Moonspear with one's fate

The mountainside was streaked in wolf scents of her comrades. She was not used to a pack so numerous in individuals, but it was good -- inspiring, even. She felt alive and eager in her duties, not trapped in a cycle of monotony and mere obligation. Instead she wanted it. To protect, to prosper, and to lead something great to a mark on the history of the Teekon.  But that was thinking awfully far ahead still. For the present, she had borderlands to see to, so headed that way to fulfill the need.

With her muzzle high, she breathed deep. The late-afternoon was mild almost to the point of warm but still cloudy. It was fine by her; she did hope for an easy winter, and with a thought like that she peered skyward. Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. Last year had been good but the year before, not so much. Was it a cycle bound to repeat itself? Or was the bad winter an abnormality?

This naturally steered her thoughts towards the status of their stockpiles, and how much a full pack would need in preparation. Then this brought up gamekeepers, and who would be interested, and then how many pack hunts they could cram before the snows got too deep to make prey more difficult to find. With this in mind, she huffed, and generously marked a small landmark, before scratching her paws and lurking on down the path that curved the mountain's base.

Back from his expedition to the outer ranges, Aran shrugged off the feeling of loneliness that enshrouded him. It always had, but it was worse now that he was in a Pack. A surge of joy ran through him as he picked up the comforting Packscent - pine needles and fresh snow. Even better, it was the Spirit.

Or at least, that's what he would have thought. The actual thought was a string of identifiers he had dubbed tugwords: Home. Lone. Packscent. Happy. Spirit.

Still unable to howl, to his shame, Aran yipped a pup-like greeting to the Spirit as he crested a hill down near the border. He could still only say his own name - not for lack of practice. He would have to learn like a pup, a he should have all those moons ago.

Edit: @Amekaze

She reveled in the scenery underfoot and the scent trails sprinkled across it. There was much to learn still, of the wolves and the mountain itself, and she greeted the challenged undaunted. After so many moons of feeling stagnate and oddly trapped in the wild open wilderness, she had wanted a change, and she had certainly received it. Now, once the settling was finished, she hoped they would be poised at the helm of something truly great.

Feeling determined, she then shifted her focus for the arrival of Aran. She whuffed softly as she closed distance between them to bump her muzzle against his shoulder in greeting. Then, poised with her head and waving tail up, she swung her muzzle towards the bottom of the nearest hills. She wanted the company but was feeling far too restless to loiter, so she hoped he would join her. The vaguest hints of a trail were underfoot, and she was feeling the undeniable urge to track it down.

Aran was reassured by the Spirit's gentle gestures. She understood him, he realized, as he indulgently trotted along beside her. He had not yet ventured to the place she indicated to, and resolved to learn the skills of a wolf in the secluded-looking area.

When he picked up the faint trail the Spirit had obviously found, he chuffed happily at the chance to improve his negligible tracking skills.

But when Aran tried to follow the scent, he found himself circling the area - like a foolish pup, he had only scented himself. Crestfallen, he followed the Spirit down the trail he could not distinguish from the scents of the...um...Moon's Peer.

She was eager to get to the trails and this had added a new fluidity to her motions. His apparent agreement had her tail waving and, for the sake of what was to come, her voice dropped down into a pleased growl.

Once she was on the move, she felt better already, and jogged back when Aran circled so she could watch silently. She knew his edges were rough so this came as little surprise. The readiness was there in him, it was plain to see, but he needed time and a bit of polish. Before he would have much of a chance to dwell on his failure, she picked up a bit of speed and guided a pathway that she believed to warm a search.

The scenery opened up and sloped subtly upward here on the southern reaches of the mountain. Here, it was a bit drier than the other faces of the Spear. This reflected in the plantlife that was thinner and more spaced out, but that didn't make it less hospitable to the right types of creatures. She saw more stones dotting the way ahead and lowered her nose now to hike more carefully upward, moving slower now that she could begin to narrow the possibilities.

While her favorite things to track were the more charismatic types of wildlife, it would be unwise to pass up something smaller if it managed to be along the way. She looked to Aran, checking on his progress so far, and listened carefully -- not only to the path her nose was guiding her to ahead, but to what passed underfoot. She swiveled her own ears and tilted her head from one side to the other.

A skilled enough ear could catch the sound of burrows or other underground disturbances, but this was not without its difficulties, and she did want to keep moving unless something obvious came about.