Shadewood I went out to the hazel wood

Saena's last frightful memory of the wilds was of the blight of famine, and as she returned with summer tapering to an end, it was with a great sense of relief that she saw the trees alive and well.

There was much she still didn't remember about the place, but as she threaded her way betwixt elm and oak, her thoughts were on the wilderness around her. The thumping sound of hidden animal feet in the underbrush brought calm to her heart. The rustle and whisper of leaves passing one over the other as their boughs shook in the wind was as a lullaby. Even the sight of a wasp winging by made her lips twitch into a smile. Momentarily, she was lost in it. The place she'd gone beyond the wilds when her mind was blank was thicker than this place, more lush and vibrant, but there was no sight so beautiful as her lifelong home recovering, and she basked in it for a time.

She was still far from where she thought home would be, though, and the Shadewood was only vaguely familiar to her, cast beneath a haze as if she remembered it from a dream and not from her reality. Many of her returning memories were still foggy that way. Still, there was enough familiarity for her to know roughly which way to go from there. Once she finished drinking in the sight of autumn descending upon a lively wilds, she oriented herself for the south and picked up her pace.

much like saena, the sunspear had been enjoying the splendor of the late summer. dread filled her heart, for she knew it would not last -- soon the season would turn and they would be thrust violently into winter.

with a pluck to her trot the gamine creature mosed through the wood, simply content to survey the terrain. as she did so she thought she heard the tread of another, and most curious the woman made her way to the pale creature.

from a distance even a fiercely cut woman as herself could appreciate saeana's physical appearance and the striking red that simmered in a semi-mask on her features. arunik'ra was compelled to meet this creature, to study her -- boldly she departed from the fern and placed herself directly in front of the wolf's egress. "hail, stranger." she purled in voice thickly punctuated with a rough and foreign accent: "where is it you're in such a rush to go?"

Eventually, her sweeping gait would bring her to the river bordering the wood, and at some narrow point along its breadth she would cross it and find her way to the plateau on the other side, but not before she was found by someone else. Arunik'ra emerged from somewhere deeper in the wood, planting herself in Saena's path as though with purpose. Suspiciously, the Redleaf slowed her pace, but the words that the red-haired she-wolf spoke were seemingly innocuous, and Saena sans some of her memories was a much calmer and less paranoid woman than she had been in the past.

They weren't so different in stature, she and Arunik'ra. She noted that with the keen eye of a hunter appraising a companion. Yet there was something distinctly more exotic about Arunik'ra, which Saena would not know was due to a fundamental difference in exact species. She hadn't encountered a red wolf before, or at least didn't remember such an encounter, and so she noted the narrow angles and slim lines of her company with no more knowledge gained from it. If anything, she would assume the woman was part coyote, but if so, she was wolf enough that that was at least unmistakable and so no questioning glances were thrown, despite Saena's dislike for coyotes.

"Home," she answered quietly with a polite twist of her ears and a cant of her head. "Who's asking?" She couldn't help being curious about the other's reason for entering her line of sight, if there even was one. Perhaps there wasn't even a motive here, but if there was, Saena would know of it.

if arunik'ra had been apprehensive of the wolf's reaction, it did not show. not every wolf took kindly to being abruptly stopped, a fact the sunspear had learned by reciprocating teeth. yet saena was not aggressive -- at least not yet -- arunik'ra canted her muzzle to the side to view the pied wolf wholly.

"arunik'ra." she answered, parsing her name carefully. she knew for most, especially those born in the woodlands, that the name would be terribly foreign and as such, nearly incomprehensible. in the winderness, a name was rarely enough -- intentions had to be transparent and arunik'ra did not grinch on the details. "sunspear of molech's fire, and res drunak of the malkaria." with that she made her deportment evident by the sweep of her tail in confidence. "out on a scouting mission, for we are new to this place. where is home? does one need an escort?"

The word that slipped from her companion's tongue was indeed incomprehensible, such that the only part that remained in her head two seconds later was the first syllable: Arr. She decided against using this to address the red-haired she-wolf and instead attempted to focus on the proffered titles to gain understanding, although they were nearly as incomprehensible to Saena. The lilting accent didn't help.

"Um," she hummed, reluctant to cause offense with her ignorance and yet unable to really understand anything the other wolf said. "That sounds.... impressive...?" Her confusion and lack of understanding were on full display, causing her to grin sheepishly and hope and pray that Arunik'ra's titles were, in fact, impressive.

"I'm Saena," she returned at last, remembering her manners at least that much, though she hesitated when it came to her own titles. She was an alpha, she almost said reflexively, except she knew she wasn't. Best not to mention it. "Home is south, I think." The offer of escort was appreciated but for the moment Saena tilted her head dismissively. There were other matters to attend, now.

Like who "we" were, Saena wondered next, for once curious for the sake of curiosity and not because she wanted to snuff out an encroaching force. "You have others with you?"

confusion was writ plainly across saena's visage, though arunik'ra did not blame her for being mystified. at best, arunik'ra's accent made even the most innocuous and plain word seem complex, and the pale wolfess was not the first to be perplexed by the red priestess' dialect.

she smiled simply as the female said it sounded impressive; in many ways it was, and she did not wish to discourage her new comrade or add to her bewilderment. "it is." she affirmed simply, chosing monosyllabic words with care.

when the female inquired as to who else accompanied arunik'ra, the scarlet woman answered readily. arunik'ra had never seen the point of hiding molech's light from heathens; nor had she ever seen the virtue in guile. she was a sharp woman, a cold woman -- but she was a woman that understood the truth of the world had a proclivity for severing a soul at the core. lies and untruth were harmless, but truth -- truth could shatter a soul.

"i do. a coven." she lifted her muzzle towards the direction of the copse. "we have settled in sunmote copse. we are called the malkaria." she assumed that since saena had not recognized the distinguishment of her titles that she was likely blissfully unaware of the malkaria's existence, and as such, explained: "there are four of us other than myself. my sister, the ekar-aji -- alphess -- two other women and a man. we follow the light of molech." she had not made motion to move yet, but considered it despite saena artfully declining her offer to accompany her. "do you believe in a god, saena?" she asked pointedly, tending her narrow snout in saena's direction. arunik'ra was not a fanatic -- she was a fiercely loyal wolf to molech, but she recognized that heathens often thought those who held religious thoughts were rogue heretics to be avoided. because of that, she did not delve into her religion.

Oh, good, thought Saena with a rush of relief when Arunik'ra agreed with her assessment of her titles. While she was no stranger to being an abrasive and tactless wolf, Saena had changed enough to care about whether that was the first impression she gave. These days she would prefer to not make new enemies. She had enough lurking in the fog of her yet missing memories.

The name of the place Arunik'ra gestured was unfamiliar, if only because Saena had named her woods and nowhere else, but she followed the invisible line that the red woman's snout drew and she was sure knew the place. She'd only been there once or twice, but she'd certainly walked in it. To know it was claimed now sent a weird feeling lancing through her stomach, a vestigial reaction from her days as a leader with many foes, but she quickly composed herself. It was inevitable that other wolves would seek to claim the land, and they were far from her home in the south, and anyway, she no longer called the shots.

"Malkaria," she repeated quietly, rolling the word in her mouth. Some of the other things Arunik'ra said sailed right over her head, and others she couldn't have pronounced if she tried, but she got the gist of it. It was a small group that followed the light of something-or-other. She assumed that was a religion based on Arunik'ra's next question, to which she shook her head.

"I was raised without beliefs," she shared, although she was willing to bet that she wouldn't have willingly believed in anything anyway. If only she could remember further back, when she was very young and dreamed at times of a simorgh and a white bear named Atka, and if only she had known her mother's secret belief in those things, and Hawkeye's, the ones they had never shared (or never been able to). "But spirits visit me," she added, and immediately wondered why she had been compelled to share that with a perfect stranger, when the only other wolves who knew were her estranged adoptive father, Lasher, and her ex-mate.

arunik'ra expected saena to renounce her pointed question, much in the way she had deftly avoided arunik'ra's offering of companionship: it was with pleasant surprise that she beheld the white female's answer. she was visited by spirits.

arunik'ra was immediately interested, more so than before -- not for a single minute did she doubt the truth in saena's words, and not for a single second did disbelief or repudiation flit across her muzzle. arunik'ra knew there were spirits in this world, and it delighted her to know saena was touched however slightly by molech's light.

her ears cupped forward in interest, and the female turned her tapered muzzle to saena with great attentitiveness. "how long have these spirits visited you?" she queried immediately, casting a sharp eye about her as if to see one of the very spirits saena mentioned.

The red woman's transformation was instantaneous, and even the often imperceptive Saena noticed it and drew her head back ever-so-slightly. She wasn't offended by Arunik'ra's curiosity and further questioning, but she was taken aback. The only other wolf who had shown any interest in Saena's spirits was Lasher. Reek had shrugged it off as inexplicable craziness, although Saena didn't know that, and Peregrine had hardly cared at all beyond sharing the connection with her mother.

Whether it was a breath of fresh air to have someone take an interest or not depended what Arunik'ra did next. Saena's eyes lifted to the red wolf's ears, tracing the flared sun line that reflected off the fine hairs lining the lobe, but her mind was flipping back through what she remembered of her past. There was a gaping hole in her childhood still, and try as she might, she couldn't remember when the spirits had become visible to her. That part of her life remained blank.

"I don't know," she answered lamely, and then added, "a long time ago, I guess." Though perhaps it wasn't so long ago. The sporadic holes in her episodic memory twisted her ability to be really certain of anything.

while saena's answer was not one the wolf was hoping for, arunik'ra was not discouraged. she peered at the woman slyly, trying to gauge if the female was truthful in her answer. saena had given her no reason to think otherwise, so arunik'ra took what the wolf said at face value.

"no matter," she uttered thickly, waving away saena's poor recollection with a sway of an angled wrist. "is not important. what is important -- these spirits, do they harm you?" the red dagger's brow furrowed slightly with concern for this new-met wolf; was molech's eye upon her?

The Saena of old would've cut the conversation short at this point, deeming Arunik'ra a bewildering and potentially dangerous creature. The other's keen interest in her did tweak some cautious part of her brain, but the new Saena, an amalgamation of who she'd been without her memories and who she was before, was more accepting of quirks. And Arunik'ra's interest in her was refreshing enough that any feeling of uncertainty was washed away. Out west, she'd been just another face in the crowd. It felt good to garner someone's attention once more.

"I don't think so," she mused, trying to recall a time when the spirits had hurt her. "I'm afraid my memory isn't what it was, but they don't really do anything as far as I can recall." The spirits neither spoke to her nor revealed anything to her. The two times she'd deigned to follow them, they'd led her to trouble, but Saena didn't remember it and so said nothing of it. "They're just animals that watch me and then disappear," she concluded, "and they're not there all the time. Why, should they be harmful?"

She was at least partially hopeful that Arunik'ra had more answers than questions, but she was also hopeful that soon the topic would be exhausted and they could speak of less incorporeal things. Idly she cast her eyes to the sky and noted dark clouds gathering on the horizon, and gauged that they had perhaps an hour or two before it began to rain.

the red priestess could sense the topic was a strained one; as much as she wished to satiate her curiosity, she did not want to cause saena to flee from her company. she pulled her muzzle back in a manner that was not unlike re-sheathing a dagger; the hungry yellow of her gaze followed saena's own to the collecting clouds above.

"no, they should not be harmful." she answered with a sway of her slender head. "they are signs, but i could not interpret them for you. the inward eye is a great gift, but so few possess it." arunik'ra was convinced this wolf, whatever her station, was a wolf branded by molech's fire -- perhaps it was a test from molech to try to show this woman the light. yet there was something about saena that seemed unreceptive to religious norms, and arunik'ra did not push.

"when you are home, if the spirits visit you and are ever harmful -- come to me in the sunmote copse, and i will help you -- we will help you."

Saena breathed a sigh of relief. She had enough on her plate without malicious spirits chasing her around and attempting to bring an early conclusion to her life. Though given her history with them, and what she did remember, Saena would've probably doubted Arunik'ra if she'd said they were meant to bring harm. The piebald wolf was more likely to believe her own experiences than the words of another, always had been.

She dipped her head with a grateful smile. "Thank you for your kindness," she said graciously, for once managing to sound like a properly raised group wolf and not a rebellious teen. "And for the offer," she added. She somehow doubted she would be seeking them out, but perhaps in the future she would visit their borders and see what she could learn. If naught else, she could seek Arunik'ra for friendship and nothing more.

"I should let you return to your coven before the storm," she said, but there was no need to gesture to the looming clouds. Arunik'ra was already aware. Saena wanted to seek shelter as well, but she was too driven to rest yet, and would travel in the rain for some time before doing so.

arunik'ra drew her attention to the swell of cloud overhead, a frown fretting her features. saena was right, the gathering looked ominous -- if arunik'ra was quick, perhaps she could avoid the fale.

she rose and offered a thin smile, one that overtook her slender muzzle with genuine inflection. "of course." she answered simply, and readied herself to leave -- but not before calling out one last pleasantry to the female. "may the inward eye never fail you."

with that the gamine female made her leave, carrying with her the burden of her troubled thoughts. it caused her great conflict to have known saena, for arunik'ra believed saena's sight a test from molech. she had never known the many armed god to try her so thoroughly, and spent the rest of the night inspecting inwardly what their chance encounter could possibly mean.

Arunik'ra's parting comment met with the curious lifting of both Saena's ears and head, but she made no comment. She would dwell on it in the days to come. Whatever Arunik'ra meant about inward eyes, it wasn't more urgent than Saena's need to press on, and so she let the woman turn back to her copse. She turned as well, orienting herself alongside the river and continuing her path to the south.