Dawnlark Plains ι

near the cache but not quite!

---

darukaal's fourth incursion into their territory did not go unseen, but it went unaddressed. lorcan was a man able to make his own choices and suffer their consquence.

with @Ayovi they set out once more into the plains below, skorpa agrumble with mutterings of disturbance to a newborn peace. "blackfell kaldte mig en 'dullard' og bad så om at tale med dig," skorpa chuckled.

a circuitous route, over the rise and finding a narrow path between marsh and plain. bearsword kept his eyes on monitor for darukaal warriors, expectant that they would make another desperate plea here in the frozen wild. a ridge rode warhorse over them for a time, and then the scents of saatsine thickened with rapid intensity.

it was for the sake of children that they had come, determined by the soulful heart of his wife.

movement, ahead. skorpa pulled a halt. he did not wish to fight or be seen as a warrior. but for him it was simple; one side had been given to them and the mountain would hear all else.

a warfield was no longer a place skorpa wished to die, and the reason entire was hale at his side. he turned into the shimmer of her indigo eyes.

---

putting this here just so it’s established she’s here! After ayovi’s post, mo can be ordered behind her on the posting order. she’s just spectating for rn.

her children were newly fed and laid down to rest when she left the cache.
morwenna had not wanted to leave them—her body still ached and her heart longed for them instinctively—to stay, to guard, to nest—but the matter at hand demanded her attention. so she kissed each soft crown, left them with ishmira, and forced herself out into the bitter white.
their trail was not hard to find. their scent ran thick along the plain—skorpa’s, especially—, carried on the wind like a herald. two wolves, each she had met not long ago, though she’d only spoke to the woman. ayovi. she wondered what it meant now that they had come so close to home, but she is thankful. now, they could talk.
it was not the time for swift confrontation. not yet. her milk still running, her children still needing. she was queen still, but she did not carry the sharpness of it in her limbs today—only the weight of exhaustion. but her anger? her grief? those things carried her easily enough.
she moved along the ridge, her crown high and proud despite the heaviness in her chest. from this vantage, she could see them clearly. skorpa’s bulk—unmistakable. his wife—sleeker, but no less resolute. they had come with intent, though whether it was to offer aid or gather information, she could not yet say.
her eyes locked upon skorpa as he halted, his gaze turned toward ayovi with a softness that did not belong here, in the mouth of war. her mouth curled. she thought of her sister. of her star-girl, her bloodied throat, her half-breathing body laid in the snow. the smell of it still clung to her teeth, thick and coppery, though it was no longer there.
she came to stand upon the incline, still several lengths away but now visible to them both, she did not call. did not speak. not yet.
only watched.

The mountain had asked for one thing from Darukaal: to keep away from their land. Darukaal had not complied. They had begged when faced with opposition; tried their hand at fearmongering when rejected and thrown paltry insults at the man she loved instead. And still they had the gall to gape their mouths when Skorpa refused. It was laughable. It was shameful! But it was more than this; Ayovi did not trust them.
Now the glacier’s enmity was not only with Saatsine, but the wolves of Winsook.
“Jeg er glad for dig lavet lys om det, elsker.”   Lover. The newest word she’d learned. The latest enshrined in ochre on the wall of their den. She liked to murmur it between kisses before dawn. Or tease him with it in evenings before bed. Now it is tossed unceremoniously through gritted fangs.
“Jeg kan ikke. De er som hvalpe. Kaster raserianfald, når de ikke får deres vilje. Det er godt, Darukaal ikke har nogen gravide kvinder. Børn bør ikke opdrage børn.”
“De er tåberne og for tomme i hovedet til at se det,” she blows an annoyed breath but maintains her pace. In the span of a week her belly has doubled in size and the new weight is odd, as is the way it laps against her thighs. Her teats are pronounced and sensitive, and she curses the glacier for enkindling war in the taiga at such a critical time. 
Winsook’s stance was clear: they would not fight another man’s war without reason. She and Skorpa’s route into the woodland was not to raise arms for Saatsine. No; she thought instead of the pregnant woman. The chieftain’s wife, who’d by now birthed those guiltless lives into the taiga.
She adjusts the oxen hide at her shoulders, a calming whiff of its contents gracing her nose: yarrow, burdock, sweetfern, bluebead and sheep laurel. Tough roots for chewing and sphagnum moss for wrappings.
They came to heal.
Ayovi cuts her tread alongside Skorpa, ears pinning in wariness. But it is the woman she sees, and visibly the huntress softens, a brisk step aiding her pace.
“Saatsine,” Ayovi greets, for she does not yet know her name, “we have heard news; that war from the glacier is coming to you. We bring herbs and remedies; medicines from the mountain.”

morwenna moved like a ghost, silent, yet her presence was a force that could not be ignored. the weight of milk pulled at her belly, but she did not falter. when ayovi spoke, she did not hesitate—she leapt down, landing before her with a heavy thud, snatching the herbs with a vicious grip, as if tearing fate itself from the mountain woman’s jaws.
you are too late, she rasped, voice hoarse from grief, from fury. she pressed her nose briefly to the bundle, inhaling the bitter scent of medicine, of healing, of something that would not undo what had already been done.
her throat worked around a swallowed sob. she would not cry—not here, not now.
under different circumstances, ayovi of winsook, i would have liked to hunt with you, she admitted, and for the briefest moment, there was something softer beneath the rage. but it was fleeting, devoured by the storm in her chest.
her head lifted, and her voice dropped, quieter, heavier. but this is no place for children. her tail flicked once, sharply, as her gaze locked onto ayovi's, unwavering. the war is coming. the war chief has set her sights far. and when my husband— she swallowed, bile rising in her throat, when he almost killed my sister...
her breath shuddered out, and for a single moment, the weight of it all pressed upon her.
but then, she straightened. her resolve hardened.
sun eater is no longer in control, she said, voice raw. nagruk of tartok leads. i do not know her mind, but i— her breath caught. her tongue felt thick, heavy, unable to shape the truth that clawed its way up her throat.
i am nothing.
a truth she had fought against, but now, spoken aloud, it was a wound deeper than any blade could cut. nothing but a wife. a womb.
they want to kill my sister. again, after my husband had his way.
the words left her like a curse, like something unholy. her chest heaved. rage simmered beneath her skin, rage that was not yet ready to be unleashed, but it burned, waiting, seething.
take your herbs back to your mountain, she muttered. it is no longer a battle of healers.

encouraging maybe @Other Shore to come stand beside star eater ;D?

---

no longer in control did not mean dead. skorpa stood fast as ayovi spoke to the chieftain's wife, and though he understood only some of what was said, the emotion was clear.

the woman of whom blackfell had spoken was sister to this one. he did not like the way she acted, and moved in heavy step closer to ayovi. skorpa might well understand the pain of such conflict, but he did not wish regnvand to bear any brunt.

"be peace," he growled in heavy tongue, disliking the way the reindeer woman seized what had been freely offered, her command. what was it that he did not care for? he supposed it was the cold formality of her voice. it mirrored darukaal.

where was this sister? soft, to ayovi; "noget er usagt. hendes søsters mand udfordrede høvdingen. men da hans kones prøvelser kom, vendte høvdingen sig bort. han ville ikke kæmpe."

she spoke only of her sister. that much skorpa did know. feeling as though their time had been wasted, he thought upon the name nagruk but kept silent, eyes trained to the reindeer woman, who seemed now to have some connection with the glacier at least in relation.

---

standing by Star Eater <3

If anything, Other Shore was confused. But as she listened, the confusion ebbed away and left only something foreign in her heart.

She wanted to know why - why everything had become like this so quickly. 

Again, she thought of the night Star Eater had given birth - the rage, the raw rage that the mother held. Except then it had been exhaled through howl and pain. Here, now, it was something that boiled, so deep and bitter it burned her alive. Other Shore watched Star Eater reject the herbs, and slowly began to grasp the enormity of everything whirling around her. This was something no herbs could soothe, no water could cool.

She wished. She wished so dearly that she could say something that would ease Star Eater's pain and erase it. But all her life pain had only ever been hers to bear, and bear alone, and it was she alone who could mend it. Never had she witnessed another woman in so much seething agony and felt as if she could do nothing. This was not her war, nor had it ever been her war, but it was Star Eater's, and it was a war that she knew ignorantly little about. Other Shore did not know how to fight, but now she wished she did.

Desperation. Too much of it.

Star Eater appeared as if her bones were about to collapse beneath the weight of everything. Other Shore carefully shifted towards her. Star Eater, she whispered gently. I am here. If you need to, let me shoulder some of the burden you carry. 

She wished she had one of Sun Eater's dewclaw amulets just so it might be easier to pray to whatever caribou spirits dared to linger by the conflict now.

One of the two wolves of Winsook regarded Star Eater not quite with hostility, but... uncertainty, perhaps? Disdain for the woman's sharp words, and perhaps a hint of suspicion. But he did not know the sheer suffering that the chieftain's wife now bore without the support of her husband, or Gjalla, or the man named Blackfell. The man said something to the Winsook woman in a tongue she did not recognize; 

Other Shore tensed, waiting. She could not say much. Any attempt by her to negotiate, she knew, would not be of much aid. It was Star Eater in command here, not her. It will be okay, she murmured, hoping her heartbeat would cease to rattle her head, hoping Star Eater could hear her and feel even the smallest sliver of peace. It will be okay.

Sun Eater. Star Eater. Nagruk. The huntress too struggles to make sense of the violence which has already ensued, and that which is to come. But it does not matter, even as the cache which had been drudged up painstakingly spills into the snow. Skorpa moves to guard her, his words voicing her own confusion, but the woman’s cries are high and heart-rending. They cut through Ayovi’s chest and she runs forward, dropping to elbows beside her, arms resisting to pull her against her chest. Blue eyes shift to the younger girl, wordlessly asking what more can be done.
“When the war comes, we will stay,” she speaks to both, “we will tend to the injured. Where is your sister? Where are your wounded?” And the children?
Ayovi looks back at Skorpa. Heavy images swirl in her mind amid the whispers. She had witnessed the forging of a revolution among the Ashēer, the senseless killings, and similarly the slaughter of band chiefs by those who came to destroy their way of life and butcher their people.
And she is moved by the notion that this is all much deeper than it seems.

skorpa > other shore > ayovi > morwenna for reference :DD

morwenna's body was coiled tight, a snare wound too taut, ready to snap at the slightest pressure. her anger flared hot at skorpa’s words, at his dismissive command to calm down—a command that cut her deeper than any blade.
calm down? the last thing a grieving wife needs is another fucking man to tell her to calm down! her voice cracked, wild and raw, her muzzle wrinkling in the shape of a snarl. do they not see? do they not hear?
but then, other shore was there. her presence, soft as the ocean lapping against the earth, quieted some of the fire. morwenna’s ears fell back, her breath shuddering as she exhaled.
i apologize, i--
she was unraveling, shaking apart beneath the weight of it all, and she knew it. but what choice did she have? she had to bear it. she had to carry this war on her shoulders, because no one else would.
but then skorpa spoke again, words in blackfell’s tongue—words she did not understand in full, but understood enough. he doubted her. questioned her. she lifted her head, her tail rising stiffly behind her, her voice cutting through the cold like a blade.
blackfell was exiled for protecting me, she bit, gjalla, my sister, too. she is on the glacier, protected by the ice.
but then came the part she could hardly force out.
and my husband...
her throat seized. she clenched her jaw, biting back the crack in her voice. why was it so hard to say? why did it feel like a betrayal?
he started this war... he is...
gods, damn it.
gone mad.
there. it was out. the truth, the thing she had refused to speak aloud until now.
her limbs trembled with the force of her grief, and she could not stop herself from stepping back, from curling herself closer to other shore, to the only comfort she could allow herself.
there are no wounded here. they are gone— where? i know naught. they could be at the glacier by now.
her voice was breaking. she hated it. she hated how small she felt, how utterly out of control. she was supposed to be strong. she was supposed to hold everything together.
i have done all i can for my husband. his fate is up to the caribou spirits.
but it was ayovi’s presence, her words, that nearly sent her to her knees. she was offering help, asking where her sister was, where the wounded were: but from one mother to another, where her children were—
morwenna shuddered, a tear slipping hot down her cheek.
my children are only days old, and he...
she could barely get the words out. she closed her eyes, willing the tremor in her voice to die.
he wages war.
a war that she did not want. a war that would spill blood upon the lands her children were meant to grow strong upon. a war she did not know how to stop.

---

why did she address them so? skorpa had not been faced with feminine grief; the danes did not stay behind to see what became of ransacked villages. he judged her actions, and then judged himself for having such thought.

to skorpa, however, there was a clear hierarchy. the man blackfell had challenged and what came next was only the expected cutthroat nature of a leader. one did not gather power without ruthlessness.

he steeled an inner sigh; had he an hand-axe, he might have twirled it in irritation. he did not like blackfell and if the man had been exiled, skorpa had gotten the brunt of his tongue. it was understandable, though he knew enough than to say it. "where is husbondi?" he asked, glancing once to the slight pale girl there with the chieftain's wife. "he is wounding?" he had spoken through his woman once. why could he not use his own words this time? to see reason and to see the folly of a foolish war. "hvis han vil lytte, vil jeg tale."

his mind again ran through what he knew, and ayovi there in the snow attempting to soothe tempered the bearman.

blackfell had been exiled. the reindeer man had come for his wife. protection from what? he did not like it, any of it, and so close to his own mate. things unsaid, and he watched the women for a dire moment.

---

Other Shore watched - felt - Star Eater snap and collapse and pour out all the grief she had. Set undone by a touch of kindness from another mother. She embraced the woman's burden, even if she could only feel what must be a fraction of her weight.

Helplessness lapped her heart in waves.

She stood there, tense and pondering at Star Eater's words, watching as the Winsook woman comforted her in means only known to women who carried the burden of protection. Women, whether they were mothers or caregivers or commanders of war, shared the responsibility of caring so much - too much! - upon their shoulders alone. Other Shore did not have a right to interfere in the moment; she did not have a right to intrude upon Star Eater's fearful grieving. So she merely did the best she could while remaining invisible. But still it burned her to see a boiling tear rolling from Star Eater's eyes; still the empathy of the stranger surprised her warmly. 

Sun Eater the madman had tried to kill one person. Perhaps he did not realize who else would find their heart torn out as a consequence. Or perhaps he knew, and ignored it.

The Winsook man was searching for reason when reason had fallen to the command of emotion. Star Eater had every right now to snarl at his insensitivity, but he, too, had the right to question the complexities of the conflict.

Now Star Eater suppressed what she could of the tremble in her voice, doing everything she could to not fall apart, to not curl up and lose all control. So Other Shore did what she could to make her feel grounded, big, steady - shifting her weight here and there, whispering It’s alright, it’s alright under her breath repeatedly. Do not apologize for how you feel, Star Eater. Let yourself truly feel everything, and only then will you be able to have everything in control.

That thunder bursts from Star Eater— spite misplaced on a man who wanted only to protect his pregnant wife from rash ferity. But Ayovi is calm, the river of her eyes glossing in the heaviness of so much hurt. A pale paw reaches delicately for the mother, gaze flashing to the snow-clad girl beside her.
“We will do all we can to help. You are not alone,” she whispers to them both, “neither are the children.” Her heart aches, for this girl was also so young to see the true cost and brutality of war.
The huntress slips from the pair, crossing to Skorpa with eyes that smoke with that same knowing. The chieftain was waging war— but the glacier too was marching for battle and furiously recruiting allies. Blood would be spilled here.
“Tale med alfa,” an ardent smoothing of her cheek to the deep red of her norseman’s jaw. “Jeg finde dig.” She kisses the side of his mouth and reluctantly pulls away, kneeling to flatten her discarded oxen pelt. Then she begins collecting scattered herbs from the snow.

he is in the clearing. morwenna’s voice was flat, distant, spoken between the spaces of grief and quiet acceptance. her husband—her husband—had done this. had carved the shape of war with his own fangs, had nearly killed her sister. what more was there to say?
good luck getting through to him.
her tone carried no mockery, no bitterness—only resignation. the winds had already shifted, and skorpa, for all his words, would find no reason where there was none left to grasp.
ayovi’s kindness was unexpected. her touch, the soft cadence of her words, the assurance that she was not alone—morwenna could only swallow, blinking past the sting in her eyes. she was not weak. she would not break, not here, not now.
but she appreciated it. more than she could say.
her gaze flickered to other shore, who whispered to her in soft, steady breaths, an anchor amidst the storm. and for a brief moment, she allowed herself to lean, just slightly, into that steadiness. a quiet inhale, a tremor of exhale.
i know. her voice was quieter now, meant for ayovi alone. thank you.

skorpa out! <3

---

young pale wolf whispered to stricken mother. ayovi bound herself near them, speaking in hushed tones. he was told where to find this chieftain. more and more skorpa felt that he should not simply hover worthlessly near, but did not want to abandon them lest it seem in anger.

a kiss was pressed to the back of ayovi's ear before skorpa nodded brusquely at the reindeer-hunters. he stalked away with long steps, relieved to have something which might occupy him.

skorpa was growing tired of the general angst and fuckery which seemed to follow their neighbors. let them kill one another. he did not care, but he had meant it. if a clash might be staved with a word, then it must be had. darukaal did not decide what winsook meant to do in this war.

---

Other Shore could not tell if Star Eater was placing her hopes within the Winsook strangers, but should they persuade Sun Eater or even dare to try, she knew gratitude would rain from the sky.

She did not attempt to chase the reasoning of the Winsook man, nor dwell on him for long after his departure. But the woman - his wife, she presumed - was offering kindness she had never seen from a wolf of one pack to a wolf of another. Again, perhaps motherhood penetrated more barriers than she could see. 

She let everything be still for a moment, focusing inward when there was little for her to do. The war had, until now, failed to feel so utterly real. It was ludicrous to her mind as much as her rationality stated otherwise. But here was a stranger comforting the wife of another chieftain; here was that same wife calling her husband mad; here was peace so unstable that rationality could no longer hold it together. 

She felt fear, but it was not quite the same primal fear one felt at the mercy of death. It was a helplessness, a realization of how little she could do, how little she was capable of, when protecting everything she had just barely begun to grasp. 

A flinch. She hoped Star Eater did not feel it. Then she focused outward to avoid that realization of fear. She was unsure if she wanted to leave or stay, but felt rooted there until Star Eater gave the command, and simply let the woman lean on her and find steadiness where she could not within herself.