Ocean's Breath Plateau until his feet bleed and

she smiles him in a teasing manner that ultimately ends up vexing the tundrian further. he hates being talked down to in any aspect, and intentional or not that was exactly how he'd taken her words. the maned soturi bristles ever-so-slightly; a pin-prickle of annoyance that displays physically at the hackles along his spine. "i've had my fair share of different leaders to know what i look for and what i avoid like the plague." and in all honesty, there wasn't one that had won him over ...obviously, because he still roamed as a lone wolf. he always found himself back in this situation, in the end. ghosting and abandoning the pack to forge his own path, yet never quite able to break past the barrier that keeps him from making the steps necessary to get to that path. it left him frustrated, but ultimately with the consideration that perhaps it's the knowledge that he knows he's not ready to lead. what good is a leader without experience, after all? there's too many high stakes, too many chances that he'll slip and mess up. he wouldn't follow an inexperienced leader who was content to fumble his way through leading a pack, either.

it takes him a slow moment to realize his companion had started to speak once more, and, naturally, she criticizes his idea. it does not come unexpectedly to wintersbane. he'd already deduced she was highly opinionated and would have something to say about it. "maybe it's precarious, maybe it's not. won't know until it's put past the theory stage." he holds onto the belief that if it was tried and then failed ...at least it'd been tried. writing it off as an idealistic fantasy without even trying it was shortsighted, in wintersbane's general opinion.

"imagine that." the tundrian replies coyly, his lips tugging into a slow smirk. "the cat and the canary agreeing." he makes a soft 'huh' noise in his throat to teasingly enunciate the oddity of it given their disposition to disagree with one another despite that they were, essentially, still very much strangers despite that the banter comes easily ( at least, it feels like it comes easy to winterbane anyway ) as if they'd known one another their whole lives instead of a whole ...handful of minutes.