Northstar Vale uumak ☈

aw but attn: @Melkor bc it's been tooooo long <3

it was nightfall when kukutux set out for the evening. she planned to spend the night hours traveling across the vale to its far edges, and beyond.

there she would seek the high point of a stone cliff and cry to those who had left her behind for the dancing lights.

she carried across her shoulders the usual rabbitpelt, and in its folds she had pressed small smooth stones, a frozen sliver of bone, a snowdrop. 

these she would bear up as offering. the darkened air was immaculately cold; she was grateful for the skin as her small paws carried her silently along swift vale footpaths.

it has been too long! ♥

though there are really only two directions of the vales borders that really need attention — the benefit to being nestled in the sunspire's womb — he patrols them all the same; keeping note of mountain goat trails that lead from the footpaths of the sunspires rocky mountains that lead into the vale as he goes. they weren't herd animals but they were bigger than the small woodland creatures they've been surviving off; or so he's heard tale. he has the benefit of having been gone for the worst of it, taken flight by unsettled paws.

roots; however, have begun to sprout here in this vale with andraste. it was by and far past the time to take his own advice to heart and proves he is brave as he touts.

he deviates from the borders, marking where he's stopped and follows one of the ever appearing paths into the vale. he's not exactly tired yet but he knows better than to push himself in the vestiges of famine. a pale figure ahead catches his attention and for a moment glacial gaze lingers studies, realizing, as he draws nearer that she is not andraste. from scent and from the curious rabbit fur she appears to wear upon her shoulders; draping like a wolf-made shawl of sorts.

figuring that it is not a bad idea to acquaint himself with the wolves of courtfall beyond it's fey queen and the matron he lets out a low chuff of greeting and to announce his presence, if she had yet to realize he was there, that was.

lost in thought, kukutux had made her way to a higher ridge when a low sound caused her a start; pale ears quivering, she turned to face the largest wolf she had ever seen.

not even her father had stood so ponderous. were she not already deathly pallid, the duck would have blanched. with a small gasp she quailed, the hide slipping from her shoulders and the small items she had so painstakingly gathered rolling headlong toward the man.

an exclamation; the girl swept after one stone in particular, but drew up as it came to rest near his broad paws, easily twice the size of her own, and forgetting herself, kukutux stared up at the behemoth, jadeglow eyes wide with terror.

the pale woman gives a small gasp heard by melkor's ears which cup forth, giving way to a soft furrow of his brow as she immediately cowers. the hide she wore 'round her shoulders slips from its perch and the items that she collected — that he has not noticed until they begin to roll towards him — drawing ever nearer to him. melkor watches the items, intending to stop them if they do not stop on their own; head jerking up as she lets out a cry and draws nearer after one.

the terror in her eyes as she forgets the stone and looks up at him is not something that melkor is used to. for a moment, the tundrian is locked in a moment; of confusion and of something else. he's never had anyone look at him with such unbridled fear and it unsettles him. ❝it's ok,❞ he rasps in quieted tones, hoping to calm the worst of her fears. ❝i'm not going to hurt you.❞ he attempts to assure her softly.

❝here. you can collect your items.❞ he encourages, drawing back a few steps as if she is an animal easily spooked ( and for all he knows she is ). he would offer to help to gather her fallen things but given her terror when looking at him he isn't so sure she wouldn't attack him if he did.

the huge man's voice was kind; horrified that she had shattered her sense of propriety, kukutux ripped her eyes from his knowing features and fell to gathering the small objects.

her cheeks burned with twofold shame: once for not showing the decent respect deserved by a man, again to remember the haunting burn of his eyes through her soul.

he smelled strongly of andraste; she wondered if this was the man that their leader had chosen, as kalika had suggested to her. was that how things would be carried out here within courtfall?

"t-this woman is apologetic," kukutux stuttered beneath the warrior's gaze, head bowed. "she has never seen someone so ... large."

 

melkor watches as she collects her things, his brow furrowing at her apology. apology for what? he wants to ask. ❝you don't have to apologize to me,❞ melkor assures her; fighting off the small chuckle that he feels bubbling in his chest as she admits that she's never seen anyone so large. the last thing he wants to do is offend her, regardless of how amused it made him. she had truly been frightened of him ...perhaps still was. ❝i take after my mother,❞ a tundrian thru and thru. ❝my father was a coywolf.❞ while tall arturo had not been near as burly as lotte.

melkor shares this in the hopes of coaxing her fear down further. ❝i'm melkor. melkor ansbjørn.❞ he offers his name in soft introduction.

despite her initial fear, the young woman felt herself warming to the man. melkor. "it is polite to be humble. i am kukutux." beyond the cold fire of his eyes and the fearsome appearance worn by the hunter, his voice was kind.

and handsome, the spirit whispered, provoking a rose flush beneath velveteen fur. but he reminded her too much of cry, without the madness that had flared in that stare.

"you are ... you will be ... father? in courtfall?" she asked politely, though she was ashamed not to know the proper word for a male leader within these ethereal ranks.

it is polite to be humble she tells him and melkor supposes he cannot argue with that. a small noise of consideration rumbles in his throat but he offers no further words on the matter accepting it as it is with a casual shrug of broad shoulders. ❝pleasure to make your acquaintance kukutux.❞ the tundrian rumbles with a gentlemanly dip of his head meant to imitate a tip of one's hat. her question draws forth the cup of his ears and the fleeting thought of quellcrist. his blood daughter of whom will never look at him as 'father' and nor should she. even when they travelled together he hadn't been a very good father, admittedly, not quite sure what lines he might be crossing if he tried to be.

❝i hope to be.❞ melkor eventually responds, for both to be a sire of children and to be a father.

"perhaps the spirits will smile, and cause a woman to swallow your spirit," kukutux ventured shyly. it was a bit of daring on her part, as this was something a man might say to another.

she hoped her words would be taken as she meant them, and ducked gaze once more. "i was going up," she murmured, indicating the higher stone shelves.

whether or not he would come was up to melkor. she only asked his dismissal, also a choice he alone could grant. silent now, kukutux waited.

kukutux's shy words almost sound to melkor — who briefly had a religious bought — like a blessing of sorts. the ability to believe in anything more than himself and things he could directly see had died with relmyna. ❝thank you.❞ melkor murmurs after some hesitation, unsure if it was a polite thing to 'thank' her for her words or not.

as she mentions she was heading up, melkor's gaze flickers to the higher shelves of the mountain and fights the slight blanch he feels. it wasn't, he told himself, as if she was going to push him off the cliff edge. ❝i'll accompany you,❞ he decides after a moment; part of him wants to ask why but also doesn't want to pry if its a private reason. ❝if ...you don't mind, of course.❞ he adds.

melkor offered to escort her; kukutux nodded, gaze still downcast. even if she had wanted to be alone, it was not a thing she would voice. not to a man. 

"thank you," she said instead, shifting her burdens somewhat and looking to the gunmetal blue of his coat before taking a few hesitant steps forward.

unsure of what to say next, the girl was silent; tongue wet her lips. "you are from these lands? born here?"

kukutux accepts his offer with a nod of her head; returned by the tundrian when she thanks him for his offer. her thanks hardly feels necessary to him but given their conversation moments prior he holds his tongue accepting it for what it was. he gives her a few steps headstart — for she knows where they're going after all — before following alongside her; ears cupping forth at her question. ❝yes,❞ melkor responds. ❝i was born to the far west of the wilds in a territory called hideaway strath.❞ melkor shares without hesitance. ❝and what of you?❞ he asks in return. ❝were you born in these lands?❞

there was a word she had not heard before, strath. the girl vainly struggled to catch up with the sound of it before melkor was sweeping on, over her with his baritone. oh well. time later to puzzle out the meaning of the odd term. she refocused upon the beloved of her regent, shaking her slim muzzle.

"no. i am ... from the coast. a cold ... ice. winter always. um," kukutux fussed, growing more anxious as the seconds ticked beyond. "an island." yes, that was the word. "a cold island. we hunted the seal," she murmured, hoping that might point melkor in the correct direction of her own homeland.

kukutux explains that she, unlike him, was not born in these lands. she speaks of the coast, an island. cold and that seal was their main source of meat. during his brief travels outside the wilds and a briefer stay in enok tundra it reminds him a bit of his mother's homeland. ❝kind of sounds a bit like the place where my mother grew up,❞ he murmurs though tundrians didn't hunt seal and they didn't live on an island, either. ❝i visited her homeland briefly.❞ he clarifies in the hopes of subtly communicating that he can picture her homeland well enough.

kukutux did wonder if it was the same place, but did not know how to ask. that he knew the north at all was a comfort, a boon to the lonely girl with her burden of language and a foreign culture shared by absolutely no one. "do you miss it?" the duck asked next, shy but warming to the great man the shade of dark clouds over winter sea.

do you miss it?

wintersbane is quiet; contemplative for a moment. ❝sometimes,❞ he admits, realizing it is true as the word slips off of his tongue. ❝my mother died when i was young,❞ he doesn't share the excessive details of how he was the catalyst that tore his family apart, and apparently, according to his disowned sister, the reason for her death. ❝being in her homeland made me feel closer to her.❞ melkor admits with a small shrug of his shoulders and a slightly apologetic grin.

❝do you miss your homeland?❞

<3 fade w ur next post?

his mother had passed. kukutux did not hide the sympathetic cluck of her tongue, raising her gaze to look upon melkor with a knowing expression. "the things that i do," the duck began softly, "are all i have of my home, and my people. and my mother," she added softly. "there was ... were ... falling rocks . . ." and here kukutux began the painful, halting repeat of her early days.

the pale woman speaks that all that she does, as strange as it may seem to him and others, is all that she has of home and hearth. a swell of sympathy and understanding wash over wintersbane. the tundrian is quiet albeit attentive, respectfully so, as she mentions falling rocks and divulges into her past with him as they walk.

and when she finishes her tale, he offers his own figuring that it is only fair.