Moonspear mighty lonely on my own in the city

Tehama hadn't anticipated how her howl would suddenly seem such a brash and foolish thing in her mind, or set what felt like a flock of birds to flapping their wings within her chest.  She had never before had to stand upon someone's metaphorical stoop and knock, awaiting answer.  Their flight from Mount Mirror to Thousand Rivers had been led by her mother, and the calamitous shifting and rumbling of the earth and Mount Mirror belching toxic fumes and ash had heralded their arrival long before the pack's refugees would have announced themselves.  But this was not a pack leaning on the goodwill of their allies in a time of need.  Te was but one wolf, and a small and increasingly thin one at that; she had skills to offer, but she wouldn't be surprised if a pack facing down the coming winter would turn away a loner like herself long before she ever got a chance to prove she was worthwhile.  All of these considerations, anxiety coursing through her veins, left the woman sinking lower in posture, her ears flecking back, tail dipping, some time before any pack wolf had arrived.

Soon enough, however, another did came.  Whereas Tehama was a pale tawny with silver and charcoal dusted across her face and upper half, this wolf was cast in greyscale.  Te saw a hint of green eyes as the other approached through the trees.  She didn't gaze directly at the pack wolf for long, casting her pallid gaze appropriately down to soil and leaf debris, but a flare of her nostrils brought in the other's scent, female and with a number of other co-mingling scentmarkers and odors that the younger woman couldn't recognize individually but knew collectively as the pack scent that demarcated the nearby borders.

"...Moonspear."  The female, Keres, put a name to the pack and to the place, and Tehama mentally clung to it, savoring the strong shape of it. Perhaps its alliterative quality with her own Mount Mirror made her even fonder of the jagged name moreso than she might otherwise have been.  Before the silver-dusted lady could identify herself in return, a third wolf approached, a dark tawny foil to the silver females.  In her peripheral vision, Te saw the motions of a friendly greeting between the two pack wolves, and registered a bit of a smile on his features.  He was younger than either of the women, if appearances were anything to go by.  He, too, held the distinct scent of Moonspear.  Unlike his packmate, he didn't share his name.

A bit daunted by a larger welcome committee than she had anticipated, but not dissuaded, Tehama took a deep and steadying breath before introducing herself.  "I am Tehama.  Te, for short."  She allowed a low wag of her tail, an earnest and eager expression, not one of challenge or assertion.  "I am looking for somewhere to winter over, or stay longer if it's agreeable.  The mountain, Moonspear," the name on her tongue was satisfying, "It called to me."  The woman nudged forward the quail she had brought.  They provided a convenient place to look that was not at either of her two greeters. Gathered over the past few days, the lady was an adequate hunter but nothing overly impressive.  Still, they represented three days that she herself had elected not to eat of the fruit of her labor, carefully storing them for just this moment.  "I'd not call it a bribe.  More of an offering."  Te hoped that the faintest quirk of her own lips would not be considered out of line by either of the pack wolves. "For the leaders, or for the pack's caches."