Shrike had heard the desert-mare adorned herself with skins and carried with her a spear (and well she remembered meeting others such armed, that nights months ago), but still she was unprepared to be met with the empty-eyed stare of the bear skull.
Identification of the animal - of what was left of it - struck her heart like a blow.
She shared no kinship with the animal, she knew. Yet she had known such teeth as the ones bared at her now in a leering grin, and she had lumbered on enormous paws and slept safe wrapped in a coat as shaggy and thick.
That was the first thing of Avdotya that snagged her interest, aside from the initial flash of eyes in the growing morning. With little more than a grunt of acknowledgement she took in the rest of the dark woman, and it did not take long for her gaze to find the scars.
There was something about those years-old marks that stirred further recognition in Shrike; she knew intimately the creature that had such a space between its claws. Not for the first time (and certainly not the last), Shrike wished she could still change into the bear-skin, give herself to more base instincts - but what good was wishing?
The bear lived in her bones no longer; the only remnant was the ursine smile that sometimes worked its way onto her grim lips. Even that was absent now, as she inferred the story between scars and hide.
“Hello, then,” she answered evenly, at last drawing her gaze back from the map of scars and blood-spatters and bones to the bright hungry gleam of the mare’s eyes.
The paint was reticent at the best of times, but she figured the desert mare would be as unwilling to offer conversation as she. Tracking her had little use for them to only stand and measure one another, and so, with a lazy flick of an ear, Shrike continued. “There are many stories about you, but I don’t know the tellers well enough to trust them.” There was truth buried in each of their tales, but she had enough experience with such things to know it was never the whole of it.
Solterra was not her home, not her story, and she was not so foolish as to imagine otherwise. But after being caught up in that night, the burning-night, and then the god-summons after - well, even she grew curious.
The scent of blood was copper-sharp against the cool sand and this, too, drew her interest; with a jerk of her muzzle she indicated its presence, and did not try to keep the curiosity from her tone. “I see your work is not yet done.”
don't do much these days
keep the wolves at bay
keep the wolves at bay
@Avdotya
