior, to me they are one in the same," mercenary was a bit interchangeable like that, or so he chose to interpret it that way. "my specialty in hunting is tracking but i can provide." he might've been a man in his prime, aged like fine wine ( ha, that rhymed ) but he was far from obsolete. he could and would happily offer them his skillsets if they were willing to accept him.

A fighter, a hunter, a guardian and a warrior - he did look like someone, who had been through a lot of stuff in life, and yet Wraen was careful to trust his words right away. All of the skills he had named would definitely useful for the pack - they needed good defences, they needed good hunters - and at the same time, who could vouch that the man spoke the truth?

"Where do you come from and why did you leave to seek a new home?" Wraen asked next, wanting to know a little more about the man's biography and buying some time to decide, what to do with him.

her questions seem valid enough to the bounty hunter as he focuses his mis-matched gaze upon her — he'd asked plenty of them in a similar vein when he led hextooth spires, after all. it's all standard and a bit relieving to know that, in the end, despite the differences that divide packs they all look for the same thing at it's core: loyalty, contribution. "i come from a pack far south of these wilds called hextooth spires," he gestures idly with a grizzled and silvered muzzle in the general direction he'd came from. not that it much mattered. hextooth spires was at least a month's travel away from the southern expansion of these teekon wilds, as he'd learned them to be called in passing. "curiosity." he offers simply at first. he pauses to draw his salmon colored tongue across his jowls. "i was born there. i spent my whole life up until recently in their ranks. but i was no longer contented with that. i wanted see what was beyond my small piece of the world." for many years he'd been an immovable mountain to the wolves of the spire: and now splitskull finds, as he hits his prime ( call it a mid-life crisis of sorts ) that he wants to explore, to expand his horizons; thus here he was.

Wraen had not heard about Hextooth spires, but with a pack name like that, who could blame the guy to have a name "splitskull"? The more she thought about his name, the more she was reminded of a very silly childhood game she had once played with Sarah, the aim being to come up with the best insults. And there had been some true pearls, that Wraen did not remember now, except the fact that some of them had had to do with skulls. Split or intact, or simply small.

"So do we all," Wraen replied and then thought some more. She was still not convinced that she should give a "yes" to the man, based on his words only. A second opinion was neccessary and she was torn between the two leaders and Treason, who would be good to test the man for his battle skills. But somehow the latter option did not seem that much appealing. "I will call for someone, who is an expert in battle skills in our ranks," she said, lifted her muzzle and howled for @Rannoch or @Terance . 

@Terance came eventually and after introducing him to the rugged warrior, she left it up to her brother to decide, whether he deemed this fellow worthy to join the mercenary faction or not. 

PPed upon mutual agreement.