Delicious sheep. It was good hunting in this place. The clif was steep, the terrain difficult, and the sheep dull-minded. Spreading her paws wide, the cat had climbed her way up the mountain to chase several sheep until at last, one of them was felled.

Umi had stayed on the cliff after eating, eventually abandoning it to a pair of young eagles that wanted to fight over the scraps. Ten cat naps and many hours later, it was the rain that moved her once more. Well, that and an unexpected sight. At first, she took it for a coyote and thought to ignore, but the smell of tears and fear and wolf spurred the lioness into action. Swiftly, she moved after the wolf pup until she saw it.

It was all white. It was quite young. Afraid that her presence might spook the poor thing, she chirped at him from a short distance before quickly trying to close it. Where's your mum little one? She called as she moved, hoping that there was something she could do to help the seemingly lost wolf cub. She remembered once losing her mother when she was young — it had been a frightful day indeed.

At first, the cub moved toward her before she had managed to speak. After he saw her shape, he was unsure, naturally. She didn't look like a wolf. She was not a wolf. She was nothing like anything he had probably ever encountered before. But, Umi wanted to help.

The wolf boy did not respond to her attempts for a good while. Her ears lowered. She crept forward, hoping to appease him, hoping to make him no longer afraid. An instinct kept his eyes wide. He did not respond to her question, instead, asking his own. She blinked, then smiled. Umi, my name's Umi, she said. And you? The tip of her tail wiggled curiously as she bent down lower, setting herself upon the ground to make her space feel more inviting to the pup.

He needed help. But in order to help, she knew that he would need to trust her fully. Where are you off to? She asked the question thinking that he either had an intentional destination, or, more likely, he was separated from his mother and needed to find her. She thought not of the pack that he was part of — packs were not part of her social vocabulary.

If she could help, she would.

Poor little tyke. He had a name that reminded her of her own lineage. He seemed so small and helpless; his stained cheeks and soft innocence pressed upon her nurturing instincts. As he explained that his mother had gone missing, she rested her chin on the ground, looking up at him. She wanted to cuddle him and purr and lick him until he felt better, but these weren't appropriate or particularly helpful.

So, as Haruki stared at the ground, the cat lifted herself back up and took a slow but protective step toward him, stepping sideways as though to shield him from the wind. Well, let's go find her then. What's she look like? Umi figured that it couldn't hurt to help him try to find her.

She realized that based on his use of we, his mother might have been missing for a longer period than an hour. Part of her hoped that the wolf cub might have simply been separated from her for a short spell, but worried it just wasn't so.
Regardless, she could always bring him back wherever they came from if they failed in their quest. Surely he had more family looking after him — that was how wolves worked, right?

She took a step toward the slopes, watching and waiting for the little cub to follow and fill her in on the details.

White fur, blue eyes, okay. With a description like that, Umi figured that the wolf cub's mother would be easy enough to spot if she was anywhere nearby. Wolves were usually not white, right? She'd never seen one before. The pair set off as Haruki followed her swiftly, but Umi realized a small problem.

The rain would make the slopes difficult to climb. The feline would have no real trouble with this, but the puppy, well, it was hard to see him getting up so much as a large rock with things getting wetter. Alrighty, let's get you up this ledge, she said calmly, looking at the distance to the nearest flat-ish surface. It didn't look terribly far, but he wasn't a tiny thing either. She was still confident she could carry his weight.

Just hold tight, she said, nodding in a way that sought to comfort him. In a flash she was standing over him, swooping down, and grasping his scruff; the action came very naturally to her.
Oof, heavy boy.
Swiftly but carefully, she pulled herself and the boy up the steepest and most slippery part of the mountainside. Her paw slid out from under her weight once, but she was quick to catch herself, claws splaying out to better grip the rock. It didn't take long before she was setting him down on proper ground.
She stretched herself and felt a light pop of her back. Mothers did this all the time, but that was the first time she'd experimented with it.

We won't find her tracks — the rain will wash them away in no time. We'll have to do some exploring to find her, Umi offered, standing straight and tall as though preparing for battle. She knew that without tracks, it was very unlikely they would find her. She didn't have a direction or anything more than the boy's sorrow to go on, but it wasn't going to stop her from trying.
Instilling hope in little Haruki was her only goal.

The boy's voice had already changed to something with gusto and renewed energy. Children were resilient this way, she was discovering. The speed at which he was able to move from being in tears and lost to determination was fascinating. Umi hoped that the white puff would not lose this ability with age.

That's a great idea, she agreed, sniffing at the air with a twitch of her pink nose. If we work as a team, we can track her down! The rain was an unwelcome distraction to their quest, jumbling together different smells that weren't normally so overwhelming. Her senses told her of a dead bird not far away in the woods that became quite pungent due to the drizzle. Wet air always made smells strange, but she was sure that if they could just find some lavender, they might be in good shape.

She moved forward, heading into the mountain trees, sighing, lavender, lavender, we're gonna find you. She remembered the peculiar scent of the flower well — it had a strong aroma to it. The feline smiled as she took expertly silent steps through the woods, checking on Haruki out of the corner of her eye every few seconds or so to make sure he hadn't wandered away.

The dead bird smell went away over time and was replaced by pine bark and musk from some other animal. Each woodland path told its own story and had its own footprint that the two predators could read with their noses alone. A squirrel sounded an alarm call as they passed, and Umi couldn't help but make a short chatter and hiss at it in the trees. It went on yelling at all its little forest friends that there was a CAT and a WOLF, and Umi moved past, ears swivelled back.

Come ooooon, lavendar! She said, much more cheery, hoping it was close. She definitely smelled something flowery...

Haruki called out for the lost mother. His voice sounded like a funky little howl. His tiny voice carried in a way that Umi knew wolves were famous for. Her nose continued to twitch, searching for the scent of lavendar on the moist air. The rain continued to come through the branches, though it was less wet than before now that they were properly covered.

She breathed out a length sigh at the boy's concern, slowing down a bit but continuing to move forward. Movement was something she had found helpful whenever in distress. Umi knew that she and he might not be able to find her; she didn't have the context to know that they wouldn't, however. Hope was an important flower to grow.

Maybe she had to do something important just for mommies, she suggested, although she had no idea what that would even entail. When she was a cub, it was common for her own mother to leave she and her brothers behind, but that was always for hunts. She wasn't sure if wolves did that too or not.