The Bracken Woods blood-freezing

The biting chill finally forced him off the coastline, and it felt like bowing his head in defeat when he hung low to deflect the winds. He hissed lowly. He didn't have anywhere to go, so pointed a heading towards the nearest forest. It should offer him some kind of relief. What he found was one impressively deep.

His tan fur was still bladed in seasalt crust but he was slowly beginning to warm. He'd caught a small rabbit, rested, and arose with the beginning of dusk feeling a little more alive than before. He could move on soon and maybe see what was on the other side of this forest.

Dio paused to itch at his neck and consider his surroundings. He could head due south, or keep trekking eastward. Up until now, he had only followed the coastline southward, but he had decided he needed a new plan. It had come to only remind him of what he now must continue on without.

He rose slowly to turn his back on the sunset and head towards the east.

Getting back into the routine of leading after spending weeks on her own, hunting and fighting and surviving, hadn’t been as difficult as she might have thought. She rounded up a handful of recruits, wolves were at her borders, and she had another strong woman to lead beside her that made the process just a little easier. She bears the weight of her wolves on her shoulders, but Gyda has her share, and perhaps having someone next to her isn’t such a terrible thing. 

It is, however, taking a little getting used to. She picks up on changes in her companion, lets her know if she’s going anywhere for an extended amount of times, but there is something she will slip up on soon. 

What pulls her back toward the woods she traveled through to get her, Thuringwethil isn’t sure. She doesn’t have much an an answer when Gyda asks where she’s going and today she uses the excuse of the loner that stalked her, curious to know if he is still out and about, but something much more deep seeded than some nameless wolf she couldn’t care less about.  

Thuringwethil’s attention is shaken when, in the faint remnants of sunlight, she spots a tan wolf up ahead. She’d caught a glimpse of him at first, sinking back into a thick patch of trees where the sun doesn’t shine through. It won’t hide her for long, but it’ll give her a little bit of time to go unseen. The dark leader hadn’t realize how far she’d gone, lost in thought, until spotting another.

Heda shifts and steps forward to cross paths with the other, stepping onto a large stick that cracks beneath her weight.

He fell into the rhythm that carried him along, although nothing around him seemed to change significantly. He realized a subtle sting of loneliness somewhere along the way, one that seemed to miss the sounds of the coastline -- his one constant since the upheaval of his routines. Here seemed so quiet and almost claustrophobic by comparison.

The forest continued on and on, each path so similar to the last that his fascination waned quickly. Survival pressed him forward, though, over old vague prey and wolf trails alike. Although nothing captivated him enough to spare it a second glance for what seemed like far too long. He could only wait it out so long.

Dio's focus was brought to a sharpened edge when their paths intersected and he stopped abruptly. He'd not noticed her until she was closer than the loner might have liked -- and it occurred to him that she could have been watching him for longer than he knew. Seemingly, she'd materialized from the darkness and his eyes focused on her alone now, narrowing into a squint. He stiffened and drew his stance up more than before, hoping to use his height to suggest that he was imposing enough for her to not consider turning on him immediately.

Feeling defensive for being surprised, he showed the bottoms of his teeth with a wrinkled muzzle. But the gesture was short-lived. Slowly, he felt more curious and he swung his ears at her in silent question.

Thuringwethil leans her weight into the stick, breaking it in half once she’s made enough noise. The desired response was given and the male noted her presence. He shifts quickly into a defensive position and the flash of teeth don’t go unnoticed as she remains still and, for the most part, neutral. Scuffles with lone wolves haven’t really been in her agenda since the male by the river had taken a swing at her.

He loses his defensives, cupping his ear forward and getting as relaxed as she suspects he’d get. He doesn’t offer to close the distance, either, and Thuringwethil finds herself taking another step forward. Tail waves lazily behind her but her head counters with a little more dominance than some pack wolf crossing paths with a straggler.

“Hello,” she decides to greet, speaking first when she’d usually hold her tongue. One brow quickly raises, her own curiosity pulling her attention.

Even feeling so disarmed and displaced here in the thickness of the forest, he watched her carefully. She took the first step forward and eventually is the first to speak. His ears twitched thoughtfully and he eyed her with a look of intent consideration all while staying put himself. So far, nothing suggested this encounter would go straight south. "Hello," he returned in mirror-like fashion while he decided how he wanted to approach this exactly. His confidence was still mending from the beating of the last few months and his social skills just as rusted. She'd already provided the subtle indications that she was likely of status, in some place and time. He would err on the side of caution with that in mind for now, especially since he was entirely unfamiliar with the packs and alliances of the region.

There was something vaguely familiar about her that he couldn't place, too. Or, with his senses zeroed into her on overdrive after weeks alone made the illusion of this for him. In either case, she seemed like someone he should know of, at least if he intended to linger here at all.. and maybe he did, or didn't. Dio could not yet say. He yearned for Matteo at his side again, in all the ways that he had been, but this was not possible.

He stayed put, only moving to angle his neck slightly her way. She smelled of many things. Wolves, unknown lands.. he could just begin to name them. "Who are you..?" he asked almost lightly while he slowly worked to unfreeze himself. "Besides the first wolf I have seen in all of these woods," he provided. His tail switched slowly but he still felt.. rooted, and it was beginning to feel unbecoming.

The stranger doesn’t offer to close the distance and Thuringwethil stays put, waiting the extra moments once she’s greeted to figure out where to go from here. She hasn’t entirely gotten used to the expectation that wolves in neighboring lands don’t know who she is and there’s a little bit tucked away, hopeful, but he questions her anyway. “Thuringwethil,” she says anyway. These things took time.

“Where are you headed?” 

If he continues the way he’d been walking, he’d be out in her area of the world and into the expanse of where she’d settled her home. Deviating any trouble ahead of time or simply getting the chance to recruit another member isn’t something she’d pass up with Sleeping Dragon so young and fragile.

The answer she supplied took a beat for him to process it was so foreign in nature to his ears. It was nothing like the rhythm of the Giamalva wolves' language that he is far more familiar with. He certainly didn't recognize it, and it didn't immediately occur to him what it was supposed to signify a name. But, he caught on, and he noted it. "Dio," he offered in return with a small dip of his muzzle towards his chest, although she hadn't exactly asked. It seemed as good of a time as any for an introduction.

"Don't know yet. No plans, nowhere specific to go," he answered truthfully without much forethought going into it. Dio went where he could survive -- wherever his next meal was, or wherever he could find a place to rest. Following the coastline had gotten him this far but he had no long-term plan in mind; he often found they didn't suit him anyway, but not having anywhere to go was making it difficult here in the dark of winter.  He claimed no sentimental homeland to return to, and the only place he'd ever been remotely attached to had burned along with all they had created and nurtured there. He  was just as aimless as he had been many moons ago. "My last pack is gone and I've traveled down the coast since," he explained.

Dio introduces himself in turn, following her own, and she nods a slight appreciative greeting. They still stood no closer to one another and the hesitancy from the other doesn't surprise her. Her scent reeks of other wolves, of claim, and her own mixed in and she wears all of them like a proud badge boasting on her shoulder.

He doesn't seem to have much purpose and briefly she wonders what it's like, to not have a goal for the future set in stone. Hers had been in place nearly since she'd been born but the moment she'd taken leadership, anything leisure took a step back and she devoted herself to her wolves. Thuringwethil merged into heda and these days she has a hard time differentiating between the two.

"You'll find a few packs the further you go in, and probably more if you keep going," she explains with a twitch of her tail she tries to relax. "Mine is one of them." A heads up, warning, Thuringwethil isn't hasty to decide. Dio would decide that for her.

Word of packs gains a mixed response. He'd spent enough time on his own before he had come to find the Rise to know how it worked.. Packs meant boundaries and possessive residents, but in some manifestations, they could spell opportunity. In the past he had learned ways to make that happen when he put the proper effort into it, but it was far too early to tell if this was one of those times.

"Your pack?" he questioned while knowing she may very well disregard his attempts to find out more while staying at arm's length. She certainly didn't give him that feeling that she'd be very forthcoming with the minor details. "How far?" he added on, just for his own information. He'd stumble across it eventually most likely but knowing helped.

Thuringwethil nods. His interest doesn’t go unnoticed but she’s unsure the true nature of it. She can’t differentiate whether it’s because he wants to know more for a shelter over his head or if he wants to avoid it all entirely. Coming across her pack won’t be the last one he finds, either, with the maple wolves below that, and the surrounding packs beyond that lost to her. Gyda has told her about the others but her knowledge of them are limited and she couldn’t begin to explain where they are.

“Maybe a half days travel. And a little bit further is another. Beyond that, I can’t be much help,” she says, glancing back over her shoulder through the woods. Her approach isn’t exactly a straight line to her home, leaving her scent a deceit for any that might follow her. “I have room, if you’re looking. If you can be useful to me.”

So it wasn't too far. When he'd been on the move for well over a turn of the moon, a half day's trek doesn't sound like much. He nodded slowly and drew a thoughtful breath in. Dio knew that if he kept to the coast, it was only a matter of time before he bumped into packs there too, especially after he went more south and conditions softened from the northern bitter freeze.

"What would be most useful to you?" he asked, arcing a brow. To his experience, packs liked hunters and warriors and other tradesmen. Some were more specific than others.. usually based on the nature of the pack as a whole. He had no idea what her pack would want most of all. 

He was adaptable enough, within certain boundaries.. and the proof of it was his past rise to Beta of the Rise. But where she would need his usefulness in exchange for a place among her lot, he had to realize what he could gain as well for the price of his efforts. The obvious ones were on the surface: it was winter, he had need of camaraderie so his days may pass more easily.

A lot of Sleeping Dragon originated on the recruitment—Thuringwethil could find the wolves suitable to join—from the early stages and even out beyond their first few joiners at the borders. Dio at least appears to be in one piece, enough to have lasted this long without a pack. It isn’t a long show to say she’d offer up the spot to him when she had a few to spare. He’d help strength their numbers and their forces.

“Just the basics, surviving,” she tells him. “Dedication.” 

It isn’t asking for much, it is how Seageda and surrounding clans had survived. They gave what they could to the pack and the pack did the same in return and they thrived. Sleeping Dragon hovered the fringes of their rooting and securing a good spot would help move that along.

He'd known the packs based on family ties, the ones requiring a contract, and the ones barely held together at all. Of course, it was a wide spectrum with many in-betweens, some of which even he'd never known. But, her answer was surprisingly simple. Surviving.. which was exactly his goal out here anyway. Dedication could go either way with him. His devotion to the Rise had shown him he isn't as flaky as his homeland may have once believed. He'd have to find out later and if in practice, he ended up not suiting her requirements, she'd be sure to make it known.

"Alright," he exhaled and fanned back his ears respectfully. "I'm interested," Dio answered, still straight-faced with a little curiosity in his tone. "Anything else I should know?" he asked. So far, his picture of the place was hazy, but he had very little else going for him right now. 

I wrote a reply to this but I don't think I hit post after preview. Whoops. >>;

He takes her up on the offer and she easily shifts her weight, head square above her shoulders and ears erect, cupping forward, and a tail’s arch just a little tighter over the spine. Thuringwethil even offers a little shake of the plume before she turns her head, encouraging him to follow along beside her. They had nearly half a days worth of travel and there would be plenty of time to—oh, joy—talk along the way. The important things would be covered and she hopes Dio acclimates well to the others.

“You will meet the other leader, Gyda—she’s a long time companion of mine,” she muses once they’ve started their trek back. She goes the way she’d come, leading him back home. “We have a healer that can look you over when we get there, if you’d like.” He doesn’t appear to be too battle weary or emaciated but he’d been on his own a while and thin, probably hungry; perhaps they’d find a snack on the way home.

awh D:

As he fell into step at her suggestion, he found himself a bit hopeful for what may follow. He had nothing to lose, and even the smallest of gains in the shape of a meal and shelter would be better than nothing. So, he'd listen and figure out where he may fit in the fray of her wolves.

His attention was hers, especially since the forest looked like much of the same as what he'd walked through already for the opening lengths of their travel. He makes his notes of the other female leader, nodding with what she'd said of meeting her. Dio was curious, no doubt, and he may as well meet her if she leads just as the same as Thuringwethil -- and hope that his first impression is at least vaguely favorable with her too. He can't say that he has known a pack of two equal females, though, but he takes in this information like any other.

Regarding a healer, that much was also noted. "Alright. Although, I don't imagine there will be much need," he said, knowing he's fine enough to function as is. While it is not his best with all things considered, it could always be worse. His neck wound was the only thing he really felt troubled by, since it did still itch periodically.. which may be worth bringing up if he ever got a chance with a healer. However, this was no pressing matter he'd advertise with some brand new pack right away when it hardly felt worth the effort. He'd just give it time for now, as with all things.

Dio mostly disregards the offer to call Lucani. She doesn't press the matter. He isn't bleeding or limping and he doesn't smell any differently that give her inclination he is sick. She'd call her healer if he feels the need upon entry into her claim. Lucky enough to have such a wolf so early in Drageda's history, Thuringwethil wants to keep the woman of good use without wearing her too thin. It isn't easy for one wolf to care for the entire lot of them but if she keeps them all healthy early enough, she hopes to prolong any problems later. Stuffing that away for now, Thuringwethil continues on the rem back home, telling him things he needs to know as they come to mind.