Wapun Meadow And miles to go before I sleep

@Echelon u knew this was coming

Tonravik sat and stared at the world around her. She did not see it for its beauty, but for what could be gained from it. For the moment, she loitered at Wapun Meadow. Nothing could be gained here. Perhaps good hunting grounds in the spring, but herds knew better than to linger too long in barren land during the Winter when nothing was fruitful regardless. If Tonravik attached sentiment to places, she might prefer the land solely because it had granted her visual of her aokkatti.

The Tartok woman stood here, however, because it also offered a clear view of the world around them. Jutting out of the lands jaw were its fanged mountains in the distance, and Tonravik hungered to explore them... but first, she would reinstate the wolf she had come with to his place, find her own, and rebuild and regather. Tonravik was a doer, not a thinker... and so she grasped at straws thinking of a future beyond or before ruling.

Echelon held the openness of the meadow with a disdain she could not hide if she had wanted to. There was something about it that just set her askew, something that prompted her to cringe inwardly at the fact that they were upon it standing like two different sized peaks of pitch blackness.

Still, it was where she returned to find Tonravik, who, like she, stood out against the scenic backdrop. She approached from a length, no doubt long spied out by the watchful figure in the distance. And that was a distance she hastily closed, as she also did not want to linger long in the meadow. There was nothing there for them and Echelon was more than eager to make their preparations. Tartok would thrive here, she felt, and they only needed to find a start for its bold beginning.

Slipping in close to her aokkatti, the smaller figure sidled against her for fleeting warmth. An unnecessary gesture as the weather had been warm, but one of affection all the same. As far as she knew, they were alone, and it was perhaps only then that Echelon brought herself to show some significant note of emotion.

Tonravik saw her in the distance, and this time let Echelon bridge the gap between them. A low, pleasant growl was what came forth as she bumped roughly against Echelon, her own show of affection boasted in that show. A cutting wind came over the duo then, and Tonravik turned her head towards a small copse of cover. Gesturing to it, she pressed in that direction. There they would not be seen immediately, at least; though if their companion looked, she did not make it too difficult for them to be found. He knew of their presence where others would not.

Once there, Tonravik reclined to her haunches. She was eager for their start, and truly the woman did not know if she was patient or impatient. Tonravik would like to think she was the former, but the unpleasant itch she felt was nothing of the sort. The time to come made her a bit more irate than was the norm, and Echelon was the only woman whose presence she would be able to tolerate. Spring. Her heat had not come, and unlike her mothers first she had done nothing to delay it. Of course, Tonravik herself had no idea what was to come. As ever, she was a woman in the present.

And presently, her eyes dissected the world around them. She wanted lands that were ridden with permafrost. Where wolves unused to the chill in the thick of Summer might forget themselves and freeze, should they make a wrong turn.

In the shallow depths of the copse, Echelon allowed herself to settle low to the ground beside Tonravik. Almost cat-like, the flighty dark-haired wolf had drawn her limbs close to herself, as though the very action would conceal her entirely from the world around them. And perhaps that was her intention, as it was one thing for Tonravik to be seen. She prefered not to be, forever lingering in the shadows or in the cover of brush. There was a reason why they did not contend over who led and followed; Echelon was content with doing the following. In many ways, she considered herself a mere extension of Tonravik, nothing more than an additional pair of eyes and ears on the world.

Which as the silence dropped in between them, Echelon's gaze was anything but rooted. She watched through the obscured crop of dried grass and grain, watched out across that meadow to see if anyone would come to follow. And in that watch, she quietly voiced her opinion on their recent, not-so-newcomer to their fold. "I am not sure of Njal." An exhale followed her words. "Emotion rules him." She refrained from having the disdain in her voice, but the conversation that the two had on the icy backside of the glacier still rang in her mind. They were not emotionless creatures by any means, but rather she thought them to keep it tempered. They were not controlled by them, or at least by all of them.

Tonravik let out a yawn, somehow tired. Her journey had been long, and her plans exhausted her mentally. How she hated thinking. Just as Echelon watched, so too did she; their eyes would leave nothing in their vicinity untouched. Not a thing that breathed would pass their detection. Their eyes were not untrained. Lives depended on the eye of your comrade. Tonravik would never let anything touch Echelon... and she still intended to discover just what had ruffled her aokkatti any time ago.

Perhaps she could be patient, in some things.

As they surveyed the open land where nothing could be missed, an ear turned to listen to Echelon while the other panned left, listening for anything else. Her words were concerning to hear, and Tonravik turned to Echelon, the look on her face a prompt for her to elaborate. Tonravik had not thought anything of worth might occur in her absence but a day ago, but evidently something had occurred to give Echelon enough cause to speak her doubts to her. Tonravik took Echelon's opinion quite seriously, and knew Echelon would not waste her time or breath bringing it up if she did not think something could be the matter.

When Tonravik offered nothing in his defensive, but rather silently queried her uncertain thoughts, Echelon wasn't sure how to continue. Her uncertainties of Njal were superficial, as she trusted Tonravik's judgment wholly. So far, he had not strayed from them or otherwise balked on what it was that they were after. But she still did not know what to make of him and like any other they had picked up in their travels, she kept a watchful on upon them.

"Do you think he will follow through? For us? For Tartok?" She did not expound on the reasons why she did not know what to think of him, feigning that what she had said was merely enough. But she felt the questions she asked would answer it well enough. If there was something more Tonravik saw, she wished to see it as well. "Did you know his mate lives on that glacier?" She figured once that hill was crested in their conversation, a lot of the story would fall into place there, tying back to her question of whether or not he would follow through for them at all.

Tonravik listened to Echelon, and heard her anxieties. Tonravik kept her own reservations aside. What she knew was this: where there was a will, there was a way. Truth be told they did not need the glacier. If things did not go well there, Tartok would find another way. It always had. Tonravik remembered the founding of Tartok, its very conception, from the stories told by her mother. The Sirens were of no help and would not allow them to reside upon the Mountain there. Tartok was at war from the very first moment its name was uttered; and it still conquered and came to be. Against all odds, it reigned.

The larger of the two spoke. I think he will try. This she did believe. He would not have led them this far, what would be the point in revealing to them his home? Surely he had no desire to make an enemy of them. Her next question caused Tonravik to look at Echelon, head tilting. He spoke of a heart, Tonravik offered, and although she tried to remember more of what he had told her, she could not recall that. Somehow, even though heart ought to have meant mate, she had not connected the dots. And cubs. This was personal, to Njal. There were many differences between she, Echelon, and Njal... the largest being that hearts were things of little use aside from their principle function which kept them alive.

Her words did not provide the comfort that Echelon was hoping for. She found herself in silent worry — though worry was hardly a word in her vocabulary — that perhaps once they had helped him in the way he had helped them, he would turn them loose. Of course, she would not have been surprised if that wasn't the plan all along. Even if he had a mate and cubs there, he also had Tartok. And above all, Echelon felt that Tartok should have came first. She did not understand the mystery of the heart, nor experience some of the feelings that it was supposed to give. Those things had been squashed out of her early on, though whether it was by her father or the others of Tartok was unknown.

A sigh left her, though not in part to what she was told. It was merely a passive response, followed by her attempt to burrow herself closer to the ground. She supposed that as long as her aokkatti was content, then she would have to try to be too. "I hope we move on his glacier soon then," she said, once more slipping back towards a child-like mirth. "I want to explore it." It was perhaps then that she let on that she had her own like of that landscape. It attracted her well, held her attention far longer than it should. And furthermore, she hoped that they would stay there, that Njal and his mate, and their cubs along with Tonravik and herself, would make Tartok bloom and spread across the wilderness.

The reason Tonravik did not worry was this: many had turned on Tartok, and none had survived it. Surely Njal knew this, and if he did not and sought to tempt fate... well, he would learn it the hard way. Tonravik was at ease with the situation, knowing she would come to rule soon again. She had Echelon by her side, and if there was one wolf she knew would always be on her side, it was her. Njal could not say that of his heart.

And if his heart did not trust him, they could temper the emotional man and chisel him to a fine stone. She only trusted the heart to do its primary function. But she was sure many had been let down by that, too, to meet death. Tonravik nods to Echelon's words and rumbles lowly. She would find out when they would go, and let her aokkatti know.

Gonna fade this~

With an agreeable rumble coming from her aokkatti, Echelon let her tongue rest. Her eagerness was palpable as a taste; she could almost feel the ice and snow of the glacier. It was a prime location for them, for Tartok, and she would happily lie in wait until they took the trek to it. Comfortably, she entertained the thought of all that could be — would be in her mind — as the minutes ticked by.

Soon, she decided. Soon they would leave this miserable glen for the climes and glory of something more.