For
Amekaze.
It was strange to be somewhere new, with a group of wolves, that all seemed really uncertain. He had to trust they knew what they were doing and he was getting to be apart of something new, so he was at least excited about that. It would be better than his life falling apart between his paws a few months ago and he could build something that already had a foundation. Something that would not crumble.
Lex’s nose wrinkles as he nears the lake, glancing back to see how far the Alpha was back. They didn’t stay neck and neck and talk the entire time, adjusting their position once in a while as they scouted. He made a circle in the open space before turning to gallop the way he’d come. He shook his head a few times and huffing through his nose in a forced sneeze.
“What happened here?”
His tongue slides over his muzzle as he realizes his thirst but the lowered water level of the lake concerned him, following the fish surrounding nearby. The smell. He can barely wait for the answer:
“Looks like a disaster.”
The large wolf shuffles on his feet as he waits for their distance to close, ears cupped forward as he listened but watched the lake as if it would magically give him some answers.
Their sights were set on the peak called Moonspear, but she was still covering ground where she could. Charon and the others could handle it without her for a handful of hours. This region of the Teekon was not her usual stomping grounds, so she deemed it important to understand the area nearby with the new pack's best interest in mind. Plus, she was still making sure all of her arrangements were in place, and this was just another thing to accomplish -- on which she was making sizable strides.
Somewhere along the way, she'd gained company. Funny how as soon as she began to abandon her first mountain, decent luck on recruitment had followed not far behind when there had been nothing for so very long.. what with the mostly-mute Aran first and now Lex. She was feeling good about the future's prospects. Better than she had in a great many moons.
She jogged, closing the distance once he had slowed. "A bad storm," she answered, lowering her snout to sniff thoughtfully, feeling certain the tornado of several weeks back was to blame for this.. somehow. Everything amiss in the landscapes did trace back to that, and this lake had never been like this before. Now it seemed like it had been picked up and scattered around.. if the scent of decaying fish was anything to go by. "It was towards the end of summertime..so it has been a while since it happened." But evidently, the mark left behind scarred deeply. "The lake used to be much bigger." she murmured and stared its way, contemplative.
A bad storm.
Lex muses quietly about the answer. Perhaps a disaster was the accurate description. The closer they got to the lake, before he turned around and came back, the more the smell was prominent. He could see the cracks in the dirt to show where the lake used to cover. Perhaps the upcoming winter and spring would replenish the land to its former legacy. It would be a sight to see, he would imagine, with the amount of space from where the bank ends and the water begins.
“I see. Too bad it’s spoiled. I could go for some seafood.”
The day after the storm, a buffet for most, but not enough animals reached the shore for a free meal. Or two.
Or three.
“How far between the lake and the new casa?” Lex tosses his head back with a grin. “It would kinda suck waking up every morning and smelling… this.”
He didn’t know exactly how far they were going, occasionally making directional changes when it came to Amekaze’s direction. It wasn’t difficult to submit and follow lead for once, mostly because he wasn’t being forced into it and his own ideas weren’t being challenged. Ending his range across the territories between his old home and here, his tired paws and weary bones wanted a place to call home.
She continued sniffing, half surprised that she did not smell more scavengers in the area yet. Surely they had been here already but she personally preferred her seafood a bit fresher than this. "At least fresh seafood is not that hard to come by around here," she chuffed, satisfied in knowing that the sea itself would be a bit closer to her new home. Now with the Stavanger Bay wolves living alongside her, she wondered if they had any clever ways to make use of the beach's offerings. This was something she'd look into later.
Her focus keyed back in on him. "Not too far.." she answered. Closer than her old mountain was. "Still a meadow and a forest between us, though." So she thought. Her mental map's details of this area was still in the works. At least she had the foundation of it already and travels such as these were helping her to get better at it. "Truly awful.. Moonspear is upwind, thankfully," she assured him with a small smirk. Plus, winter's freeze would be here before they knew it to curb any lingering stenches.
"I do hope it refills.. eventually. It is eerie seeing it this way," she mentioned with a vague gesture towards the earth at her paws. She'd paused for a moment to look out across the lake's surface, then moved on.
Lex had come from a place that didn’t have the ocean. He’d seen it once before when his family wandered around and he was barely seven months old. He barely remembers what it looks like but it was a whole lotta blue and sandy beaches and a calm he couldn’t explain. He felt at home there and part of the reason he’d come all this way was the scent of salty air and grainy sand between his toes.
It was there, though, and on the other side of where they were going. He was excited but he kept that at bay for the time being.
“Plenty of hunting ground,” he muses as Amekaze explains what’s between them and the new location for the Sunspire. She’d won him over to join and changing his course of action but he could hardly complain. There was promise, creation, and he was more than ready. He wouldn’t get to lead and he was okay with that, the stress so far from his mind, and he could focus on making something great once more that wouldn’t be trampled over by some hot-headed wolf that wanted a territory no where near his own.
“I bet by spring, it’ll be back to normal.”
The winter would at least cover up the dead fish for a while but by spring he hopes they would return to the earth and it would be in a former glory once more.
“And the other wolves? The pack you’re--" he breaks off a moment, "we're merging with?” he asks, a little open-ended so she could answer as she pleases. Every few steps he made a wide curve to avoid a few dead fish on the ground, broken in decay.
Indeed, felt that the placement of the mountain would serve them well. With valleys around, with forests on their edges and then the seashore just a ways north, it would hopefully set them up for success through the winter. That was, after all, the reason for all of this.
"I think so too," she agreed on spring bringing some normalcy back to this place. "Perhaps the plants will grow in better than before because of it all.." Ame offered, considering the notion of all the fish carcasses turning to fertilizer come springtime once everything thawed again. Perhaps a good place to check for any plants she did not know well, or did not have on the mountain. Worth considering if nothing else.
She maintained her pace, covering ground but remaining very investigative in her approach. She didn't hesitate to pause now and then for good long sniffs, even if it was only signs of scavengers creeping on the fish carcasses. When he asked of the Bay wolves, it took her a beat of consideration before she had a decently summarized answer for him. "They are from the seaside -- Stavanger Bay. Small pack, and the core of their members are younger wolves it seems." Charon, Floki, and Atreyu were all the ones who came to mind as she saw the most of them. Thistle was still the wildcard and she remembered Charon mentioning another name before too. "It is their beta who will ascend to alpha in this," she mentioned, eyeing what she thought to be a fox pawprint softly pressed into the soil. An ear stayed angled Lex's way, assuming questions or commentary to follow.
The pack that took out his land hadn’t even given them that much. Wouldn’t take him even if he wanted to join. The coming together of the Sunspire and the Bay seems neutral: a new land, a new name. There weren’t any reservations against one another if one swallowed the other. This brought them all together from scratch. He wouldn’t have to compete against one pack for the other pack’s affection. He’d have an equal chance, merging into the background as they came together.
“And their Alpha?” he asks, turning with a brow raised. He kept is expression as neutral as possible. Had she left the information about their alpha out on purpose? It made him curious and if Lex was handing over his life to these wolves, he deserves to know.
She fully understood the potential for a delicate situation in the fusing of the packs. There would inevitably be bumps in their road, but they would handle them as they came. Since already they were attracting the attention of new outsiders, she was feeling more confident in a seamless transition. But, there was always the worry of her wolves accepting a new alpha and vice versa. Her own sort of charisma was not for everyone, and it may not be the flavor all the Bay wolves could work with. She'd have to find out in time.
He zeroed in on something that was a large unknown. But, it was a smart question to ask. "Accepting of the idea, but it seems reluctantly. Evidently, she had not been acting as much of a leader for a while now due to various circumstances, so the beta saw it fit to take over before the pack withered to nothing.. essentially." Or so it was as she saw it. Thistle was a large mystery to her and one that Amekaze was hoping to understand greater once things were settled -- if Thistle stayed with them, that was. Since Charon and Floki were her sons (adoptive and otherwise), she suspected that might help things, but Ame was going to be less appreciative of a sour former-alpha bringing down their morale.
There were any number of things the woman could tell him that might make sense. What she did tell him, however, made him look back at the darker female with a raise in eyebrow. The other alpha is stepping down to let her beta take over with another female but there was reluctance. Room for hostility. He doesn't speak up about his concern, putting it to rest for the time being. Trust in Amekaze meant trust in the other pack. For now. He'd need to learn to accept them as one, which shouldn't be terribly hard given he is barely apart of the Sunspire.
Lex rolls his shoulders as he turns back, crossing the distance of the lake to get to their new home. Other questions lay on the tip of his tongue and decides to hold on to them for now. Some things were better off learning on his own.
She still had much to learn on her own, just as he would have to do as well, once the packs came together and began to function as one. The gears were already in motion, the risks understood, and now that just left them needing time. There was only so much she could tell him and when the conversation seemed to fade to silence for now, she welcomed the change of pace with a new focus towards the pathway home.
When the landscape allowed, she gained steady speed towards her heading. The mountain loomed more imposingly than before, and she was eager to return.