Blacktail Deer Plateau He already knows that my love is fire

Maybe @Creature or @Mei? AW though!

Nieve emerged from a hole in the ground, panting lightly and shaking dirt and debris from her golden coat. It was lighter out now than when she began thanks to the midday sun emerging from behind the clouds. She spared a minute to bask in the sun, catching her breath and allowing her heart rate to steady, then pivoted and loped a few feet away.

At the base of a tree, she'd placed an average looking jackrabbit. It was a lucky catch. It'd blundered into her while fleeing from some other unseen enemy and she'd managed to secure it before it could zip away. Now it would feed a member of the pack. Nieve bent and grasped it by the neck, lifting it gingerly and carrying it over to the new cache she'd dug. She set it tenderly down in the dirt, then began to scoop earth back over it, ignoring the quiet growl of her own stomach. She could find something less fresh later.

her ascent to adulthood is come and gone quietly. it does not feel as special as she'd imagined it would her in her youth; she remains at the bottom of the ranks, alone, mostly, save for when she seeks out the company of her mothers. she has grown still, jaded; she knows distinctly it is a state she does not want to occupy, but she does not know what she can do to change it. she has little of value to offer the pack, she considers; if she were to vanish between one day and the next, she doubts they would notice. 

she stumbles across her sister unwittingly, lost as she is in her meandering thoughts. she is struck still, blinking at the golden girl and the catch she carries. her sister had not sought her out on her return, but then again, neither had she. "thats—" she stammers, pauses. "good catch." she says lamely, lapsing into silence as her gaze settles on the freshly turned-over dirt.

If one was to ask Nieve why she hadn't sought her sister out, she wouldn't have a good answer. She might bluster that she'd been too busy or hadn't realized her sibling was home, but neither was true. She might claim that she wanted to give her sibling space rather than crowding her, for surely Rosalyn and Erzulie were laving attention upon her, but that wasn't right either. The truth was that Nieve was afraid Clementine was going to just disappear again, and she wasn't sure she could handle reconnecting with her sister only for her to leave again, so she'd avoided her.

It was a pretty juvenile thing to do. So was the surge of guilty panic she felt when a voice sounded nearby and her blue eyes lifted to meet the rosy figure of the very sibling she'd avoided. Clementine had fully grown into a rounded wolf, not overweight but definitely stockier than Nieve's long-limbed and reedy physique. Both of them were decidedly underweight presently thanks to the lack of large game, but it wasn't like the pair were destined to be hardy interior wolves anyway, coming from coastal stock.

Good catch, her sister complimented, forcing Nieve to swallow down the guilt that lodged in her throat. Clem, she said, surprising herself with the warmth in her tone. But why shouldn't she be warm, inviting, welcoming? This was her sister and Nieve was so, so glad she was okay. What was the point in pretending otherwise just because she was afraid to lose her again? It all seemed so stupid and silly now. Welcome home, she added, smiling a watery smile and forgetting entirely about filling the cache.

You rang?! :D

He'd been patrolling the pack since his acceptance, refreshing the marks of their border to remind outsiders of their presence. There was nothing of great interest happening around Rusalka but the duty was one he took to easily--keeping the border secure and heavily scenting was his calling. He moved behind the bald branches of a branch and lifted his leg to mark, yawning in the process as the soft sound of his stream fell to the ground. Once he felt the bush fairly soiled he moved on, no particular destination in mind but stopping every so often to mark and release scat.

He circled back around and found in a meeting two wolves, both young by appearance but even from this distance were beauties. He considered whether to approach but it seemed his paws had their own idea and within moments he was within earshot of the nervous duo, entering just as the golden one was greeting the other. It seemed he'd stumbled upon a welcoming party. "Ladies, pleasure seeing you two about." he greeted, his thick tail swayed behind him with excitement and an invitation for their company. He noted the blood that stained Nieve's mouth and figured she'd recently come back from a hunt, perhaps she'd been busying herself with filling caches as there was no dinner to be found but upon closer inspection she was littered with dirt. "planning another hunt?" he asked with the cock of his narrow head and waited for one of the surprised young women to respond.

for a moment, they were alone - a careful moment in which she traced her sister's silhouette, the watery smile, the guarded gaze. "thank you." she wants, needs to say something more — I'm sorry sounds about right. but before she can muster the words to her tongue, there comes another.

her gaze moves swiftly for direction, instantly uncomfortable and honing in on the most familiar presence. the stranger's forwardness is exaggerated in her mind, and she glances once to him with a dying, "um," on her lips before flicking her gaze back to the golden girl, wavering between excusing herself and taking whichever instruction her sister will offer.

A bit of an awkward pause stretched between the sisters after Clem accepted her welcome. Nieve, being generally uncomfortable with silence, frantically searched her mind for something related to Clementine that she could say and parted her lips to start a conversation of some sort, only to clap her mouth shut again when a masculine voice broke the quiet.

Creature kind of reminded Nieve a little bit of Caiaphas and Illidan. He didn't have the wholly black head like either of the Eyjolfurs, but his dark face mask, nape, chest and legs on a pale silver canvas were strangely reminiscent. The man towered over the pair, even Nieve with her relatively long legs, and that made him automatically intimidating in the same way that Aningan and Rosencrantz were. His tone, however, was friendly rather than gruff.

Oh! Nieve said, mustering up a smile. No, I wasn't planning to. I'm pretty crap at it, honestly. This, she gestured to the jackrabbit, was totally just luck. You're a hunter? She glanced over at Clementine, scoping her sister out for interest in Creature's proposition, but she looks nervous and unsure of herself instead. Nieve didn't verbally mention it, but something akin to worry flashed in her eyes.

It seemed that he had crashed the welcoming party. He stood akwardly in silence, warmth crawled through him and ended at his cheeks which felt tight with embarrassment. He hadn't meant to interrupt their meeting and the look that Clementine gave made him feel even worse--she looked ready to leave. He hesitated at his spot a moment, contemplating whether he should give them the space they needed to do whatever young women did but was saved from the response that Nieve gave, assuring him that at least one of them were welcoming of his company. "I hunt here and there, mostly when I'm hungry." he said, chuckling at his horrible attempt to break the ice even more. "I, um, would you like to go on a hunt or something with me? I can show you how to not be crappy at it." he said with a shuffle of a paw, trying to sound non-chalant and welcoming at the same time. He could usually handle the awkward stares from one set of eyes but two were making him nervous, and that was pretty hard to do.