The ruminations of the Ostrega's mind were not exclusive to Korei; Lily, too, had been feeling doubt and angst over the state of their group. Ali was no longer the carefree boy she'd found in a tree, and Lennon. . .God, where was Lennon? One minute here, the next minute, gone. A ghost, flitting through the boulders.

Beyond those two, absence ran amuk. She hadn't seen Xahi in a while, and even Lanawyn and Lainie, around most often, were not a daily presence in her life, not like they used to be. Lily was quite lonely, and so, when she spotted the white-furred girl sitting in thought, she bounded towards her friend, tongue lolling in delighted surprise.

"Korei!" she greeted, butting the girl in amiable fashion against one shoulder. Her pumpkin eyes sparkled as they thirstily drank in in the welcome sight of a friendly face. "I am so glad to see you!" Her inky tail wagged, a banner aloft behind her. "What have you been up to?" she queried excitedly.

"Neither have I," Lily admitted, with a huff. "Just practicing my hunting, and stalking, and. . .oh, all those boring pack things." Perhaps one day the girl would come to appreciate the minutia that went into being a member of a group, but for now, she craved adventure, and there was none to be found here.

In fact, the stuffy air of the den gave them no favors, and Lily nudged Korei, hoping to maneuver the girl up and outside. "Come on," she coaxed, her teeth a white gleam in the dim light of the den. "It's a nice night outside; show me some of the stars you've talked about before."

It truly was a nice evening; a bit chilly, but a vast improvement over the past frigid moons. Wispy clouds hung ahead, obscuring some of the softer stars, but the half-moon was bright overhead, and the sky was vast and limitless. Lily pointed her nose toward one star in particular, hanging low and glowing an almost pinkish color. "What's that one?"

Her face cracked in a wide grin as she followed where Korei pointed. "Little Dipper," she repeated, a giggle caught in her throat. "Funny little name for such a majestic group of stars." She looked over at her friend, wonder bright as moonlight in her eyes. "How can you pick out constellations like that? Patterns, and such? All I see is a bunch of random dots of light."

Even the "Little Dipper," which to seasoned astronomers was clear and bold in the sky, only seemed to have some form to it. But Lily knew there were other constellations, and while some had the gift--her mother was one of them--to find the shapes in the stars, she just couldn't see it.

There was a cluster of several stars--maybe just less than a dozen--above them that seemed to have some meaning; Lily nudged Korei, lifting her muzzle to gesture at it. "What about that one?" she asked, tail wagging in curiosity. "That looks like some sort of constellation."

"Erm, yeah, sorry," Lily apologized awkwardly, seeing the glare Korei sent her way and feeling bad. She wouldn't have cracked the joke if she knew how much her friend cared about the stars and all their names. The moment seemed to have been forgotten, though, when Korei grew excited over a rock nearby, and dashed toward it.

With a rueful smile, Lily rose to her feet and trotted over, hopping up onto the boulder and peering up at the sky. "You're right," she remarked, smiling. The sky did seem even more expansive than before, up here, and she caught sight of some stars that had been lost behind the tops of trees or below the horizon.

It was quite beautiful here--not as much as it had been on the mountain, she thought sadly, but not too bad, considering. She just wished that they were as tight-knit as they were before, to enjoy it all. She looked over at Korei, her face growing sad.

"Do you know what's going on with Alarian and Lennon?" Lily asked, tilting her head in inquiry. She figured the white-pelted girl, being closer to the pair, would know more than she did. "They're not around often, and when they are, they seem. . .off."

She canted one ear backwards, still staring at Korei, a troubled look painted over her dark face. "Have you talked to either of them about it?" Lily asked gently. "You three are rather close; I'd imagine they'd tell you before telling anyone else." She sighed, both in worry for the situation, which grew more bleak by the day, and in jealousy, for her friend's close relationship to the boys. She wanted that so badly, and now with both Ali and Lennon--the latter especially--withdrawing into the shadows, she didn't know whether she'd ever get the chance.

"I think no one really knows what to make of everything," she murmured, eyes wandering up to the sky once more. The stars winked back at her, reflecting in her fiery orbs, and for a brief, dizzying instant, she saw--saw shapes in the sky, deer with legs outstretched, a ribbon of a river. She blinked, and the moment was lost; the stars resumed their place in her mind as random pinpricks of light--but now she knew what Korei saw. It was beautiful.

She smiled, looking back over to Korei. "We had a long journey, and many of us are young--this is the most exciting thing that's happened to us. Not knowing what's to come. I think, perhaps, that a lot of us are overwhelmed by it, Lennon and Alarian most of all." The words felt good in her mouth, a cool balm to her injured spirit. She hoped they would bring Korei as much comfort as they did her.

"It's not just your worries," Lily reasoned, giving Korei a friendly nudge. "I don't know what to make of things either, and I'm sure others feel the same way. Lainie, Xahi, Lana. . . Everything's all sort of muddled." She shrugged, looking back up toward the stars. "Maybe they haven't talked to you yet because they're lost for words themselves."

She pointed her nose toward a sweeping arc, with a bright star at the very end. So bright, it caught her eye almost immediately. "That's your Little Dipper, yeah?" she asked, giving Korei a sidelong glance. "Why's it called that? It looks like a tadpole to me." Bulging head, long tail. . .

"Do you just study the stars for what they are, or do you. . .like, worship them? Or use them to tell fortunes? My Mum did that, sometimes," Lily admitted, a feeling of bittersweet warmth growing in the pit of her stomach as she thought of her mother, whom she missed all the time.

She smiled, trying to soak in Korei's statement as best she could. She supposed they were a comfort, always there. But there were uses for them, or so Mum had said--navigation, more practically, but she believed one's fate lie in the stars. She'd never given Lily her own fortune, which made the girl wonder if she'd seen something in the stars that she didn't want to share. Something that scared her.

"They're very beautiful," Lily agreed, muzzle tipped far back, almost comically so, as she stared at the sky. "Especially from here. Perfect for stargazers." She brought her face down to look at Korei, giggling slightly. "Maybe that's what we should call this place. Star Rock, or something like."

She pressed slightly against Korei in comfort, feeling the tension vibrating gently throughout the girl's body. It couldn't be easy, to see the relationship between Lennon and Alarian disintegrate before her eyes. They were her saviors, as she'd once made it very clear. How scared she must be, in the face of all this confusion.

She grew very excited at Korei's agreement, then paused a moment, pondering. "No," she said slowly, voice fading into a thoughtful hum. "I think. . .Stargazer's Rock. Or--Stargazer Rock. That works much better." Prettier than the dopey-sounding Star Rock on the first attempt, Lily thought in mild self-deprecation, lips curling in a wry smile.

"So we'll sit and look at stars, then," Lily said, more a statement than a question. She curled into her friend with a contented sigh, falling miraculously silent for a short while. Couldn't last long, though--her black maw opened in a question as she caught caught sight of a bright flash across the sky. "Is that. . .is that a shooting star?!" she cried out, eyes wide.

Lily had never seen a shooting star. Never in her life, on the plains under a vast blanket of stars. Perhaps she hadn't been paying attention, not nearly enough, to notice the tiny details of the night. But maybe this short time with Korei, the avid stargazer, had opened her mind to the reality of space, the intricacies of the stars.

Then again, maybe she had been fated to meet Korei, from the dawn of time. Perhaps the shooting star was a sign of prosperity and fortune to come, for them.

Perhaps everything would be all right once more. . .and soon.