Qeya River LXIX

backdated to may 13 <3 tags for ref!

@Moon Runner was ill. 

some days ago, mountain boulder had left her in the care of @Redd and @New Snow and @Saturdays Sunrise; he continued from the moraine and the coyotes and went on to the new place on the river.

a needful howl rose.

leaf. healing.

redtail called to qeya. would they answer? and would moon runner still live while he was away? anxieties spiked along the father's hide.

a man sat at qeya river's doorstep.
wren was the one to answer, weaving through the dark of the evergreens only to burst out at the northern border. permafrost glistened here, and the leader's breath came out in long spirals of steam.
she did not recognize this one, but he smells of mountain pine. she studies him with a suspicious glare before she speaks. who are you, and why are you here?

one of ours is ill, he tried to say, a series of whines and broad paws upon the earth. 

redtail! they were known to one another.

his tail waved, ears pinned; eyes turned back.

i need help.

carefully mountain boulder lowered, offering to inch forward and show the woman what scent of moon runner he carried.

while the silence was at first unnerving and perhaps irritating, wren did not send him away just yet. he bows to her, and the frantic, high-pitched whines ring in her ears; a man would not have stumbled onto her turf just to perform such a display without reason, and so she lingers, tries her best to decipher what it is that brought him here.
she shuffles forward with her own display, teeth jutting out just slightly from between raised lips, posture stiff and tall as if she were carved from the ice that surrounded her home. she chuffs as if to accept his submission, his wildness.
he invites her close and she accepts this, pressing her nose unabashedly into the silver-caped ruff of his neck. there is only one place he could have come from, she realizes; the rise.
she had thought them to be much tougher than this. this must be urgent, then, she decides.
pulling back, the prima meets his gaze with a newfound softness to her typically sour face. what do you need? lead me there, and i'll call my wife.

there was understanding, then questioning.

upon her own pelt was the scent of young; in their direction did mountian boulder snuffle now, appealing to the maternal instinct which lived now beneath her own skin.

a young one.

his eyes were filled with pleading. he moved away and then looked back, asking that the riverwolf follow.