Qeya River well, I know what you want from me

Dark skies a backdrop for her journey, culmination at the end of a raven's road. Her teeth rip into old flesh, gulping hungrily the lifeblood that the taiga provides. The wolves here, thick in their scent and caribou blood only excite her further. 

Their kill made days ago is quick to disappear. 

She is licking her chops clean from dark blood when a movement near catches her eye. Had they found her now? Black head lowers to further stare at the wintry landscape, sitting, daring them to approach.

he had been watching from shadows which cloaked him. crimson eyes narrowed as she feasts upon that which does not belong to her. on lands which do not belong to her.

but for now he has remained still. patience. timing. he waits.

the wind shifts, carrying his scent. her ears flick, head lowering as if sensing something amiss. too late.

blackfell moves.

he erupts from the brush, snow spraying in his wake. heavy paws strike the ground one after another, muscles coiling along a painted onyx frame and rippling as he lunges. aiming snapping teeth at her flank, her hocks, not meant to land—yet—but to warn.

The wind does not work to her favour. Among the stench of flesh and blood she smells nothing, only the snow and ice of their river homeland.

But she can see him, a dark stain on white ground. He is easy to sidestep as he barrels forward like a freight train on tracks he cannot escape and at once she is bristling and meeting his jaws with a clash of her own.

"Would dark man rather coyotes steal?" Her voice rumbles through curled lips, taking a step back to drink in his anger. Enjoying this.

she dares meet him head-on. his jaws snap shut on empty air, teeth grinding in frustration as he whirls to face her again.

tongue lapping furiously at bared teeth as he advances on her, one foot after another. a towering, bristling mass of black fur; crimson eyes glaring down at her past a scarred snout.

coyotes have no concept of claimed lands. he spits. not a very good comparison on her part, he thinks!

what would stop him from ripping her pelt from her flesh now? perhaps his good sense, but still—he was firm in his belief no trespasser should go unharmed.

and she cannot dodge him forever.

He puffs much like an angry bear, stalking forward as such. But she is not afraid. She has seen fury in beasts twice his size, bled the life from their tough hides and watched the ground turn red in their wake - and she would do it to him too.

"No," her half-tail flags as tall as it can go. "But they know food. Better old kill nourish own kind than feed coyote mouths." Circling him now, raven-like as the birds that drew her here.

"Dark man wish to fight? I welcome it."

a: 19 / oop starting off strong here

saatsine doesn't share, words come past snapping teeth. tongue rolling hungrily against the clenched cage of his mouth.

another slow step. closing the distance between them, inch by inch.

you take from us, you bleed for it.

he crashes forward like a force of nature, jaws snapping for the side of her neck. he aims to pin, to drive her into the frozen earth beneath his weight. claws dig into the snow, muscles taut with the intent to overpower.

d: 16, a: 1 LOL

A name for his claim, the scents he reeked of. The northwoman laughs a low, rumbling sound as she stops to face him.

"Saatsine has loyal dog," words hold an edge of admiration. Loyalty is power, and she would test him to the limits of it. 

He surges forward but she is ready, deflecting the brunt of his blow with a shield shoulder. It staggers her, the sheer force of him skidding her paws along grit ice as she twists her neck to avoid his blades. Not enough.

Sharp pain pulls a guttural roar as she spins lengths away, blood arcing from a split on her cheek. "You make me bleed, happy now?" She waits as a panther might, pacing, challenging, to see if he is to strike again or honour his code.

cameo!

somehow in the divergence of new scents with known, sun eater had come to a new suspicion: that saatsine was not all it seemed.

with each face, sun eater grew more distant. when would they challenge? when would teeth come to greet him? he trained his sinewed body with greater hunting.

blackfell grappled with an unknown upon the boundaries of the river. sun eater paused at a distance to watch, his shadow tall across the snow.

didnt roll since he isnt attacking!

she does not give much fight back. that, or blackfell already has her beat. he does not rip her a new one like instinct tells him to, his mind a reasonable beacon against all else.

he stands now, tongue licking spilled blood from his teeth and maw, black snout seeing white in plumes of fog from nostrils and agape lips. his flanks rising and falling with great might.

he does not see sun eater in the distance.

instead of spilling more blood upon the snow, he spits to the ground, to sully ice. he says with a herculean voice: pay your debt with more blood or replace what you have stolen. fight or hunt. choose.

Victory has her bob-tail lash, aware but unwilling to satisfy his need for retaliation. She had what she'd wanted - a full belly - and now she comes to gloat at his restraint. 

"You offer easy way out with hunt," One sodden paw treads where bloodied spit stains pink. "Why? Saatsine so weak they ask stranger for kill?" 

The distant man remains unnoticed, gaze holding carnelian's own in disdainful curiosity.

blackfell snarls, appraising her with twinning crimson eyes: it is not easy.

his tail lashes, claws grinding ice as he circles her. not like eating off a corpse. you’re good at that.

he halts, muscles taut. crimson eyes burning. you owe a debt. he snaps his teeth in emphasis. do i need to fucking spell it out?

he stalks closer now. choose. hunt, or bleed. you repay what you take one way or another. i do you a favor and let you decide how. his breath clouds between them.

still cameo unless addressed :D

a longer watch gleaned a possessiveness in the saatsine hunter he did not understand or possess. this land was not their own; lanzadoii claimed none.

a long snort sounded, but otherwise the chieftain stayed as he was, single eye trained on their interlude and then hard upon his warrior, trying to track what had happened.

His anger pleases her, makes her smile a great grin as he mocks what any wolf would do in her situation. 

"I eat off bear corpse once," she brags, bicoloured pelt brushing past coal as she exits his circle, purpose in her step now. "You hunt with me? Make sure job is done?"

Swaggering, as if she is doing him a favour. But a look back reveals something he has missed; "You come too?" To the silhouette a distance away, she calls a snide invitation for the second stranger to watch her work.

you hunt with me?

fucking obviously. as if he was letting her out of his sight.

he looks at her with that same beady stare, gaze flickering like pools of blood to follow after her. she brushes purposely up against him and he swallows the urge to bite.

it is enough know to see the droplets of blood marring her cheek.

yes. his scruffy chin lifts upwards, so that he may look further down upon her. it is when he shifts upon paws to follow after that she calls his attention elsewhere. a glimpse behind lets his eyes settle on the watchful presence of the chieftain. blackfell’s face betrays nothing.

he waits.

an agreement, framed. chieftain came to meet with ambling hair, casting the lopsided stare over the woman with no hint of pullback from scrutiny.

but there was no coldness in him. he smelled meat upon the air, and blood; he licked his lips in answer and gave blackfell a short nod.

the hunter might lead them off. lanzadoii man would follow alongside the woman whose name he did not yet know.

Dark man follows, shadow man comes to her side. Glacial eyes watch with intrigue the subtle dominance he displays, settling approvingly on his missing eye. She could take his other.

Shoulders roll and she sets off upwind on the tracks of old caribou, from the corpse to the river where the herd has found safety and satiety. Without hunger she is wary and careful. 

But confidence out-wins. She pads through bare trees until dark creatures stand on the waterside and it is now that she turns to her watchers. "Young cow drinks near. Not know of wolf teeth," gums pull back in a twisted grin. When the treeline breaks, Tartok woman surges forward to snap at the closest yearling while other hooves flee in erratic drum-beats.

blackfell nods once to the chieftain, a responding acknowledgement of his presence. afterwards, the onyx man falls in silent step on the opposite side of the woman, consciously pinning her flanks between the two of them. he glances her way, taking measure—dark coat, strong frame. she moves with confidence, that admittedly grates on him—but perhaps there’s merit to her after all.

he thinks, if she had any sort of moral compass, he might be inclined to introduce her to his brother. @Veksar needed a strong woman to temper that head of his. he nearly snorts audibly but contains his momentary self-imposed humor.

besides, he trusts few.

the herd ahead is scattered through the trees, wary but not panicked. he begins to devise a strategy—but the woman moves suddenly, surging toward the nearest yearling. his fur bristles at the abruptness, paws digging into the snow as he launches after her.

he slows just enough as he looks to sun eater to see what the man will do so blackfell might follow direction.

back the chieftain gazed toward the stranger, steady as he inspected her hard pale eyes and the cascade of darkness which framed them. tall, confident, and skilled. why had she and blackfell tangled at all?

a young cow. sun eater moved with the unconscious instinct of his lanzadoii kind, driving the creature away from her scattering herdmates. his own jaws were swift in the air, but first blood belonged to this intriguing newcomer.

Their flank doesn't bother her, empowers her even to take charge as shadow man does well to guide the youngling into her waiting jaws. Dark man, forgotten, hesitant again in the wake of the other - she wastes no time thinking of him. But she is curious.

Jaws clamp on the creature's throat though her gaze is fixed on him. One-eye, their leader? A snarl shudders her body, teeth freed once the beast is sufficiently slowed. 

It is then that she rears, legs aiming to topple their prey to the ground where she might now witness his power.

the crow circles to catch the cow's hind legs. claws rake across its flanks as he grips the struggling beast and yanks, dragging it down to the ice-packed earth with the momentum of nagruk's strike.

the young cow thrashes, hooves flailing, but she is no match for strength.

his focus shifts only briefly to the dark woman, blood streaking her jaws.

let sun eater make the kill and show her the strength of his lanzadoii.

iron tint to their shared air. she moved fearless as a muradoii, and he suspected her of it almost. caribou chin struck the earth and he was upon its downed neck immediately, bending vertebrae down into the snow with heavy paws.

teeth notched to skullbase. bone broke with sawing intent, and blood flowed to puddle around spasming limbs.

he filled his lungs with breath and his mind with a prayer of thanks that the caribou spirits had given saatsine another kill.

caught in the pulsation of several crimson jets, sun eater licked blood from the corner of his mouth. "what is name?" a command of the woman, though his eye said interest was its counterpart.

The young cow is pinned, no use for her struggling as One-eye takes the breath from its throat with a sickening crack. She releases her hold on its flank, to dark man: "Pound of flesh for you." Her debt repaid. And though it is not her teeth that made the kill, she is smug in her choice of prey.

Attention turns back to One-eye. "Nagruk Tartok." Strength to match strength. His ferocity intrigued her, the skill at which he felled the creature earning a rumble of approval. "You are Saatsine leader?" He may be Tartok too - Sangilak - she waits with iron breath for an answer.

feel free to fade him into the background here <3

pound of flesh for you and so it was a debt repaid. blackfell raises head from where it had been lowered to the kill, tufted chin aloft ever slightly as he peers down at the woman with a scrutinizing, scarred eye.

she was fast. efficient. brutal in her execution—she would find no more push back from him.

the man takes a step back from the kill, content to watch the interaction unfold. duty bid he not leave sun eater alone with someone still untrusted, even if he were more than sure the chieftain could handle her if she tried something.

what a painfully strong moral compass he had.

<3

sun eater did not know what she meant by her words. "eat," he grunted, feeling that his order was enough to answer both her question and make show of his generosity. "saatsine is lanzadoii band. sun clan. i am chieftain."

he did not need to say it, but sweet were the words on his tongue, and it put him into an even better mood. he took in the woman, seeing the flat muscles beneath her fur, hearing the sharp command of her own voice. "you are leader — another place?" he asked, reaching quickly the limits of the shared language but too proud to ask blackfell for translation.

A debt acknowledged, Nagruk holds the ruby gaze of dark man for a moment in understanding before One-eye's command has her bristle. "I eat later," she answers flatly, ensuring both men knew the cow's death was trivial. Let them feast now, if it pleased them. But she had every right to return to her kill once hunger gripped again.

Up close, the empty socket of his eye loomed a stark reminder of the tundra's cruelty. Had it been taken in hunt, in battle? What other scars bore the chieftain; were they enough to match her own? "Not leader. Not yet," tongue flicks to wipe blood from teeth. She had not been Issumatar, red fox too young in her reign to let fall to a daughter. "Why, Chieftain looking for another?"