RP:Foreboding Tidings

Part of the The White Hunt Arc

Synopsis: Krice stumbles upon Orikahn, the latter keeping vigil near the herd of frostmares. Orikahn explains the situation, and Krice points out that the hunter should have alerted Frostmaw's authorities. Orikahn is too preoccupied with events, and he cannot be persuaded to leave the scene, so Krice leaves to alert the city.

Path Leading North

Orikahn sits near the western treeline and tends a tiny fire. The cat is clad in cloak and armor, as is his usual when out in the bitter north. He is watching the northeast. There, out on the open tundra, there is a shifting sea of black, crested with a preternatural blue glow: a great herd of frostmares and the cerulean fires of their manes. They shift and flow with the sound of distant, violently rushing water. Kahn is very keen to observe them, and is only absentmindedly rubbing his hands near the flames. He's watching something very attentively. With his bow at his back and his sculls on his hip, the hunter hasn't neglected his usual accouterments of course. Whatever's happening here, it must be enough to distract him from his typically obsessive hunting.

Krice ventured westward, away from Frostmaw's more civilized city centres, with barely a crunch of snow underfoot to announce his presence; despite his surroundings, and the fabric of his attire, he was naturally stealthy. Dressed in his usual slacks, along with a black form-fitting jacket with an overlapping collar, and robes overtop it all, the man seemed more prepared to weather the harsh colds of the western wilderness. His katana was strapped to his back like always, and although he had strayed from his westerly path to venture this far north in observation of that blue-and-black mass in the distance, he did not reach for his weapon. Perhaps he deemed the mass currently harmless? Whatever the case, it didn't take long for Krice to notice Orikahn nearby. The silver-haired man slowed to a halt and watched the feline, silently observing him for signs and signals of things he had yet to detect. Icy winds swirled around him, intermittently obscuring his ability to hear in specific directions, fleetingly obstructing his view of his surroundings, but his attention did not waver. What was Kahn doing?

Orikahn reaches into his pack with the same absentminded air and pulls out a clump of green moss; he lifts up his visor just enough to stuff it deep in his cheek, apparently for chewing. His eyes never leave the herd. All in all, there must be thousands of frostmares out there, trampling out an enormous flat of snowpack. The area's vegetation, normally sparse to begin with, has been stripped entirely bare, and even the lower boughs of the trees around them have been consumed right down to their most inedible components. There is a sudden ruckus in the herd, and a brief thundering as the black sea parts. This is very interesting to Kahn; he leans forward. Sure enough, far out in the vast churning expanse, there is a little white splinter sailing through like a wedge, splitting the ranks. It is a wolf. It drives through the herd, but doesn't seem to make more than a stirr, for as soon as its aggression begins, it has swerved back out to retreat into the empty wasteland. "Hhhmph!" Orikahn grunts and grinds his knuckles into the bark of the tree beside himself.

Krice tilted his head a fraction as he watched Orikahn chew on some moss, which was anticlimactic and as such did not hold his attention for long. The shifting sounds of the herd to the west, distant as they were, inevitably stole the warrior's intrigue and he turned his head to gaze upon the undulating herd. His brows lowered into a hard angle in portrayal of his focus, whilst the gilded eyes below them swept over the vast swathes of sentient blackness to spy the single point of interference running through the middle. Stepping forward, Krice's better enabled his acute eyesight to glimpse the situation by moving just a little closer, now well within Orikahn's periphery. When the wolf disappeared from the herd of frostmares, the silver-haired male redirected his focus to the feline nearer him. " How long have you been watching that?" He nodded, indicating the expansive gathering far west.

Orikahn twists where he sits to glance up at Krice, and he offers a nod in salutation. He points out at the herd, directing the human's attention northeastward (as though the warrior hadn't already been looking that way). "A night and a day." The hunter explains, then turns back forward again. There is another sweep as the herd dips away from their aggressors, yes, another wolf there to agitate their strays and keep the group tight and the atmosphere tense. Orikahn returns to rubbing his hands over the fire. "I see you made your clever getaway." Kahn growls a low chuckle. "The last time I saw you, I was safe in a cargo basket. You, on the other hand, seemed to have a lot on your plate."

Krice addressed Orikahn's latter words with a simple, " I ran fast." His attention wasn't on the last time they met, or the circumstances that had necessitated fleeing from the west. Rather, the warrior was attentive on the -now-, and on the shifting herd of frostmares and wolves far to the west. A day and a night... " Are they getting closer?"

Orikahn rubs at his ear through his hood. "Hmph." He ran fast. With considerable effort, the cat holds his curiosity at bay and refrains from pressing the warrior for a proper recounting. "They've been moving here and there," Orikahn explains, gesturing vaguely about the landscape, "eating and such, but now they're kind of stuck. There's blizzards up farther north, and they're scared of it, see?" The hunter points an the distant, ominous clouds. "These wolves, here, they know it." He looks back at Krice and shakes his head. "They've left the woods, Krice. Remember how many there were? All the trouble we had? They're hardly there now. I've done my part to try and cull them out, but, hmmph..." Kahn trails off and shakes his head again. "Bad juju. Bad omens. Anyway, some of them are out here now. Maybe all of them, I don't know. They're trickier than the frostmares."

Krice digested Orikahn's information about the frostmares and wolves whilst watching them move amongst each other. As directed, he spent just a moment looking northward at the ice storm that obstructed the equines' retreat. What the hell was happening to Frostmaw that its animals were so restless? Without any visible concern that the wolves were encroaching on the mares, he asked of Orikahn, " Does anyone else know about this?"

Orikahn coughs a bit and reaches beneath his visor to prod around inside his cheek a bit. "Kah." He spits out a little piece of bark at Krice's feet and resumes chewing his moss. "Kthah. Hmm. Hmm? Not sure. Might be just me. Come to think of it," the Prime Hunter reaches into his hood to scratch his head, "you might want to let people back in Frostmaw know, especially as close to town as we are." Funny, this whole "being a citizen" and "holding an office" thing comes with responsibilities, doesn't it? The fire pops and throws an ember onto the corner of Kahn's cloak, and he jumps back half a pace, startled. "Sah!" A few noisy pats later, and the little spark's been swatted out. The cat hurriedly stands and dusts off his cloak. "I'd like to stay and keep tabs on situation. You wouldn't mind playing messenger, would you?" Orikahn looks expectantly down to the warrior.

Krice's gaze dropped to the splat of pre-chewed bark on the ground by his feet, and then shot a displeased glare Orikahn's way; given that the bark hadn't actually been aimed -at- him, the warrior's expression was tempered. Forgoing judgment over the feline's clumsy almost-death by the flames of his firepit, the warrior lifted his chin and readopted the glare; this time, the expression was inspired by incredulity and almost-mirth. " How about -I- stay to keep tabs, and -you- play messenger like you should've already."

Orikahn gives his head a dismissive shake and settles himself back down at the fireside, sitting cross legged in the indent he had already worn in the snow, staring back out at the herd and rubbing his hands briskly over the cheerily dancing flames. "I thought you could run fast." He rolls his shoulders and the joints noisily pop. "Besides, this is where I'm needed." Procuring a bit of oily resin from his bag, Orikahn unshoulders his bow and sets about tending the string, readying it for use. "These wolves and I have been at this for too long. I'm not about to step away now. They play games like this," he oils the string with long, careful strokes, "patience games. They know me. Is this a test? I think it's a test." By now, the hunter seems to be babbling aloud more than actually talking *to* Krice. "Patience games."

Krice fixated Orikahn with a stare of undeterminable emotion, but ultimately, he must have agreed with the cat-man that he was required here. Even as the other male rambled on about his role in the hunt, about his game with the wolves, Krice was turning to depart the area. After a final glance at the undulating mass of frostmares and wolves out west, he pivoted to venture eastward at a relaxed but brisk pace, to alert authorities of the potential dangers that could arise from the gathering.

Orikahn wipes the bowstring clean with a rag and tilts up his visor to spit a line of green saliva into the snow. His eyes are fixed on the herd.