Kintla Flatlands my travel

@Mordecai Sorry for the wait I just realized the tag didn't work the first time...

Star had deceided to venture even further, outside of the Valley or the mountain range. She had crossed the mountain the day before. She was now in neutral territory in the Flatlands. She didn't know where. She figured that maybe she could be a traveller, but thought better of it. She was a pack wolf. She needed to stay near Swiftcurrent Creek.
She laid down in some grass under a group of trees. It was a pretty Autumn day and she would not afford to miss it. She admired the way the light shone upon the forest, making it glow with seeming magic. She sighed and her eyes lazily followed a falling leaf.

Haha, no worries! Sometimes the tags are really fickle. I fight with 'em all the time. Thanks for starting, too. :)

The flatlands, while flat, were not devoid of some forestry. Mordecai had seen them from higher viewpoints (namely Silvertip) time and time again, noting the way they had jut from the earth like tiny blips on a radar. But up close and personal, those little patches of forestry were much larger than he realized. Like natural windbreaks on a barren plain, he found that they were numerous, and unevenly scattered. Perhaps decades after his lifetime would cease to exist, the flatlands would be less plain and more forestry than anything. And perhaps, they wouldn't be either of those things.

But the tawny Ostrega did not linger in thoughts like that, let alone have them very often. His mind wandered, but rather sprawling out across the present moment. Another day had brought him a few steps further away from the Spine, but it was nothing that he couldn't have pushed himself to get back to before darkness set in. As he wove his way through yet another interesting copse of trees, there was a flash of white midst the autumnal carpet. The forest obscured what it belonged to, but the association was determined swiftly as he nosily rounded past a few more of the thin trunks. Chuffing to her lowly, Mordecai lingered just beyond where she lied, curious as to what she was looking after.

“See something interesting out there?”

She looked up at the wolf, and felt kinda stupid for laying around watching leaves fall. "A leaf.." She said, but it was quiet and so she spoke up. "I was watching a falling leaf." Lazily watching leaves fall was not a very Star-like thing to do. She was the brave active one, not the one who would usually be laying around watching leaves. The scent of other wolves drifted off of him, she noticed. She wondered where he was from, and, if a pack, which one.

She seemed young, but Mordecai wasn't entirely sure if that was her age or simply her size. From where he stood, and from the moment she had turned her head to look at him, it became clear that she was a petite creature. He smiled kindly at what she said, turning his attention to the canopy above them and the various hues of the leaves that still clung to their twigs and branches.

“You ever try catching them? Sometimes they're tasty,” he said, giving his lips a lick. Nothing fell directly overhead, but Mordecai was willing to give one chase if the moment came. “What's your name? I'm Mordecai,” he queried her again, tensing as a gentle tug of the wind plucked a leaf from the trees. He sprung, but missed his mark altogether. With a snap of his jaws together, the leaf evaded him swiftly.

Mordecai did not care, not really. A light-hearted sense had come to him, out here.

"Er- Nope..." She said. Well, actually, she might of when she was little, but she couldn't remember. She didn't care about her past much anyway. "I'm Star- Nice to meet you, Mordecai." She said. She giggled a little when he jumped towards a falling leaf. This was odd, she rarely laughed, let alone smiled. Mostly because no one ever really joked or was funny around her.

With his success at capturing leaves a resounding failure, Mordecai was at least entertained with the fact that he was being entertaining. The break from the tedious, emotional pallor that had engulfed him as of late was a refreshment. Like an old shoe, the behavior fit. It was like a spark of inspiration, one of which had eluded him for many weeks. Whatever the reason, he allowed it to be coaxed out by her laughter, and his smile grew genuinely.

“I used to be better at this, I assure you.” She seemed nice enough, if first impressions were anything of a guess to true nature. He liked to believe they were, anyway. “Do you live around here? I don't come out this way much any more, but I can't say I've seen too many wolves through these parts.” Poising himself for another leaf-catching attempt, he tried to split his attentions evenly between Star and the shedding trees.

last post for me tonight! I'll post again later.

"I come from Swiftcurrent. A little over that mountain range." She pointed with her muzzle towards the mountain, which could be seen as a purpleish rise in the sky. It could seem a ways, even to those who left their home a lot. "Are you from something near here?" She asked, and thought back to his scent that suggested a pack.

Hope you have a good night! :D

His expression twitched, however imperceptibly, at the fact that she came from a pack. A pack in which Mordecai had never heard of in all honesty. Though he had been living in the Wilds for more than just a handful of weeks — months, seasons now, really — he had yet to collect information about everything that compassed their collective region. A region in which unknowingly had grown and grown in the time he had first found his way into it. He gave no glance yet to the mountain range she tried to indicate beyond them, as another leaf had begun a graceful descent towards the ground.

Mordecai sprang again, extending himself further than the last bout. This time, his attempt was met with rough success; he seized the leaf, but bit his tongue as well. But the pain was secondary to the response to tear apart the leathery-feel of the leaf, which he promptly did. In this action, as he continued to proceed to eat the leaf, he eyed Star curiously. Her question, right. “I do, but like you it's also a bit of a jog. My pack lays claim to a nestled valley to the southwest. What brought you out here, so far away from your home?” There were no qualms in his implication of rank, though he would not have been surprised if she rebuked his query because of it. The Spine belonged to him as far as he was concerned, and Swiftcurrent's affairs were none of his business.

She watched as he actually managed to eat one of these falling leaves. "I have been exploring, both for the sake of knowing what lies around me as well as for perhaps earning a trade, outrider." She said. "So.." She said awkwardly. She'd never been great at socializing with her pack-mates, even less wolves who she'd just met.

He wasn't surprised to learn that she was out there exploring. Even working towards a trade. It seemed to be a casual theme with wolves everywhere. Within packs, they worked steadily towards milestones and goals. They built their lives around things, supported their homes and at times, even revolted against them. On the grand scheme of things, Mordecai could have said that he was very impressed with the way the world around him worked. It was fascinating, much in the way each of their individual stories could have been. But it seemed that she was also at a loss for words, unlike him.

“Well, you don't seem to be getting much in the way of exploring done by lying there,” and in truth, maybe it even seemed a little snide of him to comment on that. “But at least you picked a nice place for a break.” His smile remained, and in a way he hoped he wasn't bothering her with his company if in fact she was trying to catch a break. For him, it was turning into a chance to gather his own information. He knew so very little of Swiftcurrent's existence to begin with.

“Has the Creek been doing well so far?”

"Haha, not really... I'm just kinda sleep-deprived..." Some nights now she would stay up a bit later than usual, exercising as she always did. "We are doing well." The truth was, recently the creek had lost many valuable experienced members. But she couldn't give away important information. "Our alpha is Scimitar. He is doing fine also." She said, although she didn't know this for sure. But if he was an alpha who would soon be parent to pups, surely this was a good position for the alpha. Currently Star was a little frustrated that he'd swiped his fangs across her muzzle. Yes, she'd growled, burt she was very passionate towards the homeland of hers. Why leave behind the Creek and all its memories, even if they were not all good ones?

Mordecai understood sleep deprivation. It had happened to him more than once, though not so much as of recently. Whatever the reason, whether it was the return of his confidence or a sense of purpose, he found that he slept soundly. It was better than the alternative by all accounts. But he chose not to comment on it, only nodded sympathetically at the notion. It simply happened to some, for whatever the reason. His had stemmed out of stress, which while there was still plenty of that to be found, he had discovered his ways of keeping it down.

And while Star did not go spewing the Creek's business, he still gathered information that was important to him. Whoever Scimitar was, he seemed to be holding his pack together. That on its own was more valuable to him than whether or not the pack was on the verge of collapsing, though that tidbit would have been interesting — if it had been. “That's good to know. With winter coming, it would be a shame if anyone out there was faltering. I suppose, anyway. I'm sure there are those who would rather see a neighboring pack go to pieces.” And how he felt about that, well, he hadn't decided. The Spine did have its neighbors, but like the Creek, his knowledge of them only went so far.

She nodded. "I don't like destructive packs." Or wolves, she thought and an image of her own father appeared in her mind. She told herself to forget about him, and instead remember happy times with Moon and Peak, her sister and best friend. "How is yours?" She asked. The truth was, she didn't really care much, rather it was common courtesy.

Chuckling, he merely offered up a rhetorical question to her comment. “Does anyone?” Mordecai shared the same notion, as he cared little for destructive packs himself. But they existed, the proverbial evil to all their good in the world. In a way, it was how he supposed the Spine had acquired wolves like Sitri. Not because the scarred wolf was an evil creature, but rather than he had been borne of an evil place. Mordecai had never pressed him for his history, and more than likely never would. What was done was done, and better left alone.

“We're doing well enough. Keeping busy and the like. Getting in our last minute exploring, hunting, and so on before the snows. Have you lived here long? Any idea what kind of winter we might be in for?” He gave away that his existence in the Wilds was not long, and Mordecai had no qualms about owning up to it. There were more transient wolves in the Wilds than natives, when it came down to it. In time, if they remained, no doubt they too would have earned their titles as natives. But the region was large and cumbersome, or so he had come to gather.

"That's good. Nope, only a few months. This'll be my first Winter in the Wilds. But I think it'll snow a lot. I hope." She said. She had seen snow a few times her first winter. She loved it, and it reminded her of her pure flawless white fur. It was fluffy, white, soft and cool. A lot like her fur. She blended in perfect with the stuff, unlike brightly colored wolves who were at a disadvantage during the cold season of snow. Although, Star did have the disadvantage in the summertime.

As if to prove this thoughts right, she too was not a native of the wilderness they found themselves in. Inwardly, he was entertained with the possibility that perhaps none of them were true natives, but it seemed unlikely that there wasn't someone out there that had at least gone through a winter. With all that had amassed there since his arrival, and with the way that he understood packs cropped up, the Wilds had something about that that had drawn so many in. After all, it had been there in which Mordecai had found family he had not seen in years, even if they were all currently scattered to the four winds.

Briefly, he considered as she spoke what would come of Viggo in the weeks to come. But the thought and the negative feelings associated with it were swift to pass at the mention of snow. “You want a lot of snow? Why's that? Did you come from the North?” She piqued his curiosity once again, even in light of her handling of their conversation. A lot of snow would have been interesting to move about in, but too much would have surely been overkill on them all. He had been born well after the stories of Fimbulvetr in the Salvaje and Neve, but Mordecai had been told the stories time and time again of the harsh winter that had come. The fact that his family had survived it, along with others, had been impressive by any accounts.

last post tonight for me!

"I love snow. And yes, my birthplace was a bit more north of here, about a month's travel." Star said. She looked at the sky could nearly imagine the leaves as flakes of snow falling to the ground, piling up to make mounds and mounds of it. She could see herself and Moon playing in it, Moon a bit more visible because of her dark freckles splattered on her muzzle. They, in Star's mind, dove into the snow and flakes fell to their faces and clung there.

*coaxes internet to work*

With that, Mordecai decided that she must have come from somewhere pretty far to the north. They could cover quite a bit of ground in a month's time, especially if there was more traveling than actual sight-seeing. He made a noise in response, a cross between surprise and interest. But given the luminosity of her own coat compared to his, it really should have been a no-brainer than she had come from colder climates. It wasn't every day that he saw the coats belonging to the creatures of the north, but there were certainly more than just a few within the Wilds.

In essence, it was fair for him to decide that the climate there must have catered to them all. It would not matter if they were dark or light, though climate was hardly the sole determining fact in what them look they way they did. “I came from somewhere a lot warmer than here. Not too much, except for in the summer. We still had some snow in the winter. Did it snow there often?” He had crude concepts of what the north should have been. His father stated that they were cold, but his mother had always told him that in spite of that cold, they were not fully encased in snow most of the year. Tundras, was that was she had called them?

It was no surprise that he'd come from a warmer place. With his fur, Winter would've difficult, at least where Star was from. "Oh yes. From late Autumn to Early Spring, and all through Winter. It's very cold and deep, but a lovely sight to see snow undisturbed. It's all perfect." She said. It was all smooth on the surface, when not a single foot had touched it, nor a single leaf had fallen.

She had ran out and ruined it once, she had also fallen deep in the snow. She was stuck two or three feet deep in snow till one of Peak's parents came along and picked her out, telling her to be more careful. Star had nodded with wide, nervous eyes, shivering with bits of snow stuck on his fur. Of course, you couldn't tell, with fur as white as hers.

So in other words, it snowed there most of the year. Or at least a minimum of half of it, from what he could figure. Mordecai could picture it, if only for a moment, but inwardly shook the thought away. Surviving there would certainly be a challenge, if he had ever decided to go that far north. As it was, he had already come quite a ways to the north from his origins, where his family had decided to go south. Inevitably, they had started to trickle back, if Viggo and Verrine were ever anything to go by. Somewhere out there, he knew Chakra lived as well.

Though at her mention of it being perfect, Mordecai could not stop the question that came from his mouth. “Why'd you leave then?” As soon as that question had hit the open air however, he regretted the impulsive, intrustive query. His expressions shift into wordless apologies, conveying the notion that if she didn't want to say why, he would not take offence to it. Though if she did not take offence and answered it, he was still ready for her own reasons for going. Maybe she had left to seek her own claim, like so many others, or maybe wanderlust had scoop her up in the same way it had him.

She winced at the next question. See what happens, idiot. It leads to this. The other part of her brain snarled back at the mocking voice. Shut up! Star didn't really want to answer, but she didn't want to be rude. So she decided how she would put this in short, and told. "Well, I lived with my father and sister. My father was really mean and rude, so I ran away." She also regret telling a wolf she'd just met this. Even Bazi didn't know that. But Bazi never dares to ask you that question.

Her reply was concise, noting that he had touched a sensitive subject. On one hand, Mordecai cursed at the notion that he had encroached upon something better left to lay at rest, but the other it opened up more questions that left him wondering. Those questions would not come to light, not from him. It wasn't his place to know and frankly he could do without knowing. No mother in the picture, father that was less than pleasant. It was not the life he had lived and for that, he was thankful.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked,” he said, allowing his ears to fold back. “I guess my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes.” It had gotten him into deeper waters than he wanted to tread a time or two before, and this was one of those times he would have preferred to avoid. But either way, it seemed that Star had made the decision to get away from what had troubled her. That he felt was a good thing, even if it had been at the cost of being close to family. A necessary sacrifice, when he had taken one that was far from a necessity. Truth be told, Mordecai did not see himself returning to Sedona. The way back to there had been long lost, among other things.

"That's okay. But remember, curiosity killed the... wolf." She said, with a thin smile. Star was not extremely curious but did question things sometimes. If it went against logic or no reason was explained, especially. She didn't often get in other wolf's business, mostly 'cause she cared little for most wolf's problems or worries.

Luckily, it seemed as though she was at the very least forgiving about the query. Or at least if she weren't, then she was very good at hiding it. None the wiser, Mordecai chuckled at her remark about curiosity. It was an old adage told to him time and time again, but had never once deterred him from having that insatiable thirst to find out what lied just beyond the normal bounds of atypical creatures. If not for his curiosity, he would have never come as far as he had, and there were times when Mordecai pondered how much simpler it would have been to heed to the wishes of others and remain where his origins had began.

But this time, the thought was not entertained. “It's yet to be the death of me,” he commented, a smirk returning to his features. Death was out there for them all eventually, but even he had no idea when his time would come. That too was another thing that he did not think about. Not even the idea that her thin smile could have been a veiled threat crossed his mind. “Besides, if not for our curiosities, we wouldn't have met.” If that proverbial itch to wander hadn't invited itself in on that particular day, he doubted that he would have found himself beneath the varied, sparse canopies of the plains.

She chuckled at his first comment. Then when he said the second one, she thought for a moment. Well, it was actually true. If they hadn't both happening to feel like wondering right here today, she wouldn't of met him. She wouldn't need to meet him, but it was nice to have someone to 'hang out' with. "I suppose your right. What a coincidence." She commented.