Frostfire Ridge Alone on that Mountain

Roughly midday. Sunny. 47°F / 8°C.

Had Weetzie been more imaginative, he might have compared the mountain to himself and his sister. One side of it was covered in evergreen forests and teeming with life, and the other was mostly grass and rocks. Naturally, he preferred the plainer side as it was easier to navigate. The ridge offered a good view of the region (at least to the west), but still no signs of his sister. He wondered if would ever find her, but the stubborn coywolf wouldn’t give up so easily, especially since he had promised Mother he would find her, and he couldn’t break a promise to Mother. He was also concerned about his sister’s well-being, but he was less inclined to admit to that.

As he traveled southward along the ridge, he came across a cluster of boulders, some of which stood pretty high. He jumped from one to another, and eventually reached one that offered him a good view of the forest to the east. He looked out over the trees and surveyed the forest, failing to notice the serene beauty of the landscape. As he looked out over the treetops, he suddenly realized that if his sister were there, she would be on the ground and not in the tree-tops, so he still wouldn’t be able to see her. He guessed he should continue heading south.

Scaling a mountain had seemed like a completely sane idea in the morning, but by the time midday rolled around, Celephais was cursing mountains, hiking, her trembling legs, and everything else she laid her eyes on. She had lived in hilly woodlands all her life and boasted that she was one of the fastest climbers she knew, but nothing could have prepared her for tackling a mountain. It had looked easy enough, but she'd soon learned just how taxing it was.

"Gotta go back," Celephais panted as she sat heavily on a flatter section of the slope. Her legs cramped under her and she ground her teeth together as she cast her gaze upward, certain that by now the summit was only a few feet away. When she saw that it still towered way above her head, well out of reach, she groaned and turned tail. She wanted to be able to see the whole world but the pain in her legs and her inability to catch her breath was just not worth it, and this was on the easy side.

On her way back down she spied a silvery blur leaping from stone to stone on a ledge far to the left. She paused, barely holding her footing on the sharp incline, then turned sidelong and began to awkwardly crab-walk over until she reached the flat part of the ledge. Having mistaken the blur for a rabbit from the distance and the way it jumped, she slung her body low into a prowl and rapidly closed the distance, only to come up short when the rabbit proved to actually be... a coyote?

"How'd you do that?" the bitch wondered aloud before she could stop herself.

From his perch, Weetzie heard a voice from the ground below him. He turned to the source of the voice, hoping to see his sister and was disappointed to see that it was not. He quickly realized that the voice didn’t even sound like his sister and that such words would probably never even come from her mouth.

 He regarded the black she-wolf nervously, hoping she would not be hostile to him, but he showed no outward signs of fear, or any other emotion. He responded in his flat, monotone voice, “I simply jumped from one rock to the next.” His answer might have sounded sarcastic, but that was not his intention. The truth was that it took some effort, calculating the height and distance he had to jump with each one, and making sure he had good footing both when he leaped and when he landed, but it had never occurred to him that it could be a challenge for someone else.

He did not consider himself an athlete, nor did he desire to be one. He could run fast enough to hunt small game, and that was good enough for him. Keeping up with his sister, however, had demanded much more from him ever since he was a pup, as she was usually more fool-hardy and tended to pick the more challenging and treacherous routes. Her constant recklessness had forced him to learn to be quick and sure-footed.

He fidgeted a little on his perch, not entirely sure how to deal with the sudden company. From his current position, running away would be difficult, and even he knew that it would be rude. With some hesitation, he said the only thing that came to his mind. “So... do you live here?”

Weetzie said it so matter-of-factly that Celephais had a real moment of feeling truly stupid. Oh, duh, she told herself, crumpling her brows together as she inspected the rocks. The yearling daredevil in her yearned to prove that she too could do something so cool and obviously simple, but for once, her sensibility won out. There was no way she could do that half as gracefully as Weetzie and the end result would be her tumbling down the mountain.

She sent the slope a glance that she hoped was inconspicuous and gulped. Nope.

"Oh HAHAHA of course!" Celephais said, pulling her ears back sheepishly and attempting her best grin. She wanted to be hard on herself and mention how much of any idiot she was, but she managed to get away with a much milder, "silly me!" before a bit of an awkward silence settled over them. While Weetzie shifted in place, Celephais tried to look busy, but in truth she had nothing better to do with her time and felt far too inadequate to leave Weetzie on that note.

She was pleased when he asked her a question, but the answer was a bright, "nope!" followed by her blurting out that, "actually, I thought you were a rabbit so I came over here," as if that was something he wanted to know.

I thought you were a rabbit... Weetzie wasn’t sure why that statement bothered him, but it did, although of course he wouldn’t let it show. Perhaps it was just the thought of being compared to a creature that he perceived as unintelligent, or maybe the thought of being someone else’s food. Neither one was comforting.

He had no doubt that his sister would find it amusing, but he wouldn’t tell her about it.

“I have often been mistaken for a coyote, but never a rabbit,” he said, “at least not that I can recall. I actually am half coyote.” Seeing that the wolf was apparently not going to climb the rocks, he decided to return to the ground. He went back the way he came, jumping from one rock to the next. Going down was easier than going up and didn’t require nearly as much concentration, allowing him to talk as he descended. “I can assure you that I would not taste nearly as good as an actual rabbit, I therefore believe you would not wish to eat me.” His attempt at a joke would probably fall flat due to the lack of inflection in his voice.

Upon reaching the ground, he turned to the wolf and said, “I’m not from here either. I am seeking my sister. She is a red coywolf with pink eyes. Her name is Witchbaby. She is likely with a darker she-wolf named Kinkajuu. I realize it’s a long-shot, but perhaps you’ve encountered one of them?” He knew it wasn’t likely, but he saw no harm in asking. “My name is Weetzie,” he added as an afterthought.

As it turned out, Celephais had almost no manners except when she was pretending, and for now she was being honest. Weetzie didn't really seem offended by it, though, so she grinned as he descended from his rocky perch to stand before her. Once he was on the ground, she could compare their sizes. He really was smaller than she was, betraying his part-coyote heritage even before he stated it. She was too busy staring at his abnormal pink eyes to think too much on it or hear much of what he said next.

How does that even happen? thought Celephais as she squinted into his eyes, studying their every shade and variation as much as she could without pressing her face right against his brow. Only when he said something about pink eyes did Celephais zone back into their conversation, just in time to be told three of the weirdest names she had ever heard.

She tried her best to keep a straight face when he called his sister Witch Baby (though her brain was going W.T.F.), but when he said something that sounded oddly like Kinky Shoe, she lost her composure and burst out laughing. "What kind of names are those?" she had to ask. Compared to Kinky Shoe and Witch Baby, Weetzie was almost a normal name. She shot him an apologetic glance in hopes that he wouldn't think she was making fun of him and be upset with her, even if she was being utterly unhelpful by not really answering his question.

Weetzie might have been offended if he’d had any real understanding of manners or social graces, but he understood very little of social norms. He certainly didn’t like the wolf staring into his eyes, but he could tolerate it as long she didn’t threaten him. He found her laughter somewhat annoying, but he preferred annoying laughter over anger or hostility.

Not being one to recognize sarcasm, he assumed her question about the names to be a genuine question and attempted to answer. “I am not aware of ‘Weetzie’ or ‘Witchbaby’ having any special meaning. I believe my parents simply had an affinity for whimsical names. I must admit I do not have any answer for Kinkajuu’s name, which you seem to find amusing. I do not know her very well, and I have never met her parents.” His normally emotionless voice carried a hint of fondness, and perhaps a hint of sadness as he continued speaking. “Your emotional outburst reminds me of Witch. Although you do not resemble her otherwise, her temperament is quite similar.” He let his ears and tail droop as he once again as he scanned the mountainside in vain. He was beginning to think he would never find his sister, and he wasn’t sure if being reminded of her made him feel better or worse.

The small she-wolf tossed back her head and laughed loudly as Weetzie explained the significance, or lack thereof, of his family's names. She didn't mean any offense by it, but Celephais was about as rude and crude as they came. She said exactly what she thought, and she thought those names were silly. It didn't help that Weetzie seemingly missed the point entirely.

"You're a funny little dude," Celephais told him between fits of laughter, and when she looked back at him, her pale blue eyes shone with mirthful tears. She had thus far called him a rabbit, insulted his name no matter how well-meaning she was, and called him a little dude, but she enjoyed Weetzie's company. She was doing a terrible job of showing it, but she thought he was pretty rad.

"Tell you what," she offered. "Tell me where you'll be, and if I see any red coyotes with pink eyes, I'll let you know. I travel a lot." Celephais knew the chances of seeing his sister or Weetzie ever again were incredibly low, but she was optimistic in her offer. If a loner who constantly roamed in the hope that her past would never reach her wasn't a good candidate for finding a missing person, she didn't know who was!

Being called a ‘little dude’ didn’t phase Weetzie, but he wasn’t so sure about being called ‘funny’. He supposed it was probably a compliment since most wolves seem to enjoy laughing, and it didn’t occur to him that her laughter could be at his expense.

He was relieved when she finally calmed down and offered her help. “That would be greatly appreciated,” he said in his flat, emotionless voice. He doubted that their paths would cross again once they parted ways, but he decided not to say so. “I am currently traveling south, and I believe I will go west. I have realized the area where my sister could be is too large for a systematic search, so I am attempting to... ‘follow my heart’. I must confess, I am out of my element.” After a brief pause, he added, “If you do find her, could you do me a favor and not tell her that I looked like a rabbit? She would never let me hear the end of it.” Though if he were to be honest, he missed Witch’s teasing in that moment. With a flick of his tail, he asked one more question. “May I inquire as to your name?”

The more Weetzie talked, the more Celephais realized that he reminded her of a particularly emotionless wolf from Shady Vale. That guy had been a real wanker when it came to being brutally honest abut everything, but he spoke in the same clinical fashion that Weetzie employed. So while everything the coywolf said was pleasant, if rather formal, she couldn't help the chill that stole through the center of her being at the memory of someone from her homeland.

Maybe that was why she chirped, "Celephais!" a little too quickly, and immediately followed it up with, "I'll keep an eye out for you, don'tcha worry! But I better be going, lots of ground to cover if I'm gonna find her!" She shook her tail a few times, woodenly, like putting on a show, and gave him her best grin, though there was something amiss in her eyes. "See ya, Weetzie dude!" she said brightly, too brightly, and then she turned on her heel and trotted away before further memories of Shady Vale could chill her further.

She forgot to promise not to tell his sister that she'd called him a rabbit. Honestly, she wouldn't remember anyway.

As far as Weetzie was concerned, the encounter had gone well. He was too socially inept to notice the gradual change in the wolf’s demeanor, and she didn’t attack him or threaten him, so how bad could it be? “It was a pleasure to meet you, Celephais,” he said after she told him her name. Although he wasn’t initially thrilled about socializing with her, he found her company pleasant, not to mention that she reminded him of his sister and even offered to help find her.

“Your assistance is appreciated,” he said again as she left. “I wish you well. Perhaps if our paths cross in the future, we could socialize again.” He had no idea that he had frightened her, and he certainly didn’t consider himself a potential threat, given his small size and mediocre fighting skills. He continued traveling southward along the ridge in silence.