Jade Fern Grove don't let me stay on your mind

it was another day of blue skies and soft snow underfoot. it was soft, powdery, and as corinna moved through it her feet kicked up little balls that tumbled out in front of her. she was well camouflaged, save for the streaks and smears of beige along her back and face. ice crystals glinted as the sun shown down on them, causing the poor mackenzie valley she-wolf to squint. if only it was night time, the moonlight was less harsh.

she paused along another wooded area, her nose twitching as she searched for signs of pack life. nothing stood out, and so the dainty, desert-painted fae ducked into the woods to give her eyes a break-- though the ground was still coated in snow, the harsh sunlight was broken up by the branches above.

Engel headed out again. Still, he was attempting to find a place of where he could find a place. Since he left Morningside, he had entered many flings, but that was it. He still thought about them, but he never met them again, except for his few meetings with Murdock. Murdock, he started developing something, and this he knew. What it was, he did not know. He usually didn't get so close with anyone.

He stopped for a moment, both his thoughts and movement through the grove he had entered to find a wolf ahead. But this time, he did not feel his flirty self. Just...casual.

"Hey there" he said over to them, putting on a short smile.

she'd heard the crunch of snow underfoot before anything else, but ignored it since-- well, it wasn't bothering her. but a voice paused her walk, and she was forced to turn and to see where it had come from. she stared silently for a moment, eyeing the tawny red male that stood before her. was he worth her time? perhaps... and corinna had nothing better to do anyhow.

"hey," she replied simply, ears cupping forward as she turned better to see him, "need something?"

He shrugged toward the female, and then sat down as well. "Just explorin'" he replied back. "What about you?" he asked. His tail thumped behind him as it wagged. "This is a pretty nice grove, isn't it?" he asked towards her, looking about the area around them.

that seemed to be the theme of wolves she met... just exploring. did they really have the luxury for that in the winter season? even she-- who had no real goals just yet-- knew better than to just explore. she was searching for something, not rolling around the wild chasing whims. she had a purpose. and yet no, was her answer... because she couldn't just ask a stranger to show her the way to what she needed since even she didn't know what she needed. but all the same, corinna stuck on a soft smile and, without gazing around her, she nodded. "it is very nice, yes."

"i'm corinna," she added a few moments later-- an afterthought.

Engel was perhaps not the smartest in 'just' traveling', but where else was he to go? He could not think of where else he could go, where he might not be turned away. That was what he feared. Being turned away again. 

"Engel...just, Engel" he answered back to the female. He slid his paw about across the snowy ground. "Where are you headed, Corinna?" he asked to her.

everyone wanted to know. oh where are you from? oh where are you going? oh what are you doing? but corinna didn't know, she didn't have the answers. once again, she held her soft smile and shrugged-- a gentle roll of her pale shoulders that begged him not to pry. she didn't know. "wherever i end up," she said, eyeing his foot as it swiped across the ground. was he nervous? she hoped so-- she enjoyed making others feel nervous. "hopefully somewhere nice, i could do someplace nice right about now," she added with a small flash of pearly white teeth.

He gave a small laugh. "Guess we have something in common there" he said back to her. But he felt...sad. And it showed. He was missing the company of a pack. The company of another, and not just multiple others. But just one other. 

"I hope to find some place nice as well...maybe beach side, or in a grove like this." He looked around with hopeful eyes.

there was something about the similarity between them that felt so cliche. corinna disliked it, so much so that she lifted her nose in brief disgust after he spoke. it was like everyone nowadays was unhappy-- everyone she ever encountered was lost, both metaphorically and literally. she included herself in that clump of wolves, naturally, but that didn't make her any happier about it. it'd be nice to one day meet someone who had all of their shit figured out. how refreshing would that be?

"why don't you stay here?" she asked, nose dipping back down. after all, this was a grove like this.

Engel raised a brow at her as she lifted her nose at him. He'd gotten that gesture plenty of times, and by now it only made him laugh. Which it did this time. His tail wagged along with his short, quiet laugh. 

He shrugged. "Well....can't just stop on the first place, now can I? There could be much better places" he answered back to her. 

"Would you stay here?" he asked, suddenly curious. "If I didn't find a place better, I would no doubt come back." Engel looked about, nodding as he said this. He would definitely come back.

corinna smiled, actually quite liking his answer. there was a story she knew of, it had many underlying morals and-- oh well why couldn't she just tell it? her caramel ears cupped forward, amusement still laced on her lips. "you know," she began with a swipe of her pink tongue over her nose, "there was once a pack who ruled over a whole world of land... you'd walk for days and days if you wanted to go from one end to the other. the alpha's had two children, and when they turned one, the alphas told them that they could take as much land as they could mark from sunrise to sunset-- they could start their own packs in the land." truthfully, it was a horrible plan. the packs would end up competing-- probably for more land, and for food too. but that was besides the point

she gauged his reaction, then continued.

"the youngest, a daughter, went first. she set out at sunrise, and picked a respectably sized forest towards the northern end of the territory. and the first born, their only son... well would you like to know what he did?"

Engel's ears twitched. "Do I kno-" then she started telling a story. He listened attentively, just as he had with that other wolf that told a story. He tried not to get bored, as he always tried to be an excellent listener. Even if he sometimes missed important details. 

That must have been a big pack, he thought for a moment to himself. He wondered how big this land was exactly. "That's a big amount of land" he muttered under his breath. And it surely sounded really big. Taking that long to get from one end to the other? A lot of walking. 

Then she asked a question, and he nodded. "What did he do? Pick a bigger place? Pick a bigger forest?"

"close!" corinna said encouragingly, tail waving, "so he set off the next morning, but he thought his sister was stupid for not taking up the whole day. she could've had so much more! so, motivated by greed, the son moved as fast as he could. he covered a whole quarter of the territory-- never stopped running and marking. and he was mere minutes away from where he started by the time was setting, he could see himself ruling all of the land." she paused, taking a moment for the victory to soak in with engel-- if it even would.

"and then, after running in that heat all day-- not stopping to rest or eat or drink... he collapsed. dead. dude died." corinna gave a gentle shrug, wondering if he'd put together the story with what he'd previously said about not knowing if this place was good enough. she probably could've said something much simpler, but corinna rather liked sharing stories. "all cause nothing was good enough for him."

Engel was now more intrigued. So he wished for more? Just more? He could compare in a way, as he was always seeking more. More adventure, more of a thrill. "Now that's someone with his life thought out."

Then he heard the next part. And his face fell. What if...what if he bit off more than he could chew? What if one day, his habits got him killed? He knew that it was a possibility...but now it seemed more of a reality. "W....Well then...."

hah. yes. let him wallow in a moral crisis. corinna herself knew better than to be greedy-- even better, she knew not to set goals. she had nothing in mind for what she wanted, no high expectations. she just knew she'd find it when she found it. engel, on the other hand...

"yeah. but you see what i mean? i mean this might not be the place for you... but if this is something you're looking for, why keep moving? relax, hang out, soak it in. maybe something will turn up. and if not, i mean you've got legs, you can always continue on," she said with a light shrug.

Engel opened his mouth to make an answer...then he couldn't think of any he could. Now that he thought about it, she was quite right. He could find time to relax. "Guess I could relax..." Although he was always pushing onwards. "You going to keep going?" he wondered aloud, if she had an idea of whether of now she would stick around, or move on elsewhere.

the sylph gave a curt nod and pricked her ears as he asked a second question. "yep," she answered with a swipe of her tongue over her nose. and then, she began to pad forward-- onwards. "nothing here for me," she added matter-o-factly, tail swishing. over her shoulder she added, "nice meeting you, engel." and with that, corinna was back on track-- through the forest she would go.

He smiled lightly over at the female, giving a nod back to her. "Well, good luck out there, Corinna" he said back to her. She began to move off, and he went to lay down so that he could rest. But he couldn't help a quick glance to follow her, and then grin to himself as he thought all about that story, and the moral.