enough to make my systems blow (join)

For @Jinx. She's kind of outside the mountain's borders, but close enough to smell it.

For the entirety of her life, Zombie did little more than exist—and barely exist at that. She ate only enough to sustain her, and her form was thin and skeletal; she was a sunken, haunted thing in both appearance and mind. Her only true loyalty was to herself, though she was the master of delusion; she believed, truly, that she was loyal to every pack she had been part of. They had all abandoned her, and not the other way around... she moved between them like a ghost, living on their edges like some sort of parasite until they lost their usefulness.

Ookaan had promised her hope, but just as she began to open herself to trust, their leader had vanished. Then came Jinx and Bon Dye; a wolf and pack she felt she could belong to, gave her blood to, a pack that had given her life that she had been prepared to let go. But like Ookaan's leader, now nameless in Zombie's memory, Jinx and her shamans had disappeared. Still, the waif had clung to her delusional loyalty, willed herself to remain with the others that had been left behind. They abandoned the forest, however, and she soon found that the heart of Bon Dye had shriveled and died. And so without a word, Zombie had slipped away from Blacktail Deer Plateau — a farce, the twisted remnants of what had been her home — to find healing in Northstar Vale.

It had been as misguided as the rest of her attempts to live within a pack; but it had at least given her the opportunity to discover herself and her passions. When the avalanche struck, she had been separated — and none of those she had healed bothered to search for her. Alone suited her, and so she remained as her injuries mended. For a time, she had remained in the Otatso Wetlands... and when her head wound had closed, Zombie was compelled to wander.

She stood, now, in the foothills of a mountain that stood apart from the rest. Inexplicably, she felt a kinship to it — the isolation, the solitude. But as she drew nearer, the wind blew down from its peak and carried with it a scent that was somehow both foreign and familiar. Although Zombie couldn't quite place the intricacies of it, she could decipher that it alerted the surrounding territories that it belonged to pack. She growled quietly to herself, in something like disappointment, and gave it sort of a glum and wistful glare.

But it was growing close to the point where she could no longer survive on her own, and so she conceded that it was time to start the cycle anew. She took a lethargic, dragging step towards the peak.

Her patrol took her well outside Silvertip's proper boundaries, but Jinx liked to maintain a buffer zone between herself and the neutral territories. It was no larger than the distance the scent of the pack's markers could carry, yet she prowled through it almost constantly, each and every day, looking for any wolf fool enough to proceed despite the scent of a claim. As of yet, there had been few intruders, which was pleasing to her. She would rather have no intrusions and deal solely with her wolves and their strange behaviours, even if it meant there was little fun in it for her.

Eventually, she did stumble upon a wolf fool enough to get close. In the Kesuk's private opinion, being within smelling distance of the pack was still too close, but she couldn't very well control all the land outside her own. The wolf she approached was strangely familiar, though at first the Alpha female didn't recognize her. She approached the shambling skeleton with her head lifted high, hackles bristled from her neck to her rump, and a throaty growl shaking her jowls.

It was only when she ceased her growl to speak that she remembered who this wolf was. Jinx had thought she was dead, and from the looks of things, it probably would have been better if she had died. “What are you doing here,” she hissed, peeling her stiff ears to the sides of her head and relaxing her guard hairs only enough to show she wasn't planning to attack.