Horizon Ridge the bear has two mouths!
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#1
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@Grayday, tag for visibility

After the first day or so outside of Drageda, even with @Blixen, she does start to feel a little homesick. Her last trips always resulted in a quick return but with the exploration and a friend, she doesn’t mind spending a few nights away. They’d found the base of the ridge, away from the ocean wind, to rest. Between the two of them, they find a meal to share and settle in. After a little while, however, Furi struggles to fall asleep even with her companion up close. By the time morning comes, she has only gotten a few hours of sleep but they hadn’t been disturbed, at least.

She slowly morphs away from Blixen, leaving her in her sleep for the time being. Her stomach rumbles, their meal the night before barely anything, and she sneaks off in an attempt to find something else they can share for breakfast. She doesn’t search for anything big—a rabbit or raccoon or another fox—but she isn’t in familiar terrain and soon she isn’t entirely sure where she’s gotten herself, and no closer to a meal than before.

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i'd give anything to hear you say it one more time
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#2
One more week, he told himself as he sniffed around the ridge, pretending he was paying attention to his surroundings. I'll give it one more week, and then I'll go looking for them.

It hadn't been all that long. It was a big journey, after all, and there was no reason for them to hurry. Perhaps Dawn and Aditya had really hit it off, and were enjoying a nice honeymoon away from home. Perhaps one of them had twisted an ankle, and had slowed their pace to keep up their strength. Perhaps Pema had found a teacher, and they were staying at another pack for a time to learn what they could before returning home. There were any number of explanations for their continued absence, and although Grayday could not help but worry and fear the worst, he knew it would be silly to go off after them at this point.

One more week.

He sighed and lifted his head, giving up the trail as a lost cause. He'd meant to do a bit of light hunting, but he'd lost track of whatever trail he thought he'd been following, too lost in his own thoughts to focus on a hunt.
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#3
Furi’s attention changes the moment a smell touches her nose and she turns, looking in one direction and immediately heading off the next. Her mouth pools with saliva that she licks back and it is relatively easy to pick up the trail of rabbit. At first, she is worried she’ll only be led to the den where she won’t be able to get anything out of the hard ground, even with digging, but to her surprise there are two on the surface rummaging around for whatever it is rabbits rummage around for. Knowing that she needs to get back to Blixen before the girl wakes up she acts quickly and abrasively, springing forward in launch. Unfortunately without taking the time to prepare, both rabbits scatter in opposite directions, giving her struggle to figure out which one is best to go after and, ultimately, both disappearing before she has a chance to come close to success.

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i'd give anything to hear you say it one more time
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#4
As he lifted his head, the male caught sight of a dark figure in the distance. A wolf, he thought, but it was impossible for him to tell. The wind was blowing their scents inland, useful to neither of them. Whatever the creature was, it was smaller than he was, and Grayday decided that he most likely would not have to worry about it.

At least until a terrible thought struck him. What if it was Khoe? What if she was coming back?

What if she'd been skulking around this whole time, tracking their activities from afar?

Grayday began to bristle, his ears slicking back in his anxiety. If it was Khoe, he decided, he would just have to kill her. He couldn't have the kids picking up her scent and getting their hopes up, and he wouldn't have her back in the territory. He wasn't angry anymore; it wasn't about punishment. She was just a loose end.

Conscious of his somewhat menacing stance, Grayday did his best to appear relaxed and unconcerned.
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The girl lets out a heavy sigh, disappointed in her failure at trying to catch something. She’d had a good streak back in Drageda but she’d gotten familiar with the land and knew where to go, but out here it seems to be a little different. This entire territory is beyond her scope of comfort and she doesn’t know where to run off to to try and find something else. It will just be easier to go back to their camp and wake Blixen up (if she’s not already) and get her to hunt with her. Two wolves are already better than one when it comes to these things, she realizes.
 
After a few minutes of contemplating, she accepts the defeat and begins to pack it up and go back. Her weight shifts and she is suddenly aware of a looming presence. Her ears fall back against her head as she turns, slowly, to figure out what exactly is staring at her. Nervously and carefully, she shifts and looks over at a familiar form—Grayday? She can’t remember—and whines. The two times he’s come upon her, someone else shows up quickly, and she half expects Blixen to show up but there is no sign.
 
Something seems a little off about the way he’s standing, even if there’s a signal of relaxation… somewhere. “I-I..” she trails off and clears her throat. “No one is with me,” she says, though she isn’t certain that’s the best thing to say. He’d gotten upset the last time when Eske had shown up, and maybe she’d gotten upset for a reason, too, but for now she plays her chances and shrinks back, uncertain what to expect next.

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i'd give anything to hear you say it one more time
that the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes
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#6
It was only at the sound of her voice that Grayday finally recognized the figure before him. Instantly, his calm facade fell into sullen avoidance. He had bad memories associated with attempting to interact with this girl, and his Pavlovian response was to avoid looking at her and call out in a clear voice:

"I'm not looking for trouble."

He turned his body away, taking her words at face value but still not quite able to relax in her presence. Still, he'd rather see the girl than Khoe - except for the part of him that wished he could kill her already, so that he'd never have to worry about it again.
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#7
His announcement is coupled with him turning away from her and Furi watches for a long moment before she knows how to respond. He’d approached her twice before, with someone always on her heels, but she’d been trying to have time away. Étoille’s interaction had been fairly benign as they exchanged information and the second, with Eske, less than pleasant. Her ears fall back against her head and she half expects Blixen to show up out of nowhere only to make it worse—sometimes she has the effect—but she notes nothing changing in the air.
 
“I know,” she says, softly. Her head lowers, too, and her tail drapes lazily behind her. He doesn’t have to stay, she won’t make him, but he also doesn’t have to this time. She briefly thinks what it would have been like if he’d found her before Eske, or if Eske hadn’t found her at all. She hadn’t been too far from where Eske had found her and she’d stumbled upon Grayday. “I’m just looking for something to catch,” she tells him but doesn’t offer anything else in return, waiting for his next move.

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i'd give anything to hear you say it one more time
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#8
Grayday stared at he a moment longer, his ears flicking back and then forward as he tried to figure out what he was meant to do. She was alone, minding her own business, so he resisted the urge to ask why she kept running around on her own when no one was allowed to talk to her. It'd been one bad encounter, after all, and he hadn't been any more reasonable than the girl's mother.

"Me too," he said eventually, though his attempts to actually hunt had been half-hearted at best.

He glanced back toward the plateau, wondering if it'd be better for him to just give up and go home before someone more irritating came along - but he wasn't yet ready to return to a territory where his daughter's scent was still fading.

Feeling tired and surly, the male went back to pretending to hunt. Hopefully, the little shewolf would see that there was nothing of interest about him and move on.
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Furi feels a little hope when Grayday finally responds, unable to decipher the extended silence in the moment. Maybe they could work together and find something. She will be back with Blixen in no time with something to eat if she had help and she’s about to open her mouth and offer such a wonderful, repairable idea, when he turns away from her and continues on in the same fashion as he’d approached. Her teeth click together and she blinks dumbly a few times but doesn’t say anything to try and stop him.

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i'd give anything to hear you say it one more time
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#10
If Grayday noticed that the young shewolf was trying to speak to him, he showed no signs of it. It was, perhaps, not very sporting on the male's part, but he was worried sick about his daughter, and even looking at the girl made his heart twist with the urge to coddle something - anything! - until his own baby girl came home.

So he continued on his way, gradually drifting further and further from the dark youth.
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