Cedar Sweep activity's killing the actor

tindómë has stopped feeling like a rug about to be pulled from under his paws and so delight feels safe enough to cautiously venture past its borders. his entrance into the teekon had landed him immediately in the arms of by his morwinyon's side, and though he is not necessarily a wanderer by nature, it feels nice to stretch his legs.

he is remapping the direction he arrived at the king elk forest from, careful to avoid going north enough to hit the awful crickety-bog (though part of him does keep watch for his not-quite forgotten fox friend). instead he finds himself meandering in the forest just above tindómë's claim. there is another pack nearby, delight knows, just over the river he walks beside from what he can scent. smugly he notes that this forest is inferior to his home, not quite so beautiful, the river not quite so silvery as the creek near theirs: nonetheless, he finds a spot by the river and settles, picking up his old past-time of brooding while he watches the fish.

She maintained her persistent roving even as the nights started to lengthen, weaving and winding a path scoping the eastern Tuktu—one that was just sure to always keep the mountain range in sight. All the while, bearing down on her is a want for a purpose, a better mission, and she knew where she would have to look whether she liked it or not: with the company of fellow wolves. That, however, did not make it any easier to digest so soon. Her resolve was hardening but she may not be the easiest to impress, not after surviving alone, free, for so long.

But winter stood poised to make this more difficult. She had been taught to know her bounds and her limitations; maybe this was one of them. Only maybe still. She wasn't struggling that badly, but true, this was the leanest she had been in a long time.

Since she had worked to acquaint herself with this general area, she traveled sure-footed forward, onward alongside the riverway that she often found success near. Today, it seemed, doing so would bring her right to a stranger. Whether that was another success or not, she couldn't say yet. Instead of veering away to avoid the situation, she decided to go in for a closer look and nose around the stranger in a little more detail.

She finished off her approach more slowly, exuding neutrality (her tail, posture, and otherwise lax—her eyes stay sharp, however) for as long as she tests the waters to see what exactly he was doing here. 

his brooding is cut short - as it always is, alas - by the creeping approach of a woman he does not know. she doesn't smell like the neighboring pack from what he can tell, though their scent is faint enough now it's hard to tell, and she doesn't seem aggressive, but still. his kingdom for a nice brood in peace. as if he is cursed to enjoy pleasant company for the rest of his days.

well. the androgyne stands slowly rises from his lay, his own posture still relaxed, equally neutral, moon-bright eyes betraying this feigned chill with his cautious gaze. they're not close enough to tindómë's borders for him to be truly territorial but he is a little bit anyway, if only mentally.

 "h'lo," the wisp offers after a beat, and sits, watching her.

She kept coming closer, knowing well that, if all else fails, she can feign her ignorance--maybe she just had to pass through, after all, or there was her typical failsafe of speed that had not let her down before. Chancing an aggressive encounter wouldn't do her much favor.. not with things the way they were, and wandering many miles plus loneliness with nothing to show for it having worn her down. Plus, if she did, and suffered injuries, that took away her chance to speed off, then later defend and even eat. When self-preservation reigned supreme, she knew better.

But he rose to a full height that didn't amount to much (spelling a hint of relief from the also slight Jomyo) and extended his own greeting. She refused to balk under the chill of his eyes, although she could not place any scent on him. That was a concern held carefully at bay.. who knew if his pack was nearby, and she did not want to chance pissing off more than one wolf at a time with her lurking. "Hi." she chirruped back while mustering a tone lighter than her outlook wanted, and perhaps, one to match her more lax stance--hopefully. "You busy out here?" she narrowed her expression to a short-lived squint back towards where he had come from, but she was quick to train sights back onto him just after. He posed far too many unknowns still for anything less.

slowly he blinks at her question: busy out here? is he busy? slowly his eyes sweep back to the distinctly not-silvery stream and back. slowly he says "yes," drawing the word out dryly, "very." but the núro is sharp enough to catch her glance and c'mon, she's not really asking him if he's busy looking at fish, right? (probably?)

the androgyne has a flashback to uka and frowns - no, no, he's not looking for a repeat of that, and while uka is a jackass he will own up to his own very, very small role in that interaction. sheepishly he dunks his head. "uh, sorry. just - thinking. not busy. my pack's that way." delight points with his nose, glances back at her curiously. "what about you?" he asks, a little sheepish and a little hopeful that if she is looking to learn about packs that his recruiting efforts go a little better this time around. he does not need another uka.

Right, then.. and she felt herself fighting off making a perplexed face. Actually earnestly busy or not, he wasn't seeming too adverse to humoring her. His thinking must not have been that distracting, or urgent enough that it must he done right now, so she'd let that one be for now. The mention of a pack, paired with a matching gesture to its heading, gave her plenty else to focus on. "What pack?" she asked immediately, and followed the direction of his point with her steely stare curiously.

As for her, she gave a little huff. The pointlessness of her answer was already going to frustrate her, she knew. Jomyo wished she had some grander scheme to say she was working on when in reality, she was torn between heading back to the homeland or settling up somewhere in the meantime because she had nothing better to do right now. With contact currently lost between her brothers, she was feeling an uncharacteristic concern towards the what next. "Just wandering." It hardly felt like scouting when she had nothing interesting to report to anyone but herself. "Left the coast, then headed south until it landed me here where I've found a whole lot of nothing-too-interesting." With a lingering frown, she pointed her muzzle in the way which she had come, roughly. These wilds were vast, after all, and sometimes these forests seemed damn near neverending. "Not yet, anyway." 

to the androgyne's immeasurable relief the woman does not seem to take offense nor does she try to mock him. and, bonus, she's interesting in his pack, though delight holds his tongue until she answers his question to decide the course of his answer. (here, he thinks, is maybe an opportunity to do a better job at the recruiting thing. even if uka'd ended up joining them in the end, it was in no part because of his antics.) 

"tindómë is it's name," he answers finally, silver eyes bright, "we occupy the king elk forest." delight pauses to think about what she's said - interesting is the key word - and adds: "we emphasize trades - and we share the forest with the king elk, who's..." what was the word mato used? "ainima - a blessed figure. he's been called the wolf killer. he's not a killer but a protector - our relationship with him is not religious - he isn't a god - but a mutual respect for each other and the forest itself."

the núro chooses his words carefully, trying to convey the importance the god-creature carries for him and tindómë, without making them sound cultish. this is part of his job as their chronicler, too: capturing these nuances and communicating them. feeling a little proud of himself, his tail wags as he adds, "my name is delight singing-sunlight. i've never been up to the coast - mato, our morwinyon, alpha, found me pretty quick when i got here. how long have you been traveling?" this is perhaps the most delight has ever spoken in one sitting - and so well-manneredly, too! - and he feels pride crash suddenly into self-consciousness. well - nothing to do for it now, singing-sunlight. wait easy.

Her ears flicked and she watched him say those strange words, absorbing them as carefully as she knew how. Tindómë, ainima, morwinyon.. but he was informative, too, without her having to pry for definitions and more. She was catching on, and bold as it may be, it gave her a rough idea of the pack already.

Although, this wolf killer was news enough to her, and to share their forest with him..? "Hm, interesting. Tindómë," she tried the name herself because he made it sound tempting. She could not handle it with the same grace. "Never heard of a wolf killer elk. Is there some.. reason or motivation, I guess, that you share the forest with him?" she drawled, trying to sound vaguely impartial though she would not turn down more, in case she wasn't thinking to ask quite the right questions about this not-god creature and their ties to him.

She was still trying to think of her best approach here when he volleyed a question back her way. "A pretty long time. Last actual pack.. I left towards the end of wintertime," she hmm-ed. The timing had been good for her, of course. Spring and summer had let her get away with it. "But I've always done a lot of scouting around, even when I was a part of some group, so I've just been roaming here and there since. I'm Jomyo." she added.

he takes the fact that she does not flee from him a good sign. he takes her question as an even better sign, though it gives him pause. thankfully  he does not need to answer right away as she responds to him and delight begins to draw together a better picture of the woman - of jomyo, she introduces herself as. scouting is a useful skill, delight thinks. he was never really a homebody himself, and his own thoughts lend toward wandering alongside his natural curiosity - hence his trips to the sweep, his visions of visiting the historical landmarks of his packmates histories - but a part of him still feels frightened. it was, after all, during his wanderings that his childhood home was swept away from him.

still. "that's cool," he says, genuine-for-once. "as for the king elk... i think he's a reminder for us to not take the forest for granted. it's mato's way, too - he's... a druidic nature. at first i didn't take the whole thing very seriously," he admits, "but i met him - the elk, i mean - on the night of our founding... i suppose it's hard to say without sounding funny but i think he really is an important creature to the forest." the dusk-tinted wisp finishes with an elegant shrug of his shoulder, curious to see how she'll react to his explanation.

She listened, blinking, absorbing these pieces of the King Elk, and further insights into his pack. He was far more forthcoming with the details than the skinny girl she had seen last, so this served as a welcome change of pace for the investigative scout.

But for all it was worth, she sensed she did not grasp it as wholly as she could without sights on it herself. The timing, the place, and perhaps even the awe of the beast surely intertwined just right to suit them--and their pack, it seemed. And if he had met the elk and not been attacked by it, maybe that was enough motivation--maybe even so far as to mention being chosen by him and his woods.. a unique sort of originality in these vast stretches of wilderness. "Fair enough," she conveyed, and wiggled her tail to match. "Well, still. Sounds interesting. Last pack I heard about around these parts was pretty tight-lipped on the details of itself, but this was coming from a skinny girl who might have been out past her curfew, so maybe not the best source of info.." she detailed and shook her head. Still, this could let him see what she had worked with here in the Tuktu before him. "What's your leadership like? Like say if I came near the woods just to check it out and see it a little closer for myself, how badly would that go over..?" Without making guarantees, she was keen enough to find out more if she made it over that way.

jomyo actually seems intrigued which he chalks up to his superior ability to weave words together. more than a little pleased he matches her tail with a slight wag of his own (it looks a little foreign on him, like most positive gestures). she asks about seeing the forest for herself and the androgyne's eyes light up - what would mato think of it? their numbers have thinned slightly lately, but if she's being escorted.. "i'm sure he won't mind," delight says, thoughtful. "i can take you by now if you want," he offers, "or you can just call for me so he knows you aren't trespassing. but i'm sure he'd be happy to let someone curious about our ways come by." well. he thinks so, anyway, and it's not like delight won't be around to make sure she doesn't cause havoc. though he doesn't think she's the sort to cause havoc anyway (and prays she doesn't prove him wrong).

The wanderer doesn't find herself met with rejection, even knowing how packs could be, but he offered an in of sorts: to howl for him, and use this meeting as something very useful in finding out more. She was pleased it went over smoothly enough. Plus, he seemed pretty alright with the notion of it all too.

As for his other offer, the one more poignant, made her shake her head. She wasn't ready go to there just yet, not even as curious as she was.. she had to stew, and showing up with an escort didn't feel like her style today. "Not just yet, no thanks." But she left something in her tone hinting at a maybe soon. She might've had a bad case of the aimless loneliness, but there would be something she had to do before she could get in that close to them. It could be an opportunity, one she'd need if winter showed up earlier than planned.. or even if it didn't. Jomyo needed to survive.. so these might be first impressions she wanted to present for.

"I'll be around, alright?" she promised over her shoulder as she began to move on from him now that the thought was on her mind. It was enough to think about, and something she intended to revisit soon. Tindómë was now officially on her radar.

she does not bite at his first offer; a flicker of disappointment passes through his silvered gaze but does not linger. it's alright, he gets it, he guesses. he doubts she'll find anything better anyway, so. "sure," the singing-sunlight answers nonchalantly, not at all a little bit disappointed, nope, "totally."

but, oh -- "yeah, see you," he calls, a touch placated, his tail giving a gentle wag. she seems nice enough and he hopes she does come by, but, well - he can't control if she decides to revisit or not, and that's okay, he guesses. after a moment he turns and heads his own way, back toward his beloved forest.