Altar of Twilight got a hardwired metal soul

Tehama slipped past Moonspear's southern border in the early night.  She'd lingered through the late afternoon and into evening in hopes of seeing @Desdemona's tall, dark form come sweeping through the trees, but to no avail.  The borders were long and there was no telling what task might have kept the other woman occupied.  Still, the pale tawny lady had no interest in returning to the upper reaches of Moonspear while the night was still young.  Although bitterly cold, the night was clearer than the typical cloudy weather they'd been having, and the moon and stars peeked enticingly through thin, high clouds.  The woman had slept late into the morning, and with much pent up energy, she supposed she'd go for a brisk, energizing run beneath the night sky.

The overcast skies had previously hidden the alluring beauty of this part of the mountain range.  Sheer grey rock cliffs shone with ethereal moonlight, down upon a small valley, lightly wooded.  A dusting of lingering snowfall rested gently on many boughs, and as Tehama's rolling lope brought her brushing against the underbrush, she too was soon bejeweled with bits of snow, leaving her gleaming, glittering in the moonlight where it fell in dappled patterns upon the woodland floor.  The petite woman rarely thought of herself as anything particularly special or attractive, but she seemed made of winter itself as she leapt lightly over a fallen sapling and slowed her pace to cross a pair of flat rocks between which a small creek sluggishly ran, ice clotting its trickle in places where the sunlight wouldn't reach in the daytime, and moonlight wouldn't warm at night.  

So focused was Tehama on keeping up a brisk pace, and so secure had she felt within Moonspear's stronghold and with Firefly Glen a buffer at the mountain's base, she nearly ran straight into a creature like shadow in the moonlight.  Only the large shape, a dark mass seeming like solid night where the celestial glow couldn't penetrate, caused her to do a doubletake and alter her course to avoid a full-on collision.  All at once Tehama did several things, spurred by instinct alone.  Her petite form took on a defensive posture, crouched and prepared to spring forth for either defense or escape.  The darker fur along her spine, still gleaming with snow, stiffened.  Her silver gaze narrowed as she found the other's orange eyes in the near-black of his features in the night.  The Moonspearian's nostrils flared as she assessed he was wolf and not bear, male and not female, decidedly not belonging to Moonspear or Firefly Glen.

Tehama silently cursed herself for her foolishness, the false sense of security.  What had she been doing, frolicking? She'd been too long coddled within her mountain home.  She recalled Hydra's words, the talk of strangers near their borders, a child missing and blessedly returned to them, and tried to channel Desdemona's stoicism and cool collectedness.  "Who are you, and why are you so close to claimed lands?"  Her attempt at imperiousness might have fallen short, but the growled question remained in the cold night air between them, her tone insisting on an answer.  They were near enough to Moonspear's border for the question to be asked, but Tehama was also reacting from surprise and fear at being caught so unaware by a stranger.