Dragoncrest Cliffs "I'll take this dance."

Natjuk receives the sunless day with a sneer.

Virile stiffness imbues his limbs, invigorated by a force older than any living thing. He sets off with a stiff-legged gait. Today is border tending day. Hooray.

Winter does not bother. Nor does the absolute silence that is settled across the bluffs. The fact that it is a tense tranquility needles. Why? What is it? Is it that the women have come into season? Is that it? Or is there some other reason why all he hears is the crunch of snow beneath him, this late into the day?

With the final white of day fading into night, he turns inward. Snow has been falling for some time now. It freckles his body, creating an interesting mixture of black and ice-white. Natjuk couldn't care less what he looks like, coming upon some large, level stones and pissing on them. Then he climbs on one, clears off the accumulated snow and lays on it, sulking.

It was time for Ephraim to stop feeling sorry for himself. Yes, he'd done a fine job of bungling as a warrior, and yes, he'd attacked one of his own packmates in all the confusion. But Easy had forgiven him and Antumbra had yet to throw him from her protection, so the Skayona had to assume by now that there was no harm done. He'd spent enough days staring out at the sea, trying to read signs in the heavens and finding nothing there. He'd left the territory, seeking some comfort in wandering the unknown, and found nothing there either. It was time to get off his ass and resume his duties now that his injuries were healing.

He didn't love patrolling the borders alone at the best of times, but it was a necessary evil, especially in these tense days. The air felt charged most of the time and apart from brief connections with packmates, the territory was uncomfortably silent. It made Ephraim's throat tighten with anxiety. The thought of whether things would ever improve crossed his mind; it was so loaded that he swallowed thickly and tried to focus on something else. His eyes drifted upward to the heavy flakes falling above and he sought some tranquility in watching them, but the worry was ever-present. Nothing ever cleared it from his mind.

He still had his eyes turned to the sky when he stumbled—almost literally, for he was only about five feet away—upon Natjuk lying across a flat stone. The place smelled heavily marked already, making it moot for him to continue his patrol in this direction, but Ephraim came to a stop anyway to awkwardly observe the unfamiliar earthy man lying there. He hated being alone in these turbulent times. So, although Natjuk looked like he didn't want to be bothered, the little coywolf wet his dry lips and ventured a soft, Hei.

And in his brooding, he thinks about all the women here. Aure, Blackbear, Heda, to name of few. But he knows there are more because he smells them. Shifting wretchedly upon his throne, he delivers a pent-up sigh. Could it be there's action going on behind the scenes? He hopes so. Pups are essential to any pack, large or small.

Too bad he won't be having any this year.

Crunch, crunch, crunch draws his ired regard. A...wolf, he assumes, nearing with his head in the clouds. What is he looking at? Natjuk quells the urge to announce himself, transfixed by the youth's languid stride. Whatever has garnered his undivided attention makes him trip and stumble. When he turns those doleful eyes upon him with a delicate "hey," Natjuk sourly thinks: why couldn't I have come across a chick? Instead, he has to interact with a kid whose balls have yet to drop...

Okay, okay. That's not fair. And this is a pack mate. At least try to be nice.

Hey yourself. Okay. He's trying. Upon further inspection, this amalgamation of wolf and coyote is looking rough around the edges. What did he get into? Natjuk visibly softens, eyeing the wounds on his face. Are you okay?

Wow, that was a loaded question. Many of his closer packmates had asked him that same thing in the intervening days, but he wasn't expecting it from a Brana. Not that he knew Natjuk was an outsider looking to assimilate, but at the very least he was a stranger, and Ephraim didn't love talking about his life to strangers. There was the odd exception that he took a liking to, but something about this man's demeanour suggested he didn't really want to hear a full account of things.

So he settled for the basics. There's a pack down below full of idiots, he said, sitting heavily with a roll of his shoulders and a wince. It would be a long time before he could that painlessly. They tried to sneak into the territory to get a captive we took, a natrona who was dumb enough to show their face after abandoning the pack, I guess. They lost badly, of course, but we took a few licks. There was so much more to it than that but he decided to keep his trap shut on her personal woes.

So now we're just waiting to see what happens next, he concluded, and the downward turn at the corners of his lips suggested that he wasn't very happy with their current nonchalance. But he trusted Heda more than he trusted anyone. Surely she had the right of it. Guessing you're new here and didn't know about any of that? Don't worry, he assured Natjuk, as if the man had indicated that he was, Drageda's strong so you're safe here. They're no match.

He was not expecting the following deluge of words. Furthermore, he had anticipated the coywolf to expose his maladies, not the contributions thereof. Whatever. What Ephraim had to say is important and needed to be heard.

Drageda has been to war. That illustrates the jittery blanket hanging over the place. They're just recovering in body and spirit. Natjuk has never been to war though he has plenty of fodder to conceptualize. A battlefield thresh with able bodies, many of which are out for your blood. The gleam of ivories, the rasp adversaries...He grows hot at the visions flashing and moving in his mind. What an injustice he had not been a part of that. Even in face of an ambiguous finale.

I would not have joined were you weak. Heda had initiated the discussion that led him to follow. How she conducted herself and how articulate she was appealed to him where others failed to tickle his fancy. Natjuk cannot say for certain that Drageda will be his forever home. Perhaps if he knew of their edicts, he could come to a conclusion. They do not take kindly to abandoners if Ephraim's account is anything to go by. Dumb natrona, huh.

What else is there to know of Drageda? Were there other divisions under their banner? Any notable creeds?

Lots, Ephraim supplied unhelpfully with a rolling shrug. He wasn't the best wolf to be telling a newcomer about the pack; he simply didn't know enough. But he did know some, and learning some was better than learning nothing when you were a Brana. So, tamping down his unease over having to teach someone else something, Ephraim began.

Heda is the supreme commander of all her wolves in the coalition. Only certain wolves can rise to become Heda. Currently our Heda resides here, at Dragoncrest Cliffs. Currently and forever, Ephraim silently thought, for although he knew of the Sadgeda and how new commanders came to power over the coalition, he privately thought Antumbra was as unbeatable as Drageda was. His presumption that she was invincible, incidently, was one of the reasons he respected her so much and considered her infallible.

The other branches are Trigeda, Sangeda and Maungeda. They answer to Heda, but have their own presiding commanders under her. He licked his dry chops and let his eyes wander across Natjuk's face, looking for any signs of incomprehension. Little did he know that Natjuk was already familiar with this sort of lifestyle. Drageda has never been bested in battle, Ephraim proudly proclaimed. Whatever else Natjuk wanted to know would pale in comparison to knowing their combined battle prowess, he felt.

As for the finer details—their rank structure, their language, their culture in general—Ephraim would need to be prompted for these things. He'd lived with it so long that it never crossed his mind as being worth mentioning; it was his norm.