The copper she wolf’s paws were slightly sore and her fur was in slightly worse condition than she would have hoped – which was saying something, since she hardly kept herself immaculate at the best of times. Lean muscle still lived beneath that copper and cream pelt, but it was on the edge of losing its sheen. The loner life - that same life which promised freedom and answering to no other wolf - was hard on a girl.
It was harder still when that girl was a sociable sort. Selkie could grumble to herself until day slipped silently into night, but it wasn’t the same as nattering to another creature. She hadn’t quite lost enough of her marbles to chatter away to any prey she managed to caught, either. Not even the faintly shimmering and undeniably active slivers of the fish in the winding river received a word to illustrate the female’s frustration with her current place in life.
She might have swiped a paw at the murky water, but it would have been a fruitless gesture. Instead Selkie continued to drag her tired paws along the bank, huffing under her breath before pausing to scent the air. Perhaps there would be answers on the breeze - and if not, maybe the promise of a meal would lift her spirits.
After a while Rickon started to backtrack towards Stone Circle... or... where he thought it was. He'd found himself lost, overshooting the paths that would have taken him back south to the home of his friend, and winding up instead beside a murk-ridden river. The water looked odd at night, darker than it might have been during the day, making the wolf hesitant to drink at first. After an affirming sniff, making sure the source was safe, his crouched deepened so that he could lap at the silted stream. It didn't taste very refreshing, but liquid on his stomach meant he could stave off hunger for a while longer. At least, maybe until he found the place Valette was.
His ear twitched at the sound of steps approaching. Turning his head he saw a small, earth-colored wolf coming along the running water, and he angled his body towards her receptively; his ears pressed forward, and his tail low and wagging. "Howdy, ma'am."
Her inky nose quivered, pointed skyward for long enough to ascertain that there was more than just the turbid river and the darting fish around. Selkie was wary – it seemed a necessity in these days of wandering as a lone wolf. So often her social nature clashed with her desire to stay in one piece, but tonight, at least, curiousity would prevail.
The stranger was a male, younger than the copper-toned female, though considerably taller. It was a combination the lone she wolf had encountered more than once, so she thought little of it. Selkie slowed as the sharp silhouette detached from the darkness surrounding him, her leaf green eyes clear and analytical. She noted the swaying tail, the open stance and found that, with the relief of having run into a friendly face, it was difficult to cling to her own misery.
Her lips twitched into a smirk, but her expression wasn’t unkind. “’Ello there.” Her own tail stirred into a slow and sweeping wag, her head tilting sharply. “Wasn’t quite expectin’ to bump into anyone.”
When she spoke, and not to send him harshly on his way, Rickon's mood invariably lifted. His tail picked a faster pace, and the smile on his face broadened to encompass his eyes. "Yeah, me neither," he told the copper sylph, coming several steps closer before stopping; not wanting to intimidate her with his friendliness as he had done before with other company. He didn't realize that his eagerness for company could be off-putting for a she-wolf, but he'd learned through experience that it was best if the ladies came to him, and not the other way around. "I got so bored hangin' out alone, I was just lookin' for a place to crash for the night," he told her, belatedly realizing how lame that made him sound.
"I'm Rickon," the young man coughed up, trying to breeze right over his poor conversation skills. "What's your name?"
The lanky – at least, lanky in comparison to Selkie – male smiled a smile which made a light dance in his eyes. Selkie herself offered a lopsided grin; her entire presence had lifted from sulky downheartedness into optimism and humour, all with the addition of some company. She didn’t back away when he lessened the distance between them; instead her eyes were filled with blithe curiousity.
She chuckled at his words, but there was no mocking in the trilling sound. “Been there,” the dainty female sympathized. There was no embarrassment in her tone – Selkie had long ago decided that life was too short to be concerned with the opinions of wolves she might never see again and right now the idea of an enduring friendship or even acquaintance with any other wolf seemed rather unlikely. So the petite female was unashamedly understanding of the need for company.
“Selkie,” she offered with a dip of her head. “Where ya from, Rickon?”
Through tousled brown fur he finally found the color of her gaze; a pair of green sparklers that were much too bright and clear to be anything like the murky green pines that were his own eyes. Rickon couldn't imagine that she'd ever been forced to sleep out of sheer loneliness and/or hunger, but he appreciated the sentiment anyway, his bushy tail wagging in satisfied strokes. "Selkie," he repeated, quite liking the way her name danced with wings off the tip of his tongue, and flew away like a glowing creature to be chased in the dark. "It's some pleasure, ma'am."
"I'm from pretty far south; this place called Castlerock," he continued; "it's a canyon, if ya ever seen one ah those." He wasn't presumptuous enough to assume she hadn't, though a lot of wolves he'd met since leaving the Trench had never been to such a place before. "You ain't traveled 'round too far, have you?"
Her smile widened a fraction, and her eyes might have brightened, breaking through the dullness of fatigue and frustration. The slender female always preferred hearing her name trip from tongues that weren’t her own. Every new wolf who uttered it seemed able to put their own spin on the simple pair of syllables, and she wouldn’t deny that she liked the way it sounded when Rickon said it.
Her ears flicked back before straining forward. Vast lakes and winding rivers, swooping valleys and soaring mountains Selkie had seen much of, but never a canyon. “A canyon?” she echoed, the curiousity of her leafy gaze intensifying. “Don’t reckon I ever have – bet it was right nice, though. Turned out a nice seemin' fella, at least.”
Her narrow shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug, her gaze breaking away from the male to scrape over the murky waters of the river. “Done a fair bit in my time.” Her tone was almost defensive, as if being well travelled was important to her, though right now she would have given anything for a place to put down roots. “Gettin’ tired of all that, though. There comes a time when ya just want a home.”
"Ha! Yeah, I can tell you ain't never seen a canyon," he grinned, eyes laughing. "A canyon's just bout the driest, most unsavory place you can travel through. Some of its pretty nice an' lush, but mostly it's just one huge, dangerous, hot pain-in-the-ass." Most of the wolves that had ever come out of the Trench were hardened, uncouth, and unfriendly. Rickon had never been like that, not like any of them raised in the same way, but the capacity to become them certainly lie deep somewhere in his veins.
"It's kinda like the opposite of a mountain— upside down, inside out an' whatnot. It goes way down, instead of up, and depending on where you head down at, it can be a tough climb in or out." His own long legs had served him well in that place, and though he certainly wasn't use to high altitudes, Rickon would probably do quite well living on a mountain. Selkie began to explain that she'd done a lot of traveling in her life, a singe of pride burning in her tone, despite also mentioning that she was getting tired of her travels. "I know just what ya mean. Winter's comin' up and b'sides that it just gets real lonely out here... I actually made me a friend a few days ago that offered me a place with her pack. Maybe they'd have room for you too, Selkie?"
“Ah,” the diminutive female murmured, her ears flicking to the sides briefly before returning to attention. Rickon’s description of the canyon garnered a chortle from Selkie and her tail swept again. “Ain’t everythin’ dangerous when you’re on yer own, though? Seems that way, sometimes.” Mirth twinkled in the she wolf’s leafy eyes, but there was a knowing there too, and a slight weariness which belied the seriousness of her comment.
Selkie was good at making small talk – sometimes a little too good, in possession of a mouth which didn’t quite know when to stop and let others give their own input. Luckily she hadn’t yet put Rickon off, nor broken into her usual babbling, but she guessed that might be down to her own fatigue. Her paws still ached, and she shuffled them to find some quick relief.
Even through her tiredness, though, the mention of a potentially welcoming pack made her head tilt and her gaze brighten and focus. “Oh yeah? Where’s this place, then? Might give it a look.” If she didn’t put it off, at least. Selkie was good at running away when anything meaningful was about to happen, though her current state of near desperation might convince her to do otherwise.
While Rickon felt like telling her that Castlerock was one of those places not even safe in numbers, she wasn't false in her own statement so he saw no need to correct or add on. He was much too smitten by the spritely traveler to dispute her anyway— and the poor boy was too naive to know he'd do almost anything for a pretty face and pair of batting eyelashes over lush green eyes. He noticed her shuffling on her feet, and thought she must've come a long way that day. His paws were so used to canyon rock and pebbles, that it took a lot of bruising for them to get sore; when he saw it happen to another wolf he could only imagine the beating their feet must've taken to start aching.
"It's—" he began to answer, before remembering that the only reason he wasn't there now was because he couldn't find it. "Well a-actually, I'm not sure," he admitted bashfully, putting on his best southern-charm smile— the one his mama always liked. "I was tryna find it m'self but I think I overshot it a bit an' went an' found you instead. Now that I say it out loud, it kinda sound like fate, I reckon." He nodded at Selkie, wondering if she could believe in something like that as easily as he could. "I'm pretty sure it's back west a little," he added, motioning with his ear in the direction he meant. (Luckily, it was the true direction of Easthollow, where he would arrive the following day and anticipate the arrival of Selkie sometime soon.)
“Back west,” the female murmured, her head turning sharply in the aforementioned direction. Perhaps she would head that way at some point soon; for now she was quite enjoying talking with her new acquaintance. He was charming, though young, and his smile cheered her. Besides, she was too tired to go anywhere fast. “What’s it called?”
“Fate,” Selkie went on, returning her leaf green gaze to the younger wolf with one brow raised. “Ya believe in fate, then, Rickon?” Her tone was light but not teasing; Selkie wasn’t sure, at this point, exactly what she believed in. Hard work, for sure, and family, though she had left hers behind many moons ago. “I dunno – I believe in goodness ‘n’ fairness ‘n’ fightin’ for what’s right, not sure if fate has much of a hand in them things. It’s an interestin’ idea, though, that some wolves are destined to meet..” She lapsed into silence with her once blazing grin diminished to a thoughtful smile.
“Well hey, let’s see if we ever meet up again – then I’ll think about believin’ in fate.” There was a joking lightness in her tone, but a sincerity too – she liked the young man’s openness and they seemed to have a few things in common.
"I b'lieve she called it the Stone Circle," he told her, not yet privy to the name of the actual pack, only their territory. "I think that's a telltale fer where it is." Rickon felt that was a fact, though had to remember that he hadn't been able to find the place himself yet. He didn't want to interrupt her travels by offering her to come with him, because asking her to change trajectory seemed rude.
He smiled at her when she asked, nodding easily in response. She went on to speak of ideals he was more familiar with himself, and Rickon realized that he believed in all of it. Goodness and fairness and fighting for what's right. And fate. "Well, my mama always said what I feel is always right, an' I fer sure feel like this is fate. It ain't a prospect so hard to believe in if ya really get to thinkin' about it," he winked, his tail wagging as she relented, agreeing to consider such a concept should their paths cross again. "I'll see ya again, Selkie. Ain't no doubt in my mind 'bout that."
There wasn't anything about Rickon's very honest expression that said he thought otherwise.