The sun had began to rise in the horizon, the starry sky with the break of phoenix gold over the crust of the earth, without obstruction as he entered the Teekon Wilds. The Celtic had not direction, no true destination. The Soothsayer moved at his own leisure, conquering with each step he took. Action without a plan. It had sounded rather grand as he had thought of it, disentangling himself from rules and regulations; following only his own. Hemingway paused, glimpsing up at the sky. There was no sign of any foreboding weather in the immediate future and the Innisfree intended to make good of the day. He was weary from his traveling and he desired more than a mere few hours light slumber but did not want to fall into a deep slumber without the protection and shelter of a pack. It was not guaranteed that visions would come with heavy slumber no more that he could say with certainty that they wouldn't come. Nevertheless, it wasn't a bet he was willing to make.
It had been the dreams that had led him this eventuality. This vagabound lifestyle he had adopted while wearing the crown of the loner. He had dreamed of aimless wandering and now as he chased down the rising sun he found that they hadn't been wrong. There was a deep sense of purpose to be found in these lands, so very far from Bugloss Bend as he was. He simply had yet to discover it, figuring that it would come to him in the dreams that made him a soothsayer or he would reach some sort of conscious epiphany. Pace quickened with the desire to at least speak to a nearby pack before the sun reached it's highest point in the sky when the day would be at it's hottest point.
Violet eyes touched the landscape around him as he continued north pausing when he approached pack borders. He paused a fair distance from the borders, keeping a respectful distance between his body and their scent markers before he sent out a howl calling for one of their leaders.
Swift, feather-light steps brought her to the source of the summoning howl. She went alone, confidence in her own leadership abilities growing with each day that passed. She was starting to believe the spiel - the thereat that was required by a leader, and that Fox had shunned in favour of practicality.
The wolf at her door was a shaggy, grey-brown creature - lean like hammered metal. She approached him with her tail flagging high, muzzle raised and nostrils flaring. He carried the scent of greenery on him - flowers, possibly herbs.
Within twenty feet of the pledge, Bazi stopped - tall and wide-legged, drawing a deep sample of the stranger's scent into her lungs. "Name and business," she told him, her voice firm but gentle. If he was any kind of wolf, he knew the drill.
It did not take long for a leader to respond to his howl, making some sort of record time, Hemingway was sure with her arrival. The leader that approached him was a woman, a dainty thing with a plushy ivory coat. Not a color of fur he was accustomed to seeing with any kind of regularity. The Innisfree family was extensive and dominated three territories in it's expanse and did not carry the genetics required to have such a snowy coloration. Violet eyes appraised her in a quick movement before he noted her tail, flagged high letting him know her position of power. It was curious to the Soothsayer — a female Alpha but assumed, with the ignorance of his own heritage, that there was a man that held more power than her. Bugloss Bend was a classic male gender dominated pack but he understood and reminded himself hastily that this pack was not Bugloss Bend and sticking to what he had always known stood to get him a swift kick in the arse. He was in no mood to keep searching for a potential home, though he would force himself too, if it became necessary.
She was sort and to business, something that Hem could appreciate. The typical spiel of fluffy nothingness tended to get dull. As a guardian he had heard and, shame faced to admit it, spoken it all. It was tedious and sometimes it was nice to keep it as short as possible without sacrificing the integrity of the pack by allowing a ill fit into the pack. “I am Hemingway but everyone calls me Hem for short,” The Kelpie told her with a soft smile tugging at the edges of his lips, loose and friendly without being overly so. “I am in search of a pack to join,” Of course he was. Majority of the time that was the only reason lone wolves found themselves at the borders unless they made to cause trouble.
“I was a warden of my previous pack and a Naturalist,” Whether she put any stock behind the ability to perdict the weather based upon the sky or not it was something that Hem did quite well. Hem was extremely familiar with stars, weather patterns and their affects on the seasons; it had required great patience on his part mixed with a bit of a natural talent for it but he was determined to master it, nevertheless.
If Bazi had her way, every member of Swiftcurrent Creek would server as a warden. She did, as did Scimitar. His second skill wasn't one that Bazi had ever heard of. She shifted her weight onto one side, signalling that the interview was going well. "What's a naturalist, exactly?"
Hemingway wasn't a fan of drawing things out with what he felt was unnecessarily long and meaningless conversations. He could have asked her about Swiftcurrent Creek, could have inquired about herself or whatever else it was that wolves seemed to have habits of asking. He disliked dragging out the joining processes even as a Warden himself. There was the important information and then there was the information that no one needed or truly cared about. He had supplied her with what he filtered as important in his own mind, leaving out unnecessary things ...such as his ability as a soothsayer, and the fact that he had often been associated with his culture's Kelpie from their lore.
She inquired as to what a Naturalist was. Hemingway hid his surprise at the question with a swift, small smile wondering how it was that they did not have any naturalists in their pack. To Hemingway, they were sort of needed, weren't they? Or perhaps it was just that his family put much more stock in those sorts of things than other packs. “A naturalist tracks weather patterns and uses the lunar cycles and stars to predict how it will affect pack hunts, meetings and especially breeding season.” Hemingway informed her. Mostly, he was better at predicting the weather by observing what was a tell tale sign to him, but he felt it better to give her the full description as opposed to the stripped down version.
Bazi's ears twitched. There was a subtle change in her expression that suggested a real interest in what Hemingway was saying - beyond what was required by a warden. Breeding season? The young girl cocked her head to the side, struggling to maintain a strong exterior when all she wanted was to ask a million questions.
"Breeding season," she repeated, too curious to let it go. Hamingway and Paarthurnax together would set her up well for bearing pups in the coming year. "How do you do that, exactly?"