Silvertip Mountain Daybreak

The man gave a start, and Nanook skittered back so that her rock formed a barrier between them. Her heart raced in her chest and heat spiked her skin. She had noticed the look of surprise on his face, and his reaction had startled her just the same. Yet she had seen no anger in his face, and curiosity won over her caution. She pressed herself against the rock, careful still in her advance, and slide forward to poke her head back out just far enough to catch him in sight, to look him over as he did to her.

He had calmed some, and at his inquiry she shook her head no, but it seemed he already knew the answer. Nanook shifted her gaze to follow his, and for the first time saw the source of the voice she'd heard - a slender girl, petite and angular, descending from the rocks to join the man in the flower patch. There was another with them now, a ruddy woman, and Nanook drank in the scents of them all, at least what she could fish out from between the wafts sweet perfume.

They seemed content to mingle with each other with playful words, which Nanook didn't mind. The company was much more than she was used to, and the Apaata found comfort merely watching their interaction and the dynamics that played between them. But her spectatorship did not last long, and in moments all three had turned their attention to her. Nanook's ears slicked to her skull at the sudden spotlight, but she resisted the urge to scurry away. Rather, she fixed herself to the ground and returned their welcome with a slight tip of her head, mirroring them albeit stiffer than they. "I'm - " Nanook nearly rolled off her tongue, and she stopped herself, hesitating before she finished in her ever soft voice, " - Polaris." Ezekiel. Reiko. Anita. She made note of the others' scents and matched their names respectively, keen to commit her packmates to memory.