Ouroboros Spine crooked but upright

Would like a @Tonravik if she's back from her ventures, but this is pretty much open for anyone. :)

With weeks lost behind her on some winding and twisted trail, Echelon found herself glad to be returning to the familiarity of the Spine. Though she had no qualms with having been dispatched to check on and aid one of many Tartok branches scattered about, she felt her place was always better at the side of her aokkatti, not somewhere else. And if there was one thing that she could pinpoint about what had changed in the wilderness, it was the introduction of the heat. It was stifling in spite of the gradual build up to it. But it would not stop her.

Panting lightly as she had come over the borders, Echelon could not help but pause and rifle through the undergrowth. Things were in some state of disarray, perhaps from a trespasser or two, but for the most part she could sense that the Spine was just as strong as it had been. There was little doubt in her mind that the wolves beneath Tonravik would keep the pack whole and guarded, and there was little surprise that there hadn't been wolves around to test their doors and windows all the same. She proceeded onward, following the rutted trails of some long ago time, and began the descend towards the basin-like depths. Hopefully, she thought, it would be cooler there.

glass animals — toes

Assuming this is when she and Ker have returned.

One step ahead of her aokkatti, Tonravik lurked in the darkness. She hated the day and the heat it brought vehemently in the Summer. Tonravik was fashioned for snow. She thought of the Glacier, and she humored returning there to usurp the wolves there for a second time, this time with her own back up. Life would be better in the chilly weather... but, then, the Spine offered so much and was well protected by the Squat mountains. Those that tried to trespass had seen nothing within its engorged center... It was a place protected well by not only the wolves, but its own heights.

A familiar scent drifted toward her. Tonravik lifted her head and sniffed heavily, before coming onto all fours. She wasted no time.

A long-legged sprint led her in the direction of Echelon, where she barreled recklessly through the foliage and bounded over boulders scattered here and there. In moments, Echelon would be in her sights. But for now, she ran to her.

Not too much further into her descent towards the inner sanctums of the territory, she heard the thrashing of a heavy approach. For a few tense moments, Echelon prepared herself for the worst, wondering just who would be coming as quickly to meet her. And when that figure burst from the greenery, it was in a flurry of darkness and large, the shape none other than Tonravik. Her guard dropped considerably at the sight of her aokkatti, greeting her with a hearty wave of her tail and the lowering of her stance altogether. It had been a good while since she had been in her company and she was appeased that Tonravik would come to her first above all others. But in the same stroke, she expected it; more than simple companionship bound them together.

Ah. There was her smaller counterpart. Tonravik had missed her presence. The woman had little imagination, but knew how the other would have handled the situation with the plains wretches. Tonravik would have liked to see it. The woman did not stop or slow when she moved to Echelon, hoping to collide and crash into the other full force to knock all the time they had been apart back into the bones of her subordinate, her own tail beating against her sides whippishly as she barked loudly at the wolf she was blood-bound with, sounds made to attest to how good it was to see her.

It was a nice change of pace to see the usually stoic Tonravik display some sort of visible emotion. It had been too long perhaps. Things hadn't gone to plan, but then again she could have speculated somewhere that things often did not go according to plan. If nothing else, Echelon made the attempt to be thorough in what was asked of her. She readily accepted the collision between them, nipping roughly at the passing shoulder of her superior as though to say that she too had missed her and that she was finally back where she belonged.

Tonravik turned back to Echelon, tongue lolling from the exertion of the run in the too hot heat. And then she goes to sniff at her, to take in all the scents of the world beyond that she had visited, looking for anything familiar there. Some she recognized, though the scent had grown old and was in essence threadbare, a part of her scents essence from her time gone. But her own scent had never faded in full, and she moved to press herself into Echelon so as to make her scent the most prominent.

The alpha gestures over her shoulder, wanting to move back to the shade. The heat, to Tonravik, was blistering. She would practice combat in it, knowing there was never an hour where battle could not come to them now, and could last... but if she could do without it, she would. The heat of the day brought them a whopping ninety degrees, and although the clouds came, they seemed to go just as fast.

As Tonravik rooted about her for the scents of history and history untold, Echelon could not help but do the same. Like her aokkatti, there were both familiar scents and not. Things had changed within the Spine, but then again things were always at change. The world never stopped changing. With things here, she knew she would have to discover and learn what had changed since her absence. Her little wayward trip had set her own ideals off course.

So as they moved towards the shade — gladly, at that — Echelon remained silent bar her own slow panting. She was curious what Tonravik would divulge, and perhaps even more interested in what she would ask of her.

Tonravik did have much to update her subordinate on, but surely Echelon could smell most of the changes. In any case, as they walked, Tonravik remained quiet. The heat had her wanting to conserve all energy, and the thing that took the most out of her above anything else was speech. She was a primal woman, after all. It was so easy to act on instinct. Natural. Words took so much from her. Too much. How she hated them. How complicated they made things.

But at the least, those she spoke to understood her disjointed words that she strung together. She was not at all eloquent, given her lack of real practice. But Echelon no doubt understood her best of all. When they arrived to the shady recess of land, Tonravik slid into it. There was enough space for her aokkatti to follow in and for there to even be space. Closeness was not what she sought, given the heat of the day.

If anything, those changes to Tonravik's scent were enough to tell her much of what had changed. That she had fulfilled some carnal, biological desire and necessity. That the future would hold much for what would come in the following weeks. But she did not dote upon this or think much of it yet, instead slipping into the thick shadows along with her aokkatti. And there she settled in the scattered and speckled sunlight that pored through. It was not the cool depths like Tonravik would have sought; Echelon chose to condition herself properly and yet quickly.

Lying prone and seemingly vunerable on her side, she rooted about the damp earth for the scents that were there. They were of home, and she missed them as well. Though her tongue still willed itself to loll out of her mouth at times, she would cool soon enough. But for now she was content simply to lay her gaze on Tonravik once more, appealing to the questions that she did not verbally ask. It almost seemed as though she suggested a what else. Their borders were strong, yet tainted with scents of others. Something else had happened in her absence.

Tonravik mimicked Echelon in laying down alone, flopping contentedly to her side on the cool stone floor. The days were too hot and near intolerable for Tonravik. It made her think of the North, and of the glacier. She yearned for that place, or anywhere in the world with snow year round. Tonravik felt the eyes of her subordinate and rolled onto her belly lazily, staring quietly at her aokkatti.

Tonravik would answer all the questions of her subordinate and more, but primarily she was interested in Echelon's findings out there. Was there another branch nearby? And Razorback had come with news of the matriarch, her mother, of Tartok; had Echelon also heard of the latest patriarch, Skull? "What have you found," she rumbles, wanting to be lazy in her silence a little longer but also truly wanting to know these things.

Tonravik's inquiry was a very good no, you first and rightly so, Echelon was compelled to answer. So she kept things very short and concise for the sake of her nonverbal companion: "Another battalion lies to the east, then north. They are newly dispatched from the matriarch. Several days away." But that hardly accounted for the time that she had been long. "They needed aid in holding their territory; their problems are similar to our own. Their leader is known as Gold Bear. He seems capable." The Inuktitut rolled off her tongue, knowing that Tonravik would understand what it meant slightly better than she for the dialect difference. As for the wolf, Echelon did not know him herself.

Tonravik listened keenly, glad for the knowledge obtained and earned. Now she and this bear knew of one another; and if necessary, she could call for their aid if things would come to that. Her comrade was more fluent in her own tongue than Tonravik's, and fortunately she was well educated in both. The woman was glad for her comrades effort, and her tail batted the earth heavily.

"Here, we have dealt with wolves who trespass and test us. Recently, Iqniq and I returned her near-dead." Echelon more than anyone would understand why, because she knew Tonravik was a tactical woman. Stupid with words and slow to pick up on things, yes, but she was born in war, and crafted for it. "They have many," comes her words, but there is little worry there. "and their leader looks strong. But he is not; his wolves run rampant, have no fear of consequence." And he was the consequence, was he not? Well, they had taken matters into their own hands, now.

The woman huffs. She wanted to kill them this instant; but, as it was, she would become more pregnant by the day. She looked to her aokkatti and frowned. "I do not understand their reasons. They do not want our prey. They have their own." What other reason would they come against a pack? She could smell the bison scat at Hoshor, so she truly could not comprehend the reason.

She listened to what her aokkatti had to say with rapt attention. It would have seemed that these wolves of the plains were far more brash than what they had already encountered. Yet perhaps not she was deigned to reason; perhaps they were like the wolves of the glacier, who had been emotional and stupid in hindsight.

Still, she shared the same insight as Tonravik. Already there was the urge to depart from the Spine and go to instigate something with them, to antagonize them as they had antagonized their home. Her teeth clicked together sharply; she should have been there. Not dispatched to aid some other fledgling branch. Someone else could have done that, but she had been the one sent.

Again, she clicked her teeth together, a flash of yellowing canines that was much more meaningful and succinct; what were they going to do about them?

Tonravik watched Echelon as Echelon had watched her and felt she could read her mind in that instant, intuitive to her in their years of traveling to arrive here and now. Tonravik responded to the display of fangs by keeping her stony disposition and hard stare, snorting. "Naga," she seethed then, vehement in this. She knew the svelte, slight Echelon was a brilliant fighter; she needed her now on the homefront.

"It is a week-long trip, and there is no easy way. If they come here, we will know it; we have every advantage." They knew their land. The way it could aid, and the way it could trap. And Tonravik knew much of Plains; the flatlands were not for her. Wolves of the plains knew how to hide in long grasses, as any would, but knew nothing of what the wolves of mountains, plateaus, or other landmasses knew. Wolves of Tartok had displaced plains wolves (if they were Dotharan, she did not know) before for their bison, and had herded the beasts after their victory to mountains.

Tonravik looked to Echelon. It was unfortunate she was in no state to do battle and proclaim war herself, but she wanted nothing from them regardless. She would take everything, of course, if they gave her merely the chance; she felt, in her bones, that they just might. They would not have known, then, that she was pregnant; it was days later that the signs began to show, and her scent began to change.

She did not enjoy being told no. But for all other purposes, she understood the reasoning why. If there were to be cubs in their future then they needed to put all of their interest in keeping the Spine locked down and safe. And she knew as well as Tonravik had said it — they had advantage. They would see the next threat, if it were to be from those plains wolves, coming before anything happened. It was with that she knew what it was that she would be doing, even though the desire to go and wreck havoc at their doorstep was strong within.

As Tonravik's eyes settled on her, she drew her gaze away to look distantly at nothing particular through the greenery. She could handle the disappointment of not going to take a torch to a distant countryside, and her deference was a ready point of it. She was needed here more than she was out there. Message received.

Pleased by her acceptance, Tonravik quieted. She hated to speak, but the question that had been asked begged answering by tongue. When Echelon looked away, Tonravik again lay on her side, comfortable in this cool, dark cavern. It was clear now there was nothing more to say, but the alpha was unconcerned with the presence of Echelon who would be welcome at her side up until her cubs were born. Then, no one but the cubs would be safe from her. Loosing a yawn, the tired leader began to drift off into a light nap.

*puts thread to bed*

As Tonravik seemed to settle down then, Echelon joined her in the same. Her head lowered slowly to her dark limbs, resting across them with a certain touch that was just as restless as it was weary. She decided she would linger and rest until Tonravik stirred again, whether it was by decision or necessity, and would go from there to discover what perpetual change would bring.