Blacktail Deer Plateau If you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was it.

Challenging Aningan (rolled a 3).

He couldn't find any sign of his grandmother anywhere, which was strange. The only constants of Rusalka beyond his parents were Caiaphas and Illidan, but the more he hunted the less he found of either - telling Reyes that something had changed while he was away. Maybe he had missed his uncle's departure but he did not expect his grandmother to be gone as well, she was a fixture within the ranks, and he wanted to tell her stories of what he had survived. They had never been particularly close but the shrewd nature of Caiaphas meshed well with what he learned within Tortuga, and to that end he wanted to seek her out. When he could not find any trace of her, Reyes had to give up.

The path he followed now was trailing along the outskirts of the territory. He had doubled-back in the hopes that he could study the claim's scent in earnest. Rather than collect it as a temporary layer to fortify himself among the Rusalkans again. When he did find a collection of scents his grandmother's was not among them: rather, there was a boy's scent, healthy and young like himself, somehow crowding out the others. With a huff Reyes went hunting for the origin - back up along one ridge, twisting through a thicket of snowy trees, to a strip of the plateau that was exposed to the elements, but he couldn't see anyone. Then again, there was so much snow that @Aningan was likely lost within it.

nts: roll done on reye's table top thread, not discord

Whilst the bear blended into the snow, meshing together with it, the boy was not so easily hidden. From a distance, Aningan thought the wolf to be Rosalyn, their pelts similar. But the nearer he got and the more defined features became, he realised that it was not the woman at all; where he thought she stood, stood her son instead. Still, he continued forward to meet the other, a bark sounded to reveal his being there.

Whether approaching then was the best of his decisions, the male was unaware. A challenge befell the pair that day, a play for dominance; in the end, Aningan came out on top, and the two went their separate ways.