Shadow Mountain who made you like this

The failures of Saatsine had melted atop the war-woman's shoulders and in its place rises something new. 

She reaches the foot of the mountain by nightfall and ascends its slopes with an ease known only by those born of rock and sky. Her paws trace each bloom of vegetation, each stream that carves the cliffsides in dark gashes, leg cocking periodically to make her presence here known. 

What prey eked out a living on these slopes was noted. Nagruk spied a family of goats picking lichen off a cliffside, a stag braving a leap betwixt two boulders, and a lone otter fishing in a deep, alpine pond. There is enough here to sustain not just herself, but others too if they came.

Nagruk reaches the peak just as the sun begins to creep over a sprawling valley and splits the dawn sky with her cry. They would come, she assures herself. And should they climb to her, the Issumatar would deem them worthy of Shadow Mountain.

---

— he slept upon the nearest slope overnight. when dawn came, ragweed set out—nose to the ground, hunting for any scent.
for breakfast, he had the leftover carrion of a billy goat. a quick meal, he had choked it down and moved on. later he’d expend the energy for a proper meal and end the day on a full, happy stomach.
for now, he moved. he didn’t know what he searched for; only that he did. and he didn’t realize what it was until he saw her. a woman of palette similar to him. her stature great, as she stands upon the shadowy mountain.
he comes to a loping pause to look from the ridge beneath her, gazing up with unfeeling yellow eye, and lapping remaining blood from his snout. he would wait for her to notice his presence.

From here, Nagruk can see everything. Her peak dwarfs the others nearby, and as she peers into the rising sun her glacial eyes catch sight of the taiga's snowfield in the far-off distance. Where was Kukuvrak now? Tikigak? 

It is the scent of blood that draws her from her thoughts, half-expectant to see her bloodkin arrive on her slopes but instead she finds herself peering down upon a man. He is large from what she can tell, and draped in furs not unlike her own. To have climbed this far is no easy feat, but Nagruk's eyes narrow as her tail rises in challenge. He is not enough, not yet.

If he wishes to greet her, he would have to join her up here.

---

— he is met by cold eyes, perhaps as unfeeling as his own, and a rising tail. he does not meet the challenge; letting his own swish confidently at neutral flag behind himself. paws splaying as he grapples with rocky terrain and climbs with ease to her level.
doing so slowly and with caution, careful to avoid any wrath she might project upon him. he meets her with a slow abiding grin, yellow eyes floating graciously over her. he wonders who she is, where she has come from—who birthed such a striking specimen of female.
nice mountain. he comments, shifting so that he stands just beneath her level, forelegs stretching to heft his front half upon the ledge she mounts upon. yours?

She remains steep in her domination, fuelled by the advantage a higher elevation brings as she watches him scrabble upwards. Part of her is waiting for him to make a misstep, ears pricking almost pre-emptively for the clatter of rocks that would signal his untimely demise. But it does not come. 

"You climb like goat," she muses aloud, cold eyes surveying his figure in turn. There is a slight note of approval in her tone, appreciative of his submission though Nagruk is still reluctant to budge from her throne. The urge to drive him away from her domain is cut short by a curiosity to know who this man is and what he may prove to be. 

Sweeping forwards, she comes to investigate his scent with a quirk of her lip. "It is mine now. Taggalijâjuk." Her figure drapes his upper half in darkness. "The mountain that casts a shadow."

---

— and it is not just name of the mountain, but it speaks for the woman before him as well. she rises above him and she is met by a man who does not seek to climb her ascent. he only smiles in return, top lip curling. his interest piqued.
it is not hard to see what she is. she's not just any woman but her voice rasps and he hears in it something he has longed to return to. head lowering, sinking, between stone shoulders and he hears the clatter of rock in the distance.
he pays mind only to her.
tartok. that smile only widens. nostrils flaring as tentatively he leans his face upwards, neck jutting, to press his nose to the skin of her gray shoulder. minding himself to her scent and feeling a shudder of satisfaction at what he finds. it is not sweet. it is earthen, and twinged with a power. i am sikuar.