Dragoncrest Cliffs there's literally zero proof tuesday exists

Things begin to settle into something… normal. Sort of. She’s at least able to sleep better and she doesn’t spend her days worrying. Arrille had been accepted, albeit with more restrictions than the others she has seen come along, but there is reason behind it she doesn’t yet understand. For now, she doesn’t push it, but she has neglected to pin him down and talk to him, even if she knows where he’ll be. Being limited to the borders must be lonely and she wonders if anyone else has come across. Maybe Seri. Maybe Blixen.
 
A blanket of snow dusts the ground between the redwoods. They act mostly as a barrier to the outside elements but not everything is kept at bay. She has to stop and sit down, lifting her leg to scratch at the side of her neck. A few swipes of her back feet, though, cause her to stop and stare. Is it fleas again? Her hears fall back against her head and she scratches once more, putting her foot down. No, no… it has to just be something random but, unfortunately, she can’t stop thinking about the one itch and how much it burns to be scratched again.

As soon as Arrille caught Furi's sent, he went ahead to try and find her. He wanted to let her know that he had gotten in, and that he had, or at least thought, talked well of Furi. He hadn't met her in a bit, since being let intp Drageda, and he could only stay around the borders so he couldn't go deeper in to find her.

He saw her from behind, and called out excitedly. "Furi! It's Arrille!" he called out to her, running up to catch up to her. "Furi, I got in. And I can't thank you enough."

Focused on the scratching, she doesn’t pay attention to Arrille’s arrival. She’s probably scratching more than necessary, too, and thinking about it too much only makes her want to do it more. When the other wolf speaks up, she flinches and puts her leg down, turning to see who is coming her way. She has mixed feelings about Arrille now. She’s glad she help him in the beginning and he did end up in Drageda, but not at the cost of strife. She can’t really blame him, other than his lack of effort, and it does surprise her he managed to work his way in. ”How did you manage that?” she says a little playfully with a hint of a smile in return.

"Manage what?" he asked, confused by what she meant. But, he matched the smile she had with one of his own. "Thank you for bringing me, by the way. This place, it may have been my last chance...how did Seri do?" he asked, curious how the companion he brought with him had been doing since getting in.

He doesn’t seem to quite where her comment is directed and she shakes her head to ward off explaining. “Nevermind,” she mumbles before looking back toward him. She doesn’t like all this praise he’s giving her when she’s done more harm than good by inviting him back. He doesn’t see it and she isn’t sure if he’s truly that oblivious or maybe he doesn’t care. She finds the latter a little hard to believe but she remembers Blixen called her nice. Furi has never thought about herself has nice before, even if she is. She wants to help. Nice. She snorts and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since you guys got here. She hasn’t come to see you yet?”

Arrille opens his mouth to ask what she did mean after she shakes her head, not hearing her mumble. But, he dropped it when she continued to speak. "No" he answered. "I might go find her, see how she is doing...I couldn't leave her out there, like how you couldn't leave me out there" he started.

He recalled when Seri tried to give him the bone she found, and she seemed just so innocent compared to other wolves he'd met. Plus, she was close to his own age. "She just...when we met, she seemed too innocent to be left out there...she tried to give me a bone she found, then demanded that I have one when I said no" he said, laughing a bit.

Furi frowns when Arrille tells her that Seri hasn’t come to visit him. Her brows knit together and she glances away, confused. Maybe they hadn’t been as good of friends as she suspected for him to bring her to the borders too and her interaction with the girl has been minimal (resistant in Teaghlaigh, brief in Drageda) and she still has questions for the pale girl. She hasn’t figured out how to try and get that information without exposing herself and risking what she has in Drageda (she’s already on shaky ground). 

“If I see her, I’ll tell her to come see you,” she explains. Maybe Seri doesn’t realize he’s still here, but stuck on the borders. “Where is she from?” she asks, ears flicking back on her head and glancing back in his direction.

Arrille smiled a bit, he just wanted to know if Seri was doing all right and well. He couldn't leave someone like her, so kind and innocent out there. "Thank you...just want to know if she's doing all right here...she seemed so kind and innocent out there, I couldn't just-" 

He cut off when she asked another question, and he shrugged. Arrille had never bothered to ask about that. "She never said....but what about you, are you doing well?"

Arrille doesn’t have any information on Seri that he can offer and she sighs, almost missing his next question entirely. It takes a few seconds for her to register what he had asked her and she shakes her head, brushing it off. “I’m fine,” she tells him, her tone clipped with frustration. Without anything gained from the interaction, and still a little sensitive about his arrival (while knowing none of it is really his fault), she can’t help but feel it originated with him anyway. Furi turns her head, looking in another direction, and considers leaving their brief conversation behind until she feels a little better.

Arrille's head tipped to the side, worryingly. While she did say she was fine, there was something about her tone. She turns her head, and Arrille musters the courage to ask, "Are you sure? I haven't become a nuisance, have I? The heda, she said that I looked like someone that...that wouldn't be terribly liked. Is it something to do with that?" He wasn't sure if Furi knew of any of that, and wondered if that was why.

Before she turns to go, Arrille presses again. She tightens her jaws as her pale green eyes trail in his direction, half-listening as he rambles on something she doesn’t know anything about. His obliviousness is apparent just as much as her frustration. “You got me in trouble,” she says through gritted teeth, unable to really holding it back. It isn’t even the entire truth but Heda doesn’t have to approach her and tell her she’s done wrong. “You show up with someone else and you didn’t even try to act like you wanted to be here.” It’s a surprise Heda let him stay at all, even if on the outskirts. She'd taken a gamble with him, well before she knew the consequences. Rose, at least, took some initiative.

As soon as the first words were said, his ears flattened and his eyes were filled with surprise for a moment. "Oh...I didn't know, I'm sorry." At first, he didn't get what she meant. Then he recalled the meeting at the border, he had been asked questions he couldn't really answer. He had said he was offered a position, and had not said what he was good at or anything like that. Seri had shown initiative, where as he had not.

"I've never tried joining a pack, before then...I'd always had everything handed to me. Had everything done for me." His parents had left him alone, at such a young age. And all he'd been taught by Maude was how to scavenge and sing shanties.

Furi groans a little. She isn’t sure if she should feel sorry for him or still feel mad at him for it. She hadn’t tried joining a pack, though she didn’t do it traditionally. She had told him they’d take him in but maybe she expected it to be a little different. And after Rose, well, there was no way to tell. “They took me in but I still had to earn my place,” she says, licking her lips and taking a step away from him. “You should probably try doing that too.”

When she told him that he should be earning his place, he perked up quickly to respond. "I am! I've been training myself, patrolling the border" he replied back to her. "And as soon as I meet someone who can, I'm going to get trained. I'm going to get better, to be a fighter." That was his overall plan, to prove himself a warrior among the Drageda. Someone capable of keeping their place here.

He tries to make amends quickly with what he’s been doing but she doesn’t want to hear it. She’ll see it when she believes it. She could ask to spar now and see his progress but she doesn’t. Instead, she steels herself briefly and stares at home. ”Don’t make me regret this,” she says and gives him a few seconds before she turns and walks away.

Arrille nodded to Furi, this was a side of her he hadn't seen. And he felt like he regretted all he had said upon the border meeting now, thinking he had hurt Furi's feelings and gotten her into trouble. He thought that perhaps he could make it up to her one day as he too turned away.