Moonspear i wanna lie awake with your black soul

set before all this leaving stuff!!

truthfully, terance had grown fond of most of moonspears newest members. granted, he still disliked bernard for beating him in their spar, but he still liked the guy. and dirge was probably an older member by now, but to terance he was generally still unfamiliar... and he wasn't dirge's biggest fan. @Dune was a member that terance had absolutely no qualms with. the guy was nice, friendly, did his job and he brought him food, so clearly he was in high praise in terance's mind. 

while patrolling, terance caught scent of the pale wolf. his ears pricked, nose twitching as he picked up on the general direction, and then headed towards it. maybe dune was patrolling too... or something. either way, terance was curious to see what he was up to today.

Weather: -11°F, partly cloudy.

Dune dared to venture up a bit higher on the mountain today, though he was still wary of running into Dirge. Something about the guy just... didn't seem terribly welcoming. Dune assumed it was due to his gift (as he had taken to calling it), but he could not see why. He had been dwelling on it ever since the other wolf had seemed so very unnerved by his presence with the gift. Perhaps he should have let it go. Maybe he was failing this test by continuing to let it bother him, but somehow he could not get it out of his head.

Wishing to rid his repetitive thoughts, Dune decided to head back down the mountain trail, coming to the base of the mountain and the outer reaches of Moonspear's claim. There, he set himself to the task of scratching the snow, leaving his scent along with the many others that were there. Charon, Amekaze, and Hydra's were the most prominent, but the rest of the pack's scent lingered there as well. After securing this spot, Dune moved on to the next, rolling his entire body in the snow, and hopping up to shake off the flakes that had stuck to him.

after a bit of walking, terance came across dune. he wasn't doing anything crazy or out of the box... it looked like he was just working on some scent markers-- and doing a bit of rolling. his head tilted as he let out a chuff to alert the male of his presence, noting the ... wait, what was that? terance actually became quite baffled, stopping a bit off in confusion. after a few moments, his nose twitching as he took in the scent of something foreign(but vaguely familiar). he stared for a brief moment longer before once again approaching his packmate, but slowly this time.

"hey, uh, dune," he said with a prick of his ears, his brows furrowed, "what is on your neck?"

Here came the questions. Questions Dune did not have answers to. Once again, he felt slighted by another of his pack mates. They clearly did not understand that he had been chosen to wear this thing. It was his burden, his gift, a sign from some higher power. What it meant... well, Dune was still trying to figure that one out. He remained humble, though, thinking that was the best strategy. "Gift," he replied, "not sure why."

What he had noticed, was that the collar had appeared right after the giant growling eagles (also known as helicopters) started showing up, whirring above them like some crazy hovering birds. They did not act like normal birds. They did not seem to hunt. And although he had made some connection between growling eagle, the sting, and his collar, Dune had not yet fully pieced it together. It was likely he would never connect the dots completely.

"oh," was all terance could muster. a gift? from who? he'd never been given anything like that... maybe that meant he wasn't special-- or that dune was special? or maybe dune was just extremely unlucky and making the best of some weird ass situation. terance was unsure.

"does it do anything?" terance asked, trying to sound happy for the guy as he interrogated him. he was not one to be outwardly judgmental-- a very polite exterior was terance's forte-- but secretly he was judging the fuck out of dune's 'gift'. what was that? he was still so baffled.

Dune shrugged. Honestly, it had done nothing but test him and make him the object of a whole lot of sideways glances. "Not sure," he replied, furrowing his brow in thought. "Big growling birds, then gift." Beyond that, Dune was clueless. And sure it was a little out of place, and sure he did think that he'd been chosen for something, but for some reason he hadn't expected everybody to act so weird about it. Maybe he wasn't taking it seriously enough.

Thinking it might be better to move on to something more... productive, Dune asked, "Mark?" indicating the borders with his muzzle. That had been his main objective, after all, and he had hoped to get the gift off of his mind for at least a little while. He just wished that somebody would ignore it for once. But maybe that was part of the test. Maybe this was meant to help integrate him into the pack.

big growling birds. actually, terance knew what he was talking about. he'd seen them in the sky the other day-- probably whenever dune got this gift, but truthfully terance didn't pay them any attention-- he wasn't really in the mood for bullshit that day, a those things definitely looked like bullshit. "well it's a cool gift," terance told him, even though he wasn't sure it was. a nice meaty deer hind would've been a cool gift, but hey, to each their own.

and then dune changed the subject. "oh, like patrol? yeah let's do it," terance said, clarifying just in case he'd misheard. and then began off, glancing once over his shoulder to see if dune was following him. he planned on peeing on a big ole rock a little bit ahead of them-- he usually marked that rock when he patrolled this side of the territory. it was necessary, he figured.

Dune smiled and wagged his tail, considering this was the first positive thing he'd heard since the thing had appeared on his neck. Thankfully, Terance seemed to drop the subject, just as Dune had hoped, and agreed to patrol. Dune had always considered it more defensive than offensive, but perhaps he simply had not encountered anything terrible enough to make it so. As far as things went, Dune was pretty laid back.

He followed without hesitation, actually glad to have somebody else leading the way. For whatever reason, it seemed like others were always waiting for him to take the lead. Perhaps he just put off some kind of aura that said, "Hey, I'm leading you everywhere today!" which was definitely not the case. For now, at least, Dune was content to follow Terance wherever he decided to go, and he trotted along with a big dumb grin on his face.

dune seemed happy to follow behind-- which was cool, cause terance felt that by now he deserved to lead patrols. besides, he had been here longer and knew the borders better... plus he just really enjoyed them. dune didn't seem like the chatty type-- but that could've just been terance's impression of him-- so terance didn't try to make anymore conversation, instead opting to continue along the border until he found another nice looking spot where he paused to lift a leg and pee again.

Dune continued to follow Terance, happy to let him lead, make the decision on where to go next, and solidify the markings around their home. Once they'd made good progress on this side of Moonspear, and Dune felt satisfied he'd made good use of his time, he bade his pack mate goodbye and set off for the rendezvous site. It was there that he tended to turn in for the night, and tonight was no different.