He returns in the shroud of night, beneath the sickle moon and its wary cast - the clouds, disheveled and full, pull listless in their eastbound skies and he is made tattered in their shadow. Out of the dark of the thick forest he rose, burred and bruised but worn well enough after the months of his absence he spent searching for Amaroq. The cold of the Bluffs was no more welcoming than his initial entry, a gust from northern peaks rushed a flurry southward and out, and he decidedly made to follow its gale to the edges met by desert.

Gauthier did not care to reapply himself at the heart of their doings, to beg forgiveness and kiss the feet of those higher than he. Instead he merely returns to his duties as if he had never left, making his clockwise route through the mountainous paths that dove into dunes and back up to the oceanic north.

The outskirts had always been his favorite parts of the bluffs. It occurred to him especially as he watched a scorpion skitter its way across a western sloped slab of sandstone, its tail high and curled. But the desert-backed rind of the territory had always offered its own peace at night.

Even with the promising cackle of jackals in the distance._{BG — ART — CODE}

Amara was aware of comings and goings to some degree. The winds that rolled through her lands kept her up to date with who came and went more so when @Gauthier scent came rolling back after time away she decided to find him and see what he was up to. Why had he been away? Did it have something to do with the faded scent of his brother? She said nothing as she came up on a little outcropping that was above him. Her scent may be all over but she was sure that if he was paying attention that he would notice that it was stronger. Now, if he could find her in the darkness was another question.

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The night came easily enough - the windswept breeze that smelled of faraway dunes, the sparse barbed flora subtly fragrant, hidden in its notes. And when the wind, beaten against the Bluffs, sweeps back against the desert it drags with it the smells of the pride. This comes once and again like the waves of the ocean, the breath of the desert and the sigh of the mountains; and in it, familiarity.

The trickle of pebbles and dust unsettle the evening silence. He turns his nose to the starlit sky, and the nearness of @Amara does not go unnoticed, however unseen.

Were she furious with his absence, he doubts there would be such a blameless reintroduction. He remembers her brutality in the war against Andal, and he thanks coincidence that he does not carry any scent of Aidoneus's hide. Only the fields, the southern mountain range, sweat and cedar.

Nonetheless he watches the shadows for a shift, a golden eye, the gleam of the starlit sky reflected through velveteen furs or the glint of a claw. Braced without a second thought, he kneads the hard ground below, ears keen and eyes flashed in the dark. Yes? he asks to the gilded night, an utterance too simple to be arrogant. With patience he listens for where a response may spring - his eyes tracing the rocky face above._{BG — ART — CODE}

Amara watched him closely, studying his every movement until he caught her scent and started looking for her. Her dark pelt allowed her to stay hidden and her lack of movement would make it harder for even the keenest lions. He scans for her before talking to the air between them. She flicks her tail, high enough that he should see if before speaking. Did you find what you left for? She wanted to make sure he knew that she was aware that he had been away but that she wasn't planning to press things to much, yet. She would have a few more follow up things for him but for the moment, she was going to get to the point of things. If he left, it must have been for a good reason, his brother or something else?

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A star shoots through the sky above, fleeting, spritely. Beneath it the shadow of the red rock looms, and his eyes are treading the cracks along the ledges. In the corner of his eye is where he catches the movement as brief as the shooting star. He sees her then if he strains - he narrows his eyes, and her outline is cut from a slope so slightly that it could be believed she'd disappear were he to blink.

Did you find what you left for? Only a fool would assume that she, suspicious as she ever had been, would not notice one's absence. As it was, Gauthier is a hound but a poor dog to hand feed; he tests the nuance in her voice, a sleight of curiosity for something more disparaging. A turn of his head, he eyes her with a matching cold, and thinks back to the moments that have led to this one.

In the distance, the jackal sings the hymn of his heart.

He had never truly wanted to join a pride, never the subservient type. He is too selfish, too free, too full of secret, sacred ambitions and rampant hungers. Yet here he was. Here he was, no? And here wasn't his brother. I did, pressed through teeth, through wintry breaths, the hollow of his lungs. Finding her moon-eyes in the dark is a feat, and one he doesn't take lightly.

They seem the same as always - speculative, reproving, but he does not allow them to carve him where he stands. Gauthier is stone, some blissless mausoleum gargoyle of a man, and though he does not challenge @Amara or her authority, he is not without his pride and tests for any accusation. Amaroq vanished when everyone else did. I followed his trail through the mist, shrugging the tentative truths, he does not touch the answer he was given when he asked his brother of his return. Satisfied, here I am. Back to patrolling, back to bruising, back to the lingering siren echoes of war._{BG — ART — CODE}

She watched as he finally found where she was and locked on to it. Her question was simple enough and should have a simple answer. When it finally came, it seemed to be what she thought. His brother had gone missing in the mist and he had gone looking for him as many of them had. She stood and made her way down to his side, if he was going to be guarding the borders, she would do it with him. He wasn't a member she knew well and maybe it was time to change that. She gave him a brief look over before moving forward, flicking her tail to have him follow. The mist isn't something I miss. She was glad it was gone and hoped it didn't come back for any reason. What would you like to take part in within the pride? If he had come back and not stayed with his brother, where ever that was, then there had to be a reason. Hopefully she could figure it out to make sure he felt properly used within the pride.

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He waited the drawling on of questions he did not wish to ask - because he, awful a creature as he may be, is a patron of honesty no matter how brutal. His brother was not there because Amaroq is a tireless thing who loathed tiresome times; war, no matter how turbulent, seemed to not hold him. But Gauthier, some scar-worn, fire-bellied, steel-boned creature of hellish appetites and obsessionate, violent whim, found comfort in war.

Perhaps it was the only reason he stayed, these homely comforts. Cannibals. War. Disappointment.

The burdening questions did not follow one after another. There was no disappointment that trailed his answer, no meek tsks of inadequacy. In fact, there was nothing at all but some simple form of acceptance that loosened the dark of her expression, and he stepped aside as she found a place in that hollow he made.

Patrolling had been made a nightly routine anymore, though at times he slipped away to elsewise ventures: the Pit or some humid corner of the peninsula in which he could escape the raucous winter at its roughest. Most of these routines were done alone, and he had yet to know if he preferred it.

He followed @Amara along his path, receding back into that mode of mind, his eyes scraping the strips of desert that fettered the red sandstone.

When her voice filled the void that spread wide and waiting between them, he did not pause but listened idly, sighing in agreement with the trivialities of the mist. And then - what did he seek in the pride? A new interrogation, one he should have expected and felt too few words bubbling to meet reason. Comfort. Food. Violence. Betterment. Though they darker pleasures, they are simple nonetheless.

A creeping whisper of power slipped its way between these pleasures, but he didn't know what to do with its presence. Not yet.

All my life I have known savagery, it held onto a point, teetering, but certain of its line. Most would tire of it. I don't. The butcher, the hound, devourer, ripper. His brother may have tired of it - he was always the romantic, and Gauthier was always the brooding heathen. But I need purpose. This war, your enemies... I want a part. I want a piece._{BG — ART — CODE}

The large male falls into their patrol along the borders wordlessly and Amara's gaze sweeps over her lands as they move together until his words answer her questions. She nods slightly as he speaks. His life seems to be the same as hers in some ways, at least on the surface. I was raised to fight and to protect those I was put in charge of. She was long removed from the lands she had been trained in but the teachings would always be there. She would never be able to get away from what her core values had been set as. It was a good thing to hear that he wanted a part of the war that was lingering over their heads. They had been in many since they had arrived here, far more than they had been in the Valley. War will come to us soon enough. I am sure of it and your place is within it. She glanced toward him. If he was looking for a rank, he would need to take it just like anyone else. I am nearly always finding myself on the edge of a fight and as I am sure you know, always being wounded would leave the pride in a weak state if someone came to try and take it. She looked out toward the lands around them, If you can be there to take my place that would be helpful as well. She wasn't keen on others taking her place in a fight but her place as the leader made it hard for her to just jump into. This last war had left her in a very wounded state and if she had been challenged, she wasn't sure she would have been able to fight well enough to keep the pride. If he was looking for a reason to be in fights just standing near her would likely have him ending up in one.

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Gauthier had never been raised to take charge of anyone. Perhaps, if his mother had a better hand in his training, he would have been considered as a sovereign entity, some power-figure meant to lead the Devorre in a greater era. Instead, he was thrown into the mud and the bloody pits by his father and told to fight, to rip, to crush. But a thing made for pulverizing, a machine for war. And too many times had he, instead of rising above, been the disappointment welling in his father's eyes -- had faltered, blistered, had been cut instead of the one doing the cutting.

Still he enjoyed it. The pain, turmoil, chaos. Win or loss, his appetite never waned.

His ears flicked at the sound of war. It is a bell-chime, the satisfactory roar of a wave over his senses, some malignant sort of comfort that shouldn't be. His throat rumbled with the gratification. Rank was never needed (or was it?) only a face, a place, and an intention - the slightest smirk, a flex of a shoulder, the wrong way a man's teeth found their lips when they thought of the taste of blood. The nuance of the desert scent of Andal would be all that was necessary, no high or low rank barred him from action.

There was a misinterpretation in the offer to take her place. At this he turned slightly, the cool night breeze of the desert pulling the fringes of his mane, the shadows across his expression. The cold stone of Wolfbron gave to the sun-warmed sands and he paused, considering. I am a selfish creature, @Amara. he admitted, albeit not sullenly. He apologizes for nothing of his nature - were it not nature, after all? I am a vagrant heathen if anything, and my desires well outstretch the realm of politics. but fed well, and the ripper was kept contented and heeled. For now.

I hurt your enemies not because they are mine, but because I enjoy it. And I will continue to enjoy it. But your battles with kings... Andal, Scilla, beyond. Their crowns thorned and heavy. How would one feel on his head? Tangled in the burrs of his windswept mane, pulling jagged, hard shadows across his curved lips? Would his blood not be precious, then? A godly ichor of a throned Devorre. Would the Naesarpe not grin upon him? Who will take your place, if they come for you when you are wounded? And they would, he knew. A monster knows a monster. After all, wouldn't he attack his enemies if they were already hurt? It meant nothing to him.

There is only honor among fools._{BG — ART — CODE}

OOC: Sorry for the wait! You are allowed to poke me!! Her ears flick toward him as his voice fills the space between them. She is slightly surprised to hear him admit that he is a selfish lion, that wasn't the best line to use toward someone whose whole life had been built on giving herself to others protection. She didn't really know what it meant to only think of oneself and not of family or charges. She listens and wonders what type of life he must have had before coming here to desire such things. To have such a deep and carnal need for bloodlust. She couldn't deny to herself or others that she enjoyed feeling the flesh rip from another's body but her desires for it were unlike his. She doubted that he had ever taken more than he needed from those he fought or found his pleasure in their stopped hearts. His question lingers in her mind, one that had been there for a long time. If it is needed, another from my family will or another in the pride until a family member is old enough. Her own daughters were likely the next in line for leadership if she could manage to hold on that long. Will it be enough? I do not know but I do know that your loyalty will have you a place here and with those that you find yourself tied to as well. She thought of his brother and potential mate in the coming times. She could only hope that the lion would find a way to bring more little fighters into her ranks and give him, even more, to fight for. If you wish it. I can send you into battles against our enemies. Drive them into the nothingness that they deserve. She glances toward him for a long moment. There was something about him that she had always enjoyed but even more so now. Something she lacked within her and desired in some way. Freedom to not be tied down under the weight of the crown she wore and the life she found herself in. Still, until the time came, it was her burden to hold. Do you have any enemies of your own? Our some out there you desire to protect? Maybe he had found his mate already? If so, shouldn't she be aware of such things?

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