Moonspear house hunting

Nose pressed to the ground, the tawny woman followed a narrow path towards sheer rock face.  The rocky, dusty earth was sparsely covered with dried brown grass interspersed with patchy snow, but here and there it was clear that other creatures had worn down a trail.  The criss-crossing scents of fox, lynx, and weasel might have given the wolf pause, if they were not so faded, made thus by long passage of time.  As it were, Tehama felt confident no competitive predators lurked here.

She was not, however, alone.  The shifting wind brought with it not just a biting chill, but the scent of another.  This deep into the heart of Moonspear, the Iota was not concerned of a trespasser, but aside from the familiar notes of the mountain pack's mark upon this stranger, Tehama was not yet acquainted with the scent or its bearer.  She lifted her head momentarily, and looked around with some interest, but between the overcast skies and constant movement of the ragged trees before her as they thrashed in the wind, she didn't see the dark-hued wolf whose presence was declared by sense of smell.

Unperturbed, and not knowing if the other wolf wanted to be noticed after all, Tehama returned to sniffing closer and closer to the cliffside.  Soon she found some relief from the harshest of the weather as she hugged against the rock face, with the sparse smattering of trees taking the worst of the wind's beating.  The remnants of lynx and fox scents intertwined but both seemed to lead toward a wide vertical crevass within the mountainside.  The tawny female neared, finding it was wide enough to accomodate her and perhaps another wolf if they entered abreast, and there was a smooth floor that would safely carry her further back into the cavern if she so desired.  The opening in the rock tapered high above her like a spire, finally narrowing to a mere crack in the rock roughly three wolflengths above her head.  This old densite had clearly been much-used and was littered with dessicated tree debris, feathers and fur from unfortunate prey animals, and the unpleasant but clearly quite old scent of dried scat.

Tehama flicked her ears back and looked around herself again, unsure now if the other wolf lingered close-by.  "I hope I'm not intruding on anyone's home," she said a bit loudly, pointedly.  One encounter with a porcupine would make anyone cautious.  But she wondered if this was a den already claimed, albeit by someone who didn't keep a tidy place.  The pale tawny female cast a long look over her shoulder, wondering about the stranger she hadn't spotted.