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For Batu!

She shouldn’t be here.

Her son needed her. Vladimir was still missing and needed his mother.

The woman didn’t know why or how she ended up extending her stay in lands that had nothing to do with her. Had she grown so comfortable around the blasted canines that she didn’t feel at least remotely strange about this?

No, this didn’t feel strange at all. So the matriarch stayed — to her own surprise, no less. Perhaps this was the work of the earth woman? She must’ve got in her head somehow with the talks of….this pack….

Alukhai

The same Alukhai where she’d find herself carrying a bison leg back to.

Poorly timed, this han excursion into the north. For Alukhai, the resurgence of his people and domesticity are at the front of his mind. The matter of Saikhanbayar’s changing condition in Batu’s heart, with an inevitable war ahead.

Out came the koumiss, sour and lukewarm from the day, in a dried stomach held between forepaws on a jut of grass where khaan lay.

Eyes find focus on the prowl of a woman, gleaming as unmelted ice amid summer. A great creature five times his size and far more graceful. Only at a distance had Batu seen. Her beauty mesmerizes like the moon.

It is just them in this stretch of the steppe. The wolf, the tiger, the rising moon. Khaan gains his footing.

“Why does a tigress come down from the mountain?”

---

Im so sorry for the wait ;--;!

A man appears before her within the shadow of the night.

Tall and powerful for the standards of a canid variety. He reminds her of the zemnoy volk (earth woman), Oyun. Just like her, he did not fear the presence of her species – though there was no aggression in his tone or his movements.

Could it be because she now smelled like the wolves among the plains? Or were all of Alukaih simply accustomed to the presence of her kind? Strangely enough, it made the matriarch feel…welcomed among this band.

…..

Ana did not like this. This was strange.

Ana forced air from her nostrils, looking almost offended by the question. For she didn’t know why she was still here, either.

–and yet, in her defeat, she relented to his question with an answer. At first, I sought my son– She said after dropping the leg before her feet, an amused chuckle escaping her lips. --but now I fear that has become more of an excuse to linger here a bit longer amongst a rather intresting band of wolves.

Orbs of sapphire made contact with oxidized iron – somehow, it matched the scenery around them.

A leg for Alukhai. She offered, her gaze carrying her over the expanse of fields. Her son would’ve loved this….Vladmir always had a knack for adventure beyond the tundra. A part of her regretted preventing him from his curiosities -- maybe then, he'd try to come back to her, too.

You have many herds of these…..fat, heavily built reindeer running around these parts. They are quite fun to hunt.

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The "Fat heavily built reindeer" are bison, which Ana hasn't seen before until she came to the plains XD