Rising Sun Valley rêves de paysages sans fin

She wanted to believe that winter was finally releasing its grasp on the world.

Some days, it was particularly hard to tell. It felt warmer but it was damp in the valley, so damp. The chill hadn't left her bones for what seemed an age and though she was roughhewn around the edges, she had managed through the worst of one thing for another, and another, and on and on...

Sunlight peaked through off in the distance, though Phoebe couldn't have seen it. The slow roll of one hill into a deeper gully of the valley masked it. The narrow, thin bands of timber aided this too as she persisted, focused on forward movement.

Searching for something, but not entirely settled on what.

@Arbiter @Iseldir

She stuck to her word -- when she was sure those at home were safe, that borders were tended, she went out to see what she might find in the territories beyond. Arbiter needed just a few to fill out the pack, she felt. The real question was who would end up being the ones those were. Who would be the core? Well, lurking about at home certainly wasn't going to find them, or at least it hadn't worked this far.

Arbiter hoped that the more recent shift of snow to sleet and rain meant that the weather was finally turning to the warmer, but just because it was didn't mean it was suddenly turning pleasant. It was just a different type of annoyance. Still, she'd scout through it -- perhaps it would turn some her way more than a sunny day might.

She'd caught sight of a mostly black shadow and aimed her steps towards it. Her curiosity was now a requirement rather than a possible personality feature. Arbiter called out, a whuff to see if they'd stop so she could approach and see who it was who'd crossed her path today.

A call disrupted her thoughts, and probably for the best.

Phoebe's head swung around to the figure that approached her, curious. It wasn't too terribly often that she found herself accosted by others. Though as she had made her way back towards the unknown and familiar climes of what had once been her home, she should have anticipated it. Winter was letting up, little by little, and thus her ilk roamed once more.

Her steps slowed to a halt and she waited, offering a wave of her tail as an exchange that she was friendly.

The wolf she'd spotted looked like she could have maybe have been some other distant relative of Terance's -- maybe not quite, but he was a ghost that she couldn't get out of her system quite yet. Sometime soon, she'd have to learn to forget and move on. Not a warrior, from what she could see, 

Arbiter approached, but the woman there seemed to be alone. Or at least from where she stood they didn't carry a heavy pack scent. Possibility. Play the right cards. Arbiter might not be a super amiable sort, but she was forced to learn to be... Tolerable? Something like that. So Arbiter didn't have a normal sort of greeting -- it just wasn't built in to her -- she was always somewhat detached in her inquiries, Long term wanderer? A slight tilt of her head. She hoped the question would provide her just the right info to figure out how to direct the rest of the conversation. Just the first step.

It didn't take much for Phoebe to realize that in that approach how swiftly she was being assessed. Looked over like a prize or a piece of meat, maybe even equalized to one or the other. It had taken a bit of trial and error to realize just when such a thing was happening, but she felt she knew enough to realize just when it was.

And such a thing was confirmed at the first drop of words—she balked at them for an instant. She had never thought of herself as a long term wanderer, but maybe that was very fair to say. The winter hadn't been the kindest of seasons to her, but she had managed through. Somehow.

"I guess it's something like that," she answered, ears flattening back out of reflex. "Who are you?" Definitely not the long term wanderer like her. Stronger, sharp-eyed; this was a wolf who knew what they were doing far more so than she.

If there was one thing Arbiter would never be accused of it was being subtle with the way she viewed people -- certainly she was subtle in other ways, but not that. It was best to be direct about certain things. No questions. Besides, wasn't everyone always keen to figure out who they were facing down as soon as they can? She was just less polite about it.

She did also like that her own attitude did seem to occasionally cause others to show slight submission whether they wanted to or not. It was all about power, and she certainly had the greater hand -- part of the fun was how to use it. Often not needed. Arbiter. Of Legion. Slight brow raise as a silent 'you?' in return.

Your travels wouldn't have taken your path past a father and son named Terance and Pike, would they? But that was said in a tone that said it was totally unlikely. The answer would almost certainly be no. No harm in asking, though.

Arbiter—interesting.

She didn't waste time in cutting to the quick of things however, and well before Phoebe could return her own name as a gesture of good faith. Instead the songbird wavered between concern and curiosity over presumably missing kin... and felt a pang of guilt rise up like bile on an empty stomach.

"I—no, I haven't. I'm sorry." It seemed empty, not to have something more than an apology. Try as she might, she could not quite shake the consideration that perhaps her family asked after her... or perhaps they had not. Perhaps her younger siblings had indeed replaced her, though that was unlikely.

"Have they been gone long?" Perhaps Arbiter searched for them now, and the cut of her words a means to mask a deeper concern. The way someone who most assuredly cared, wasn't that how it worked?

Long enough that I know they're not anywhere nearby. But so far no traveler has seen them either. So it goes. She shrugged a shoulder. Arbiter had accepted the fact, but she still asked just in case. She didn't know what she'd do if Terance returned in the first place. It'd probably not be the most friendly of confrontations, considering she had stopped considering him as her mate.

Since she'd so quickly turned the conversation, before, she now left it open for the other woman to respond instead of asking another question. It would be easy to do so, but sometimes it was more telling in how they turned conversations on their own -- as was visible from that Easthollow boy she couldn't figure out. He probably won the award for most indecisive wolf in the world.

It was that acquiescence, that nonchalance, that felt like a spear into her side like a jagged deep wound. So it goes, she said—had her family accepted that too? More than likely, she imagined. Tegan had been the last to see her that she recalled, but would have he had said anything? She doubted it; he had been consumed by the desire to leave too, he had abandoned them.

And so had she.

Her stomach knotted with discomfort—no, guilt.

"I'm sorry," she offered again, knowing it to be a useless reply. It was a difficult topic to broach and one that she found she had no hope of smoothing over. It didn't feel right to go probing for information any more than she had so as she gathered her assumptions, she stood much like a child caught in a situation they were not so sure how to get out of.

From Arbiter's perspective there had been two choices -- move on with what she could change, or become so trapped in the past she wouldn't move on. Arbiter had chosen the former. The time to fret over the unchangeable was over. But the fact that there was nothing else to be said made Arbiter a little curious. Maybe not sensing guilt, but some sort of discomfort there.

So perhaps that's why she turned a question towards her again, perhaps to see if whatever wound Arbiter had touched on would cause her to retreat or break open. What brought you through here? If it didn't tell her what made the younger woman tick, it could at least be good information for her own quests.

Ah, that question. Phoebe had come to hate that question.

Still, she hadn’t been raised to simply take off and act like a churl.

“Just… traveling,” she answered lamely, and knew it. It wasn’t really the appropriate response she had hoped would go springing off her tongue in front of the stalwart woman. She tried to salvage it just as quickly. “The weather’s getting better every day so I thought I’d see what was out here.”

Was that better? She hoped it was better. She hoped it didn’t sound like the sort of thing that suspicious runaways said to mothers who most certainly could sense better, who knew better. She never considered the possibility that she was less of a child and more the age of one quite able to disperse and have minute value.

I see she's inactive and IDK when that happened! Sorry for slowness on my part too -- if I don't see her readded in a week or two I'll edit on a conclusion!

It wasn't the response she'd been wanting. Just traveling didn't give her much to work with, not much to use to present the wolf a positive future. Was that what she was planning to continue to do? Probalby. Mm. It is. At last. I won't miss the snow, I won't welcome its return. 

Still, that was awkward as is, so she'd offer another suggestion. If you're ever tired of wandering, I'm building a pack in the north of this valley, Legion. It was a casual offer. She expected nothing of it from a wolf who didn't seem to be interested in settling down, but she could always see if she could plant a seed for later.