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Haurchefant scarcely regrets joining his men for their first midday patrol, especially not when their two local viera (and his two friends) had decided to join them. Well… Join was a more polite word for it. The two really just appeared from the snows and walked with the group, who took an embarrassing amount of time to notice them. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t question it. Instead, he slows his pace to fall to the back of the group with the two taller men, happily craning his neck up as he speaks at them. The snow falls as it always does, his men march on, the viera keep their reticent silence. Reticent, but amenable to his mindless chatter and insistent flattery.
That is, until he glances away to examine his men, and suddenly the two viera are gone. No footprints in the snow, no crunching, not even a breath in his direction and they’re gone. How does one lose two dark skinned giant men with rabbit-like ears in a relatively light snowfall? Haurchefant couldn’t tell you. The elezen just attributes it to their lifelong hunting and hiding skills and leaves it at that. There’s no use questioning the frankly arousing ease the two of them slip away with, their presence as fleeting as the sunlight between heavy snow clouds.
“Silverhair!” a voice calls over the snows. Haurchefant turns to look around and catches sight of one of the viera bouncing and waving his arm at the crest of one of the multitude of dangerous slopes. Rian, the veena. He, again, doesn’t question how neither viera sinks into the snow, especially in their heeled shoes. The two could easily be spirits of nature itself and no one would question it, not with the way the snow-bright light harshly contrasts their features to something far past ethereal, something heavenly among the damnable snow and cold. Drawing close, he takes the hand offered to him to step up onto the slope, careful not to crumble it under the weight of himself and his armor, and stares out in the direction that the quieter viera stares. If he gazes at the strong jawline and sharp cheekbones of said viera a moment longer than is necessary, no one is to know.
The reverant surge in his heart dies the moment he sees a distant flash of black across the snowscape. First instinct says heretics, but no man nor woman of that cause is so tall nor willowy. A beast of some nature, perhaps? Surely not anything draconic in nature. What… could it be? Squinting only serves to blur everything white, and whatever they had seen has already blipped back into the endless snows. Tension lacing the air between the two viera only just registers when he stops focusing. It’s a subtle thing, not the same tension the barracks fill with before a fight, nor the tension Aymeric bleeds before a meeting, but something more akin to… Well, akin to a coeurl spotting its prey. They are not readying their nerves, they are readying to pounce. The sensation trapped here between them drives a fission down his spine. He will indulge in that thought later.
“Morvudd?” Rian asks first, ears perked entirely forward as his eyes scrape across the sightline.
“Leshy.” the other viera, Adah, responds. He… doesn’t know what either of those things are, but surely they haven’t plagued Coerthas before. He feels like that would be a report he would remember. The elezen glances between them before squinting at the landscape, ignoring the nearby crunch of his men in the deeper snow. Their patrol normally doesn’t take them this deep towards the snowdrifts. “Was woodlands once.” Adah speaks again before beginning his way down the slope in long, elegant strides. Fury, his legs are so long.
“Wait-! The snows down there are dangerous-!” Useless, the elezen knows the two viera can handle far worse terrain with ease, but the instinct to keep others out of the refrozen snow is deep in his bones from personal experience.
“Stay.” Ah. A commanding voice with no sternness cut away by the wind. Adah’s command stops him in his tracks, a step away from following them down the slope.
“Be safe, my dearest friends! We return to camp by the next second bell, do come meet us and regale us with what fight you may have!” Watching them disappear down into the refrozen slopes and drifts hurts a little, but the elezen knows that the two viera will return to warm themselves at his hearth.
And return they do, though in the stillness of the night later that week. He’d been spending the evening at the Lord Commander’s estate, having handed in his report and been subsequently whisked away by the man himself. In fact, the two knights had just poured their wine when the door swung open. Characteristic of the two viera, really, a habit they picked up as to not startle the others with their sudden presence. Knowing they are there is the only reason the soft click click click of their heels across the wooden floors is audible to the elezen.
Neither turn to acknowledge the viera as they come closer, which was really their mistake. They’d grown too accustomed to the hunters returning and planting themselves in front of the fireplace or on the floor at their feet, he thinks. Aymeric’s face twists first, the moment he sits up more is the moment Haurchefant regrets not turning to greet the viera. His reflexes are the only reason the glass of wine isn’t knocked from his hands when Adah easily tosses something to him. That something feels and looks distinctly like a skull, with antlers. Because it is. Uneasy air envelopes the odd skull and suddenly, Haurchefant regrets all his knight training. Why did he have to catch it?
“Leshy.” Adah repeats from before.
“What exactly does that mean?” the Lord Commander eases himself back into his chair, a facsimile of relaxation now.
“Forest spirit. Meant there were woodlands there before the calamity.” It seems as though that was the only explanation they were getting, as the viera turned and planted himself in front of the fire. The situation unsettles both elezen. Yet, Haurchefant finds something stirring in his gut at the thought that he is holding some potentially ancient creature’s skull in his hand, that his righteous hunter sought to bring it back to him as a token of a fight well won. The silver haired knight sips his wine as he weighs the skull in his hand, satisfaction roaring to life alongside his pride (and other rather unmentionable feelings).
The instant Haurchefant has a spare moment, he’s yanked away from camp Dragonhead, which honestly is no surprise at all. Adah and Rian already expressed their vehement dislike for his business and already pulled him away to entertain their whims when they got the chance, but it would seem as though his acceptance of the curious antlered skull had awakened something in them. Or perhaps they took it as permission to be more personal. That may just be his hopeful projection though. Walking the snowy wilds with the vieras was peaceful so the knight kept his inane chatter to a minimum in favor of attempting to enjoy the atmosphere as the other two (seemed to) like it.
The landscape seems somewhat familiar to him, but it isn’t until the viera step up the snow bank (and helps him up) that he realizes that they are back along the patrol route. The thought of it reminds him of standing there between the two of them as they watch their newfound prey. Instead of betraying how he is feeling, the elezen smiles up at the other two men.
“Are you going to tell me of your battle now?” he asks, mostly because he cannot parse out the reason they would bring him here. Surely it must be so they can show him their hunt, right? No, it would seem, as Rian shakes his head with the slightest sly smile and eyes as sharp as a sword. An arm around his waist is the only warning Haurchefant gets before the veena yanks him close and easily hops down the slope, steps as light and unburdened by his weight as any Ishgardian dragoon’s. Adah simply walks down beside them, where Haurchefant can oogle at the supple muscles of his legs during those long strides.
“We want to show you something.” Rian says once he sets the knight down, reaching over to fondly fix his hair and armor, as though those fingers of his weren’t the same things that gripped a spear so deadly it could bring down dragons. Then, they just… turn and walk off into the snowy landscape, leaving the knight to hurry after them. He’s not that much shorter, it isn’t hard to catch up to them normally, but even in his own environment he still feels as though they leave him in the dust. The snow is slick and delicate under their feet where it has melted in the briefest sunlight then refrozen as nearly ice. It’s beautiful, really, the ice is curiously fogged with a snowlike look inside, as though it attempted to retain its soft beauty. It’s a shame the soldiers are normally so focused on not falling that they cannot take a moment to appreciate the wonders of the landscape. Even frozen, Coerthas is a gift in itself.
And then he falls. Trips over something white covered and blended into the ground that juts curiously from the earth. Rian lets out a sharp laugh that most would consider rude or mocking, but Haurchefant knows that to just be the man’s tone. Adah says nothing, makes no show of amusement as he sweeps the knight back to his feet and picks bits of ice and snow from his hair to tidy him up, taking a moment to check him over for any wounds. There are none, the corner of his head smarts slightly but no skin is broken and he doubts he will bruise at all. Once he confirms that their guest is okay, the rava turns and sweeps his eyes over the landscape in a signal to the elezen. And who is Haurchefant to begrudge him that? He obediently looks around, finding many of those jutting pieces of ice around now that he has the knowledge that they exist. Some are clear as the one he fell over, others are a curious ruddy black within their ice.
It takes him a moment (he would be remiss to not admire the landscape at least a little) before he realizes what exactly he is seeing. Meant there were woodlands there before the calamity. These were part of the woodlands then? With the state of the area, the threatening points of the remaining stumps, Haurchefant wonders what happened to the trees themselves. Did they simply freeze and rot away over time as they unfroze, then refroze, if the trees suffered that seeming hell. Or did the gods have the mercy for the trees to simply shatter in the cold. He knows they cannot feel, and yet even the simplest beings rendered to such suffering makes his heart ache. It must show on his face.
“Fought it further away.” the rava says, one ear facing him and the other turned to listen to the nearby landscape, where more of the ruddy ice is; “Cmon.” And he leaves again, expecting Haurchefant to follow. The three make their way through the ice, slower so that the elezen can admire the jutting ice (and to ensure he doesn’t fall again). The cove they come to is strange in its beauty. A single fallen log, frozen and partially rotted lays there in the “opening”, spared all but one of those ruddy ice stumps. Frozen here and there in the ice are pockets strangely shaped as though they once trapped the corpses of beasts of some kind. Now though, it takes a closer look to see the bone white of animal skeletons there among the snowy white. So this is a natural graveyard of sorts, for the forest itself, he would dare say.
“You two really are-” Haurchefant can’t help the reverent praise that falls from his mouth as naturally as water rushes down a fall, the sentence cut short when Rian steps in close behind him. Their heels are noticeably audible on the ice. A sign that they are being conscious of him. A sign that they are watching him. Skin prickling at the feeling of being watched so, Haurchefant takes a half step back. Adah steps closer, but not into his space, and watches him with the same heavy gaze he gives everything. It is arresting. His feet may as well be freezing into the ever re-freezing ice of this cove. He may as well become a skeleton with the animals here.
Hips cocked, a set of eyes narrowed. Haurchefant feels as though he could drop to his knees and give prayer for the holy sight before him (give apology for the sin he wishes to commit upon such a holy sight). The Warrior of Light before him an altar for his depravity. His accompanying holy light pressed steadfast to Huarchefant's back now, ever aware of the way their bodies move together with the ebb and flow of the veena's breathing, ever aware of how much wider, taller, and deadly these men are than him. A knight of Ishgard dwarfed by the mere presence of men born and bred for the hunt, men who could chase him through the snows like prey and easily sink their claws in once they caught him. No mercy. No hesitation. Just the steady hand of a man so powerful he could bring nations to their knees (or Aymeric, fore he seems to be their nation), so beautiful that he could captivate the Ishgardian public, so confident he could sway the fate of battles with his presence.
If Haurchefant's next breath shakes, neither viera says anything. If his heart begins to rattle in his chest like a bird caged at the mere sound of another heeled footstep coming closer, neither say anything. But they know. They can hear it, feel it in the anxious energy he exudes. He does not have to see Rian's face to know the smirk upon it, as he has felt it pressed upon his skin so often in the warmth of his bed.
"T'was a glorious hunt, wasn't it?" He asks, voice already dropped to something lower. Adah steps in closer.
"T'will be." Said viera's voice is low and quiet. Will? As absurd as the idea is, being chased through the snow like an animal does spark that smoldering feeling into something burning.