Sleepy Fox Hollow it is the east, and Juliet is the sun

@Wylla; takes place on the edge of Sleepy Fox Hollow - up on the ridge and not in the bowl

Sif stood at the edge of the Hollow and looked down into the valley below. The creek was just below her; she was at the top of the weeping rock, and yet, there was no water to be seen. It was almost as if the rock itself created the water. Perhaps the water ran under the ground?

That idea was quickly discounted; if that were the case, the rock would weep mud, and not water. Duh.

Dissatisfied with the lack of explanation, Sif gave an airy whine and began sniffing around the cliffside, wondering where the water could be coming from. She was young, and she'd yet to see water springing right out of cliffsides - not when there wasn't a river to feed them. But no matter how she paced and searched, no river appeared to her. Eventually, the dark girl went back to the ledge and simply sat down, resigned to the mystery that was the Weeping Rock.

Long before reaching the peak of the mountain, the exhausted Wylla found a mountain pass that spat her out on a high shelf overlooking a small, sparsely wooded valley. With winter in full swing, there wasn't much to it: a wide brown-and-white expanse of light snowfall with bare trunks dotting the landscape, providing little in way of cover aside from its mountainous walls. The vagabond's lips twitched disapprovingly, but she began her descent anyway. There wasn't really anywhere to hide if bigger, badder predators were about, but at least it wasn't more climbing.

She was about halfway down, picking her way cautiously along a narrow ridge, when she first spotted Sif. From on high, Wylla watched the skinny yearling circle around the cliff's edge, sniffing and seemingly looking for something. From her perch, she couldn't see that there was water coming from somewhere, nor that it fed the bright ribbon in the valley that suggested a creek or stream. Sif's behaviour was therefore odd to her, and in true Wylla fashion, she drew a few conclusions. Seating herself and curling her tail demurely around her left side, Wylla scoffed and unkindly called out, "you know, if you're looking for an easy out, I can give you a hand."

The sound of another's approach had Sif swinging around to face her possible assailant. And, although she heard every word of the silver-trimmed woman's little quip, it was so rife with idiom that Sif missed her meaning entirely.

"Haand," she repeated, her voice half questioning and half skeptical as she sized up the other wolf. If it came to a fight, Sif felt fairly sure she could win. But she didn't want to have her back to the ledge, and thus, began circling around the other, head tilted in curiosity. Could this be a new friend? This female seemed somewhat less friendly than the others Sif had come across.

"Hallo," the girl said with a cautious wave of her tail.

Was the entire mountain comprised of a tribe of troglodytes? Wylla had to wonder as her ears skimmed skeptically back toward her head in response to Sif's reply. Rather than saying something to the effect of, "that was pretty rude," or else throwing back a clever quip of her own, the banded brown she-wolf simply repeated Wylla's last word and then greeted her in a manner reminiscent of Rheia. Yep. Everyone here was slow in the brain.

Sif's decision to circle her set Wylla on edge, but she didn't show it as she slowly seated herself and repeated, in a deliberately slow and loud voice so that she might be understood, "yes, haaaaand. Fall down. Die fast. Yes?" After all, who stood at the edge of a cliff if they weren't intending to off themselves?

Sif's ears pressed forward when the stranger slowed her words down so that Sif could understand. She was grateful at first, but that feeling quickly faded to confusion as the words reached her ears. Fall? Die?

The dark girl began to bristle, getting the awful sense that she was being made fun of, or possible even threatened. The fur along her spine began to stand on-end, and her lips twitched into an uncertain half-snarl. She would not stand for being threatened - not any more.

"What do you waant?" she asked, her voice low and gruff through her growl.

"Woah, woah," Wylla cautioned when Sif went from benevolent and possibly a little touched in the head to bristly snarly outrage. As quickly as her bottom end touched the mountain, it lifted again as she took a slow step backward. Sif might come off like a precious little idiot in need of adult guidance, but there was no mistaking the glint of cutlery beneath her raised lip, and thin though she was, Sif was larger than her.

"No need to get so huffy," she said slowly, sliding a hind paw back another few inches while attempting to survey her surroundings for a way out, lest simple Sif became aggressive. "You were at the edge of the cliff, I naturally only assumed—" sliiiide— "Well, I mean, you gave the wrong idea, y'know? I thought you wanted to kill yourself."

Although Wylla cautioned her against it, Sif remained huffy. She didn't know that word and couldn't have guessed it, but the woman's tone was enough to clue her in. Reluctantly, the girl subsided, ears pressing forward in an attempt to capture the other's words. Very little got through to her, but by her tone, she guessed that there had been some sort of misunderstanding.

The banded girl was unapologetic. If anything, embarassment just made her grumpier, and her tail lashed in open irritation as she surveyed the stranger, unsure what she ought to do next.

"Do not mock," Sif snapped, deciding that this was the most imporant thing. And, although her words were sparse and her accent thick, her eyes were sharp and intelligent upon the other.

"Whaaaat?" Wylla drawled, still easing into a cautious backward slide toward the nearest Nope-The-Fuck-Outta-Here ramp she could find. There were plenty of options for fleeing up the mountain, but it was toward a long-dried creek bed that she inched, what with it offering the easiest ascent. "Me, mock an intelligent and beautiful young lady like you? Why, I never!" she exclaimed whilst plastering as much false indignation in her expression as she could manage. The only two things Wylla was really good at were lying and mocking, but mockery seeped out the most when faced with an irresistible opportunity to use it.

Rheia might have been equally as stupid as Sif—the two of them came across like uncivilized cave women to Wylla, with their broken dialect and their halloos—but at least Rheia was friendly. Sif gave the impression that both her tongue and temper were as barbed as her sharp markings suggested. Though Sif's eyes glared with the same predatory comprehension as any wolf's, and perhaps held even more focus than that, Wylla just couldn't look past her bizarre way of speaking to appreciate the smart creature within. She saw only a poor idiot, and it was really too bad that poor idiots, perceived or real, brought out the loquacious in her.

"Welp it's been greaaat," said Wylla as she slipped her back paw into the groove where a creek once ran, "but, see, I'm kiiiiind of allergic to low brain cell counts, got it from my dad, and I'm starting to feel a bad reaction coming on, so... gotta go!"

The words were coming too quickly for Sif to understand, and while she strained to catch even one that she knew, she missed entirely the girl's other cues. The whole thing made Sif feel stupid, and feeling stupid made her feel angry. As Wylla spoke, Sif's growls only rose in volume - neither of them needed to be smart to know what that meant.

And it worked. The other shewolf was soon feeling Sif's wrath, and although the continuation of her speak still grated on the dark girl's nerves, Wylla's retreat was enough to appease her. She watched the other go with narrowed eyes and a bolstered ego, feeling especially tough and triumphant about the encounter.