Dragoncrest Cliffs so i'm surrounded

Honestly, she was laying low. She was terribly tired after weathering such a long, long stream of bad news. First her sister, then her mother, then the neighbors fiasco, then Heda, then everyone scattered and missing (happening too quickly to keep proper tabs on, she hated), then having to worry about her brother and dad handling all this too didn't leave her in a particularly pleasant place. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and frustrated--she wasn't sure how to start shaking it off yet.

So she just kind of reverted to the part of her routine that came easiest: some kind of patrol, vague enough by definition when she didn't really put her mind to every yard she covered. She meandered a path up then down the eastern outskirts, pointedly avoiding needing to look at the sea for very long for as long as she could. Plus, uncharacteristically, she didn't really want to see her dad right now. He was probably just going to make her sad.. or remind her what she had to be sad about, at least.

She kept her head carried low still and prowled on.

He hadn't made enough of an effort to reach out to Dio and his children, which was a shame, particularly considering Portia's demise. He hadn't known the woman, but after Heda's own cliff-dive, and all these subsequent losses, he was feeling particularly empathetic as of late. He saw the girl from afar and gave her a chuff, trotting over with a warm smile on his face.

Hei, Verx greeted, tail swinging steadily behind him. Mind if I join you? He fell in step beside Opalia, waiting for her assent to continue--or to peel off if she so dissented.

He liked to pretend that he would be okay with the dissent, and usually he would be. But right now, he really needed a fucking friend. And he needed to be better at relating to youths. It was a two-for-one deal right here, at least for him; now it was Opalia's decision to take it or leave it. Emily doesn't even know what the fuck she just typed.

His chuff brought her to a half-pause, and lifting her head, she saw Vercingetorix coming on over.. and she didn't entirely mean the side-eye she reflexively threw at first to seeing anyone at all. But, it soothed quickly enough thankfully without huge effort on her behalf. While a large presence, and one she was familiar with, he was not someone she was particularly close to personally; she knew he did a lot, and did the guard business like Dad, but she just didn't need to spend much time around him usually.

For her now, that could be good? Or bad. Assuming he might be carrying some agony thanks to Heda's death like others she was trying to dodge, she was suddenly a touch unsure. Plus, it wasn't like her mood was about to win any awards, and she wasn't getting a whole lot done otherwise either.

She answered the Cheka with a low nod back first. Maybe without Heda, he really didn't have that much to do? Hei, she parroted, and looked him up and down before she picked up to her pace properly again. If y'want, she replied. You're not missing anything if you don't, she tacked on, a little bit of that squint returning over her shoulder then.

Well, that was certainly enthusiastic consent. But it was consent nonetheless, and she was just a sassy kid, after all. Not like she could really get him to fuck off in any real capacity. Still, he was grateful for the company and continued on with a nod, the two traveling in silence for a long while.

How're you doing? The query came so easily to mind. But platitudes seemed so hokey these days, and Opalia had to deal with double the sympathy because of her mother. So he remained quiet until she chose to spoke, gaze instead raking over the landscape, looking for something to break the monotony of the patrol.

Something. Anything. Flaming meteor. Please dear god.

i had to-

It wasn’t the quiet, heavensent reprieve that Opalia sought for, nor was it a flaming meteor that disrupted the silence, but it came pretty damn close, all things considered.

An indignant, snarling wail of “JONAMKOJAS!” ripped through the mocking cries of gulls. Her voice cracking with a tearful fury, the skayona hobbled with all of a pregnant female’s dignity (read: not much) through a winter pond, snapping for throats and hearts. She’d only since come away with tailfeathers, rather than retrieve her foraging as she’d meant to.

With a defiant stamp of a hind, Aure abruptly sat with a tearful little ‘plomp’ into the shallows. ”Rose is g-going to kill me—“ Her dewy eyes and cheeks were as red and worn as sequoias, and her breathing was just as ragged-so. As her hecklers winged themselves away, she was left to grumble at her tender belly, which softened with each exhale. The expectant knew it wasn’t the fault of her copii, but this womb dragged her down from being as fleet as she once was.

When’d she gotten so fat?

But then the fur along her delicate neck shivered to life, and for a moment, the cackling of gulls was momentarily forgotten. As if she’d only just felt their presences, and was affrighted of even doing such, she haltingly cast her eyes over a thin, muddied shoulder... to see the gona and cheka. Looked at them, blinking all flustered and dumb and with a quivering, scarred lip; how long had they been there? Mortification roared from her throat to the feathering of her ears; here she was, legs and belly and bum six inches deep in mud, when she’s meant to be anything but inelegant. Oh, now she was pregnant and pathetic!—

Lips thinning with embarrassment, she turned from the pair with a silly little sniffle; instead and took great, scrunched-nose interest in the gulls who’d filched from her. ”W-what? Never had to deal w-with these jomanokas before?” Aure began to tug at burrs and brambles that had tangled themselves in her ivory fur, ensnared from a previous pursuit, whimpering through the little yanks that hurt.

Apparently he wasn't easily off-put, and they fell into a comfortable step soon enough after. Opalia wasn't exactly going out of her way to hide her side-eyes any either, despite a relative sense of relief starting to come about when he didn't pick, pry, or otherwise--although it was very tempting to do so to him anyway. He earned a few points from her for that, though.

She decided she didn't have anything to say about it however, so very carefully, kept her jaw clipped shut. This worked for some time as they covered their ground with her thinking no more of it.

She gave a prickling start at the voice rising over the gulls, unexpected as it was before they had made their way all the way to sight of the ivory Skayona's predicament. Thanks to this, Opalia openly shot Vercintegorix a look that said she had a lot of questions (several of which involving what that squalling was about) before she loped on closer to find out more--hoping with an extra little kick to her heels that a jomanokas might be something they could help fight, or at least get to sink their teeth into somehow.

Her ears wobbled out as she slowed up to where she could still stay safe and dry, but close. It was just Aure, mud, burrs, the disappearing gulls..? A complete mess of it, thoroughly.

With this, her mismatched stare roved for other answers, like a proper foe to punish, if they were lucky, hopefully. But no. None!  So now what! She had to settle for her confused glances between the two older wolves, both for wildly differing reasons as she expected them to fill these blanks. The whats? she asked, unsure how to gauge how worried and all she ought to be--and depending on how concerned the Cheka seemed about it all, she would go with that. Aure certainly looked pretty rough to her, though, and Opalia wanted to know better fast. You're okay though, right?

Actually, maybe he would have preferred a flaming meteor. Instead, here came Aure, pregnant and dirty and cursing in sloppy Trigedasleng. He hadn't seen her since letting her have it the other day, and his stomach clenched with a combination of nerves and guilt as they approached her. And, well, irritation. What was she doing, getting into fights with pups in her belly?

Nomajokas, he corrected, his voice clipped, his eyes not quite meeting hers. He assumed Opalia knew that word, at least. At any rate, she probably had already gotten the hint that it was a naughty thing to say. What are you doing, Aure? What's wrong?

Oh, for fuck's sake.

It just about took everything within her to keep the fur along her spine settled at the sound of his voice. Aure made it a point to not look up; to not lean toward the words and the lips they fell from. To not shiver with her own nerves, her own guilt. "Yes. Yes, that word, whatever it means. Anyways," 'Nomajokas' — it'd sounded particuarly threatening, so she'd thought to whisk it away with the other scraps of this cliff-language she'd acquired. Opalia arrived at her side, looking as harried as the herbalist herself had felt; still felt, now. ”I’ve been meaning to instate my own apothecary, you see? I was in  midst of my search for a hollow when— well, when this happened.”

”Are you okay? What are you doing, Aure?” Ivory, she was ivory. She made her façade linger into something much more relaxed, and she did the next best thing: smiled, soft and slow, regardless of her bedraggled and muddied state. Rather than answer either of them, she quietly mused, ”If Rose is as forgiving as she’s presented herself to be, then I should be fine. All ze same, I think it would do ze kru good to have a secondary. Apothecary, I mean. Not so much toil on Rose’s shoulders.” And more labor for my sake.

With that, Aure wobbled to a stand before sloughing her way from the waters, trilling as she went, ”I do not believe we have truly met before, O-... Opalia, is it?” The inscrutable curl of her shoulders was something that couldn’t be hid, but the skayona turned to gleam at Dio’s daughter all the same. Gleam toward the both of them, really, but in all truthfulness? — her own loathing, deprecation, and searing regret was probably as clear as day to any practical-born. But damned if she wasn’t trying, even if it was through the thin veils of vulnerability.

So, she smiled all the same, and her attention towards Opalia, and whatever was left of it for Verx, was genuine. ”Are you a warrior, as well? Like Verx?” — Was it even okay to call him that anymore? Heart in her throat or no, her eyes flickered over the both of them; habitual, searching for physical hurts, at least.

In her best attempts at assessing the situation, her wondering stare lingered longest on Aure, of course. Opalia was inexperienced, very young still—she did not entirely grasp that it was the naturalist's gravid state that was pinging the alarms for something abnormal besides what was obvious; she saw the whole mess of her struggles as it were, the simple to see ones. But it was this innate sense that told her she was looking for something else, something subtler. She never had it so plainly in her nose, and before her eyes, though.

So, some of the mystery of the strange word was dissolved in favor of other questions. Opalia thought she caught maybe half of that as Rose unexpectedly entered the explanation and she picked her way through some semblance of understanding. Her ears splayed and she did know enough to nod at the mention of her, and proud to be a warrior among them—maybe not quite like Verx (she side-eyed him to confirm his ideas on this) just yet, but one day it was very possibly considering the path the girl wished to walk down. Yeah, it is, she affirmed for her name, as the next piece was more relevant to her. I am, her chest might've puffed up a little. A gona, still, she said, but with an inflection on the end meant to say but one day maybe more.

She hadn't committed entirely to either defense or the offense as frankly, she still liked both and didn't have a clearcut goal in mind yet where she did want to stand one day. The duality both sides of it appealed and while she got the practice her guard and defense a whole lot more, she wasn't one to deny the thrill of lashing back as offense too.

That aside, she still didn't understand exactly what was wrong besides a whole lot and how she was supposed to help any. There was still a lot to figure out about the pale healer.. Opalia could tell already.

He caught Opalia's side-eye and smirked. He was glad that the girl was here. It made the air between himself and Aure a little less tension-heavy, even if it was awkward for Dio's daughter (and he was sorry about that). For now, he tacked on to Opalia's remark, his smirk fading into a genuine smile.

Then his eyes shifted to Aure again. Be careful, Verx said, his tone not quite scolding--but not jocular, either. Don't wanna see you getting into trouble over an apothecary. You can maybe get someone to help you?

He didn't mean to be condescending, truly. It just sort of came out that way.

I've got somewhere to be now, he added, the lie slipping uneasily from his lips. Thanks for letting me hang around for a while, Opalia. He gave a nod to the two women and padded off, completely and utterly unable to handle even the slightest bit of whatever-the-fuck it was with Aure now.

If Aure’d ever been receptive of when words had contrite or condescending airs to them — intentional or no — then she may have been molded into a much more frigid, feudal she-wolf than she’d rarely ever become. So she did not take offense to Verx’s parting words; was entirely unaware of how it may have come from him.

Instead, as she’d noted his ”Be careful” into her secretive self her eyes rounded to full, gleaming moons, as if struck with an epiphany in the wake of Verx’s departure. ”Minunant! Opalia—“ Mud and burrs and melancholy momentarily forgotten, she whirled to Opalia then, some of her former fervency lilting her words: ”How would you feel coming along with me as I forage? Blodreina has, how do you say?—she has upped and went into thin air. It is some ‘high time’ that I should be bringing guards with me, no?”

Her traditional tongue moved clumsily against the more modern jargon she had no idea what she was doing it; but spared an eye for the retreating heft of Verx all the same as she awaited a reply. Things had been said; things that would take mending, for however long. But getting away from the cliffs felt a refreshing endeavor in any sense—

The gold gona tried not to let it show, though she definitely felt her eyes get a little bigger—but not in a bad way—she kept Verx's little add-on close to be satisfied over more properly later. For now was right.. she believed, too, but that wasn't at the forefront for now and she added nothing further. Navigating this situation before her had gained a touch more precedent, especially as the guardian took his leave and she was left with a weird impression that maybe she wasn't able to see everything here.. then that she probably didn't need to.

So she was just catching up, and before she could adjust to the absence left behind by the cheka, Aure gave her plenty else to busy her focus with.

She blinked, first, understanding enough that maybe, she felt like she had a good grasp to start to agree. The first part was definitely clear.. the Blodreina bit was kind of fuzzy (hopefully she was doing alright if she turned to air?? since Opalia hadn't drawn the connection to heat, necessarily).. and the last was, well, she got that and it pieced it together enough that it was exactly the kind of opportunity she needed to undertake: official guard. And, better yet, helping forage—something well ingrained on her by her parents early that it was very useful to the pack's well-being, and for any good gathering herbalist, there ought to be a watchful set of eyes to help keep them safe when the world turned cruel. But it was an important duty, one she couldn't afford to have any bad luck about, or not be at her best for.

Um, is Blodreina going to be okay? she blurted first, but stanced up better after, straighter because official answer incoming. Do you know where you'll go? But, yes! I can go with you, I can guard. And help. Her tail waved to say definitely, because she might not have picked up a penchant for flowers from her mother, but she wanted to be a good guardian like her dad... who she would need to dart straight to for pointers about this because, well, it was to be a maiden voyage for Opalia's solo work, but one very necessary.

And so, with this shift in her attentions, she was all ears to find out whatever she could about what may await them. From scouting beyond, to if there were certain plants the herbalist sought, to where they might go—she would love to hear any of it.