Dragoncrest Cliffs Diaspore

it was freezing cold, and portia wanted nothing to do with anything. all the flowers that she and melchior had planted in the cavern had died, almost immediately, and it was rather depressing again... depressing and cold. she sat huddled in the cavern against a wall, her fur fluffed up and her tail wrapped around her paws. she was hungry, but too cold to move to a cache or to hunt, and therefore figured she would be fine where she was. she might starve, but then again, if she stayed out of direct wind and snow, maybe she wouldn't freeze. and maybe a mouse would just sort of wander up to her and beg to be eaten. that'd be nice, she decided oh so nice.

in other news, she could feel her body begin to act up. she usually was never hungry, and was good at only eating when she personally knew it was healthy to eat something. she was antsy and almost snapped at one of the ogedakru members for virtually no reason the other day. it was unlike her, and she was disappointed with herself. on the other hand, as a fisa, she knew what that might warrant, and it scared her-- just a bit. for now though, she was safe and lacked an overly interesting scent.

The first night or two of staying in the cavern had been weird. He found himself trying to stay close to Melchior or Tirgatao and do his best to stay out of the way. The three of them belong with their Heda as much as the others but their transition had yet to be approved, giving them the awkward feel (at least for Arlo) that he doesn’t dare indulge himself to speak of it.

When Arlo stirs from his nap, he blinks a few times around the cavern and the first wolf he sees is the white and black woman that snapped at him the other day. He stiffens his muscles and doesn’t move from his curled up spot and hopes, for a moment, that he isn’t noticed. He is still uncertain what happened—had he gotten too close?—but he didn’t get the chance to ask and he still would rather not bring it up at all.

However, he finds a new pull that slowly causes him to unravel once the world began to clear. His nose twitches and he draws a breath and there is something he can’t explain. He clears his throat after a moment but awkwardly glances away to avoid her glare.

she truthfully had been so focused on not being cold, she hadn't noticed the other male. arlo was his name, she remembered him from the borders. he cleared his throat, and her focus moved to him. her eyes narrowed, staring at him, expecting something. he looked away, like he'd just cleared his throat for the hell of it, and so-- pointedly-- she did the same thing, aiming to bring his attention back to her.

"can i help you?" she asked, tail swishing once and then curling up around her paws. it wasn't quite a snap, but it was certainly said with more edge than she typically said anything. she noted this, but couldn't help that she was now just annoyed with this mans presence.

Almost immediately he feels the burn of her eyes in the back of his head. He doesn’t know why he feels as awkward as he does when she is one of the outsiders but it is evident her roots have settled deep within Drageda. She feels more connected to Drageda than he does and he knows it she feels like home. He does not have long to think about it when she does finally speak and he slowly turns to look at her. Her words aren’t particularly hostile but her features give it a whole new meaning.

“No, I’m uh, I’m okay,” he manages to say but he feels like he needs to say something else. Obviously unsure of himself, he stammers: “I’m sorry about the other day,”

he said no, but portia wasn't content with that. the fisa studied him, flicking her tail, "mhm, just don't sit in my way next time," she said curtly, a brief nod of her head as if to seal her statement. "you are melchior's brother, aren't you?" she then asked, head cocking to the side. melchior was less in the way... though she supposed she didn't need to be so snappy, but she was a medic and if wolves were all up in her space she'd be wasting precious healing time... if there was an emergency, anyway.

"melchior likes plants," she stated simply, "what do you do?"

Arlo frowns when she gives the solution, which seems rather obvious but he hadn’t realized he’d been in the way. Wishing to brush it off and never to bring it up, he tucks it away as she moves on just as easily. The worry lingers in the back of his mind but he nods anyway to the question as she continues to show interest. She doesn’t storm off like he expected originally he shifts his weight, just as awkward as before. “Yeah, he’s always been good at that,” he says despite Melchior’s need to impress his physical skills just as much as anything else, even if he didn’t like it.

“I’m a good warrior, I guess,” he offers with a disinterested shrug of his shoulder. He’d never found anything in particular he enjoyed doing and instead gravitated toward what had been expected of him and enough skill to pull it off.

portia stared. "you guess?" she asked curiously, her tongue swiping her around her nose, hoping to warm it slightly. really though, it just made it wet and then colder, and she scrunched it slightly. "well... what do you like to do?" she said, shifting the question slightly. maybe it would make a difference. portia was a healer, and she healed really well. she enjoyed it, sure, but it was really plants that she was the most interested in.

The woman doesn't seem to like his answer and one brow lifts in his own curiosity before it scrunches up in confusion. He'd simply followed the footsteps of his family and the competition of his brother. His size is certainly built for his job and it is best to make use of it. Even though his early days had a rocky start, he'd made do with his brothers and sisters along the way and he knew he had a job to do. 


"Most of my family are warriors," he explains. His exposure to other things had been limited but he knows enough to get by. "I'm happy to be one," he reaffirms should his dedication to his work be questioned. "But I do like to swim," he comments, shifting his weight a little. "I look forward to when it gets warmer," he adds with a smile. When the lake and ocean warms up, Arlo is more than ready to dunk himself into the riptide.

that was better. though it wasn't necessarily a trade or skill, portia was far more interested in things that truly made wolves happy. swimming was sort of funny, she'd never cared much for it. she enjoyed wading and running in the shallow waves, but she was so small she preferred not to go out much further-- less the sea may sweep her away. "that's more like it," she purred, smiling at him, a more true glimpse of her usual personality. "i haven't been to the coast in a while, but this territory looks nice for swimming... i myself am ready to lounge on the cliffs and soak up the sun," she shared with a few taps of her tail against the ground.

They didn’t always have a lot of free time in Trigeda but it was never frowned upon. When he got to swim—when it was warm—it was welcomed and encouraged. It kept his joints strong (and he’s young, with little to worry in that department) but it’s an added exercise with a little fun built in. She doesn’t object to swimming and his tail shakes a few times behind him. “It’ll be better than being stuck in here most of the day,” he comments idly. There’s a lot of snow where they come from and what little warmth they get, he clings to, and he hopes there’s a longer stint of warm weather here.

fade soonish? (:

portia nodded. "it's too damn cold here-- i pray to God that the spring will be warmer," she replied with a flick of her tail. her green gaze scanned the cavern quietly, her posture more relaxed than it was when she and arlo had originally begun speaking. "are you hungry, hun?" she asked with a tilt of her head. she'd originally resorted to not moving and hoping food would come to her, since it was so damn cold, but she figured by now she could walk to the other end of the caverns to find something from the caches. "we brought in a bunch of rabbits not too long ago," she added, ears perking.

can do!

She speaks a little about the weather but eventually turns it back to him. He still feels a little uncomfortable in her presence but she’s relaxed considerably and has even offered him some of the pickings they’d found out in the forest. His ears swivel forward as she catches his attention and a quick bob of his head has him on his feet. There isn’t anything else for him to say but he waits patiently for her to take the lead and introduce him to the filled cache, his stomach eager for a meal.