Neverwinter Forest Insidious is blind inception

for @Mal whenever you have time

Things hadn't been bad here, if you ignored the occasional pangs of guilt that liked surface at random times...which she dutifully did. The forest was large and oddly warmer than the surrounding areas, although the cold didn't much bother her thanks to the thick coat compliments of her northern heritage. The prey situation wasn't any better here than it had been back in Diaspora, but she wasn't surprised. Whatever was going on had thoroughly scared away anything large enough to sustain a pack. But there weren't many here to hunt for, and she had grown pretty used to being hungry, or rather had found many ways to take her mind off of it. 

She had tracked a hare for a bit before abandoning the trail when it began to fade near the edge of the territory. She had settled for a patrol instead to distract her from her empty stomach, remembering what Mal had told her about his hostile neighbors. So far, she had found nothing alarming save for the eerily dark sky to the east. It had been that way for a while now, but it never ceased to send an icy tendril of dread through her chest. It was definitely an ominous sight, and she wondered if it was connected to the earthquakes and collapsing mountains. She shook off the discomfort and continued to walk, stopping occasionally to inspect a rock or tree as she made her way along the edge of the forest.

Mal was returning from a hunt.  In fact, it was even a successful one, but the thing he caught wasn't exactly the biggest.  In fact, it was just some squirrel thing -- ground squirrel, tree squirrel, who knew, but it had a long fuzzy tail and that's about all he needed to know.  And Mal being Mal was bringing it back to stash in that one remaining cache that was probably pretty damn empty at this point.  Emergency food.  Or something.  It felt good to at least know there were definitely a few people around now -- it made him feel actually kind of useful.  Cèilidh hopefully would show up again soon, and it was only because of how nice she was to him that kept Mal from placing her on the "probably bailed" list quite yet.

As he wound his way back home, he spotted Simmik along the borders (or it sure better be her, because nobody in the pack looked too alike).  He picked up his pace a little, trotting her way, woofing around the squirrel in his mouth as he got closer.  With a wag of his tail he then attempted to say, Need it? referencing the food, but it was probably a bit garbled, though not as bad as it could have been.  Aside from the freaky cloud out there, the rest of the world seemed to be slowly going back to normal.  Maybe.  Not a ton of shaking at least.  Maybe food would come back soon too?  He could hope.

She paused at his odd-sounding greeting to allow him to catch up. She realized why he had sounded strange once she saw him, gaze falling to the food between his jaws when he offered it to her. Could she eat? Yeah, probably. Now that she was presented with the option of eating, she realized that she was pretty hungry. She nodded once, taking a seat. Assuming he relinquished his mouthful to the ground, she picked it up and pulled it close, taking a bite before looking back to Mal. Thanks, she said once she had chewed and swallowed, the end of her tail moving against the ground a few times to reiterate her gratitude. After a few more bites, she returned her attention to him. Have you had anymore trouble? she asked. She nosed the rest of the squirrel back over to him, offering it to him with a raise of her eyebrow. I haven't seen anything out of place yet, she continued. That was a good thing, though. Obviously, she didn't know a whole lot about maintaining a pack, but she figured that less trouble was usually a good thing. She remembered his warning from about "sketchy wolves," but she hadn't seen any yet. She hadn't wandered from the forest yet either, but hopefully she wouldn't find any trouble when she did explore.

He moved closer, dropped the squirrel and nosed it towards her.  Not recently.  Been trying to avoid some of them though, especially if out hunting.  Easier than dealing with them.  We'll probably run into them at some point, though.  It was just a matter of time, really, and chances were none of the wolves he knew were gonna be the instigators.  He was pretty sure everyone was reasonable, logical, and not gonna go crashing parties they weren't invited to.

Still, he shrugged, If they do keep causing problems, I dunno what we'll do.  Found out there's a pack on the plateau that's, uhh. Kind of north of here.  I'd thought that maybe if they were gonna keep causing problems then maybe we could back up there if we absolutely had to, but nope.  He liked this forest, and he wanted to stay here.  Mostly I'm hoping Moonspear and Nightwalkers will get all pissed at each other and then forget we're here.  Bit of a grin at that.  If he could find some way to make that happen, maybe he could kill two birds with one stone.  It'd be great.

She was relieved to hear there hadn't been any trouble recently. Not that she was afraid or felt like she was unable to handle any trouble that did arise, but things being quiet meant she had more time to acclimate herself to her new life and new home. Her eyebrows drew together as he continued to speak. Well, we shouldn't have to move just because they're sticking their noses into our business, she said, tilting her chin up a little. This plateau that he spoke of was claimed, but she hoped he wouldn't consider moving somewhere else. Of course, their numbers were low right now, and they may not have a choice; that didn't mean it was fair or right, though. 

The two packs he mentioned were not ones she was familiar with. She had heard her mother and Mahler discussing other packs in the mountains from time to time, but they never spoken of Moonspear or Nightwalkers. How close are they to us? she asked. How likely do you think it is that they'll come back and cause problems for us? Winter was close and food was scarce; if they were also fighting off neighboring packs, they could be in for a rough few months. That didn't change her mind about being here or anything, but she would like to be as prepared as possible.

Oof, sorry for the huge delays on my part, trying to get back in the swing of things.

Yeah, I think we're far enough that reasonable wolves should let us be.  If they're super unreasonable, that'd be the issue.  I think if things get better and everyone can hunt again, maybe they'll get distracted and forget.  If they were that unreasonable about thinking everything belonged to them even though they had no ability to protect it all, then hopefully they were dense enough to go back to their own little corner of the universe when things were more lively.  He could hope.

As he spoke, he looked and pointed with his nose in the rough directions of both packs. Moonspear is just in the mountains there.  It's gotta be like a couple day trip you aren't running full out.  Nightwalkers is way farther south, but I'm not sure where other than in a forest.  I think Moonspear's more likely to be trouble, just because they're closer.  Well, that and they seemed to think they own everything.  I don't know what to expect from any of them in the long term.  But you can smell some of them if you walk far enough that way, just get the hell back to the territory quick if you hunt anything out there.  They were unpredictable. Unknown.  And not reasonable, as he had earlier noted, and thus certainly not trustworthy.

Moonspear. She committed the name to memory, glancing in the direction of the mountains. She listened to his warning, part of her balking at the idea of running away from any situation. She was not one to avoid conflict, and so the idea was a little uncomfortable to her, but if that's what he wanted, then she would try her best to do as he asked. If I scent them near, i'll return to the forest, She assured Mal with a curt nod. So that's their problem with us? Simmik asked. They think they own this forest too? She understood the feeling, having grown up to believe the mountains belonged to her family. Now that she was on the other end of that notion, though, she couldn't help but feel incredibly irritated by their arrogance.

Mal was definitely on the practical side of things.  From his perspective, he wasn't on their doorstep and wasn't going over to bug them, so they should leave him alone in turn.  The valley was big.  If their pack needed more room then it should split and take over another territory. This was obvious even to the boy who certainly hadn't finished wolf high school.  At least when Simmik said she'd try to stay away from them, Mal nodded in thanks -- it'd really make it hard to try to keep people safe if they went out of their way to get into trouble.  He wasn't a superhero.

But until he felt that Moonspear grew up a little (ironic, coming from Mal), he'd be happy to quite happy to point out how bonkers they were, Sure seemed like it.  I mean, how else could you explain them getting all pissed and accusing me of stealing from my own territory?  For real though, one of them said something dumb like how the 'queen does not tolerate vagrants in her realm' I think it was, he definitely acted up the absolute ridiculousness of what that wolf had said, slightly funny voice and all. Like okay, that totally doesn't sound like someone detached from reality, just an absolutely reasonable person, yep.  It'd be one thing if we were like.. Right up against their territory or something, but we're pretty far -- they gotta go out of their way to get here.  And he'd been totally reasonable up until the point I told them that I wasn't going to answer any questions until they came back some other time, politely, and did things the right way.  Mal shrugged, then added, And they haven't come back, so...  So they were totally full of it, basically.

His story was concerning. Simmik wondered how much of a problem they would actually turn out to be in the future. From the way he made their queen sound, she was reluctant to believe that they wouldn't be back to cause more problems than before. Well, there are more of us now, right? she started. Maybe if they come back, they'll realize that we're better suited as allies and not enemies. Maybe that was wishful thinking on her part. It wasn't that she wouldn't defend if needed, because she definitely would. But she already had too much death in her life, and a conflict with another pack was sure to lead to more; it was inevitable in those situations. She paused and then quickly added: Well, if that's something you would be up for. She didn't want to just assume that he wanted anything other than to be at war with them; they definitely seemed to have already cause him a lot of grief, so it wasn't like she would exactly blame him for feeling that way. They sound crazy and like troublemakers, but it seems like keeping things copacetic with our neighbors might serve us better in the future. She hoped she hadn't overstepped any by suggesting how they deal with Moonspear. She was still a juvenile after all, and she had never actually interacted with them, but she had listened to her mom talk about this stuff enough to have formed some ideas on how she might do things should she ever be in a position to offer her opinion.

It all seemed pretty reasonable to Mal. Unlike with Cam, Simmik acted older (from his perspective at least, this was Mal, the guy who had tantrums way later than he should have) and more grounded in the ways of the world, so he was fine contemplating anything that seemed pretty reasonable overall.

Though, as she continued, woah, now there was a word his poor vocabulary found unfamiliar -- copa-what? Well, he could sorta figure it out by context clues so he was just gonna keep right on like it wasn't a thing. Yeah. That's why I'm figuring it's best if we keep away from both of 'em if we can. As long as they don't show up here wanting to kill people or something, we can be the better pack or neighbor or however you'd want to phrase it. I don't know what they'll really want from us whenever they show up again, and I think we're just gonna have to wait to see. And hope they weren't as completely bananas as Mal was outright expecting.

For now, though, I'll hope they forget we're here. I think if we get a few more people we'll be a size where Moonspear might respect that like.. We live here and stuff. Then when the deer come back, we can actually hunt them and stuff -- when it was just me and Okeanos we didn't even bother trying. And probably the fact they hadn't relied on the deer probably was part of the reason they were doing reasonably okay after all the earthquakes and stuff.

That was a little too much uncertainty for her liking, but she didn't think there was much any of them could do about it. She didn't like wait and see very much, but she was learning that sometimes, you just didn't have a choice. Okay well, I'll keep an eye out and let you know if I see any sign of them, she assured him. 

From the way he had made them sound, she didn't think they would just forget Mal and his wolves were here. Yeah, maybe, she said, her uncertainty bleeding into her tone. I can try and recruit some more members too, she offered. She wanted to help anyway she could. Already, she trusted Mal and felt loyal to him, and she wanted to prove that she would be a productive member of the pack. And hopefully the prey return soon, and then maybe we can hunt, she paused, a little embarrassed to say what she needed to say next. But um, I haven't really hunted much, so I'll need some training before then, she said, her voice losing some of it's usual confidence.

Oof, this post had me repeating myself like 5 times. I think I nuked them all but if it's wonky, well.. I tried to fix it. XD

Mal nodded. Good. The other packs were definitely a wait and see kind of scenario.

Yeah, that'd be great if you could. I haven't had the best luck out there recruiting on my own the last couple weeks -- but maybe that's how it is for everyone? I don't know. The one time he went to the borders at Elysium it was to tell someone to go away not join, but he was a spiteful little punk anyway, so... I'm sure you'll find some good folks out there though. I'm sure I can trust your judgement. He smiled a bit to go along with that -- Simmik did seem to be a good addition to the pack.

Not to mention she was in good company in other ways. Mal continued with a bit of slightly grim humor, I've caught like one deer, with help. We're all gonna need practice. If all of the deer come back it's not a big deal, we can just mess with 'em until we get lucky. Until then, we have rabbits and voles and mice and stuff. I think we'll be ok -- might not be the easiest, but we'll be ok. The joys of small numbers. A few wolves could survive on the small stuff, but a full pack would have trouble with the same amount. You can always come with me when I go out looking, can work on tag team hunting stuff, even if it's just a rabbit. Just about everyone who Mal had convinced to join the pack so far were all younger. Okay, sure, maybe Ceilidh or someone had a better idea of how to hunt in general, but it wasn't like they'd been out there for years hunting moose, it was just impossible.

oh no LOL i hate when that happens. we could wrap up if that helps?

She smiled a little in return; the expression felt strange. She realized then that she really didn't smile that much. She was honored that he trusted her judgement so much, and she would be sure to not let him down. She hoped he was right about there being good folks out there to recruit. So far, she had only met a a couple wolves and they were not ones she would want to bring home. Yeah it's not just you, she said. I haven't found much either the few times I've gone out.

It was a relief to know that she wasn't the only inexperienced one here. Still he seemed to know more about hunting than she did, which she was grateful for. They could survive on small stuff for now while there was only a few of them. But if the pack grew, then they would need more than that. She smiled again at his offer. Yeah I'd like that, she replied. She was sure he could teach her a few things even of he wasn't so skilled in hunting large game himself.

Hah, I think it is at a good point where that might be good -- not to mention it's a good idea anyway given all that's happened since! I'll probably be making some newish threads soon, so no matter what you can snag one when they appear. :P

Mal was going to keep looking at things at least reasonably positively until things actually exploded in his face. Hadn't happened so far, so that was a good sign at least. Hopefully luck'll change. Not like we can do much about it but wait. Shrug.  Just gotta keep looking. Looking and thinking of ways to lure the good people in. That was always a good start.

But back to hunting. He wagged his tail a bit, Just bug me whenever -- well, except for today. Hunting is done for now and you've got that -- he pointed to the squirrel he'd given her, I'd say if there was anything left to put it in the cache, but don't think that'd be worth it. Hopefully next time he could catch something more significant. The net gain of the squirrel was probably zero -- not a loss, since someone was getting food, it just wasn't super significant in the grand scheme of things. Think I should probably go take a nap -- unless you've got other news? His ears perked up for a moment but he wasn't really expecting there to be anything. Stuff was quiet. Hopefully it stayed that way.

Hopefully, she replied, one corner of her lips tugging up slightly. I'll keep looking for sure, she promised. She wanted to keep learning the area anyway. 

She nodded at his offer, gaze following when he pointed to the squirrel she had promptly demolished. There definitely wasn't enough left to be worth saving. Okay, thanks. I really appreciate that, she said. She hated that there were things she couldn't do on her own; it not only stabbed at her pride, but it kept her from fully contributing to the pack. I'll find you soon, then, she added. 

He wanted to go take a nap, and she had nothing else important to tell him, so she shook her head. No, that's it, Simmik assured him. I'll talk to you later. She nodded and then turned and headed off down the borders. There was still plenty of border left for her to patrol today. 

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