Whitefish River You got to make me

This is set on the 29th-ish I think. Tag is for ref.

Mal had lurked near the borders for much of the rest of the day, hoping @Cupid was going to turn back. But as night approached and there was no sign, Mal headed off after him. He couldn't have been serious, could he? Mal had to try again. He followed Cupid's trail most of the night before zonking out somewhere (he honestly wasn't sure by that point) sometime mid morning. Once he woke, more bleary following followed. Mal went all the way to where the scent trail turned towards the borders where another pack was, and that was the point at which Mal halted. Why them? Why not his pack?

The speckled man reversed course back to the river where he started to wander rather aimlessly. He couldn't go back to the pack like this, that he knew. As evening fell again, his mood had changed from empty and confused to genuinely angry. It had been a while since Mal had gotten properly angry -- or at least more than one of those times where it'd burn out in a few minutes. No, he was smoldering in it. It was the sort of mood where he maybe just looked annoyed, but if you handed something breakable, he'd probably chuck it at a wall in under a minute. It was completely unfair. He'd offered everything he could think of, tried every way of convincing him Mal could think of.. Nope. It wasn't fair to anyone and he couldn't fix it.

Instead he just prowled around in the darkness, again asking why. What was he going to do?

When's the best time to meet your enemy on the road? Why, when he's stark-fucking-mad, of course.

That's exactly what Belharra did, as she marched towards the fuming Mal, pleased-as-a-pickle and with an equally distasteful flavor of a grin on her face. He looked peeved - and for once, not on her account! She must have been slacking, for she had never seen him so angry.

And believe you me, Belharra had made Mal quite angry in the recent past.

Whoever it was that had stoked the fire under the spotted boy's breast, was someone Belharra fully planned to invite to her table. Insufferable grin aside, Belharra strode towards the smoking-at-the-ears chap, and practically bellowed with good humor in his direction. "Oi, bespeckled-git! Wot's got ye feathers all inna frumple? Cain't be me, on account I've been behavin' recently." She flashed him a positively ripe smile, full of teeth .. and hung back just enough out of reach of any snapping fangs. Just in case.

The night was welcome. It meant that he probably wouldn't have to deal with anyone, he could probably avoid people... He could be angry in peace. Once he was able to sort out his feelings, he could go back to his pack and not talk about it for quite a while. Hell, and if Cupid changed his mind and came back, hopefully by then Mal would be in a better mode. Only problem was, once the reasonable sorts of people home asleep, the ones that were left weren't exactly ones Mal wanted to come across.

Of all the idiots out there, this was the one that showed up?  His lips peeled back and he uttered a growl. He was not wanting to deal with her again -- if she could go fall off the planet, that'd be nice. Not interested, he said flatly, turning slightly away, keeping her in periphery (zero trust, gee), but any direction away from her was a good one. She needed to go grow up or at least go find someone else to bug other than Mal and his pack.

Belharra was many things, but she wasn't a backbiter. Bemused to see her adversary so unenthused by her presence, Belharra answered his turned back by sitting carefully in the snow. 

She wasn't expecting a grand ceremony, but she expected a bit more than just a flat growl and turning away. Where had his spark gone, his joie de vivre? He looked like a lost boy, not the ornery wolf she had come to know. 

Come off it, Belharra responded, sweeping her gaze to the wolf with a bit of shrewdness. She was ready to run if he turned around all snappy-like, but she was awful curious for what had gotten him in such dreadful spirits. Ye've never been interested, fars I can tell. So today's just more o' the same. Wots got your tail? Maybe I can help.

Mal had just started to walk away from her when she started talking again. He couldn't tell if she actually wanted to help people and a little off in the whole "following the rules of society department" or was just some sort of maniac who would cackle with glee if she ever got a straight answer. He wasn't going to be saying a word about Cupid to anyone right now, and certainly not to her.

What this was, was trading one object of irritation for another. He was still pretty sure he was going to walk off in the next handful of seconds. Belharra didn't offer anything to him except the promise of trouble. For that brief moment, he looked over his shoulder at her, No. You can't. But if you want to tell me why it is you're so relentlessly stubborn despite being obviously not wanted around, perhaps I'll feel so very enlightened about the world. Well, he doubted it, but he had to get one snarky bit in before heading off to go back to his own thoughts.

Belharra and Mal weren't exactly on the best of terms. This might or might not be an understatement- the last two times they had seen each other, they had come to blows physical and verbal. 

Belharra reflected back to what made it so. She had been traveling in a forest ("his forest") and found a kid needing help.  Next thing she knew, Mal was snarling at her face to get out. She wondered if Mal extended that courtesy to everyone else, or if it was just her that got special treatment. 

Belharra wasn't going to follow him, as delightfully irritating a midnight jaunt as that seemed. He was rankled enough a poke or two might set him off to full-blown postal. At the sarcastic quip Belharra's ears fell. She could spit it back in his face if she wanted to, but on principle, Belharra wasn't one to send a kick in a man's direction while he was down. 

Stubborn is just another word for survivor. I'm still here, aren't I? She looked him over, a slow grin spreading across her face. Mebbe ye shoulda recruited me, and not all those lackeys that flounce off at a moments notice. Her eyes softened as a realization came upon her. Any time she had interacted with him, he had been surrounded by males. THAT was why he didn't like her, wasnt it? THAT was why she hadn't been recruited when other way less competent wolves had been? Thank god it had nothing to do with her (un)pleasant personality and all to do with, he just didn't have proper taste. Ye don't swing for my team, do ye? Makes sense now I think about it. Where's the boyf? She looked around, half expecting his male posse to burst form the bush any second - but maybe that was why he was so out of sorts.. Maybe he and the boy band had taken a nosedive?

Survivor? Nah, more like just biding her time before she crossed the wrong person and got turned into tiny meat particles instead of a wolf. Not his problem, though. He'd barely taken a half step before she... Blamed him somehow? What. He looked back again, Maybe if you had gone back to the borders, called for someone like a normal person, and been all, 'Oh hey, my bad, can we try this again?' instead of screwing around for a month or whatever that would have happened.

About the time when he finished saying the above, she was prattling on again. And Mal had not a clue what the point of it was, What are you even going on about? And it was said pretty much as-is, not flustered or anything beyond just 'you are making no sense' that she might have otherwise been hoping for in order to poke fun. Look, Mal had spent like 80% of his life being angry at the world and ignored by people, he hadn't had time to emotionally catch up entirely yet. He should probably just keep going, she was just gonna keep him here by rambling -- maybe give her another half second.

Angry and dense. Belharra couldn't say that was a new combination to witness. To Mal's credit, maybe he was too annoyed to catch the joke. Or maybe her accent was too thick to get the point across. Either way, Belharra was only a smidgeon deflated to learn her joke had gone WHOOSHING over the guy's head. Ah well. We'll get him some other way.

Mal's criticisms were accepted with an even look and a shrug. He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't in the right either. His pack wasn't official, plain and simple. Anyone with a nose knew the difference between squatters residing and an established pack's strong scent, which was often interwoven with the scents of many. Hence, strong.

Belharra couldn't fault him for protecting his home, but she could fault him for possessiveness over an entire swath of territory when he equivocally had the same squattin' rights she did. "Borders only count when you have an established pack, sugar." She responded in a tone free of annoyance. He was trying, she could give him that. Keep at 'em, slugger. "How long ye been trying to carve a pack out of that little piece o' land?" Belharra could imagine given his bedside manner that it had been some time. If he was anywhere near as friendly to others as he was to her (heh), one could easily understand the reason he was having trouble collecting a following. So far she had only seen him mostly be not-nice.

And in that half second, she'd lost him. He turned away and started heading off into the night once it became clear she was just going to continue being a disrespectful twerp. She obviously didn't want to actually be recruited by anyone, and she hadn't said anything that actually captured his attention and convinced him to stay any longer, so wellbye.gif to the whole thing. Have fun being alone and all that jazz.

The great thing about being out here in no-wolf's land was that he didn't have to stick around. There was zero obligation for him to sit around and listen to her pretend as if nothing had happened before, or that for some reason she was allowed to prance around and do whatever she wanted. Nope. Unless she really went out of her way to make him stop, she could just have a good view of his spotty behind before he vanished into the darkness.

Evidently, there was no talking sense or being rational with this guy. Belharra watched him go without so much as a word in edgewise. She might have been smiling a bit, but unless Mal turned around to give her the Sarcastic Last Word spiel that he was prone to do, his departure would probably go without commentary.

She shrugged a second time. If he wanted to be a mopey broody hen she wasn't going to stop him. It was probably for the best she wasn't accepted into his grouping. Belharra considered herself a catch (and for good reason). She wouldn't stick around for anyone who treated her as less than she deserved.

There were worse things in the world than being alone. Belharra waited until the man-child was well and truly gone before she struck off in a different direction, an old ballad hummed on her lips.