Sunspire Mountains vice city

Set in the valley between Northstar Vale and Mount Apikuni! For @Wintersbane. Set some nebulous time before Easy found out where Sunny and Dawn are, just for my own reference.

It was her third winter.

Easy mused on that as she wandered the valley, wondering rather distractedly if it would be this winter that she'd experience womanhood in all its glory. It was strange to think about; she had no experience with romance aside from her rather ill-fated crush on Aditya and what she had heard from other wolves. Neither had she ever felt the urge to give over to such things. Sure, she liked the idea of having a mate, but not enough to go looking. Not enough to dream about it.

She wanted a family. Little puppies and a strong shoulder to lean on, and her brothers and sisters flitting in and out of the territory the way they always used to. She wanted the Plateau, mostly.

But failing all that, she felt she was in a pretty good position. She'd found her mother. She had an aunt, now, even if they'd not yet met. Easy decided that she was happy, and there was no point in fretting over what might or might not come. Instead, she turned her focus to scouting, hoping that some trace of her siblings might turn up in her wanderings. It didn't seem likely that Sunny or Dawn were in her backyard, almost within howling distance, but she couldn't think of a reason not to check.

She eyed the sharp incline the lead up to Courtfall, one of their allies, and thought about going to knock on their door. Just to check.

though the moderate snowfall was beginning to rapidly cover the mountain goat tracks he'd been tracking — surprised as he was to find them so far from the precarious ledges he assumed they preferred to dwell. slowly, he watched the unique hoof prints begin to fill with fresh laden snow. he begun to then trust the faint smell though the snow left little for it to cling to and finally to a small pile of goat feces. it was relatively fresh, not necessarily good for pointing him in any specific direction but assuring him that he is on the right path.

still, the longer he spends out here and coupled with the fact that the grey skies and snowfall do not appear to be wanting to let up any time soon; wintersbane considers that perhaps it was time to know when to quit and return to courtfall's claim.

tracking was better left to wolves who actually held the speciality and mastery; and just as he was turning away, facing towards the vale in the distance he catches the sound of shifting snows, the tell-tale crunch of snow under foot. for a moment his hopes swell and rise like the high tide as he heads in that direction after a moment of hesitation —

only to realize it wasn't mountain goat; the scent was, however, familiar. easy, wintersbane rumbles in greeting, shrugging thru the emerald underbrush dusted in a fresh layer of snow, shaking it off as it tumbles from the leaves and lays upon his spine.

It took Easy a moment to place the man, looking at him from this distance. It was the voice that threw her; she hardly recognized it, and it made identifying the other wolf that much more difficult. But she set off toward him at an easy clip, and his size and features soon closed the gap that his voice had failed to.

"Panther!" she laughed in reply, tail wagging in pleasure. "Well, look at you!" the woman remarked as she drew nearer still, making to sweep around the male in an appraising half-circle. "I'm glad to find you doing well. Swiftcurrent was gone when I last visited, so I wondered... but Kavik helps lead the pack I'm in, now."

The male smelled like old and new faces. She recognized Aure's scent and wondered at how the two had found each other -- and in thinking of Drageda, she thought of her friend Mallaidh, and wondered how she was doing. Something about the male made her think of the other scout, but she dismissed this as unimportant and directed her focus back toward him. "Do you remember anything new? What are you up to, these days?"

panther, she greets him. actually... it's wintersbane. he corrects her, perhaps a bit sheepishly. i... didn't stay long. not surprising given his track record. what number is he at now? six? seven? still, she had helped get him into the pack and he wondered if she might consider his inability to stay in their ranks as a slight. everything. the tundrian responds to her question. well, mostly everything, i think. he adds after a small moment of hesitation. though the recovery had been in confusing bits and pieces. in truth, he wasn't exactly sure if recovering was the best thing. it was true there were numerous things he wished he could forget — but alas, it seemed his amnesia had been temporary; a minor set back to the healing of a head injury.

i'm with courtfall now, he informs her. trying to keep myself busy while i figure out where i fit into it all. assimilating himself into packs had never exactly been his strong suit; mostly because as a child he'd taken such issue with authority ( and maybe, to some extent, he still does ). what of you? how're you doing?

"Wintersbane," she repeated with a sudden brightening of her expression. "Now I remember -- and you told me that you mother used to call you spleenbane. It feels like so long ago, but it must have been just last winter. This is only my third." She wondered if he had indeed remembered all, or if he would even know if he didn't. It seemed he was of the same mind, however, and she didn't want to be rude by asking.

The woman thought nothing of his short stay at Swiftcurrent Creek. She'd resided there for a time before her father's death and had left (likely) just as quickly. Her stay at Drageda had not been long, either.

"Keeping busy," she agreed with a rueful smile, not quite liking the picture that painted of her, but choosing to be truthful all the same. "I suppose I'm looking for my brother and my sister, but since I don't really expect to find them here... Well, I'm trying to pass the time keeping track of the prey. There was some giant earthquake that chased them away. I wasn't here for it, but it seems like they're only just beginning to return."

Feeling that the proper niceties had been observed, Easy closed more of the distance between them to get a better read on where he'd been and who he'd been with. There was no trace of her siblings on his pelt, but she smelled Aure even more strongly. "You know Aure?" she asked him with a wag of her tail. "I met her while I was part of Drageda."

spleenbane ...it brings to the surface fond, if not horribly foggy memories of his mother, whose face he remembers only because he was born to be her masculine image; but whose voice and trill of song he forgets the sound of and tragic still never to be heard again. that's right. wintersbane ( though soon to be dubbed 'melkor' to add to his ever growing list of monkiers ) replies with a small smile.

though wintersbane is respectfully silent as she speaks, answering his inquiry readily enough, he gives a solemn nod to the bit about the earthquakes. he wasn't present for them either — and draws the conclusion that the two of them had a penchant for returning after the storm has all but passed. i wasn't here for it either, he responds. lucky the herds are returning, though. we might've come back to a lot less wolves.

mhm, i know her ...though she doesn't go by aure anymore. 'i know her' doesn't feel like it covers the complexity ( nor the intimacy ) of their knowledge of one another but it is not a tangled web that wintersbane deigns to unravel right here and now. she goes by 'andraste' now and she leads courtfall. he informs easy, thinking that there is no harm in offering her this information.

It's nothing special, but the confirmation of this memory makes the shewolf wag her tail in idle pleasure. Not many things have followed her this far, and it's a friendly, familiar feeling to be able to talk about things from the past, even if they are from a very narrow set of experiences. Now they both knew Aure as well, and Reiko, who was now in Easy's pack -- which was an ally to Wintersbane's. She would be even more tickled to know that a very young Wintersbane had once befriended her littermate.

Easy gave a solemn nod at the possiblity of returning to a dead wilderness, and then found herself with nothing to say about Aure-turned-Andraste; they hadn't known each other very well or for very long. She made a throw-away comment about blessing her good health before coming back to voice her own thoughts:

"We keep running into each other in that there-and-back-again sort of way," she told him with another wag of her tail. "I've been trying to put down roots to kind of... I don't know. To keep me from wandering off, I guess. It's nice to know that you're up there. Kind of homey." She indicated the mountains when she said up there, and seemed not at all embarrassed to speak of her own foolish sentiments to an almost perfect stranger. "It seems like you're almost as bad as me," she added as an afterthought, brows drawing together at this realization. Perhaps he wouldn't be up there for long. "With the itchy paws and all."

a slow smile begins to tug its way upon wintersbane's lips as he considers her words and realizes that she's right. how many times have they casually bumped into one another out of nothing but pure coincidence? two? three? seems to be our thing. he rasps in a soft murmur of agreement. 'friends' if he could claim he truly had any of such a thing was about all he had anymore in his life. his family was all gone from these wilds — and though he doesn't know of drageda's fall and malliadh's departure from the wilds he has long since disowned her as blood family ( as was mutual ). her sentiment brings a softer smile to the tundrian's lips yet.

you know what they say: birds of a feather flock together. he quotes with faux gusto at her mention that they are alike.

i've been in seven packs during my time here ...eight if you consider my own failed attempt to start my own, he recollects with a soft breath. i've begun to fear i was cursed. he admits. i think courtfall might finally be the place i settle. for many more reasons than just one. roots might be hard to put down given my own penchant for itchy paws, he uses her own word with a cheeky grin. but maybe i'll surprise myself. he says with a lofty half shrug of his shoulders. perhaps roots have already begun to grow.

The agreement made Easy chuckle, even if it was not as wholehearted as it could be. It was not exactly funny that they were both relentless wanderers, incapable of settling down, but Easy had learned to laugh when she could. Inwardly, she found that she wished wolves like her would flock together; perhaps it was time to begin looking for a partner to travel with.

No, she reminded herself, it's time to dig in at the Emberwood.

"Eight!" she exclaimed, putting as much scandalized delight into the word as she could. She offered a squinty-eyed smile in the next moment. "I'm a little behind you; the Emberwood is the sixth pack I've been in. Unless you count following my brother when he tried to branch off into his own pack. That's when we got separated, and why I'm keeping an eye out, now."

Talk of curses always brought her mind back to Grayday. "My father was cursed," she shared with him. "All of his mates disappeared, until he met my mom. Then he died before she had the chance." And she was disappeared now. That was a wound that would never stop stinging; that Catori was missing and they didn't know whether she was dead or alive. Easy was inclined to think dead, just because she couldn't imagine the fierce and loyal woman being kept away for so long for any other reason. It was easier to think of that than to think about her wandering the wilds without memories of them, just like Wintersbane had been.

She'd finished her inspection of him and now gazed steadily into his face, wondering at all the worlds inside him that he'd needed to rediscover, and wondering still if there was any way to know if some were still lost to him.

"I believe in you," she decided after a moment of thought. "We can change. We do. All the time, every day. Not who we are, but how we are. Just take it one action at a time."

That was what she was trying to do. But it was hard to make choices that tied her closer to the wilds when keeping her distance and remaining free and untethered was so much simpler. She was coming to see, however, that simpler was not necessarily what came naturally to her. She was an open and loving soul, and her desire to make connections with others always seemed to shine out when given the chance.

wintersbane could not temper the chuckle that rises from within his chest even if he desired too as she repeats the number of packs he's been in during his almost three years of life in a scandalized tone. ❝i know,❞ he clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth and gives a disparaging shake of his head. ❝alas, i am afraid i am a hard beast to tame.❞ he jests with a glint in his eye; lips simpering with a small, covert smile as he thinks of the pale fey queen that has enchanted him so — since their first meeting, even! — wondering if she might be the one to tame his wanderers soul.

❝well,❞ wintersbane breaths, brow furrowing as he processes her story. ❝that's ...actually very tragic.❞ and with a skip of his heart hopes that he shall not suffer a similar accursed fate as her father.

❝makes sense,❞ he murmurs in contemplation. ❝if we cannot change then we cannot grow.❞ and what was life if not endless growth? nothing stays still in the world, not nature, not herds. they grow physically as cubs into adults ...perhaps as adults they still grow just not in the physical sense. he's never considered it that way before, and he offers her another genuine smile.

❝well, here's to growing and changing ...and planting our roots.❞ he moves forth in an attempt to bump the crown of his head to her chin in a platonic gesture.

Easy mirrored Wintersbane's smile with a flash of her own teeth. "No one wants a tame wolf, anyway," she assured him. In all honesty, however, she thought they both needed to calm down a little, and to start setting down roots. Her father had been fond of saying, If wolves were meant to stay in one place, we would've been born with roots instead of paws. But those were words for the timid and the broken to live by; words for wolves who had trouble moving on instead of wolves who had trouble staying in one place.

To her surprise, Wintersbane echoed her own thoughts. She considered commenting on this before giving a rueful shake of her head, and planting a fond lick on the tip of her friend's nose. "I'll be coming by to check up on you," she warned him with a smirk and a wag of her tail. "And if you're not where I expect you to be, I shall be very disappointed. And you can hold me accountable as well. Deal?"

❝that may be true,❞ wintersbane drawls. ❝but i've reached the stage of my life where i'm tired of all this aimless wandering.❞ if there was a purpose to it, if he sought something specific by it ...well he no longer knew. it'd been a necessary evil when he'd thought blackfeather woods had been hunting him the first time he'd left as a whelp and he hasn't truly stopped since.

and if it was the family that has died and dispursed ( or whose existance is dead to him ) wintersbane knows he'll never find. those connections, that attempt to make up for the splintering of his family can only be amended by making his own and doing better by them. a soft chuckle rumbles in his scarred throat at her mention of checking up on him. ❝i'll check up on you as well, then.❞ he tells her in a manner that is near haughty; letting it be known that they would both hold each other accountable. ❝sounds fair; you've got a deal.❞

he leans forward to offer the woman a platonic bump of his head against her shoulder. ❝until next time, easy.❞ with those words wintersbane parts, retracing his steps back to courtfall.

It was funny to think that, out of all the wolves in her life, she'd gotten the most proper farewells from Wintersbane -- or perhaps from Aunt Spot, but the older woman had rarely been around to see Easy off when she left.

"Until next time, then," she said to the male, accepting his nudge with tolerance and a playful tug on the ear. "Stay out of trouble this time."

She realized she'd forgotten to ask if he remembered how he'd fallen, and why he and the male had fought -- but that didn't seem terribly pressing. Easy allowed Wintersbane to leave, and watched him only for a few moments longer before continuing on her own way.