Two Rivers Isle <|°_°|>

She shivered as she stepped out from the protection of a forest she didn't know the name of — winter was on the heels of autumn, and though her coat had grown thicker, it still had a ways to go before it would protect her from the bite of snowy winds. Temperatures had dropped dramatically in the last few weeks, and overnight frost was becoming a regular occurance. Blizzards would come soon; she could smell it in the air.

Treepie found the thinnest part of the river to cross, leaping to minimize the wet that her paws would experience. The water hadn't frozen yet, but it was colder than usual. Upon reaching the other side of the western river and entering the exposed plain, she sat. Catlike, the dark yearling licked the water from her paws to dry and warm them.

Crow probably should have been worried about a lot of things, but he wasn't. He had become accustomed to rolling with the punches, and hardly anything phased him these days. He meandered westward today, trouncing through whatever lands he had to with no real goal in mind. His siblings were left behind along with his parents and whatever other relations he had. Crow had no intention of leaving them ~forever~, but he was leaving them for now. Just for the day, right?

He crossed a river or whatever, then he came across another wolf. Huh, that was cool, he supposed. Sup? he asked, doing his best to look totally cool. She was kinda cute. Age was just a number. Yadda yadda yadda.

She was in the midst of really going to town between the toes of a hindpaw, and just as she was about to chomp on it, the voice of another wolf startled her. Treepie rocked back in surprise and lost her balance, falling awkwardly onto her side, before even more awkwardly regaining her footing back to a sitting position. She tried her best to look especially regal to save face as she considered the stranger with her intelligent, moss-green eyes.

Oh, she said mildly. Hey.

He looked, well... young. She tried to subtly glance around for his guardians, shifting her head to attempt to catch their scent in the air. When this proved to be a lost cause, she cleared her throat and questioned as motherly as her lack of parental instincts would allow — Are you lost, little dude?

Little dude?! he scoffed, puffing his chest out. He was nearing a good six months old, and while he wasn't the biggest wolf around, he certainly wasn't little by his standards. His tail lashed behind him, annoyed with how she had addressed him, and he was certainly going to ruminate on this for the rest of his life.

I'm not lost. Are you lost, little girl? he asked, mirroring her words back onto her. Maybe he shouldn't have been so offended, but this guy is still working up a personality, and I've decided this is a good character flaw.

Um, she replied, looking at him a bit helplessly. She hadn't expected a full blown tantrum in response to her question, and rather than offending or concerning her, the puppy's mirrored response struck her as, well... funny. Treepie stifled a laugh before it could fully emerge, resulting in a short and sharp exhale of air from her nose.

Not lost, she clarified, but I am new around here. I'm exploring.

It was probably safest to just ignore the puppy's attempt to insult her by calling her little — like, whatevs. Instead, she tried a different tack to figure out what he was doing out here alone. Or maybe it was to antagonize him just a little bit more. Are you tryin' to find your parents? Maybe I can help.

Crow huffed, not sure if he was satisfied by her answer. If she was new, wasn't that the same as being lost? But he was distracted by her question. What? No! I just told you I wasn't lost. I know how to get home. I'm not a baby. How old did she think he was? Like three months or something? He was about to be half a year, which was basically an adult, right?

Maybe she was way older than he thought, which was why she couldn't properly discern his age. Are you so old you're losing your thoughts? he asked, squinting at her. Or were you just born stupid? It had to be one or the other. Surely nobody could just pick up being stupid later in life.

What an awful thing to say, she scolded him, eyes narrowing. If his parents weren't around to socialize him, Treepie supposed it was up to her — at six months old, she knew he was still learning about boundaries and acceptable behavior. She snapped at him, rushing close to his face with a snarl, though she had no intention of actually hurting him. Only scare him a little.

Truthfully, I'm wondering what Finley would have thought of this conversation. Would she have praised it? Would she have scolded her son for being a total cunt? Who's to say? Anyway, back to wolf things.

The stupid girl lashed out at him, and Crow yelped in response. It was not his proudest moment, but he recovered relatively quickly. Fuck you! he spat. His tail lashed behind him, and the hackles along his spine stood straight up. He'd never been in a "real" fight, but he'd had plenty of practice with his siblings. Crow liked to think he'd be pretty good at it, given the chance. Not that he really wanted the chance. And definitely not with somebody twice his age.

You're stupid, mean, and ugly! he insulted her further, baring his teeth to make a point. Crow probably wasn't all that threatening, but he sure wasn't going to let that stop him. As far as he was concerned, he was hot shit.

She felt a brief flash of triumph when he yelped, and was about to re-engage with him more kindly now that he was reprimanded, when her thoughts were interrupted by a shocking 'fuck you!' Dang, puppies were irritating as hell.

Was it a dick move to lay the smack down on a puppy, especially one you had only just met? Treepie didn't really care. It wasn't so much that she was bothered by or felt affected by anything he was saying (or so she was telling herself), but that it was wildly inappropriate for a six-month-old to be talking the way he was. Maybe his parents were dead or something and he had needed to raise himself — so Treepie felt an overwhelming sense of duty to show him what was what.

She didn't bother with words this time, and went in again with a snarl and teeth snapping dangerously close to his eye and throat. She still had no intention of truly harming the boy, but rather wanted to give him a little dose of scared straight. This time, she added a bit of forward momentum, towering over him with stiff legs and her ears, hackles, and tail alert.

Occasionally, as Niamh patrolled the borders of the packlands, she caught the scent of the pack's youth as they ventured out on their own. She wasn't one to step in and comment on anyone else's parenting methods, nor was she going to be the one to follow their youth like a stalker to make sure nothing bad happened to them. As far as she knew, the kids were permitted to leave the pack- so long as they stayed close, which meant that they wouldn't be gone for any long period of time. She was able to keep track simply by patrolling the borders to see when the kids checked in and checked out. It was a simply enough way to make sure that none of them were going too far, or getting into too much trouble. 

She'd decided to venture out on her own, toward the ocean, with the hope of perhaps seeing Coelacanth again, or maybe Caiaphas- as long as her two henchmen didn't catch her first. It was only when she caught Crow's scent, leading further and further away that she sighed, and decided to delay her trip to the ocean, and see where exactly the feisty boy was headed. She moved at a good, rucking pace, following along in the boy's tracks as they led past her old packlands, and to the river's edge. She sighed. The water would be cold- but if the kid had made it across, she'd need to make sure he made it back safe and sound, without getting too cold. In her opinion, it was a bit too far for him to have strayed- but that was more of a Finley and Elwood problem. 

She was able to find his trail on the opposite bank, and was relieved to see that she wasn't too far behind him, as fresh as his tracks were in the mud along the riverbank. When she picked up the sound of his voice in the distance, she pricked her ears. He'd bumped into someone- and here she was, about to crash his party. She didn't care. She'd be the bad guy if she had to. But when she heard the accusational tone he used, she growled. The boy's manners were obviously misplaced, so she picked up her pace- just in time to come into the situation as it escalated, as though right on cue. 

A young, lissome looking female had lunged at him, snapping at the boy and positioning herself in a dominant way. Niamh snarled and raised her tail- but before she charged in to attack the female without even pausing to process what was going on, she was able to notice in that brief moment that the female was posturing, not attacking. Had this been a packmate of theirs, Niamh might have simply stood by and allowed her to assert herself over the boy, had he been unruly. And part of her admired the younger female for showing some restraint- while also obviously meaning business. But her business was now Niamh's business, and as she was a stranger, not a friend, Niamh had no problem getting all up in it. 

"Step away from the boy," She grated with a gravelly voice, moving forward with a stiff-legged gait that flexed the muscles in her shoulders and hips. The fur along the nape of her neck and all the way down to the base of her tail stood on end, like honey coloured quills, and she stared the younger female down, the intensity of her glare and the widening of her eyes indicating exactly the level of crazy Niamh could go to in an instant if necessary. This was the most alive Niamh had felt in ages. Part of her craved an altercation. "And submit. Both of you." She added to her demand as she continuted to stalk forward, ready to lurch into a sprint and tackle the female to the ground if she made any sudden moves toward Crow.

Trying to keep thread count minimal, and the sweeper's comin' for me! Skipping @Crow with permission!

She was merely posturing over the boy at this point, but before either of them had time to react to the escalated situation, an unexpected snarl broke over them. Startled — feeling the noise in her body before she could correctly process its source and direction — Treepie pulled her lips back once more, tensing and showing teeth with raised hackles. As a low growl rumbled from deep within her chest, green eyes narrowing their focus upon the boy, the messages firing on her synapses were finally received by the appropriate parts of her brain... and all at once, Treepie realized it hadn't been this unruly adolescent after all.

Though less than a second had passed since she had heard the disembodied snarl, it had felt like an eternity — her eyes snapped in its direction to now assess the new threat, and if there was anything she could do to defend herself. "Step away from the boy," came a command, then, from a golden female that moved toward them both with an air of superiority and a stern gaze fixed upon Treepie.

Ain't nobody got time for this.

The dark yearling had no intention of fighting a child, and thus far her interaction with him had been pretty normal in canine behavior. To an extent, so was this new female's behavior — but Treepie had no intention of submitting to some random wolf on neutral territory just because she had enforced a boundary with an idiotic puppy. She shook herself, allowing her posture and tension to release, then made a point of taking a large step away from both strangers. Though she kept a suspicious gaze on the pair, there was no challenge in it — she only wished to make sure they wouldn't pursue or attempt to make any unwarranted attacks.

Well, she said casually, beginning a slow retreat. Now that mom's here to take care of you, I'm out. Relief was palpable in this final statement; she had no real desire to be responsible for the boy, but instinct had demanded that she not abandon him. Now she was absolved and could continue on her way, unburdened.