Shadow Mountain vi. like Rome

for @Falquan

Though the star-kissed girl had chosen to remain near @Llyr (reference) she was by no means bound to his side. The soft blue of dawn would find her gone from the Hollow, nimbling over fallen tree and scattered stone alike as she trailed the fox. 

In any other circumstance, the northborn would have been amiable - happy to let the vixens of the wood be (they'd been there first after all). This particular canid, however, had stolen from her fish snares - a fox Rhælla could abide, a thief she could not. 

Thus she clambered with care over precarious footing, ascending to the peaceful slopes of the high rise with her pink nose lowered - hunting after the blue-pelted trickster.

at this point, falquan follows a path for the sake of following a path. aurëwen's scent trail is long since faded from the ground. he picks a direction out of need — there is a lot of wilds to cover but even so he does not try to fool himself. he knows the chances of him stumbling across her on coincidence are little more than hopeful slivers and almost entirely unlikely. so, he focuses on keeping eyes and ears open, asking strangers if they've seen her as he goes along, tending mostly to his own survival. he won't be able to do his job when — if — he finds her if he's starving and unkempt.

the tirn moves along the bottom of the wide mountain, tracking the crisscrossing scents of foxes in the hopes of hunting himself a meal outta one of them only to hear the footfalls from above. he peers up and feels his hackles bristle in surprise to see a dark pelaged wolf — woman, from the scent — ascending the slope. in the interest of not startling her and causing her to fall from the precarious path she appeared to be taking upwards he remains silent thinking that he could pass through beneath her path unnoticed.

Perhaps it was only instinct, this premonition that urged her to peer below, or perhaps it was caution borne of the beast's attack. Regardless, she heeded as she drew to pause in her quarrying and her star-dusted crown tilted forwards, lilac eye seeking out a form of ash and dove. 

"Oh, hello," Rhælla murmured, somewhat surprised before fixing a slightly sheepish smile in his direction. "You don't happen to be tracking the same fox, do you?" 

luckily, falquan surmises, the dark pelaged woman is not startled. surprised, if the tone of her voice as she greets him if any indication, but she does not go tumbling from her path in fright. hello, he parrots back, the common feeling clumsy on his tongue. it's no secret to the few that know him that he prefers his birth language to the one shared by many. a fox? no. he replies, a bit more curt than he'd intended. i'm looking for a woman, not a fox. he tells her simply, unaware that his words: blunt and vague as they were might give the wrong impression as they have during previous interactions.

The girl senses he is uncomfortable with the common tongue, or rather his lack of command in it, and that their interaction a brief one for that reason. 

"What's her name? Maybe I've met her," Rhælla asked helpfully, thinking that perhaps this woman was in the area - and that she might have come across the mystery she-wolf in her wanderings.