Firefly Glen If I lose myself tonight, it'll be by your side

The hare had not been easy to spot and had not Wraen caught it by surprise, it would have remained hidden it's white coat blending with the snow. The terrified animal dashed forwards and the young hunter responded only seconds later, engaging in a wild chase. The weeks spent, exploring the area and walking great distances, had helped to build her endurance and speed, however, she had been quite tired for the past few days and it was to her disadvantage.

The small animal was clever, it did not run into straight line, making loops and sharp turns along the way and after a while Wraen felt that she began to get behind. Then - all of a sudden - the chase was over, because the hare disappeared in thin air, leaving the confused wolf, standing in the middle of snow covered fields, looking around confusedly.

Following his embarrassing encounter near the unfamiliar forest, Tambourine trekked tirelessly through the wilderness, first heading north and then hanging a right when the mountains opened up to permit passage. He traipsed through some thick woods that reminded him of Marauder's Keep, though they weren't quite right. He hunted down a meal there, then continued at a slightly southeastern bend, squeezing in between a quarry and some sprawling pines. He thought he smelled wolves nearby but he didn't stop this time. Hopefully he would run into someone else on the open road, rather than approach another border.

He was in luck on the third day. Ahead of him lay a great expanse of sparkling snow swathed over an open field. Tambourine paused at the edge of the pristine prairie to admire the view before suddenly springing forward, marring it with a happy bark. He continued hopping and bopping across the snow, marking up the prior perfection, when he spotted another gray wolf standing and staring off with a baffled expression on her face.

Tambourine stayed where he he was, snow clinging to every inch of his body, including a nice beard on his chin. "Hello!" he called out to her, hoping she wouldn't give him the cold shoulder.

Where the hell did it go? Wraen was still baffled ten minutes later, because the hare wasn't anywhere to be seen and it's scent was almost impossible to catch. The animal's and her tracks criscrossed the area and since she did not see any tracks leaving the place, where the wild chase had happened, she concluded that the hare must have hidden itself somewhere.

The arduous task was spared for Wraen, because someone called out to her and she soon spotted the source of the sound. "Hey!" she returned and waited for the other one to come closer. For one crazy moment she speculated that perhaps the hare was a shape-shifter and had turned into a wolf.

She returned his greeting and Tambourine's tail began wagging faster, kicking up a dusting of sparkling snow. Inspired by her friendly tone and open body language, he took these signs as an invitation to bound closer. The wreath of snow clinging to his muzzle fell away, so he looked slightly less ridiculous when he stopped abreast of the she-wolf. As if to compensate, his left ear bent and flopped, as it was sometimes wont to do.

"You lost or something?" he questioned amiably, going by the confused look on her face a moment ago. "Not that I'll be much help if you are," Tambourine added with a rumbling chuckle.

"Unless you are the hare I was chasing moments earlier and lost," Wraen began, while looking the young wolf up and down and concluding that in no way this big chap could have been mistaken for a hare. Even if he was a shape-shifter, there were laws of conservation of mass. On the bright side - he was quite handsome and the image was made even more amiable, when one of his bent and flopped. 

"I am no healer, but is your ear broken?" she forgot to finish the earlier sentence and stared at the curious body part of the stranger. She could not decide, whether it was funny or she should feel worried about it.

In response to her question, Tambourine looked clueless for a split second. Then he realized what she meant and he grinned as he replied, "Nah, it's always been like that." He twitched it, though it remained floppy. "Sometimes it stays up, sometimes it doesn't," he explained, "but it works just fine."

He paused for a beat, eyes roving over her briefly even as he cataloged her scent. There was something vaguely familiar about it, though Tambourine didn't bother trying to place it. Many things about this place triggered fuzzy recollections from his youth. And though he always kept an eye peeled for the familiar faces from those bygone days, Tambourine had learned to let go of the past and live in the present.

"I'm Tam, by the way," he introduced. "What's your name?"

"It is kind of cute," Wraen replied and smiled at the fellow, who introduced himself as Tam. An unusual choice for a name - she noted - and seemed to lack something, but she could not pinpoint, what it was. Maybe this was not even his real name for whatever reason.

"Wraen Renevermind," she said, the surname given by Bernard still being among one of the favorite ways to introduce herself to other people and in order to see, if they caught the joke within the word itself. "What are you doing here?"

Tambourine smiled bashfully at the flattery, his heart giving a little skip. He found himself wanting to return it. She cut a pretty, svelte figure, and her apple green eyes were particularly fetching. He was formulating his exact phrasing even as he awaited her own introduction.

He accepted her surname at face value, though he did comment, "That's a catchy name." That reminded him of his intent to pay her a compliment too. "It's pretty, kinda like your eyes." Oh man, Tambourine thought, that came out cheesier than I thought! He offered a goofy grin.

To answer her question, he said, "I was born somewhere around here, but left about a year back. Was chased out by a bear, actually." It had been a harrowing experience at the time, though he laughed lightly now. "I came back by happy accident a few days ago and now I'm sort of reacquainting myself with the area, I guess. How about you?"

"Thanks," it was Wraen's turn to feel a bit bashful, because she was not used to hearing compliments from others. Especially, since she did not consider herself eiher special or pretty enough to be called such.

"Bears seem to cause a lot of trouble in these areas," the girl noted, remembering her reunion with Terance, who had been beaten by a bear around that time. She was very curious to here, what the "happy accident" had been, but Tam was quicker than her and asked his question first.

"I live nearby," Wraen replied, beckoning towards the Moonspear that was looming in the distance. "And I am doing a self-training course in scouting and hunting, and I thought I was doing pretty good, until I lost the hare I was hunting today."

She indicated a nearby mountain and Tambourine assumed she must be part of a pack. Before he could inquire further, she mentioned her reason for being out here on the snowy meadow alone. He smiled lopsidedly at her, knowing full well how challenging both hunting and scouting could be. He had been doing a lot of both this past year, especially solo.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. I've heard that even really great hunters still fail more than they succeed," he said. "I'm a lot more successful when I have help. Maybe I could lend a hand? Not that I'm a professional or anything." His pale eyes briefly flitted in the direction she had indicated a moment ago. "Although I guess if you're from a pack, you probably don't need my help?"

"Oh, I am not complaining," Wraen shook her head, remembering, that just few weeks ago she was telling the same truth to Korei. "It's just - really, really strange. One moment I was in the game and the other - poof - it vanished in thin air," she explained. "I mean usually you really see, where your prey runs off, but this time... well, it's like it never had existed in the first place."

She scratched behind her ear and cast a glance around to see, if the animal in question had not appeared again. Perhaps it had simply lied low and blended with the snow until the predator went away. Or... maybe it had an underground hideaway somewhere.

"I appreciate your offer - but not today, thank you," she shook her head. "I can - however - invite you for a lunch though? I share food with you and you tell me everything you have seen during your travels. Sounds fair?"

She described the hare's vanishing act and he groaned sympathetically. "I've had that happen to me too. Rabbits are ninjas like that," Tambourine commiserated. His gaze now swept the surrounding field of snow for a moment, before he thought out loud, "It probably vanished into a hole hidden somewhere in all this snow."

He looked back to Wraen as she politely declined his offer. He felt a mild pang of disappointment, but there was a sense of relief too. He hadn't really thought it through but he would've felt quite a lot of pressure to perform. He was off the hook, though, and it wasn't like she was shunning him. As a matter of fact, she invited him to lunch, an offer which surprised and delighted him in equal measure.

"Sure!" he agreed right away. Tambourine wondered where they would procure food. Perhaps they would take some from her pack's stockpiles? He wondered if he should feel guilty about that. But it wasn't like he was stealing resources if they were being bartered. He would just have to do his best to really regale Wraen with all the tales of his grand adventures out on the road.

"Ninjas... I like it," Wraen had a vague idea of what the word meant, but it was foreign and odd sounding enough to fit the description of disappearing hares. Better blame it all on the prey than to your mistakes made during a hunt. She also decided to plow through the fields in order to find those secret dens. Another day though, because she was tired and was promised a good story. 

"I won't take you to Moonspear, because there are always invisible eyes watching and ears listening," she explained to the boy, having a feeling that none of her packmates would take it kindly, if she were to feed a stranger from the caches. Besides you never knew, when would Cerberus or anyone else from the guardian team appear, and she did not want Tam to have the same fate as the last two guys, who had happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time.

"However, I have a secret hide-out," she went on. "But I have to warn you - if you try to steal from it without permission - you will get cursed. Do I have to explain you, what a curse means?"

Moonspear? Tambourine repeated in his head. Why's that familiar? He thought on it a moment, but couldn't place it. Letting it go, he paid close attention to what Wraen was saying. He grinned broadly at the news of a secret hideout, then tried to play along by tamping down the smile and nodding soberly when she mentioned curses.

"No, ma'am," he said solemnly, "I understand." Brightening again, he added, "A secret hideout? That's awesome!" And he was beyond flattered to be invited to it. "I'm really glad I ran into you today, Wraen," he babbled happily as he readied to accompany her. Other than his impromptu encounter with Reek and Jhala, then his ill-fated faux pas near the forest, Tambourine hadn't had proper company in a while, a fact which he would be happy to relay to his newest friend in story form once they settled into her hideout.

"That is good - keep in mind though, it's no joke," Wraen said and though she did not have in her power to really curse anyone, by now she was good at tracking enough. And with a help of another willing packmate the guilty party would face a real nightmare. 

"Really? How long have you not been around people then?" she asked, amazed by the fact, how thirsty one could become for any kind of company, if left on his own for long enough. She - on the other hand - though enjoyed being in the pack and seeing other wolves every single day, liked her solo-exploration missions as well as hunts.

In response to her query, Tambourine's lips pressed together. "Hmmm," he rumbled ponderously, "I've run into a few wolves over the past couple of days." He tried not to inwardly cringe at the encounter he had bungled. "But before that, I went maybe... a month or so totally on my own? I was traveling with a couple for a while, but they decided to settle down and start a pack right around the start of winter, so that's when we went our separate ways. I did run across a few other wolves here and there," he finished, "but most weren't particularly conversational. I guess it's just nice to have someone to talk to." He chuckled self-deprecatingly.

"So where's this hideout of yours?" he wondered as they traipsed across the snow-covered meadow.

"Some people are like that," Wraen remarked, recalling her own adventures during her first big trip that had taken her from her home to Moonspear and then the latest one in the Tuktu Hinterlands. Some were friendly and eager for a chat, some did not even respond, and some tried to catch you (and maul you or whatever the ill reason behind chasing a complete stranger was).

"Soon," she replied. "It's over there in those woods," she beckoned to Bramblepoint that was looming in the distance. "One of my favorite places around here. You said you were born somewhere around here - do you know anything more exact about that location?" Maybe he was a former wolf from Donnelaith too.

She gestured to a forest in the near distance and he bobbed his head, then turned it sideways to look at her as she asked about his birthplace. "Sorta. Like I remember that my pack was called Marauder's Keep and that we slept in a cave called The Crook," Tambourine shared, the last word coming out a bit shaky as one of his legs plunged unexpectedly into a deep drift. Laughing lightly, he recovered himself and added, "It was in some woods at the base of a mountain. But I'm not entirely sure of its location. As you can see"—he gestured expansively around them, grinning—"there's quite a few of those around: woods and mountains, I mean."

Tambourine knew Wraen wanted to hear all of this as repayment for his upcoming snack, yet he couldn't help but want to make the conversation feel less one-sided. Besides, he was genuinely curious about her too. "So were you born in Moonspear?"

"Never heard about the Marauder's Keep, but sounds interesting enough," Wraen commented, wondering, if that had just been the name of the place or it had been inhabited by real marauders. She had heard many stories about them (one third of them were her own inventions), but never seen a real - living - one.

"Nope," she shook her head. "I was born in Donnelaith - it was located in a forest by the ocean. Not too far from here, but I hear that the fire destroyed that place and I have not been able to find it either," mainly because none of the former inhabitants had stayed there. "My mom - however - was good friends with the current Moonspear leader Charon. And he took me and my brother in, because she had made a deal with him a very long time ago. Though I hope that upon acceptance he liked us just a little bit as well."

He listened with interest as she described Donnelaith, his ears flattening a bit at the news of the fire. Wraen didn't seem particularly perturbed while relaying the tale, plus her wording implied she hadn't been living there at the time. The notion seemed devastating nonetheless. Tambourine was having trouble locating his former pack land, yet at least he knew it existed out there somewhere. He felt strangely melancholic over his new friend's loss.

"You seem pretty likable to me," he said with a goofy grin, well aware this time that it was a cheesy line. "So your mother and brother live there with you?" he pressed genially, still keeping an eye peeled for any sign of this hideout.

"Looks may be deceiving," Wraen replied, though secretly she felt happy for the compliment. She did not hear them often and therefore every single one was like a precious gem to be stored in the jewelbox among other spcecial things. "My brother does live with me in the pack, but he is so busy with guardian stuff and I am so busy with scouting the surrounding areas that we hardly ever meet nowadays. Like - meet properly - with sitting down and talking things over..." she missed this part the most, but the more time passed, the more she realized that this was the ways things went in life. You grew up, interests changed and you became estranged eventually.

"Do you have any siblings?" she asked. While talking they had arrived at the Bramblepoint and, since Wraen knew this place by heart, she led her companion confidently through the forest, along the paths only she knew and saw beneath the snow. "We aren't very far now," she told him, when they stopped by a small creek that ran through the woods. Even at the low temperatures it was not yet frozen, therefore the girl leaned down to have a drink.

Although he didn't have any siblings to miss, he immediately thought of Silas. They had been brothers in arms once upon a time. Tambourine felt a pang when he recalled how they'd promised to stick together. He had broken that promise, however incidentally, the day he had led the bear away from the glade. Where was his buddy nowadays? He certainly wasn't living in Golden Glade anymore.

"Nope, I was an only child," he chirped, "and my parents weren't part of my life growing up. But I had some great adoptive family. I miss them. I'd love to find out what ever happened to them..." His voice trailed off before he huffed a breath and shook his head lightly. That was about the time they paused at the creek so Wraen could take a drink. Wordlessly, Tambourine did the same.

With his thirst slaked, the yearling licked his lips and took a moment to look around. But his attention always came back to Wraen. This forest was rather pretty, especially what with all the snow, but Wraen was certainly the most beautiful sight in the woods.

Bramblepoint was inhabited by many kinds of trees - alders, cottonwoods, apple and cherry trees - and among them there was a misfit. If you wanted to see and find it, all you had to do was to follow down the creek the two wolves had just drank from. After a fifteen minute brisk hike, creek grew into a little river, winding it's way through the forest. And at one riverbend sat an old willow tree. It's trunk short, but large and round, the branches long and gnarled, sticking in every direction. Unlike the most trees here - tall, slender and symmetrical, this old fellow had grown so old that he did not give a damn about, what he looked liked and, how to appeal to the general society rules. 

"Come on," she told Tam, after a moment spent to greet the old man. She led him around the tree, where one of the branches had broken this winter, thus creating an improvised stairway that led all the way up to the middle of the tree, where all the branches were branching out and at the same time there was enough space for two people to sit down and observe the area without being seen by others. "So - what do you think?" Wraen asked proudly.

He caught himself staring and tore his eyes away to scan the forest for the nth time. When Wraen began moving, he padded just behind her, doing his best not to stare directly at her hindquarters as they threaded through the snowy wood. He kept his eyes on his own front feet, stumbling a time or two as he mused over his missing toes. Tambourine very nearly bumped into her when Wraen stopped, though he just managed to avoid a collision.

When he finally looked upward, he felt as though his heart was in his throat. He regarded the weeping willow and felt a tightness in his chest. "Reminds me of Marauder's Keep," he told her in a pinched voice. There was a bittersweet nature to the smile that wound over his face. "I love it," he added as they ducked into the little alcove.

"Alright then - wait here," Wraen told Tam and left the hideout. There was a cache located a little distance away, but she did not want the boy to see, where it was. She liked him, but did not entirely trust him, though, if he was very determined and skilled, he would find her "food cellar" with it's humble contents anyway. 

Fifteen minutes later she returned to her guest, bringing first remnants of a beaver's foot and later half of what was left from the tail. This was all that was left from her and Korei's successful kill few weeks earlier and due to the cold weather - it was as good as fresh. 

"The tail is a bit hard to chew on - don't break any teeth over it," she told him and then lied down to watch him eat.