Sex: Maleyou do not know who is your friend or who is your enemy until the ICE breaks. "He's not coming back, Ice." The pale sunlight of a bleak dawn arced across the sky. "We killed his attacker, but he..he will always remain in the red hills now." Snow capped the red peaks; it caught the sunlight, glittered where it was struck and refracted the light in a myriad of directions. It wasn't so red anymore. Nothing was red anymore. He'd even lost his other red friend, Merlin – and if he cut himself, his blood was probably blue. The bitter winter was reminiscent of home, froze him to the core. Drove the prey away. Red. No, nothing was red anymore. The sun had since long lost its warmth, was just a distant eye of memory, of light, shining down upon his narrowing back and teasing him with thoughts of a green, splendid summer, and of little white bundles tumbling in the shadow of an oak tree. Of little cubs tumbling in a sunlit, dazzling river, and copper highlights in an auburn fur. Ice raised his head against the sky. West, the way of home, bore a dark horizon, foreboding and cruel, speckled with stars and no clouds. Warmth flowed freely from the world and into the abyss, and Ice, he was shivering in his thick, matted fur. It was a long time since he'd eaten, some frozen-solid caribou carcass on a distant tundra far to the north. Herds had thinned and scattered, and one hungry, cold wolf wasn't enough to hunt frantic deer. Once you're in the downward spiral it's hard to break out and fly again. It's almost as hard as admitting defeat. Or admitting that you've lost your companion, one whom you swore, simply by virtue of who you are, to keep safe, even though you didn't trust his mind, and tongue. Ice shook his head. Blizzards and small injuries and avalanches and frozen floods breaking their ice and.. once the weather had died down, after days and days, Ice hadn't been able to find Merlin again. They hadn't found Cali, either. So he'd returned. So there he stood, upon the summit of the not-red hills, the light in his fur a blazing halo but his eyes full of shadows. Just like his heart. His paws ached. His head ached. His gut ached. His bones ached. His front left paw left a bloodstain wherever he went, the pad scraped raw by the sharp, frigid snow. He was hungry and cold and tired and so close to home – to curling up back-to-back with @Corinna, with Serach and @Sceral in a heap of gangly, pale limbs around them. Somewhere warm and safe full of family and fur. At the same time, he was worried. It had been too long since he'd seen any prey, and he knew what that meant: he was not stupid enough to not realize what was going on. That this winter was taking everything from them, trying to force them to their knees. Ice swallowed. Went over the rim; stretched out, touched down this side of the range, slipped into the west. Back into the shadow, for the sun was not high enough to climb above the jagged, snowy peaks. Home, he thought as he breathed, following some steep goat-path downwards into the darkness. "He's not coming back, Ice." "Marsh," he whispered; paused. Eastern Relic Lore spread out before him. No matter if he scoured every corner of it, he would never find the scarred, gruff male, with his soft iron eyes. His life had ended, somewhere in these very crags. Overcome with the emotion, Ice tipped his head back just as the sun laboriously climbed above the peaks; and in the first sunlight of a cold winter's day, his clear voice rang out across the forests in a lament of love lost. .ice aesir |
Everything that drowns me makes me feel alive The wind swept over Halgen's soft and light tawny pelt. His pale amber eyes were narrowed as he braved the harsh winds that blew in the winter time. He caught the scent of another on the wind and curiosity sparked an interest in his heart. He slowly and cautiously started towards the scent. He caught a name on the wind, Marsh. The man had spoken; but was Marsh his name or the name of another? He would soon find out he supposed. The light tawny man thought of a man from his birth pack when he saw the large white wolf. His pale amber eyes calmed as he started to introduce himself. "Sir? I'm Hal." He said it quietly because he was unsure of the intentions of the wolf.
He thought more and more about his birth pack by the day. While they were harsh, unfair and served many injustices... he missed them all very much still. Though his parents were rather unfair and cruel, he missed them. He missed them all because they were all his family. This man reminded him of his blood family; his birth pack comprised of family only. When he was to turn two he would go off for a year and return with a mate who would then be part of the family and he would be leader. This however, did not happen. Hal had chickened out and left at the age of one. He couldn't do it; he couldn't lead a cruel pack and he refused to lead any pack at all.
Hal waited for the man to react in some way; preferably in a non-violent way. His eyes remained calm as he took a deep breathe of the bone chilling and sharp crisp air.
you do not know who is your friend or who is your enemy until the ICE breaks. His howl carried in the morning air, rang clear far and wide – a tale of echt emotion, too raw and deep. The plume of white breath ended in silence, silver eyes fixed in the pale blue morning sky: it was too hard to believe.. to accept.. to think of every day beginning and ending in this pit of desolation, that never would he have the red wolf by his side again.. the steady presence of his breath and level eyes; of how they softened by the river, so long ago. The memory was precious, and painful. His eyes closed. His heart kept beating. He wondered how it did that. "Sir? I'm Hal." He hadn't realized how the drone of emotion, the keening of his heart, had dumbed him to the surroundings. Ice's eyes snapped open, found the spots of tan and brown among the pristine snow, slightly below him: equal in size, maybe. No one he knew. For a moment, Ice just stared at him. How do you pick up the pieces of yourself? How do you pull yourself together, when you were interrupted in such a private, intimate moment? And how, how do you respond to that? There was no question. Nothing. Just this wolf climbing up the hills to stick his tawny muzzle in Ice's heartbroken daydreaming and not even justifying his reason. But Ice was too old, too tired, to be angry; he kept his mouth closed, black lips sealing in all the fangs. He was thinking about things to say, ways to respond, but he didn't really want to speak either – to break the perfect quiet of the early morning. It was cold and clear and beautiful, a bittersweet thing, searing his heart further. Beauty, could be painful, and for a moment he thought of the gilded young man up in the Dire, and his tears. His admission. Poor sod. But it was too long ago to move him, and just as Ice was about to do something (though he hadn't decided on what), a scent hit his nose. It smelled of life. Of hot blood, hot flesh, sustenance. And, it was his. He didn't care about some rude idiot he'd never met before. The slightest growl played in his throat, a hint of teeth flashing in the sunlight before Ice turned away, sensitive nose picking out the scent of rabbit as he prowled along. If the stranger would try to take it.. his eyes narrowed. He would not let it. He needed something to eat, to keep him going, so he could go home and be useful to his family. Make up for the time spent looking for those they maybe shouldn't have cared so much for anyway: it always hurt. They came. They overcame the wariness; they earned their place in the hearts of the River-and-Oak wolves. And if they left.. it hurt all the more. One ear flicked back, to listen to what this Hal would do. Then, Ice simply poised himself where he thought the nest's entrance was, snuffling in the snow, to find it beneath. And stars forbid the stranger interfered. .ice aesir |
Everything that drowns me makes me feel alive [[Flu turned to lack of muse for characters <3 Sorry this is sucky]]Halgen offered only a small and kind filled smile to the man with his head slightly tilted. He had caught the scent of rabbit slightly after the man had and as he contemplated going to get it the man showed his fangs and Halgen froze. He knew one thing from all that; going to get that rabbit would be the death of him. Hal had literally just shared a deer carcass with another loner and knew it would take him for a while until he could manage to try to find more or join a pack that he could scavenge for dead things off the lands. He only gave a small gulp because the man turned away in pursuit of the rabbit, or at least Hal assumed that was what he was doing.
Hal noted as the man's ear flicked back as if listening to him and Hal stayed as frozen of a statue. He hated, simply hated fighting. It made no sense to him and he knew that if he had gone for the rabbit which he had thought about doing, he would have died in a fight. Not only did he hate fighting, but he was terrible at fighting. Part of him wanted to go back to the BOSKY place he had been in before. His eyes were wide as he watched the man. He wanted to see if the rabbit caught onto the man and ran. This was unlikely, he knew it, because the man was strong. Even though he was old and hungry, Hal knew the man could catch the rabbit.
you do not know who is your friend or who is your enemy until the ICE breaks. If he'd been less than a wolf, he would've reflected on how incredibly rude he was – just baring his fangs like that, prowling off, not even saying anything in return. But Ice wasn't only a wolf. He was a pretty dumb wolf, in his own way. That which was not spoken, was not often understood, and less so now that he'd been alone for so long. The body, it spoke, but the silent questions asked between the spaces of words and breaths? No; those were only silent. His nose shuffled the snow aside from the bosky terrain, grazed against frozen-stiff dead things lurking beneath the white cover. The rabbit probably thought it was safe, buried underneath snow and rock, but Ice's hunger had woken. Saliva glittered along the edges of his lips, froze in his whiskers, heart and gut pounding away the silence. The creature stirred. Its den wasn't deep enough in this treacherous, steep terrain, and the wolf's mouth too close. Terrified, it bolted out of the snow, but Ice was faster: his jaws latched onto the hind end of its body, and he threw his head back. The snap of its spine rang loudly along the lonely mountainside, and Ice, blood dripping down his chin, wasted no time. With the warm, dead body between his teeth he scuttled onto firmer ground, laid it down beneath his ample paws and tore into it with a fervor, one wary, jealous eye cast on Hal. He would not be cheated of his food – not this close to home. .ice aesir |
Everything that drowns me makes me feel alive Halgen gulped again as the man wandered off to claim the rabbit as his. Slowly Halgen started to back away from the man and the rabbit in an unsure manner. He should probably leave the man to his meal or whatever it was that was happening but he wasn't entirely ready to give up hope on the male. The white arctic fur that could be seen in the distance as the man who he had no name for made him uneasy. What if the man took him backing up the wrong way and what if he attacked? That would be bad; it would be very very bad. Halgen was a lone wolf in the middle of winter and therefore he could not afford a fight.
The man had cast a jealous glance at Hal and the nerves started to grow. "C-C-can I at least know your n-na-name?" He asked quietly and politely. The light tawny man continued to slowly back up as he swallowed once more. A nervous shudder racked his body as he waited. The tensions were high and he was a wolf that suffered anxiety in situations like the one he found himself in. Part of him had wished he had stayed for his sister to eventually kill him in a spar. At least he would know who had killed him. He didn't know what this man would do or when he would do it. He only wanted to escape the counter unharmed and alive. He would try to worry about food later. After his encounters with Deneb and later Adsila he had some moose [or was it an elk or deer?] and a fish in his system. He had a bit more time.
you do not know who is your friend or who is your enemy until the ICE breaks. It was the stuff of life, of gods, hot blood and hot meat. It steamed in the harsh winter cold upon that sunny slope, painted his white muzzle red. Teeth locked around organs and tore them out, crushed bones for every last bit of nutrient, paws pinning it against the sharp crust. In those moments of devouring the rabbit, Ice forgot about the world: he almost forgot about the lone wolf. He was simply a presence in the back of Ice's mind, a creature to be wary about, alert for any movement.. any sound. Ice kept working away at his carcass, but froze at the sound of the soft, stammering voice. His pale gaze flicked up, tongue licking the some of the blood and fur from his lips. Ice's name? Why did he need that? Why was he afraid? Ice hadn't done anything, simply warned him not to try anything, and he hadn't. Good boy. "Ice," he responded thickly after a moment, taking his eyes off the tawny lone-wolf to devour the rest of his meal. He made short work of it, and while it was definitely better than nothing.. it wasn't enough. Only blood on the snow remained, tufts of fur he didn't want to swallow, and some of the ache in his gut soothed. He was still hungry, though. The red hills were barren. In an almost thoughtful way Ice licked his injured front paw, tongue smearing blood and saliva across it. He felt.. strange. Like he was back in the years between moving away from home and being found by Indru, so unsure of how to behave, of what to do – the only difference being that he smoothed it over with a bold face and a brazen tongue. He had kids to go home to.. and a lost love to mourn. Sighing, Ice put his paw down and took a couple of steps closer to the tawny male with his tail high and ears erect. Still all bloody-muzzled he canted his head to one side. "Have you been here long?" "Here", obviously being Relic Lore, and not the red mountains: at least, obviously if you were in Ice's head. .ice aesir |
Everything that drowns me makes me feel alive The arctic white male wanted to socialize now? Halgen was extremely confused and it set his guard on edge mentally if not physically. He Halgen was asked if he {Halgen again} had been in the Lore long and Hal responded honestly. "Not long at all; I don't really know any of the area and I'm new here." He said with a small stutter and confusion definitely mixed in. The light tawny man saved the fact that this man was named Ice into his memory banks. His left eye raising a bit as he tried to figure out how the man had gone from wanting to rip Hal's throat out if he got to close to actually talking with him in such a short time.
That interaction appeared to be the only thing that Hal could think about. His mind made a connection between Ice and his father Kaleb. His father Kaleb was unpredictable in social situations and Hal saw this wolf named Ice to be going through the same thing. He backed up a bit further when he caught the scent of rabbit once more. No doubt it would be suicide for him to go after it. The other wolf would probably hunt it and devour it in front of him again. He gulped as he backed up once more. He was nervous in social situations, that was the least of this worries now though. He turned to leave with a few words of peace. "It was nice to meet you but I must be going." With that the fast light tawny wolf sped off away from the wolf.
-Exit Hal-