Blackfeather Woods Kynigós

This is primarily for @Nyra but any are welcome to join. I put it as near to the Saints as he would be able to travel in such a short time.

The smell of blood had carved an unsteady path away from the mesa to the south. The misthofóros had believed he’d happened across the path of someone less fortunate, but it had not amounted to much of anything. The Greek had lost interest in the trail before long.

Arsenio wove his way through a darkened forest with thick trees. The striking auburn color of his pelt stood starkly against the woodland, but he moved without fear of what he might find.

The misthofóros had scented a pack upon the caldera beside the lake, but it had been the only other pack he had noted aside from the fenland markings. Arsenio drew his broad skull toward the earth to sniff at a pawprint with some interest.

It would be by chance that Nyra took a brief shelter in the Woods at the same time the auburn man came through. She distantly remembered coming here long ago, looking to find peace from dreams she had not since had. And the pack that had been here then, gone as well.

Panting, Nyra looked back in the direction of the Mesa, glancing to the wound upon her shoulder briefly before continuing within the scorched trees from a storm that she knew nothing about, a storm that drove her long lost sister and Eldritch's soul-sibling apart. 

By chance again, she saw the auburn man. Cautiously she sniffed the air, he smelled nothing like Akashingo. Good. But she was only a small amount less on guard. 

A soft sneeze from the white giant, and she tensed. Would he see her?

A sneeze broke through the silent hum of cicadas in the undergrowth. Arsenio tensed and turned his gaze to the figure of a pale wolf. She had done well to conceal herself. Had it not been for the sudden noise, she might have dwelled there without the misthofóros having seen her.

You are injured, the Greek man announced gruffly. He had scented her blood, he realized with a scrutinizing stare of his icy gaze. The misthofóros wondered what an injured wolf was doing so far from the scent of claimed land. Are you drapétis?

He noted her injury, to which she sighed softly and glanced again to her shoulder.
"I assume you mean...an escapee?" She guessed, then sighed softly again "No. I lead a pack called the Saints, located in the mountains. Things just went awfully awry at the forming pack I went to visit." Nyra replied with a small edge. Things should be a tad more clear now, she assumed. 
But only time would tell.

For the moment, the Grandmaster turned her head into herself enough to begin to lick at her wound, try to clear away some of the blood. She knew very little of medicine, even less than when she first came to the Teekons. But she knew just enough to get her back home in one piece...hopefully.

The pale woman sighed a small number of times when addressing him. Arsenio found her words curious. The polemistís had appeared to visit a pack and had sustained injury while there. The Greek regarded her with an immovable expression for several moments, playing her words again in his mind.

A rough laugh sounded from the auburn wolf’s lips. The misthofóros did not appear shy when regarding the mishap that the pale woman had endured. Sounds to me, your visit was apotychía, Arsenio remarked in a much too cocky voice. The russet shape drew a few paces closer to eye the wound she nursed.

"I don't speak your native tongue, good sir." Nyra rumbled in response, hackles stiffening along her spine. Though she could guess at what he meant, it was only an assumption.
"Though by my assumption of what you mean, yes. It went about as well as it looks." She shrugged her injured shoulder to further the point. "Bet the fucker I tried to kill and his lackey looks worse though." She huffed cruelly, unaware that Maggie was at the doorstep of death.

The pale woman was quick to state that she did not speak Greek. Arsenio drew his head back slightly at this, displeased that he could not share the words of his native tongue with another warrior, another wolf of the fang. The cold colors of his gaze regarded her wound carefully, for only a moment longer, before Arsenio stepped forward.

Was it a good fight, at least?

This was asked in a heavy accent, but in the common tongue. The misthofóros wanted to know if there was a promise of talented fighters in the area. The stiffness in his limbs looked  more like an eagerness to show his strength.

As the auburn man came closer, Nyra tried to force her hackles to stay flat. He wasn't a threat just yet. But at the same time, he was. 

But, wasn't everyone? 

"It was an unfair one. I was outnumbered quickly." She growled at this fact, but her keen gaze noted his want.
"If you're ever interested, my pack is one of warriors. Currently we are small, and with children, but the Saints are open to new recruits." Nyra offered, swaying her tail a couple times.

Outnumbered to the white wolf meant an unfair situation. Had she not been the one who entered another’s terrain? Arsenio mulled this in his mind like a tall glass of wine, swirling the thoughts around until he was satisfied with the content. The woman did not strike him as the type of wolf to weigh her actions. He had only met her, but her responses to him had been sharp and arrived with the flash of her fangs.

Ah, a pack.

Arsenio nodded his head in understanding, as though he could comprehend the idea of a group banding together to serve each other. It was different for the Greek wolf. I am misthofóros, Arsenio stated to her with a shrug of his shoulders. When he recalled that she would not understand Greek, he frowned.

Mercenary. I fight for pay. I fight for whoever wishes to hire my fangs.

Nyra watched the Greek man as he mulled over her words. 
Eventually, a response. 

"I see." She purled with understanding. 
At the moment she could not think of any payment to hire such a creature. She herself was a shieldmaiden, a wardog in her own right. But she fought for different reasons. 
"It's been a pleasure. But I must go home now, safe travels to you." Nyra said, intent to sum up their conversation here. The Grandmaster turned then, heading for the mountains unless the autumn man had more to say.

The pale wolf seemed to understand, but she did not appear to have any desire to hire his fangs for her cause. The misthofóros was not perturbed at all by this. Arsenio knew better than to force his skills on those who did not have the resources to return his efforts. If the woman was a warrior herself, he did not doubt that she would find her own ways to resolve her problems.

As she left, Arsenio barked a farewell to her. The auburn wolf wondered only momentarily if he might cross paths with her again. Perhaps he would find her after her war had been settled and they could spar against each other.

Pointing himself eastward, Arsenio prowled from their meeting place and into the unknown.