Phoenix Maplewood ask your doctor about [redacted]

She’d been given a few days more or less by herself. Sunny had been around for a good portion of it but he was a leader and had more important things to do. And her mommy was gone but she’s back now and everything is how it’s supposed to be. Except the pack is quiet, which is unusual. There aren’t many smells these days and she sometimes goes a whole day only seeing her mother. Aviana is busy with something somewhere else, probably with Sunny, so she wanders aimlessly through the forest looking for a scent she can follow for a while and entertain herself with.
 
What she doesn’t realize is how close she’d gotten to the border. The trees become fewer and farther apart, opening up to the end of the Maplewood treeline. None of this is familiar to her and she burrows her brows a few seconds, scents the air, and glances around before wandering idly back, terribly un-entertained about this spot too.

After meeting Sunny, Wraen felt a little bit safer to stay in the vicinity of Morningside. Though she could not vouch for that all wolves there would be equally interested to rush to her aid, in case a trouble arised, it was a consolation still that friends lived there. She and her sister had taken a temporary residence near Qeya river, where Phoenix Maplewood was within "arm's length", so to say, if that particular limb was long enough. 

Therefore, when the young Morningsider was taking her first steps in adventuring near the borders, Wraen was tracking and hunting in the nearby fields. Only by chance did she happen to look up the same moment the cub was moving through the undergrowth. Were it not for the movement, the agouti pattern hid the girl from the hunter's eyes perfectly. Curious and eager to make an acquaintance (and maybe meet Sunny again), Wraen drew carefully nearer and announced her presence with a quiet bark.

Before Faye gets too far, she hears a bark in the distance. One ear twitches back and she slowly moves, turning all the way around and at the stranger that’s getting closer. She freezes in place, half turned and one paw hovering the ground as she watches in silence. She’s never met anyone outside of Morningside before and she doesn’t really know what to do. Her mom has probably advised her on strangers and naturally she takes a step back, fur bristling, but she doesn’t outright run away.

Perhaps making a contat with the kid was not such a good idea after all. Only, when the girl turned around and faced her with fear in her eyes, did it occur to Wraen that not all Morningside wolves knew, who she was, and that she could easily be perceived as a threat to anyone else besides Sunny.

Therefore she retreated to a safe distance from the pack's borders and lied down on her belly, looking at the girl in a calm and assuring way and wagging her tail few times. If she wished, she was welcome to come closer and introduce herself. If she did not, then Wraen would understand the gesture and leave.

The adult doesn’t advance anymore and, as if she noticed her unease, lowers to the ground. Bright, defining blue eyes narrow as she watches, still cautious and guarded, but she feels less threatened with the new gesture. She knows all about stranger danger, for the most part, but this stranger doesn’t seem so bad. And being told what to do isn’t always going to stick and she has to figure it out herself. 

Faye clears her throat and leans in, a gentle awooo carrying across the way between them, testing the waters against a new adventure.

Wraen was easy to adjust to any way the other person decided to communicate. Sometimes going so far as talking solo and taking the other's quiet cues as answers. She listened to the girl's song and was reminded of the little and sweet Ibis, who had been so wrapped in all sounds around her. The first musically inclined wolf she had ever met. 

"Awoooooo," she replied with a tune of her own. While she had no singing voice, making howls came naturally to her.

The stranger returns her little tune and a smile broadens on her features. Her nose wrinkles up along her muzzle and her tail sways eagerly, causing her rump to wiggle back and forth. Deciding the other wolf is friendly enough, Faye takes a few steps closer to test the waters. Still, the child is careful and she does not rush up to her new friend, just in case.
 
“Who’re you?” she calls, licks her lips and then her nose, trying to breathe in any scents she can, “where do you come from?”

Wraen had not anticipated that after the careful start the child would warm up to her and decide to talk. Somehow she had conveniently forgotten that kids her age already had some vocabulary and could be chatty, if the wished to be so. 

"My name is Wraen and I am a friend of Sunny's," she replied, adding Morningside's alpha's name just in case an overprotective adult sprang out of the bushes suddenly and went to save the child. "I come from an ocean-side resort. What is your name?"

She introduces herself and says she knows Sunny. Her eyes narrow but she takes her word for it. Clearly she knows his name somehow and she is friendly (deception isn’t a real concept yet) so she takes a few more steps closer to make it easier to talk. “My name is Faye. Where is, um, Ocean Side Resort?” she questions, mistaking the description as a weirdly named pack. “Is it far?”

"Not far for me, but quite a distance for your four feet," Wraen replied, liking the girl better with each passing moment. She had an innocent charm of a child the spark of which was so difficult to find in adults. "Have you ever been outside Morningside?"

The woman doesn’t really explain where it is because Faye totally would know if she’d been told. Instead, she blinks a few times but doesn’t really know what to do with the information. Maybe she’ll ask mama when she sees her again. She always seems to have the right answers. But, the question turns on her and she slowly shakes her head. She doesn’t remember being born in the plains and having to flee, though it’s somewhere in there if only through stories and warnings, so Faye sticks firmly to the fact she’s never left Morningside.

"Well, when the time comes - you are all grown up and independent - I advise to go outside and see the world. It is a big place, full of wonders," Wraen told, leaving out the danger part, which the girl would learn about on her own. Self-preservation instinct had to do some job too and needed practice as well.

"There are mountains, where Ice giants roam and wind spirits howl, there are seas, where sirens worship their gods and sing to the moon, there are forests, where ghosts of long time past wait to tell their stories and someone to free from their existence between this Earth and their final resting place," she went on, painting a colourful picture with countless small details. "I have traveled a great deal in my life, but still haven't seen a fraction of all the hidden treasures."

Wraen starts to speak like she has something important to say. Maybe she does. Faye listens, ears cupped forward and she sways antsy on her feet. She’s hardly put much thought into the outside world and today hasn’t really given her much. But her new friend, maybe, speaks of things she can’t even imagine. Mountains with monsters and seas with sirens (whatever that is). One ear twitches upon her head but quickly erects again, leaving her a bit uncertain.
 
“Will you see it all?” she asks, twisting her lip, uncertain if she wants to know about the other wonders.

"Oh, I have seen them already, but there is always more," Wraen replied with a twinkle in her eyes. Being a kid adventure stories had been among her favorites, because they usually were long and after Osprey had relayed one such, the little, curious cub would spend days reminiscing, reliving and sometimes re-enacting the best parts. Her grandfather had passed on the famous tales about Odysseus, Jason, Heracle and many other legends about heroes from the old times to his daughter, who in turn had told them all to Wraen. 

And, while Wraen's travels had had less of interference of the mythical and divine, her keen eyes could easily find references of these creatures and creations in nature. "Ever heard the story about Gorgon sisters?" she asked.

She did not have the chance to tell the story, because the girl was called away, and Wraen had to leave soon after.