The howl of wintry heralds whipped across the mountainside, the threat of a looming storm lingering on the horizon, darkening the sky and plunging the mountain in a haze of grays and desaturated blues. The trembling of the tempests in the far-off distance promised rains yet to come, and perhaps at this altitude sleet and hail and snow, but Avaneira welcomed such daunting squall; for was it not the brutality of nature that fascinated her most? The way the land trembled in the face of the sea and the sky, and how bitterly it fought back against them. But even the ocean's ceaseless lapping at the shore chipped away at the sand, and the windsweep across the mountainsides beat its most ancient rocks to oblivion. Avaneira felt like the mountain: brash, brutal, unrelenting. The wind bore her down, the sun burned desperately into her back.

Her breath escaped as a foggy vapor, a frigid wind causing her to shiver, her plush fur to fray at the ends. Her thighs felt chilled against the stone overlook, eyes sweeping across the cliffside, a dangerous hundred-foot drop-off sprawling right before her feet. Her eyes closed, and she wondered the sensation should she lean forward, and give her body to the wind; falling, and falling, and falling as if it were a ceaseless nothingness, nothing but the howl of the wind in her ears and its whiplash against her face. How freeing that must be. And yet, Avaneira remained completely still, braced against the gales as it swept her scent downwind.

Every thing about this place was new and the Monteanu lion was keen to learn about it for the sake of his family. He need to get them grounded quickly but his training had always been for taking over the family in their home land. Not in a strange land where they didn't have the standing they did before. His pale paws cross the land as his ears pick up the howl of the winds. Something he had grown up hearing and he was drawn to it. Blue eyes study the lands as he walks until he spots another who seemed to be enjoying the chill that ruffled through his thick fur. He stopped and watched to see what she might end up doing, was she looking to jump? Was life here that bad? Might be something to keep in mind if he decided to stay in the area.

@Avaneira

However tempting it might be to lurch forward into the unknown, to free herself from the shackles around her paws, Avaneira remained. Her eyes grew bleary and redshot from the winds whipping about her, and over their distinct cacophony she could not hear his approach; but in those few moments the tempests blew from his direction, she could catch his scent fiercely against the wind before it shifted again. Her rosy eyes peered toward his lumbering form, a large silhouette against a backdrop of ceaseless blue and grey. She would have mistaken him for Skarde, at first, had it not been for the wintry white locks of his mane that whipped past icy blue eyes. He seemed as if he belonged her; as ageless as the mountains, at ease with the snowdrift that billowed down her ancient hills and forests.

“You must think me a fool standing so close to the edge,” she remarked coolly, before taking a single step back, disappearing the fringe of the forest that lay hundreds of feet below. “I was wondering what it must be like to feel weightless.” She turned to him again, her gaze steeled, her expression unfalteringly cold. And yet, there was a girlish, almost innocent softness about her. Untouched, untaken.

@Petru

table by ferus, art by ale-tie

The winds twisted and gave him away but he didn't worry about it. He wasn't hiding from her or anyone else in these lands. In time, they would learn of him as well as she was now. Her pink gaze looked to him and Petru was mildly surprised to see her face was masked in a darker grey. The others he had come across, while not plain, had not sparked any interest in him as far as even having the possibility to pass the correct genes of his family. She sparked hope that there was another family out there that could be approached about an alliance. A fool? "You would only be a fool if you took the leap." He didn't move toward her but stayed as he was, watching, his gaze never faltering as she stepped away from the edge. "Ever been swimming? I would imagine that is the closest we can get without death following." His tone was even and just loud enough to be heard over the winds that fluffed his fur around. His words a statement of truth and nothing more since it didn't seem that she was looking for fluffy words. Or maybe she was and he was missing his mark, if so, oh well. He had learned something valuable from her already.

@Avaneira

There were few things that could elicit a laugh from Avaneira, but even she could not help the slight giggle that escaped her lips, before it was soon swallowed by the wind. You would only be a fool if you took the leap, he reaffirmed, and Avaneira's tightened shoulders seemed to loosen. She was surprised by her calmness; was it not the nature of women to cower at the very same men who had fettered her? Was she not a prisoner in her own skin, now, desperate and half-alive? Should she not be begging this man to save her, or running from the mere sight of him? Avaneira's own disposition surprised even her, as if Skarde didn't exist, and she wasn't so firmly in his clutches.

It were as if becoming a prisoner was second nature.

His careful scrutinizing of her returned her focus. She, in turn, studied him as well; wolfish, brawny. If Avaneira could imagine what her mother's family would have looked like, she could have imagined someone like this man. And yet, there was something unfamiliar and novel about him entirely. “Mmm yes, I suppose the feeling would be what I'm looking for,” she remarked, a slight warmth in her tone that wasn't there quite before. Curiously, she took a single step forward, but maintained the distance between them. “I'm...Ava.” Avaneira felt lost to her now; as if she were ashamed of it, simply because it had passed Skarde's lips. It no longer felt hers. Ava was easier.

@Petru

table by ferus, art by ale-tie

Dark ears prick forward through his white mane as a soft giggle catches a ride on the wind before. It was an odd sound for him to hear. Outside of cubs he wasn't sure that any of the lionesses in his family ever made such a sound. They were either silent or busting out in laughter, very little of the in between sounds. He wondered what it was about his words that could have caused her to react as if it was funny. Was it funny to think about jumping? Maybe she was a fool. Who knows. She focused on him more now, her gaze studying him looking for what? He doubted it would be the same as his own reading of her. "I don't think you will find that here then but there is a peace in the wind and the chill of it's touch." If you were into that sort of thing, which he was. Always would be. She stepped closer, allowing his study of her to find marks of a recent battle across her face. Had she won it? Or were the marks showing her loss to the world? His own body was littered with scars, most hidden away under his plush fur and his families training practices had kept his face from being torn in anyway. Ava. A short name. Did it hold any meaning or was it just a pointless tag that was given so her parent had something to gather her attention with? "Ava. I am Petru." He would repeat her name, allowing it to slip from his lips to his own ears so he would remember it better another day, should they meet again. Not really one for small talk he decided to wait to see what she might offer.

@Avaneira

I don't think you will find that here then but there is a peace in the wind and the chill of it's touch. She nodded; the wind did indeed feel nice, especially as it whipped through the thick fur of her cheeks, unfurling the plush of her neck and causing small shivers to run all the way to the base of her tail, whose small stump stood to attention, before flicking back-and-forth, as if a full-sized appendage actually existed. There was a brief moment of silence as they continued to study each other, but as Avaneira remembered the cuts and scrapes that littered her face, she suddenly grew shy. Skarde had made sure to mar the average prettiness of her pale expression, and where once there'd been nothing but off-whites and dove grays, there were now red rivulets of healing wounds that littered across her cheeks and past her eyes, marks of battle that may have been worn proudly, had she won it. But Ava could barely say she had lost fairly. Skarde had only needed to push her into the ground, his claws baring against her face, for her to give in; you've been sheltered. Even her warmongering mother had not been enough to prepare Avaneira for a real fight.

Ava. I am Petru.

His voice caught her off-guard, drawing her away from the bitter thoughts of her defeat and into the more blissful then and now. She almost enjoyed the way he said her name, and wondered if she'd gone too long without hearing the endearing nickname. She remembered the way Morrigan's cublike shouts echoed through the snowdrift forest: Ava! Aaaaaavaaaaa! “Do you have a pride, Petru?” she asked, though she could smell no such proof on his pelt. Avaneira was neither the best at small-talk, but she was almost desperate to cling to this moment, these brief glimpses of a freedom she no longer had.

table by ferus, art by ale-tie

While the wolf wasn't the most in tune with other's feelings but reading others was part of his training and why he studied her so closely. So when she folded into her own thoughts, he lifted his head slightly and his blue eyes took an even steadier look at her small frame. What did those pink eyes of hers hide? He knew that some let their eyes show every inch of their soul and some, like himself, controlled every look. Which was she? Was she loose with her soul or controlled? She came back to him and seemed keen on keeping things moving with their meeting. Fine. Petru folded his rear legs and sat into the cool snow, his tail sweeping the snow that was behind him as he settled. His head motioned slightly, inviting her to do the same. "No. My family and I just arrived here and we are learning before we decide what we want to do." He doubted that there would be any reason for them to join a pride and try to live under another rules. He would likely just set something up on his own and they would live as they had done before coming here. "Are you?" Was she tied somewhere or was she wondering around free? Maybe that was what happened to her face, his blue eyes settled on them. "What happened, Ava?" He allowed his voice to have a touch of concern mixed into the steady tone it carried. If they were talking, might as well make it worth it. @Avaneira

Avaneira could smell the scent of his family on his pelt; her interest had been piqued, but it had not called the same pride-like characteristic of mixed scents. In fact, any and all of the scents laced within Petru's pelt smelled collectively of one, and Avaneira could have easily mistaken it as one or as many. His invitation to sit was met with hesitance at first, but eventually Ava relented, and moved a few more paces forward to sit before him. While the distance kept between them was tempered and respectful, Ava couldn't help but notice now the unique contours of his appearance; the squareness of his jaws, the wolfishness of his expression, the paleness of his mane so regal and yet, perhaps so soft.

No. My family and I just arrived here and we are learning before we decide what we want to do. Perhaps a blissful middle, she considered, to not be attached to a pride full of strangers yet to still be surrounded by others. Avaneira had lived secluded for so long she had forgotten how there was safety in numbers. Would Skarde have won if Dresden had been there? Had Arsynia? Are you? he inquired, and Ava blinked momentarily in surprise. “...No,” she hesitated, wondering if it was appropriate for her to answer in such a manner. Skarde had made his ambitions clear, and had fettered her as if he were a deranged, driven King. But it still was not a pride.

What happened, Ava?

She visibly stiffened, her mouth opening as if to answer, before closing tightly. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but dare not fall; she was raised far better than to falter at the questioning of a man she barely knew, and even more at the ever-domineering threat of one holding her life over her. She turned her head to the side, and tightened her jaws. “I've gotten myself into a situation common of rogue lionesses,” she responded, almost matter-of-factly. It was, after all, the nature of stronger lions to claim lionesses, was it not? Was this not simply nature at play, and Avaneira its hapless victim? “Something I...soon hope to resolve.”

table by ferus, art by ale-tie

No. With a hesitation. It raised a point of interest within the Patriarch. Did she not know? How could one not know if they were in a pride or not? It seemed like something that would be known. Did the prides do things differently here? He would press it later as the topic of her wounds caused her to stiffen and it was clearly a sore topic for her. Interesting. So she hadn't won. A pity. Even more of a pity is the fact that she let him see it with only knowing his name. Had no one taught her self control? Common of rogue lionesses. The statement earned her an eyebrow raise as he took the information in and would make sure to have his own be extra careful. While he didn't fear for any of them, he had no desire to have their faces marked up like this. His dark ears rolled toward her as she mentioned wanting to rid herself of the... problem. Was it something she just wanted or did she plan to actually do something about them. He made a show of looking around them. Seems that he isn't here. Must not have much control so what is stopping you from not returning to him? Petru's blue eyes laid heavy on her as he watches her reaction closely. If the lion that claimed her didn't have control, then she had it. Unless she had just decided she wasn't worthy of having any control in her life and if that was the case, he would have nothing more to offer her. @Avaneira