Whitefish River There are stories held in your bones

@Kukutux :)

The sun's warmth was unrelenting as the day lengthened and the orb of light reached the highest point of the sky; beams filtered through the cover of the canopy to dapple her coat with patchy light, searing through the wintry layers of her pelt to burn against her skin. The arctic coat retained heat, trapping the summer day within the ivory hairs smotheringly. 

The northron's head throbbed as she patrolled, pounding beneath the cobwebs @Evergreen (reference) had so carefully wound around her damaged skull. Her tongue lolled as she panted and occassionally she stopped to rasp her tongue against her forelegs between breaks to mark the trees. Even so, her measures to battle the temperature proved lackadaisical. 

By afternoon, the woman in white was forced to break from the rudimentary borders - beelining for the River for a quick and cooling dip. 

wolves had come and gone. the two with which she had traveled lingered, and there was talk of formaton. for kukutux, it was a time of unsurety. she had built up the walls of her ulaq against the spring storms, laid a cache in the floor with dried fish and rabbit meat, and carefully stacked the furs she had been able to bring from the keep against the back of the shelter.

now she cast about for flowers and herbs, blinking against the growing heat. it too soon drove her from her task to the nearby river, one for which she had no name. and when the young duck arrived, wariness struck her, for she was not alone. a woman who reminded her of gwen had begun to partake of the cooling shallows, a wound evident and wrapped upon her temple. kukutux narrowed her eyes, but waded into the river all the same, some ways downstream, and began to drink.

She'd waded to about knee-depth when the other woman neared the banks - a slight girl of similar pale coloring. The tundrian's pale crown lifted slightly, meeting a suspicious gaze with open, albeit unreadable, dark eyes. 

She was content to leave the woman be if she so wished but the waif had worked up an appetite patrolling and unfriendly or no, wondered if her company might also be up for a hunt. 

"Hey," she called out casually, "you hungry?"