Bearclaw Valley ce tissage d'événements

Daybreak came, though the valley sheltered them from the dawning light at its lowest point. The sky bled with color, the minutes ticking by only giving rise to the subtle change and offering her more reason to stir. She hadn't slept that well, giving in to the constant toss and turn and half-wake stirring that often consumed her. The first few nights had gone by easily enough and the disruption came as a surprise.

But the weariness was not to last once she was up and moving, the rest fitful enough to afford her enough motivation at least to venture. She headed towards the stream, one of several, and sought to slake a thirst that had rose up to overcome her. A low fog twined through the timber; she took note of the birds that had begun to sing, and further noted that there was a silence here.

She didn't particularly care for the quiet, found it all too easy to slip into thoughts she had best leave alone for another time, preferably never to be teased out. Ursus itself would rise soon if it did not already, if it ever slept, and she would find something to do when the light deigned it time to spill in over the rocky slopes.

The water of the stream was crisp and cool even as the temperatures rose. Spring was finally grabbing hold of them, leaves unfurling at the end of branches and flowers opening. There was her task—to catalogue them mentally, perhaps to gather and store. To call back on the trade her mother had been wise to teach her at an early age. Better to have them on hand now with their motley crew, she thought, thinking then of the slate fellow she had met who had watched the pig, and then of the tale woven deep in the scarred flesh of Merrick.

She didn't question why the inclination was there, but she would follow it.

Something willed it, whether it was her heart or sheer instinct.

@Evien hi come play

// I am so sorry I have no idea why I didn't see this

The medic's sleeping schedule was... irregular, at best. Evien had always been a light sleeper, a night owl, and an early bird all in one - often operating on just a few hours of sleep at a time, as much as he would harp on people to get enough rest. 

It was that sleeping schedule that had him awake so early this morning, basking in the sunlight that filtered through the tree branches above. Silence held the valley in a cold grasp; thick, foreboding. Everything in Ursus was tense and delicate, like a snake ready to strike. Evien had gotten used to it.

What he had not gotten used to was running into new wolves.

This one, a female - very dark in color, and for a moment he thought it might be Leila. But that wasn't right; her eyes were the wrong color, she wasn't as... bristly. Leila and this wolf held themselves in an entirely different manner.

Approaching quietly, the young medic let out a soft woof of greeting.

A voice pulled her attention up from the stream.

Now she was definitely certain she had seen him before. If not at the meeting then somewhere in passing, too distant to flag down for proper introduction. A smile graced her features easily and her rejoinder was happy enough by way of a tail wave. She'd take company to stop the snowballing of thoughts and ponderings, and what better a way to start the day than acquainting herself with someone fairly unfamiliar.

Her tongue whisked away the last droplets clinging to her dark chin.

"Good morning," she offered.

"Good morning," he responded with a small smile, tail swishing back and forth. That was a bit different - she seemed... almost innocent, in a way. Unlike many of the Ursus wolves, whom Evien had become accustomed to being surly and harsher with. It was hard to play peacemaker and exhibit kindness here, though he did try. 

Green eyes took in dark black and he tipped his head to the side. "You're new," he hazarded to guess, offering her a tilted smile. "My name's Evien - I'm the medic here. And you are?"

“Oh! You’re the medic!” she said with a fluster of eagerness, only to fluster more when she had fumbled right past what he had even asked of her. “Uh, my name is Phoebe, and yes, I’m new… ish. ” Her words came just as quickly to rectify, though she had been there a spell now it seemed, at least in her own estimation. Time was a bit more of a sieve to her now than ever; perhaps it hadn’t been that long at all since Merrick had led her back to the insular valley.

Not that it particularly mattered, and she fumbled a bit more to follow.

“I’m a medic also; Merrick mentioned you to me but didn’t say who you were. I had been hoping to cross paths with you, though.” She dumped the pieces and parts to him, more than likely exuding youth on top of a certain social awkwardness that had followed her enthusiasm. “I was, uh, hoping we could work together, perhaps,” maybe, possibly, hopefully, “if you’d want to, anyway.”

Oh, another medic. One who was new-ish. Trying to feel like he hadn't been replaced, Evien cleared his throat and offered her a small smile. She was endearing - a little inept, socially, he noticed, but sweet nonetheless. It would be hard to be upset with her. 

The brown boy dipped his head. "It's nice to meet you, Phoebe," he responded, not reacting much to her awkward pattern of speech. "Welcome to Ursus."

"It'll be nice to have help around," he acquiesced, nodding. "The wolves around here are... aggressive, to say the least. It does get a little exhausting, from time to time." He hummed in thought. "I guess I'd have to show you to my den."

He didn’t rebuke her for all her fumbling and that in itself is an endearing thing; it warmed her to him in an instant and very much in the way she had seized a hold on Merrick taking her in, she grasps it. It was with a rapt attention that she listened in, though a certain hold up occurs; she does not perceive the aggression of Ursus just yet, instead furrowing her own brow at the notion that they are as they should be. Territorial, protective; how little she knows, but didn't think it should matter.

It is sidelined by the mention of the medicine den, however.

“Oh, you’ve already been storing things? That’s excellent. I’ve been trying to catalogue what we may find here to use. I hadn’t gotten to the storing part, yet,” she told him, this time having a better footing. “So you’ve been with Merrick for a while then, I take it? I’ve only met a couple of others so far, um, Skoll was the name of one. And then there were the others at the meeting that I saw.” She hadn’t branched out the way she had wanted to, adding, “I’ve mostly been exploring the valley, honestly.”

"Mhm. I've been here since before we were an official pack... a month or so before, I believe," he told her, thinking on how long that actually was. It'd been months now, of loyalty and caring for these wolves. A small smile crossed his maw at the thought. So he'd been developing a store of herbs for a while, too. 

A nod then. "I store them in this little den that I sleep in. That was one of the first things I did when I got here. Found the medicine den, and my personal den along with it." He leaned to the side, studying the dark wolf. "How've you liked it so far?"

She marveled inwardly at the fact that he had been here long before her—what knowledge he must have possessed about how it had come to be. Or at least the inner workings of such. She was eager to learn, so very eager to be apart of it all that she wasn’t sure where to begin other than what she already knew to do. So at least healing would be the common ground between her and him, as opposed to the others she had met, the warriors and guardians and the like.

“That sounds convenient,” she commented, now pondering on that. “And I’ve liked it here so far. The valley is very pretty, lots of things to do and see until I’ve learned all about it. Of course, I’m sure there’s always something to do here, which is why I figured I could help by taking up the trade I was taught.”

A thoughtful pause struck her then.

“Would it be too much trouble for you to show me your medicine den?‌‌ I’d like to contribute, when I can.” A small smile graced her features, crisp and clean and oh so very hopeful. But it faltered as she remembered herself—“Unless of course, you had something to do. I don’t want to impose.”