Sun Mote Copse you always feared god-born achilles

jr walks the borders, settling into her normal afternoon routine. the sun was warm upon her back, the air filled with a heavy humidity that hinted at coming rain. each breath felt a little bit like she was slogging thru water; and she takes breaks often. to cool off beneath the shade of the nearest tree, to drink from a puddle.

ghost flies a little bit ahead of her; performing reconnoissance.

she keeps her eyes alert for any movements outside the territory, and a weathered eye on her feathered companion riding the winds for any signal of trouble.

blissfully, this patrol was calm ( though most were, in truth ).

Their recent visitors reminded Meerkat of her diplomatic mission, way past due now. She set aside all her distractions today to find Towhee Jr and head out, never mind the rainy forecast. She idly wondered if the young honoree had seen their mother, though she doubted it. She was getting a little worried now, though that was just one more thing she needed to put on the back burner today.

-Jr, hey!- Meerkat said after locating Ghost overhead and tracking backward to find her sister slogging along the copse’s borders. -I was wondering if you’d like to go and find those neighbors of ours today… if we can even call them that.-

She glanced due south. The lush greenery of the sweep took up every square inch of her visual field, though Meerkat knew that the bypass lay somewhere on its far side. And somewhere beyond that lived the wolves of… well, she didn’t know what they called themselves. If Towhee had ever mentioned it, Meerkat couldn’t remember.

meerkat finds jr, whose steps slow when her sister begins to come into her view: though jr suspects it does not take much to find her. she is a creature of predictability in that she can often be found patrolling the borders.

in her peripheral she notes ghost circling back to perch upon a nearby branch, but her attention does not linger upon her falcon companion for long.

-hey meer,- jr signs her greeting in ptero; brief but affectionate all the same.

a soft furrow of jr's brow is given as she reads her sister's ptero. -yeah,- she signs in agreement; though her response was knee-jerk and did not require any sort of thought from her. of course she wanted to go suss out these 'neighbors' ( but it was a tough line to walk between not wanting to come off as too eager considering the nature of it wasn't from a place of good intentions necessarily ).

I hope it’s alright that I powered them over to La Muerte! Let me know if I need to change anything. :)

Tagging @Reyna and @Nivis for visibility and invitation. *waves*

-Then let’s go,- Meerkat replied succinctly, already turning as she mentally tacked on, and get this over with…

It took a considerable amount of time to cross the neighboring sweep, then step into the basin beyond. Meerkat thought about how their mother refused to set foot here as she passed through the stony gateway. Then she had to focus on fording a small river before they headed into yet more trees.

-I think this is a good place to stop and call,- Meerkat decided somewhere near the far side of the strath. -Once they get here, I can let you do the talking. I’ll translate, of course.-

After waiting for Jr’s assent on all of that, the lady of the copse shook off the metaphorical rust and called out a friendly note to get their neighbors’ attention.

!!!

the matriarch is first to heed the call of the strangers. stringing along a guard, she does not pass her claim to greet the strangers. already, she could tell just by the looks upon their faces and the full of their bellies they were not needy travelers looking for a home. her interest in them, then, is faint.

hello there.. she hums with a smile. welcome to La Muerte. she spends her greeting looking over the pair, searching for signs of hostility. their scent was faint, but it was familiar to the matriarch. from where, though, she could not recall.
what has brought you here today?

reyna travels, and the shadow masked man is her ever faithful shadow.

strangers walk upon the lands of la muerte.

he is skeptical, especially after such a recent visit from another neighboring pack.

trailing forward to sit close beside the matriarch, his nostrils flare briefly, dark eyes looming over the strange pair.

Nivis smelled the strangers and for the first time since a few days ago, he emerges from the darkness of loneliness.

They have been around for a while, and he knows for a fact. Their off-putting and smelly musk distracted him from the drugged up sleep and hushed his legs forward to where it came from. It was as bad as the smell of his own children, if not worse, which at this point he was annoyed with and slowly approached.

He kept a fair distance from Reyna, observing her from the other side. Of course their guard was there too, and so to him particularly he gave a crescent-eyes smile before focusing on the more important. He wasn’t gonna talk, but push them away.

Oh hello there, look who finally showed up here. Welcome to my wife’s and my nearby home. What leads you up here, to the mountains? You have made this entire region stink.

everything in jr rebels against the idea of being friendly, and this hard, sword sharp edge is only honed as the last male joins them. she does not need to hear his words: she can read lips more than proficiently at this point and her hackles, where ghost has perched, bristle beneath the sharp bite of his talons.

sun mote copse had the longest claim here and she wanted so badly to put them in their place.

but that was not their purpose here.

whatever hesitance and want to shy away from being the one doing the talking has been locked away: allowing for her to elude confidence despite her uncertainty and the fact that her first impression of them has already soured and began to rot.

-i am towhee, of sun mote copse,- she signs in ptero, gaze hard; leveled. there was no adding of 'jr', no specification of rank. they did not need to know that she was not a leader and just in training. idly, jr wonders how much meerkat would actually translate: if she would speak it as jr signed it or if she would smooth over her rough edges.

-since you do not see fit to visit us first as the established pack, we came to you.- no, she does not think her bite is exactly what meerkat or njord were looking for, nor tended to lean towards.

The first to appear was a pale woman who looked like she’d blown in from the north. Meerkat noticed she clung to the foot of the mountain, so she exchanged a look with Towhee Jr before padding a little nearer to the border. Her eyes never left the stranger, at least until she noticed her giant shadow. He stood close to the woman, a silent guardian.

Her mouth opened to reply to the question when a third figure materialized, another swarthy fellow with a slightly smaller build. Meerkat found it curious that he didn’t flank his comrades but instead chose to move to their other side, as if trying to surround the two visitors. Between that and his sarcastic greeting, Meerkat was immediately on her guard.

Her eyes bored into Jr, wondering what she might want to say to this mismatched trio. As soon as she began signing, Meerkat’s lips parted to begin her translation. She tried not to editorialize too much, though she spoke carefully, her mimicked Ptero similarly careful.

-“This is Towhee and I’m Meerkat. We’re from Sun Mote Copse. We’re here because we wanted to formally introduce ourselves to our new neighbors, although I know you’re not really that new anymore. Sorry we couldn’t make it here sooner,”- she said, though there was a tightness in her eyes.

Meerkat wasn’t really that sorry, though she was nothing if not diplomatic. She actually found she shared the sentiment Jr had conveyed: why hadn’t they taken it upon themselves to pay a visit to the copse? Why hadn’t they done that long ago, before deciding to stake a claim that negatively impacted not one but two established packs?

-“May we have your names and the name of your pack?”- Meerkat decided to ask before meeting Jr’s eye and asking, -“And is there anything you’d like to add, J—Towhee?”-

the interlopers dare closer, and her brow twitches. they gesture to one another, and the paler one speaks but the queen could care less for what she spoke, but rather what her hands told the dark brute next to her. tension chokes the air like a fog, but reyna was trained to breathe through it.

preparate. she orders quietly to basilio, and glances towards nivis. would numbers, perhaps, aid them?

aah, the copse. i believe i've already met one of yours. that explained the odd familiarity she saw within the dark woman, but could not pinpoint why it had been until now. this woman was different, though, despite the similarities — this woman had the decency to keep her lips sealed.

you come to the kingdom of La Muerte. i am doña reyna, and he, she nods towards nivis. is don nivis. i accept your apology, needless as it may be. we did not ask for you to visit us, but you are welcome nonetheless. her smile crinkles her eyes, though she too was putting on a facade for the pair.

"prepare yourself."

preparate.

tension locking in his muscles, he inches a step closer to reyna; the move is instinct alone.

while his queen continues to converse in kind, the shadow-masked man is not any more convinced than she. 

he remains on alert, eyes never leaving the traveling pair.

sorry for the delay, have not been in the best shape so feel free to skip me in the next round! ty for waiting!

Drama and so much tension; Nivis shivers. Yes, that’s what he had been waiting for and expected to happen eventually ever since the pack was established. He stares unbothered at the two and also eyes their guard with the corner of his eye, chuckling at the thought that just crossed his mind. As expected; the amusement comes from every direction.

Alright, alright. Let’s speak! He throws his hands into the air and walks towards Reyna’s other side. And take it easy.

Clearly there is some misunderstanding I am recognizing and that needs to be cleared. We are neighbours— Slow steps are taken forward to where the duo stands, eyebrows raised. Not enemies, right? Let’s then act like so to avoid harm.

It would be a pity, right love? He hums towards Reyna. What’s your worry Meerkat and Towhee? Seemingly there is some, since it’s very doubtful you are visiting to meet us without a reason!

though jr feels a soft flare of annoyance that meerkat edits her words, offering an apology, it does not surprise her, either. she had understood her bite could cost them something that already balanced precariously on the edge of a sword. they did not need war, but jr cannot help but think that these wolves could stand to be a bit more humble.

they should be the ones to apologize, not throwing the fact that it was accepted but needless back in their faces.

jr's gaze lingers on the woman of the trio, taking words at lip value, unable to hear infliction or lack thereof. she went off of body language and her own interpretation and found it to not be as diplomatic as she would've liked.

it is too easy for jr to misinterpret.

too easy for her to have that fury forged guard up.

-nothing that would be a balm to this situation,- jr signs to meerkat, honestly. she was distrustful and annoyed and whatever shred of diplomacy she had, had fled the scene a while ago. for this, she is apologetic but eager to be meerkat's guard-dog than a diplomat in training at the moment.

The pale woman said something to her cohort, though Meerkat didn’t quite catch it. She couldn’t read lips as well as the Towhees. She did pay close attention to the subsequent words, appreciating the candid introduction. She committed the titles to memory, noting the backhanded nature of her welcome.

She jumped a little at Nivis’s exclamation, whisky eyes flicking to fix on him. Meerkat carefully controlled her expression even as she puzzled over his words. She exchanged a quick look with Jr, then retrained her focus upon the trio. It was a bit easier now, with Nivis flanking Reyna.

Jr had nothing constructive to add, which left Meerkat to say, -“Truly, we just came by to say hello, exchange introductions and learn a little bit about your pack. Now that we’ve done that, we can get out of your hair. We wish you a good day.”-

She paused for a few seconds, then began turning toward Towhee Jr, nodding back in the direction of their homestead.

barely does she entertain nivis, perhaps grateful that some sembleance of a brain had returned to him.

it was a pleasure meeting you, then. she smiles, surprised by how quickly the speaking woman decided to throw in the towel. please let us know if you return soon. she gestures with a nod at basilio to disengage. no blood would be shed, for today.

may your travels be safe. the matriarch gives no hesitance to pulling away from the pair and returning to her throne. she had children to tend to.

the words shared back and forth were not understood by the foreign guardian. 

he was a silent, wary guard all the while, pulling back only when reyna looked to him. 

acknowledging her command with a snort, he twisted his body halfway, readying to flank her on their trek back to the palace.

jr is ready to return to the copse, to review this interaction during the routine of her patrol and look for all the wrongs she has done. she already knows her prickly nature did not work in her favor to begin with and letting it get the better of her, despite how justified she felt, did no favor towards possible alliances.

jr lingers for a few seconds before she turns and follows after meerkat; tension melting from her shoulders the closer the duo, flanked by ghost who flew overhead, got to the copse.