And so Olive traveled! The harlequin's wayfarer ways elicited her from the forest, magnetized by the forces that lay beyond Teaghlaigh's sap-scented territory. The atmosphere had chilled significantly in the past few weeks, to Olive's dismay and delight. The sky brought forth delicate flurries of snow, buoyant upon the air currents of the looming Sunspire mountain. This part Olive loved; she exalted the snows for the balance it bestowed on the earth, demonstrating its power over all life in the dark and dead of winter. But for now, the singular snowflakes fell and dusted her pelt, peppering the agouti hairs with an alabaster sheen. In response, her small body had been busy at work growing out her winter coat. A warm layer of dense furs hugged her, keeping her inner warmth from evanescencing into the hungry atmosphere.
However, the decay and scarcity of the Teekon winter kept Olive from submitting entirely to the power of the cold. She rebuffed the simple yet compounding nature of the season: rebelling even in her sleep, her longing provoking dreams of dappled sunlight. This part of Olive laid latent and unawakened, but the three year old still had much to learn about her own spirituality.
Ceannasach had intrigued her with talk of their alliances and neighbors. The coywolf had connections and history, that was for sure... and the femme was slightly jealous. Olive had very few continuous relationships, as her restless paws prevented her from staying in one place for very long. Now being a part of the Teaghlaigh family was a unfamiliar blessing and she relished the depth of knowledge she was accumulating about each member. It was this thirst for knowledge that pulled Olive from her home, nestled between the bleeding, singing trees. For too long she wished to know the Donnelaith wolves but remained lazily inert - but she was now a wanderer wandering, seeking any scent that might harken the borders of Donnelaith.
Before too long, she located what she sought. Rather than howl at the borders for any wolf with free time, the sylph preferred to hug the perimeter and canter around the outskirts of the marked land. She kept her gaze lifted and drifting across the landscape, wishing to encounter one of these famed strangers.
Tagging Cas in case he were to join or just for reference! :3
While Witch was a girl who followed her heart and her spirit on each adventure, she was also a creature of habit, of learning, of wonder -- she'd but caught a glimpse of
@Castiel refreshing the borders, and now she found herself taking after the boring task out of curiosity. What did he do when he circled the woods perimeter? She'd caught him peeing a few times, but she'd simply assumed he'd drank alot over the day, and honestly just needed to pee, in little bouts, spread aross the forest.... So Witch did too. Unfortunatley, she didn't know how to stop peeing to resume elsewhere, so the first time she stopped, she ended up squatting with a throughly frustrated frown wrought on her face.
It was with this furrowed face did Olive come upon her, squatting, peeing, and grumbling under her breath. The delicate, sharp woman gracefully strode forth, approaching but clearly not catching sight of the pale hunkering pup in the delicate layer of snow that covered The Sentinals.
Distrustful and quiet a creature as the little flower was, the only hello Olive earned was a soft, wary chuff of greeting. Witchhazel was not afraid of strangers, and though she'd had little to no problems since joining Donneliath, she knew her muddy guardian and father figure was always but a call away.... And if he was not, the other wolves of Donneliath were. It was in confidence Witchhazel squatted, apple and sky orbs resting in both confusion and excitement at once on the tan woman, knowing she was safe and possibly had just gained a new friend.
The lands that the faction occupied were not disparate from her own, save for several things. The sentinels stood strong, just as her own did; but their trunks lacked the characteristic crimson stigmata, dripping and clinging to the bark. Olive had become accustomed to these strange markings and couldn’t help but noting that the forest felt… lighter in their absence. The pack's proximity to the coast afforded their air further buoyancy, carrying a salty, sticky perfume. The ground scintillated as the light winter air dappled through the trees. Such a milieu was well worth her journey.
The borders were strongly guarded and unmistakable, which allowed Olive to hem the forest in leisure. Without the worry that she would accidentally cross over into their territory, Olive’s mind slowly softened and relaxed. Her joints also loosened in relaxation and her movement fell into a polished, nonchalant gait. Milky paws barely touched the ground as she traveled and Olive felt completely at ease, her soul bobbing along inside her body as she traveled. To the druid, even the simple act of moving was meditative.
So involved in her task of movement was she that the quicksilver femme did not perceive the conscious life she had stumbled upon. Only the sound of falling water harkened the child, who stood squatted in the dusting of snow - and Olive knew immediately why Donnelaith’s borders smelt so strongly. The fire-kissed girl spoke naught, electing to chuff in greeting instead. Olive beamed towards her, smiling and happy that such innocence had crossed her path. Though but a child, this young wolf was still a member of another pack and Olive would give unto her the respect that position afforded. With a sweep of the neck, Olive bent her body into a graceful bow towards the peeing child, pulling one slender leg into her chest and stretching the other out in front of her.
“Greetings, tiny Donnelaith woman.”
The pretty woman didn't see her at first, nearly even passed her, but upon her noise Olive looked, finding the girl
still peeing with a twisted face. Forgetting that she'd been trying to mark, the friendliness of the newcomer brought a grin to light her soft and pudgy features -- finally, the stream ceased, and the long-legged girl straightened out to properly give a greeting. The respect and kindness, even joy that Olive did show to her won her over -- the delicate bow helped too, as the little girl was slightly impresionable and she knew she would try this out later -- at once, and she even stepped forward to be able to, when straining her neck and muzzle out, to brush and smell the fur of the slim woman.
"Y'not frum here -- D'you live in trees?"
Witchhazel did infact mean, did she nest in trees as a bird.
@Cas might've confirmed that wolves in fact did not live in trees -- Raven is only assuming this, because, well, wolves can't live in trees? -- but perhaps there was some magical wolf who could, out there somewhere.
@Deirdre struck her as this kind of wolf, but she'd naught seen the snowy Witch Queen in a tree.... Yet. The fire-headed girl's only indication of the oddness of her question was to turn her bicolored eyes up to an empty nest in a tree, tail wagging behind her in the idea that
she just might say yes.
Before Olive had a chance to respond, Witch suddenly remembered her manners, announcing it with a beaming grin and chirping, excited words.
"'M Witchhazel!"
Edit: Totally forgot I already tagged Cas, Sorry Sonia!
Live in the trees? Olive wished. Oh, how perfect it would be to live untethered to the earthen crust. To move amongst the atmosphere with ease. If only it could be the truth!
“Hi Witchhazel, my name is Olive” the woman replied with a grin, responding quickly as the pup metaphorically stumbled over herself. Though clumsy and comical in the way only a puppy could, she was definitely old enough to venture off on her own and assume the lightest of responsibilities that pack life could bequeathed unto her… marking the border included. It was both refreshing and inspiring to be surrounded by youth, the wolves who so often shirked the doldrums of adulthood in favor of a life in prisms of bright colors. It was a characteristic that Olive held in very high regard, as she the weight of her own thoughts and her responsibility to the cadence of nature occasionally evoked feelings of melancholy.
“I live in trees just as much as you do.” The sylph sung softly, wiggling her nose. “I am from Teaghlaigh, your neighbors to the east. Our packs are close friends,” Olive concluded, not sure if the girl would understand the term ‘allies.’
The tan woman named herself as Olive, and this brought an even more excited grin to her face as she chirped it back and wiggled in happiness with the force of her tail wagging.
"Olive! Hi!"
Olive, however, didn't seem to live in trees the way Witch wanted her to, and this dampened her mood a little. One day perhaps she'd find a wolf who nested in the boughs of a tree, but this female wasn't it. In light of this new information, her excitement didn't fade, but only morphed into curiousity.
"T-Teaghlaigh? Das' a weird name. Why're you 'ere?"
“Teaghlaigh” The word rolled off of her dextrous tongue, made flexible through overuse. Olive tasted the word, rooting for any sense of weirdness. The utterance heralded from Ceannasach’s language of heritage, a fact that coated her tongue and prevented any misgivingings over the family’s complex title. “Is Donnelaith not a weird name?” Olive questioned with a cant of her head, gauging the young girl’s reaction to her suggestion. The world was full of many languages, each one more foreign than the next. It really was a miracle that so many beings spoke the common tongue.
“I thought it funny that our families were allies, yet I knew very few Donnelaith wolves.” The cream and ash woman explained, forgetting to strip her language from potentially complex verbiage [that may also be foreign to the girl]. Of course, Olive knew Deirdre - but did Deirdre even remember her, or know she was a part of Teaghlaigh?
“But now, I am friends with one more!”
Olive reiterated the word, and the little flower stored it in her memory with the fact that their families were allies.
Except she didn't know what the word was. Families, of course, she knew: she felt she had two of her own, unknowing of the third one her fathers heritage granted her, remembering Easthollow, and the most prominent one in Donnelaith that she would grow up in and take the ideals of.
"Wha'sa allie-ence?"
Witch was thrilled to hear that she'd gained a new friend, and wiggled ever more fiercely with her cardinal tail. The prospect that her packs name was weird too was a stopper -- she blinked a few times and stood stone still, bi-colored eyes flickering again to the redwood forest.
"Yah! Is weird too -- I like'm both! I come see Teaghlaigh?"
How to describe an alliance to a child? In this respect Olive, too, was similar to the adolescent. Having never been associated with a formal pack before Teaghlaigh, the woman had been all too unfamiliar with the concept. Arturo had to coach her on diplomatic topics such as these, as she felt her decorum and loquacity necessitated constant adjustment to fit the convention of such business deals. In fact, she had approached Donnelaith this blustery day to further explore such a concept. In her humble explanation, Olive chose to leave all mentions of business and war out of it; Witchhazel was far too young for such topics and Olive did not want to cloud her young mind with such depravity [instead, choosing to cultivate peace].
“An alliance is another word for friendship,” Olive sung, lowering her feathered shoulders so that she was looking the girl eye-to-eye. “Like us, friends may not know each other at the start... but we’re always here help in good times and bad.” Olive gave pause, rooting around in her expansive mind for an example.
“Think about it like this: if you determined that you wanted to learn the ways of a naturalist – Teaghlaigh could be a good resource for you. Allies teach each other things and help each other grow.” Olive knew naught of the rambunctious girl’s ambitions (if she entertained any beyond marking the borders), but if she so desired Olive knew herself [and maybe the healing mates, Isley and Palisander] would jump at the chance. Donnelaith represented more healers, of course, but Teag offered a different perspective. "I would love for you to come see my home and meet the rest of your friends."