Blackfoot Forest striding, powerful, into the arms of death

praimfaya searches for the missing thade close to home, descending from the looming spire and slipping 'round the end of the sunspire range into the valley. there is a particular lack of any scent to follow and though she knows mahler means for her to check with packs she thinks it unlikely that he ended up with any. he was old enough to talk, if his sister ( the little bit that praimfaya saw her ) was of any indication. wouldn't they have returned him home by now? what good did it serve any pack to take on an extra mouth to feed that was barely, if at all, self-sufficient. especially since they too, she assumes, have their own young to look after.

the forest is sun-dappled in the early afternoon light, left to shine brightly without being obscured by driftclouds. reaching what she would consider the heart of the forest she suspects that the missing child is not to be found here; a deduction made only after two patrol circuits in the forest. she pauses here, where they is a fresh water source that trickles down from the snowmelt of the high sunspire peaks and sates her thirst from the crisp, cool waters; all the while plotting out where she will go next, from here.

Revui left the valley in the morning and crossed through the meadow, following his whims rather than any scent trail. He was losing faith that Ikkalrok would ever surface from the den and began to view it as a grave, and he could not dwell beside it and feel any satisfaction with his own life.

He had always wanted to be more than he was, either through his rank among his family or through his physical pursuits, and it felt as if he were rotting while he waited for her. He needed excitement in his life — and aside from their tryst and the blood they spilled together in the past, there was nothing to keep him invested, nothing that made sense to the leviathan at any rate.

The far-off mountains remained distant enough to prove alluring, but close enough to stab at Revui's heart in places he kept dark and locked away. They looked impressive as they dominated the horizon. It wasn't quite so ominous with the summer light weaving between the needle-thin trees. There were foxes here; he did not need to look far to find signs of them, as the air was thick with the musty ammonia quality of their little bodies. Revui grimaces, remembering the game of butchery that he had participated in before, with Ikkalrok, and how it had united them.

There is another scent — a more familiar one, in the sense that wolves all held a commonality — and he is drawn towards this instead. When there comes the sound of pacing, of footfalls upon the dry tinder of the forest floor, Revui is alert, and notices a gray shape striding behind rows upon rows of trees; it is hard to make out their intent but they appear to be hunting. The man is intrigued and approaches without hesitation, his own steps reverberating through the forest.

despite praimfaya's belief that she will not find thade in this place — nor any place she searches — she is determined to exhaust all options, just in case. her thirst sated, her head rises and salmon pink tongue draws across her jowls as she switches paths, knowing she must go past this place in her search. mahler had mentioned nightwalkers, after all. she would have to backtrack to reach them, it's true but she doesn't wonder why the eisen never considered that he went east of the mountain ...or was taken that way? it was tough to know exactly what fate had befallen the boy.

the sound of approaching footfalls give praimfaya pause and frostbound gaze cuts through the sundappled greenery to fall upon the male. his approach is brazen and though her hackles bristle and nostrils flare as she drinks in his scent she doesn't detect any immediate hostility in his bold approach. still, the last time she was approached so boldly she was attacked and the wanheda warns him to maintain distance only with a small curl of her lips.

she would fight, if it came to it but having just recovered and with the weight of her mission bearing down upon her shoulders she knows fighting isn't ideal. hei, she calls to him, deciding to turn his bold approach to her advantage. have you seen a cub around here? grey with dark markings on his face and ears and looks like he walked through mud. not the most eloquent of descriptions but drawing from the memory of brief glimpses of the very few times she's seen thade gives praimfaya little else to work with.

They catch one-another's gaze and the woman flashes her teeth, a brief show that does not dissuade him so much as amuse him, for whatever that is worth. Revui lacks a sense of humor (as well a sense of tact, or any real depth beyond the desires of each gluttonous moment that passes) but somehow he sees her fangs and the twisted scars littering her body and is charmed by them. This woman is a warrior; her skin tells stories without the necessity of words. Revui can appreciate that. He stands firmly in place and heeds her warning but remains alert, trailing his gaze across the network of wounds as if he is reading them.

She asks about a child and the description does not mean much to Revui. He has not seen any children that would match that description, and so far his encounters with the bearberries of Ursus were limited to one autumnal child. However, as he is not the brightest of people, Revui presumes she is speaking of another child born to Astara.

He nods. There are cubs in the valley beyond the meadow, but it is a dangerous place. Not that danger would deter a true warrior, he thinks with satisfaction, watching her.

praimfaya watches as he heeds her warning and is satisfied though her guard does not entirely lower. she does not fully recognize the pack scent he carries upon his pelage though there is something about it that strikes her as very vaguely familiar. she tucks it aside. it doesn't matter where he hails from ...only if he's seen thade. the missing boy is her mission and though she has her doubts about whether she will catch up to the boy that has literally turned into a mere myth as the time wound on she does as she is pleaded to ...because she owes mahler that. for accepting her back when he hadn't needed to.

as he speaks her expression is terse; contemplative. it wasn't a 'yes' but it wasn't necessarily a 'no' either. he speaks of more cubs in the valley and she wonders if thade could've found his way there. at this point, praimfaya is not ready to turn away any potential lead; anything was possible. he'd be about ...four months old now. he's called thade. she prods him eagerly for further information but deduces that if he won't — or perhaps can't — tell her anything more she'll just have to go to the valley herself.

at the mention of 'dangerous' she gives a sage nod to affirm that she understands ...and barely contains her snort; arrogant as it perhaps would've been. arrogant or not, the wanheda is hardly afraid of danger. do i look like i'm afraid of the dangerous? she inquires with a small, cloying smile.

He shrugs his shoulders at the description. They are all too small to be useful to him, so he lumps them all together. Newborns were mewling and rat-sized; any larger and they become loud and investigative of their own little universe, but he cannot teach them to fight and they cannot hunt for him, so Revui dismisses their existence entirely, unless they are directly in front of him. The description the woman gives is not remarkable, nor is it familiar, but he doesn't respond much to it beyond that nonchalance.

She snorts at his warning; his assumption is right, though. She is a warrior. One who has seen plenty of battle. Her arrogance is likely as strong as his own, her pride and willpower in excess. Revui cannot help but smirk and the expression does not suit his face.

You look like a survivor. He comments, appreciatively.

it is clear that the man can offer her no information about thade and praimfaya considers this for a moment longer as her tail brushes against her hocks, frostbound gaze flickers to the sundappled shadows around them before they rest back upon him; regarding. praimfaya supposes the lack of usefulness where information is concerned should be enough for her to be going on her way. in truth, she's had her doubts about finding thade before she ever set out from the spire upon this journey ...and not just because she wasn't a bountyhunter by trade. it seems unlikely to her that the boy lingers nearby, though where he'd go when still too young to fend for himself she doesn't know. as a cub, she did a lot of exploring it was true but always, always under the watchful eye of blodreina and later ingram, dacio and aleks.

frostbound gaze catches the action of his smirk, and the wanheda makes a small, coy tilt of her head as he states his observation aloud. she doesn't know much of anything about her paternal family but she knows from her maternal side that she comes from a long line of draconian women; and that she closely resembles her fierce, valkyrian grandmother.

for a moment, she contemplates the word 'survivor' and realizes that he's not wrong. to be a survivor meant to do whatever it took to ensure your life continued from sunrise to sunset and again. it takes a survivor to know a survivor. she observes, finding herself wondering what his story was.

Her reply makes him think of all the things he's been through. Most of his major life events have had something to do with his family and remembering them hurt. He saw Arcturus' face flash through his memory as a combatant, while they fought over a woman who would go on to abandon them both; he saw Hydra's teeth grimacing over him and felt them tear his skin; but he also remembered tearing in to the deer fawn with his brother and fighting against the wolverine, all of which transfigured these better memories in to something more profoundly sad.

He takes a slow, steady breath. Those were things that built him from the boy he was in to the teenager he became - and it was the Nightwalkers that changed him further. Merrick, and Ursus, which forged him in to the man he was. He held no true loyalty to any of these places. His good memories of Merrick were mirror-images of his good memories with his blood brother and that was likely the only reason Revui was so devoted.

Who do you run with? He queries, his face like stone; he erects a mental wall of shoddy craftsmanship to keep out the memories. He cannot help but look her over again and imagine her upon Moonspear; Hydra would certainly approve of someone with a warrior's focus. While he waits for a reply he adds his own alliegance: I am a warrior of Merrick's, within Ursus.

he inquires after who she runs with and is quick to offer his own details before she can take offense. the names 'merrick' and 'ursus', though she thinks she might've heard of them before, perhaps — or perhaps it is just something familiar about their sounds that inspire the slight swell of deja-vu to rise within her chest — for the most part draw up a blank in praimfaya's mind. she has been to many packs and met many wolves but she knows she's never met a merrick nor been to a ursus. i don't know them, she admits in a quiet, contemplative hum. not the first time she has not known of a pack and she seriously doubts it'll be the last.

i run with sagtannet. she offers in return, gesturing to the peeking tip of the spire.

Ah, a mountain woman. No wonder he'd taken a fancy to her so readily; she motions to the distant peak and Revui glances up, envious, wanting to explore those great heights and conquer this mountain as he had so many others. He was appreciative of the thorn-like shape of it, feeling a pang of longing strike at his core.

He is quiet for a long minute. One could argue he was struck dumb by the majesty of the spire but he'd have to have a modicum of intelligence to begin with. Finally he comments, without taking his eyes away from the edge of Sagtannet's mountain which is being swept in to nothingness by a cluster of clouds, Good luck in your hunt. For the missing.

Revui finally looks to her again, studying her, but silent. He begins to pull away from her presence and with a languid stride, continue on his way.

he wishes her luck on her hunt for the missing thade and she thanks him in quiet undertones. whatever trial the boy had left has gone stark cold; praimfaya knows this. suspected as much before she even set out. each territory she comes to that ends without trace and each wolf she speaks to that hasn't seen the missing sagtannet boy only leaves her more certain of her failure. she watches the stoneman depart; stretches before continuing on her way. despite her souring lack of hope, her mission isn't over yet.