Firefly Glen all these years you tried to kill me, boy you ain't made a dent

on the border of NWF! @Grezig

down through the tall faces of stern rock, down through ridge of gneiss and through tumble-rock cairns. arcturus looked behind him once, and moonspear's grim presence impaled the sky - its shoulders white with a cape of blinding snow.

he continued down, down, down. around him boulders and shattered granite sat like the discarded remnants of a giant's broken crown. he felt tiny as he flitted through a graveyard of andesite, a tiny shadow moving among the cold faces of the mountain's stony refuse.

down until the ground leveled out, and a wasteland of white snow met him. in the distance obscured by winter fog a forest loitered, its formless shape obscured by moving mist.

arcturus made for it, paws plunging through a layer of thin snow as he went. yami, yami, yami the boy thought - where was she, where had she gone, why weren't his parents more concerned? she had been gone nearly a month now and he still missed her.

with his eyes set determinedly on the forest, arcturus covered good ground.

Grezig had never been on this side of the forest before, on the edge of the glen. It would be rather spooky over here, if she’d been the type to become spooked easily. She wasn’t. Due to her stoic nature, the glen looked nothing more than an annoying roadblock, a place treacherous to move through if she ever needed to get past it. She wondered how far she’d have to walk to get around it. As she scanned the trees, her hazel-brown eyes landed on a dark wolf coming towards her. He did not seem hostile; he was simply walking. He did have a determined gait as he came closer, but he didn’t seem to be looking at her, or necessarily moving to her. More out of curiosity than anything else, she chuffed at him to get his attention, wondering what he was so keen to get to. “Hail,” she called, and waited.

the forest seemed to stretch tantalizingly before him, yet for as much ground as he covered, it seemed to sink alluringly back into the horizon. he was not a wolf of many leagues under his belt, and soon felt daunted by the distance yet between himself and his destination. even worse, when he looked back at moonspear, while it still remained a giant in his vision, he could tell by the featureless hunks of granite in the distance (some he knew as colossal landmarks during his border patrols) that the distance between him and moonspear was greater yet.

when he turned back around to reassess the intelligence of his decision, he saw a wolf along the tree-line. at her speed, it appeared she was not hostilely intercepting him, yet he couldn't help but feel that she was coming towards him in deliberate strides. she was by no means a tiny wolf; he could tell even from this distance her body was corded with muscle, and her strides were even - signifying good health and soundness above all else.

and he couldn't help but notice, she wasn't so different in coloration from yami and yama -- save for her eyes, which were to him a rather stern and somber brown.

while the boy himself had not met many wolves that wanted to hurt him, he had grown up seeing the evidence of it all around him: llewellyn's gruesome injuries, the inexplicable attack on his father -- he was not the most naive of younglings, and felt a trickle of doubt course through him.

he was ready for anything once she was close enough, but instead of attacking, she said something -- hail, maybe? the boy had not heard that word used as a salutation before - admittedly, he didn't even know what it meant. what's hail? he wanted to ask -- but his tongue, as per its nature, seemed uncooperative.

hi, i'm arcturus -- where are we and who are you and have you seen my sister? nothing came out -- i'm worried about her. still nothing.

his ears folded neatly back, and he looked away so that she might not perceive him as challenging.. but what else could he do, when words failed him?

sorry for these short af replies

The boy—for he was a boy—looked away without saying anything. His ears lay along his skull as if he was nervous. Grezig sighed. This was a reaction she had almost come to expect from others, especially those younger than her. What did they think she would do? Eat them? “I’m Grezig,” she said, trying to keep her voice light and inviting, although that was a bit of a challenge for her. She usually spoke so matter-of-factly that it was difficult to speak in any other way. “What is your name?” She wanted to ask more questions, like what he was doing here, but she did not want to overwhelm him, so instead, she waited.

grezig could have popped out a clown car with fairy dust and balloon animals cheering loudly behind her, and arcturus still would have struggled to meet her gaze or speak to her. even keeping her tone light and non-pressuring had the averse effect; arcturus felt a flush of furious shame simmer under his skin -- did she talk to him that way because she thought he was a stupid child?

his throat bobbed in signal he was trying to hotly tell her off, but no sound (except maybe a humiliating squeak) escaped. he tried again - and again - and again -- but each time the failure sucked a little wind out of his sails, until at last he gesticulated with a wild shrug of his shoulders, and looked to the ground with a heavy scowl accentuating his noble features.

Grezig’s brows drew together in confusion as the young male continued his silence. He seemed to be trying to speak, however, and that confused her even more. Maybe his vocal cords were damaged. Maybe he was a mute. Who knows? Whatever the reason for his silence, Grezig did not have time to attempt to communicate with someone who wasn’t talking. She could smell many other wolves on him, which meant he was already part of a pack. So not a recruit. Therefore, he was useless to her. “I’ve got matters to attend to,” she said, and turned away to leave.

[Exit unless stopped.]

it appeared the female had limited patience - and who could blame her, when an errant boy labored to answer a simple question? arcturus watched, helpless and hurt, as the female made her leave.

it would not be the first or the last time he was struck mute in new company; such was a trait that would cow him the rest of his life. he felt a heat rise to his cheeks in shameful defeat, and he wanted to roar - to scream at her receding form - anything to show her he was worth her time, and that she was mistaken and how dare her for turning her back on him and underestimating all he could be --

but she was right; he was an uninteresting, mute little boy. hardly worth the ten seconds she had given him.

he watched her walk away, and his expression darkened -- the ugliness of his grimace remaining long after she had quit his company.