02-01-2023, 05:05 AM
The silhouette came dimly through the whiteness, a softness that solidified the closer it approached. For what felt like millennia, Mauti stood frozen, her hackles prickling painfully along her shoulders, down her spine. She couldn't move — could only watch and wait as, slowly, the monster that came to kill her materialized into a man instead.
Hi, came his simple greeting, and if Mauti had been a weaker woman she might have fainted on the spot. Instead she dipped her nose at him, released a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
I'm Magnus, he said, and for some reason, putting a name to the face made him just a little less scary. But that didn't mean she was ready to trust him; nor did it mean he was alone or that he had good intentions when he asked, In the mood for a hunt?
She took a risk in taking her eyes off him to scan the rest of the open field — or what of it she could see, anyway, moving only her eyes to keep him in her peripherals. She was hungry, she thought to herself, but she'd be damned if she needed the help of a stranger after all these months living alone.
"There's nothing out here," she said matter-of-factly, weariness creeping into her tone and into the judgment of her eyes, "unless you're capable of taking down an elk."
Hi, came his simple greeting, and if Mauti had been a weaker woman she might have fainted on the spot. Instead she dipped her nose at him, released a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
I'm Magnus, he said, and for some reason, putting a name to the face made him just a little less scary. But that didn't mean she was ready to trust him; nor did it mean he was alone or that he had good intentions when he asked, In the mood for a hunt?
She took a risk in taking her eyes off him to scan the rest of the open field — or what of it she could see, anyway, moving only her eyes to keep him in her peripherals. She was hungry, she thought to herself, but she'd be damned if she needed the help of a stranger after all these months living alone.
"There's nothing out here," she said matter-of-factly, weariness creeping into her tone and into the judgment of her eyes, "unless you're capable of taking down an elk."