Porcupine Ridge fīf

Presuming she's been living here since the thread with Hex.

What Edith would slowly come to realize as she was brought to the ridge and shown some of what comprised the claim of Hex and his people, was that her perception was deeply skewed by the lessons from home. The initial shock of their meeting aside, it was the introduction to the craggy landscape of the ridge and the many interlaced scents which brought to life the logistic brain that Edith carried.

She saw less and less sign of anything fantastic about the place: patrol paths where the inhabitants could keep apprised of the outside world (or the gossip of the day, as her handlers would call it - pee mail), shared accommodations in some places (presumably for brooding mothers? Further study was required), and hidden places smelling of fresh meat and tilled earth; this was a conundrum to her, for now.

Over the course of several days Edith watched for others; she hoped to spy the inhabitants and reach some sort of understanding, some bridge between the stories of her childhood and the truth of her new reality.

their specters grew, and muskrat knew it was soon time to seek a raiding.

so far, the terse alliance with viskani had held. no war parties came for them; no invasions threatened. in fact, that elegant woman kept to herself as much as muskrat would have liked.

in pleasure she trailed her shadows, finding the newest ahead of her on one trail or another.

backing into the nearest spill of blackened overhang, the sentinel prowled noiselessly alongside the creature. a dog. healthy enough, it was her foreign nature alongside her femaleness which provided potential threat to muskrat's wolven goals.

she did not yet show herself, playing the same sort of game with the dog that she had played with nutu; filling the air with pressure until she was acknowledged.