Her ranging continued onward, pressing north, yet east most hours of most days. Sometimes the paths meandered more, but on the whole, she was content as long as she could keep moving somehow and in some way. This time of year, none of the routes were as fast as she liked. With this much snow piled up everywhere and the cold winds quite unforgiving, she knew they fought against her every step of the way.
She tried to follow trails traveled by others when she could find them--wolves or any other creatures with four enough feet to make prints. She wasn't picky, but she just got tired of carving out her own sometimes. As such, a fresh, powdery, deep meadow of snows was getting to her when she found this blessing that she almost couldn't believe. Jomyo breathed deep a warm, damp air and savored it--perhaps the most pleasant thing she'd felt all day.
On delicate, light steps, she went closer to the heart of the hot springs without any hesitation, hungry for the relief sheltered here.
Here on the backend of wintertime, she swiftly found she was not adjusted to this much humidity. The haze it hung heavy on the air, although pleasant and warm, did little to keep her senses sharp. All she could feel was vaguely damp and smell was warm water, and being a touch distracted by all of this, she did not catch onto the approach of another soon enough. Not until they crashed, and Jomyo felt a startled little yelp rise out of her before she could even think to catch it.
She stumbled back, hackles rising while trying her best to first, find out who this was! and second, keep all of her feet beneath her. Easy enough to want that, especially on sore feet and worn muscles, less easy to actually have it play out. She had not been at all ready for something like this and was swiftly looking to correct this before it could get worse.
The scout scrabbled around enough to mostly keep upright, but once she steadied out again, she was a little ruffled up about this. "Hey!" she barked out in a general sense, then turned to eyeball the stranger--unsure of what to do with a wolf that had literally appeared out of the hot springs mist, and a bit frustrated by being so surprised. "Are you alright? Where did you even come from?" she asked, less startled, more.. curious as she leaned in to gawk back at her new, sudden company.
Enough adrenaline from the crash and the subsequent startling kept her buzzing neatly along, but soon, she felt her ears fan outward after the stranger apologized. But, at least she was alright. She looked okay so far. Well, not that Jomyo could be the best judge of it--she'd never seen this wolf before, so really knew better than to think she knew what was normal for her and not. Yet the point remained, at first glance, she seemed fine. A little shaken up, but fine. "It's okay.. just startled me, really. I've never been here before.. didn't know where I should be looking either, honestly," she said, giving a small shake of her head to try to take some of the weight of the blame off her sudden company's dark shoulders; Jomyo was scolding herself for letting it happen, too, anyway. She just did so quietly. "Plus it's pretty disorienting, especially at first and all." she mentioned, swinging her nose around to the humid, swirling mists that draped their very air before returning to the face of the other wolf.
But really, the scout was fine too.. now that it was settled and she was feeling much less ruffled. She would survive. "I'm Jomyo," she returned with, and immediately filed the name Raiden away with a quick nod and straightening her stance just barely. "Glad you're good, though. Do you live near here?" she asked, inevitably enough, especially since she had a lot she wanted to find out about this area, and only a few small leads on where to look.
The ambar was used to hearing her name on all sorts of tongues. A tiny piece of her could enjoy the lilt of it, flavored by all sorts of accents and tones, and she nodded her head in quick reply as if to say likewise with a little tail wag to match, Despite circumstance, it was nice to meet her--although she had been ready to be thankful for any kind of friendly face. She was easing down and out enough to find her favorable company.. and definitely the most interesting she had come across yet today.
"Kind of?" she asked with a curious tone, her interests peaked but not demanding in any way. Suddenly she wondered if Raiden was a scout too, and by kind of, it meant she only stayed there sometimes. Or who knew. The situation was not hers to judge but she wasn't going to complain if she could find out more. Regardless, the name of a place certainly stuck with her. "I'm guessing that's by the mountains, right? I'm heading that way to look for Northstar Vale, actually.." she mentioned, hazarding that a plateau in the name meant a real plateau and presumably there was only the one set of mountains up ahead. "I'm from Tindómë.. It's pretty far south of here so I don't really get up this way much." She knew very little by name in the area for now although she was painfully eager to change this.