Journey

Ptarmigan is supposed to be in the Great Bear Wilderness but gonna just... Teleport her here despite timelines because I've missed threading with you...!

She had covered miles and miles since leaving the side of her friend Red of the Sunspire pack. The war zone was left behind without incident. She hadn't even realized that the packs in the area were at odds with one another. She might have counted her lucky stars if she knew she had avoided putting her lot in with wolves whose drama could flood Jersey Shore by refusing Red's offer.

Her feet took her northward, to the very edge of her known map of the region and further still. She skirted around the wetlands, remembering with a sour taste her encounter there with Magpie and the hours it had taken her to find her way out. She had no desire ever to return to that place. Beyond the wetlands were open fields broken by forest spires, and beyond those, the grand caps of even more mountains.

A proficient traveller would have noticed that the Teekon Wilds existed as alternating bands of mountain and valley. The fact didn't go missed by Ptarmigan, though admittedly, the Endore didn't care enough to really think about it. She suspected that beyond these northern mountains was another valley, and then even more mountains. Maybe the entire world went on and on like that, a quilt of mountains and valleys with rivers for seams.

The thought that she might leave the Wilds behind forever, without even bothering to inform Viggo (whose handsome figure crossed her mind suddenly), didn't have time to manifest. Her eyes fell upon a red female at the riverside. For a brief instant, Ptarmigan mistook her for the wolf who had chased her when she fled the duck lake several weeks prior, and her hackles lifted uncomfortably... But the slow padding that brought her nearer soon brought her close enough to see the size difference. Tuwawi was much taller than herself.

“You leaving too?” she wondered, now doubting whether or not she would eventually turn back and return to the wolf-ruled Wilds.