Ten days in and Lele seemed to have found the place to her liking. It had taken time to get used to the elevation and she still got out of breath, while taking paths that led upwards. Stopping and turning around to see, how far she had walked, helped to get back on track again. Still after a lifetime of being a "crawler" (meaning those, who preferred to roam the flat side of the Earth) adjusting was neither fast, nor easy. 

After that first friendly banter on the borders with Argent Lele had not found the courage or confidence to approach other pack members. Another old habit that was harder to break than she had imagined. In her life as a nomad for the most part she had not relied on anyone and therefore even the need to communicate was hard to find. Even now it held true, except she had chosen to be in a pack, because she no longer wanted to live on the fringes of life. 

So, when she spotted a tall dark stranger carrying, what appeared to be a bouquet of antlers and twigs, she followed the fellow at a distance to see, where he ended up with the baggage. Only then did she address him with a: "What is that you are building?"

Lele was not an introvert by nature, but rather an introvert by circumstances. She enjoyed company, but it had always been such a rare treat that she had it difficult to travel smoothly the intricacies of communication. Especially if she had to be the one to drag the conversation by the nape with the other party unwilling or not interested. Luckily for her - this guy was not shy and he talked for both of them. A definite win!

"Well, unhappy adult minds are also no fun to have around," she remarked, looking the man up and down as long as it was polite to do so. And - yes - of course, her biologically feminine part of mind, who had been screaming at her for the past few seasons "give me a baby!" - did an automatic matchmaking. Willow was a nice family name and he also fit all the criteria of a "tall, dark and handsome stranger". She smiled to herself glad that the packmate had no idea, what kind of mathematical equations her imagination was cooking up. 

"Name's Lele," she introduced herself. "So - do you have kids of your own here?" she asked, having not yet got to know the two (?) moms-to-be and their husbands. Plus, in her experience, having one mate did not exclude having a second. Or a third. 

"Handsome chap like you and no ladies lining up to woo you? That's very hard to imagine," Lele chuckled. "Or there is a story of, why is it so," she smiled, leaving it up to Alaric to decide, whether he wanted to share this or leave it be. 

"Well, I have not been sought after either - the way you put it," she said with such an ease that even surprised herself. Her mind was still not at peace at times for the difference between, how she had imagined her life to be and what it had turned out to be like. 

"So - no, no mate or children. Single and proud," she finished. "I used to think that I was the odd one out, but it turns out that there are far more single people out there than those, who have found their match. Even far less those, whose match is happy union," the longer she lived, the less she understood, what had held Larkspur and Tambourine together. They had had nothing in common, save for lust for each other every year. 

Lele got an awful lot of details she had not asked for and did not quite know, what to think about the level of desperation the man had had been in to trade his flesh for basic necessities of life. For any other person she could have felt sorry, but Alaric did not seem to mind the way life had treated him. Whatever the reason was - he appeared to take pride in it too.

Then the topic moved to him talking freely of, how Sialuk - their leader - would hopefully take more than one mate and she looked over her shoulder uncomfortably to see, if there were no uninvited pair of ears listening. She did not now the alpha well, but she had a feeling that talking like this was a form of heresy. "Yeah... I guess everyone lives the way they deem fit," she finally said and with that she did not quite know, what else to add. Her mind still tried to ruminate on all the details she had received.

"Hey!" Lele stepped in the guys way, in case his farewell was followed by him attempting to leave. "You do not avalanche other people with intimate details of your life and leave them to fend for themselves," she told, though for a minute there she wondered, whether she had misread the situation completely and he had wanted to get rid of her from the get go. People could fake being nice and cordial, but she did not believe that even Alaric had mastered the craft of being that natural in the art of lying.

"No, no, no, no..." she told him shaking her head and chuckling. "Now it is your turn to sit down and listen to all the stuff I have to tell you!" she looked him in the eyes, gaze alight with laughter, but expression semi-serious, as if daring him not to obay. Ranks or no ranks, she was the older of the two. She could very well be his mom. 

"Do you know, why assumptions make crap arguments? There is an "ass" in the word," Lele had a sense of victory, when she saw that Alaric was the confused one at the end of the round two. It was not often that she managed to score - especially hard, if you are on your own for most of the time. 

"So - let's begin with a very obvious question - why the hell do you think that leaving is/was the best option? Do you do that every time you shock a person?" she looked at him curiously. "I mean - my life has not been as adventurous as yours, obivously not in that kind of way, but that does not make you any less of an interesting subject to study," she explained. 

"So - before I unload upon yo my mommy issues and childhood trauma - care for a bit of interrogation at first?" she asked. "So in case we ever come to a situation, where you threaten to reveal my dirty secrets, I have something to hold against you," she grinned, half serious, half jokingly.

Alaric may have held back the "I am shameless" part, but after the first shock of him having no filter, Lele did not expect him to have any now either. The fact that this guy offered to unpack all the stuff that was inside his closet - dirty laundry, clean laundry, skeletons, living people, stolen jewels, dance shoes and deals with the devil himself - made him all the more interesting subject to study. She did not need to handle him as a fragile and expensive porcelain vase - she could hammer him like a concrete wall. 

"Okay - World peace or a good bang?" she asked the first thing that came up in her mind.

"Believer of the Big Bang Theory, I see..." Lele laughed at Alaric's almost predictable answer to her question. What would he do, if the activity proved to be disappointing? She refrained from asking him, what he thought of the quality of peace in the world - meaning that "peace" could be good, bad or peace for peace's sake. Sometimes a good conflict - though damaging and traumatic - could prepare ground for something new. The other thing his answer suggested was that he would put his priorities above that of other people. If the price was good enough. 

"Most embarrassing situation you have ever found yourself in? That's - assuming that you have any sense of shame or moral code," she poked fun at him again. 

"Here's the trick with "life-ruining-good", my dear," Lele emphasized the last word, retaliating for his hint of patronizing tone earlier. "Life does not stop at that one particular moment. It moves on. Then what? It is kind of like in that joke about all the people, who have committed suicide. And - guess what - the next day they feel different, but there is nothing you can do about it," she grinned. 

"So you formed one big and happy polyamorous family and lived happily ever after?" she asked sarcastically, but there was no malice in her voice. Just her having fun. "Like in the fairy-tales? Which part of the kingdom did you get?"

"Oh, no, no, no - there was no mention about the world ending. Just world peace. Does not mean that, if you pass up the opportunity to make the choice, the other ones will," Lele shrugged, then listened to the rest of his story. "Well, if they are all consenting adults - who cares, what parents think. Besides - who knows, maybe they ended up marrying a third in the family. Perhaps of bluer bloodlines and such," she suggested. 

"A witch - huh? What's your magic then? Besides acting as a succubus/incubus on the side?" she asked. 

"I have learned that, what constitutes a sin is a matter of perspective and perception," Lele remarked. What was considered a sin by one man, may not be such in the eyes of the other. "Yeah, probably, but I think that it is very difficult to maintain. The balance, I mean. Two people are hard enough and most times not very succesful. Three may be too much," in other words, with her experience (or lack of good ones to refer to) she did not really believe in the concept of polyamory. At least not for herself. 

"No one has cured old age yet and I am so boring that I do not have any enemies," she dismissed the offer. "But - do freeze me in place with a scary story," she challenged him.

If that was supposed to be a scary story, Lele did not get it. Her expression kept the curious look and after the short tale had been finished, she waited for continuation a little while, until she understood that there was not going to be any. "So - where is the scare?" she asked Alaric to clarify, because she sure had missed the point of it. 

"I mean, a lot of people would give anything to hear their dead talk to them again? A communication beyond the veil and such - if that makes you happy, why should it matter, what other people consider normal?" she mused.