The Heartwood drifting somewhere between map and maelstrom

maybe a neverwinter forest wolf ( but tbh open to anyone that wants to snag this )? i know they're not formed yet but i assumed he'd smell activity and that would make him curious. edit. i'm going to use this for tongue over teeth DB quest.

after the most recent bought of trespassing — ah, how they played with fire — he is loathe to leave blackfeather for any real measure of time. he reasons, however, that his presence isn't necessarily needed and he can afford to slip out for a few hours without being missed. besides, he is a dark brother now — bearing the bloodred pawprint mark upon his left shoulder marking him as apart of the elite sect — and how can he serve mephala and the leadership if he is not out gathering useful information? that is the path he chose to follow: of secrets and lies and information; further reminding him that he is his mother's son for she, too, was a gatherer of information.

there is activity in the thriving forest across the from the heartwood; a stark contrast to the tormented land of ash and cinders he currently haunts. it stinks still of burning wood: of smoke. and it reminds him of the sentinels. he makes his way through the charred landscape carefully — a crunch of crumbling skeletons beneath his weight. it is a place of sorrow and loss, the heartwood, and it would be some time since it could be inhabited.

wintersbane moves away from the once-forest and into the vast stretch of flatlands that take him nearer to neverwinter forest. he is curious but deigns not to stray too close to the forest, lest he be met with hostility.

Grezig was once again attempting to recruit for her pack—which was not going well. She thrust the downcast thought from her mind and marched onwards. Dwelling on depressing topics had never worked well for her. It was why she was not currently dozing lazily up in the Door at the Plateau. She’d dwelled too long over a man she couldn’t have and then left her Beta position in the pack for… what? This? This roaming endlessly, hoping for recruits? This… waiting for the spring? Whatever she was waiting for, she didn’t have to think about it to wait for it. So she didn’t think about it.

Who was that? A dark wolf came towards her from the opposite direction. She could smell the smoke from a charred forest coming on the wind, stronger than his own scent. Strange… She’d not heard of a fire over here, but it wasn’t like she came over here very often. “Hail,” she called, as they drew nearer each other. “Is everything all right over there?” she asked, nodding her head behind the male. “I smell smoke.”

i literally have no idea when the heartwood burnt i was just going by the territory description, lol

wintersbane does not know how long ago the heartwood burnt: was it like this during his last visit? or perhaps, he considers, this is the first time he's ever stepped foot in the heartwood and it's always been like this. the smell of smoke is seeded in the charred corpses of trees, of fallen logs, blackened and hollow. delicate. they, too, crumble under foot like the bones of whatever unfortunate woodland critters got caught in the flames that wreaked havoc upon this place. it reminds him, now, too much of the sentinels. if he smells of smoke it is only because he's stirred it, brushed against blackened trees that still wear it as a perfume. there is no warmth in the heartwood, no glowing cinders to suggest otherwise and thus he assumes that sometime has passed since it happened.

the woman that approaches him from across the plains — blissfully unscarred; whatever fire had torn through the heartwood had not touched the no-man's land between — bore a pelage of browns and greys. glacial gaze studies her as they approach and he stops when he's reached a distance that it close enough. hail. a greeting or a warning? he wonders though he does not, at first glance, note any particular hostility. if i smell of smoke it is only because i stirred it. masking the scent of blackfeather hadn't been his intention — if it is masked it is only by sheer coincidence alone. the trees bear the scars of the fire and it clings to them and the earth they are rooted in.

the dark brother draws in a small breath and lets it out on a heavy exhale. the woods, he draws his salmon tongue across how jowls. well, what's left of them, he corrects himself. are cold. it has been some time since the fire. he is no expert though, and while he finds it hard to believe he missed a fire the truth was he was so absorbed in blackfeather woods that he very well could've especially since it'd been no threat to the dark woods.

The boy—for he was still young-looking—explained that the fire was old. Grezig relaxed a little. She did not need the worry of a fire to thwart her plans for the pack. “That is good to know.” She sat down and studied the male. He had a dark head, like Illidan, but his eyes were icy blue. A strange color. Most wolves grew out of their blue eyes as they aged. She wondered if he could see properly but didn’t feel it appropriate to ask. “I am Grezig,” she said, for lack of anything else to say. “You are?”

he knows she means that it is good that the lands are cold and there is no threat of rekindling a fire in the heartwood that could potentially spread ...but wintersbane is a cynic and thinks that, irregardless, there is nothing good about it at all. fire ravaged land meant less prey in the area ...and while there has yet to be a shortage of prey nor lands for them to roam and graze in, he knows winter has only just begun and it's a concern to him nevertheless. it would have it's effect, regardless of how small, despite it might not've effected any pack directly ( and maybe it had, he isn't real sure ).

grezig. offering his name wasn't really wintersbane's thing. he likes to keep an air of mystery around himself: an enigmatic lure. it's not a secret, really ...and names have never really met to him what they mean to other's. he's had so many of them now. wintersbane is special; a rare circumstance to his general disregard of ( his own ) names. it was given to him by lotte as an affectionate nickname as a wee cub. he bears it as his name to keep her memory with him. it feels more personal and more fitting to him than roarke ever would.

wintersbane. the dark brother supplies simply.

“Wintersbane,” Grezig repeated, a habit she’d formed long ago. It helped to cement wolves’ names in her head and also served as an immediate opportunity for correction if she got it wrong. “Are you alone?” she asked, wanting to get the feel for whether he could be a recruit or not. “The smoke masks any other scents on you, if there are any.” A pause. “Would hate to see a wolf packless in winter.” She felt cheap, laying it on so thickly, but the truth was that she needed more numbers. And how would anyone know that if she didn’t try to recruit them?

he's in a unique position, he quickly realizes, though the truth of the matter is that he has no use for it in this particular time or place. it isn't often that a pack scent can be masked but it makes sense that the choking scent of smoke: tangy and smelling of cooked wood is enough to do it. wintersbane catalogs that as useful. he isn't sure how long the smoke smell might linger ...and he doubts territories go around randomly catching fire but still. it's useful knowledge to have all the same.

i am not packless, he assures her with a soft shake of his head and a lofty shrug of his broad shoulders. but it is generous of you to worry. and then because wintersbane's curiosity is never satisfied and her words — as if she can offer him a pack — are peculiar enough that the tundrian asks, are you planning on settling close to here?

Ah. So he was not a recruit, then. Well. There was nothing Grezig could do about that. She dipped her head in acknowledgement when he thanked her for her concern. Her motive had been selfish, but still.

He asked if she planned on settling close to here. “Not so close,” she said. “A ways back, in a forest to the northwest of here. Or perhaps even farther than that. We will see.” Little did she know that she would soon give up on that idea and end up making her way to the ocean—even though she despised the ocean.

she responds that she does not plan on settling so close. the forest just northwest — wintersbane's glacial gaze strays to it in response — or further than that. a twitch of an ear is given as his gaze slowly returns to her. he's never founded a pack before — though he'd been ( briefly ) apart of several founding packs — but it comes across as a bit flighty to him not having an absolute idea of what territory you wanted to claim. he supposes, until he's in that position himself he has no room to judge ( aye, but he does it anyway because he's a big shit ).

a contemplative hum is summoned from somewhere deep in his chest as he ruminates upon her words. his more territorial nature is temporarily soothed by the fact that she plans to settle far enough away from blackfeather to not be considered too close though what he considers too close and what another considers too close is subjective at best. still, if she settles in neverwinter forest it comes up again in his thoughts that she and her's would be more competition for big game in the area.

well, the tundrian draws on a breath. i won't keep you any longer. i'm sure you have business to attend to. with those words the dark brother gives a tilt of his chin as a 'farewell' gesture and mulls over the vague information she's given him, unsure if it'll be useful but tucking it away all the same.