Herbalists' Cache but it seems like a thousand years

He has spent the last week traveling in the eastern valley then northward from there. Now, satisfied enough with his findings and distance covered, he finds a path winding back towards the Sunspire's range -- his unofficial base for as long as he remembered how to get back. Despite the weight of weariness on his bones, and a tickle of hunger beginning to remind him when his last meal was, he feels like it was for the best. His head felt marginally clearer and the satisfaction of some task vaguely completed was a welcome change. Now, he was almost ready to report back to Cicero with what he learned.

His path presses gently into the unassuming forest and his nostrils flare at the scents of new blooms of many kinds. Familiarity rings quietly in the back of his thoughts, and he breathes deep. He keeps moving deeper into the woodlot but it is with a slower, more appreciative pace. It is not a place he has been before, but the looming proximity of the Sunspire helps him feel more at ease as well.

Inari has no need of such resources right now, not when a meal sounds far better, but even a relatively inexperienced herbalist (with a bad memory to boot) could see the worth of a place like this. He will do well to remember this, he thinks.

Warbone had picked the quiet grove of Hushed Willows to settle, not only for its subtle entrapment on each side by all manner of unpleasant terrain, but also because of its proximity to a staggering wealth of herbal remedies in the nearby area called the Cache. The wolf himself had little to no knowledge of these plants and their uses, but he could smell their worth, and over time he figured he would come to know just what they cost in these lands. He was meandering, more than anything, holding in his chest the grand scheme of his life and where he wanted it to go, when a splash of white against the drab earth of the background caught the male's eye.

It was another male, and by the scent of him, untied to any pack he had crossed before— or any to speak of for that matter. Seeing an opportunity to recruit for his own numbers, Warbone approached with an attention-catching bark, and a tempered walk that displayed no ill-will towards the stranger. Before he spoke, he searched for a reaction to his presence: violent or otherwise.

His nose is contentedly overworking and soon suspicion sparks a rush of worry. He may be distracted by the scents of new growth, but too paranoid to ever feel entirely unguarded. Inari's paws slow with hesitance and in that breath, he sees the broad male's approach as it comes right for him. His ears fan back immediately at the sound of the stranger's bark and his head sinks down defensively over his neck, although this motion is slower. I am wary everything about him says, but he does not outright flee or posture otherwise since the wolf gives him no reason to do so. He aims to exude neutrality, with vague enough curiosity to keep him here to see this out as he watches the other with narrowed eyes.

For a greeting, Inari chuffs softly, although it's only a note above a sigh. He doesn't recognize the scents on him very well, either, so he had no clue as to why he'd singled him out -- unless he had unknowingly traipsed into his business here (considering the worth of this place to the right individual), which was a realization that came with the dread creeping up on him now.

The male responded physically to Warbone's natural presence, sinking slightly to convey an indecision in his desire to either fight or flight, and he remained instead in the interested middle ground that sometimes the lonely took up. For even without meaning to, the sweeping Solothurn commands respect from the creatures around him, even if it is just an inkling of it, and the white wolf, younger and fine-faced, is cautiously reserved in his presence. He can feel his heart beating discordantly, a grand thudding that nags at his attention but is unable to draw it fully from the argent creature before him. Neither seemed to seek a fight here, and Warbone felt starkly baited by the resplendent male; his ears turned forward sharply at the soft noise he made, feeling the sound somewhere in the deep cavity of his chest. 

He came forward, quite slowly in the last few feet, so that he might gauge the male's reception of him. He hovered his muzzle tenderly near the other's face and ruff, being heedful of any movement that might prove ill to his own countenance. Swiping his tongue over the front of his lips and nostrils, his tail swings back and forth contemplatively, and he holds as everything seems to move in slow motion in that everlasting moment.

Warbone would disperse the spot should the male no longer prove benign, but if he remained content to acquiesce, then he would offer himself too to be freely explored.

Solitude has rubbed him raw. He's uncomfortable by default anyway, and enough bad encounters with the wrong personalities have left him with very little to give back in these days. He is carefully watchful as the large wolf moves in on him, fighting intently against the urge to raise a ridge of nervous hackles. It only manages to manifest as a silvered little ripple of his furs as he lowers his neck a bit more and tucks his tail closer to him. Mostly, he just wants to be able to survive.

The approach speaks of no aggression, so Inari begins a shift towards curiosity now that his worries can rest some -- if only for the moment while he is seemingly investigated. He is stark still and lets this happen, for he feels this is not a current he is wise to fight against.

When he has the chance, he whips his tongue out and licks the underside of the agouti wolf's chin. It's quick, terribly fleeting, but his defensive submission is clear as he points his muzzle away, but eyeballs the stranger with a sideways look while his nostrils flare. Inari does not know these scents he wears and they tickle his nose in a odd way.

He only wants to know why he's been chosen for a greater look like this, or why the male is here. Inari knows he presents just as he is -- a lonesome wandering wolf, vaguely lost, and purposeless. He means no harm to anyone. Why.

As the featherlight touch of the male's tongue graced Warbone's dignified chin, he was struck suddenly by a ravenous compulsion to touch him. And as he was not one to implore self-control where it was not wanted, he pressed forward slightly, his chest brushing the guarding hairs of the male's shoulder, and his nose pressed inquisitively along the cinnamon arc of fur just behind his shoulders. Snorting at the intensified scent of the wanderer, the stimulated wolf pranced backwards several steps, his tail revolving back and forth in contented wags. He ignored a sentiment for the silverstone wolf that he could not identify, and asked instead:

"Do you know much of this place?" He listened intently for an answer, but quickly stated thereafter: "I must know why you are alone."

His ears splay and the investigation he is subject to deepens to touch, which he receives just as silent as before. He moves to deeper breath of scent from the stranger being in this close, but every move of his is subtle and careful, down to the flare of his nostrils. Inari does not reach out much himself, and lets the wolf get what he seeks in the ruff of his furs -- or so he hopes. He's caught up in following his moves, curious and intent as the sensation of unfamiliarity reigns as it so often does for him.

"Only enough to know of its worth," he shakes his head gently, anyone with a nose half as good as his could discern this. His relationship with this swatch of landscape is fresh and he knows so very little of its depths. He's.. liking it so far, though, even if it is reminding him of something he cannot seem to recall in full.

But why is he alone? He is unsure and glances away, nervously licking his lips although he musters some hesitant tail-switches at the sight of the other's open waves. "I was looking for something. It is easier for me.. to travel alone," he justifies himself.

A quest then, kept this male without company, and Warbone found the answer appropriately encompassing. He felt a magnetism towards the silver wolf, but could understand his personal necessity for detachment— he could not help the disappointment he was forced to swallow in the face of some hidden yearning. It was a peculiar amazement, like finding your first Legendary Pokémon. Intellect dictated that he change tactic then. If he could not possess this creature, and condemn him to be near, then he could attempt to at least capture what sating spirit the wraith was willing to leave in his wake.

Warbone was quiet for a long moment, and then he openly admitted: "As I look at you, I find myself burdened with an inability to know exactly how I wish to... present myself to you." Cautiously he sought the male's sleek face, as if trying to find something he was hiding there. "Curious," he said, only commenting on the strangeness of his own predicament; "if only because I am unuse to my own..." He searched for the word: "Incompetency."

He blinks slowly, digesting the feelings this formidable stranger inspired and the words he spun after. Even his pauses seem to carry a meaning to Inari, although he cannot quite decipher it in full. Not here at first glance, anyway. The wolf even admitted his own unknowns, and to that, the loner has nothing but silence to give in response.

Curious, indeed.

Inari delicately shook his head and looks away after. "I apologize," he chuffs gently and splays his ears. He does not mean to make this impressive wolf wish to.. present anything to him, a drifter of no status or fortunes. He is not sure how he's done that or what he is meant to do with that sort of information now that he has it.

Above all, the loner is unsure how to feel, and confused as to why somewhat flattered seems to be among his main set of reactions -- no matter how incorrect that may seem courtesy the foreignness of so many things. "It is truly not my intent to cause any.. troubles," he says and sweeps a glance back across the male's chest with the tiniest hint of humor threatening to curve his lips. This incompetency does sound troubling to him after all, and it's not quite what he meant to inspire in this herb glen today.

Warbone canted his head at the apology, having not intended to illicit such a response; but as he thought about it, there was no intention at all. He knew absolutely nothing of what he wanted here, and even less of what the stranger had to offer, but the one-sided magnetism was unshakeable to the wooden titan with the stone face. "It is no trouble," he refused thoughtfully, taking another step back, taking the space to inhale air not weighted by intoxication. "Unless you consider my fascination a burden?" He tread lightly with his tone, not something typical for Warbone, but he was self-aware of the reason— aware of a desire to prolong this moment, until it was no more.

"If you must continue your solitude, would you leave me wondering without your name?"

More space spans between them and his ears shift, curious and vaguely signalling his relief that it was no trouble. "Not.. that, no burden," he shook his head softly. He couldn't put a word on it but that was not it, somehow he knew this much. "But I will admit I do not quite know what to do with it," he peers thoughtfully towards the agouti, feeling just a touch unsatisfactory in the admission's aftermath as he maintains some hope that the stranger would not fault him severely for it.

"Inari," he answers after an unintentionally heavy silence. He has always remembered that much at the very least, but he wants to remember him by more than sight and scent too. Lightly, he presses for it before he's distracted and time winds down further. "Yours?"

Whether or not he saw his answer, he found himself strangely captivated.