Journey

No knowing where the North ends, Tuwawi said, and Ptarmigan agreed. The North was an enigma well beyond her understanding, birthing monsters from its icy womb that dared inhabit no other place on the wide world. Bears that towered above their southern cousins, huge eagles capable of lifting a fully grown mountain goat into the sky, and the largest seals the world had ever seen. These were but some of the fairy tales she'd heard that came out of the north, and every last one of them was true.

But she suspected the North proper began somewhere far from where the pair stood. The mountains were distant, but not so distant as the windswept tundras of legend. Her eyes followed the line of Tuwawi's gaze to the distant mountains and, upon the extension of an offer, she smiled. Often she forgot it, but the female had small crow lines at the corners of her eyes from several years of similar smiles, despite being a traveler almost by trade.

“Sure,” she easily acquiesced. Ptarmigan Endore was not terribly ambitious nor argumentative about her place in life, and saw no reason to question Tuwawi's assumed authority in this scouting mission. That wasn't to say she wouldn't seize an opportunity should one present itself—it was in her blood to do so, as all Endores had at one point or another—but for the time being, Tuwawi had the reins.

“Is it... Curiosity?” she guessed, tilting one slim ear toward her red companion as they started off again. Had she been a better observer, she might have noted the subtle curves of motherhood still apparent in the densely corded female's physique, having once had them herself, but she saw only the superficial. She could tell from looks that although Tuwawi was small like herself, the woman could probably throw a better punch, and was bulkier than the svelte southron Endore. “Or does some other desire draw you to them?” For once, she actually cared to know.

As an afterthought, she remembered the question and said, “Ptarmigan Endore. Yours...?”