Little Goat Mountain princess peach, won't you listen to my speech

Looking for someone from Mereo, maybe a @Towhee if she'd come out here? o:

Fiadh should have recognized where she was, but, well, she didn't. The last time she was in the area was almost two years ago. In that time she'd had three kids and raised them to adulthood, deciding soon after that she was never going to go through that again. She loved them dearly and wondered how they were doing, but... yeesh. She didn't know if her fanny would ever make a full recovery. All that to say, when Fiadh returned to the Teekons, she didn't even notice.

When she spotted mountains ahead, Fiadh wasted no time scaling them to find a tall ledge to walk along. Nothing quite so refreshing as mountain air rushing by while you stared down a hundred foot drop. One big gust and whoops! Splat! What a way to go.

Little Goat Mountain was not the type of peak that boasted hair-rising heights, alas. After an hour of wandering up and up only to find more gentle slopes and an abundance of fluffy snow, Fiadh turned her sights to the adjoining spire, which looked to be a sheer wall all the way up. That was more like it!

mereo was different than the places she knew.

one such difference was in the stone fangs that rose around the canyon and dominated the sunspire. today tamar wanted to hunt and so she climbed into the rock rungs leading up from mereo.

she felt that within close earshot of arsenio he perhaps would not worry so much. as she did often, she hummed, though the sound drifted into silence as she traveled a small slope. 

the spire was breathtaking. too late tamar noticed she was not alone. she cleared her throat and offered a smile in the cold air. "these place is wild enough for any traveller."

Even though Tamar's humming trailed off just before she spotted Fiadh, the Blackthorn's excellent ears had already heard it from afar. It tore her gaze away from the challenging spire ahead and onto a lovely little she-wolf. Her pelt golden like the sunset on water, crimson rays catching it all alight.

Cheers to that, love, Fiadh agreed with a friendly wave of her tail and a bright grin. Tamar seemed to know something of this place, and smelled of others to boot, even from a short distance. A nearby pack was her guess, but Fiadh had not scented them yet. Y'ever been up there? she asked in the very next breath, giving the spire another appraising look. There was a challenge dancing in her yellow eyes, a challenge for the very wilds themselves.

the girl shook her head.

"i am not used to mountains. only deserts. flat places. canyons." she looked around at the glossy stone expanse and breathed. "i came up to hunt. now it feels as though i have gone too high." the stranger was like smoke rising against a winter sky. she seemed perfectly suited to this environment.

the wind caught her fur, tousled it. "i am tamar, from mereo," she introduced, pitching her voice to carry over the gale even as snow scuffed and made her squint. she discovered then it had become easier to speak of herself. to introduce herself. the galanis wife came closer, gazing out toward the mountain.

Tamar was quite a different sort of wolf, or was it Fiadh who was different? No place in the world was too high for Fiadh. If she had the option to sprout wings, she’d have flown away long ago. She couldn’t relate to feeling like she had gone too high.

Oh dear, she said, it is a tall one, innit? I was gonna challenge you to a race to the top but that just won’t do. Why don’t we go down a bit, Tamar from Mereo? Maybe I can help you hunt something? Hunting was its own kind of thrill. It would satisfy Fiadh for now.

I’m Fiadh from nowhere, she said cheerily as she started down the mountainside. Originally Redhawk Caldera but it has been years. I doubt anyone would even remember me! There was no hint of regret or longing in her voice, only fond remembrance. What’s Mereo?

another time tamar might have refused.

she might have had something to prove to the charming, vivid-eyed woman who had appeared from the snow. as it was tamar was relieved, and nodded eagerly at the suggestion. "there are paths around the canyon where hunting can be done." she slipped a bit in her hasty descent, pulling back sharply against fiadh's shoulder.

"i'm sorry," tamar whispered in shame. she tried to remember what her companion had said before. the mention of redhawk caldera piqued her interest, though she was not sure why. perhaps in passing she had heard the name.

"mereo is a military outpost. there are plebians and soldiers." she shook out her brilliant ruff under its covering of snow. "the imperator reigns over the soldier. the matrona is the same for the plebians." had she said too much? tamar was unsure.

Don't be! chirped Fiadh, bracing her legs to catch the smaller woman before she could tumble. Maybe it was because she'd grown up with three equally rambunctious littermates or maybe it was because her three kids were as rough and tumble as Blackthorns came, but Fiadh didn't mind one bit when others careened into her for any reason. I once slipped on a slope like this and rolled for what felt like days.

Tamar gave a brief description of Mereo while they walked toward the canyon where there was decent hunting. In her travels, Fiadh had heard many foreign titles much like these ones. She got the gist of it. Soldiers... They could be as stuffed up as Thanksgiving turkeys at times, but there was a certain honesty about that lifestyle that Fiadh appreciated. Plebeians must be everyone else, the support team, as it were. You all expecting a war sometime soon? she wondered, unable to think of any other reason a military outpost might form.

tamar shook her head.

"there was a war before mereo came to be. it was between the saints and akashingo."

she tried to recall more. "mereo is an outpost for akashingo, to control a major passageway through the mountains. the saints have been disbanded and run off for their crimes. murder. threatening packs. they have a reputation."

tamar sniffed delicately at the snowy air. her pale brown eyes rested now toward fiadh. "it sounds rough. but it is a pleasant place. it is very safe due to the soldiers."

No war. That was a relief. Not that Fiadh was the sort to avoid conflict — rather, she gravitated toward it — but it would be a lot easier hanging out in the mountains without a war brewing. She wanted to see her kids again someday, and besides, no one benefited from war.

The smell of goat was in the air. Young ones, too, by her estimation. She exchanged a glance with Tamar and changed course. If these Saints are gone, why does Akashingo still need an outpost? she asked, no hint of judgment in her voice. She was misunderstanding the point of Mereo and its connection to its original pack. Wouldn't you all rather go home?

"to keep the saints from coming back."

"my husband and i, we came from akashingo to help the imperator begin mereo."

it felt good to speak of arsenio. a blush touched her cheek. "so the pharaoh is not above us. but we are allied. it was he who suggested that germanicus should be the one to make this place."

tamar turned sharply, watching a raven flap loudly away from the wolves, who had no meat to drop and were therefore of no interest.

Tamar's logic was very sound. Fiadh wouldn't pretend to understand why Tamar would want to stay in the outpost instead of her home in Akashingo when she was married, but the reason for Mereo still standing made total sense. She supposed the pair might not want for pups, or the husband could be happier serving here. It wasn't her business anyway.

Will Mereo fight Akashingo's battles, then? she asked, turning her head up to watch the raven. As it flapped away, she turned a twinkling eye back to the pretty Mereo wolf. Y'think there might be food that way?

"the pharaoh might command, but mereo may not answer."

the girl gave a diplomatic smile, slipping easily to another focus of their conversation. "i think we should follow to find out." fiadh was granted a conspiratorial look and then tamar started up toward the ridge over which the blackbird had come.

the mereoan was careful with the placement of her paws, though she glanced around more than once for fiadh until the ground had leveled beneath them once more.

Mind if we fade out here? <3

The smile Tamar wore belied the words she spoke, but Fiadh decided then and there to not pry. It didn't matter to her if Mereo and Akashingo were one and the same, or two separate entities each thinking the other was under their control, or whatever was going on there. She let the subject drift away, but would keep it tucked in the back of her mind that this military outpost may not be so loyal to its progenitor pack.

Tamar followed the raven in meticulous fashion, but it had always been Fiadh's way to just charge ahead. She scaled the slope with significantly less elegance, even slipping and knocking her chin on the rubble once. She grinned through the smarting pain and kept on. The raven might lead them to acceptable carrion or maybe even a dying animal they could easily take out, or it might lead them nowhere, but the company was good and it sure beat just wandering around.