Firefly Glen Yet feet that wandering have gone

And across the valley floor he went.  Even if something happened in that last thread, he wanted to wander a bit before doing anything about it.  So here he was.  He had entirely boxed up the events at the sea and buried them in some dark corner of his mind that he hoped to never dig up.  His shield was forgetting, so that he didn't remember he was out on his own, so that he didn't remember that so many out there were demons.  No, now the world was fine, wasn't it?

The forest that he walked through was dense, and it was still plenty wintry enough for the fireflies that it was named for to not be present.  Instead it was just a gloomy jungle.  Matched his mood pretty well.  It was probably approaching noon at this point, not that it was easy to tell.  There were a few patchy bits of light that filtered in from the canopy, but the clouds were an additional layer between him and the sun.  His previous luck had hit a low, and the youth was hungry, so much of his wandering was spent with his nose down, seeking some sign of something edible -- he hoped for something that wouldn't be much effort, if only so the failure rate would make any expenditure of energy worth it.  He still wasn't great at hunting.

Tuya had been spending all of her time getting to know the woods where Dash, Cyclone, and the cute shadow lived. She couldn't remember the cute shadow's name right now, but it would come back to her eventually — he was fun! A little bit of a lost boy, but entertaining to be around. Which sort-of begged the question, what the heck was Tuya doing here? This wasn't Neverwinter Forest; the future pack's claim lay in the other direction and Tuya had no real reason to be over here, except for the wanderer's itch that needed to be scratched.

So, maybe that was it then. She just needed to get out and roam a little bit - can't fault her for that. She hadn't lived in a pack before and the coterie wasn't formed yet; without anything to truly root her to the forest besides a few cute boys, she'd gone roaming. The forest stuttered out of sight for an hour or so and then she found herself surrounded by trees, and the copse on the horizon soon rose up around her. Her interest in the forest was minimal at best since she'd just come from a forest, however she delved between the trees all the same and soon lost her way among them.

The forest was so thick - thicker than Neverwinter, she'd say - that she wondered if she'd be stranded in here for a while. Tuya wasn't afraid of such a predicament. In fact, she was charmed by the idea - the same way she'd been charmed by shadow-boy's story of a knight and a dragon. She prowled among the dense ferns and smattering of spring shoots until everything looked the same, and she let out a loud UGHHH, and plopped to her bottom with a crunch of grass beneath her. Forest, you're very pretty, but I've got places to be and things to — oh; something was moving in the undergrowth. She only noticed it because it was pale, and nothing else in the forest was that pale —
hey, hey! Hello!

She was on her feet and intercepting the shape without a second thought (which was stupid, since it could've been a bear or something equally volatile).

He heard the distant voice and wasn't entirely sure he wanted to cross paths with its owner.  Not for any real reason other than meeting other people was a mixed bag that tended to be negative in his experience.  Which obviously wasn't good for a social creature such as a wolf, but Mal hadn't exactly had the best life so far, even if he'd survived with no physical ills.  On the other hand, maybe if he went over to see, he could figure out if they were worth pestering and maybe that would be ok... Eh.  Maybe just a peek.

Except Mal was going to get more than he was bargaining for, because the woman who he was approaching apparently was kind of looking his direction.  By the time he realized this and started to turn away in his normal avoidant way, he was being called to.  Oh heck.  He paused as she crashed over towards him, Oh, uh.  Hi.  Yep.  He was the most suave and cool dude out there. Yup.  He never knew what to expect from people.  He hadn't expected to be pursued either -- normally people just let him disappear like a small puff of fog.

Her hollering paid off; the stranger stopped, probably a bit surprised to be seen let alone accosted in such a manner. Tuya had that effect on people, and while he gave a certain keep the heck away from me vibe, she was stubborn enough not to give in to it. His greeting was met with a wave of her tail, and she looked at him with a smile on her face. A quick once-over with her eyes told her a little more than she anticipated: that he was young, suited for winter perhaps with that pristine coat, but more importantly (at least to her) he looked hungry. Oh, and his markings were very different - very intriguing, really. She couldn't stop examining the way the markings of his snout faded and scattered like smudges of coal dust around his eyes.

You look like you know where you're going. I don't! I could use a guide, if you're up for it. I don't bite, promise! But maybe he really did want to be left alone; he certainly didn't look that inviting, but maybe that was because she had sort-of inserted herself in to his life, whoever he was. Oh! I'm Tuya! What's your name? Oh wait --- can I call you Badger? You look like one of those things. Big and fighty, I mean. She would've outright called him pretty, but that probably wouldn't have gone over well. She was actually trying to compliment him; guys always liked to be called big, right?

She was a bit... Much?  All at once at least.  On the one hand she seemed to have a different attitude than the Elysium people, but on the other hand there was enough similarity that he also kind of just wanted to flee.  If experience had taught him anything, people like that would just follow along whether you liked it or not.  So where did that leave him besides stuck here in the middle wishing he kept going.  He was probably a bit too used to bending to others' will, which was probably why he stopped in the first place.

He shook his head. I haven't been here before and I don't even know what that is, so...  Yeah.  I'm Mal.  Which was true.  He'd had a pretty sheltered life and hadn't run into any real creatures other than wolves and various prey items.  He'd seen evidence of coyotes and foxes and stuff on his travels, but he hadn't met a badger.  Probably a good thing, too, because Mal was pretty uneducated about basically everything.

He admitted that he hadn't been here before, which elicited a cheerless little, oh, from Tuya. But she wouldn't let his lethargic attitude get her down! If he didn't know this place then that meant they were in good company, and they could explore it together. Well, Mal, its good to meet you. She genuinely believed that, even if he seemed a little bit out-of-sorts. Tuya was used to people being overwhelmed by her and actually took pride in it, to some degree. She felt impressive, and it gave her an ego boost to make other people tongue-tied or otherwise surprised by her antics. She sensed that he wasn't the most social of creatures - maybe it was the stunted way he spoke, or the fact he didn't know what a badger was, which meant he wasn't exactly the adventurous type - so she'd try to reign in her enthusiasm a little bit.

Where are you from, if you haven't seen a badger before? Badgers -- they're actually pretty funny. They look like raccoons, she watched him to see if that creature registered at all and continued, so they're hefty, and they have white coats with really pretty black markings that start on their nose and go all the way to their butts! I've seen them a few times, and they're kind of cranky; my dad always told me to run the other way, sunshine, whenever we found their burrows. As she imitated her father's advice she mimicked his stern voice and frowned a little, playing up that moment, but ended up smiling.

He wasn't going to mention Elysium, just in case she for some reason got it in her head that he should totally go back there ritenao.  And raccoons?  Also probably a blank.  Well, maybe he saw one, but there was no saying he knew what it was.  He'd spent so much time deep in the packland (and not hunting) that most of his experience with other animals was stuff he dug up from the cache, and when stuff had been in there long enough, there was no saying it looked like how it was supposed to.  He knew what a cat was, though!  I dunno, I mean maybe they just hide or something, but I didn't go many places either.  Maybe now I'll see one now?  Shrug?  She didn't exactly make them sound great.  Maybe it was better if he didn't see one -- he wouldn't know what to do with it, but at least it sounded like they weren't super duper common.

Mal really was afraid she'd go back and start asking about the question he'd skipped entirely so he tried to make her talk about herself instead, Why are you out here?  Tuya said she wasn't familiar with the area, so... Maybe she was out doing the same thing as him.  Or maybe she was some kind of weirdo and he'd be best fleeing the scene, who knew.  So far he hadn't had good luck with people, but at least her attitude wasn't setting off gigantic alarm bells like some of the others.  The only problem was that he was too subdued to even really smile at her act.  He was just a glum boy.