Ravensblood Forest thaumatrope

Set an hour or two after this. @Arturo

She did not return to Blackrock. Doe skulked, as was often her wont, around the Ravensblood forest, yellow eyes glinting furiously as the sun sank down past the horizon. When there was only shadow, she crept close to the borders once more, mind still reeling as she tried to understand what about this had upset her so much. She had not known Furiosa any better than the nameless child that Qilaq had killed, and yet...

It didn't matter. No matter her own pain, no matter her own feelings, Furiosa was not truly her loss. She'd been part of this pack, of Arturo's, and Doe was intent on both paying her respects and reafirmming her connection to their neighboring pack.

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Arturo had been patrolling the borders, taking on a few extra patrols since his lockdown of Teaghlaigh’s borders, when he caught a familiar scent mingling among the sweet and pine scent of his forest. It was tangy with salt, smelled heavily of Skellige. Doe. He recognized her right away as she began to come into his view. The Ceannasach’s pace did not quicken to greet her but he did give pause as he drew nearer. He couldn’t claim that she was a sight for sore eyes for he was still not sure where they stood with one another. They were allies, yes, but he’d always gotten the feeling that she disliked him. He did not realize that it had to do with the parasite Riptide and would never ask her. They had reached something of a truce the last time they had spoken and he did not deign to shatter what tentative agreement they’d came to.

It did not surprise him that it would be she to come for there had been something between her and his red herring. Though Arturo could not understand it he likened it to the quickness that he’d taken to Lotte. He didn’t, in all fairness, particularly understand the suddenness nor the depth of his feelings for his nightingale, either. Some things were simply out of his understanding and Arturo accepted them with a simplicity: they were there and they were not to be analyzed nor made sense of by him. “Doe,” The smoky timbre of Arturo’s deep, accented voice was quiet, a low rumble like a coming storm. It was apologetic. The what if’s, as a leader, haunted him. Perhaps if he’d have joined her on her patrol she would still be alive but he hadn’t. He’d been sleeping and by the time he woke and began his patrols and found her it had been too little, too late. Still, the gangster's remorse was genuine. Furiosa was Family and she would remain so even in her death.

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Arturo appeared, seeming to materialize from between the trees. Once upon a time, he had invoked feelings of fear and mistrust in the shewolf, but this was no longer the case. He was so far removed from the the creature that she'd encountered under the cliffs that day, and truth be told, she could hardly remember that first encounter anymore. Now, he was simply Arturo, the trusted friend of her alpha and a wolf that she'd once counted among her family. Though he had left their pack, he remained their ally.

That did not negate their past tensions, but Doe was emboldened (and confused) by the numbing pain of Furiosa's death. She crept toward the smokey forest lord, head down and ears pushed back. "I heard what happened," she said in a low voice, the words made throaty by emotion. "We are with you, Arturo."

Shyly, she touched her nose to Arturo's chin, ears still folded back against her head. She had been different, last time, but Doe gave no thought toward how her changed demeanor might confuse the alpha.

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Doe’s words confirmed her reason for being there, much like the last and only time she had visited his borders before it had been about the fierce red herring. Though the gangster had not expected his allies to give much care to his murdered red herring it did not surprise him that Doe came to him. Palisander had done well on spreading the news though if the man had learned anything to assist them in the hunt for the culprit Arturo had yet to hear of it though somewhere in the realist’s heart he knew that his allies would not be able to help him. He could not help the idea that they would never find the male responsible and that Furiosa’s death would go without the weight of The Family’s judgement upon the heart of the guilty and she would remain unavenged. It was not something that the Fearghal monarch had wished to see unresolved but there was only so much that he and Teaghlaigh could do without spreading themselves too thin and without endangering each other. Life kept going and so, too, must they. Arturo’s muscles pulled taunt beneath his coarse winter fur as Doe crept towards him. His fiery red-orange gaze watched her with unbidden intensity and with the soft furrow of his brow displayed his confusion as she neared him.

Yet, the gangster did not recoil from her. While Arturo wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Doe he did not believe that she would harm him. Not that he would let her, mind, but he did not feel threatened by her. “Thank you,” Arturo murmured quietly when she spoke that they (he assumed to be Blackrock Depths) were with him. Though Arturo did not always agree with Skellige’s eagerness for war (as the eagerness to steal back the Isles came to his mind) the Leviathan had his undiluted respect nevertheless and Arturo would stand behind him. Of the two alliances, the one with Skellige and the Depth wolves would always be the most personal to the gangster. Donnelaith had been an advantage, there because it had seemed convenient to ally himself with the young queen of the Sentinels, both for Teaghlaigh and very personal reasons to Arturo (namely Lotte).

The touch of Doe’s nose to his chin was slightly alarming to Arturo who accepted it with a soft noise of gratitude in his throat, his tail giving a soft wag against his hocks. The display was highly unusual and not one that he would have expected from Doe given their past encounters with one another — the first of which Arturo did not remember. Yet, if it was a olive branch Arturo would not turn it away. “How are you holding up? I know you cared for her.”

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As soon as the act was finished, Doe drew away, giving the alpha a wide berth. He did not scare her, and she retained none of her old dislike for the man, but something of their first meeting must have remained imbedded in her mind; she did not like to be close to him - to be vulnerable.

Doe dipped her head in acknowledgment of Arturo's concern. "I did. I do. But I met her only once, while she lived here with you. There is room left beside my sorrow to worry for you and yours." She looked around, wishing she'd thought to bring a gift of some kind for the grieving pack.