So this was her home.

It wasn't so quaint as it was massive, and he had to crane his neck just to try to catch a glimpse of the piece of the land the pack actually lived upon. And his neck sure didn't crane that far. Tuathal still wasn't convinced that there weren't more Blackthorns here than Ceara had given credit for. His family seemed to have a way of showing up in places he least expected - though, since he wholly expected them now, maybe that meant a good thing for him here.

The edge of the land lowered until it rose in a gentle hill, able to be scaled. A tangle of scents continued around the rise, and he scented Ceara among them. Just like his sister, to plunge herself headfirst into any place like she'd been there from the start. She'd always been one to stick her neck out. Now, it was his turn, and he tipped back his head with a howl.

The wolf who met him was neither his sister nor any Blackthorn he knew, and lucky for them both, she still had a hill to descend before having to deal with whatever poured from Tuathal's nerves. Of course he hadn't expected Ceara to be the one to answer his call, but even as much as he'd anticipated leadership, Tuathal realized he wasn't prepared to meet them at all.

He had never actually tried this before - joining a pack. Was there, like - something special he was supposed to do? Tuathal was already half distracted by the bird that seemed too close to the dark stranger to think of anything eloquent to say, so he simply started with the first spiel that came to mind. "Uh, hi. Hello there," she was still a bit of a distance away - was he talking loud enough? He raised his voice a fraction, just to be sure. "I'm - " but her voice cut in just then, strange and not completely right, and all he could finish with was an uncertain splay of his ears and a nervous, "heh," as her fiery gaze raked over every inch of him - and settled, without a doubt, upon the thick and blatant stripe she sounded like she'd seen enough of already.

Thank the stars Ceara scooted up just then. "Ceara." Tuathal flooded with relief and his eyes warmed at the unmaskable excitement in her voice. Had he decided to stay? "Oh - yeah," he gave a nervous laugh and shifted his attention back to the stranger, who he expected had at least a little more weight here than his newbie sister. "I'm Tuathal," he tried again, "I'm told your pack is the Blackthorn melting pot of the wilds. I was - uh, wondering if you had room for one more."

Well shoot the dog, of course he knew his stripe wasn't free admission. It was really nothing more than a mark along his back, defining his heritage, but not deciding his worth. That was something he forged for himself, and Tuathal found himself nodding in silent understanding - though he realized, a bit late, that his nerves had carried the nod a beat through the time he should have been talking.

Oh - uh - "Of course," he corrected, and dipped a more sombre nod. Something was off about the dark stranger; her voice alerted him to this, along with the way her eyes seemed to focus on his mouth instead of the space nearer his eyes. Her brain seemed well functioning, though, and he wondered if she simply had an impediment with her speech. His own voice shifted in the slightest anyway to something clearer and more pronounced, an instinctive response to what he found amiss in the other. "My everything." He answered, and couldn't it really be summed up as that? "I don't make promises I don't intend to keep, and I assure you, I'll give you my all. I think it's without saying I can hunt, and I know how to survive. I'm a warrior - it's what I've trained to be, and I'll continue to hunt for, care for, provide for, and protect your pack, to the best that I can, if you'll have me." He swallowed and found himself glancing at Ceara, perhaps for affirmation. Wondering whether he'd said enough. If he was even enough - but he knew at the end of the day, he'd only spoken that which he held to be true.

And it seemed his words were enough - or maybe that his Blackthorn stripe was actually more of a voucher than Towhee let on. In any case, he'd managed to talk his way through the gatekeeper and proceed to stage two: meet and greet the leaders. Now, that was a thought that made his chest squeeze with excitement or something erring on doom. He tried to cover both with a tentative smile when Towhee nodded farewell. "Yeah, catch you later - " But his words came once she had already turned away, and it seemed that maybe she didn't hear him - or maybe she just didn't care. Oh. Yeah. Okay, that's... fine. He rolled his shoulders to try to shake the weird edge that left him with.

But he barely found time to even turn to Ceara when a dark shape refocused on the top of the slope, and he snapped himself to attention. Had Towhee changed her mind? No - this wolf was definitely someone different - and Tuathal blinked, uncertain if the man was actually expecting an answer... other than just... yeah, you kind of did.

Ceara seemed savvy enough to speak, at least, and while he side-eyed her for how little she left him with to tell, for once he wasn't actually sure if that bothered him. Pitching himself to Towhee had drained him more than he'd expected, so he simply let his sister talk until she didn't anymore. Only then did he tip his head to the alpha (must've been Quixote, since Raven was a she and this was definitely a dude) and tried to interject some sort of addition to his sister's spiel. "Hey. I'm, yeah. Tuathal," ... and he stopped, and fell silent with the shift of a frown, because geez, she really didn't leave him much of anything to say, "Um. I'd like to join you - er, join your pack. I can hunt, fight, do all those wolfish things - but, Towhee said you have the final say."