Stone Circle walk through the woods with me

Whenever you are ready! @Tauris

As time marched into mid-July, Vale wandered through the shaded paths of the Prism Grove to keep from sweltering. Prisnálund's aspen trees filtered the afternoon sun into sparsely spaced shafts of light, dappling the forest floor. An unlucky rabbit dangled from her jaws as she idled through the forest. 

Pausing upon a fork in the trail, Vale lifted her head and cast her gaze to a open stretch of grass within the trees. Breaking away from the path, she entered the small clearing and settled near the base of an aspen. Placing her catch between her forepaws, she kicked out her hind legs and made herself comfortable. A deep breath was drawn into her lungs before being released in a contented sigh. It was a lovely afternoon.

She is sure some women go beautifully into pregnancy.

This is not at all her case. True, her guts had stopped boiling and casting up everything she’d ever eaten in her entire life. But now that she was able to gain weight it swelled her awkwardly- her sides were starting to bulge but her limbs remained stick-thin. The extra pounds felt strange on her bones anytime she bent or laid or… moved. It was not the time of bliss she could have wished for, if she had any preconceived ideas about this process. She longed to speak with Tak but she wouldn’t take the new mother’s attention away from her babies.

So she often found herself stalking around Prisnálund looking for easy bites. Now that she could keep food down she rarely stopped eating. But she was still a shite hunter so that mainly meant scrawny fish and rodents, or the occasional pull from the pack kills. A muskrat dangled from her lips this afternoon. She used to live off of these things on her own but packlife has spoiled her, she was losing her taste for them.

Through the dell in trees she spots the new recruit, a girl she had not yet met. She hesitates, debating on giving her privacy she no doubt sought in the little glade, but decided against it. They’d have to meet sooner or later, and now was as good a time as any. She wouldn’t mind company with her lunch, surely the other woman wouldn’t be opposed?

“Hey new girl,” she calls and waddles out into the field, “Seat taken?”

She won't wait for a response before plunking down beside her and taking one massive bite out of her rat.

Oh no! Not at all! Vale hadn't much time time respond before the other woman settled besides her to eat. With a chuckle, Vale quietly studied her company. A woman with a pelt of stone grays and earthy browns. The occasional silver was reminiscent of morning frost. Vale returned her gaze to her paws before she stared too long. It was rude to stare let alone watch someone eat. 

Placing a forepaw atop her rabbit, Vale's tail thumped softly against the grass. Would you like more than that rat? Something tells me you're hungrier than I am. With a simple motion she pushed the small carcass into the space between them. It was hard to miss her new acquaintance's swollen flanks, let alone the ginger, awkward manner in which she moved. 

My name is Vale, by the way. I suppose I should have said that sooner.

She will think first that Vale is delightful. Petite and elegant and relaxed enough to laugh in the presence of new company.

“I just met you and you’re calling me fat?” A blunt accusation that breaks soon into a grin. Her rabbit did look especially delicious- but she wasn’t about to take someone else’s meal just because she was pregnant.

“How about a trade? Half for half,” she extends the remains of her muskrat. “Promise they’re tastier than they look.” Especially given how it is presented now in shreds of meat.

“I’m Tauris. It’s nice to meet you, Vale.” And between the ruinous waif and eerie soothsayer, it truly was. Finally someone normal to talk to.

“How are you adjusting?” She nibbles at the rabbit's ear. Spirits it’s divine.

As an accusation was put forth in response to her gesture, Vale's eyes widened. Gaze snapping to Tauris as her ears airplaned to the sides of her head. Her mind scrambling to locate the right words in her vocabulary. Moving too quickly for the rest of her body as her jaw hung slack with a leaden tongue. Then, she saw the humor on Tauris's face. She had been punked. Cheeks flushed, Vale broke into a laugh. She did walk into that one.

Her smile was a reflection of Tauris's as she extended a forepaw to take the remnants of the muskrat. It reached her eyes and inhabited her voice. A trade it is, then. Lowering her muzzle, she teased a scrap of flesh from the rodent.

I think it's been going well. I still have a lot of faces to learn. There are so many scents and distant figures in passing. She returned her gaze to Tauris. I've spent more time learning the land than mingling, truth be told. There is pup scent on the wind and I don't want to intrude.

Vale is still acclimating and that’s something Tauris can wholly relate to. “You and me both.”

Maybe that’s the sort of admission the nornir shouldn’t be making. But she’d never been an archetype of her role, anyway, and it wouldn't be like her to belay the truth in lieu of gathering every creature with a tail together for a cheery round of ‘kumbaya’.

“We’ve expanded so quickly,” she explains. And now there was going to be pups. It was overwhelming.

When Vale mentions the pup-scent her mind drifts to Taktuq. She too had been giving the new family quiet time, and as a result hadn’t seen her friend for weeks. She missed her sorely.

“Those are the alpha’s children. They were born last week,” she offers the systir a smile between bites. “Where are you from, Vale? Are you new to the valley?”

Vale reduced the muskrat to nothing as Tauris spoke. She could see a weariness to the nornir. Not just a physical kind of exhaustion, but there was a weight in the woman's words. It dulled her eyes and left a wrinkle in her brow.  

Perhaps it is a reflection of prosperity this year. Or at least a sound reputation. Vale mused in a gentle tone. She hadn't seen the entirety of Kvarsheim in one place, but the territory was saturated with wolf scent. How small had Kvarsheim been when Tauris joined? She pressed a forepaw into the grass, rolling a stray pebble along her pads absentmindedly.

Her ears perked at news of Taktuq's birth. I see the mother of Kvarsheim is mother to more, then. I am happy to hear!

I'm from a mountain range outside of the Teekons. Taktuq snatched me up shortly after I entered the valley. Vale couldn't suppress a soft, well-humored chuckle. Crossed the uh .... The Sunspires! Had been exploring a couple of the forests in the lands out west for a bit.

She eyes Vale while crunching on a foot, having never quite seen it from that perspective before. It is charitable though not untrue. Gunnar and Taktuq are thoughtful leaders, they’ve created quite a respite here nestled between the border mountains. Their allyship with the valley packs remains strong. Silvertongue has seemingly eradicated the brat. There is a lot to be grateful for. She just needs time to transition from the stillness of a lone life. There wouldn’t be a breath of quiet once the dam broke anyway.

“Yes. You’re right.”

The systir is well traveled, talking of distant places and the mountains to the west which Tauris had ventured into only a little. That Vale would choose this valley to call home then speaks to the area’s abundance.

“I for one,” she says between licks of messy toes, “am glad you’ve found your way here of all places.” She hikes up onto her paws and shakes out her coat. “And I’m gonna make it well worth your while. C'mon let me give you the grand tour!” The invitation comes with a glint of eye and wag of tail.

“Gotta keep up though," she'll tease as she begins a clunky pregnant trot through the mead.

There is joy to be had in making in a new friend. Vale lifted her head as Tauris stood. Smile persisting on her face. I am glad to be here. 

Tauris moved and beckoned for her continued company. Obliging, Vale pulled herself to her paws with a hastened step to catch up to Tauris. A small glint of mischief to her eye. I'll have my work cut out for me, then.

Her eyes turned to the forest. The summer brought with it lush folliage and bountiful leaves. Where to first? Gunnar has told me about the stones, I should point out.

A laugh, and a challenge set: “Think so, wolf girl?”

The whoop is abandoned as she tears through the green aisle and into a tunnel of yellow aspen. Her belly is swollen but her stride is strong and knows the ways through this valley. Let this well-traveled woman be tested!

As she had once been.

All know of the mythic stones. It is the land itself Tauris wants to show.

“Prisalundá: Prism Grove!” She calls over her shoulder as they barrel their way through the chapel of gold, providing Skáld’s translations.

“Leynille: Secret Creek!” The paw-churned embankment made the damp air pungent with earth.

“Veiðadýr: Hunting Grounds!” Springing from the body of wood and out onto rolling lupine hillocks before ascending North into rugged highland.

She shows Vale everything: the silver-stone steeples, the warm shale pools, blackened brush where a fire had once burned, a tree so old and tall the top could not be seen. The sky releases a wind to drift through their cheeks and over their backs as they crest to a pinnacle overlooking a rippling royal-blue loche. She pants, her tongue flies, stomach sways, but she keeps an agile pace. This is her world, as it will be for the children who run within her.

As it will be now for Vale.

“Duck Lake.”

Thank you for your patience!

The game of chase is a timeless one. As Tauris tore through the forest Vale pursued her. Laugh catching in her throat, she leveled her head and put her feet to the soil. 

In times past she would have kept tightly to Tauris's wake. Even now, she found her paws often landing within the prints Tauris left behind. But Vale followed two strides behind. Allowing her awareness to extend beyond the nornir's back, and to observe to what was being shown to her. 

Shafts of warm sunlight alighted from golden rafters as the Prism Grove's gilded branches swirled above. Dancing above them in the wind.

The gentle creek whispered from its bed. Spilling to them its secrets as they bounded across its embankments. Vale looked down long enough to see her small prints left behind in the bank. For Leynille to remember.

The grass of the highlands was hardy but flexible. Bowing to the drifting breeze. The sun shining unimpeded overhead.

Through it all Vale listens. She commits names to memory and clarifies pronounciations. Golden eyes wide and attentive. And she smiles. Despite Tauris's unforgiving pace, a toothy grin graces her face. As she slows her pace to climb the overlook that Tauris stood upon, her tail wags. Eyes briefly lingering on the woman who so graciously shared to her the land they lived, she turned to the glistening blue water.

I think it's a good day to go for a swim. Don't you think?

wanna fade this one? <3

The threaded air tingles across her fur, stealing the words from Vale’s lips but casting them back around for her ears. Below them fields of green sway in the high-summer heat and the lake with its eye of blue beckons.

“C’mon!” she routes down the brushy peak, long limbs leaping excitedly with the promise of a dip beneath the warm sun’s rays. She had swam many times in the waters of the lake- but this time she was was going with a friend.