Moonspear that's the way it ought to be

His six month had recently come and gone without fanfare as the Xi had started to make himself more commonplace all around the mountain. All the while, his body grew, stretched out, and fur thickened up and he was starting to mature to a point of wanting to do even more constantly. Sometimes, his energy felt boundless anyway, like he could roam and chase for days.

He still generally stayed away from the lowest points without another, but he was getting into the habit of lurking in the woods that eventually shifted into covering their borders. In many ways, it was similar enough with low risk, and good work towards familiarizing him with all of the ins and outs of this terrain.

For now, he loitered in the shadows of the woods on the lookout for others.

He had yet to climb the mountain proper and it still loomed behind him against the backdrop of fading light. Down in the woods where he roamed, twilight settled in swiftly to let shadows swallow all whole. It was reminiscent of the evening that had brought him there, albeit now he was on the inside looking out. It had been a lackluster day for him, nothing more than a chance to catch up on sleep undisturbed and rest after what seemed such a long spell. The sudden tether of being in a pack felt restrictive, but the weather of kate hasn't been too favorable to travel in either.

Hunting, however, was a mixed bag. In his spare time when he hadn't indulged in sleep, Dirge had tried to find what caches existed in the lowland. He had uncovered a couple that were sorely lacking, but in this part of the forest he found there wasn't much in the way of traffic. It was near the borders, perhaps too near to be worth maintaining with the threat of outsiders and other knavish individuals. Moonspear did not lack in numbers either from what he had gleaned, and thus it seemed obvious they kept things more central. Or they lived life on the edge... which depending on context he thought true too.

As he skirted along the borders, his eyes were drawn to thw forest that rolled out past the sprawl of their meandering border. The chances that some big stag would be visibility looming and alive were slim, but he entertained the thought all the same. Better to seem like he was doing something anyhow, as the looming mountain had also begun to feel like a set of eyes on him as well. Whoever they belonged to, he did not know.

i hope you don't mind me~ q_q

!!!

From early on, the success of a stealthy approach had been ingrained on him. Often he was on the losing end of it still.. but sometimes, it wasn't such a shock. He was starting to connect the dots, understand better, and how it could apply to him in the meanwhile... but these were idle thoughts when he had nothing else to immediately occupy him. He'd go in a million different directions if not, or so it seemed.

However, this would come in handy. He had been minding his pawsteps, and keeping tucked away in the darker parts as he unknowingly started to lurk onto Dirge's path. He was not so pitch as Mama and his trio of sisters, but, his paler swatches may have played to his strengths as small hints of light filtered here and there where he could not find a perfect corridor of darkness. In this, he was gaining a bit of confidence, and when sight and scent finally intersected, the juvenile sharpened quick to zero in on the agouti-coated male who moved along alone.

Jarilo didn't know him by name, but did know he was new.. and meant to be here. He'd smelled him before a bit.. so he was fair game as he went stalking after him. Stride by stride, he got closer, and slunk down until he couldn't trust his stealth this near--surely the stranger would notice much sooner any closer, and anticipation (with curiosity) was burning at his chest to go. Jarilo, with his eyes shining and jaws slackened enough just to show excess teeth, sprang forward from the dark towards the male's path.

Hopefully, such a sudden appearance may reward him with a little spook.

The borders were becoming more familiar with each passing day. Dirge had yet to tackle the moubtain range itself, and barring some of the lower elevations he hadn't covered much of the territory itself. Still as the days rolled by and no one came to chase him out, he was beginning to feel the urge to investigate what lied within. That itself would require encountering some of the other and presumably more prominent members of Moonspear itself, which was another hurdle all to itself. But no good story came without its twists and turns.

His focus remained on the woods beyond those borders for now, even with the pressing presence of something else. He thought it was nothing or at the very least Hydra stalking him—that he wouldn't have put past her and her ways of dropping in. He had yet to drop in on her, but the time would come eventually. Her routine would be figured out, presuming she hadn't figured out his minimal patterns yet.

Footfalls through frosty, damp leaf debris stole his attention away suddenly, and a flash of slate and smiling whites whirlwinded in. There was a sharp intake of surprise on his end, the darkest of guard hairs prickling to attention as he managed to withhold a growl to accompany them. The wolf that had sprung to was no more than a boy, and one still growing into himself for all intents and purposes.

"You're quite the night owl," he managed out with the same tone of bravado he had carried thus far. "What a performance." He smelled of the mountain, of the shale and bitter wind; of Charon and Hydra among others he did not know. And if he was of any relation of them, he would soon be proud of startling the lowest peg.

His grin wasn't going anywhere while he was awarded with his intended effect and the fellow didn't seem to have expected him one bit. The boy gave a little hop back, then around, since playing with his mother and sisters told him to always stay light on his feet, and eyeballed the new stranger from there, spooks accomplished. As for being a night owl, he had nothing to deny there, and gleamed on. "Yeah. I like it. You too?" With his family littered with them, this was surely no surprise to find the youngest son out lurking the nighttime hours. 

Towards his performance, Jarilo puffed his chest just a bit. "Thanks." he took it as a compliment enough, even if he did not know if this guy had a good judge of it--but he probably did if his parents and Hydra were letting him stick around the slopes. "I'm going to practice it more," seemed worth including. And therefore, get better, sneakier, faster, and stronger...or so he hoped. Next, to ping-pong the subject right along, he had to ask what was bugging him to be asked most of all: "Who are you?"

The lad was pleased with the outcome and it was all as expected. The scare had been intentional, something practiced down to the point of gradual perfection. It was then that there was little doubt this was another of Hydra's siblings, even if she hadn't mentioned that she had younger siblings. There were her sisters, that much he knew. But they way he carried himself, that outward jovial bounce, the stealth... he was definitely another dark haired Ostrega, another piece to a puzzle Dirge had no final picture of.

"They say practice makes perfect," he rejoined and followed up with, "and you can call me Dirge. What's your name?" The directness, that inquisitiveness did not bother him; when it came to children he preferred it in all honesty... though this one was more or less close to being grown if he had to guess. The lankiness remained, but he was not small enough any more to be nipping at ankles and knees for attention.

To the agouti fellow's words, the youth's expression remained bright. "Perfect? That'd be cool," he reasoned with a small flash of his teeth for a quick grin. Perfect was certainly worth striving for. He did have a long way to go first, he knew. He had only just recently begun to find his groove, and really enter a mindset for such independent study, but the feeling was a warm one that he quickly found he liked. To boast a bit, he went on: "I think I'm startin' to get pretty good at practicing, at least.. so..." he drawled off to let him fill in the blank of his inevitable excellence.

"Oh. I'm Jarilo." the juvenile provided readily, not thinking whether or not this would mean anything to him. "Dirge is a neat name." The ominousness of it was lost on him, he didn't know what a dirge was.. except for now that it was a this guy. "You're kind of new here, right? Since I've never seen you.." Heck, even wolves not immediately on the spectrum of black to white fur were uncommon enough here, so Jarilo was taking his time absorbing all this new and different--even if running his mouth at him was coming very naturally for some reason. So in keeping with that.. "So what were you doing??" he asked, more annoyingly nosy than outright interrogative.

Jarilo was quite a mischievous lad if that grin were to impart anything. A smile crossed his features as the younger male considered perfrction and the status therein; it would have been pretty cool if they could carry feline-like silent in their steps. Even his youth shone through as he spoke, the swift process and exchange of information coming to take root in the curiosity of what Dirge was doing out there in the first place.

The boy may have talked a mile a minute, but it was hardly a bother.

"I'm new, yes. Hydra invited me to come here a while ago," he answered, already lost on the amount of time that had passed. It had been no more than a week or two at that point, but the lifestyle had not changed much. He drew in a breath one the next moment, surmising his actions on that evening. "And I was out for a walk to see what I could see." So far he had only seen Jarilo, but that was a start.

Hydra definitely pinged as a key point in his answer to the boy. This showed on Jarilo's expression, as even if he couldn't always tell them apart, Hydra, he knew he held in high regard along with the rest of the trio.

If she had invited him, that had to mean something for him. He wondered what that was.

"Ohh.." he breathed. He looked like he might want to make a point about his sister, but he could not decide which one so easily. "Do you get to train with Hydra too?" he asked, hopeful. He looked up to all three of his dark sisters very much and second only to his parents, they were his favorites to shadow. He did aspire to be a good apprentice to all of them, Hydra especially, now that he was getting bigger (not nearly as big and fluffy as Drogon though) but his focus was a work in progress and his inexperience still had him balking when it got to be just too much. "Well have you seen anything good yet?" Besides him, the obvious, of course.

When asked if he trained with Hydra, Dirge found hinself off guard with the question. She was obviously skilled when it came to tracking and from what he could guess, wasn't a bad hunter either. Of course there was the matter of her being after someone, but the details of such had not been fully disclosed to him, nor had he gone prying into her privacy.

So he summed it up: "Well, we hunt together." That would have to do for now, though he anticipated more questions to rise in the wake of his answers. He could not fault Jarilo for being inquistive. It was the most direct way of getting information, which he seemed to have no issue getting from Dirge.

As for what he had seen...

"And I haven't seen anything of particular interest yet tonight, except for you. Do you ever find anything out here in the dark? Any monsters lurking I should be afraid of?" A wry grin flickered across his muzzle because surely the boy wasn't too old for monsters. They existed always, if only to take on more familar shapes than either of them had yet to realize.

Hunting with Hydra was not something the juvenile did much of. In fact, he didn't really think about it most of the times when he was with her. Usually they were stalking or pouncing or running. True, aspects of the hunt, but not exactly the goal in mind most times.. yet of course, it made perfect sense for Hydra to be good at training with for hunting too. Jarilo didn't question that at all, and instead, stowed the information for later and wordlessly appraised Dirge for his good taste in company.

"Uh, I dunno.. nothing really too much that I've seen myself..." he answered. Usually the patrols he did go on were tame and Wraen had him concerned he wasn't able to even spot all the monsters that were out there. "One time I did see a fox. I didn't know they screamed so weird," Jarilo detailed, remembering that evening with mama a bit. Those noises had been pretty monstrous..

Anyway, he bugged Dirge for a while longer and dogged him for stories of what else he could find in the dark. Eventually when another familiar face from his Ostrega clan came calling, he left the older male alone to enjoy his evening--peace and quiet included.

i took too long and need to close up some things with him so i went on ahead. thanks for putting up with him <3