The sound of a shriek caught in the ears of the wandering woman, who found the sound seizing through her muscles - she had been heading due east for some time now, with a brief stop to drink at a rushing river, and then after passing that river she was faced with.. This. A wall of mountains before her, the silhouettes of birds hovering just out of view. Were they vultures? Eigma had passed through the fringes of a forest only hours prior, and upon finding signs of wolf activity, she had headed for that river. If there was another pack in the area, maybe the birds were attracted to kills? Her stomach gave a growl at this thought, urging her to find a worthwhile meal, something to scavenge, but she had a mission. Somewhere in east was her first target - a mountain pack - and she would not be distracted, even by her growing hunger. It wasn't so bad anyway, as Eigma was accustomed to eating moderate portions when the opportunity arose; hunger was not frightening to her.
Worried instead by the foreign cliffside, she stared for a moment at the jagged silhouette. Eventually Eigma swallowed her worries, and chose to forge on ahead. One of these mountains was the home of the pack she sought, and she would find them. Charon wanted specifics, and she would do her best to gather information - although with every advancing step towards the mountains, Eigma felt less and less sure of her abilities. There was still a ways to go however; this was not the right mountain, but only through observation and deduction would she figure that out. Another shriek pierced the air, and while she still puffed out of surprise, she knew it was only the sound of the eagles as they soared above.
After several unhappy run-ins with the local wildlife, Behati had significantly reduced the distance she was prepared to travel. Slowly but surely, Blacktail Deer Plateau was coming to represent safety - and the wave of bravado that had carried her into the Wilds was diminishing. She felt exposed and vulnerable like she never had before.
And if appearances were to be trusted, so did Eigma. Behati had stopped to drink from a pool of rain water when the stranger wandered into view, flinching at the sound of birds overhead. The Plateau wolf stood stock still, studying the wanderer for a good few minutes before announcing her presence. She looked harmless enough - a little lost, even.
"Hey, you!" Behati called, emerging from her hiding place. Her body language exuded caution, not hostility, and there was only friendly curiosity in her eyes. "What're you looking for?"
It was an unnatural situation for Eigma, who was accustomed to the silence of the road and the brutish, overwhelmingly physical meetings of wolf against wolf, when a voice pierced the air. The sound of it made her flinch more than the calling of the birds; she ducked her head, the short fur along her back raising out of habit and instinct. It took her a second to locate the stranger, and when she did, she saw the cautious posturing and expression - yes, very unnatural. In her home this would have been a direct meeting of teeth-on-teeth, no words needed.
Maybe this was another wolf like Wildfire. Were all the creatures in this valley so friendly? She wouldn't let the opportunity go to waste, even if it felt strange to relax her own posture and feign good cheer towards the foreigner. "I'm looking for a pack." Eigma's tail fanned the air behind her, waving leisurely. But a thought popped in to her head when the other wolf was close enough: they smelled like the mountains. Was this a Spire wolf? How would Eigma manage to get information out of this creature without being super obvious about it? She decided to play up being lost, for the time being. It was true, so it wasn't like she was lying.
"I just haven't been around mountains much. They're huge -" She gave a brief look at the cliff face again, watching birds pirouette in the air with one another. "- but, that's a rogue for you. Never knows whats going on."
Whoever this someone was, she was both chatty and pleasant, and Behati instantly transformed to match. There were a lot of sour old grapes out there in the wild, and the young Plateau newbie hungered for someone to have a real gossip with. Perhaps this was the lady for the job.
"A pack? Like to join?" she ventured hopefully, padding a little closer.
Eigma's nearest ear flicked when she heard the response, and initially she was going to say no - not to join - but, that seemed like a good way to access information. So she gave a small shrug and nodded her head. "Yeah, maybe. I've been looking for a good place for a while and haven't had any luck." Ok, that wasn't even a little bit of a lie. Just.. Not her purpose all the way out here in the east. "I thought that the mountains would be a good place to look, since the flat lands are so.. Exposed. I can't imagine it would be very safe." If this stranger thought she was looking for a home, maybe she'd give up some secrets.
Huge neon arrows materialized above Eigma's head, flashing the words POTENTIAL RECRUIT at Behati. The young girl's tail picked up speed, fanning the air behind her. "We're kind of on the mountain!" she revealed, nodding towards the distant Plateau. "Blacktail Deer Plateau. But there's a forest and junk, so you don't have to spend all the time scrabbling around on rocks. There's space, I think!" she offered, staring intently at the loner. The pack's leadership were bound to offer her one of the outrider posts if she could snare a healthy new recruit.
The girl seemed to be more enthusiastic than Wildfire - practically elevating her butt off the stony ground with the waving of her tail - and Eigma was a bit put-off by the display. Her words made the grizzled woman's heart lurch, because the plateau pack wasn't the one she was after. And it seemed like her baiting had worked; the stranger was already jumping ahead to the prospect of Eigma joining up with them. Well... She was homeless. It wouldn't hurt to weigh out her options, even if she was on a task for Charon, right? Eigma glanced to the west where she had arrived from, briefly thoughtful, and then returned her attention to the woman who was now staring at her. "Well, maybe." Non-commital comments were her specialty. "What's this way?" Eigma turned to face the opposite direction from the plateau, effectively turning her back on Behati, and motioned with a toss of her head towards the opposite cliffside.
Eigma was playing hard to get. This close to winter, Behati would have expected a solo wanderer to jump at the chance to join a group - not .. 'shop around', as this wolf seemed to be doing. These thoughts were barely half formed, though; mostly she just didn't like the feeling of being rejected. The wagging slowed and eventually stopped when the stranger turned away, inquiring about what lay to the south. Behati shrugged - she had yet to stray that far. "Don't know," she answered with equal lack of enthusiasm, craning her neck to peer beyond Eigma's grey head. "Why? Are you looking for someone specific?"
So it seemed like this stranger was oblivious. But at least Eigma had learned of another pack - and maybe she would take them up on their offer, get a little tour - but that would mean putting Charon's little quests to the sidelines for at least a few hours. Did she dare make him wait? He was a prideful punk kid at the helm of a pack. Of course he could wait. But maybe that was just her own pride talking.
Still, this woman was right here, and she had already proved to be better company than the pale boy. Eigma thought briefly of Wildfire too, but her loyalties had not been set yet. A few hours for a detour and some information wasn't so bad.
"No," she responded swiftly, shrugging her shoulders, "I'm just curious. What did you say your pack was called?" She moved up beside the tawny wolf then, keeping her posture as neutral as she could (as she had learned from the Moonspear wolves, body language was important). "Blacktip - something?"
It seemed like a good enough reason. "Blacktail," she corrected automatically, resuming the wagging at a gentler speed. Eigma swept around to stand by her side, allowing the yearling a good look at stranger as she passed. She was a mixture of dull cream and grey, perfectly suited to a mountain backdrop - perhaps that was why she believed them to be the safest place to settle. "We might move, though. Soon," Behati shared, not once considering that this was private information. Why would it be? She moved on quickly, leaving the nugget there for Eigma to do with as she pleased. "So you haven't been over there, huh?" the girl asked, eyeing the southern-most peaks with narrowed eyes. This was as far south as Behati had gone - the range was as long as it was wide, and it was taking quite some time to chart it.
Blacktail. She wondered briefly if that was a familial trait. Maybe everyone from this area of the mountain had black tails? She casually glanced at Behati's behind to confirm her suspicion, but the girl's tail didn't look particularly dark. Maybe she had wandered in to the area as well, then? Eigma was lost in her thoughts, and didn't notice she was staring at Behati's butt until the girl moved, and her voice mentioned the other section of the mountain to the southeast.
"No, uh," Ok, a little awkward, but not a big deal. "I came from the west, through the lowlands. What about you?" Still running with the thought that a blacktail wolf would have to have a black tail, Eigma tried to gloss over the fact she had been eyeing the other woman's rear end by getting her to talk. "Did you find the pack and join up, or were you born in the area?"
Eigma didn't answer the question directly, and successfully distracted Behati with a string question - a very obvious evasive tactic to anyone with an ounce of intuition, but Behati was only in possession of a light sprinkling. She frowned, confused, when the "Found it," she shared in a smooth drawl, "Thought I might try the lazy life for a while." Eigma's oogling of her rear went unnoticed, but Behati was starting to cotton on to the fact that her companion wasn't giving much away. Intent on changing that, the yearling began to probe - mercilessly. "So what's west? How west? And how long are you gonna keep going?" Avoid that.
The lazy life - she liked that. It sounded like something her mother would say. Eigma felt her chest ba-dump at that thought, so she focused on Behati more intensely; until the girl started asking question after question, like a pool at the end of a waterfall, overflowing. She smiled - toothy and nervous - and gave a shrug.
"Nothing is west. I mean, yeah, there's shit that's west, but," Why was that important? "I'm not from around here -" Cliche, but true. Already her answers were clipped and being cut off by the other girl - it was frustrating, to say the least. Her insistent voice was getting on Eigma's nerves, but she tried to remain steady and calm.
"I was going to keep moving until I found a decent place to stop. So far nothing has held my interest. Except..." She trailed off, face squishing a little, nose wiggling like a nervous tic as she tried to make up her mind on what else to say. "I met this one guy who really liked eggs. He seemed... Nice. And there's this other guy, really young, he kinda pissed me off so I might not go back -" No details on her mission, but maybe the stranger would be content with these tidbits.
"What about your boss? Is he a hotheaded little shit, like Charon, "- or is he the shit?" Like... Well, nobody she had met yet. It was a valid question. It was also this moment that Eigma realized how many times she'd said the word shit.
That seemed to do the trick - Eigma was forced to put more into her answers, but still managed to keep things vague. Behati wasn't fussed; the spotlight was on her once more as the stranger solicited her opinion on Dante and Lasher. "Oh - they're totally cool. There's Dante - he's the main guy right now - but Lasher's going to take over when we move," she shared, revealing the pack's plans for all and any nearby creature to know. It was thrilling to be part of something - to have something real to offer. Behati had never felt anything like it. Without really thinking, she issued an invitation. "You should totally blow off Eggs and Hot-Head and join us instead."
Eigma pocketed the names without so much as a smile as they were uttered; it was precious information, but not what she sought. Her attention may have been on this woman currently, but she had a mission - and was invested in seeing it through, even if she had doubts. Still, she couldn't help but laugh at the nicknames given to the two strangers she described. "Maybe I will. I'm not... Y'know.. Used to responsibility." Her ears fanned out on either side of her head, looking sheepish with that information in the air. "I have some thinking to do before I make up any decision. My mum always taught me to consider all the options before rushing ahead." Although at this point, Eigma was tempted to just give in. Do the errands for Charon, or forget about them? She was naturally competitive, which made the desire to prove herself to Charon that much more difficult to avoid, but at the same time... Eigma didn't much care for the boy. He hadn't impressed her much.
Even if Behati's arguments had weighted the scale in the Plateau's favour, Eigma was not going to make up her mind today. The caramel girl could not hide her disappointment; not because she was particularly desperate for this stranger to join their pack, but because she would have liked to claim that she was responsible for recruiting her.
"Well, whatever - we'll be around," she said, a little more dismissively then perhaps was warranted. The distant south called, and the conversation was over. With a bounce in her step, Behati threaded her way past Eigma and continued on her journey. "See you around then!"