[o] Into white silence

Marcus

The Citadel’s spires fell away behind him, shrinking against the endless white. Marcus cut through the air with steady, powerful strokes, the wind threading cold fingers through his feathers. The world below was a hellscape, unbroken sprawl of snow and ice, glittering where the sun touched it, treacherous where shadows pooled—and he was seeing it with completely new eyes. While Noah and flown with him home from the shrine on the Sea of Glass, flying back out into the tundra left the youngling soaking it all in for what he felt was the first time.

The air was thin, the cold alive in its hunger. Below, jagged ice broke the surface in frozen teeth, and in the distance, something dark and slow moved across the drifts—too large for comfort, too far to identify with any accuracy, but the young hybrid guessed it was an ursur. They always lumbered across the tundra looking for their next meal—but whether it was a regular ursur, dangerous and wild, or a void-touched ursur, bloodthirsty and relentless, he didn’t know.

He banked left, away from the suspected ursur, following the line of a frozen river, every beat of his wings carrying him deeper into the tundra’s heart—and whatever waited for him there. After a few minutes past of flying, Marcus let his wings tip again and he angled closer to the earth. Movement caught his eye and he followed it. A snow hare darted across the snow and ice. A switch flipped within the young hybrid and he dove.

Powerful talons wrapped over the back of the hare’s neck and his wings flapped with hard, determined strokes to keep himself from crashing into the frozen ground. But the prey succumbed to him, and satisfaction rang through him brightly.

I want you by my side
So that I never feel alone again

with each love i cut loose i was never the same

The tundra stretches out in every direction, a glassy ocean of frost and shadow that crunches beneath her boots with every step. Halo’s wind doesn’t just bite—it gnaws, creeping through seams in her coat no matter how tightly she’s cinched the fur-lined hood. Her breath comes out in plumes, curling pale and fleeting into the blue-white sky. Somewhere behind her, the Citadel’s towers are already blurring into the haze of distance, shrinking until they’re just a suggestion on the horizon.

Spice rides the air currents above her like a dart of living snow, wings flickering quick and white against the frozen sprawl. The little dragon’s chittering filters down through the wind, sharp and musical, a sound halfway between greeting and warning. Flora squints upward automatically, following the sound but catching only the flash of her companion’s tail—and, faintly, the shifting silhouette of something larger in the sky.

She tucks her gloved hands deeper into her pockets and keeps walking, the Sugartide a hazy outline ahead where the tundra begins to slope. "If it’s trouble, you can scare it off," she calls up to Spice, voice muffled by the scarf wound high over her cheeks. The little dragon chirps again, sharper this time, and Flora grins into the wool, comforted by the sound even as her pace quickens.

The wind shifts, bringing with it the scent of salt from far-off waters and the faint creak of her skyship’s moorings, a promise of warmth and home waiting just ahead. Whatever Spice has seen in the sky, Flora decides, it can keep its distance—she’s got no interest in tangling with Halo’s brand of wildlife today.

Marcus

Marcus landed fully with a crunch of snow, the hare limp in his talons. Satisfaction still thrummed through him, sharp and primal. He was about to dig into the meal when his senses caught movement in the sky. Above, a flicker of white darted, quick-winged and bright against the pale expanse. The eagle's heart began to race. The image of a white dragon shot alarms off in his body and his wings opened again to pull himself away. But he hesitated -- the chittering that followed was high and musical. His head snapped upward, cerulean eyes locking onto the little dragon as it danced on the air currents. It wasn't a full sized dragon, but a companion.

Marcus prickled.

The young hybrid's grip on the hare tightened. He stepped instinctively over his kill, talons digging into the frozen ground, his wings half-fanning in silent challenge. But more movement on the tundra cauht his attention next. A figure walking steadily toward the slope, bundled against the cold.

Marcus’s gaze shifted between them, calculating. With a low, rattling click of his beak, he kept his ground, watching the sky as the little dragon wheeled above.

I want you by my side
So that I never feel alone again

with each love i cut loose i was never the same

Spice answers the rattling click with a sharp, knowing chitter of her own, the sound carrying bright and clear across the cold air. From her vantage, it’s easy enough to tell the other creature is young—talons still sharp but lacking the gravitas of age, posture more bluster than threat. She could take the hare if she wanted; the thought flickers across the bond, coloured with a mischievous curl of interest. But her belly is already full, and the stranger isn’t exactly inviting play.

With the boredom of a predator denied a chase, she begins to wheel lazily back toward Flora, the pitch of her voice softening into a musical trill.

Flora glances up, catching the sound more than the movement, and lifts one gloved hand in a vague wave toward the dragon’s bright shape against the sky. "Yeah, yeah, I hear you," she calls, the words puffing into the wind like little ghosts. "But we’ve got to keep moving before the Sugartide’s sails freeze solid." If they hadn't already.

useless, trying to fight, and the truth is

Young and without the gravitas of age that brings wisdom, the hybrid felt success as the dragon turned to circle closer to her bonded. It swelled within him in round, warm circles that expanded across his chest. His wings flared again as his sharp eyes moved from dragon to bonded, once more, before he finally shifted.

Feathers gave way to leather and fur, his cloak covering him with enough protection from the coldest of Halovian weather. His ursur-wool mitten reached down and he grabbed his prey. His other hand shoved into a pocket in his cloak and he pulled out a small rope. He tied it around the legs of the hare and then began fastening the kill to his belt.

As he did so, he started walking towards the woman and her dragon.

i'd rather be BLIND

with each love i cut loose i was never the same

Spice’s trill cuts the air, sharp as a bell, and Flora doesn’t miss the shift in it. Not just chatter this time, but a warning threaded through the notes. She slows, boots sinking into the drift, and turns into the wind.

The tundra is all glare and distance at first, white stacked upon white until her eyes catch on a darker shape breaking the sprawl. Squinting, she makes him out: a figure with broad shoulders beneath heavy fur, something limp and bloody swinging from his belt. Not exactly Torchline’s kind of welcome committee, but she supposes this is what passes for normal out here. "Hey, uh—" she calls, lifting a hand against the brightness, "nice bird."

The words fog out with her breath, half-muffled by her scarf. In Haulani, a stranger walking toward you with fresh kill would’ve had her reaching for a dagger, but Halo runs by different rules. Here it’s less menace, more survival, and she makes herself stand steady in the snow while Spice loops overhead, still trilling softly, the sound both a reminder and a threat.

useless, trying to fight, and the truth is

Oblivious to what replication or caution his presence might bring, Marcus approached the woman. His scarf covered most of his face, and his cloak made him seem a looming figure, but it was ultimately clear that he was not a threat. 

”Nice dragon.” The youth replied when he was close enough not to yell across the driving snow, a smile breaking across his features that wrinkled the corners of his eyes in the tell-tale Olson way. He stopped, looking at the woman and glancing at her dragon briefly. Cerulean eyes came back to her, and then he turned, pointing. ”The Citadel is back that way, you know.” His head tilted some as he looked her up and down. She was dressed warmly, sure, but not warmly enough to indicate to him she meant to spend any amount of time out here on the Tundra.

i'd rather be BLIND

with each love i cut loose i was never the same

Spice lets out a pleased little puff of frost at the compliment, wings angling just so as if to show off her snow-bright scales. Flora, on the other hand, narrows her eyes against the white glare as the stranger looks her over like she’s lost.

Her frown deepens when he points back toward the Citadel. "Mhmm," she mutters, tugging her scarf a little higher against the cold. With a sharp flick of her hand in the opposite direction, she adds, "But my ship’s that way."

Whether it’s the wind biting through her coat or the fact that some kid just crawled out of the snow with blood on his belt, a dead bird around his waist, and directions she doesn’t need, her skin prickles with the urge to be gone. She offers him a crooked half-smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. "Soo uhh, gonna go that way," she says, turning on her heel and crunching back toward the Sugartide. Spice loops overhead in a lazy arc, trilling encouragement, while Flora keeps her gaze fixed on the growing outline of her skyship—ready to leave Halo and its strange welcome parties to the cold.

~FIN