Grezig had traveled about as far away from Emberwood as she dared. Her group-mates were still there and she hesitated to move so far from them in case they needed her. But there were a lot of them now and she was confident that, should something happen, they would be able to handle it. She’d still hate herself if she came and found them in distress, however, and planned to return very soon. She pulled herself out of her thoughts when she saw a male wolf up ahead, seeming to stare into space, as if distracted. “Hey,” she called out, stopping where she was and waiting for a response before getting closer.

Grezig shook her head at the male’s words. “You were not intruding. These are unclaimed lands.” She looked around at the magnificent view that the male spoke of, shrugging. Grezig was not one to really notice or care about the beauty of nature. She was a wolf. She was constantly surrounded by nature—trees and rivers and hills and rocks. It had been a long time since she had seen something in nature that had truly astounded her, and she doubted she was ever see such a thing again. 

Wanting to keep the conversation going, she said, “I am Grezig. Who are you?”

Grezig grunted, having nothing much to say. She never had anything to respond with when people said it was nice to meet her. They didn’t even know her. And, what was this? Her name was… interesting? She’d never heard anyone say that before and wasn’t sure how to react to it. Was that supposed to be an insult, or was her name genuinely interesting? Well. It didn’t matter because he was already moving on from that.

’What brings you to this lonely copse?’ Embry asked.

Grezig opened her mouth to reply, but was immediately interrupted.

’What the hell do y'think happened here?’

Her mouth closed. She looked around at the area they were in, really taking in her surroundings for the first time. Dotted here and there were trees that looked as if they, alone, had caught fire, like the world’s smallest wildfire. Except there were multiple trees like that. Furrowing her brows, she turned her head, swiveling here and there as she took in one, two, three, four… she lost count of them all. She tried to think about this logically.

“Let me see,” she mused aloud, and then sat down to ruminate. “These burnt trees could not have been caused by a wildfire, or there would be a huge swath of the area that was completely burnt to the ground. But here, only individual trees are destroyed. What causes fire, but only in isolated…” She stopped, as an image came to her mind, of being a pup hiding out in a cave to stay away from a thunderstorm. A bright flash had come down from the sky and destroyed a tree some distance away. “Lightning strikes?” That would make the most sense, but... "But why are there so many?"

Grezig blinked, then her brows furrowed. “What do you mean it’s from a volcanic eruption?” she asked, ignoring his other words about how they made a good team. She was imagining chunks of heated rock flying off from the volcano and, what? hitting individual trees, and somehow not starting a huge fire? “How could a volcanic eruption cause the destruction of only individual trees? Lightning strikes make much more sense.” The tone of her voice suggested that she was not going to argue this point. She knew she was right and that was that. The last time she had ignored a gut instinct, it had meant recruiting an idiot into their group, and she had been regretting that decision ever since. No. These trees had been burned by lightning strikes, and that was the end of it.

Grezig took in the toss of Embry’s head. He leapt to his paws, then, asking if she wanted to duel on it—on how the trees had been destroyed. She almost said no. It did not really matter how the trees had been burned. She’d been stubborn about it only in that she thought she was right and he was wrong. But it was nothing to fight over. But, studying his body language, she could see that he only wanted a friendly fight. A spar. He was smiling, even. She sighed. Was this worth her time? Maybe. Maybe a practice fight would be good for her. She hadn’t had a fight of any kind in some time. 

She stood. “Fine. But— this will be a friendly spar only. No eye shots, no drawing blood. Understand?”

Waiting to make sure that he did, in fact, understand, she took a running charge at him, attempting to lunge and bite at his shoulder—not hard, obviously. She would follow her own rules, of course.

Grezig let out a grunt when her chin came into contact with Embry’s shoulder. Her head was thrown back a bit and she’d bitten her tongue, though not too hard. They weren’t playing for blood, so his shoulder blow hadn’t been super hard. Quickly shaking her head, she did the first thing that came to mind, which was running straight into him with her body, in the hopes of knocking him over, or just back a little to give her room.

Grezig, still tasting a little blood in her mouth from biting her tongue, watched as Embry toppled over completely, landing on his opposite side. While he was down still, she lunged for his exposed back, hoping to nip at him and maybe pin him to the ground. This, however, was not successful.

Embry managed to get back up onto his paws, though the act of doing so seemed to exhaust him somewhat. He was now staring at her triumphantly. She smirked for just a second, impressed with his maneuvering despite herself, and then she lunged for his throat. She was tiring out now and needed to end this quickly, but somehow, he managed to avoid her yet again.

Grezig stumbled back from the force of Embry’s shoulder against her flank. She was tiring out and her thick, muscular build worked against her now. She felt herself fall over onto her side, but quickly attempted to lunge forward and snap at the male’s ankle while she was down, hoping to at least get him to back up away from her, or maybe cause a stumble. Unfortunately, he was too quick for her yet again!

But he didn't do anything next. He stopped fighting, and Grezig stood up and looked at him cautiously, expecting him to lunge for her when she least expected it. But... nothing happened. They had come to a draw, it seemed. With a shrug, Grezig thanked the male for the fight, turned, and left.