a break, a chat and nothing more

The weather had dropped to a winterlike chill already, and winter was still half a season away, she pondered as she padded across a truly frosty plains land, bi-hued sapphire and sky gaze sweeping the Plains as she studied the signs of prey.

Her long-haired tail flicked, long hairs bannering through the air on the breeze as she came to the wall, padding up one of the ramps to stride along the top of the wall, scanning outward over the lands beyond Valhalla’s territory.

Several hours later, she completed her patrol at the southern edge of the territory. With a short howl letting her pack know where she was off to, she leapt neatly from the wall and slid into the moorland that Druid’s Moor melded into, rolling heather fading to a dangerous bog.

In some ways it was an extended patrol, investigating the outlying lands beyond her own. She paused when she came across a recent trail of a strange pack wolf. A female, but the scent of the alpha of the pack that clung to the traces was familiar. Acere. So, this was one of those who joined him after his unanswered challenge for Fyri.

Had this woman been among those that came to the challenge? A shriek from the sky above brought her eyes upward, though her head didn’t lift, giving the impression that she hadn’t noticed the bird. It was a gyrfalcon, if she was correct in her glance’s appraisal.

A glint of white ahead brought her gaze back down as she slowed her stride slightly to a polite walk, circling slightly to come in facing the woman, rather than from behind.

As she stepped into full sight, she studied the other wolf, never staring too long as she took in the other’s features.

In many ways, the two wolves matched each other. Both were a snowy white, though Aurielle differed in that she bore the subtle shimmer in her coat, uncannily like a moonstone’s shifting colors under light, primarily blues, violets, and pinks, with touches of yellow and a faint touch of pewter. Both were blue of eye, her own a vertical gradient from deepest sapphire to brilliant sky at the bottom of her irises.

Aurielle noted that she was level with the woman’s height as, barely four heartbeats after she stepped into sight, fleeting appraisal finished, she dipped her muzzle, stance easy and relaxed as she greeted, “Good day to you.”

Her voice was a lilting, velvet and silk mezzosoprano, easy and warm, even if she was mostly neutral in expression, a faint smile on her lips and glinting in her eyes. For all that Acere had challenged for Ignatius’ home and won it, and she wasn’t certain how to feel as a friend of the former Fyri alpha, she bore no ill will for Acere or his pack wolves.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think