Silvertip Mountain uphold the mission

The thick-furred Ikkalrok rests upon Silvertip, surrounded by her dozing brothers in arms. It was her turn to keep watch, and feeling her reservoirs replenished, she yawns before hoisting herself up to all fours and lumbering ahead, keeping to the shade. Her attention keeps to her surroundings, and she pauses near a ridge that offers her a gracious view. This was one of the easier mountains she had traveled in her lifetime, and the scents of many passing through were noted. They had elected to find the most difficult of paths to trek, though that had been easy for she and hers to accomplish. She settled onto her haunches, though even in this restful state she appears poised to strike, like a cougar laying in wait. She blends well enough with the stone, and has kept beneath a ridge that offers her shade—but she is not at all impossible to miss. She does not intend to be.

It was time to leave the lower reaches of Great Bear Wildreness.  To the east lie one pack, to the west lie another, and he has no desire to be apprehended by recruiters or outriders.  He retraces his steps back to the foot of Silvertip.

In the gray shadow of a dewdrenched morning Ikkalrok stands watch over the foot of the mountain, posed like a gargoyle beneath the ridge where her kin sleeps.  He sees her massive silhouette shrouded inbetween the rising the morning mists.  She is not trying to hide.

Neither is he.  He lopes towards her on massive limbs and leaves a great distance between them, but he does not offer any kind of greeting save one neutral sweep of his tail.

Her ears had heard him long before her eyes had found him, and a familiar scent was brought forth by the breeze. She was, at present, as immovable as the landscape; the only betrayal that she was not carved of stone were her blinking eyes, and when the wind tousled her unkempt furs. 

When she saw him, her weight shifted again. Her ears cupped toward him, and there was no questioning his direction now. Rarely did others dare to follow she and her brethren; an ear swiveled behind her as the pale female that had joined them, @Miyax, rumbled, but in hearing her breathing Ikkalrok knew she was still at rest. 

The slow wave of the others tail displayed he had not come with ill will, and the thick Ikkalrok trusted body language more than she did words. And so, she rose again to all fours to bridge the gap, pausing a wolfslength away. She could not sense any biological cues, either, that meant he posed a threat. His imposing stature appealed greatly to the Tartok woman, and she wondered what strength he possessed. Of will. Of body. 

Her own tail did not yet stir behind her as she stood there, and though she did not speak, there was a clear question posed in her stiff posture and staring eyes: why have you followed?

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He pulled his chin from his chest and craned his neck forward to scent the air between them.  She was robust and hale, with no sign of illness on her.  He could not scent her pack despite their proximity, but he assumed that they would be much the same.  They all shared the same bearish composure.  He wondered if they all shared the same temperament, too.

He did not mind silence.  He could guess the intention behind the bore of her gaze.  A lingering thought pressed at him, that he might have offended them by following... but facing this group was preferable to being caught between the three packs.

The land behind us is owned.  The mountain is not.  I came from here, before you had passed.