Blackfoot Forest Mist meets Ice

for @Luke

Misty padded through an unfamiliar forest, trying to find Skyshire. Leo had gotten better, so she headed out from the mountains towards the lowlands, but felt like she was going in the wrong direction. I should have gotten there by now. I need to find Skyshire and tell her what happened....before I go back to Leo. He needs me...it's for the best if i distance myself from other wolves. Look how joining a pack turned out. Weak link, got kicked out of the pack for hunting for Leo. I barely lasted two weeks. I'm a failure. sure, she was thinking negatively, but the shy female couldn't think of anything that would keep her positive. In the last two and a half weeks, her life had been turned upside down when she joined the pack, then right side up after a while, then upside down again when she got kicked out. Her whole plans had been dumped. Skyshire had wanted her to stay a few months, see how she liked being in a pack, and she had gotten kicked out in two weeks. What would her mentor think of her when she met up with Misty again? The femme didn't even want to think about that right now. She just wanted to get home. She was a tracker, and a good one too, so why couldn't she figure out where she was? Maybe in that tussle with those foxes a few days earlier, when one of them had clawed her nose, she couldn't smell right. That was probably it. Hopefully it would back to normal in a few days. She worked with what she had and tried to find Skyshire's scent, but to no avail. Guess I'll just have to hope I get there eventually. She thought as she trudged on ahead. Misty was so lost in her thoughts as she walked, she didn't even notice the white figure emerging from the shadows.

He had been keeping close to the hollow as their budding pack worked to stake their official claim, but his reconnaissance this morning took him further. He travelled south, swinging around their neighboring pack in the valley, past the downs into a forest where a fresh, seemingly unaffiliated scent drew the outrider. They had added several wolves to their roster since they had made the move to the hollow, but there was room for more, and so Luke was ever keen to seek others who may be interested.

He spotted the pale female between the trees, and approached in his usual way: with his tail wagging, and a joyful bounce to his step. He was not far from her yet she seemed not to be aware of him. "Hello," he called softly to abstain from startling the daydreaming girl.

Misty jumped slightly at the sudden voice. She looked up and saw a male, probably not much older than her. "Oh...hi." she said shyly. "Sorry if I'm trespassing. I'm just passing through to get home." She did a quick assessment of the wolf. Confident, fearless.....cute.......yep, definitely out of my league. She thought to herself, her ears turning slightly red as she blushed, quickly trying to calm down in hopes he didn't notice. What are you doing?! You have Leo, and Reina. You need to get home. No more friends. she told herself in her head. You can't go through that again. She slowly sat down, curling her fluffy white tail around her paws. "I'm Misty by the way. I'm a loner from the Naaghai Lowlands. What about you?"

sorry short

Despite his efforts, she still startled upon hearing him speak. He smiled warmly. "You're fine. You're not trespassing here," he reassured. His ears lifted as she introduced herself, confirming what he had suspected by her scent: that she was unaffiliated, and thus available to be recruited. "I'm Luke. I'm an outrider for a pack that is forming in a hollow northeast of here." He had not officially earned his trade (how could he, when the pack had yet to become official), but he believed himself to be an outrider all the same. After all, he was out here plying the trade.

"We're looking for more members, if you're interested. Beautiful home, great company," he winked.

She chuckled a little. "Maybe I will." she teased shyly. "I just hope it's better than Blackfeather. It was a little....dark there. I wasn't bold enough for them, I guess." When Luke mentioned his trade, Misty saw this as an opportunity to continue a conversation. "I'm working on becoming a Naturalist. Tracking prey, since I'm already good at that, and studying the lunar cycles and the seasons." Luke was easier to talk to than Misty had originally thought. She usually took a lot longer to warm up to strangers. She wondered why this male was so different from the many wolves she had met before. Maybe it was because she had formed a small crush on him, or maybe it was something more....like he was the piece Misty needed to become a better, more open wolf. Maybe.....she should join his pack....She had made a promise to Skyshire to try being in a pack for a year, see if she liked it, but Sky hadn't said she had to stay in one pack for the entire year. This could work...this could actually work out. "How many pack members do you have so far?" she asked, wanting to know more before she joined, so she would be better prepared.

sorry for any awkwardness this creates

np

Blackfeather. His ears slipped back for a moment upon hearing this name, for he had heard nothing good about this pack, save for the amusing tale his friend Kero had spun about a dark fairy of some sort. It mattered little; she was no longer with them and by her own admission did not fit in with the sort of characters they harbored. That was fine for him, a wolf who believed that if someone did not work out in their pack they could be removed later rather than denying them the chance to prove they would be worthwhile.

She continued on to speak of her trades, and he bobbed his head as he smiled. "Great!" he said, before she inquired about their numbers. "Oh, let's see," he hummed, recounting in his head the faces among them. "Well there's me," he grinned, "Harlyn, Mordecai, Andalusia, Valtyr, Quill, Bhreac, and a couple others who I have not properly met yet," he nodded, before asking his own question. "So did you leave Blackfeather, or were you kicked out?"

"Both, actually." Misty chuckled a little, as if it was forced. "I was helping one of my friends and hunting for him because he couldn't do it himself. Burke caught me and I.....I stood up to him. I told him that I was giving my friend the entire fawn that I caught and he.....was a little upset because I was a lower ranking wolf and shouldn't be talking to the Alpha like that but....Leo needed me and I couldn't just watch him die. So I told Burke that I was leaving and he said that I couldn't come back...so....both. The weird thing was that I left the fawn, i took two legs, one for Leo and one for me. I think I did it as an "I'm sorry" kind of thing or out of respect, I don't really know..." She looked down at the ground, swishing around some dirt with her paw. She had no clue why she was being so open and personal with Luke. Even with Skyshire, Reina, and Leo, she hadn't become friends with them this fast. It had taken time, especially with how scared she had been as a pup, all alone fending for herself for 3 months, without a mentor, without a family. And she hadn't even started getting personal until she was close with them, comfortable sharing her feelings. But with Luke, things just seemed to escape her. She felt....safe....like he was an old friend, although they had never met before today. "What about you? What's your story?......If you don't mind me asking."

He listened carefully, but found her story to be a little bit over the place. It was hard for him to understand if the issue had been with the sharing of a fawn with an outsider, or that she had been insubordinate toward her alpha. Neither concerned him too much; he saw no problem helping those in need and he trusted his druid companion and her paramour to be able to handle someone who may challenge their rule, though he doubted this would be a problem. It seemed the girl had simply joined a pack for which she was not fit.

She inquired as to his story, and he briefly shared. "I left my birth pack to find my own place, and I ran into Harlyn, who was looking to start a pack, and agreed to join her. Now we're here and I am thinking you should meet her." He smiled. It was not for him to ultimately decide if she was welcome among them, though he knew his companion trusted his judgement and would not complain if he did formally invite her in.

"That is, if you want to join us." He lifted his brows, awaiting her decision.

Misty found Luke's short life summary interesting in it's own way. He had left his family by choice where as her brother and father had been the undoing of hers and she had been cast aside. But when he mentioned her joining, she smiled. "I thought you'd never ask. This Harlyn sounds friendly enough. It wouldn't hurt to meet her. But....my final decision will happen after I meet these other pack members. I don't want history to repeat itself and be kicked out of another pack." She was getting accepted into a pack. Not her begging to be let in. She had this surge of joy fill her inside and it felt nice. She had never experienced this sense of.....true belonging before. Not with Skyshire and her friends and not with the Blackfeather Woods pack. She felt like she was meant to be in this pack....and maybe she had been kicked out of Blackfeather so she could fulfill her destiny here. Maybe fate had brought her to Luke, or the other way around. Either way, she had found her home.

I'll start another thread :)

"She's wonderful," he beamed, his affection for his druid companion as plain as the clear to see as the grass at his feet. That she wished to withhold her decision until she met the others did not bother him at all, in fact he thought it a reasonable thing to do given that her last pack did not work out. "Come," he invited as he took a few steps toward home, his head canted to the side to gesture toward it.

Misty smiled bashfully and followed Luke towards his home....her new home.....maybe, just maybe, things would all work out. She could have a new family, a new life, have a chance to start over. This Harlyn sounded really nice, kind of like a pack version of Skyshire. Maybe they would bond like she and Skyshire had, or better, bond as sister figures. She had only had a brother, and even that hadn't gone well. She had never had a true family, but this was her chance to make one.

could you archive it?