Duskfire Glacier You won't find her in your visions.

Wayfarer roused beneath a thick blanket of snow that'd fallen heavily through the night, and within that little pocket she felt quite comfortable. She simply lay curled close to herself for a short time, nose tucked beneath the red-brown of her as she blinked sleep from her eyes, then shifted to break the surface with a reluctant lift of her head.

The cold was biting on her nose, but she gathered to her paws and shook out her furs - guard hairs lifting to trap air beneath so that she could better insulate herself. She glanced around briefly, content to see that she was alone, before pressing on to pick her way along the borders.

Plp, plp, plp...

Meerkat's ears flicked and she woke up just enough to crack open an eye and squint around in confusion. What was making that noise? Why was it so damned annoying? She'd been grouchy lately but something about the rhythmic sound made an unbridled rage sweep through her.

Plp, plp, plp...

Clenching her teeth, the she-wolf climbed out of her own little snowdrift and opened both eyes to glare at the wintry world. It took a moment to pinpoint the sound's origin: some icicles on a nearby bough were dripping in the morning sun, plunking on a slick patch of ice below.

Plp, plp, plp, plp, plp...

There was no way she could reach up and rip the icicle off the branch and yeet it into outer space like she wanted, so in lieu of that, Meerkat gave into an intense urge to scream: "FRIGGIN'!!! AAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!"

The morning was quiet - peaceful, almost. Wayfarer rotated a velvet ear in search of twittering birds or rustling branches, but all that nature had to offer was silence. A still-time, where one could reflect on what sort of things life might have in store for her by the time Winter was expected to come to an end.

The calm was interrupted by a voice, shrill as it bellowed from close by. Wayfarer halted at once, hackles erect along her dorsal and tail flagging with the assumption that someone was in trouble. Her gaze soon found the familiar form of Duskfire's coach, alone, and the tension slackened from her to see that she was fine.

"The fuck, Meeka!?" Wayfarer barked, "I almost had a heart attack! The hell is wrong with you?"

Meerkat whipped around at an entirely different sound: someone calling her name. Actually, it was someone calling her out for her (not so) little outburst. Just like with Lane, the yearling felt intensely embarrassed that someone had witnessed her behaving so erratically.

Plp, plp, plp...

Seizing the opportunity, Meerkat swept away from the icicles of irritation, toward Wayfarer. She still felt incredibly on edge, though as the dripping noise faded behind her, it subsided somewhat. That just made room for her other dominant emotion of the moment, humiliation, to strenthen.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she blurted in reply to Wayfarer's quite likely rhetorical question. Then she just kept on spewing words. "I'm sorry! I didn't—I'm not—and I know you already don't like me because of my lame attempt at dad jokes..." Dear god, was she really tearing up right now?

Meerkat veered her way, along to close the distance between them, and Wayfarer resumed her own stride to play her own part in doing so. Unaware if the coach's internal struggle, the firebird was surprised to see such a forlorn expression on her face - and what the hell, why did she look like she was about to burst into tears.

A response came, which made the red-kissed youth halt abruptly. Meerkat claimed to not know what was wrong with her, a declaration that made Wayfarer wonder if perhaps the zombie deer meat had at last begun to affect the pack. She scrunched her nose and shifted to the side, not wanting to get too close for fear of infection.

"What?" Wayfarer felt something sharp in her chest at the mere mention of "Dad" considering the recent loss of her own, and she was unprepared for the heaviness that followed. She turned her face away.

Fucking seriously? Meerkat thought. She angrily swiped at the tears, feeling mortified, particularly as Wayfarer inched back from her in evident distaste. Get your goddamn shit together, she commanded herself as she put her foot back on the ground. Letting out a long, low breath and shaking her shoulders, Meerkat tried to calm and collect herself before shooting Wayfarer an apologetic look.

"I don't know what's gotten into me," she said, although I have a couple guesses... That wasn't something she wanted to discuss with the young girl. "I'm sorry I'm being so spastic. Um... how are you doing, anyway? It's nice seeing your face around here a bit more lately."

About two seconds after the words left her mouth, Meerkat stiffened with the realization that Wayfarer was probably only around because of the recent tragedies. Had she just put her foot in her mouth, on top of everything? She exhaled loudly again, just barely resisting the impulse to drop her face into her paws.

Wayfarer was no therapist, and doubted she ever could become one. Bitterly, she thought her parents to be entirely responsible for her stony nature. Feelings were not something her proud and stoic Tundrian father ever seemed open to discussing, and Lane - well, that was a whole other disaster.

The girl twitched a whisker and turned her head just enough to side-eye her pack-mate with suspicion. She noted that Meerkat had swept the welling fluid from her lash-line and tried to regain some sense of control by directing their awkward conversation in a new direction.

"I'm fine," she lied with ease, my dad just died, and my mom is an asshole, but suuure everything's fucking wonderful! Wayfarer knew the polite thing yo do then would be to ask after Meerkat's own well-being, but after having witnessed her on the verge of an outburst she decided that would be a terrible idea: "and yeah, it's, uh... great. To be back, I mean."

She breathed a sigh of relief when Wayfarer didn't appear bothered by the question. There was a little bit of awkwardness to her reply, though Meerkat was pretty sure that had more to do with her own erratic behavior than anything else. She wouldn't stop kicking herself over this anytime soon, especially since she felt like she'd never been able to really get through to Wayfarer and get to know her better. Now she probably thought Meerkat was a crazy person!

A thought suddenly occurred to her and the yearling said, "Hey, you spend a lot of time out and about, exploring. Right?" Since they both knew it was a rather rhetorical question, she continued, "Maybe he—um, Issorartuyok, I mean—already talked to you about scouting for a new place to live? Either way, I bet you could come up with a shortlist of places to look." Especially since he hadn't asked his usual asset (herself), maybe Wayfarer could play a pivotal role. She might even be qualified to take point on the expedition.

Favoring the girl with a soft smile that was still apologetic, she finished by saying, "You should definitely talk to him or Lane about it, if you haven't already. I can get out of your hair now if you want to go do that." Even if Wayfarer wasn't that interested in following her suggestion, the last Meerkat could do was give her an out.