Wild Berry Meadow reweave

His ranging towards the north of the cavern yielded nothing but empty sorrow and loss, so he was not satisfied enough in his wanderings. After resting up just enough, he was moving on a heading that took him over the mountains and then south. Inari had a vague familiarity of some of these places (meaning he knew to steer clear of Blackfeather too) so travel stayed light and quick despite his aim to swing wide out into the flatlands.

On his way, he came into a sheltered meadow and delved quietly into its comfort without much of a second thought. He had passed by here before but never looked in. Now in need of solid distraction to keep his interest, it seemed like a good chance to change that. Curiosity, and the urge to rest to conserve his stamina, had him moving towards its heart at a slow but steady jog.

She'd taken a few more days to try and ease the stiff was of her joints. The other symptoms had begun to improve but the nagging feeling in the back of her mind and pit of her stomach still rings clear. She felts the Redhawk wolves as she can to have helped them break free but her efforts were minimal before she couldn't feel her limbs. Eventually they had freed them but she didn't feel quite right away. It was early that morning that West found her way out and in the direction she'd come from. 

She doesn't quite remember getting to the borders of the caldera so as she comes into a clearing, she's certain this had been where she'd been found. It looks familiar only by the fact the ground is covered in snow but none of the disrupted blankets form anything particularly West-sized. It likely snowed and covered most of that up but she moves to try and jog her memory anyway. 

The sight of another catches her attention and she moves slowly into a stop. She chuffs to draw attention to herself and swishes a few times behind her.

With his pace easing back, his focus spread from travel to taking it all in as he prowled. From all he had seen so far, it seemed a nice meadow -- nice enough for him to notice game tracks, seemingly undisturbed. Had it been springtime, he would guess it might have even been called lush here. Now with all the snow, everything felt so subdued and washed out by its overwhelming presence.

Inari's ears flicked forward when he started to notice he was not alone any longer. Her chuff and tail wave seemed neutral enough to not immediately raise his alarms, so he angled subtly closer so he may find out more about her. He carried his typical wariness at the sight of meeting anyone new, especially in Blackfeather's neighborhood, and tipped his muzzle in way of greeting. "Hail," he offered next, settling her thin form with a curious look. Either the wind did not favor him, or he just didn't know what he was smelling, but he wasn't finding her packscent to be awfully familiar to him. "Do you know this place?" he asked.

West hesitates moving any more until she knows what the other is going to do. The wind swings near her and his scent is unfamiliar; nothing strikes any form of memory and so she feels herself ease a little. She does not make a move as he gets closer but he seems friendly enough in his display that she remains neutral. Power had never been her thing, at least not in the traditional sense, and she doesn’t feel too much need for worrying.
 
“I don’t think so,” she says, glancing around with a shrug. “I thought I might but…” West trails off in thought as if looking around again might give her a better clue. Nonetheless, they return back to the willowy male. “I haven’t been here long.”

"Ah," he replied, understandably with a slow nod because he had nothing better than that to contribute himself. "I do not either. Not beyond just passing by," he explained for himself now that he had a better grasp of her apparent neutrality. It seemed to him that they were both being a little careful, as strangers ought to with nothing but wintertime wilds at their backs. "Seems nice." Inari mentioned thoughtfully and glanced around, before focusing back on her. Nice enough. For winter, and nowhere better to be than cooped up somewhere.

"Do you stay near?" he asked, vague, because this could mean packs or just where she bedded lately. To a longtime wanderer like him, the second thought seemed more natural. But, if she did mention a pack.. he could know where not go from here.

ohp. guess u get inari's 100th and it's this poopsmear of a reply :D :D

i'm honored

He announces he is nothing more than a traveler between one point and the next, moving through this valley without a second look. It is not his first time through but that means little when it comes to having the land memorized. She is looking at it the first time as he may be, but there is a lack of familiarity she has where he might feel more comfortable in his steps. She nods to his indifferent statement but she brushes it off once he moves on.
 
“Southwest of here,” she says, tossing her nose in the direction she’d come from. “A family took me in,” she adds as an afterthought. She knows now, before even getting the chance to really immerse herself, that she does not fit in and she doubts she can change it.

His eyes follow her gesture and he listens carefully in a desperate attempt to commit it to memory: a family southwest of here, a pack implied, so he would be wise to not encroach. Plus, perhaps, in some way this could be useful information. Without a directive in mind when he went scouting for his new pack, Inari would just collect the generalities if he could.

He motioned only with a small nod. "I have wandered far, but winter led me to a pack in the mountains," Inari provided in exchange but remained unable to exactly say he was not sure why he was here at all. He never knew if anything would, or could, last. "Scouting neutral places seems right when I cannot stand to stay so still," he rolled his shoulders. The Lair was beautiful and resourceful, but he knew he invited bad luck if he didn't maintain motion somehow, and often he wished his reason for finding the pack at all was still there with him. "Why are you not with your.. new family?" Did purpose, duty, or otherwise drive her out here into the chill? But the question may be more direct than she could be willing to humor from a nameless face like his.

His words are easily noncommittal, conversation. He settled somewhere for the winter, just as she had—albeit a little late for the season—and she wonders if he intends to stay. Some wolves simply cannot stay in one place for long but she knows that is not for her. Her excursion away from the caldera is easily placed on lack of information on how she really got here, a clouded mind preventing her from finding the memories. They are there, and faint, but she doesn’t know if she will find them. Or if they are even worth finding.

“Because they are not my family,” she tells him. They’d done something nice for her, even when she did not ask, and there’s the compelling feeling she needs to repay them in some way. “It isn’t what I’m used to. My family… isn’t very close,” she explains with an indifferent shrug. She does find herself taking another step closer with a low, playful rumble in her chest. “I’m West,” she finally introduces though her steps do not stop and her tail whips against him like a cat when she’s close and proceeds forward away from him.

He still felt strange to know he had some place to return to. It was alien to him, and maybe that was why he was prone to feeling detached as well. He begins to wonder if that is part of it all for her, too, but her words do bring new details to light. It isn’t what I’m used to rings painfully true for him and he nodded knowingly, although does not have the right words to convey his thought on the matter.

He was distracted with watching her suddenly, not knowing what she was up to yet now that she moved closer -- and close enough to  touch next. "Ah, Inari," he supplied in return for her name, although he pivoted himself towards her hesitantly in the next second. By then she had started to move away, so again he had to watch with a curious squint.

The thought occurred to him with a small start as he peered at the motion of her legs. "Is there something you are looking for?" he asked, maybe abruptly. He often was in some vague way, so circumstance suggested it might be true of her as well.

He points in her direction when she moves but he does not follow. She turns around to face him, quietly repeating the name as if to hold it dear. She doesn’t answer his question right away because she knows she doesn’t have an answer. When she came out here, she thought she had a plan, but she knows it to be fruitless and she would much rather entertain the thought of someone else in the meantime. Even if it’s nothing but empty words, she can find some form of comfort in him.

“I don’t know,” she says after a beat. “I lost someone a little while ago and I know I won’t get them back,” she adds, though why? The words fell out of her mouth before she can catch them and it’s likely the most honest she’s been since she arrived and probably the most honest she’ll be at all. He isn’t from the caldera, is from somewhere else entirely, but there’s a softness to him she doesn’t know how to explain, as if he might understand.

He could glean the tiniest sliver of satisfaction in knowing that it is a little more like his case than he'd anticipated. Well, so far as to say that her answer could have been his own and there would be no lie in it. What he had misplaced first -- what had driven his wandering for so very long was now faraway and faded at best. Others had come, some far more recent than others, but there had always been what had started him out.

He didn't know what to say right away and dipped his nose delicately. Hers did not sound so distant or maybe he just could not read between the lines properly. "Me too," he sighed, stepping closer and shaking his head together. He hesitated somewhere in the middle.. but forced himself carefully power through these reservations until he was close enough to only nudge her shoulder with his muzzle. Sorry the ghost of a touch wanted to say and he remained mindful to keep it quick; she's very unknown still, although he has little else to concern himself with. Her strange pack scent distracts him briefly and with that fresh in mind again, he fanned back his ears, decidedly torn.

Nothing pulls her one way or the other. The original search for what she’d been looking for might as well be abandoned. She’d found something much more interesting to delve in to and he may only be her company for a short while, but he is her company. And she’s interested enough to keep him company for a little while longer.

It surprises her when he announces he can relate to her situation. Her head cocks to the side as she circles back to face him, swishing her tail back and forth idly. Questions linger on the tip of her tongue but the worry she will have to share the same in return keeps her from forming them. Instead, she tips her nose forward a little and brushes back against his muzzle as he had her shoulder. She points her nose in another direction and trots off to the right. Playfully, she whips her head over her shoulder to see if her newest friend intends to follow.

In the first few moments of it, he wondered if the silence should feel misplaced. He had his questions too, but none of them seemed worth putting into words, and instead he melded into the role of a quiet company—presuming she may not mind it, considering the swing of her muzzle, and may take her peace in it for whatever she could. The scout had come wanting to see the valley, so perusing it with her was in line with everything he could need.

He stretched out and his stride landed on a good rhythm. Inari followed her quietly, for how long he would do so or what he may even do in her company, he didn't know. He had nowhere else to be right now.

you can pp him or whatever if you want a better conclusion for this but this is his last here :<