Barrow Fields Now you look at me like a stranger

@Zephyr Maverick sorry if that's spelled wrong. Maybe @Rana?

The fields set the bastard Vledfest on edge, her hackles standing up from the eerie feeling of being stalked through the mounds of the rolling fields. Heldi pushed aside her wariness, nose low and mouth open as she tracked. 

The scents were familiar, only vaguely so. It made sense for the members of her pack had disbanded so long ago, surely their scents would be different now after a year. Heldi couldn't be sure but she believed the scents belonged to Zephyr and Rana. 

She was cautious as she neared the pack's land, stopping a few miles off. The food had been hard going within The Southron regions as of late, the Vledfest had been surviving in this land almost solely on rodents and fish. The bastard wanted no issue from the nearby packs of The South, not wanting to bother them when they lacked for food. 

Heldi decided against howling for the members, not wanting to attract attention from the pack Zephyr and Rana were no doubt in. Instead she decided to wait and see if these wolves were even from Shadowfax before acting. 

The brown female lay down to rest, stretching her head out on her paws and closing her amber eyes. Heldi hoped these wolves were Shadowfax members after all. Heldi was weary of travel, wanting to find her friends at last.

For once, Zephyr had been following Sen's orders and staying within the borders. The brute was on patrol near the coast when a scent came to him, one that pricked at his memory. It couldn't be, right? Heldi had taken her leave at the disbanding of Shadowfax. He'd been sad to see her go, but wasn't going to force anything. 
So she'd survived the past year, huh? He wasn't surprised, she was a hardy female from what he remembered. Maybe she would be interested in following under him again?
Breaking Sens demands yet a fourth time, Zephyr dashed across the border and towards the faint scent.  It wasn't long before he came into view of her pretty coat, and pranced forward with a charming grin.
 "Heldi, is that really you?"

Heldi's eyes snapped open as she picked up the scent, the one she believed to be Zephyr's, coming her way. Fearing that she might be mistaken, that he might be a pack wolf come to chase her off, the agouti took up an alert but not aggressive stance.

The male that appeared certainly looked like Zephyr. He was tall with ebony fur and white splashes on his chest and feet. The way he ran was the same, was it really him? 

A huge smile broke across her face as he spoke her name, knowing for a fact this was her former Alpha. She had been close friends with everyone as most of the pack had been, though she was lower in rank she had been close to all of the wolves including Zephyr. 

Heldi rushed him, tail wagging so hard it seemed it would detach from her rear. Happy whines tore from her throat as she sniffed him over, amber eyes warm with recognition. "Zephyr, it really is you! I thought the smell was the same but I wasn't sure. Does that mean Rana is actually here too? Are you guys the Alphas of this pack or subordinates?" The Vledfest's words were an excited tumble as she rushed to ask him all of it at once.

Her reaction further fueled his own, and they approached one another in sniffs and whines. His grass gaze swept her over, taking in the changes of the past year. She seemed to have known he and Rana were here, but it was no surprise as the two regularly crossed the borders into neutral lands. 
           "No, I'm the Gamma here and Rana's Epsilon."
His tone was a little disappointed, his distaste for being a subordinate written clear across his face. It brightened, though, at his next cheery words.
                 "We'll be heading out in the next month or so to scout out some new lands though, try to find a place to call home. It's only the two of us so far, I think, but I'll recruit along the way. What've you been up to the last year?"
He didn't tell her of the fate of those who'd departed with him, like his mate and three of five of his pups, not to mention his last alpha and a few others. Would she want to know, like Rana, or would she rather leave it in the past? Niether mattered to him.

Heldi laughed loudly at the look of distaste on his dark features at the mention of being a subordinate. It was typical of him to want to lead or so the bastard thought, he had surely been good at it when he led Shadowfax. 

"Chin up, it isn't so bad to be a subordinate. Gods know I did it well enough back home." Heldi sent him an encouraging smile, brown ears perking up in interest at his words.

He's holding something back. It became clear just what it was when he mentioned only Rana being with him. The others hadn't made it. A lump formed in the Vledfest's throat as she remembered Zephyr's mate and children. Heldi wouldn't force him to speak about it, she would listen if he wished to bring it up on his own.

"I wandered mostly, I never found anything to keep me in one place for too long. But then I started to have dreams, ones filled with deep water and a sense of guilt. I shouldn't have left, I should've stayed and helped the pack..it was cowardly of me. I failed all of you. I knew I had to find you and make it right, but it seems I was too late. Shadowfax is no more." The bastard's head hung in shame, tears pricking her eyes though she refused to let them fall. She expected him to yell, to snap at her and call her every horrible name in the book for leaving. Heldi wouldn't have stopped him either, the guilt hung from her frame like the weight of a mountain. She deserved any harshness he directed at her.

The smile she gave him was so painfully familiar it almost made him cry in both joy and sadness. How he missed his old pack mates, his family, the lush and diverce tangling of the forests around them. But, like the time before, the pack was forced to leave their home. 
Shadowfax lived on, however, in the heart and soul of this very wolf. Syon had passed all her knowledge onto him, aall the secrets of the pack and the way they lived, and she'd been in a long familial line of alphas leading the Shadowfax pack. In him the customs lived on, as long as the vow to revive it burned within him. 
            "Being a subordinate in Shadowfax wasn't so bad, you have to admit.... I would know, I rose through them all in my life!"
Her good mood floundered, heavy with guilt, and Heldi's words hit him hard. She thought this was HER fault? Just at Rana had apologized for not finding them after the floods, trying too to take on her own fault, Zephyr was quick to shoot them down. HE had been the alpha, and it'd been HIS job to keep them all safe. In that, he had failed, but at least he was already doing everything in his power to keep his dream moving towards reality.
                           "Heldi, nothing you could have done possibly would have changed our outcomes. The flood was not your fault, and neither were the mountain lions. For you to leave was the best decision, and now Shadowfax can live on in us, in this new pack."

It would not have surprised her that Rana felt the same. How else should one feel, knowing that they had left their pack in expectations that they would be fine only to find that in fact most were dead? Heldi wouldn't fight him on the matter though she would always carry the burden of knowing if she had stayed she might have helped to save some of them. 

"They're not completely gone, I know that. After all we're still here, you're right about that. Maybe if I had stayed I could have helped more to be here today but the past is past. I've come to make amends and if Shadowfax isn't the way I can do so then let me help you find a place for your new pack. I'll be your third pledge if you'll have me." Heldi shuffled a paw in the dirt, afraid he would say no.

No argument came, but Zephyr might as well have just read her mind: surely she wouldn't change her opinion just because the man had said something against it. He would not scorn her thoughts, for he was one who appreciated the rawness and honesty that was so rare. 
The ebony male wasn't surprised by her pledge, but what was she to do until he took his leave? 
         "I'll forever be glad to accept you as part of my pack and family, Heldi, but what are you going to do until I leave? Thats a moon at most, but are you just gonna wander around till then?"
Joining his residing pack was always an option, but would she be okay with serving under another and then leaving a month after?

"I'll be around. It wouldn't be fair to your pack to join and then leave in a month. Especially when I'm not there for them, nor loyal to them. Perhaps I'll start scouting and come back with locations that seem optimal." Heldi gave a shrug of her slender shoulders, set against joining his current pack.

"Any direction you think would be good?" Perhaps he had a location already in mind that she could scope out. Heldi just knew she didn't want to hang around waiting for him.

She can be the one to scope out the six places they travel :3 and whenever she's around she can come back and give him a report of sorts :D

She refused to come with him, but that, too, was no surprise. It made sense to take her own leave for now, waiting for Zephyr to tell her it was time. The brown female offered to do the very job he couldn't right now: travel, scout, see where would be a good place. Even in the famine, she would be able to see what would grow back and where it would be lush. Abandoned prey dens and trails would teach her about the land despite its nakedness. 
        "Very well, I suppose you are right. Anywhere you want to go, fine, but I'll stick around here while you're gone. I'd hate to lose you again. I assume you know what to look for?"

Heldi nodded. "Places that look like they would have a good deal of plant life were it still around-making it abundant in prey, places we can defend easily, places that aren't taken. That kind of thing." 

"I'll be back in a moon's phase. Until then Zephyr." The bastard of Vledfest rubbed against him once more, this time in farewell, licking his neck affectionately. Turning, Heldi took off in a lope to begin her search.

Zephyr rubbed against her in affection, but there was no denying that his scent now blanketed her. It wouldn't last long, not with such a brief encounter, but it still brought satisfaction to the aspiring alpha.
          "Be safe Heldi, your life comes before any little piece of land. You just come back here safe next month."
He watched her go with sad grassy eyes, waiting until she was out of sight before turning back and hurrying back to finish his border patrol. Plans were being set in motion, and now it was official: a month from now, he would be on his way to rising to alpha once again, to leading his family and ruling his OWN borders.