Heron Lake Plateau Because a fire was in my head

As the dark, rumbling sky opened up and brought forth an end-of-summer deluge, a whip-thin she-wolf stumbled in the mud and fell short of her quarry.

With a snarl, Saena lurched back to her paws, but the fleet-footed hare was already far beyond her grasp. Slipping, she irately thought to herself. In more ways than one. She turned her head to inspect her flank and found it uninjured, but grimaced at the thick sludge plastered from shoulder to hock. It was unsightly, and while Saena had once been a wolf unafraid to get dirty, who she had become in the fog of her amnesia still remained at least somewhat intact. That wolf detested uncleanliness.

She sat heavily, threw her muzzle over her shoulder, and began dragging her teeth through her muddied coat. Every few scrapes she would spit out the mud, work her jaws as if to rid her tongue of the fetid flavour, lift her head to survey her surroundings, and continue on. All the while, she rumbled under her breath, almost as if to mask the hungry rumble of her belly.

Summer was close to ending, but it wasn't going out without a fight. Thunder rumbled and roiled above his head, soon followed by a torrent of rain. His fur quickly slicked back, pressing against his frame, but the shade lumbered on. The land underneath him quickly turned from dirt to mud, and he found himself sinking slightly into the ground as he walked, but he kept moving.

He was undisturbed by the slowly growing streaks of brown, knowing that once the sky cleared that he could properly wash it off undisturbed, but his sentiments were mirrored by those around him. As he lumbered on through the muck and mire and rain, he passed what he thought was a white-and-orange female furiously trying to rid herself of mud. A hard task to do with only teeth and tongue to help, he thought, but he didn't judge much. Some wolves preferred cleanliness above all else. Do you require assistance, dear lady?

She was making little headway: her tongue was better suited to spreading the mud than removing it, and her teeth merely drew furrows through the muck coating her shoulder. Still, Saena stubbornly persisted for several minutes, and just before she was about to give up, a dark wolf entered her vision. With tongue half out, she lifted her head and swivelled her ears to watch his approach, but only when he addressed her directly did she stand.

He was a rugged wolf, with eyes so deeply indigo that she almost swore they were purple, and deep fur laced in utter shadow. His physique was attractive in the sense that it held underlying strength, and the scars on his face added to his assumed power. While she had seen wolves both larger and more powerful, Miraak was nothing to sneeze at. Scrappy as she was, Saena was still rather small and knew well the possible danger in pissing off any wolf larger than herself.

But his dulcet tone gave no indication that he was an aggressive beast, and Saena chortled. "Unless you can make rabbits appear out of thin air, I doubt it." And then, because Miraak was the second wolf in the span of a day to offer her assistance and because she was used to assholes, Saena perked her ears and casually asked, "is everyone around here just really helpful?"

She smiled lightly, to hopefully dissuade any perceived mockery, for she meant no offence to Miraak at all. It was refreshing, in fact, and she appreciated it.

Natashe had been travelling for quite some time now the promise of finding some family always the reason she never settled down. Her vivid red pelt could be seen from afar and she didn't doubt she would be scented as she crouched in a bush watching a male interact with a smaller female. Something nagged at her, telling her to speak with this female. Growing tired of hiding she moved out of the bushes her muscles rippling as she calmly walked forward deep Amber eyes moving between the two of them. She refrained from speaking until she was a few feet away. "Greetings sir, mam" she said keeping her tone friendly but distant at the same time. Her paws were already dirty from the mud and her nose wrinkled in distaste.

Ah, if only I could, He sighed in mock wistfullness. He wasn't hungry at the moment, but he wouldn't pass up a quick bite if it came to him. The thought of thinking about rabbit and then — poof! — one appears, dead and disease free, made him chortle softly. But life would no longer be interesting, would it? Hunting was most of a wolf's life, no matter if they were a normal pack wolf, priest, or insane babbler. He doubted that even in the afterlife such a thing existed.

I know not. I am new to this place. Though, I hope that the residents grow more hospitable the further south-and-east I go. He thought back to the two wolves near the river, knowing that they had every right to be threatening, but couldn't they help a brother find his sister?

Their conversation wouldn't be left alone to just them, however. Another female, older than the piebald woman, greeting them politely. Greetings, He turned towards the woman, tilting his head slightly.

If only, if only. If only Saena could grip the mud as readily as dry grass. If only the rabbit had stumbled. If only she had never taken that trip out into the hinterlands to familiarize herself with the landscape, things would be very different now. She would've still had a pack to lead, and she wouldn't have lost all her memories and regained only some. But then she would never have been here. Maybe the famine never would've lifted. It was arrogant to blame herself for the famine, but with how much misfortune Saena had faced in her life, it was easy to believe it in a moment of weakness.

But that wasn't the course life had taken, and like the hare, it had gotten away from her. Everything happened for a reason, or so she believed nowadays. So she chuckled at Miraak's mockery and said, "I suppose not." There were many things more interesting than hunting a hare in Saena's books, but the necessity of hunting kept a wolf in motion, if nothing else. To no longer need to hunt would be to grow lazy and slow, and then even the most interesting of things would no longer feel worth any effort.

Saena was curious about what Miraak suggested with his next statement, but before she could ask, another wolf approached, this one wrought in tones of red and beige and gold. She was older and a little stockier than Saena, and likely larger, if they stood shoulder-to-shoulder to compare. She lifted her lips and tilted her head in greeting, but her interest was on Miraak, and she turned back to him to ask, "you have met inhospitable wolves? I lived here once before and remember no such wolves in these parts." If there were hostile wolves about, then that could surely complicate things for her, especially if they were at odds with the Creek pack, assuming they were even still there. She didn't want to think about the other possibility.

Saena also didn't remember how very inhospitable she could be when she led them, nor the reasons for being that way, so naturally she didn't understand the need for anyone else to be that way.

I made a joining thread for silver Creek, so this is backdated I suppose.


Natashe sat down and huffed a sigh. The urge still nagged at her and finally she spoke, her gaze still remaining on the female" I'm looking for my sister. She was a pup when I left the pack, and she is one of the fee remaining. Her name is spring" she said and shook her head "she's the reason I came to teekon" she said softly. She was getting desperate.

The conversation split between the two females, a situation Miraak despised, but pushed through nonetheless. He answered the piebald woman first. Their aggression was not unwarranted, He admitted, with a sly smirk and a shrug gracing his features. I was awfully close to their borders, though using a particularly cool and inviting river as a barrier is rather damning in the heat,

He turned to the elder woman second, his ears pricking at the mention of finding her own sister. I too, am looking for my sister; she brought me to Teekon as well, He wondered if either of them had seen Meldresi, or if the woman had sequestered herself away in a dark forest, performing whatever spells she knew. Her name is Meldresi,

There were many rivers in the hinterlands. It was a notoriously lush and wild locale, and Miraak's description of a pack alongside a river could have put them anywhere, even uncomfortably close to Silver Creek. Aggressive to boot, although she would have done the same to a wolf bathing on her borders. She hadn't made it home yet to know whether things had changed irreversibly or not, but she still thought of the pack as hers. It was her blood, sweat and tears that had seen it founded, and any threat to them was one she had a mind to eliminate.

Before she could ask, the tan-and-copper woman suddenly interrupted the conversation. The way she was staring directly at Saena in particular as she asked was unnerving, and Saena was unsettled by the apparent ability to read her mind. Saena did know Spring, of course, but Natashe's way of broaching the subject put her too on edge to be truthful about it. Relations be damned, she didn't want a whackjob accompanying her back home where her children slept.

"I'm sorry, I've never heard of her," Saena lied smoothly. When Miraak picked up the same subject, albeit a lot less creepily and suddenly, she did answer him honestly: "I don't know any Meldresi, either." They'd met once, but Saena couldn't recall it with partial amnesia still clouding her mind. Even if she could, she was terrible with names and wouldn't have had any information on it anyway. "Do you have a description?"

She meant it for Miraak but reluctantly glanced at Natashe, too, even if she had no intention of helping on that front for the safety of her family.