Entirely bored of anything to do with winter, she was keen to see the tiniest hints of green begin to break through the drab whites and grays of winter. This was a good sign that she welcomed wholly, assuming there would be no more snows or frosts from here on out -- which was not impossible, but did she hope it was finished with. It was time for spring, and she had missed it enough to anticipate its return this eagerly.

As she moved over the mountainside more effortlessly than she had in weeks thanks to thinning snow, she was on the prowl for deepening signs of springtime over the landscape. Of course, she'd find a way to mix more solid duty into this along the way, so wove a pathway for the outer edges eventually. This brought her upon Aria, and Amekaze's interest was piqued by what captured her focus so.

For the first few seconds between them, Amekaze only watched in thoughtful silence. Not knowing Aria's inner workings to their fullest extent, she could not understand each and every one of her subtleties from just a glance like this, but she had not meant to come upon her with a start like that. Her ears fanned back just briefly and a beat later, Aria's voice brought them perking forward. "I was making my way for the borders, since nothing else called yet.." she detailed, not that it necessarily required any help. It was quiet here these days (almost mundane) and even if it wasn't, she had experience at her back. "Were you busy? I hope I did not interrupt anything," she said, touching gently with a hint of almost-apology for possibly spooking her by showing up without much prefacing. Ame was used to sneaking up on her family without trying, less so on Aria.

Something unseen lurked. She couldn't quite see what it was. Aria's tangling words stoked this suspicion for the dark alpha, and she hoped to scatter this.. unease, if only she could pinpoint how that would have to be for her.

Amekaze nodded slowly, although she did not understand in full. "Looking for..?" she repeated curiously, uncertain of which points here to focus on yet. "Is something on your mind? Or have you been out this way already?" She did know Aria patrolled sometimes based on scent. Almost, she thought to not even ask, then really felt that way after Aria tried to diffuse it, and licked the backs of her teeth thoughtfully as she slipped forward into a slow trot towards her initial heading until she'd know otherwise. The company was welcome and there was no earnest obligation for her to answer; Ame would not pressure her any further in favor of moving -- at the least, since it always helped her when her head was feeling cloudy. Whether or not the pale wolfess answered her would be response enough for now.

While she could take Aria's word for it that indeed, it was quiet there, nothing else seemed to draw her pathway otherwise. Ame nodded softly, but couldn't quite say more. She did take the opportunity to look around for more, sniffing here and there in case she may come upon something more game than patrolling already-marked boundary lines.

But what she said next perked her ears and slowed her step. There needed to be a half second of adjustment as her focus shifted gears; Amekaze had not been prepared for such a weight, but she didn't balk from the subject and didn't rein her curiosity to understand better any. "Feel it.. how?" she asked over her shoulder, without scrutiny in the glance but instead a want to know more. The shifting crosshairs between physical and spiritual varied for most — or so she had come to understand it over the years. Her sense of feeling the earth itself, its energies underfoot, may never be the same as another. "Do you not feel it anywhere else? If there is even words for it.." She amended, sensing Aria's sadness hesitantly.

Ame listened intently, not knowing of who she spoke of exactly but the depth of it was not easy to overlook — even as an outsider to it. "Even without knowing.. him, I would say he was attached to those woods, then? A very piece of it himself now.. so that he would never have to leave," she ventured carefully by putting herself in the hypothetical, and how she'd approach the idea were it her mountain versus their forest. Still, this surely did nothing to soothe Aria's aches. Maybe he could not leave, now. Maybe it was all how Aria perceived it, Amekaze could only guess.

The explanation panned, and Amekaze could draw the parallels if she looked at it in the same sort of light. As it often was with matters so abstract as these, they were difficult to put into words. Her mother had always titled them natural energies (which she had learned of thoroughly), Charon called it the stars speaking to him, others believed it was revered ancestors' guidance, among a great many other variations that were surely out there.. Ame liked to think she understood them enough to perhaps appreciate it. If that was the word she had ought to call it by.

Maybe, she thought, Aria's difficulties in sensing it stemmed from somewhere nearby. A mental fog? A disconnect around her? The place itself? Grief..? She could not pinpoint what it may be, let alone how to help ease the negative away.

"Maybe it is speaking more quietly than normal, these days." Amekaze's ears splayed with the suggestion. "Or maybe it has nothing new to tell you.." She tried to twine the words with a touch of humor, leaving Aria to take it as seriously as she wished. It was just a thought, though. "My.. honored mother, she swore by meditation to clear her thoughts and bring her back to the natural energies—as she called them, her vague.. sensations she felt everywhere, more strongly in other places." The dark alpha imparted this knowledge carefully, sensing that Aria would hopefully see why it felt relevant. But, mention of her dam came almost delicately, so to contrast this, she compared her own experience with a lighter note. "I could never grasp it as well as her. I found my solace elsewhere." In combat.

Such a matter up for varying interpretations like this was bound to have a whole spectrum of ideas. It all seemed to boil down to the same sorts of key points, no matter what it was called in the end. "Souls, too. It works, and maybe even conveys it with a better shape to it.." She could see it, although it was more specific than she personally liked it to be, or perhaps it was just her particular definition of the word that made her feel that way. It wouldn't be the first, nor the last time, language was to blame for something of the sort, but the point remained, she was open to different interpretations, and curious to hear them out if appropriate.

But this still did not do any good for Aria's strife, which she couldn't help but think tied back to whatever all had transpired in Donnelaith. Amekaze pondered quietly, although her outlets to understand it were still in pieces. Knowing she searched still, actively, was one thing, yet she was hesitant to overstep. Comforting, encouraging.. helping ease the aches instilled by time, cruelty, fate, and all else, she did not have the best beginnings to do so here.

All she was best at was willing her to keep searching, keep moving, and find whatever it was she needed. "In this vast world, there could be no end to a search, or the answers may be practically beneath your nose. I do not know, but I do hope you may find what you seek." Her ears were tilted back, and expression kind of uncertain before she pressed onward. "You have not visited Donnelaith's woods at all since leaving them, right?" She was still trying to find a better approach to offering any true hope at all, and somehow, this kept making her wonder. Would she still feel the energies and the souls there? Had they left her entirely? Or, maybe, would some closure of some sort help her.. if it did not set her back instead, which was always a possibility.

Her suggested notion fell pretty flat, as to be expected. "It may still surprise you," she mentioned, for it was not like Aria appeared to have much to lose at this point, bottomed out emotionally as she seemed. Or, it could horrify her completely and do more harm than good. Although, Amekaze could only see it for the surface, and not having known Aria before her arrival to the Spear--after such strife and then just before more loss in her vanished comrades, it was a best guess. Who was to say what or how it would go. In her own way, she understood why she wouldn't want to go. But, she would personally want the closure to bookend the experience, then move away from it for good.

Before it would be able to devolve much further, she would carry on. Before taking to a new motion around the mountain, she offered a hunt or patrol or anything of the sort to serve as some sort of distraction if she didn't prefer her solitude more. She'd gladly get up and move with her, or without. Ame left it up to Aria, and was on her way not too long afterward.