Lone Star Mountain forget this day

@Kiki, because idk if I can tag Seamus. Set for some nebulous time before Easy found out where Sunny and Dawn are, just for my own reference.

Another trip, and still no news. Easy had left fresh scent marks among the willows in the increasingly faint hope that Sunny or Dawn or Steph or Minnow would wander through and know that she was searching for them. She'd spent a few minutes howling, and pausing, and howling again, but no one familiar had answered her.

Finally, she'd decided to call it a day, taking the long way back home just to cover more ground. Just in case, right? But mostly, she was trying to put herself back together so that she could be the wolf that the pack needed when she returned.

She wandered along the foothills of Lonestar Mountain, picking her way over some of the crumbling rocks left behind by the quakes with a rather dejected look on her face. It was not just that she was failing to find her siblings -- Easy was beginning to feel rather guilty about having left Valiant in the lurch back at Round Valley while she got to play den night with her mother.

It had been a while since he had come back to the Wilds.  Courtfall had been kind to him — despite the scarcity of the food, he was able to catch enough to remain as fat as ever — and it boosted his spirits to have his sister nearby.  He hadn't visited her since he had settled in, and he thought that sooner or later he should remedy that.

He made his way from the north end of Courtfall and climbed down the mountain from there.  It was easier to go the long way to Uaine Gorsedd, even with all the extra miles, than to scale the entire other mountain that sat between them.

The hours alone reminded him of his way here.  He had spent so long divorced from pack life that he almost missed scouting, in a way.  Courtfall was nice — it was home, for now — but it could not offer him the same freedoms as wandering always had.

He almost didn't see her.  He was so deep in his thoughts and she was nearly the same colour as the overturned stone.  But she moved and for a split second his heart caught in his throat.  He remembered precious little about his fall, but if the ground beneath him were to give way again...

But that wasn't it, was it?  Shame rose in his cheeks.  How could he be so frightened?  It was just another wolf, and thus far another had never done him wrong.

Oh, hello, he called.  Careful, if you're headed that way.  There are some places that aren't quite stable yet.

Easy was being careful — not out of any conscious decision, but because the area had pulled at the fur along her spine just enough for instinct to take over as she scaled the broken crags. So the sound of another wolf made her reel back and look 'round, her pumpkin-orange eyes comically wide until she spotted the interloper.

"You scared me," she accused even as she wagged her tail in greeting. The male was quite unfamiliar to her, but something about him gave her the impression of deep kindness; she changed directions slightly so that she would head toward him instead. "All this fell down, then?" she asked as she leapt from rock to rock, ironically being less careful now in her haste to reach even ground with him. "The quakes shook it loose?"

She'd never seen it happen, but she'd often wondered if it was possible when looking up at precarious cliffsides. She certainly didn't remember this area having been so rocky so low — but it was possible that she'd just never come this exact way and was just remembering things wrong. She'd gotten lost before, after all.

"My name's Easy — I'm from the Emberwood," she said when she'd gotten almost within leaping distance of the man. Younger than her, but not a pup or a yearling — and from Courtfall, her pack's closest ally.