---

Loose posting order - Solulfur will start new rounds every few days. This thread is intended for the First Classes & any BWP-associated wolves who would plausibly be at or within DB borders post-2nd dream.

It had begun with a dream. Strange and ominous nightmares were a staple of Solulfur's sleep, so she had paid it little mind in the moment. She was not watching her packmates burn to ash or clawing at a clear, glassy layer of ice trying to reach them before the freezing waters claimed their lives, so it was not the worst dream she'd ever had. A stranger with a familiar voice: Solulfur tried to pick out his features in the dream, searching his frame for any pelt color or identifiable features of his face. But she could find nothing - even looking right at him, it was like looking at something's silhouette out of the corner of her eye. Just the clear impression of a wolf, without any definition to make the Visitor an individual.

It had unnerved her, but Solulfur was used to strange dreams. She had paid it little mind, other than a routine inspection of the far north-west Summit when she had some free time.

Only it had not been routine. And the Visitor wasn't another product of her sleeping mind, but another entity bringing her visions of what to come as she slept. The Summit had been a disaster: purple snow, a rasping cough, glowing runes and the Visitor's voice in her waking mind. Solulfur was alarmed, but had gathered her wits and allies about her. All those she could coax away from the allure of the cave, she had accompanied down the mountain's treacherous, snow-slick terrain. By the time she returned to the borders of Dawnbreak, exhaustion was a lead weight tied around her ankles. Although she was in fresh air again, the effects of the snow lingered.

She wanted to speak with the others who'd been on the mountain, although they'd split ways upon reaching the borders. She wanted to speak with her brother, the other First Classes - there was crisis, and it was not on the horizon, it was already dangerously close to home. She didn't doubt it'd continue to encroach. But Solulfur didn't make it far within the safety of Dawnbreak's borders, before the Visitor's voice rattled within her skull with a command: Sleep. The Sun-wolf's golden eyes rolled into her head, and she slumped bonelessly to the snow-speckled earth of the Vale.

This dream was longer than the last, full of a strange language and even worse warnings from the Visitor and his faceless visage. Solulfur had questions, but no opportunity to speak them. Her patience thinned quickly, but her curiosity and the urgency in the Visitor's voice allowed her to keep her snarl from voicing itself in the dream-gathering. The others she had been on the mountain with were there, along with far more wolves who had encountered other strange circumstances in foreign lands. Solulfur did not commit their faces to memory. There were other, more important issues at paw - although she did recognize a few faces who had not been on the mountain, who she had met before. The Visitor had gathered many to his cause, an army of lupine faces, and still he seemed...afraid. Unsure whether his plot would succeed. A weak leader, or the odds were so insurmountable as to crush any courage he wished to impart to them. Solulfur couldn't decide which option she preferred.

The history lesson, she paid far more attention to than anything to come before this gathering. Solulfur knew a confessional of sins when she heard one, and she listened to the Visitor's ritualistic detailing of past wolf-kind's crimes against the land-spirits with the storm-like, critical air of judge, jury and executioner gathered around her.

They had disrespected the land they were gifted to protect. They had proven themselves unworthy of its gifts, and so they had been removed. This was the right of the land that gave them all blessings and all life, but Mythris....had gone farther than simply folding the unworthy wolves back into the cycle of life and death that ruled over all else. Pups, innocent wolves, the soil and the flowers and the wildlife all succumbed to the land's plague.

Mythris is willing to destroy itself if it means culling all wolves, the Visitor warned.

I think the fuck not, Solulfur opened her mouth to retort, but she was already slipping away from the vision.

---

The Black Sun opened her eyes. She was sprawled on her side, pine needles and snow beneath her and the open sky cut through with the jagged, familiar edges of the Vale. Just ahead of her nose, a fat inkdrop of a vole was perched to nibble at a seed with precise, harried bites. Solulfur blinked again, processing everything she had seen and experienced in the last day or so, and huffed a long, sharp exhale through her nose. The vole startled at the signs of life from the wolf, dropping the tan seed and scampering toward a small hole in the earth to take shelter.

Solulfur rose to her paws, shaking the pine needles and detritus out of her pelt. A stormy expression carved itself deep into the sharp obsidian of her features, snowy ears folded loosely against her skull.

She had feared calamity crawling itself up to the borders of her home for so long, it was almost, almost a relief that it was finally here. At last, a battle for her to rage against. At last, a problem for her to pit her inner flame against. At last, the threads of divine fate woven into her very blood and marrow had been pulled by the machinations in this world greater than even she. But mostly, for an overwhelming few beats of her heart within her chest, Solulfur simply wanted, childishly, to cry. Because it was finally here; and Solulfur knew this would threaten everything she'd built and everyone she'd grown to love.

Some part of her raged against the indignity of it all: Another legacy now settled upon her shoulders for her to bear. She bore the weight of the fra Nordri, one of the last to roam this earth to her knowledge. She bore the weight of the Crane, their hunger for glory burning even now within her. Now, she bore the weight of the Mythris wolves to come before her. She was the blade to lance the infection at the heart of this strange land she now called home. Just like the others, it was a duty she was incapable of shirking. Solulfur felt it settle around her shoulders like armor, weighty and cold and holding the world at bay.

She was the Sun-wolf, shining embodiment of courage; her soul was a blaze. She was the bite of ice and salt of the northern seas. She was the immovability of the stone of the highest mountains. She was the ray of dawn bursting forth from the horizon to shatter the dark. She was the Rune-seeker, one of Mythris' forsaken children, now. Another epithet, another legacy, another destiny, another duty. Solulfur felt all of them: her mother's stories, her father's quiet pride, her brothers' and packmates' belief in her, her own ego. They clamored within her, overlapping voices a chant that pounded in time to the war-drum beat of her heart.

It had been a while since she'd felt so powerful.
It had been a while since she'd felt so alone.

She'd found a true kind of comradery, when she'd been able to finally climb down from her pedestal. Solulfur stared back down at the spring-green grass peeking out of the snow-melt damp earth, and she knew what she was really thinking about as she pondered the pairing of green-on-silver. Aurelia, Solvi and Tiberii had fought for and honorably won the right to know the Solulfur that lay beneath layers of glacial duty and armor-like ferocity.

If you must burn and bleed, we do it together, She had said; and Solulfur had agreed, the statement forming into pact between them beneath pure white snow and moonlight. Solulfur had made that vow and many others besides to Aurelia with all the parts of herself, not out of duty but out of...Friendship. Whatever lay at the heart of the complex tangle she felt, that refused to unknot itself.

The weight of the world's fate rested on her shoulders now. Solulfur felt it shift and grind into her spine with every breath that felt insubstantial amidst the weight. The Sun-wolf, shining embodiment of courage, relentless strength turned flesh, felt afraid. Afraid of what would become of those she loved if she did not bear the burden with grace and honor. Afraid of what she would become if she did bear it well, too well.

She had left home once for her duty, for her family's sake and safety, and she had never gotten to go home.

Solulfur put those worries from her mind, sensing it to be a kind of grief that tasted like rot and chewed through the strings holding her heart and courage in their places. Ilát, mín heilög gjöf*, to me. She barked, confident in the raven's ability to find her. The bird was uncanny like that, a clear sign of the divine favor weighing down their feathers, too. Already, Solulfur was on the move. She would waste no more time with her cowardice. She needed to gather the other witnesses from the Summit, and their leaders - council with them, first, so they decide how to explain this to the pack without triggering panic.

Aurelia, Tiberii, Nottin! Solulfur's crisp summons echoed across the mountain, clear and commanding as a peal of thunder. She would find the others she'd seen on the Summit shortly, although she was sure some of them would find their way to her first.

---

*Icicle, my sacred gift,

The newest Pillar had taken to his new calling without too much trouble. Sure it was a huge change in his life, but he was more then willing to take on the challenge. He had been coming back into the main part of the territory, from a recent border patrol from the southern parts of their lands. And once he had returned, it didn't take long for him to notice not just a change in the air, the energy of his home, but his sister's call. There was a tension and alarm to her voice that startled him. After all that had transpired, the Night of the north had been doing his best to ready himself for what was to come. What ever awaited him and the others, it was bound to not be good.

N​ó​ttin still called back to her with a howl of kinship and duty, his voice strong and alert. The young Frá Norðri carried himself with a newly found sense of pride and dignity, a calm confidence coming off of him that even surprised him at times. His head and tail were high, carried proudly but with a more serious tone to it. I'm here, Sólúlfur. What's going on? N​ó​ttin called to her once her form had come into his view, and he was close enough for her to hear him. Looking around for a moment, he noticed that the others hadn't quite made it yet.

He refrained from sitting or settling at all, feeling as if he needed to be ready for what ever it was she had to inform him of. In the back of his mind, the sable man thought of his other issues, such as his duties also to the others of the pack. Dalmatia was of course on the top of his list, but also making sure that he did not fail those that put him where he was. It wasn't an option any more to fail them, to fail himself. As he waited for the other Pillars to show themselves, he now fully understood how much that responsibility now meant.

Skill:

---

Her dreams continued to plague her.

And more recently, they took shape. Real shape in the form of a wolf. A visitor. And one who barely spoke common, at that.

At first, she'd thought it was just her own mind ... the stress of her thoughts causing such a fucked up prophecy. She'd thought she'd imagined it, perhaps as an escapism to her own plights. She hadn't been quite the same after Genghis's death and her father's untimely disappearance, her normal flare had been lost a bit beneath a heavy blanket of guilt and mourning.

So she thought she had made it up.

(That seemed easier than the alternative that they were all going to die.)

And it was easy to pretend ... at least until the trip to the Summit.

She could not deny that snow ... she couldn't deny the glowing runes. She'd seen it, all of it, with her own eyes. And so had Shiloh. And so had all of those others that had been gathered there. Perhaps, one might argue that that had been a dream, too, but the persistent burn in her lungs told her otherwise. The poison stung her just as the smoke of the fires had. It was radiant and powerful, a reminder that things were changing.

Well, falling apart was more accurate.

Cursed? Doomed?

Their entire world, everything that they'd built.

It was falling apart.

She should have been afraid. And yet, she felt nothing but the sear of desire to protect everything. Just as she'd always protected her family, just as she'd always protected Dawnbreak ... she would protect Mythris, too. This was their home, and she would do whatever she could to preserve it ... even if ... she didn't quite understand what that was.

Runes? Seeking?

And all of that gibberish??

It swirled around in Tiberii's head, causing her heart to pound and her mind to spin as she once more woke from a strange and fitful sleep.

Oi, she'd huff, taking a paw to her face as she shook her mind free of the echoing voice. Her eyes and throat still burned ... think ya could tell it ta me straight, next time? The words were a low rumble, aimed at the visitor who'd spoken at least 80% illegible made-up fantasy words (she was certain of it). The bull would groan again, inhaling deeply as she tried to put her head back on straight.

She was so ...
... confused ...
... she needed ... someone ...
... with deductive skills. Yes.

Before she had time to act on her thoughts, Sólúlfur's voice caught her attention. It was louder, more sharp and urgent than usual, and Tiberii knew that Sólúlfur had seen it too. It drew her forward. The titan would shift into gear, striding to the clearing where Sólúlfur and Nóttin now stood, her ears pressed forward. Her citrine gaze hardened, blinking a few times as she caught Sól's gaze. Ya saw it too, then, Sól?

It.

The prophecy of the end of the world.

The little matter of the erasure of wolf-kind.

It.

---

Skill: Meteorologist

All Aurelia knew of the situation was that she had seemingly developed a sporadic, irritating cough, and she was ready to be rid of it. It wasn't her nature to be sickly, yet despite adequate rest and the appropriate herbs, it lingered like a bad memory and tended to crop up at the least opportune moments.

What was even stranger was that she found these episodes increasing in intensity the further northeast she roamed, and as a result, Aurelia tried to keep toward the southern half of the Vale. Perhaps it was some springtime bloom, she thought idly; it wasn't uncommon for allergies to develop with age, but...

As her thoughts naturally wandered, staring up at a sky heavy with clouds - it was almost as if the heavens themselves carried news of ill portent - a summons ripped through the silence. Solulfur's call was easily recognizable, and she felt something strange flutter inside her chest at the sound of her voice; if it were any other situation she'd have easily blamed it on nerves, but why should she be ever anxious at the thought of her?

Her.

The word carried an unusual weight to it.

Swallowing whatever peculiar feelings she didn't yet have the time for, Aurelia picked herself up and hurried toward the origin of the woman's summons, sparing another glance up toward the sky lest it begin its downpour along the way. While she enjoyed inclement weather, she didn't particularly enjoy being in it.

Whatever it was, the message must have been important. Solulfur had called the rest of the triumvirate to her side, and they now stood all together in a sort of semicircle, shuffling awkwardly as they braced themselves for... something.

Tiberii already seemed to know about it.

Saw what? Aurelia asked, concern sharpening her words.

SKILL : GUARDIAN ( 1 / 5 )

There were few things that truly shook Shiloh, and the beck of the unknown was one of them - particularly the brand of intangibles that he could not beat into submission.

He could not intimidate the dream visitor, nor the voice that whispered purpose to himself and all the others who reached the summit to the north. It left him on edge, firmly held within the suspension of not knowing, and the words dripping from a foreign tongue were on repeat within the chambers of his mind even after he awoke.

They were words he did not know, and the markings on the wall had almost reminded him of the runestones his mother sometimes used for blessings and rites... but they remained just past his understanding - they were dissimilar from his mother's, vexing in their peculiarity.

The only physical evidence that any of it had truly come to pass was the vague and diminishing ache of his ribs from the pressure that once resided there. That, he could not attribute to anything but the oppressive weight of whatever force it was that regarded them. He could not write off the experience, too, when it was known that others had witnessed it all the same and had their slumbering minds play host to further onslaught, revealing the promise of certain destruction if they did not intervene.

His jaw flexed in annoyance at his lack of understanding as he followed just behind Tiberii. While Solulfur had summoned the pillars, the knight had silently sworn to himself that he was not letting the smoke-and-cinder Shakti-Vaes out of his sight until he knew what the hell was going on. He hadn't been able to prevent Gamma's death, nor her kidnapping before it, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let this world claim anyone he cared about all because of something others of their kind had done before them.

As a dispenser of justice, what ends did it satisfy if the wrong parties paid for crimes they did not even commit?

Shiloh didn't like it, not at all. He was not known for his spiritual nature despite his upbringing, for he paid greater stock in what was before him in flesh and blood and bone, but it appeared danger rippled from invisible forces if they disregarded the message written in the blood of their predecessors; waves of discourse lapped at their door and the gravity of it was not lost on the Goldencourte. They would be dragged into the current whether they wished it or not, but they were afforded only one choice in all of this - they could decide to swim or be claimed by the undertow.

He had slipped into a skin of stoicism and objectivity in the face of his swirling thoughts, wordlessly assuming the role of sentinel in Tiberii's steps. They needed to find runes lest tragedy find them first, but they were given little guidance to aid them in the search.

A heavy breath pressed through his nostrils, heated with the annoyance that burned in his throat. Gods, spirits, and those beyond the veil were always so cryptic, speaking in obscurities and expecting mortal-kind to prostrate in hopes of the divine recognizing them. Was it the same in this world as it was the last? Regardless, they must succeed - so many of his family were here now, and his circle of beings his protection spanned to was growing everyday. Whatever relaxation and peace he had hoped to grasp in this life beyond his first had gone up in smoke, at least until the lingering sense of doom was squared away - not a matter of if but when.

He came to a rest beside Tiberii, his gaze flickering from pillar to pillar and then finally to Solulfur. If she summoned them, he surmised she had sound reason - she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders and his opinion of her was positive thus far. Although his expression still largely read as stony, a glint of curiosity lit within his eyes in the wake of Tiberii's question.

How many had paid witness to the strange visitor and his message - and did their versions all match?

The lion remained silent, but watched the Mediator expectantly.

---

the report of the Visitor and BWP events are recounted ICly here - Solulfur is interpreting the Visitor's words and her experiences through her own worldview and religious/cultural understandings of magic, etc; she should be considered an unreliable narrator in general, but in particular here where she is reporting the situation regarding the BWP

The triumvirate of the Dawnbreak pack gathered to Solulfur quickly, somber in their approach. Nottin was first to arrive, a self-assured set to his shoulders and worry creased into her brother's brow. The unsure, roughly hewn edges of the boy she'd grown up with had already shown signs of polishing beneath the responsibilities of his new role. As it did every time she saw him, these days, a fierce pride flickered to life in the Sun-wolf's chest at the sight of him. Today, she did not bask in the sentiment nor offer her support and praise. Instead, she provided a curt and professional dip of her crown in greeting. One moment, brother. I will explain when we're all gathered. Solulfur attempted to sooth his worries, her tone reassuring despite the stormy look she wore.

She had so many questions - uncertainty after uncertainty piled on top of one another, like a mudslide stripping trees out of the earth and stacking them up like twigs at the bottom of a hillside. It was crushing as it was suffocating, and every effort she made to course-correct within the confines of her mind and create a plan only spiraled out of her control a moment later, as a new question or three surfaced. How did she explain this? Would they believe her? Was it better to gather a larger band of allies from other packs, or focus on working herself to the bone to find the runes? How did she trust the Visitor? How many of their own were witnesses? Were the infants of the pack still unaffected by the snow, here?

Tiberii approached next, the nickname and her reference to their shared experience soothing some of Sol's nerves. She hadn't thought she was going mad, but it was reassuring for it to be acknowledged all the same. At the Power Pillar's heels, a flash of red. Solulfur only glanced briefly at Shiloh, acknowledging his presence without further comment; as resounding a sign of her appreciation for the man's loyalty as she was able to show, at the moment. He was not pack, but he'd been as dependable and devoted to their efforts and wellbeing as any other packmate. And, it was Tiberii's ankles he was at as usual. It was her who Solulfur would expect to leash him should he prove unworthy of the high regard Solulfur held him in.

Yes. She replied crisply to Tiberii.

Aurelia was the last to arrive. Together, then, their words echoed within Solulfur's mind, not unlike the Visitor's voice but so much more compelling to the Sun-wolf. She felt her ribcage expand with a full breath, one that, for the first time since waking up, didn't leave her wishing for a few scraps more of oxygen. Just as quickly as her gaze had snapped to Aurelia, Sol's golden eyes darted away, almost guilty.

I have received visions. They began as dreams, visits from some wolf-spirit from another time. I disregarded them...but recently, I was called to investigate the Summit at the Visitor's behest. Her gaze flitted to Tiberii, then Shiloh. It was not the only location investigated. I was not the only wolf called to action. Amongst a strange, suffocating snow, the witnesses and I discovered a set of runes that the Visitor activated.

She was silent for a moment, for the benefit of those who were hearing this for the first time. Tiberii and Shiloh can attest to the truth of what I say, but there are many more than even us who have been called to this quest. Solulfur heaved a slow exhale, mouth twisting into a disapproving near-grimace. She didn't like what she had to say next. That would not stop her from her duty to report her findings.

I and some other witnesses upon the Summit returned to our borders, where the Visitor offered us all another vision. He claims that Mythris is in danger - that this land we've been brought to is the danger. This time, her gaze flitted to Nottin's - Solulfur knew he'd understand the severity of what she was discussing; the insult against everything they'd been raised to revere. The wolves of Mythris before us dishonored the spirits of this land - so severely that the spirits were corrupted, unleashing a plague that would destroy everything. Solulfur's ears tilted back, close to her skull. The ones who came before sealed away the corruption, but wolfkind's presence in the land has unleashed the plague once more. The Visitor claims there are runes scattered around Mythris which are the key to sealing away the corruption once more. I have been called to seek them, as have the other witnesses. I have seen the runes myself, upon the Summit - and encountered a brush with the corruption that now darkens our doorstep.

War, her mind whispered, guilt and seething animal terror clawing up her throat, has come once more, to tear everything down.

The Sun-wolf flexed her paws, digging her claws into the snow-melt softened dirt. I have called us - witnesses and Pillars - to consider what options we have, what tactics are best suited to our survival, and how best to present this to the pack as a whole. We cannot incite a panic; not with newborn mouths to feed and guard and winter's scarcity only just loosening its hold on our territory.

It was a rare occurrence to see his sister in such disarray. The moment her voice left her lips to speak to him, N​ó​ttin's previous suspicions seemed to be proving correct. Something was indeed wrong. He nodded to her in a silent understanding, taking his place beside her as her loyal blood kin as he waited for the others to arrive. Tiberri came next with a flash of red in tow. Shiloh wasn't a pack member, but still was regarded as one of their own from the moment he set foot here. An ear flicked at Tiberii's voice, wondering what she meant by seeing it too. What on earth happened to them? Shiloh remained silent as stars, keeping close to his fellow Pillar as if his life depended on it. Maybe he was right to be weary.

Aurelia came in next, the same concerned look upon her face as the others. But her questioning of Sol had him even more curious. So she hadn't been involved in what ever was going on here. Then much like him, she was also in the dark. Once everyone got settled in for the news, the Sun wolf began to explain herself. Slowly she began to break the news of some other worldly presence. A warning to all of Mythris that something was coming. When his sister's eyes fell on him after she looked to each wolf, it was clear that she knew he understood the severity of the situation.

In the blink of an eye, memories of war and destruction came flooding back to him. A time where his family and pack and nearly been torn apart. And now it was threatening to happen again. And there might not be a thing they could do to stop it. Once Sol had begun to silence herself once more, her last request to seek out a resolution to all of this, N​ó​ttin began to think hard about how to go about such a grand predicament.

I agree that we cannot allow widespread needless panic. I think that for now, until we have a plan to deal with this runes, we keep this away from the new parents and the pups. Sólúlfur, how do we deal with these runes? How do we use them to seal away the corruption? And who are the others that know of this outside of everyone present? These were the first things that he wished to know, his mind trying to stay calm and steady as he attempted to learn more of this truth. A hardened gaze then looked briefly to the others, wondering if they had any ideas of how to deal with this problem as well. For they needed to all work together, or fall.

[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

skill: [none]

---

The silvered maiden arrived silently, sat in the back, and said nothing. Solulfur has called for the three pillars, and Euphemia had also decided to heed such a call, if not as a pillar then to be a part of the audience. In her long musings on this subject, Euphemia had come to realize that in many ways she felt that being a pillar was her birthright, and birthrights could not be voted away. So she would be present, because she felt she should be privy to such a conversation.

After all, Euphemia knew easily what Solulfur was going to talk about.

In the end, the bookish shewolf had been right. Solulfur told a grand story of runes and the end of the world, which Euphemia already knew intimately. It was as if she had already lived it, and was hearing this experience being told through another lens. It felt wrong. It felt sensational. It felt as though Solulfur was playing into very dark, toxic thoughts that threatened to poison life as they knew it.

Still, she was silent.

In fact, she tried to be a statue as she let Solulfur’s words and summary settle in like the world’s most uncomfortable, scratchiest late-winter coat.

Some had seen it, heard it. Others had not, and were hearing about this for the first time. Euphemia regarded Aurelia from her spot in the back, unamused. Silence fell over the small crowd as the issue – the supposed end of the world – was left open to other’s interpretations and/or solutions. Nottin spoke up, and Euphemia allowed herself to watch the sibling pair exchange concerns.

Were Aurelia and Tiberii going to fall for all this?

There had to be a voice of reason, lest Dawnbreak be swept up in a sea of cultish beliefs and ancestrally-held trauma, none of which was their own. Euphemia took a deep breath, feeling the brief feeling of terror clutch at her when she realized she must speak up, and then she forced the words out anyway.

A panic? A panic over what, exactly? A shared dream? Scary voices? she questioned, her voice grave, taking the topic as seriously as Sol took it herself. Many have prophesied doom in the past, but not once were they ever correct about it. Souls were spirited away and reborn as easily as the winds changed course. It seemed silly to think that the runes were anything more than the cruel gods, playing with them like pawns once more. They must be smarter, and not be thrown off-course by every unknown magical oddity that comes their way.

We cannot regard this as anything more than those nightmare caves that once appeared on this land, Euphemia pleaded with earnestness. She had never seen war. Never having seen the devastation of entire ecosystems, she was fairly certain it would not happen here. and definitely not during her lifetime.

---

A dark shadow passing overhead, a ghostly form silhouetted against the dying light; let it never be doubted that Kier could make an entrance. She alighted gracefully atop Fluffy's head, porcelain wings outstretched for ~~dramatic effect~~.

And should this one prove to be true? What will you do then? Keel over and die? Wish you had listened sooner? Truthfully, Kier had little stake in the debacle. She had only just heard the cliff notes on the flight over — something about runes and plague and devastation — but she figured it probably wasn't a good idea to let her meal ticket be publicly shamed in front of her entire clan. What if they got cast out? Where was she supposed to hunt for rats then, huh???

It would be wise to take heed, she proudly proclaimed in the most divinely authoritative voice she could muster. I know well the kind of devastation that can be wrought by denizens of the land: forests razed, mountains leveled, rivers poisoned. Do not assume you are safe just because you have not.

Humans were infinitely destructive creatures, Fluffy had probably just seen some clearing a plot of land for a new supermarket and freaked out. Not quite as dramatic sounding but still nothing to be taken lightly.

Isúlfr had woken with a start, pale blue eyes snapping open to snow and pine and the unfamiliar hush of a land that—increasingly—did not belong to him.

The dream had not blurred at the edges like most dreams did. No, it remained intact, intact and wrong in all the ways that mattered. A voice that was not The Mother’s had spoken to him—again—and a prophecy that did not belong to his bloodline had laid claim to his future. It spoke of wolves, of runes, of a sickness buried so deep in the land it pulsed like a second, rotting heart. It named the world Mythris, as though it had always been that. As though he were the stranger.

He did not know what to make of that. He did not like what it made of him.

When he finally stood, it was with the kind of steadiness that did not come from peace but from discipline. Snow clung to the curve of his shoulders until he shook it free—the movement quiet, almost ceremonial. For a moment, his breath rose pale into the cold, curling back toward him like the past refusing to leave.

He glanced to the treeline, then toward the sound of voices—not loud, but present, layered with purpose. They came from somewhere up the slope, where the trees gave way to clearing. He listened for a moment, allowing himself that pause—not to steel himself but to sift through what he carried: names of places and things he did not know, faces he could not yet trust. And Sólúlfur—recognizable only because she was the least unfamiliar. A figure glimpsed in visions and on mountains, her presence a thread beckoning him to fray in the wind.

He moved with that thought, climbing the slope not as a scout, nor as a soldier, but as something in between. A witness. A relic, perhaps, from a people who did not believe in ghosts that spoke outside of dreams.

But he would follow this one. For now, if only to observe the way she spoke and what she asked of those who listened.

He crested the rise without pause and took in the gathered wolves with a glance that gave little away. They stood like something ritualized—intent, alert, sharpened not by fear but by something older. Loyalty, perhaps. Duty. The gathering reminded him of the old war-meetings at Mors Kjever, before a raid or judgment, when blood still steamed fresh beneath the snow. But this was no war-band, and these wolves were not his kin.

He did not join them directly. Instead, he circled wide, his steps quiet but steady, and came to a stop some lengths off, where the trees still cast thin shadows across the slope. There, he sat—not out of deference, nor fatigue, but with the poised stillness of a creature who knew his presence was ... permitted, perhaps, but not invited. So his posture became something unassuming but composed—tail draped neatly along his haunches, shoulders square, ears pricked not with eagerness, but with attentiveness all the same. It was a prince's stillness, one trained from birth to watch before speaking. To listen, before deciding to whom, if anyone, recognition was owed.

Sólúlfur spoke, and the others listened. Her voice did not waver. It carried the cadence of command, sharpened not by arrogance but by burden—an edge he recognized. There was something ceremonial in the way she laid out the events, as though reciting the bones of a new scripture. Not just truth, but testimony. She did not ask them to believe her, only to understand.

That, at least, he could respect.

The others stood in a loose crescent, their stances varied but intentional, as if pulled into shape by some shared force. He studied them in silence, taking them not as individuals first but as a collection—fragments of something larger. There was symmetry here, a cohesion that spoke of long-held ties and an order he was not part of. Still, most were like him in color: shades of stone and storm, sea-worn ash, the quiet palette of wolves shaped by hardship and winter. It should have comforted him. Instead, it pressed down like a weight he could not quite name.

His gaze moved along the arc of bodies, pausing only briefly on each. One held herself like ice held tension—composed, pressed inward, but watchful. Another, broader in build, stood with the guarded posture of a fighter not yet called to violence but ready for it all the same. Others shifted in smaller, subtler ways—some attentive, others uncertain—but each carried the air of someone who belonged. Even those who questioned did so with the confidence of place.

Then came the red one, and Isúlfr’s eyes lingered.

He was tall, heavy-framed, shadowing one of the women as if tied by vow or instinct. The contrast of his coat—rust, cream, the burn of autumn leaves beneath frost—was jarring, even in the low light. But it was more than color that set him apart. The way he stood just behind the dark-furred woman, close but not possessive, watchful without supplication—it was familiar. Not in face or form, but in purpose. A Sword, by all appearances, though Isúlfr doubted the title would mean anything here. Still, his instincts aligned easily: this was someone trained to guard. Bound not by blood, perhaps, but by charge.

That possibility narrowed Isúlfr’s focus.

His gaze shifted—back to the woman the red one shadowed. Dark-furred, golden-eyed, she held herself with a stillness that neither deferred nor demanded, balanced in a way that drew attention without asking for it. There was weight to her presence. And if the red one was her Sword, then she was the fulcrum around which his purpose turned. Not a queen, perhaps. But something proximate. Something chosen.

A target, if ever the line was drawn.

He did not dwell on the thought, only filed it away—another name, another face, another piece to a puzzle he had not agreed to build. It folded neatly into the quiet arsenal of war-born instinct, shelved alongside habits inherited not from The Mother, but from the man who ruled Her mountains.

Still, some part of him bristled.

Not at them, perhaps, but at the way the world tilted beneath his feet. These voices, these faces—each one bound to a thread he could not see the beginning of, pulled taut by a prophecy that had no business speaking to him. They talked of curses, of sickness, of gods that did not bear Her name. He listened—not because he believed them, but because he needed to know what they believed. What they feared. What they might become.

He could not afford to be blind. So he sat—stone-still, gaze forward, the picture of quiet observation. But beneath the surface, something shifted. Not a crack—just the fine tremor of weight pressing where it had never been meant to settle.

He said nothing, made no move. But he listened.

And if the world chose to come undone, he would at least know where to set his teeth.

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note: his focus on shiloh and thus tiberii is not one of hostility. it's.. culture stuff. ~character development.~ don't mind him uwu.