He'd picked his way along a weather-worn slope, where stacks of granite formed irregular shapes that should have fallen, yet persisted. Before this he had caught the scent of some rodent or other, a muskrat or maybe a stoat - but he didn't feel invested enough to pursue through a stand of timbers.
Where he was now, Revui was exposed to a brisk wind that felt like it was trying to ward him away. It brought a new scent which piqued his interest for how strange it seemed; sweet, like fat, but thick with musk. This he traced down the slope until he came to a yawning glen - the grass baked yellow - and before him stood a sulking sow.
It turned a dark eye upon him, as if to say, I have broken many of your kind, what are you to me but another stone underfoot?
He lingered near it, even as the creature bowed its tusked face towards the dirt and began to trudge lethargically away, utterly indifferent to the wolf's presence. Revui did not know if he should feel insulted or not - but he was intrigued, and wondered if it would be worth the trouble to get a taste of the fat thing.
She saw him first, long before she took sight of the sow.
It sent a shiver up and along her spine, prickling at the hairs there. Instinct told her to be wary of such things and to see one in the flesh made it reasonable. A great being, clearly and easily capable of sweeping them off their feet in a single swipe.
Her steely gaze flitted between it and the wolf—she hadn't seen him before. At least if she had, she certainly hadn't been able to place him but there were a plethora of faces as of late that she thought she had an inkling of. The numbers within Ursus had bolstered themselves as of late and though she was notably just as new as any other, it told her that Merrick had been busy.
Careful steps drew her closer and near to the side of the stranger; he was definitely new to them. He smelled of the wilderness just as he did of them, and Phoebe realized she had not ventured outside of the valley since Merrick had brought her there. There was no need. There was much yet to do there.
Her eyes went back to the sow once again as she made a considering noise.
"We should leave her alone," she told him then.
She wasn't a fighter, but a sidelong glance told her that he was.
The creature raised a pronged foot and stamped upon the weeds beneath, but gave the wolf no further attention. Its large ears seemed unable to stand, Revui noted, and they shuttered either side of the hog's face like blinders, and he thought, I could use that to my advantage. The hide of the animal did not appear thick. Its hair was coarse like whiskers almost, at least from what he could judge at his distance, and the pig whipped its hocks with a short, straight tail. All of its power appeared to be focused to the front where the tusks jut and curved; he could — We should leave her alone.
He had not been aware of the other wolf until she spoke, but his attention had been so focused upon this slovenly creature - and the wolf in question held no odd scents, just more of the same. She had been here a while, then. Longer than himself at any rate. She knew the terrain enough to steal her way across it, invisible. She glances at him with eyes like cold river stones, and while Revui is surprised to be singled out by another wolf, he does not turn his own attention from the target.
The sow moved on, unbothered. Even the presence of the pair did not spook it. The boy eventually had to let it go, because the stranger was right. He draws a deep breath as if to steady his urges, and finally looks her way. Have you chased one before?
Perhaps that is why she holds herself back — a bad experience, a lack of confidence, or both.
"I haven't, no," she said as she watched the sow move on out of their view. Better she did, Phoebe thought, because if she had charged them and they were injured, she didn't even know where to begin with finding what was out there to work with just yet. Merrick had told her there were other healers there, at least one, but she hadn't sought him out just yet either.
"But I've seen them chase others before. Usually if there's one, there's more... and that's where they become trouble. Otherwise I don't think they'd be so confident with all of us here. Have you given them chase before?" She moved on with the conversation fluidly, finding purchase in the topic. Her gaze stole across him again and all that composed him, even down to the traces that showed he too was roughhewn and worn. Perhaps not so much as their esteemed leader, but enough to know there was a story writ upon him as well.
The ice in his expression thawed slightly as she explained. The thought of facing a battalion of these rotund beasts gives Revui a momentary pause and he glances towards the retreating pig, watching its wiry tail whip at flies before vanishing among the scrub.
He did not want to cause issues with the newly formed band, though. As much fun as it had been to hunt with Merrick, Revui did not know how capable the others were when it came to combat and bloodshed, and he had to wonder if they were all as new to the valley as himself — but maybe he was the last to be recruited. Maybe these wolves knew their valley more intimately. He should heed her advice; but maybe he was only doing so because of her vague resemblance to the many-headed shadow which used to control him.
With a shrug of his broad shoulders he turned from the boar's roving path, his expression chilling again as indifference swept across it. Have you given them chase before?
The girl asked of him. He felt the trailing of her eyes, as if she were holding a candle to his skin. No. It sounds like a challenge.
If nothing else, it would have been a good distraction.
She turned with him, ears following the sound of his voice as she peered back the way she had come. Back towards the relative heart of the valley, she liked to think. He wasn't much for words, but that wouldn't have been the first time she had encountered someone who had little use of them.
"I guess it is if you're into that sort of thing," she rejoined, wondering further. "So you're one of the fighters that Merrick recruited?" Had to have been by the build of him. Strong, useful, the sort of substance that built up a lot of the wolves and creatures in their pack. The sort that could do more than just hold their own in a spat, and the sort that made her wonder just what it was about Ursus that drew them there.
"I'm Phoebe," she added on, thinking it wise to start learning names.
The longer they were together the more apparent their differences became. She had to move quickly to keep up with his easy stride - not for lack of height as she wasn't a tiny wolf by any means, but moreso as a habit. Revui lumbered; the girl flowed, by comparison. He almost didn't hear her steps. That was the limit to her similarities to his sisters; she was swift and fluid, but not as pantherine as the women of his home mountain, and without the same lordly bearing. It was about time he stopped thinking about Moonspear - no matter how ingrained its presence had become - and maybe he could do that here.
She mentioned other recruits, other warriors, but Revui had not met any yet. Unless the wire-haired creature counted (Fraser), he seemed capable despite his oddities; but Revui wasn't smart enough to know the difference between a tamed hound and a wolf wolf anyway. He shrugged in response to her question but caught himself halfway through the motion, and tried to be a little more vocal despite the words feeling strange upon his tongue. New home, new tricks.
Merrick recruited me, yes.
That was better.
I'm Phoebe,
she offers next, to which he has no response for a minute or so. He isn't used to giving out his name that often - everyone knew him in the valley; it takes a beat for him to remember that he's not in his valley anymore, and that he's a nobody here.
Revui.
Technically, he's always been a nobody.
Silence erupted between his statements, but she was a patient sort, simply grateful for a little company that hasn't tried to chase her off. Whether she was too much or not enough, too soft or too forward, for once she revels in the fact that there is a distinct cohesion here.
As ever, questions rise on her tongue but they are the probing sort. She keeps them still and cheeked in essence, wondering just how to learn of him without asking too much. There's the signs that he's unwent something major—some sort of battle, she assumed—littering his features, but she can tell that they've been tended to. Not old wounds, but not too new either.
Obviously in her mind, he had to have been the victor.
"So have you always been a fighter?" she wonders aloud, her gaze once more snaking away. Impolite of her to study him perhaps, yet she could not help it. Knowing he probably wouldn't offer her much to go on, she kept talking. She'd carry the conversation.
"I never really got to learn more than the basics, like how to protect yourself. I liked plants better as a kid," and she may as well have still been a kid. Grown in height but far from it in being.
The suspended silence between them did not last long, although he was not quick enough to answer her question before she moved on with exposition. Like many women he had encountered, this slender shadow was more suited for the life of a gardener or herb-keeper. It was a useful skill; and lucky that he should encounter someone like her so soon, considering his habit of throwing himself headfirst in to danger. That said, Revui had mentally placed her in to a very specific category of persons and begun to wall her away. He had to do it, because thinking of her kind gave rise to what he was missing of Moonspear, and that was all behind him. He wanted to be done with it and to live his life, but couldn't succeed if he pined for Kukutux at every turn. So, in to that box she would go - buried, cemented-over, tucked away where proper connection could not occur.
My family is one of warriors,
he explained, his tone sharp at first but fading to something other. It felt like someone else's voice was coming out of his body. It is all I was taught, like you and your plants.
It had never occurred to Revui that he'd had any other option, and the same was true here: he was a man, and men fight. She was a woman, and so far, that meant she would be designated to any wild gardens in the valley. A poor choice, he decided in the next moment — she seemed sharp, capable of more. His gaze roamed across her wiry body without consideration to how it might look to her - but Revui's expression did not change.
The sharpness of his voice left her wondering if she had probed too far too soon, though he seemed to relent and assume in the same stroke following. Her ears fanned back in thought for a moment, not quite sure how to disagree. Plants weren't the only thing she had been taught, but it was the one area of study that she had been afforded the opportunity to succeed. But that was too verbose, too forward.
"I know lots of other things too," she said instead—it sounded childish out of her mouth. Too late to be taken back now. "I always wanted to learn more, but there were... changes." And now she had offered too much, too soon.
Phoebe shook her head dismissively at the memories.
"Do you plan to teach the others here? How to fight and defend, I mean. I feel like we'd have to and all, I know there's wolves on the other side of the valley." No doubt he knew too, they would all know. Wolves were far from fully silent creatures, and they butted against forests and plains full of prey. Prime real estate, it would have seemed.
She tried to justify her vocation but it wasn't going to get far with Revui. He only valued physical strength, although with the leader of Ursus being a thin and rangy fellow, he had learned that strength could come with speed as well - however, intelligence, herbal knowledge, and even the power of a wordsmith, all held the same low view to him. Perhaps if he had other tutors as a child he would be more open to all walks of life; alas, he was not.
Her questions earned a snort, but he listened until she was finished. It had not occurred to Revui that he could teach others to be strong; he was born in to it, and while his training had come in waves from various siblings and members of his birth pack, he never considered that his prowess in combat was due to them - he thought it was in his blood, and if it wasn't in the blood of others then they were destined for weakness.
I suppose,
he relented against his better (limited) judgement. If this pack is to be strong then work must be done. I would do it if ordered.
But not before, he implied. He had yet to meet anyone worthy of such attention anyway.
"But not because you wanted to?"
The question was off her tongue before she had given it much thought; behind it lurked a touch of disappointment, as she had caught that implication. It felt not unlike a rag shoved into her mouth that she had spat back out and perhaps with that statement she felt a certain haste to correct herself.
"I mean, I guess that's reasonable. I've heard you should never do something you're good at without something in return from traveling, but..." she found she couldn't finish the statement. But what? They were supposed to be a united front working together, didn't that take the fire out of doing something for nothing? Either way, the words didn't come and she fumbled, flustered suddenly beneath her innocent demeanor.
"I'm sorry, I'm probing—it's been a while since I've had good company. Am I keeping you from something?"
But not because you wanted to?
Want? Want had nothing to do with it. He did what was required to the best of his ability, and that was that. His childhood had been spent under the tutelage of warrior parents or warrior sisters, not because he wanted to be a warrior but because that was what they expected from him and cultivated out of his natural instincts. There was no way out of it. Want. All Revui had ever wanted was a hot meal and the praise of his betters, which for a time was easily obtained.
The manner in which the girl backtracked and tried to apologize did not irritate Revui, nor did he find it particularly pleasing. It was a lot of fumbling. A lot of akwardness, some soft apologies, all of which he watched mutely. As soon as Phoebe mentioned, Am I keeping your from something?
Revui presumed that was the end of things; it was dismissive.
A further patrol.
He grunts in response, but doesn't move from her side nor protest.
A further patrol, ah, leave it to her to completely abolish the fact that some of them probably had something to do. She couldn't have claimed to really contribute in that way, at least not yet. Patrolling was straightforward, but she was not ignorant to the concept that dangers were apt to lurk along there perhaps more than they ever did in the open breadth of the wilds; that was certainly something someone, somewhere, had instilled in her.
She hadn't even ventured too far towards the borders since Merrick had brought her there, a callback to a time when her life had been much simpler and much easier to stay confined in some sense to what she knew. And gradually, she was becoming acquainted with the finer points of Ursus and its claim.
"Then I shouldn't keep you," she decided, tone resolute. It did not come without a smile, her innocence shining through. "Perhaps I could find you later? If you'd want my company, that is. I'd like to get to know you better."
He gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders, the serration of his coat swaying with the motion. If they ran in to one-another again he probably wouldn't even notice without prompting. It hadn't occurred to Revui yet that he'd been rather closed off with her, but he wasn't one to get invested when it came to socialization in the first place. He more than likely missed many of her social cues—plus, she seemed eager to be rid of him.
Revui watched her for a moment, unsure of how to take the comment she had made. Get to know him better? What was there to know? He was a hulking beast who spent his days patrolling—clearly he was a warrior. What more was there? But it was a concept that made him pause and think for a change, and with their earlier conversation about teaching still simmering in his mind, he offered an alternative.
Or you could come patrol with me.
He proposed with the same deadpan expression, and stood there waiting to see if she would follow him - for all of three seconds. As he began to move off from their position he did not dally; the invitation was there, and she could share in the experience if she was up to it.
His parting statement surprised her, though he would never see that reaction with the way that he moved on. Dumbfounded, she stood there for a moment as he moved on—did he really mean that? Or were his expectations of her so low that he imagined she wouldn't go along? Far too used to not being included, she had mistakenly presumed the same would resume here—how wrong she must have been.
It was enough to spur her into action to fall in behind him, this time with a renewed worry that she may be left behind after all. Are you sure, she wanted to ask, but the words did not make it from her mouth. Of course he was sure, wolves like him were never anything but sure. Stalwart figures meant for the grandiose, for the action; he had been right to presume that she was for much more dainty things because that was the corner she had always drawn herself into. Soft and meek, too good natured for their own good. The very things that had seemingly held her back, but she strove to do more than just idly sit by.
"All right then," she chirped from behind him. She was glad, unable to hide it, just to be included. Valued in some sense when she had not for quite a long time. For all her innocence, she knew an opportunity when she saw one, and she intended to learn.