Not long after meeting Seregrýn in the geyser field, Wildfire made her way back toward the Heda's den. She stretched out just outside the doorway, enjoying the warmth of the spring sun on her back. She let her chin drift to her paws, closed her eyes and drowsed. She wouldn't remember it when she woke—she never seemed to recall dreaming at all—but her limbs twitched as she relived the nightmare of her last moments in Moonspear.
When she roused some time later, her shadow stretched away beside her in the dimming light of early evening. Yawning and stretching, Wildfire pushed herself into an upright position. Her ribs felt stiff and a little sore, though it was all pretty manageable. She rose onto all fours, padded a few feet to relieve herself behind a nearby shrub, then licked her lips and wondered about the prey opportunities around here.
The best way to find out was to get her feet wet with some tracking. Lowering her smudged snout toward the ground, Wildfire began loping forth into the pack land. She hoped to strike the trail of some type of small game or another so she could start giving back to the pack that had taken her in during her time of need.
Hush had returned from his evening patrol earlier than expected and decided to do some long postponed tidying up of his den. The mute was constantly busy patrolling, hunting, sparring, exploring — he never had the time to care for himself and his things. He decided to make a change for once, delving into his den and cleaning the filthy man-cave. He tossed out old, stale bedding, bones from midnight snacks and early breakfasts. It was a haphazard spray of debris and trash, but Hush figured he could fix it up later. He wasn't adept at the whole den-living anyway. His blood was of that of the nomad, not of the home-dweller.
He poked his head out, his red-gold muzzle smeared in dirt and grime as he looked around his den. Cleaner than ever! The same couldn't be said of his outer surroundings though...but oh well, he was hungry!
The hybrid backed out and shook himself off, loping out from his den to the nearest cache. He saw the red girl not too far away from his den, her head down in an obvious tracker's pose and he decided to join her. With a gentle chuff, the mute walked over to her, offering to join her in her hunt.
Suddenly, her party of one became a party of two. Wildfire startled at the quiet woof, sidestepping to put a few feet between herself and the new arrival, eyes full of scrutiny. He appeared harmless enough, though the yearling still felt significantly cagier around the opposite sex. She dropped her eyes to avoid coming off as disrespectful, head and tail remaining low for good measure as well.
"Sorry, you startled me," she murmured, trying to coax the tension out of her muscles. "I was hunting," she added in the next beat, "for Thur. Would you like to join me?" And, of course, an introduction was due. "I'm Wildfire, freshly recruited a few days back."
Hush assumed that the scrutiny in her eyes was due to his sudden appearance and intrusion into her hunt, and her glance away to respect. He had no idea the truth behind it, and perhaps, he was better off not knowing. The hybrid nodded in response to her request, noting how accurate her name was to her fur color. She did look like fire in a way. Hush croaked out his name, enunciating the word as best as the mute could. Hopefully she would understand that something was wrong with his voice, or that he was just sick. Either way, his eyes began scanning their surroundings in search of some visible prey, his nose twitching as he searched.
He nodded, the universal sign of agreement, but didn't supply an introduction of his own. He did make a strange, throaty noise that caused Wildfire's brow to furrow. Oh, no, she thought. Maybe he didn't speak the common language either? Her lips pursed. Her encounter with Seregrýn just hours ago had left her a little mentally exhausted. Now she would have to do it all over again.
"Well, you at least understand me, right?" she said, going by the earlier nod. "I guess talking isn't really required for hunting anyway." Wildfire snorted lightly, then stopped to deliberate for a moment before asking, "Do you know of the best hunting grounds around here?" It was a yes or no question, one he could hopefully comprehend and answer with another nod or shake of his head.
Hush smiled apologetically at her furrowed brow and shrugged. It wasn't something he could help, after all. She would have to adapt to his silence, as he had to everyone else's noisiness. Hush nodded, his head turned in a familiar direction. With a gentle chuff, Hush began walking to the lower slopes of the Dragon near the river. While it was dangerously close to Phoenix territory, he would try his best to steer them away from running into the Maplewood by accident. He looked back towards Wildfire and tossed his head, "follow me!".
He definitely understood her, that much was clear when he nodded and began moving. Wildfire eagerly fell into step beside him, idly wondering how come these wolves could understand the native tongue if they couldn't speak it. How did that work? Of course, she hadn't caught on yet to the fact that this guy didn't speak any languages on account of being a mute.
She felt an itch to make conversation, which she quelled. The young trapper just kept pace and tried to tell herself the silence was companionable. But it just didn't feel that way, since they scarcely knew each other, so after a while Wildfire found herself asking another yes or no question. "So, are you a hunter by trade...?"
He nodded, though before the one-sided conversation could continue much further, he appeared to strike a trail (if his body language was anything to go by). Glad for the excuse to stop talking, Wildfire eagerly fell into step with her partner. Fortunately, the language barrier had no effect on their ability to work together and they managed to corner and knock out a fat, feisty woodchuck.
They fed in mutual silence—by now, Wildfire had more or less figured out he couldn't speak at all—before the would-be trapper insisted on taking the leftover to the pack's caches. She intended to drop them off piecemeal, so she could identify and memorize the locations of Drageda's stockpiles for future reference.