"Anrak! Anrak come on! It's getting dark out and you know we'll get in trouble if we stay out longer!" a voice hailed him from a little ways away.
He perched there on the ridge, his thick, glacier colored fur blending him in with the ridge of glacial ice he was perched on. He didn't move from his perch, watching the strange buildings and people that inhabited them. They were new here and seemed to have some sort of dragon with them from what he had seen.
"ANRAK!" the shout echoes across the glacier, but luckily wasn't loud enough to be heard at the settlement.
He growls and twists around, leaping off the ledge and towards the direction of the voice, claws digging deep into the ice to keep himself from sliding. Small, strange looking furred wing like limbs wrap around him, further insulating him from the chill of the glacier. Legends said that once his kind could fly in the sky with the dragons, but that, when their nomadic ways had led them up here, their wings had evolved to be more useful, in this case acting as more warmth beyond what normal clothes could give.
His clothes consist of knitted garments made from his own thick fur that he had shed over his lifetime. Just the general fact that he had shed enough to make several pairs of clothes proved that he was old enough to go where he wanted, but his younger brother didn't think so at all.
"All right then, youngest, lead the way home if you think you can," Anrak growls at the smaller wolf like boy.
"You led us out here!" the boy whines.
Anrak's pale gray eyes glint as he snarls, "Don't tell me that you didn't bother to memorize the way out here, you'll never become a Hunter if you keep doing that."
The boy starts sulking, glaring up at Anrak.
"Oh all right, Yarr, but pay attention this time."
Anrak turns and starts off towards the camp at a distance-eating lope, Yarr by his side. Anrak's pale gray eyes pick out tiny landmarks all but invisible and he changes his course according to those landmarks.
He and the rest of his nomadic pack were all wolf like beings, upright like humans, but furred like wolves and having wolfish muzzles and tails. There wasn't a great deal of color variation among his pack, the main body of them being silvery gray in color, with the oddball glacier color or moonshadow color being thrown out. He and Yarr were both glaciers, a blue white color with the occasional speck of black among their fur. They were also stranger than just their coloration made them. They were both almost more human than wolf, something that was very out of place in their tribe, where inbreeding had created an almost complete furry winged wolf in some cases.
The northern lights flash above them as the sun sinks below the horizon, coloring everything a strange reddish orange color.
They arrived at the camp with a biting wind at their backs and particles of ice finding ways to their skin. Anrak slips into the largest tent, which served for meetings and also always had a fire within it that burned coals and anything else that the fleet footed Gatherers could find off of the glacier.
Food was cooking over that fire, giving off a savory smell, and Anrak licked his lips. Yarr hurried in and huddled down near the fire, his fur starting to steam almost immediately. Anrak yawned then walked over to the fire and sprawled out beside it, basking in its warmth and also the smells of the cooking food.
The tent flap opens once more then falls shut and the deep silvery black fur of another being like Anrak, more human than wolf, seems to almost simultaneously absorb and reflect the firelight, making it harder to pinpoint exactly where this one was.
He smiles and looks up at the deep, midnight blue eyes of the female moonshadow as she steps up to the fire, carefully stepping around Yarr and laying down on the opposite side of the fire from him.
"Someday you're going to have to tell me what keeps you occupied to the point where you're almost never here, you've been like this for almost two years now," the female moonshadow remarks, her voice is musical and soft.
Anrak grins, "Why don't I show you then, Rissa?"
She tilts her head to one side, considering this, "Tonight?"
"Sure, just let me eat first," he replies.
She laughs, "Then eat, Anrak Snowblazer."
His tail flicks, hitting against the floor of packed snow with a light thump, as he reaches out and grabs a plate and some utensils then snags himself a piece of the roasting meat and places it on his plate, quickly devouring it.
Night had fully taken over the glacier by the time he had filled himself and felt ready for another journey. As he led the way back to his watching ridge, he couldn't help but feel that he was leading nothing but a shadow there, because Rissa blended in with the entire place so well she was almost entirely hidden.
When he reached the ledge he crouched down in his usual spot and felt her crouch down beside him. With gestures and murmured comments he outlined the entire settlement and what he thought certain buildings were used for.
The rush of wings caused his ears to lie back on his head, and he looked all around, looking for whatever had caused it.
A sharp crack was his only warning, as the ledge broke off and crashed down to the ground, a fair drop. He and Rissa fought to keep themselves on top of the chunk of ice and were mostly successful, having only slight injuries when the ice slammed into the ground below and shattered into small pieces.
With a growled command to stay still, Rissa rose and crept off, nothing more than a shadow. Anrak lay there among the broken ice, his fur helping to camouflage him from any watching eyes.
He had started to drift off to sleep when he felt her paw gently touch his shoulder. His eyes snap open and look up at her.
"We're trapped down here as far as I can tell. The nearest climbing point is at least three days travel away, over rough and dangerous terrain, and who knows if we'd be able to find enough food to keep us going."
He growls to himself, "Great, what absolutely annoying luck."
"There's always another option, we could finally find out all there is to know about that place you've been watching," she remarks.
He frowns, thinking, "But it's against pack laws to meet with outsiders."
"Does it look like we're close enough to the pack to get cast out for it? In all actuality, we were cast out the minute that ledge crumbled."
"True..."
"Aren't you in the least bit curious?"
Anrak rose and moved himself away from the shattered ledge, "You're worse than a sister sometimes, you know that? Sometimes I think you're worse than Yarr, too."
"Now that isn't nice, comparing me, Rissa, to that annoying brat Yarr," she growls at him playfully.
He shrugs and starts walking towards the buildings, throwing his reply over his shoulder, "Well you do seem to have most of his qualities."
"That's it!" Rissa leaps at Anrak and wraps herself around his upper body, "for that you get to carry me there."
"Yep, defiantly has Yarr's qualities," he mutters softly.
The two made a strange picture as they trooped into the complex of buildings, since it was obvious that this strange, glacier colored... wolf being... had another one on his back, one that almost couldn't be made out because of its coloration.
Anrak's ears flick back and forth, catching the muttered comments and questions as he passed by the different groups of humans.
"All right," he growls softly, "ride's over."
Rissa laughs softly then slides off his back, looking at the woman who approached them.
"Are you here for the clutch?" the woman asks.
"Clutch?" Anrak looks at Rissa with puzzlement on his face, she shrugs in return, "We're here because we fell off the glacier, although-- a clutch of what?"
"Dragons of course! What else?"
"Could be interesting," Rissa murmurs.
Anrak nods, he had always wondered what it was like to fly, and this looked like a good enough chance, "I guess we'll try then."
The woman smiles, "I'm Traena and who are you?"
"I'm Rissa Moonblack, and he's Anrak Snowblazer," Rissa replies.
"Nice to meet you, Rissa, Anrak. Now just follow that dragoner over there and he'll show you to your rooms," Traena replied as she turned to go back into the building she had come out of.
Anrak shrugs then turns and follows the dragoner, Rissa right behind him, into their new home.