Morningside Cuesta all alone in a sea of stars.

@Grayday, but all Morningsiders welcome~

 

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With the help of Adeline and Grayday (plus some time of taking it easy and taking better care of herself), the ghostly woman's wounded leg had signifgantly gotten much better, thus restoring her faith in the Sister and coaxing Nimue to continue traveling by Her light. The fear from several days ago had completely vanished from her system now, replaced by her usual spacey and peaceful state of existance, mind lingering somewhere between the mortal plane and the fantasy world she always seemed to be looking into as her aimless paws led her... wherever. She did walk with just a slight limp, a sign that not everything was back to normal, but this was partially due to habbit and partially due to a little bit of sorness still lingering in her forelimb. Regardless, it did little to desuade her, and she still pressed on in her dreamy way, carefree and humming to herself as she basked in the radiance of Sister Moon. 

She'd never really had a good sense of direction, often just waking up and walking in whatever direction her nose was pointed in until she got tired of it and sought to go in another direction, still nor clear destination in mind. Therefore, traversing all the way back to the Cuesta, where she'd once shared a rabbit with a fellow nightdweller, was not neccisarily on her agenda, nor did the memory crop up in her mind as she neared the place. It also hadn't been on her agenda to pick up a certain familiar male's scent along the way, but once Gray's scent did begin to tickle her nose, the prospect of seeing him again encouraged her to properly track his trail to the source, unknowingly the thing that had probably guided her travel. The idea of just seeking out a wolf she really had no true connection with did not strike her as odd, for his was familiar to her, and in this aimless, purposeless life she led, why not gravitate towards the familiar; something constant?

Once finally arrived at the cuesta itself, she had to stop short, for not only was Grayday's scent extremely prominent, but so was the scent of other wolves. She haulted before the boundary line, head tilted as she stared at the invisble border. Though her eyesight was blurry and her memory wasn't particularly good when it came to locations, she was certain she'd been here before... but didn't recall the presence of a family before... Thinking further on the matter, didn't her gray friend say he had family nearby, the first time they'd met? Easthollow...? Was this it...? Again, her perception of the land was pretty skewed, but this didn't seem like the place he'd intially pointed out... Perplexed and not sure of what to think, she merely just stood there, sniffing at the border and wondering what it meant, wondering if she should proceed.
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This is it, he thought to himself, standing on his side of the Mudminnow river and gazing in at the land he was about to claim. One small step for Grayday, one giant leap for the Morningsiders.

Without much more thought, the male lifted his leg and peed. It would take a long time before the borders were completely and clearly marked, but this was the beginning. There would be many patrols to come, many long nights of walking them with his son and daughter. Many long months of keeping them until it was time to move again.

Slowly, a smile grew on Grayday's face. He trotted several hundred yards and repeated the action, then doubled back and rubbed himself on a patch of grass halfway in-between. Tufts of his winter pelt came out in the grass, but he paid it no mind. He was glad to finally be shedding a bit, and the fur would help keep his scent fresher for longer.

The wolf lumbered on, rubbing and pissing and scratching wherever he felt it was needed, until he finally came upon the visitor.

"Nim!" he called, tail wagging as he approached. "You look good - how are you feeling?"

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"Grayday," the pale woman greeted warmly, her colorless tail mimicking his in its happy motions. Her voice would forever have a weak, wispy sound to it, but she certainly sounded stronger than she had in their last encounter: a sure sign of both her mental and physical recovery. 

To his question, she gave a slow, subtle nod, her wide red eyes never leaving him as she spoke. "I am feeling much better now. The pain in my leg has almost completely dissappeared, allowing me to travel by Her light again."

She breifly tipped her head back up to face the moon, as she so often did when mentioning her diety (as if sharing an inside joke with the radiant being), but did not look up long. She had more things to say,  something she wanted to tell Day and something she wanted to ask him, so the waning moon above couldn't hold her attention as long as it usually did. Her gaze quickly fell upon Grayday once more and lingered for a moment before she dropped her head this time, pointing her nose down at the once badly injured foreleg while gingerly holding the limb out. Damaged flesh was still there, but it had clearly healed since they'd last seen each other.

"I've been keeping it clean, too," she informed with just a hint of a smile. Nimue didn't entirely understand why dirt and debris were so bad for a wound (she could feel it; that didn't she understood it), but she did know it felt better when it was clean, so she'd been taking after Grayday's and Adeline's example in grooming habbits. Even now, the leg glistened a little, suggesting she'd gone over the wound with her tongue not too long ago. Her eyes searched his indistinguishable face for a reaction, perhaps expecting him to be happy with her actions, before she lifted her head back up to properly face him. 

Her wagging tail fell slack now as she considered her next question, head tilting to the side a little. "I smell many more than just you and I, brother..." This prompted her to briefly look around, as if expecting to see the blurred shapes of other wolves around them. With the freshness of the scents under her nose and the fact that some wolves perfectly blended in with the night sky, it was entirely possible the two weren't alone right now, but Nimue still couldn't conclude that on her own. "Is this your family...?"
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Her ways were now more endearing than strange (as he remembered them), and the male even found a certain comfort in her innocent joy. She reminded him of Sunspot in that way - always able to find something to be cheerful about.

"That's good, Nim," he said with a wag of his tail, amused that she would hold her wound out of his inspection. Dutifully, Grayday leaned down to sniff at the affected area, and found that he could detect no traces of sickness upon it. "Looks like you're almost good as new," he commented, sensing that she expected some sort of responce.

It was a slow and plodding coversation to allow for her dreamy nature, but Grayday didn't mind. He was in no hurry, and his spirit had been calmed by her sensing of him and his family in these lands. Apparently, their borders were not so indistinguishable anymore.

"Yeah," he replied, glancing behind him. It surprised him, how easily the answer had come. What he'd really mean was that his family did live here - Sunny and Dawn and Adeline were his family. But that title had come to encompass Akuti and Yglis, and Sylvas and Heartha, as well, and he was slowly warming to the two sullen children that accompanied that group. "Yeah, my family lives here - but this isn't the same family I had when I met you. Some of the wolves are the same, but we're not Easthollow anymore."

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Her tail had returned to its slow wagging, seemingly pleased with Grayday's responses, both towards her wound and her question. Ah, so his family was here then. He just moved. No longer Easthollow though? Did they go by another name now, or was this a different family altogether? He did say they were different. Being the aimless wolf she was, perhaps it was a tad hypocritical of her to question why he'd choose to settle in a different place, but such a concept as hypocrisy did not really register with her. She wanted to know. Why not ask?

"You sought more than your Easthollow?" the ghost inquired innocently, also not aware of what prying was. If that were the case, she could emphasize with that, having been in a similar predicament when leaving her "family". 'Course she'd had more reasons than that for leaving, but... that was the only one she'd been consciously aware of.
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Sorry for the wait on this one.

The question, though probing, was not insulting to Grayday. It was the sort of question he'd ask, and then probably regret a moment later. But there was no sense of propriety about Nimue, and he found himself giving a shrug in answer.

"Yeah," he agreed, because that was the simplest explanation he'd thought of yet, and maybe he'd start to say that, too. Maybe, when people asked, he'd just tell them he was looking for something more. But, being Grayday, he could never just leave things be. "Yeah, I... I thought it would be good for the kids to see more of the world." Excuses, excuses. "What about you? What are you doing around here?"

You're fine ^^

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Her mind only stalled for a moment when he mentioned something about “the kids” and how it’d be “good for them to see more of the world”. In the days between now and when they’d first met, she had forgotten that tiny detail about Grayday, that he was a father and did, in fact, have kids. After a mere second of pondering it though, she quickly remembered him mentioning it and the confusion fled her spacey mind as swiftly as it entered.

Ah, so these children of his were the reason he went wandering. Well, of course she saw no harm in that, wandering. It was truly a blessed experience to see all that the Sister and Mother had to offer… even if Grayday and his pups did not particularly believe in such deities. Travel was great for everyone. She wondered more about his children now… Did they like the traveling? What were they like? What was it like to have them? She was a stranger to the concept of child rearing, for multiple reasons, and wished to know more, regarded the concept with the same dreamy fascination that she regarded everything with… but it seemed, however, it was not her turn to ask the questions.

“What about you? What are you doing here?”

A strange question, she thought, but only because she knew why and he didn’t. It did not take her long to think of an answer, but she turned her attention away from him anyway, staring off into the distance in that oh so Nimue way, signifying she was thinking and seeing beyond. She was here to see Grayday again… Did she really need more of a reason? Something quietly whispered that she did, but she couldn’t think of anything else, couldn’t give a name to the feeling that drove her to seek familiarity. So she looked back to him, innocent and doe eyed as usual.

“I was wandering near and discovered your scent. I wished to see you again.”

Her tail presumed its lazy wag, backing the sincerity of her words. Even after saying it, the answer didn’t feel… whole… but it was all she had.
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Grayday gazed at the woman in fond bemusement. It was incredible that the woman had made it this far in life with as few scars as she had, considering how spacey she seemed to be. Even when she finally spoke, Grayday waited a little longer, thinking that she would tack more words onto his scanty explanation.

When she didn't, he decided that they'd had enough pleasantries. He gave a reassuring wag of his tail and began trotting back toward the inner territory. "Well, c'mon - you found me," he said happily, his tail wagging behind him. "I'll show you around."