aw <3

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The tide lapped against his muzzle, warm and persistent, as though the sea itself tried to rouse him. Sand clung to the damp curve of his cheek, and when silver eyes peeled open, they squinted into the soft blaze of dawn. The sun had only just begun its climb, casting honey-gold light across the foreign shore, where gulls wheeled silently above and palm shadows stretched like long fingers across the beach.
The silence was too foreign, too soft. His breathing was slow, shallow, as if afraid to disrupt the stillness. Salt crusted the edges of his lips, a faint breeze teased at his damp fur, carrying strange scents; warm vegetation, unfamiliar minerals, the ghosts of things he could not name.
Astier shifted one forepaw, pressing it into the wet earth beneath him; then another. His limbs were reluctant to obey, dulled by disorientation. As he pushed himself upright, the Wraith moved like something reborn, ungraceful and shaking, yet still carrying that quiet poise etched by the mountain’s making. His ears flicked, alert despite the haze. The wriath’s nose lifted, drinking in the wind with quiet urgency, searching for the scent of his kin; anything of Darukaal. But the breeze returned nothing he knew. The sea had swallowed it all.
His silver gaze swept the horizon, startling in its clarity beneath heavy lids. He looked not just for shelter, but for memory, anything to anchor him. The beach stretched on, golden and indifferent. Behind him, a dense treeline whispered in tongues he did not understand. The phantom moved forward, slow and soundless as the tide, a shadow cast anew beneath the sun.

SNAGGING SKILL Healer 1/5

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morwenna had finished tending to veksar, her paws still damp with the chill of the sea and the sharp scent of herbs clinging to her fur. she had left him tucked in the cradle of driftwood and stone, the tide whispering low at his side, and now her moonfire eyes swept the shoreline once more.
it was then she saw him — a figure risen from the surf as if spat out by the sea itself. large. pale. carved of bone and winter storms. he moved like a revenant, slow and heavy with the weight of waking. instinct stiffened her spine for half a breath, but curiosity, as always, was stronger.
there was something about him. something carved not by these soft shores, but by harsher realms. by the hard anvil of mountain and war. perhaps he was a man of her realm. perhaps not. but she would find out.
morwenna moved down the slope of the beach with the certainty of a queen meeting a would-be king. the gulls cried above, sharp as arrows. she made no effort to mask her approach; let him see her, let him weigh her presence against the ache of waking.
when she stood a few paces away, she drew herself to full height, the salt breeze catching in her heavy fur, and inclined her head—not a bow, but an acknowledgment.

FINALLY GOT TO WRITE WITH MORWENNA <3

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The wraith stirred as her presence crept into his periphery, not loud nor brash, but as the hush that comes before a tide turns. His ears twitched, catching the gravel-soft rhythm of her approach, but he did face her yet. His gaze remained on the sea, its foam curling around his limbs like a tether unwilling to let go. The wind pulled threads of salt through his coat, lifting the damp fur along his spine in feathered layers. When he finally turned, it was slow; measured. Not stiff from weakness, but from deliberation, like a statue waking from centuries of stillness.
She was there, poised at the edge of his world like the embodiment of a question. His eyes found her with a quiet intensity, pale and silver-bright under the early sun. He did not flinch from her gaze. There was no fear in it, only the solemn curiosity of a ghost recognizing another soul carved by trial. The silence between them was not empty, it was weighted, alive with salt and distance, and some strange familiarity that neither could name.
Only after a beat did his muzzle part, voice low and coarse like frost cracking against bark. „The sea does not return what it takes. Yet it left me here.” His shoulders shifted, a slow stretch of muscle under damp fur, as though he were still adjusting to the shape of his own body. His tail brushed once across the sand behind him, silent punctuation to his words.
Astier faced her fully now, brow faintly drawn, as though trying to discern if she was part of this place… or if, like him, she had wandered here from some harsher realm. His tone, when he spoke again, carried that note of veiled interest, wrapped in glacier-calm: „You don’t belong to this shore either.”And though his voice was cold, the look he gave her lingered; an echo of something unspoken, the faint trace of intrigue edged with heat, like fire long buried beneath snow.

her coat stirred in the breeze like a banner not yet fallen, and she tilted her chin with the faintest, imperious arch — a queen, though no crown gleamed upon her brow. his words drew a dry chuckle from her, low and humorless, pulled from the deep well of a woman who had heard too many pretty phrases laid over graves.
no, she said, voice roughened by sea-wind and long miles, i am not from here. her tone bore no apology, no sorrow. it was a simple fact, carved as cleanly as stone.
she stepped closer, the sand whispering underfoot, pale eyes never straying from his scarred face. there was no fear in her, only the cold, assessing patience of a wolf who had outlasted worse tides than this. a pause, then a flicker of something — curiosity, tempered and sharp-edged.
nor, i think, are you, morwenna mused aloud, letting the wind steal the last syllables from her tongue. her head canted slightly, studying him not with caution, but with the keen discernment of one who had built herself from ruin and flame. the ghosts he carried were not invisible to her. they never were.

Frostborn shape did not falter when she stepped near. Still as driftwood caught in the low tide, Astier stood as though sculpted by the very bones of the sea: pale, towering, draped in cold silence and quiet judgment. But his gaze was not cruel. It lingered on her with the weight of thought, not of threat. The wind tangled in the salt-kissed strands of his fur, tugging at him like it wished to pull him back to whatever world he’d been carved from. He did not yield: he had endured worse than exile: „No,” quiet then, „I do not.”
Her words were flint against his composure, and something within him kindled. Not flame, no, he was no man of fire, but the low, enduring glow of interest, of recognition, of the unexpected. When she stopped, he shifted; the lift of his chin, the slight adjustment of his stance, as if acknowledging the presence of something rare. His ears, sharp and attentive, twitched once at the cadence of her voice. His eyes, silver-glass and storm-hardened, flicked once to the curve of her brow, the regal tilt of her chin, the boldness in her poise. She did not shrink nor did she sway.
A slow breath escaped him, curling faintly in the morning light. Then, at last, he began, low and deliberate, with the quiet thunder of a glacier cracking far beneath the surface. „Queens do not wander alone.” He took a single step forward, the black sand murmuring beneath his weight. Not to threaten, but to draw the gap between them into something smaller, more known. He stood tall, yet left space for her to claim ground if she so wished.
„Not unless they seek something.” His eyes searched hers, not rudely, but with that cold, discerning patience that had carried him through more than battle. He saw the scar she wore, though it did not mar her, only made her luminous in their own quiet way.
Another breath. Then: „What is it you seek?” There was reverence in his tone, a low respect that had little to do with formality and everything to do with the storm he saw held behind her stillness.

SKILL orator 1/5

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morwenna's lips curled at the edges — a smile, thin and knowing, played across her muzzle, though no warmth reached the pale frost of her eyes. her head canted slightly as she regarded him, a movement, as if weighing the merit of a blade by the light of a forge.
morwenna drakaryn, she offered, her voice smooth as the still surface of a lake, hiding all the sharp rocks beneath. she let the name settle between them like a thrown gauntlet, soft and absolute. not a title. not a plea. a statement.
he was keen. she had already gleaned that. the way he moved like a prowling shadow across the sand, not scrambling to impress, not desperate to please. rare things in a land where loyalty bent to power as easily as grass bowed to storm winds. rare—and valuable. her gaze did not flinch when he stepped forward; she met him full, crown lifted, unbowed.
perhaps, morwenna murmured, feigning idle thought as she drifted a half-circle around him, slow and steady as the tide. a queen wanders when she wishes to see what answers her call. her eyes, molten silver now, flicked sidelong to catch him, to gauge the ripple beneath the icewater calm he wore like armor.
she halted, the sea breeze catching the pale trailing ends of her fur like a royal banner. the strong gather to strong hands, she said simply. it is the way of old blood, and it shall be so again.

He watched her lips shape the name as though it were forged, not spoken, tempered and honed with every syllable. A sound born of salt and sovereignty. „Morwenna,” he echoed, quiet, interested, tasting the weight of it in his mouth like something sacred. His head tilted, silver gaze stilling on her with the scrutiny of a silent oath. „Drakaryn.” A breath, not a question, „A name made to endure.”
The Wraith stepped forward, not encroaching, but drawn, the way a tide leans toward moonlight. His paws moved with the grace of one carved by harsher winters, each step subtle, soundless. The breeze caught his fur and tousled it like a whisper between ancient stones. „A pleasure to meet you,” he offered, voice low and flint-edged, but not cold, and a slight bow of head: „I am Astier.” Just that, his first name, plain and simple, stripped of history and heraldry, laid bare.
When her words coiled around him like sea-mist, the strong gather to strong hands, his mouth tugged, faintly, into a smirk. It wasn’t amusement that touched it, not entirely. It was something else; admiration, perhaps, flicker of something more dangerous. „And what makes you so certain I’d follow?” he asked, voice smooth as hoarfrost, but threaded with the faintest hint of mirth.
Yet in his mind, beneath that alabaster stillness, he already knew. He would follow. He would watch the path this woman carved through the world and walk it; not for power, not for crown or conquest. If any soul could beckon the Wraith to walk behind another... it would be her.

SKILL Orator 2/5

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morwenna studied him in turn, letting the silence stretch, a silken tether between them. astier — the name settled like a blade against her palm, bare and without ornament, and she closed her fingers around it with the slow certainty of one who had learned never to squander what strength the world offered her.
perhaps, she said at last, voice a low murmur wrapped in velvet steel, i am not certain at all.
the smirk that grew along her mouth was slow and knowing, brief as a ripple across deep water. she let him see it, the flash of sharp amusement, the glint of challenge dressed as invitation. she turned slightly, so the mountain wind caught the fall of her pale fur, so that when she looked back at him over her shoulder, it was with the full measure of her inheritance — salt and stone, sea and fire.
but some men, she continued, voice soft as the kiss of tide over sand, do not need to be commanded. only offered the chance to carve their names into something eternal.
her eyes — cool silver, burning bright — held him fast a moment longer before she moved forward, unhurried, unafraid, as if certain he would follow without ever needing to look back.

we can fade here if you want <3

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Astier stood still a moment longer, as though carved from ice and silence, eyes narrowed beneath the pale sweep of his brow. The wind tugged at the edges of his fur, tousling silver and ash like a cloak undone. Across from him, she turned, half invitation, half challenge, and the gesture pulled at something low in his chest. He did not flinch. He did not blink. But something shifted beneath his skin.
With a breath sharp as sleet, he moved. One step, then another, unhurried but certain. His limbs flowed like water over rock, smooth, glacial, deliberate. Snow barely crunched beneath his weight, his paws slicing through the drifts with practiced precision. He moved not like one who followed, but one who haunted; an echo in her wake, yet never lost in it.
As her figure cut through the white-dusted wilds ahead, his gaze lingered on the curve of her stride, on the flick of pale fur teased by the wind. And for the briefest moment, so quick it almost escaped him, he thought of the siren. The way her voice had once echoed beneath storm-tossed skies. The soft weight of her gaze before it turned distant. That ache still hummed in the cold hollows of his ribs, but he buried it, as he always did, beneath frost and resolve.
Let Morwenna believe what she would. Let her taste the gravity of his steps behind her. He would follow, yes. But not as servant, not as shade, as the wraith, the frost that did not melt.