Ouroboros Spine all dolled up in gabardine

For @Mara. :)

The first decent layer of snow to last had finally come to the basin of the Spine. The air felt damp and chilled to Mordecai, who tested it early that morning with a wondering sense. It had begun, finally, though in reality it was probably safe to say that winter had already bore down upon them long before that. But things were not as bitter as he anticipated, just as the morning seemed far more tame than it should have been. He strode with confidence through the territory, drawing in the quiet surroundings with an appraising eye. Now their preparations would be put to the test, though he had no intentions of letting up on their efforts now.

Pausing to shake the lingering snow from his coat, Mordecai drew his attention skyward, peering through the boughs of the conifers still wearing their needle coats. Any other type of tree in their territory had long shed their leaves; his view was obscured greatly but still enough to ascertain how the weather really was. It was bright enough to imply to him that the sun had broken through the clouds that had been hanging around, and enough for him to decide what he wanted to do first. Instead of making haste for the borders to begin his rounds, he decided he would let the others pick up on it, and made for the higher ridges of the Spine.

Upon reaching one viewing spot, he lingered, taking in the warmth of the rising sun with a contented sigh.

the decemberists — down by the water

It had finally snowed! Mara was so excited when she stepped out of her den, a hollow beneath some tree roots, that she yelped with happiness and started bouncing around in circles, flinging snow everywhere. It had been too long since she had seen snow. It was like a part of her was finally restored. In her old home there had always been snow, so she grew up with it and when she came here, there wasn't any that she had seen so far.

The air was crisp and the snow covered the trees and dusted the ground all around. Then Mara had the best idea. She rushed through the forest a trot, heading for the highest slopes of the spine. The view from there would be spectacular. She slipped a couple times in her haste to climb the slope and ended up with snow covering her, but she could care less as she got higher and higher until she saw the tree-less ridge. She was just about to rush out there when she spotted tawny form sitting there. Mara had never actually met Mordecai, but she had heard he had a reddish coat so it must be him. She didn't know how to approach him. Calm and collected? Serious? Or just her usual self? She decided to go with the last one.

Mara started to walk out onto the snow covered ridge but before she could say anything to him, she heard a whooshing sound and all of a sudden a cloud of cold snow landed directly on her head. She squeaked loudly in surprise and looked up at the now empty branch to see a very smug looking crow staring back at her.

The view was spectacular, seeing everything coated in a veritable blanket of snowy white. It was certain a view that he had not seen yet and briefly, one he hoped to take in alone. But it was not meant to be, as the footfalls of another coming up the slope behind him. By the time he had cast his gaze back to view who it was, he caught the sight of falling snow from one of the last scraggly pines. It landed in a heap on top of an unfamiliar wolf, leaving Mordecai to turn fully and move to investigate.

He bristled in response to her unfamiliarity, but found that she smelled of the Spine. Was she another creature brought into the fold that he was unaware of? The thought this time provoked anger, though it was not directed outwardly. He would find out who took her in soon enough, he supposed. Above them, the crow cawed a single time, as though to announce its amusement at the situation; Mordecai took his gaze from her snowy form to the dark and sleek looking bird. “I wonder how long that crow's been waiting to do that,” he mused with a chuckle, glad it had not been him that the bird aimed for. Then again, he had cleared the last of the forest a few minutes ago, and wondered if the crow had only landed there recently.

The tawny pelted Alpha had turned to look at her, probably weary of a face he had never seen before. He chuckled as the crow cawed again at Mara, the black feathered bird clearly mocking her. Mara directed her stormy grey gaze from the black feathered bird and back to her Alpha. Forgetting about the snow that sat atop her head and back like a blanket, she dipped her muzzle low in a respectful greeting. In doing so, all the snow that rested on her head fell forward and landed on the ground with thmmp. The disturbance caused some smaller pieces of snow to drift up from the ground right to Mara's nose. They tickled and she let out a loud sneeze.

She felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment and she quickly snuck a glance up at her Alpha again. She didn't quite know how to greet him, especially after her latest episode of clumsiness, so she just said whatever came to mind first.

"You're Mordecai, right? I mean Alpha, actually, I don't know. Does everyone call you Alpha or your name?" she blurted out quickly, her words jumbled and confusing. She looked up at him again and smiled sheepishly, "I'm Mara." She finished quietly. As if he doesn't know that, he's the Alpha! She scolded herself.

Her words came rapid fire and jumbled; the incident had clearly caught her off-guard and left her reeling with embarassment. It was perhaps a testament to her youth though, because at one point or another Mordecai was certain he would have found himself reacting the same way. But time had worn on him enough to make him realize that sometimes, silly things happened. Sometimes they were unavoidable, but the feverent burn of embarassment would always ring true.

“You can call me Mordecai, it's fine,” he assured her. The thought of being refered to by title alone seemed strange to him, but then again, a lot of wolves carried various cultures. “It's nice to meet you, though.” Her deference struck him acceptably on top of it, a nice change from the latter of old souls in the Spine that he had dealt with recently. For the most part, the new recruits they had amassed in the past few weeks had been forthcoming in their submission. Time and his holding of rank would turn the others, or so he hoped.

Mara was relieved that he didn't seem to mind how much of a fool she had just made herself look like.

"Its nice to meet you too" she said, smiling at him. She looked around and realized the Alpha had been enjoying a quiet place all to himself and suddenly felt bad for interrupting his peace and quiet.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to just barge in!" she exclaimed, flicking her russet ears in apology.

“It's all right, it happens,” he said, folding his ears back against the rush of apology. Mordecai didn't mind interuptions, at least most of the time. They simply happened and given his own title within their pack now, he had come to expect them. The days when he could simply hole himself away somewhere or be an outlier along the borders were long behind him. To do so now would surely be a means of forfeiting the claim he had made. Offering her a gentle wave of his tail, he tried to encourage her to relax a bit.

Casting his gaze back out over the snowy landscape, the fledgling alpha did not see anything particularly out of place. Even now, in spite of Mara joining him, there was a certain calm over the territory. “So what brings you clear up here? Did you come to see the sights?” Maybe she was seeking him out purposefully, for all he knew. Or maybe she was simply exploring the grounds, trying to get a feel for the land that would hopefully become her home through the cold season.

Sorry its so short!

Mara padded further from the forest to join her Mordecai. The sprawling landscape, blanketed with snow and dotted hear and there with little clearings and creeks, awed Mara. She hadn't seen snow since she had left her home pack and seeing it now filled her with joy.

"Yes, actually. I haven't seen snow in quite some time and I just absolutely love it. And from up here the view is just amazing." she explained, taking a seat on the ledge. She felt comfortable around Mordecai, unlike her old Alpha that had always made her uneasy. Here she felt safe, content. Her rust colored tail wagged behind her, creating a crater in the snow.

No worries!

A smile came to his face as she mentioned that she had been checking out the sights. The Spine was full of them, at least in his opinion, and not all of them had been discovered. Mordecai hadn't scoured the entire territory for all of those vistas, but let them come to him naturally. This particular spot had been one of them, and a favorite to boot. While it didn't show the full span of all they laid claim to, it certainly covered the vast majority that was contained within the ringlet of squat mountains.

“It really is a spectacular view,” he said in agreement, nodding. “So far it seems that the snow is complimenting its appearance, rather than taking away from it.” He was not entirely sure what the winter would bring, but if the snow was merely going to have the appearance of a blanket full of strewn diamonds, he felt he could handle it. And not just him, but all of them. Yet only time would ultimately tell whether or not things would become better or worse, and hopefully their preparations would be enough to tide them through the worst yet to come.

Mara could fully agree, the views were spectacular. She new that the more snow they got, the harder it would be to make it through the winter, but she secretly hoped that it would snow a bunch. So much that it would be hard to walk. Just once. It might bring back some of the good memories she had with her sister before she died.

Mara had only been in the pack for a short time, but she had the feeling that it hadn't been around that long itself. She knew it's members were extremely territorial and very hostile to outsiders, but other then that, she really didn't know too much about her home. So she decided now would be a good as time as any to satisfy her curiosity. She tilted he head to look at her Mordecai as he gazed out across his land and she could tell he loved it here. That this was where he belonged.

"How long have you lived here?" she asked softly so she didn't completely disrupt the calm aurora the place gave off.

When it came to the question of being asked how long he had lived there, Mordecai couldn't be too specific. He knew roughly what the season had been when he had first arrived, obviously knew what the season was now. He couldn't have put a number to the days, because time had become relatively useless to him. Once upon a time, he would have bothered to keep track and did, but now? Mordecai could only summarize just how long it had been since he had first set foot in the region altogether.

“I've been in this area since the late spring. This pack used to inhabit one of the mountains to the north and west, and we relocated ourselves during the summer.” He figured it was best to pile on the information in that regard. Just in case she was like he, who at one point or another, had tried to ascertain who had been around longest. If only to find out what the weather to come would be like, which was something Mordecai had little luck in finding out. It seemed like the majority of them were experiencing their first winter in the wilderness.

He made no mention that his leadership was fairly new, a self-conscious wall that had erected itself on the grounds that he was certain it showed. Some wolves were natural born leaders and Mordecai, in spite of his triumphs thus far, was not one of those creatures. For him, this whole thing was a learning process. But he was certainly learning things. “I think this will be an interesting winter, don't you?” He opted to ask a question of his own this time, wondering if somehow her words would bring insight to what else they could have possibly been doing.

Mara had to think about his question for a bit before actually answering it. She had never actually witnessed the season itself, but her homeland was constantly snowy, so she was used to the conditions other wolves called winter. She enjoyed them to be honest.

"Yes, I think it will. This will actually be my first winter. Though I am used to the snow and cold." she admitted, remembering one particularly hard month where most of the prey had frozen solid during an ice storm and by the time the wolves could get to it after the storm had gone, it had already thawed and started rotting. She shivered at the thought and hoped it wouldn't be like that here. Speaking of, she should get to work stocking the catches in the territory. She suddenly felt an urgency to get to work and prepare for the worst, a unusual feeling to the normally procrastinating she wolf.

He learned quite a bit from one sentence. A testament to her youth, where she had come from or at least where she had been. It seemed that a lot of creatures that ventured into the Wilds came from the north, which really made him consider how far north he had come. Sedona was more of an arid place, though not void of a wintry season. He knew snow, knew it even to a certain abundance, but never so much the bitter cold and biting winds. In that way, he was fortunate that his heritage and genetics still lent him the ability to tolerate the elements all the same. Some creatures were simply not that lucky.

“So you came from the north then?” he decided to query. Easily intrigued by the stories that were rooted behind so many, he also knew he had to watch his footing. Prying into the matters of others outside of the pack was one thing, but Mordecai did not want to stir up old and unpleasant memories with his subordinates. If they existed, that was. His childhood had not been terrible, nor had the road he had traveled. For all he knew, Mara had simply decided to disperse.

Mara nodded to his question, wondering where he ventured from. Or maybe he was born in the Wilds. Maybe she would never know, but she was happy to share her story, or maybe just part of it. She didn't know if she was quite ready to talk about her sister or the events that followed. To many bad memories and emotions would be brought up by that.

"Yes, I'm from very far north in Canada. The mountains there are constantly snow, dark and cold." She spoke, dark grey eyes showing that she was witnessing it all again. The running in the snow with her littermates, the joy of catching her first snow-shoe hare, the excitement of starting training, and of course, the devastating loss of her sister beneath the heavy snow. Her eyes clouded as she remembered what happened after that terrible day. Their family fell apart, her dad becoming a cold grey shadow, her mother becoming frail and grouchy, wanting nothing to do with her other daughter. Their perfect pup was dead, what was the point, no one would ever be as good as her. There was a time in Mara's life that she resented her sister for it, but then she realized it wasn't her fault, she wouldn't have wanted their family to be that way.

"I loved it."

She came from the north indeed, but a place he wasn't sure he had ever heard of. Whatever this Canada was, Mordecai had no real concept. For all he knew, she spoke of a pack, and in a place that he decided he wasn't sure that he could handle. Perpetually snowy, dark, and cold? Suddenly the baked earth of the midsummer of Sedona didn't sound so bad. But as he was learning, the colds of what he concerned the north were not as bad either. Yet.

But it was her final statement that spurred on his curiosity, and a question almost escaped him before he caught it. He wanted to query why she had left, but thought better of it. Her past was of no concern to him, not his business to go prying in. He had seen firsthand too many times what asking questions did. So instead he opened up another avenue, and spoke fondly from there on. “I came from a much warmer place than this. We still had snow in the winter, but not always enough to cover everything. So far, this place almost seems like the happy middle between both,” he chuckled, “not too warm, not too cold.”

And hopefully, the statement of it being not too cold would not come back to bite him.

Fade on next post?

Mara nodded in agreement, this place did seem like a happy medium. She couldn't imagine living in a place with no snow at all, she would probably burn to a crisp.

"Yeah, this place seems pretty perfect so far, but it will be nice to have some cold again." she admitted.

The snow felt good beneath her paws, like a part of her had been restored. Just then her belly rumbled. Not to loudly, but surely loud enough for her alpha to hear. How embarrassing. She should probably go out and catch some food, now that winter was apon them, the pack needed to stock up on prey or they would be in trouble for sure.

MONTHS LATER... sure, that sounds good to me! I'll fade out here, lol. Sorry for abruptly dropping out while we were threading. :X

He wasn't sure how he felt about the incoming cold. With nothing to gauge it against, Mordecai wasn't sure if the Wilds would be prone to a bitter, hateful winter or something more mild. Something tolerable, he added mentally. Time would ultimately tell, this he knew, but he didn't want to be caught off guard by it. Time also had its way of getting away when it wanted to, as hours and days had often slid past him like grains of sand.

"Well, I should be on my way," he opted to say as their conversation lapsed. "Guess I'll be seeing you around?" His query was rhetorical, but cheeky all the same. He expected to see her around, as she didn't strike him as too bad. Perhaps she had a lot to learn from a first glance, but that didn't mean much of anything. They all had to start somewhere, and little did either of them know where the road ahead would take them. Offering her a friendly nudge as he moved on, Mordecai set off for the next thing on his list, whatever it may have been.

Lol yeah, when Mara's an outcast and Mordecai is a lone wolf xD But it's fine, thanks for finishing it :D

She smiled at his friendly nudge, grateful for the excuse to go find something to eat, her stomach was screaming at her from inside her head. It had been a nice conversation and she was glad she got to know him a little more. Little did she know that soon enough, they would completely part ways, probably never to see each other again.

"Alright, see ya 'round." she responded happily, giving him a quick wave of her tail before turning and heading off in her own direction.