Lost Creek Hollow make it last, make it count

Once the tingling nervous sensation of being surrounded by so much new finally begun to fade, she'd spent a good share of time resting up and mostly laying low. It ended up taking longer than she planned since she didn't realize how tired from roaming aimlessly she'd been in the first place. But, with a few decent meals behind her too.. she was starting to feel like embarking on integrating properly. She had to start somewhere and after recuperating, she had a decidedly better outlook on it all.

Jazz had already learned a bit through Root, but there were still so many things she had to do on her own. And, since she had highlighted her value as a guardian of the pack to Mordecai, she had to memorize their boundaries if she intended to ever make herself useful upon them. Plus, she was curious to meet others dedicated to the cause -- so what better place to do so than on the borders themselves. 

Just after a light snow started to fall, she headed towards the southern fringe of the pack since it was the nearest starting point. Once there, she took a deep breath. A lot was happening here, scent-wise. Mordecai was the most prevalent and she certainly didn't have names for most of the others. Still, she lowered her nose to the dirt and began to head down a pathway she found that looked well-traveled.

Wolves. The smell of them became ever more apparent the further she traveled. Sofi was a stranger to wolves. She had come from the west, where wolf numbers were sparse at best. The dip between the Cascades and the Rockies was fertile coyote turf. Where wolves had once roamed, her kind had taken over.

Sofi had come thinking the Teekon Wilds were a paradise. On the poetic rumors of an owl, her feet had blistered and she had starved to reach this place.

There she stood on what reeked of wolf urine. She wondered whether to proceed and try to slip through undetected. Curiosity pulled her senses forward and she listened hard for the legendary howls and snarls of beasts she had never seen before. Instinct told her that following trails of wolf scent was a bad idea, and hairs started to stand on the back of her neck before she knew what she was doing. Snow was sticking to her; she shivered.

Up ahead, she saw it. A great beast. Twice, maybe thrice her size. Blue eyes, unlike the gold of stories passed down to her. 

Her ears went back and she pulled herself into a tiny shape, half crouched to look small, ready to spring into a run if needed.

She jogged on, alert and with her nose low and eyes trained dead ahead. Jazz may not have known what she should be looking for, exactly, but memorizing the pathways was a good start. She still couldn't get the ominous hint in Mordecai's words out of her head, though, and she wondered if she should expect the worst if she spent more time here.. whatever that may entail.

Jazz didn't feel confident enough yet to do much marking of her own. She was very meager with it when she did pause to scrape her paws in the snow or to sprinkle a little pee on a landmark. Her contributions were very, very small and only when she noticed the scents seeming a little lacking -- which was not often. So she was able to focus on covering ground and familiarizing herself for now. Eventually.. she'd be ready to function fully-fledged.

She paused to sniff near an old fallen tree branch, having noticed a strong Hollow wolf scent she didn't recognize near here when she noticed the tiny tawny shape ahead instead, which was highly suspicious by itself. Her eyes narrowed and she dropped what she was doing rifling around for wolf smells and marched that way now that she identified the other as coyote. As she moved, she swung up her tail. "Hey!" she barked and zeroed in with a stiff-legged approach. "What are you doing here?" Mordecai hadn't specifically addressed the topic of coyotes, but she'd reason that they had no business anywhere near their Hollow. Sight of them alone made her uneasy. She didn't trust them as far as she could throw them.

The blue-eyed beast approached her with tail up and hair fluffed. Sofi remained in her curled position, tempted to yip prematurely as though she was being injured. She kept her mouth shut, opening it only to offer a wide, open mouthed pant of submission.

The question the wolf asked was a loaded one. What was she doing here? She did not belong anywhere near here. With her were no friends or family. Not one creature for hundreds of miles knew her name. But, of course, Sofi realized the wolf meant the trail of urine and not the entirety of the Teekon.

"I'm sorry! I don't know where I'm going..." It was the truth. She was trying to find what any animal wanted: food, shelter, family. "I don't know where I am exactly," she looked around. It was truly a beautiful patch of wilderness she had stumbled upon. Sofi hadn't realized exactly how territorial wolves were; she had only heard that they were quite stingy about resources and did not like to share.

Jazz wrinkled up her muzzle and flared her hackles excessively, although the coyote was already curled up small enough to be appeasing. With an apology included, she had checked all the major points to keep her from being blindly aggressive -- and it helped that the silver guardian wanted to work on being defensive by springing straight onto the offense the second she saw anything. She was still aiming to look confident and like she knew exactly what she was doing, though. "Well you shouldn't be here," she grated, especially if she didn't really have any reason to be here.

"It's called Lost Creek Hollow, our packlands," she felt like she was being generous with this information but she wanted to drive home the point that this was theirs and not some place it was wise for her to loitering in. "I don't know what coyotes do but you need to go do it somewhere else," Jazz huffed with a stern look on.

The wolf's stern voice struck Sofi like a knife, and she backed up a few feet, refusing to make direct eye contact with the she-wolf. The coyote had not been sure what to expect of wolves. The owl who had lead her to the Wilds had not mentioned directly that the area was infested with the larger canines. It was supposed to be a land of piece and purity.

So, the encounter with the wolf was quickly forcing Sofi to come to the realization that the Teekon was a place like any other. What it may have lacked in humans, it made up for with wolves.

"I'm just trying to find food," Sofi defended herself, on the verge of tears. "Is there a way to get through? Or..." She realized then that it was extremely unlikely such territorial beasts would allow here to merely pass through unharmed. "What's the easiest way around?"

Holding fast to her stony expression and bristly furs, Jazz wasn't finding any sympathy in herself for the coyote. To there being a way through, she growled quietly and shook her head an abrupt 'no'; She wouldn't let it happen.. not when it was supposed to be her job to keep these boundaries secure if she ever wanted Mordecai to believe what she'd told him to join them.

The easiest way around, though? Jazz's face furrowed and ears splayed. Even at this she could only be minimally helpful, but it was mostly because she didn't know better herself. Since they were in the southern edge of the claim she had at least a vague idea about territories south of here. That was all, though. "Stay south of here by a bit more and just go that way," she gestured towards the west appropriately with a frown. "There's more forest eventually.. then if you keep going past that there's mountains but it's a long walk and I don't know what's beyond that even," she warned, especially on tired, hungry feet. Surely between here and there she could wrangle up something to eat far away from the Hollow.

She hoped that would be enough information to send her on her way. Jazz would linger until she did, and would make sure she was good and gone before continuing on her way on patrol.