Beginning life anew, when you are middle-aged, is not as easy as it looks. No mood-lifting soundtrack in the background and your body has a nasty habit of reminding you that there are limitations to, what you can do. Even more - there are things you will never ever will be able to do. For the most part - Lele was this ripped-grandma type of person, who still runs marathons (at a modest speed), does age-appropriate weight-lifting in the morning and is perfectly capable of beating up a villain, who has horribly underestimated the strength of the that frail-looking old woman with a hand-bag (full with cat-food tins). She was in good shape and spring had been generous to her. Still - you accumulate not only experience and great stories over life-time but wears and tears of your body too. 

So for the past few weeks an ache in her left knee had gone from being uncomfortable to intolerable, making her grumpy and quite unwilling to socialize with people. The last thing she wanted was a bunch of bubbly, energetic puppies scrambling all over her. Lele did not hate kids, she really liked them, but at times like these, when pain severely limited, what she was able to do or think about, she did not want to have them anywhere near her. Which also meant that, while still technically part of the pack, she had very little knowledge of what was actually going on. 

Therefore it did come as a bit of a surprise, when she caught sight of the three-legged Mr Valour wandering around Moonspear, as if he lived here now. She watching him from the distance and then approached him, hobbling no worse on four legs than he did on three. "Mind giving directions to the doctor, who relieved you of your leg? I might need an appointment," she greeted him with a grin. 

"You may be that new hot trend around here and not even know it. Or you pretend to not know," Lele teased him gently and sat down out of habit, though she regretted it almost immediately. Bloody joint. She thought and glared at the source of pain, then shifted her weight on the other hip and let the aching leg rest. 

"So, what are you doing here and since when are you part of this area of woods?" she asked him. "Of course, you can lie and tell me that it was all my femme fatale beauty and charm and that you could not sleep or eat ever since we met," she added with a grin. "You know that a lady at my age is fine with lies and people pretending to adore them."

"Well, in order to have any luck on that front, you better start learning poetry," Lele pointed out - her own way of telling Phox that his good opinion of her had been very much appreciated. It wasn't often that she heard people thinking her a nice person - through a fault of her own (she did not socialize too much) and at the same time not (it was not her fault that people did not know, how great she was). 

"Meerkat?" she asked, tilting her head to the side, trying to put a face to the name and failing at it. She should have known, of course - this lass had been the vice-leader in Sialuk's absence. On the other hand, she could argue that her belonging to a pack was more of a formal thing. Though she had sealed the deal (and not for the first time) very enthusiastically expecting to change the course of her life, she had learned once again that going against your nature just did not work.

And life was too short to break your character to fit the mould. And she had wasted enough of it already. 

"So, what do you want to do, now that you have your wish fulfilled and you have run into me again?" Lele asked, smiling innocently at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. 

The description did not ring a bell, but Lele was not good at conjuring images in her mind, based on words only. There was a good chance that she would run into Meerkat regardless and with any luck - they would have a proper introduction to one another. As for Sialuk - Lele was on excellent terms with the leader. Meaning that after their first encounter, when she had been accepted in the village, their paths had not crossed again. Meaning that the leader was doing the "leadering"-business, but her subordinate was quite happy not to get in her way. 

Besides - while she would be the first to join the suffragette movement and was all for women being equal with men, she found she was not entirely comfortable having a woman in a leadership role. Not that Sialuk was not doing a good job, just... Lele's history with Larkspur - her stepmom - and the dominating, manipulative nature of her, had spoiled the impression of other women in general. During her stay here, she had found out that she was far more comfortable being in company of men. 

"Is it high up?" Lele asked. "Because I have a very good chance of climbing there and staying, cause my poor feet will refuse to bring me back down."