Wapun Meadow an unexpected journey

The day's journey was coming to an end. Well, not the day, but Asp's tolerance for it certainly was. Picking her way gingerly across the snow studded meadow, preferentially laying her sore paws in drifts to ease them, she kept her smoldering ember eyes fixed hard on the looming cottonwoods: her goal. Making her way south the past few days hadn't been kind to her; the rabbit that filled her belly yesterday morning was long forgotten, but the absense it left was not. Such is the life of a rogue. 

As the cottonwoods, long the hazy landmark, closed in around her, Asp dropped her poll to scout out the tapestry of smells crossing the soil. Whether it be due to hunger or legitimate lack of population, she failed to detect any signs of intelligent life. Heaving a melodramatic sigh, she dropped her body underneath a cottonwood and propped her back up against its trunk. Sighing, she spread her toes to relieve her weary feet. Journeys measured in days are for hobbits, not wolves.

YOINK!

indra's brief excursion out of bearclaw had been done on necessity; she had trailed the black hind she and blondine had failed to fell the day before. its path took her well beyond the cold flanks of bearclaw's mouth and into the wind-scoured face of the plains. either the trail faded, or indra was a pitiful tracker -- either way, the scent had disappeared under the leaning figures of a cottonwood bosk.

the russet girl was about to simply head for home when a sigh outpoured from a tree behind her. with both ears pulled back indra carefully stalked around the tree, coming near face to face with a sharply carved woman with her back pressed against the gnarled bough. indra set back on her heels in surprise and apprised the stranger -- there were no scents she could detect that suggested the ash-furred she-wolf's allegiance, but indra was taking no chances. she lifted her muzzle, her glistening nose twitching as she drank deep of the scents that surrounded them.

Goddamn it, she had only just settled in for a long overdue rest before some brute came barreling at her. With an unsteady sway she pulled herself to her feet and put and extra stride between her and this furry alarm clock. It was then that Asp could properly survey the brute - no, it was a woman, and a pretty one to boot; a bright copper flame in an otherwise anemic backdrop. A quiver of her nose told her that she must have guessed wrong. Where Asp's scent was plainly just her own, the foreigner's betrayed the presence of other wolves, a social life Asp did not know. Clearly there must be a pack here that buffeting winds cleansed. Well, time to cover your ass, lady.

"I'm not trying to intrude here" Asp tried to assure the woman with eyes fixed on her feet, "I've walked a long way today. Just trying to rest." The last thing she needed or wanted was to have the alarm bell sounded on her. She didn't feel like getting her butt kicked today.

as the initial surprise slaked away, indra's posture lessened in its stiff degree; it seemed asp had caught wind of her defensiveness and was quick to supply an explanation (though truly, none was needed) for her presence. indra's expression marginally softened and she regarded the charcoal-brushed woman with a quiet semblance of contemplation.

"who are you?" she asked, failing to respond directly to what the wolf had shared only moments before. in truth, while the meadow spanned before bearclaw, it was neutral territory -- for that, indra would not expend precious energy trying to defend it.

Following the cupric woman's suit, Asp mirrored her body language, relaxing from her rigid stance into a more amiable sit. Fixing her with a wary eye was the only tell that her guard wasn't completely down.

"My name is Asp," she offered, "I hail from the north." Licking her lips thoughtfully for a few moments, she decided to be a good conversationalist and pose a question in return. "What is your name? Where do you come from?"

with both women's terse body language gradually dissolving, indra found herself studying the gnarled cottonwoods around them rather than the woman directly in front of her. she revealed her name -- asp -- a befitting name, indra thought, for the sharpness of the woman's muzzle and the whiplike conformation she sported seemed most beseeming.

she was surprised to hear the woman ask where she hailed from -- it was not often anyone cared to ask, at least not so directly. "i'm indra." she supplied solemnly, her gaze turning slowly to the direction bearclaw sat: "and i'm from over there. bearclaw." she considered expanding, but for the moment curbed in her tongue by redirecting the conversation: "why are you here and not the north?"

perhaps to an outsider, her composure and affectation seemed most unfriendly -- in truth, indra had simply learned to be direct -- small talk, she believed, was for wolves with too much time on their hands or wolves with ulterior motives -- neither of which she believed herself to be.

I AM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE

If Asp had picked up on Indra's brusk conversation style, she didn't show it. Rather, she traded her guard away entirely; were she human, this would be the point where Asp would light up a cigarette and take a long draw before responding, but as she is a wolf, the air of noir drama would have to be imagined instead.

"Pleasure, Indra. My mother, she lives in the North. I don't want to live with her anymore, so I left," whether or not that was the truth was anyone's guess, but it was her story for now and she was sticking to it, "Now that I don't live there, I'm looking for refuge elsewhere."

indra could have shared asp's sentiment for distaste in maternal figures -- her own was a dark blight against their family history, though indra often recalled saena with a forlorn and lonely nostalgia. in the end, she believed neither she nor laurel had been good enough for their intemperate mother.

she appreciated that asp was direct too -- it certainly spared the both of them time and any potential misunderstandings. "bearclaw has room, if you're ever looking." she offered plainly, her gaze swept back to the rim of the valley. had asp been male, her invitation would not have been so forthcoming -- as it was, asp was not, and indra often found herself preferring the company of females on the premise alone that they often were neither as belligerent or as stupid as their male brethren.

she didn't wait long for an answer -- quietly, she strode past the bough the woman rested upon and continued her journey outside the valley.