Bramblepoint Forged from the ashes

She had wanted to get home fast.  It'd almost been a month now since she'd been at the fen and she missed it and her family a ton.  While she was not done with closing the problems of her past, she would deal with the rest later.  Right now she just wanted to get home as fast as possible.

She scurried so fast that she didn't notice the small yet sharp rock before her.  As soon as she step on it she jump back with a startled yelp as a trickle of blood oozed from her paw.  "Shit," she hissed through clenched teeth, but then proceeded to lick her paw, doing her best to clean it.

Contemplating about the weather, while sitting in front of a freshly killed yet otherwise hardly touched rabbit, was not something Birk often did and yet today was different. Having had many generations of tough wolves that had called the vast ice fields their home, behind him, he possessed a very peculiar skill, which he refered to as "snow sense". The moment the weather was about to change for colder and therefore for worse, he had this inkling feeling that made him both serious and restless. While not yet visible, Birk knew, what was coming his way. 

To say that he was disappointed was an understatement, he had grown used to the mild climate and easy life here, and like so many others, who hate to have their comforts in life taken away from them, he loathed the fact that he would not be able to outrun the winter. It had tricked the young ice giant and he could almost hear it hiss... "Wait for it?" Birk furrowed his brow, when he realized that the figurative hiss was actually a real one. "Who is there?!" he yelled, not realizing that between him and the other wolf stood only a thick and reasonably large bush.

She froze at the sound of a yell, slowly letting her paw touch the ground again, for that could be dealt with later, first she wanted to find out who this was.  Slowly she began to make her way around the bush, soon enough discovering a pale colored male, with a rabbit at his feet.

She cautiously began to pick her way towards him, and sat once she was around three feet away.  "Who are you?"  She asked him, wanting a response from him before she actually gave her own.

Unlike few other similar encounters, which included calling out to total strangers (and possible sources of danger) in the very least favorable circumstances, this one actually held a promise to be a pleasant one. Based solely on the fact that the person, who came into his sight was a perfectly normal (and hopefully sane), sensible young woman. 

"Well, hello!" Birk did not waste any time. "For a moment there I thought that you might be a snot troll waiting for an attack, but you seem as far from it as a kookers having actual brains. My name is Birk and may I be blessed to hear yours?"

Basically everything he said made absolutely no sense.  What in world was a snot troll?  What was a kooker?  Although for some reason, something told her that she just didn't even want to go into the trouble of asking this guy.

"Hi Birk."  She greeted in reply, just a little bit reluctantly.  "I'm Odette," she told him in turn.  She took a small step aay from him, so small that she hoped he didn't notice, because he was already wierding her out with all his nonsense talk.  "Are you from around here?"  She asked him, curious to know if he was from a pack near here, or if he was just a traveller.  She assumed the later.

Had Odette been interested in the nonesense (that made perfect sense to Birk), he would have happily explained that "snot trolls" were little, horrible, smelly little bastards that dwelled under ice, fed on raw fish, liked to catch stranger's by their feet and - as their name implied - they had a constant cold. A snot troll without streaks of sticky snot coming from their nostrils was a very rare, if an impossible sight. As for the "kookers" - well, they were brainless creatures a mix between jelly-fish and some sort of a cloudy blob and you usually saw them, when you were delirious after eating too much of a rotten whale-meat. Whether they were real creatures or just another "green fairies" was something scientists still argued over.

But since she did not ask, Birk replied to questions she did place. "Birk from the Ice fields that definitely aren't from around here. What about you?"

Ice fields... huh.  She supposed that'd be a nice place to come from because of how used to this weather you could be.  Although he was quite right that he wasn't from around here.  You could just see it in almost everything she did.  It wasn't like she'd tell him that though.

"Oh.  I'm Odette, I've always love in Teekon."  She replied to the male, who she was beginning to think she should leave soon as she wasn't so interested in this nonsense he was talking about. Plus he was kind of creeping and weirding her out.

Now and then it occurred to Birk that not all people perceived his friendly nonesense banter as something that would make them at ease to be in his company. More often though he was blissfully unaware of that fact and, whenever people excused themselves after exchanging few sentences with him, he truly believed that it was because they really had a business elsewhere and not that it had something/anything to do with him.  

This was the latter case. He did not catch the slightest uneasy vibe in this girl's demeanor, therefore, feeling encouraged, he went on: "What pack are you from? I have met quite a few at this point - Silver River, Redhawk cal-something and Broken... Broken Antler Fen, that's right." He was bad at remembering names.

This guy was quite wierd to her, so she was rightful confused when he mentioned Broken Antler Fen.  Her pack.  Had he talked to someone else from her pack then?  Perhaps her Mother or Father?  Curiousity overtook her, wondering how this strange one had come to know of the fen.

"I'm actually from Broken Antler Fen," she replied, "how did you happen to hear of it?"

"I met one of the leaders, I guess," Birk scratched behind his ears, trying to recall anything else about the encounter. He was bad with names, therefore he did not even try to look for that, but maybe he could conjure up an image of the person. Yet after an intense minute of trying he had found many faces he had seen during his travels, but he had no way of telling if the one or the other belonged to the said leader.

"A nice guy," he shrugged.

One of the leaders... sounded like Sebastian if Birk said he was a guy.  Still Birk seemed very... how did she put this lightly... messed up.  Not that she would ever say that to him, but to her it was a true fact.  Birk was indeed pretty messed up in the head, so he could really be talking about anyone right now.

Still she decided to at least see if his craziness wouldn't interfer with this response.

"Are you talking about Sebastian perhaps?  My Father?"  She asked him, with a slight cock of her head.

"Might as well been him," Birk agreed and shrugged, because he sincerely had no idea, what the name of the guy had been. For a moment it occurred to him that this could have been a trick question - Odette could have mentioned any other name and he would have agreed regardless.

"Though he did not say that he had a daughter," he added, remembering mainly that the man had attempted to persuade him to join the group and that Birk had promised to consider the option.

She nodded at his response, it probably was her Dad, even though Burke claimed he'd never mentioned a daughter, it just seemed like Sebastian would be the one most likely to be talking with this stranger about the Fen.

"Oh, alright."  She replied with a shrug.  Then as to not prolong the conversation any longer, knowing it would probably be good to head back now she began to turn with a goodbye to the stranger called Birk.  "I'd better be heading back," she told him, then with that she left the scene.