Greatwater Lake they'll nosh you up

Traveling always made his stomach funny — not sick, per se, but the idea of food after long days of walking was about as appealing to him as eating his own foot. Whim supposed it wasn't, strictly speaking, the most survival-oriented impulse his body had, as he certainly needed something to keep his energy up, and soon. But instead the large wolf sat on the edge of the lake, listlessly eying a couple of deer on the other side. His tail beat side to side against the ground as he watched them mill about; it would be all too easy to get one, he knew. He just couldn't be assed to move.

Yawning more than a little lazily, Whim arched his back in a stretch before walking his feet forward to let the pads of his paws brush the water, his eyes following the ripples as they spread out into the lake and then dissipated. Now laying on the ground, he huffed a sigh and rested his chin on his leg, still watching his should-be dinner grazing.

Whim hadn't traveled particularly long, he thought, and he wasn't feeling particularly weak, so it wasn't a dire circumstance — it was simply that he had a fairly easily won meal right before him and knew he was going to pass it up in favour of lazing about the lakeside. The sun was setting on the horizon, dipping just below the horizon like a giant egg yolk, zaftig and yellow, poised to burst against the jagged silhouette of mountains in the distance. As he watched the yolk of a sun burst, warm saffron leaking out and filling the crags around the clouds in the sky, and dripping further still on the landscape until his own fur was tipped in gold and the grass took on a bright, sickly hue in the half-light.

After her misadventure in the mountains, Koontz gave her venturesome side a rest and stuck close to home for nearly a week. She threw herself into her duties and felt more constructive and responsible than at any previous point in her life. She started to think that she would make a great Alpha, after all, and sooner than later. She wasn't particularly charismatic, but she was a workhorse and, slowly but surely, she was taking ownership of her role as a sub-leader and developing a real sense of what it might mean to be top dog.

But, at length, the routine grew tiresome, even tedious, and her silver paws itched once more. After making a circuit of the plateau, Koontz emerged from her pack's territory with a burst of energy and loped without stopping until she reached the shores of Greatwater Lake. She left around mid-afternoon and arrived there with only moments to spare before sundown.

Tongue lolling, Koontz strolled one bank while gazing at the deer milling at the far end of the lake. The light began to fail as the sun sunk down into its bedchamber to the west. Mindless of the darkling dusk, Koontz traipsed away from the lake's edge, located a small hillock with a great vantage point and flopped onto her haunches. She licked her lips, pale eyes still watching the deer even as the songs of cicadas, crickets and spring peepers rose up all around her like the swell of a tiny orchestra.

Eventually, the she-wolf took notice of the other wolf skulking around the lake and her ears pulled slightly backward. For a second, she though it was Teklar, but she caught a glimpse of dark green eyes and realized it was a stranger. She studied him from a distance, idly wondering why all white wolves seemed to be so huge. She considered calling out to him, but opted instead to keep her silence. If he noticed her and sought her out, she would speak to him, but Koontz simply didn't feel like initiating. Today, she was very much tapped into her introversion.

Whim seldom felt any deep-seated attachment to places. The area he'd been raised was nice enough, and he didn't tote around much — if any — emotional baggage from his upbringing. His family was nice enough, the area he'd grown up in was nice enough, he'd had nice enough friends. Still, he'd left home a year or so ago to see what there was to see — when he'd told his father of his desire to leave, he'd looked at Whim with no small amount of knowing, and told him that it was a trait his family seemed to share. The need to move. His grandfather, Whim had been told, traveled all over the place to finally find a home, and even then hadn't quite been able to affix himself to one place.

Whim didn't quite like the idea of that; he had it in his mind to settle at some point, but he never felt anchored. So he'd roamed a bit, sometimes with company, sometimes alone, and stayed with a pack here and there before departing. It wasn't easy for Whim to feel at home among strangers, either; his size paired with his proclivity for silence led to a frequent and common misperception of him as some kind of brute, when it simply wasn't true. Whim had grown up in a family full of happy-go-lucky extraverts who seemed to have storytelling wired into their DNA. Whim often found himself incapable of putting together a full sentence that didn't sound wretched, so he stayed quiet unless he needed to speak, and even then, often took a moment to decide what he was going to say.

When he spotted the other wolf not far off, he eyed her for a moment, but otherwise didn't move. He was new to the area — it was more than a good idea to talk to others who seemed to be local, to get an idea for the social geography in addition to the literal geography, but the idea of small talk was about as appealing to him as pulling his teeth out one by one.

After a few moments, Whim managed to convince himself to his feet, and stood with a yawn. He took his time in approaching the stranger — having no interest in rushing the interaction — and when he finally reached her, he looked down and to the side of her, too uncomfortable to properly smile or something more socially appealing.

"Do you live around here?" Whim said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. Then, "hi." Another pause followed his words, and his lips curled in a somewhat sad approximation of a sheepish smile as he lastly offered, "I meant to say the second one first."

Just as she made no effort to call attention to herself, Koontz likewise didn't try to hide. Eventually, the white wolf noticed her and, gradually—quite gradually—he made an approach. As he joined her on the small slope, Koontz felt an urge to rise to her feet but instead remained planted. She bobbed her head to acknowledge him, then waited for him to speak first.

When he did, bungling his greeting, she felt an instant sympathy for his inability to articulate smoothly. "Hi," she said in response, passively commiserating. "Yes, I live at Blacktail Deer Plateau, which is northwest of here. I help run a pack there: Dragonwatchers," she said simply, tail giving a single thump on the grassy earth. "I'm Koontz, the Beta. What about you?" she asked, the question simultaneously inviting a mutual introduction and querying about his own living arrangements.

Whim nodded as she imparted the information about her pack, glad to have confirmation that there was a pack nearby. It was good to meet the Beta as well, should he need more information or have a genuine interest in the future. He somewhat envied her apparently straightforward manner, as well. She was smaller than him, and almost entirely grey — fur and eyes — and there was a certain familiar something about her features, though he was certain he'd never met her before, and so immediately put the thought out of his mind.

"I'm," he paused, licking his lips as he sorted his words before continuing, "new to the area. Thinking of staying. Gathering information." He gave a little shrug, glancing away from her and looking around at their surroundings. It was a really lovely area, he thought, or perhaps that was merely the sunset lending everything its beauty. After a beat of looking away, though, his eyes snapped back to her and he bumbled through the rest of his introduction: "Also, Whimbrel. I mean — also, I'm called Whimbrel."

He spoke carefully, obviously thinking over each word before releasing it into the wild. Koontz often did the same, so the tiny spark of kinship grew into a small flicker. She favored him with a soft smile, keeping her eyes slightly averted to help relieve any sense of pressure. She saw his own gaze dart nervously as he spoke, its turquoise depths reflecting the umber sunset. His eyes reminded Koontz of sunsets over the sea back in Seahawk Valley—an ocean afire.

"Nice to meet you, Whimbrel," Koontz replied, showing no sign that she'd even noticed his verbal bumbling (verbumbling, she mused randomly). "Maybe I can help. What kind of information are you looking for? What would make you stay—or go?" she added, in case there was some decisive criteria that would make or break such a decision. "I've been here a few weeks now, so I can tell you everything I know about the park," she finished helpfully, lifting her haunches slightly off the ground and then resettling.

VERBUMBLING. I love it.

Whim nodded when she said it was nice to meet him, opening his mouth slightly with the intention of returning the favour but deciding it wasn't worth further proving himself a bumbling mess. Instead, he just stuck with the nod. When she asked him what information he was looking for, he lapsed into a temporary silence again, tilting his head slightly to the side and keeping his eyes somewhere between her paws and her chest, or otherwise on some indistinct point over her shoulder.

He didn't really have any specifics, and there wasn't anything in particular that would make him stay or go — evidently it wasn't a war-torn area, which was good, and she was the first local he'd met and she was friendly, so that was good too. But there wasn't especially anything that would make him stay; he operated off of feelings in that department. This area felt alright, but nothing special. Occasionally Whim would stumble upon a locale that just felt comfortable. But he couldn't very well ask her where her most comfortable territories were.

"Just sort of taking inventory," he said, pausing before quickly added, "if that makes sense. Your pack, it's not — not actually to do with dragons... I'd assume." There was no accounting for Koontz if she was completely mad, after all.

The silence that stretched between them might have felt awkward for someone more talkative, though Koontz didn't mind it. She did feel slightly bad for Whimbrel, as evidently her question had stumped him, at least momentarily. While he processed it and came up with an answer, she made a point not to look at him too directly, lest he feel pressured into blurting out some inane response. She almost said, Take your time, but decided that was a bit too patronizing.

Eventually, he provided a short, succinct answer. "It does," she assured him. "And, well," she continued, "we sort of have a theme going but we don't play host to any actual dragons, unfortunately." Her lips twitched. "The Alpha, Ariston, and I just founded the pack not too long ago, so it's still in its infant stages. We're discussing duties and the like, hoping to keep the spirit alive and all that." Koontz realized she was babbling, so she cut herself off with a quick smile.

Intuiting that the conversation might die a very awkward death if she didn't keep the momentum going from her end, Koontz asked, "What brings you to the park? I don't usually interrogate people about their pasts but I suppose it's interesting hearing a tale or two here and there." She was especially interested in the reason why someone like Whimbrel—someone even more introverted than herself—would go out on his own.