one thing blixen is good at is compartmentalizing. her heart can race every time she thinks of four very free girls all it wants, but she's got home and loyalty and drageda, and that's that. right?

the shilkru takes back to patrolling with a vengeance, having nothing else to distract herself with. she visits the kiddos now and again and she makes plans to tend to the garden she keeps forgetting to keep up with. but mantaining the borders is like... almost a ritual, if not, you know, slightly self-flagellating. 

thankfully today there is something to do: blixen spies a stranger sniffing around the borders and straightens up, picking up her pace to intercept them. they -- she doesn't seem to be trying to cross the borders, which begs the question, "what are you doing?"

squint.

wilson seems harmless enough but if she's not from another pack and she's not trying to join, blixen has no idea what she's on about. she'll indulge it for now but only because she's nicer to women. ahem. "it's fine, i'm blixen," the shilkru says, giving her an odd look, "and yeah -- drageda. you're at the borders. do you .. need something?"

hm. again, harmless enough, but definitely beyond blixen's (admittedly limited) scope of understanding. what's the point of just like.. walking around and asking things? learning things? she's not one of those jock types that thinks any work except her kind of work is bad, dont get it twisted, but still. "o-kay," she says, taking a seat -- clear she'll play along for now even if the doubtful look lingers on her face. "yes, it's a word in our native tongue," the shilkru explains, scrunching up her face as she thinks about how to translate it. after a moment she decides she can't and moves on. "our culture goes back to before we lived here," she tells wilson instead, "and we have other branches elsewhere, other gedas." satisfied with her own answer, she tilts her head and asks, "so you just like, go around asking questions? you don't want to settle anywhere?"

this is maybe another one of those moments where blix is being a bit closed minded (she's working on it, honest), so she drops the remaining judgemental look in her eyes and nods, accepting wilson's answer as genuine. "i don't go very far from here," she admits, "but that sounds kinda cool, i guess. like being a scout or whatever." okay well -- it's a start. it's not like being a scout, since scouting usually has a productive purpose in her opinion, but furi had been the same way, so maybe she should be a little more accomodating about the whole thing. "if you learn anything cool, come back and tell me," she says, the request unplanned and impulsive and frankly kind of silly. surely wilson won't come all the way back to a pack she has no loyalty to just for blixen's sake. still in the seconds that pass she finds she actually means it, and watches her a touch hopefully for a response.

"bye," blixen calls after her retreating form, watching for a few moments with a strange envy she can't quite place. eventually she shakes her head and rises back to her feet, returning to her patrol, her thoughts every so often turning to wilson and wondering what new things she'll see (if she'll run into furi and her friends.)