wintersbane ventures further than he intends to. he has no love lost for the coast. he's not fond of sand and tends to stay well away from the beaches and sea itself. yet, it feels good to stretch his legs before he digs into blackfeather woods. he already has begun to but he takes the liberty of enjoying his freedoms to venture beyond and explore ...because that was the only way wintersbane was going to keep from feeling trapped: by proving to himself that he isn't. the tundrian has a keen eye on the ranks of the dark brotherhood however, and when he sets about to completing the tasks to earn his way into it he will set aside his explorations unless required of him.

he approaches ravensblood forest mostly out of muted curiosity. last he knew, a pack he'd briefly pledged himself to had been trying to form here ...but that had been some time ago. he'd been but a boy at the time and the lack of pack scent told him that it hadn't worked out. or perhaps it had and they had relocated. there is something about this particular forest that draws him in, ignorant to the complicated history and war that lies between his family and blackfeather woods that the ancient sentinels hold. that if not for it, he'd have been born among these very bleeding sequoias.

he ventures forward, unbothered by darkened forest, surprised to run into another so soon as he begins his venture towards the territory's heart. her scent is that of a pack's territory wintersbane had passed around to get to the forest but it is not full wolf. neither does she look like a wolf. definitely not a coywolf ( for he, himself is part coywolf ). as his glacial gaze takes her in, it lingers on her flopping ears. and as he lets out a low chuff to announce his presence to her, the question ( that he recognizes is incredibly rude ) "what is wrong with your ears?" smooth. one asshole point for wintersbane. there's arturo's influence in him. right there. still, it unnerves the tundrian for some unexplainable reason and his silvered-blue nape hairs prickle with uncertainty as he tries to make sense of what is mixed in her blood if not coyote.

wintersbane watches as she turns to him quickly, spooked perhaps beyond just his chuff as a warning of proximity, and as a small smile tugs at her lips. Just as he watches as it falls from her face at his rude question. and he can't help but stare even as he watches her wilt like a flower beneath the weight of his words. he's never seen ears like her's before and he can't help but feel that it's unnatural ...despite that the only thing that's unnatural is his bullying. his personality is a mystery box mixed with pandora's box and one never really knows what they're going to get until they open it.

he blinks slowly at her as she explains that she's a wolf but she's mixed with dog ...which he assumes is like a wolf but not. sort of like coyotes. he, himself is a hybird too; though the coyote blood is diluted enough to not make it's presence known physically. though it makes it's presence known in other ways: in a wily and cunning mind, certainly. the tundrian watches as her paws move shyly and she averts her gaze as he remains silence, processing it. contemplating how he feels about it. still a bit unnerved. still uncertain of what he should make out of the hybrid before him. eventually a rumbling "hm." vocalizes in his throat.

her ears certainly make her exotic to him. she breaks her silence, though in reality it is rather brief between them, by offering her name and tacking sir alongside it. sir? that was definitely a first, and though it is respectful ( despite that he's done nothing to deserve it ) he isn't sure how he feels about it. torn between wanting to preen beneath it and wanting to reject it because he knows he's done nothing to deserve her respect. "ah," he lets out the noise accompanied by a deep inhale and a long exhale. a twitch of his lips is given at his internal war and he rolls his shoulders. "i don't deserve to be called 'sir'. my question was incredibly rude and insensitive." he offers in apology. so. maybe there's a shred of decency in there. somewhere. "i'm wintersbane." he offers his name in return.

she retreats from him and the tundrian cannot blame her. he's been hardly anything but unkind from the get-go with no reason to be so other than she looked different. which wasn't her fault. she couldn't control that she was a wolfdog ...anymore than he could control being whatever percentage of coywolf he was. he forgets because he looks and is built just like the nightingale queen that the coywolf gangster existed at all. this is not out of spite but simply because during the first three months of his life wintersbane was undoubtedly closer to lotte than he'd been arturo. she compliments his name and he lets out a low, soft chuckle. it is always the name that catches the attention and the compliments oft vary.

the tundrian ducks his head ( though not necessarily to be humble; he's vain and he preens beneath compliments ), appreciative of the compliment but always feeling like it should belong to the woman whom had given it to him. "my mother thought so too." wintersbane murmurs in homage. 'wintersbane' was undeniably a better name to go by than 'spleenbane' which wasn't even relevant anymore. "you shouldn't make excuses for my behavior," he clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth once in clear disapproval. "whether you've been sheltered or not doesn't matter. i had no right." and he knows it. "i know better. i'm not full wolf either. my father's coywolf." it's the first time in a long time ( if ever ) wintersbane's publicly spoken about arturo and while the tundrian isn't sure, he assumes the gangster's still alive out there. somewhere. despite that wintersbane has no real desire to actually go and try to seek him out.

"curiosity, i suppose." he replies with a lofty rise and fall of his broad shoulders. "i was wondering if the pack that had tried to settle here a while ago was still around." 'a while ago' is a broad lapse of time: wintersbane could no longer remember if it'd been months or a year. nevertheless, the pack that had sought to form here was no longer here. whether that meant they managed to form and relocated or never founded at all is knowledge that remains out of his grasp. "alas, i've found my answer." he sighs, gesturing with his muzzle to the ancient sentinels that stand like mighty sentries.

it is pointed out to him that he barely looks coywolf and he resists the urge to tell her that he already knows that. for if he did look coywolf surely someone would have had something to say about it by now. he is blessed to not have the sharp angles of arturo's muddied lineage. "no." he replies honestly, though this is because, as established, he didn't look coywolf. he takes wholly after lotte and the ansbjørns. he has never faced the prejudices his father and no doubt she, herself, has faced. yet, he does not say this. even in his head it sounds bad. he offers an errant shrug and follows the flow of their conversation without intention of touching upon their hybridism again.

"if they ever founded here, for whatever reason, they are long gone." he murmurs in contemplative agreement. not that he had any intentions of sticking around if they had been there. she mentions the bleeding of the trees and he looks to the closest sequoia oozing it's sticky, red sap out of it's bark. "i don't think sap counts as blood," he says and then lets out a small noise of amusement. "it's an old wives tale meant to scare young cubs." the grin that twitches at the edges of his lips is sardonic. "ah," he breathes with a firm nod of his head when she says that the only thing she found in the forest was a wintersbane. "very elusive creatures, those winterbanes. wily. a little egocentric. stoic but otherwise pretty to look at." he mocks himself in good humor, theatric as he tends to and likes to be at times.

perhaps the tales of bleeding trees would have been enough to scare some cubs from wandering where they were not supposed to but that wouldn't have been enough to scare him. which as evidenced enough by his past, by where he was today. his path would've been so different if he'd only curbed his curiosity, if he'd only waited for arturo, hemlock or lotte. he made a mental note that if he ever had children to instill some sort of otherwordly fear of the world outside of the pack into them so that he did not have to ever face what he put his own parents ( and siblings ) through ...even though he deserved it for all the pain he'd caused them.

her words, accompanied by her nervous chuckle and the aversion of her eyes take a bit to sink into wintersbane's own mind. he'd mentioned his looks off-handedly, in a flippant manner of the vain beast that he is. his mother was a gorgeous and ethereal woman and as he takes after her as a masculine look-alike; he's aware that he's attractive. yet, the delta of the dark woods never knows how to take a compliment on his looks when it's genuinely given to him. should he be humble? arrogant? flattered? sarcastic? continue to play along or thank her for the compliment?

"mhm," he breathes, deciding that in the wake of her obvious embarrassment he'll keep playing along and not draw too much attention to her compliment despite that, in the end, he is flattered. he enjoys the stroke of his ego. "but you know what they say; the most beautiful flowers have the sharpest thorns." or...something like that.

she doesn't seem to believe him and her words that follow the declining shake of her head prove his suspicions. he listens to her assessment of him, her argument that he has been nice to her. have i been? just because he apologized for rude behavior didn't erase the fact that he had been rude. the fun has turned serious in their conversation and the in-depth observation of his personality makes him uncomfortable. his words had been meant to be a warning, not a point of debate. the pack scent that clings to his pelage should be a warning enough and yet it does not deter her. ...if, he thinks, she even knows what pack he hails from. either she is brave or just incredibly innocent.

the assumption that they're all mad, baby stealing, war and blood hungry murderers ( or whatever the most current rumor spreading about the wilds is; he's since shed himself of such gossip ) annoys him more than it should. he thinks of the dark priestess and her young daughters, specifically. well, specifically, astara as he has yet to actually meet the listener's pale daughter one on one.

he is a lot of things but rose? nah, he doesn't seem himself as the rose. still, he will not argue with her. "we never see ourselves the same way that other's see us." is all he says in conclusion, tail twitching against his hocks. he draws in a deep breath and lets it out. "i should be returning." he's seen what he's come to see. his curiosity on the subject is sated and he desires to return home. with those cryptic words he leaves her with a wily smile as he backtracks the way he'd came.