Noctisardor Bypass my boy, my boy

you go to easthollow, tell them what we saw. i'll find lost creek.

@Lolita and bhediya set on in different directions, each one with a different mission in mind. they'd planned to meet up afterward in an intermediate territory so that neither had to journey home alone. as soon as she met with a leader and shared the news, bhe would head toward the foxlands and wait for lola to meet her.

as she wandered through the hollow, the scout sounded a series of short howls. one, for a leader, the next for their women. if nothing else, she thought that the latter group had the right to know.

Tagging @Jomyo for reference since she has the only other non-pup chick at the moment. :P  No obligation to join if you don't want, I'm cool with assuming Arbiter passes info along BTS if you want. Similar tag for @Terance!

She had been fairly happy about how things had gone so far with their new location.  If only because they weren't really too hungry any more.  Once they knocked off a few deer and loaded them into the caches, the winter wouldn't look bleak at all.  Then they could figure out if this was where they were going to actually stay and should tell the relevant allies or what.

Arbiter was heading to the borders to patrol when the howls came up... From the same person, but for different people?  Kind of?  Uh.   Her brow furrowed in confusion, but she didn't go ignoring the call, heading that way.  The woman that waited was rather odd looking to her... Her fur was just plain wrong, and something else was off about her -- like her facial proportions were not quite right, scent too.  But honestly, after the initial two seconds she mentally tossed that aside and went back to the question at hand, Rather odd howl pairing.  What is it you wanting?  She was her normal serious self, a leader who cut to business rather than going through niceties.  If it had been a guy at the borders with that set of howls, hell she might have guessed it'd be some dude wanting to take over and get a ton of chicks or something daft like that.  With a woman calling, it made less sense.  So why, then?

a grayscale woman approached from the east, her strong presence immediately overwhelming. bhediya nodded her greeting and gave a small smile, keeping her teeth well-hidden behind tight lips. i come from uaine gorsedd, she croaked, her voice unsteady and easily broken, uhm, bhediya, the third-in -command. 

she was rambling, stalling. there... there what? not far from here, a body. a woman's body, and she'd been...assaulted. bhediya allowed a moment for the woman's response. i split off from my scouting party to alert you all, assuming this is the hollow's new settlement? it's almost the season, so the valley women should be on guard.

Arbiter noticed Bhediya's discomfort.  So, was she normally like this and Ibis had gone and collected some not particularly well-spoken wolves or did Arbiter just have that effect on all the ones in that pack?  She was quite Machiavellian when it came to strangers -- if her simple existence intimidated, she was doing her job as a leader and guardian.  It encouraged them to stay in line and out of her way if they weren't planning on sticking around.  Still, she waited for her to finish before replying, Arbiter.  And yes, it is for now.  Still to be determined if they were going to move elsewhere.

The whole thing was very vague, which Arbiter didn't appreciate at all, but she didn't let it reflect on her features much.  She wanted evidence, details, and wasn't the type to shy away from the gory bits. You assume then that she was killed by that same person?  Ever the predator, her thought was more towards how to kill dangers rather than just avoiding them, and continued on (assuming the answer to the previous question was affirmative), I will pass it on.  What did you find to help us identify the one who did it?  The fact that there might not be anything or that it might not have been looked for hadn't really crossed her mind -- if something happened, then there was evidence.  End of story.

the replies were short, succinct. bhediya frowned, there wasn't much there. not even a scent, other than...musk. aside from the stench carried between the girl's legs, there were no other hints to follow. we found her in the water, like she'd been drowned. it washed away any evidence.

the next question would presumably be about the assault, and how she'd been able to reach that conclusion. bhediya continued before giving arbiter time to respond. her legs were out of the water. it's how the scent remained intact.

Blink.  There was nothing?  How?  Maybe the corpse was far more decomposed than Bhediya was letting on.  Nobody was able to get away with things that cleanly.  Her brow furrowed, frustrated.  So someone senselessly dead and that's all we've got.

Her continued reply was bitter, but from the shift of her gaze to the horizon beyond, it was more at the scenario than an individual.  So now we need to be afraid of every man who comes to the borders, despite needing to recruit.  It seemed unlikely that Arbiter herself would be afraid of anything -- or at the very least she wasn't going to do so willingly.  Look, they'd just found a good place to settle, the last thing they needed was to suddenly decide that every wolf around was untrustworthy if they owned a penis.

Still.  What of Jomyo's future scouting, message delivery and all that?  Perhaps she could just avoid wherever this was.  Refocusing on Bhediya, Where was this exactly?  The lake sort of west of here?  A river?

the tone taken by arbiter served as a great offense. bhediya tried to keep a steady expression, but would not have been surprised had some of her emotions leaked through. not afraid, she replied, but suspicious. that was a given, though; every alpha was meant to be suspicious of newcomers. why did this seem to come as a surprise?

bhediya turned and nodded back toward the river. between the cuesta and lost creek. the body would likely still be there, if not stolen away by scavengers.

Apparently her hyperbole was a bit too dry.. Or something.  She had thought it had been obvious, as Arbiter wasn't the sort to be actually afraid of anything that she could personally think up.  There was a slight cant of her head and she seemed to dismiss it all as not worth arguing about.  Arbiter knew a good chunk of wolves didn't operate the same way she did, and sometimes it just wasn't worth trying to explain.  Either way, trying to find useful wolves was hard enough without spending extra effort on trying to discern if they were that sort of dangerous wolf that could hide their dysfunction.

Moving on, she looked off roughly in the direction mentioned, mentally mapping the landscape.  Closer than comfortable, but she probably would have felt more insecure in the creek -- here there were stone walls partially enclosing them, preventing attack from certain angles.  Tactically, a good choice when the unknown were rampaging about.  Her gaze shifted back as she spoke, Mm.  I assume Easthollow has been told as well?  We're closer to the scene here, but I haven't seen any so far that struck me as particularly suspicious.  It's quieter here.  We moved here for a reason.  She intended it would stay that way until spring, at the very least.

bhediya didn't doubt arbiter's words. she didn't think that a murderer would show up to anyone's border, especially not immediately after committing such a crime. another scout went their way, she explained, nodding toward the east. the scout wondered how valette was taking the news.

seeing nothing is better than seeing something. it meant that, for now, the killer wasn't interested in heading this direction. bhediya trusted that arbiter would keep an eye out, either way; she didn't seem like a background-alpha. we'll probably be sending out parties to check on our allies. just to see if there are any updates.

she would wait for a response before turning to leave, offering the alpha a nod before getting on her way.

Well, either way Arbiter wasn't going to be letting her children take trips out of the nest on their own for a while.  It otherwise would have been about the time she would fully trust them, but... At least they have plenty of new territory to explore.  And hopefully soon some larger prey to practice their skills on.

With all the packs that vanished over the fall, I'm not even sure who else should be warned.  We'll let you know if we find anything on our end.  Safe trip.  It wasn't like she would wish them happy hunting -- any pack lead by Ibis probably wouldn't have the guts.  Whatever.  Probably good if they didn't die.

As Bhediya left, Arbiter watched her go for a few seconds before turning inward to the territory to inform those who mattered.