Stone Circle this strange weather pattern inside me takes hold.

Clary felt something... different today, as she lay upon an outcropping rock tucked a distance away from the towers of Stone Circle. The skies overhead rolled overcast, thick with the promise of more snow. Even now, lazy flakes drifted to meet the earth and spread a fine dusting over the slate of Clary's back.

She rested as still as the rock, her only motion the slow drawl of her eyes across the distant hills, and the gentle rise and fall of her chest. The girl couldn't place the strange feeling she felt - a kind of hollow ache, one she had thought food or water or a good run would satisfy. But after trying all those things, here she lay, no closer to figuring out how to settle whatever she felt inside.

Valette was about to head to Stone Circle to watch some of the herds from the top of the hill the Stone Circle was standing on. The female watched as the snow obscured much of her vision. The herd probably would seek shelter in the forests around them, she figured. However, the bison were present. This hadn't been always the case as last winter they left their valley. Luckily they had returned to Valette's relief.

It took a lot of effort to see such distance with the falling snow. When she glanced to the side she first didn't see her grey daughter which was the same coloring as the rock, almost. Though she caught a whiff of her daughter's scent. It made her more interested and with a better glance, she realized that Clary was on that rock. Valette trotted away from the circle towards her daughter. A bit worried for a moment.

"Clary?," she asked and tipped her head a bit. Valette approached the rock. She brought her muzzle close to her daughter's to sniff if she was alright. She hopped on the rock next to her and went to lie down, mostly to give her a bit of warmth. "Is something wrong?," she asked.

The snow muffled the sounds around her, so Clary jerked at the sudden sound of her name, a break in the stark silence. But the voice brought no fear. "Hey ma." She turned with a slow look to her Valette, trying for a smile, but finding her heart not behind it.

She had escaped her to be alone, to think, but with Valette's arrival she realized she didn't want that anymore. The press of mama's body against her brought a comfort the child leaned into, and Clary snuggled closer and buried her nose into Valette's warm fur.

Mama's soft question rested on the pale girl's thoughts, and she glanced out to where the herds grazed below, and further, until she stared somewhere to the grey beyond. "I dunno." She finally said. "I just feel... something funny." How could she describe the ache inside? The feeling had been brewing since she'd noticed the fading scents of Easy and Dauntless, and had thickened when she'd realized she couldn't see them beyond any of the borders anymore. "Will Easy and Dauntless ever come back?"

It warmed Valette's heart to have her daughter snuggle against her. Valette couldn't help but lick the snow away on top of her head. She would always have those motherly traits around her kids. She smiled at Clary to encourage her to talk. It wasn't needed. Clary already started to explain, or at least tried to. Valette was a bit worried at first when Clary said she felt funny. Poison? Sickness?

Perhaps she had been too quick to judge. As she listened she realized that it might be a feeling that her daughter couldn't pinpoint yet. "Of course," she spoke with a cheery tone. "I guess you miss them, huh?," she asked more carefully, she wanted to be understanding of what Clary was feeling. "We can go see them at their pack lands when it isn't snowing so badly. Would you like that?," she offered.

The gentle pull of mama's tongue made Clary feel like a tiny pup again. She welcomed the comfort, and inclined her free ear to the words Valette shared. "Yeah." Like always, mama seemed to know what was wrong, even if Clary didn't understand it herself. "I think so." She missed them - of course, and she realized she had felt this way before. Like when she waited for mama to come back from the hunt, or for Steph and Ezra to come back from their exploring, or when she wondered when Eezee would visit her again. But this felt stronger - maybe because she didn't know where they had gone, and because they hadn't promised her they would come back.

Mama's offer brought a gentle wag to Clary tail, and her eyes widened. "You mean you'll take me outside the borders? And I won't get in trouble? Can Steph and Ezra come too?" She never thought that was a possibility, but she'd heard the words from her mother herself, but despite the excitement, a cloud of trouble settled over the proposal. She remembered what Murdock had said to her once - when he’d talked about the vastness of the world, and what had happened to he and his siblings. “We won’t get lost, will we?”

Valette smiled at her daughter when the thought that she was missing them. Valette thought that Clary just liked the company and didn't look much further into it. She could understand that new playmates were important to her. She chuckled when her daughter asked all those questions. "You can go outside the borders, but with me. We have the borders for a reason, they are there to protect you," she explained.

Valette chuckled. "I will tell you a secret. Your mama is actually a ranger, almost a Master Ranger. Super specialist in scouting out other territories. I won't get lost," she spoke with a smile on her lips. Her kids didn't know much about her in that department. Perhaps that she was a hunter and knew about wildlife, but not that she was also a skilled scout. "Steph and Ezra can come as well if they want to. But the snows need to be less and I need someone who can look after the pack while I am away," she explained to her daughter. "But if we have all those things then we can visit Easy and Dauntless."

Her ears stood tall, and her eyes widened. Whether mama knew it or not, she opened Clary's whole world with the understanding that all she had to do to leave the borders was to take mama with her. And of course she would!

But what mama said next brought a different sort of wonder, and if her body leaned to attention before, she now practically teetered on the edge. "No way!" she exclaimed, a wide smile breaking the prior sullenness of her face. How had she never known this about her own mother? Clary only assumed she wrapped her life in hunting, feeding, and caring for them, but this secret brought a new light to mama, and for the first time, she saw her as something a bit more than her provider. "So you've been, like... way way way out there? Wow." And her mind ran a million thoughts, a thousand possibilities, "What's it like? Can you teach me?"

She was sure they could find someone to watch the pack while she and her family were off to visit Easy and Dauntless, and the snow would go away eventually. Until then, maybe she could learn as much as she could, so she could help her mama lead them there.

Valette chuckled softly when her daughter seemed so amazed at her other trade. Valette knew she was close to mastering her being a ranger. She had done a lot of exploring for Steady in the beginning. She remembered how bad she was at it. How she lots Nomads and Saena. She wondered how she was doing. It was a different life, from when she was still Desna. "Yes. Wolves can pick two trades to learn, I liked hunting but also exploring. So it is not strange that you like it as well," she spoke with a grin.

"Yes, I have been," she confirmed with a nod. "Actually, I was the one that found the location of Easthollow. I was in another pack, Silvertip, I was their scout. Their leader, Steady, wanted to move the pack to different grounds. So my task was to travel all over to find a suitable place to live," she explained. Her expression grew sad for a moment when she talked about Steady. She still missed him. It would never go away, she was certain. "You could become that as well if you like. You can be a ranger like me or an ambassador. Ranger is knowing the locations and where they are. Ambassador is that you will vouch for your pack, recruit other wolves, and send messages to other packs. So, for example, if I wanted to send a message to Grayday. You would travel there for me," she explained.

Valette smiled to the side at her daughter. "Of course, I can teach you. I would love nothing rather. Stark is an ambassador. Perhaps you can ask him about it. Nikai, Banner, and Mawk are also scouts, so specialty chosen yet. Perhaps they can teach you as well," she offered. "So you have a lot of wolves you can ask advice from. But I would love to teach it to you myself," she smiled and gave a lick on her cheek.

Ears perked, Clary sponged up every word her mama spoke. A scout on a vast and dangerous mission! (Okay, so Clary embellished a little). But ma still grew cooler and cooler with every thread of the story she wove! While she spoke, her mind overflowed with questions - like, why did Silvertip need to move? Who was Steady? Why had she never met him? And why did mama look so sad? Did she miss where she used to live? But though she yearned to ask everything on her mind, and probably more, Clary dared not interrupt. How could she risk missing anything mama said?

By the end of her explanation, Clary's tail had swept most of the snow from the rock beneath her rear, and her whole body shook with the increasing want to be everything mama was. "Ooh, yes! Yes, yes, oh, yes I want to be that! I want to be an amba - am - amm - ba - ssidor!" The idea of running around for her pack and meeting other wolves of other packs put a foreign thrill in her heart - one that hadn't stirred until she'd met the Morningside wolves, and had realized how exciting the world outside could really be. And she could travel there for mama - the realization not yet dawning that this meant there would come a day she would look to the open world and find no one by her side but the lonely mountain wind.

She stored away every name mama spoke. Clary would seek them out, but really, there was only one she was positively sure she wanted to learn from. "I want you to teach me first!" Clary wriggled, and returned the kiss mama gave her with a lick of her own. "When can we start?"

Valette chuckled at the excitement of her daughter. She could tell that she would make a good scout. "I bet you will be super good at it," she praised her daughter. Valette liked to praise their good sides, so they would be motivated to follow the things they liked doing. "You would need survival skills, so knowing how to hunt small game or track down a carcass. You will also need to be friendly towards others. I always say that if you help someone, then they will want to help you in return," she spoke with a nod.

"Of course we can," she spoke with a nod. She chuckled at seeing how excited her tail was wagging. Valette hopped off the rock and shook out her coat where snow had gathered. "How about we explore inside of the territory today, then next time we can explore somewhere outside of the territory. How does that sound?," she asked.

Clary beamed at her mama's praise. "You really think so?" But she knew mama did - why else would she have said so? The pale girl knew very little about hunting or surviving, but making friends - that was an area she knew a lot about. "I can be friendly! I made lots of friends before. Like Easy, and Dauntless, and Murdock, and Banner, and Steph, and Ezra, and Eezee, and Nanook..." the list went on, surely, but the quick procession of names tied her tongue, and she finished by turning bright and eager eyes on her ma. "And I can be helpful, you know I can!" And the thought of helping others brought another wave of excitement.

Clary leapt to her paws, as if mama would deem her ready now, and start tearing across the borders in search of some wandering soul to save. She thought Valette nearly did, and Clary leapt forward - only to turn with a deflated disappointment sharp on her face. "But I've already seen everything here. I want to see somewhere else," she scuffed her paw across the film of snow and stared at her mama with imploring eyes. "Please?"

Valette nodded to confirm that she truly thought that Clary could be good at this. Clary continued to believe in herself and Valette could only be happy about it. "Exactly!," she encouraged. She had the feeling that Clary truly could be good at it. However, her daughter didn't like to explore the territory but wanted to go outside. Valette glanced at her with a bit of a strict glance.

"Next time. Because there is something very important you must learn before exploring. It is how to navigate," she explained. "You have North, East, South, West. Do you know which direction is which?," she asked her daughter. "If you know that we can go explore outside of the territory."

Clary tucked her head at the glance mama cast her, but she could tell there was no anger in Valette. She also knew better than to press her luck any harder, an easy thing to remember and do with the promise of next time - a word the girl would hold her mother to.

She perked her ear with what sounded like her first lesson, and Clary scooted closer, her whole body upright with the eagerness to get this right. Recognition sparked, and she thumped her tail against the ground. "Oh! I know!" She knew these words, and what they meant! "Auntie Nook taught us this one night! North is... ummm..." she whipped her head around until she gained her bearing, then tipped her muzzle northward. She could almost taste the adventure waiting to be had. "That way! And South is that way!" she swung around so that she pointed toward the opposite direction, toward the mountains of Bearclaw Valley.

But when she thought of finding the East and West, Clary found herself lost. "Umm... and, well, I know that way is East or West, and the other way is West or East, but I don't remember which. Auntie Nook said the sun can tell you if you forget, but I forget how." Her face pinched and she looked to mama, trusting she could help.

Basically I need one more thread for my Ranger Mastery, so that will be the one Valette takes Clary with her to go exploring, haha.

Valette was quite impressed that Clary already knew this. A soft smile came to her lips. The mother was glad that her daughter knew when to stop asking for something. Valette would love to take her outside of the borders but not today. It was already getting late and with the snow that was falling down vision would be limited. It wouldn't be much fun. Valette would wait for a clear day to go exploring with Nanook.

The female hummed. "Very good," she praised. The mother then glanced up at the skies. There was some sun visible from through the clouds. 'The sun rises in the East and goes down in the West. So now, it being the end of the day, you see it closer to the mountain range. You will know that is West. To the other side, where the moor is, that is the east," she explained to her daughter.

"Tell you what. If you go West and cross the other side of the mountains. You will see a lone mountain with a white peak. Silvertip Mountain. That is where I met--," she paused. Steady Valette missed him. She wanted Clary to know about him. "That is the pack I've joined after your grandmother, my mother, passed away. There was a very friendly alpha that took me in. His name was Steady."

Valette looked longingly at the skies now. "As I told you before, I was their scout and I had missions all over this land. Eventually, Steady wanted to relocate the pack. That is when I found Easthollow. We moved here and because of my good work, I was promoted to being Beta. Leading with him!," she hummed.

Valette swallowed thinking at those wonderful times. "I started to fall in love with him. He was so wonderful, Clary. He fell in love with me too and soon after we were mates. But after a few months being together, Steady passed away as well. Far too early," she spoke still looking at the skies with the snow falling down on them. She was silent for a moment. "Not sure why I am telling you this. I guess I still miss him," she admitted.

She then turned to look at Clary and smiled at her. If Steady had been here then she wouldn't have Clary. "So I guess, Easy and Dauntless really made an impression on you huh? Usually, when you miss them you care about those people," she tried to shift the conversation back to her daughter. "What would you like to explore once the skies clear? The Moor, Duck Lake, or anything else?"

And then Val remembered Steady, haha

:D !! Clary would be stoked if she knew she'd helped her ma earn her mastery haha!

Clary sat up at straight and eagerly followed the direction ma gave with the turn of her head this way then that. West toward the mountains, East toward moor. Right. Got it. Rises in the East, sets in the West. "Sets in the West, sets - West," she whispered under breath and hoped the rhyme would commit at least one direction to memory. After all, even if she could only remember where the sun was headed, she figured could easily deduce where it had come from.

Her gaze still rested there in the West when mama began her story, and Clary stretched herself a little taller, lifting her forepaws off the ground in an attempt to crane her neck and catch any glimpse of this grand mountain ma spoke of. She couldn't really, of course - so she just pretended one of the dull and far off peaks was Silvertip, small and nothing much from here - but Clary could only imagine how huge the mountain was, face to face.

The pale girl merely tipped her head at mama's second mention of [size=small]Steady,[/size] and tried to imagine what he might have been like. His name sounded like he could be a mountain himself - strong, and, well... steady. Only mama was really like that to her, and she decided if Steady was like her ma, she would have liked to know him.

Clary turned toward her mother when she finished her tale, an empathetic warmth flooding the pup's hazel eyes. So mama knew what it was to miss someone, a thought which upset the girl, but at the same time, comforted her. The conversational shift came much too sudden, and Clary felt her thoughts trip up, unable - or maybe just unwilling - to move so fast. "Um, yeah..." the girl still felt stuck in the grand imagery painted in the tale of Silvertip's great migration, of the mountainous Steady and the daring Valette, of love, and loss.

"Uhh," she paused and glanced long across the meadow, squinting to catch a glimpse of where she wanted to go - but she couldn't concentrate. There had been something mama said that wouldn't leave her, and she turned back to gaze at her ma with a careful and curious stare. "Um, mama... what's it mean to pass away?" The way mama spoke made it sound like a much more permanent thing than leaving like Easy and Dauntless did, but still she asked, "Can't you still visit him, too?"

- shoots you through the heart-

All aboard the feels train! Choo-Choo!

Valette smiled as her adoring daughter tried to stand on her hind legs to see the mountain. That wouldn't really work, which she soon found out. Still, it was cute to see. Valette knew that her story might not have much to do with the scouting trade, but she wanted her to know about the attachments one could form. Being a ranger could be quite lonely, especially if a lot of missions took place shortly after one another. Valette let out a soft sigh.

Then, Clary asked what passed away meant. Of course, her daughter would not know. Valette licked her lips. "It meant someone died. When someone dies it is like they are asleep, but never wake up anymore," she spoke softly. Valette didn't want to worry Clary by associating Death with sleep. "Steady died because he was injured. He lost a fight and was too injured," she continued to explain. This way she might think death could come from a fight and not from sleep.

Her heart jolted as Clary's last question. The thought of visiting opened up a longing for Steady that she hadn't felt in a long time. It had hard for the mother to fight back her tears for a moment. She didn't want to upset Clary or startle her. "Yes. I can. It is right here," she admitted her words barely a whisper. Valette moved back to the stones. She stopped by the tallest of them all. She scaped away some snow to reveal the earth.

"When Steady died we buried him here. Most wolves think that a wolf consists of a body, the physical part, and a soul, the mental part. That is how you can think. It is tradition to give the body back to the ground so it can feed the others around us. I'd like to think that the soul goes up to the sky and become the stars that look down on us. This is Steady's stone. That is why we also hold important meetings here because then it feels like the ones before us, are with us when making important decisions."

Valette remembered the many times she watched the herds from up here. Her side leaning against Steady's stone. Sometimes her body would forget that it was cold and hard stone. Sometimes she could make herself believe that she was sitting next to Steady at that very moment. "Unfortunately, I can never visit him like how you can visit Easy and Dauntless," she admitted sadly. She looked at the stone and felt the tears well up in her eyes as she looked at the large vertical stone before her. She blinked her tears away. "But! He wouldn't want me to be sad and I am very happy with my wonderful daughters and son," she spoke then to Clary, smiling at her. "You make me feel like the luckiest mom in the world," she added. "Perhaps that is also why I am careful and more strict when it comes to the borders because, now you know, Steady never returned. I don't want that to happen to you."

A chill pierced the girl, and her eyes widened. She had always thought sleep was a comforting thing, a place to go and have adventures you couldn't have during the day. To run around in bizarrely colored lands, to romp around ten times your size, to fly, even. But that didn't mean she didn't look forward to waking up again, and the thought that it was even possible that some wolves didn't - 

Her mother's clarity calmed the gripping cold, but still, the idea that someone could go somewhere they couldn't get back from upset her, both for the one leaving and the ones left behind. Because even for all the company she slept with, dreams were a place Clary went to alone - sure, her siblings were sometimes with her, but she always knew they weren't, not really. Their dream selves were vivid and exciting, but they weren't them. If she wanted to be stuck anywhere, she wanted to be stuck here, in the place where she would wake up, forever, with everyone she loved with her.

Mother's whisper turned Clary's heart, and she followed her with a careful gaze to the standing stones - curious, but uncertain. Her words and concepts were foreign and new, but they made sense, and her eyes grew large. She tipped her head back to stare up at the clouded and darkening sky, awful wonder stirring at the countless stars beyond, and the thought of the souls that might be watching her...

A whisper of guilt passed through the girl, brought on by the recollection of her and Steph's excursion in the South - a trip she knew her mother wouldn't be happy to hear about - but she swallowed in the confession that lingered on her tongue. Instead, Clary picked herself off the stone and joined her mother by Steady's rock and hoped the feeling would go away. Sensing a sadness in Valette, the grey girl pressed herself against her mother's side and sought to give her the touch she knew Steady couldn't - yet all the while her guilt murmured and surmounted, until she found herself caved and staring at the ground.

"Umm... there's something I need to tell you," her mouth felt dry, and she didn't dare meet her mother's eye. "I kinda sorta went out of the borders and... umm... kinda brought @Steph with me..." she felt smaller with every word, and her voice, quieter and trailing...

Probably killing timelines, but I don't know! haha
edit: also, tagging for reference!

Valette took great comfort from Clary, who pressed closer as she watched the stone. She was certain Steady loved watching the three pups grow up. Though she felt the male would disapprove of Ezekiel's lack of parentship. Sometimes missing him was tougher than other days. Today it was a bit harder than others but as her gaze moved down to Clary she felt her sadness go away in waves. She loved her children and that love made her a happier.

Valette looked curiously at her daughter when she started to speak. Though, that curiosity was soon followed by a bit of a frown. Clary honestly told her about a secret trip she had with her sister. Valette stayed quiet for a moment. She wanted to be mad at her daughter but decided that she wasn't. "I see," she spoke thoughtfully. "I should be mad at you for secretly going outside of the borders but I am glad you told me honestly. Because you did I am not mad," she admitted to her daughter.

Valette looked down at Clary and slowly offered her a kind smile. "You are a good daughter, Clary. I really appreciate you being honest with me. But the next time you go outside of the borders tell me, alright? I know you are getting bigger and better at protecting yourself but I wouldn't want you to get hurt or lost. I would be really sad," she explained. "Will you promise me that?"

Shall we wrap this up in your next post? <3

Unable to see her mother's face, and unable to gauge her reaction, Clary waited for Valette to dole out whatever punishment seemed just. She couldn't really imagine what that might be, because she wasn't sure if she'd ever made her mother angry before. But this seemed like something worth getting upset about - Clary had known this when she'd cajoled her sister into the excursion to begin with. The girl wasn't really ready for the consequences, but she braced herself.

What she found was her mother's gentleness, and Clary finally dared a glance. Her mother's face betrayed no deceit, only tenderness. The girl frowned, confused, but she pitched her ears and listened all the more closely.

The beginning of a smile curled over the grey child, and her tail picked up the characteristic sway across the snow. She was getting bigger, wasn't she? Her measurement tree told her that every week, but to have her mother say so herself swelled a new pride in her heart. She could understand the way from North to South, and now from East to West. She understood more of the world than she had four months ago - yet still had much more to learn. Her honesty had given her freedom, and as long as she told her mother where and when she was going, she would be allowed. Clary's smile brightened and she reached up to gently lick her mother's chin. "Of course I promise." It would be an easy one to keep.

Valette smiled as Clary returned licks to under her chin. The female wagged her tail. She was extremely proud of her daughter. Valette was confident that her daughter would keep to her words because she had given her trust in her honesty. Clary might be eager to explore the borders and get herself in trouble but she was a good girl with a good heart. She wouldn't lie to her mother. At least that is what Valette truely believed now. She returned a lick to her daughter.

"Perfect. Well, let's go home to your siblings. When the weather is better we will explore something bigger." Valette already promised her that, but she wanted to confirm it to her daughter that she wouldn't forget her promise.

- end <3 -