Sleeping Dragon we'll watch as time tumbles down

Mojave's nails clicked against the rocks as she ventured into the territory. Apprehension cloaks her to some degree, though she hadn't really been dumped off by Thuringwethil after they had interred the deer into a cache. Rather it was Mojave who had made the bold move to venture out, willing to explore on her own than try and follow at the heels of the dark-haired alpha. Heda, she found herself correcting, trying to cram that little bit of knowledge with whatever other things had been imparted to her in their travels back to the range of Sleeping Dragon.

Even with the summery heat giving way to a humid sunset, Mojave found it hard to miss the sight of a smoky white plume against the flatland. A geyser tucked away, but she didn't know that, and the curious reined her in moreso than the height of the squat mountain-housing-volcano did. Prepared to march up to that little plume, she had already started bee-lining towards it... never once stopping to consider whether or not she should.

thrice, "the earth isn't humming"

-- long time no thread friend! <3 I think I read this correctly... --

As Portia wandered the territory, she'd become accustomed to avoiding the large geyser. Nothing against them-- they were a gorgeous sight, but dangerous all the same. 

Today, she pads past them without any intention of going near them-- until she sees a woman headed towards them herself. It was a stranger, no one she'd ever seen before, but surely a wolf of Drageda all the same. With a frantic, wide-eyed gaze Portia lets loose a loud growl followed by a call. "Be careful!" She yells, beginning after the woman-- but more cautiously.

you read it just the way i hoped it would come across! and it has been a long time~

Oblivious to all she was about to do, a voice calling out sharply gave her immediate pause. It was a comical sort of thing, not the first nor last time she would ever do it—one foot stopped midair and mid-step. Her head whipped around to spot the white-and-black hairs of a she-wolf that was approaching. Mojave's ears slicked back against her skull, her expression spoke of confusion for a moment. What was there to be careful about?

Christ, this woman made no efforts to begin back, simply stood and looked confused. "Hun, please," she urged, her tail wagging lowly at her feet and her own ears pressed against her crown. "It's a geyser, if it goes off when you're too close it'll scald you. It's dangerous-- please," she tries to explain as quickly as she can but cuts herself off with another plea. She can help with minor wounds, but she is more skilled with herbs and sicknesses than she is anything major. She can't say for certain if she'd be able to save this woman.

"Oh," Mojave said as a quick explanation came forward. Well, she wasn't interested in getting scalded trying to check out a mystery plume from the ground, so it was an easy feat to begin turning back. Though perhaps on the way back, there may have been a little more haste in her step to get away. She made her way towards the she-wolf, at which point she actually took in a good look of her—were those spots on her? They were fascinating, instantly; the perfect distraction from the spot of embarrassment she had just worked herself into.

"Sorry, I didn't know what that was all about," she still found herself saying, casting a look back to the geyser in all its glory. "I just wanted to see it up close and—" almost on cue, the geyser erupted behind her. She missed seeing it, her own gaze having come back around to her speckled packmate. Her expression flat-lined, eyes staring off into the unknown in an instant. Her tail made a swift dip briefly between her hocks.

"Oh wow," came her voice flatly, "that was close wasn't it."

As the woman turns to come back Portia lets out a breath of relief, silently thanking God that she'd not been stubborn about it. As the woman starts talking, she smiles, stepping back to let the other through. She almost opens her mouth to agree with wanting to check it out up close-- she understands that. The desire to explore and learn, it burns deep in her own soul. Had she not learned what a geyser was when she was younger, she might've made the same mistake her first time seeing one. But, before she has the chance, the other is cut off herself by the geyser. 

Giving an amused smile, Portia nods, giggling sweetly. "Very close," she says, nodding towards it. "Can you feel the spray?" she adds as a mist settled upon them, adding small diamond-like glints to her fur. "Feels much better like this than it does up close, I can assure you."

Portia steps back a bit, sitting down, hoping the other would join her. "I can tell you more if you'd like, Hun-- I don't know the schedule but it may go off again sometime," she offers, smiling. "My name is Portia."

Could she feel the spray? Mojave nodded, because even with her back turned to the geyser she could feel the mist. She could see it too, moving between them like a shimmering veil set to wave with the wind. It was a pretty sort of thing, reminded her a bit of how snowfall looked untouched and beneath the glare of a winter sun. Her golden gaze followed them as they sparkled, but like all thing they came to an end just as they had begun.

And by then, her gaze had settled somewhere in the vicinity of her spotted counterpart to listen. "I'm Mojave," she said, returning the courtesy. "If you want to tell me more about those things, you can. I've never seen anything like 'em before... or the bunch of ice over there." She made reference to the glacier, well out of sight from them. But with any luck, she'd imagine that Portia would know what she meant.

"A geyser," Portia says with a smile. She then straightens up a little with excitement when she realizes that-- yet again!-- she'll get to teach someone a lil somethin' about the natural world. The land was not quite like plants, but it was still beautiful in all it's ways, so she was equally as eager. "Geysers are really just a bunch of water under a bunch of pressure-- they're usually near volcanoes and such," she begins, nodding to the resting beast that laid in their own territory. "Since it's so hot all that water just boils right up and explodes-- which makes it hot and super strong. Which is why it would've scalded you," she adds to to Majove with a playful raise of her eyebrow.

"And that thing, over there, is a glacier." 

Portia rattled off information and like a somewhat damp sponge, Mojave soaked it all up. It was probably a good thing to try and put names to things and all of that anyway. She had grown used to the cover of forests and of rocky mountains, but so far it seemed the region she had stumbled across had much more than just standard fare.

"Guess it's a good thing you caught me when you did," she said with a faint smile. A little less embarrassed this time, but it was still something that wanted to seep through. It probably wouldn't have been a good impression on anyone if she had managed to bungle something like that. "And you sure know a lot about things around here, too. You been here a while?" Portia had to have been, that was the only thing Mojave could think. Maybe she'd know some other cool stuff, too.

Portia shakes her head. "Barely a month, hun," she tells her-- although that was a decent amount of time. In truth, she'd seen just about everything by now-- few landmarks actually surprised her, but she still loved them all the same. "I've been on my own since I was out of the pup tier," she says, her tail waving behind her. "This is the first place I've settled since-- I've seen quite a bit for my age, I guess." With a cocked head, she gazes back towards the glacier. 

"I take it you're not from up north, then?" she asks, her green gaze falling back on the tawny Ku.

Pup tier? Well, that seemed self-explanatory. Mojave glossed over it instead to wonder how quickly she would take to things here. It didn't feel like a home just yet but she had come along out of obligation. Plus it would have been a good idea to be somewhere to rest her head for a little bit anyway, even if she didn't linger forever. But other than that, at least they seemingly had a few more things in common.

"Well, I came from the north, but not like... way north. It was cooler there and all, we got quite a bit of snow and ice in the winter and stuff. But it wasn't like some... frozen wasteland or whatever you want to call it." Heavily forested and the like, though it was then that Mojave considered the distinct possibility that she hadn't come directly south. There had been some snaking around, whether to avoid packs or other options that were barricaded by natural formations.

"So you like to wander too, then? See what's out there?" She hazarded a guess, suddenly shifting gears.

"Ah." Portia nods, tail waving a bit. "I came from God knows where, but I've been way up north," she says, nodding back to the glacier. "Those things are everywhere. They're really just giant ice mountains, as far as I'm concerned. Someone once told me that they move-- though I've never seen it happen before so I can't be too sure," she adds, squinting at the giant land feature with suspicion. Ah, well. 

With a smile, she nods again. "Yeah, the world is so big. It just seems weird to stay in one place for too long-- ya' know, Hun?" she says, her ears cupping forward. But here she is, stuck in borders for her own health. She almost died out on her own, she needed a place to keep her grounded-- keep her healthy. 

"Yeah, exactly," Mojave replied. She couldn't help but smile—what were the odds that she'd run into someone who got it? That insatiable call to roam the wilds, to see all there was to see and find whatever discoveries were meant to be found... she'd never quite understood why she felt the way she did. Maybe it was some youthful exuberance that needed to be let out. She didn't feel quite ready to settle down, that she was most certain of.

"So what else do you know? I mean if you've wandered a lot you've probably picked up some awesome things. Or stories," she went on to say after a beat. In a way it was her indirect pry at what Portia was good at, where she fit into the pack in comparison. Perhaps if she was as useful as Mojave was in reality (not unskilled but untrained; full of potential), then there was the distinct possibility of a rapport to be built.

"Oh, hun," Portia says with a wide grin. "I know a world about plants-- I'm working on becoming a skilled botanist," she adds with a prideful puff of her white chest. "I've spent all my travels looking at new territories and land features and studying every damn plant I could get my paws on." It sounded like a boring experience to many wolves, but to Portia it was the whole world. Plants were great-- beautiful marvelous things. She would spend her whole life traveling and finding new plants if it weren't so damn dangerous. She pauses. "No good stories, really," she adds. It was a lie, but she wasn't sure Mojave wanted to hear about the many men she'd wooed along her way. Those were some stories. 

Their dialogue took a spin in a different direction, as Mojave's interests were firmly stolen away by the mention of something else. She had no concept of what a botanist was and while the urge to interject was tempting, she managed to stay her tongue until Portia had finished speaking. She didn't believe the bit about no good stories either; everyone had a story to tell, good or bad.

"What's a botanist?" she asked, though she had an idea by then what they were. Someone who got their paws on plants, obviously. She sought to amend her question: "I mean, do they just find plants or what?"

The girl smiled sweetly. "That's pretty much it. I know all sorts of uses for plants and how to grow them and all that jazz... It's an amazing subject, I could honestly talk about it all day if you gave me the option," she said, almost purring. With a wag of her tail she tilted her head, green eyes studying the other. "How about you, Hun, what are you into?"

She was surprised that she had gotten that much right about what it was to be a botanist. It sounded simple enough, much like her constant desire to wander the countryside. Perhaps others were simply drawn to what it was that they wanted to do, or how they wanted to be useful in a pack. Mojave, at least up until that point, had never put much thought into it. She had simply done whatever was requested of her.

"Oh, I don't know," she replied. "I just like wandering around, you know. Adventure, I guess. Never really put a lot of thought into anything else." Her shoulders rolled in a shrug again, it was the best way she could put things. There was ever a looming sensation that she wasn't going about things the right way, that she should have devoted more of her time to something a touch more... useful, if anything.

"Tell me more about the plants," she went on to say with a reaching bob of her snout.

Maybe that would distract her from any notion of inadequacy.

"Well, hun, you'll find your calling here-- I wouldn't worry too much about that," Portia said, smiling kindly at the girl. Her tail waved, eyes studying her for a moment. 

Her next question pulled the conversation off topic, and Portia shrugged. "There is plenty to tell, what do you want to know about?" she asked, head tilting to the side. "There are all sorts of plants-- ones for stomach aches, ones for joint pain, for illness, for burns..." she trailed off, staring at Mojave for a moment. "Anything sound interesting?"