In the shadow of the clouds, Carina had followed suit to traveling the Freyr Peak. It had been a passing thought on her way to having joined the Bluffs and some place that she felt drawn to. Not quite sure why but she had doubled back in an effort to check it out before getting too comfortable in the Bluffs. Everyone there was a stranger and would likely remain so for a week yet so she wasn't in too much of a hurry to get back and socialize.

Instead, she focused on this neutral territory which, as it turned out, wasn't so friendly. Ах, черт! Ah, fuck! she cried out, a rock having dislodged itself from a ledge several feet above her and crash landing right on the left side of her flank. Limping a little bit forward she pressed herself firmly against a cliffside and turned her head to see if it had done any damage. There didn't seem to be any lacerations or blood so it was more likely that she would just be rather sore from here on out. @Dmitri

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It was rare to find him being lazy, but that day he was. He'd been doing plenty lately, hunting often for the pride, both with them and in random hunts he found himself in. But this was the place he came when he wasn't actually looking for anything to do or anyone to pester him, though he had gotten better about not being so antisocial since his arrival years ago.

He didn't budge when he heard the rock dislodge, such a thing being fairly common on the peak, but his ears twitched when he heard a familiar language spoken by an unfamiliar voice, and his head lifted from his paws. Новичок в горах? he asked cheekily, ears swiveling as he attempted to figure out where the source of the voice was. Hopefully she hadn't gotten knocked off the mountain path by the rock, he thought.

New to the mountains?

@Carina

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For a moment, she thought that she had said something else. As though her mouth as moved without her knowledge but surely her voice was not that strained as to sound more masculine than her own feminine. So, once it dawned on her that it could not have been her did she twist her head around (forgetting her pain) and met the intimidating eyes of a tiger.

Twisting a little bit in her path and double-checking she had the room to do so, she veered back a little bit to see that she was seeing correctly. A striped creature that was no doubt a very large tiger and while she wasn't intimidated by his size or his species as a whole, she was perhaps letting the shock of @Dmitri's language barrel into her.

While the words that he had spoken seemed to go over her head momentarily, she cleared her throat and attempted to speak but of course, there was only one thing to say. Ты знаешь русский? You know Russian? There was a substantial amount of disbelief in her voice as she turned entirely to face him, abyss-face looking directly to his and waiting to hear him say something else. Desperation crawling on her skin as she deigned to continue to feel that small piece of herself that she had not gotten to share in a very, very long while.

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He watched as she turned back, his claws kneading the rock beneath him idly as she picked her way carefully towards him, thankfully not losing her footing because he wasn't sure he could have gotten to her in time to help if she had. He still would have tried, of course.

Нет, ты выдумываешь, he replied in perfect seriousness. That only lasted a moment before a smirk cracked his stoic mask and he nodded instead. Я не встретил здесь многих, кто это делает, he concluded. Some, but not many, so he understood her surprise. It was such a relief to speak one of his native tongues instead of the common one, which he still hated as it just seemed so much more base. Though others probably said the same of the harshness of the Russian they spoke.

@Carina

"No, you're imagining things."
"I haven't met many who do, here."

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There was a swift intake of air as he spoke in their shared tongue and admittedly teased that she was imagining things and then she shut her mouth and glared at him. Playfully..... maybe. Я не встретил ни одного! I have met none! Not a single soul had showed themselves to have spoken the language but then again, she supposed she had not been asking anyone, either. Perhaps this @Dmitri was a lot better at socializing than she and had been in the right place at the right time to find these other speakers. Это ваш родной язык, да? It is your first language, yes? It certainly seemed like it might be but if not, he spoke it beautifully.

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A low chuckle left him at her glare, the tip of his tail flicking in an amused gesture. She was more than welcome to approach and smack him for his teasing, he'd take his licks. Tiger and Katona he might be, but he had lived around the Savante's reverence for women long enough that it had rubbed off on him. So yeah he'd tease but he fully accepted the consequences of his teasing.

He had met so few that spoke it that he wasn't surprised she hadn't at all. There was always the possibility that they were surrounded by others who did but because they themselves spoke the common tongue most often if not all the time just because that was what was expected, and those others probably did as well.

Да, хотя я также выучил венгерский, he replied. Russian was his birth tongue, but in his years around the Savante he had picked up Hungarian as they used it so frequently. They had another language they used often as well, but he hadn't picked up on that one as easily. Это и твое тоже?

@Carina

1. "Yes, though I have also picked up Hungarian."
2. "It is yours as well?"

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There was this indescribable feeling that had settled over her as @Dmitri continued to speak in their shared tongue. This unbelievable moment cascaded into something that she had not realized how desperately she had wanted to have a taste of home. To feel some kind of kindred with anyone and this was the first time (dare she say) years that she felt any kind of connection to. There had been Taraji, of course, her ward for a time that was the daughter of her dear friend, Tiamat. That was different though because that had been mostly obligation. Now, she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of this suddenly very handsome tiger.

Это да. It is, yes. Surely by now it was clear by her expression that she was simply dumbstruck, and awestruck both, that she had stumbled quite literally into the presence of what "home" she had been missing. So much so that she felt herself taking a subtle step or two towards him and that pull did not feel rushed nor did she feel compromised but it emboldened her. From where she stood, she and this large striped cat were now bonded beyond what she had envisioned for her day.

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As she took those steps forward he rose, muscles rippling beneath his fur as he settled into a sitting position, not one to be lounging about while talking to another, least of all to a woman. It simply wasn't polite, and while he typically didn't care about such things, she was afforded as much simply because she spoke his tongue, and he didn't have to converse in the (he still thought) far more base common one. It was funny, she also had the sort of full body stripes that he more often connected with his own kin, despite clearly not being a tiger. Reminded him of another lioness, though the one he was thinking of was a vastly different color, and didn't have those curiously folded ears.

Это, к сожалению, редкость, he commented slightly mournfully. He didn't miss home like she did, not that he knew she did, but he did miss the easy familiarity, the ability to converse like this and be surrounded by those who looked like him. Not that he was unused to living around lions, but at least before there had been plenty of tigers around as well. Not so, here, where he had met so few he could count them on one paw and still have beans to spare. Хорошо встретить другого, he said definitively.

@Carina

1. It is sadly rare.
2. It's good to meet another.

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To find something you were missing all along felt phenomenal. A great weight lifted off of her and suddenly she wished that she had chosen Angelo all those months back in the passage so that she might have met Dmitri all the sooner. Yet, here and now worked just as fine and they could converse until the sun went down. Suddenly she had no inclination to return to the Bluffs and was more than content to stay here for as long as he was here. Я был очень молод, когда приехал сюда, но язык был одной из немногих вещей, которым так непреклонно учили. I was very young when I came here but the language was one of the only things that were so adamantly taught. A language that she felt at home with even when she knew that those that did not speak it found it to be such a harsh language. But with @Dmitri, she knew that he did not view it as anything other than beautiful and comfortable.

Я хотел бы услышать о ваших начинаниях. Откуда вы пришли и как оказались здесь сейчас. I would love to hear of your beginnings. From where you came from and how you came to be here now. Perhaps it was bold of her to request this of him but she yearned to know his story whether it was boring or magical; she doubted it was the former but she had such little memories of her homeland that she hoped that maybe if he spoke of his that it might show her what living amongst her own might have been like had she never been purposefully separated from her sister.

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Хороший, he said when she spoke of the language being adamantly taught. Good. He wasn't shy with his belief that their language was a good one, and that it deserved to be taught. Perhaps it was simply because it was his family's native tongue, and he held his family in such high regard despite being adopted into instead of born into it. Perhaps it was simply that one tended to think where one lived and what one was taught as a child was above all else. Whatever the reason, he believed it.

He nodded in agreement with her request, briefly gathering his thoughts as the full story wasn't something he had shared in a while. He was so seldom asked about his past, and therefore had no reason to share it. The Savante already knew it, and he didn't mingle with anyone else very often. But she had asked and so he would share, and he opened his mouth to do so.

@Carina

-exit dmitri-

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