AW but for micah and citrus; north of singing hills

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leaves clung like ash to his legs, and ts’okhun bore it with a boyish grimace— toes digging into the northern flank of the valley, where the wind sang harsh and lonely. the sky was a wide, pale bruise above him, stretching forever. he liked that. liked the quiet of this place, away from the dens and his sister’s constant bark. here, he could imagine he was the only wolf alive. a king, maybe. or a god.
he walked with purpose, though he didn’t know where to. just north. always north. they said nothing lived up here but ghosts, but that didn’t scare him. ghosts didn’t bite. ghosts didn’t call him useless.
a raven barked overhead. ts’okhun stopped, craning his neck to follow its glide. go on then, he muttered under his breath, puffing steam. see if i care. still, his eyes lingered on the bird until it vanished. and then, he pressed on, deeper into the frostbitten silence, little tail curled and jaw tight.

Skill: ranger

The borders were quiet, they were always quiet.

When Raisa named him sentinel he had expected to see more creatures coming this way, but perhaps the center of the lands were what wolves preferred. Nothing has changed since he'd been...reborn, and named Champion.

But the tiger prowled along the border, silent as the dead, when he heard a raven call. His ears flicked, eyes scanning the sky for the little creature, following it's trail until he spotted the...little wolf. A child, he'd learned they were called. Carnifex's pale pelt blended in with the trees around him as he approached, crouching low, stopping at his border markings and just...watching.

Like a damn weirdo that doesn't quite understand social cues.

She'd taken to the wing under the guise of expanding the search, soaring low over the jutting mountain range and out into the surrounding valley with ease. It was so much easier to fly in the open, and simply ride the wind as it sang across the hills. It was also much easier to spot the little beasties that roamed through the grass, nothing to hide their approach. She didn't have Fluffy here to ward off any unwanted attention with a scowl and a snarl, after all.

Kier made a wide loop of the hills, scanning for a good place to land, and finally settled on a tree at the very edge of the bordering forest. The little beastie she'd spotted wasn't a threat up here, and so she twisted her head across her back to preen her flight feathers. One came loose and she dropped it, her eyes following its gentle path toward the ground, and watched it settle on the head of a tiger.

The branch beneath her creaked as Kier startled, wings outstretched, but the beastie wasn't looking at her. It's attention was turned out, across the plains, toward the littler beastie she'd passed over earlier. Crouched, quiet, watching. Was it... hunting?

She hesitated a moment, legs tensed in preparation for a hasty take-off. She had no vested interest in the ensuring the little beasties' survival, of course, but she was also struck by the thought that messing with the big beastie's hunt would be funny.

Kier took to the air in a flurry of movement with a sharp croak of warning. Behind her, the scattered voices of a handful of other ravens rose to meet hers as she banked to circle low over the little wolf.

ts’okhun did not retreat.
spring had melted most of the north into mud and pale green, but beneath his pads the earth still held frost. the sun was rising, gold and warm, and his breath came easy. he had been stalking caribou, following their half-frozen shit through the underbrush, when the scent changed.
not wolf. not prey. not bear.
it was cat.
he didn’t know the name for it— only that it was big. bigger than mom, maybe even bigger than black scar himself. cream, broad-shouldered, and crouched like it thought he wouldn’t see it. like it was testing him.
he bared his teeth— not in fear, but in answer.
his head tilted, blood-red eyes narrowed. a raven shrieked overhead, wheeled once, and called again. ts’okhun didn’t flinch. he stared across the space between them, letting the tiger know he’d been seen.