Blacktail Deer Plateau and all god's people find their place

she is around the general area, anyone is welcome to run into her, but no more than two others please!

She had left it all behind once more. A practice that felt more like ritual by now.

She made home in the heart of a plateau. The place was silent, long vacated by wolves but abundant with other such things. It was the kind of place that made her brain think in a list of faces she had lost.

The first was her mother. What would she think of such a place? Did she live somewhere like it now?

Then her brothers. Long gone, but their memory still fresh in her mind. She wondered what life would have looked like with them at her sides now.

Finally, of Gleipnir. A face that made her heart beat like war drums before it silence once more.

Could she honor them all in a place like this? Could she fix anything if she finally put roots in for good?

She could not do that alone. Her heart would yearn and she would follow the wind to wherever. Yet...if she had plenty here, if she could cut the yearning right out of herself, bury it into the ground and have it grow...she might finally settle.

So young to be so hungry for solid foundation.

Climbing up The Wall had been challenging, Lane remembered that much from her trip north several moons ago. But climbing down? It was practically a suicide run, particularly for a woman who was four weeks pregnant and prone to dizzy spells. What would Wintersbane have said, if he could see Lane taking such risks with his unborn young? What would Rye have said? He'd given her all kinds of hell for climbing into that little ravine at the edge of the Glacier's territory, and she'd only been a couple weeks along at that point.

Thankfully, Lane arrived on the Plateau quite winded and exhausted, but otherwise no worse for wear. She looked up at The Wall from her position at its base, incredulous that she had made it to the bottom without incident. She was well-aware, however, that she would need to find a different route for her return trip home... she would be even more pregnant by then, and climbing back up The Wall was going to be out of the question.

Lane moved across the Plateau slowly, still recovering the energy she spent on her precarious decent. Every now and then, her eyes flicked longingly toward a deer herd in the distance, but who was she kidding? She didn't have a prayer of bringing down a deer on her own, in her current condition. Instead, she aimed for a different splotch in the distance, one that happened to be a little more wolf-shaped. As neared, she called out a greeting, in hopes that the wolf wouldn't move any further away before she could catch up.

"Hey there! I've got a question for you..?" Despite her slow pace, she was still huffing and puffing, and her voice emerged a little breathless.

She did not budge, a narrow skull turned to look over her shoulder at the voice that had called out.

A woman. A mother with the way her sides seemed to grow slowly.

It was not something Sakhmet had much experience with, but it was something she had witnessed in others. Something about it stirred deep discomfort within her stomach. A sensation that crept into her throat.

She could not stare forever. The woman had spoke to her, breathless and worn with something on her mind.

What? A blunter answer than she had intended to serve the woman, but it hung in the air all the same now. No taking it back.

The stranger replied a bit brusquely. Lane's ears flattened in guilt, as she assumed that she was intruding on something. She halted her approach at a polite distance and sat down. 

"I'm looking for a way across the mountains that isn't--" Lane turned around to gesture at the looming Wall. "--that." She injected a little more cheerfulness in her voice than she truly felt, trying to make up for distinct possibility that her conversation partner didn't really want to be a conversation partner. "..A way around, maybe..?" she suggested, trailing off with uncertainty.

Sakhmet had gone across the mountains once upon a time.

When her twin had been lost, her mother had taken Anansi and her on the search. Their first departure from the woods. The first in a list of a few.

The south, She gestured vaguely to where she had come from. How she had fled from the woods full of strangers in her home. A sharp breath in that pressed against her ribs.

Might be easier. Except she did not know. Perhaps the earth had ruined that land as well.

Then, without warning, her mouth opened once more and the obvious tumbled out of it. Rude, perhaps, but primarily blunt.

You are pregnant.

Why travel?

Where was a father?

Who were the children?

Would they end up like her?

A litter of three, one left standing.

The stranger gave with a puzzlingly vague response. The south? No, no, Lane needed to go back north. Well, not now, but eventually. 

She added something about the south being easier, and Lane realized she might be trying to suggest that the expecting mother remain south of the mountains permanently, given her obvious condition. She wasn't wrong. The mountains and the northern territories were harsh, but with them came the added bonus that any children raised there would certainly be tough. 

"I--" Lane opened her mouth to rephrase her original question, intending to provide a bit more information on the exact kind of route she was seeking. However, the stranger chose that moment to voice her blunt observation.

"Uh.. yeah," Lane confirmed. Yeah, she was pregnant, what about it? On one paw, Lane was relieved that the woman seemed to be warming up to the idea of a conversation, but on the other, this wasn't really Lane's preferred topic. Particularly with a stranger. 

"Yeah, that's a big reason why I'm not really trying to climb back up that thing, when I get ready to go home." Again, she gestured toward The Wall looming in the distance behind her. She hoped that might be enough to redirect the conversation back to land-mapping.

She should have shrunk with some embarrassment or apologize for being so brazen, but that feeling still bubbled in her gut and it seemed to spill out into the world in her ill worded choices. She wondered if this woman was on the run. Perhaps she had fled the father. Perhaps home was no more. She could imagine a million poor situations to leave, but not one good one.

So the woman caught her by surprise when she spoke of a return.

She charged on verbally, childish and brutish. She sought to break down the walls of personal boundaries it so seemed.

Why aren't you home now?

News of Lane's upcoming trip had a lukewarm reception, at best, from her packmates. No one had been particularly enthusiastic about her travel plans, for obvious reasons. Lane had expected to get some grief from Rye and Tzila about it, but she had been wholly unprepared to face judgement from strangers. Particularly such seemingly young strangers.. had this girl even seen her second winter yet?

"Uh.." 

Well, why should Lane have to be home? Was she supposed to sit on her ass and do nothing for half a year just because she had a little too much fun at the wrong time of the spring? The stranger was just a kid. Probably hadn't even been through a heat yet. She had no idea what it was like. Hell, Lane was a medical professional, and it had even caught her by surprise. 

Lane exhaled, flicking her tail in annoyance. 

"I have some loose ends to tie up," she answered vaguely, trying to keep the defensive edge out of her voice. She stood, preparing to depart. If this kid wasn't able or willing to give decent directions, that was fine, but Lane wasn't going to hang around for more judgy questions.

She was not blind to the vague annoyance. It was deserved, but it did not settle the desire to push further. However Sakhmet did not wish for conflict. Especially with a pregnant mother away from home.

Okay. She breathed out, heavy and a closer to her questions.

I do not have much experience with the mountain. An admission that she let hang as she wondered if the woman would have anything else to say to her.

The yearling's admission exposed only the tiniest piece of vulnerability, but it was enough to appeal to Lane's sympathies and hold her in place a little longer. Boy, she was sentimental these days.

"Me either," Lane likewise confessed. "I live in the Taiga to the north, beneath the glacier." Before the kid could come back with any more well why aren't you there -type questions, Lane continued, "But I used to live down south, in the Wilderness. Hence, my loose ends." She gave a wave of her tail, hopeful that this conversation might yet be salvaged.

The glacier.

She could recall a glacier. With Gleipnir. She wondered if it was the same, if the lights danced above it in a way she had never seen elsewhere.

She supposed she had crossed the mountain...twice, then. Yet she was almost positive her path had been similar to the first time. So it changed the answer she had given little.

We are not so different. Shy, timid. Aware that she had been a bit rude moments ago and so to try to form connection now might have been odd.

I have been to a glacier once and I lived in the south as a child.

"We are not so different," the young woman claimed. It seemed that now her judgement was swinging in favor of Lane, for whatever reason. 

She explained a little more, noting how their paths across the Teekons had been similar. 

"You're well traveled," Lane commented, leaving off the "..for being so young" part. She'd gotten that line over and over again herself from various old biddies, and she was resistant to step into those pawprints just yet. She may be about to be a mother, but she was far from being an old lady.

"Where do you live now?" The obvious question, perhaps.

More traveled than she wished to be.

She had not known of rooted places since leaving the woods. Although she did wish to try here, to secure a place even if it was herself forever. She only smiled meekly at such words. A bit strained and some hurt in her ghastly eyes for it. Nothing she would speak of.

Here. She gestured around the woods, the plateau was hers as of now.

It is my home now.

"Oh!" Lane's eyes widened a bit. Had she missed the territory markers? The signs of pack life? Perhaps the woman's pack had neglected to leave territory markers at The Wall, convinced that no one in their right might would attempt such a risky decent. 

Perhaps the woman was a pack of one. 

Either way, Lane had unwittingly stumbled right into her home. 

"Please excuse my intrusion, then. What do you call this place?" Lane's eyes drifted across the plateau, landing once more on the herd in the distance. The territory was a good place for a pack to set up shop, given the abundant supply of prey.

What did she call this place?

She had not decided on anything official. It felt like it would have been easiest to mutter a name she knew well. Blackfeather. Except this place was not there. Her home in the woods was no more. Inspiration could be drawn, though. To hold on to the memories.

Blacktail, She answered after her thoughtful pause. It is only me, so your passage through here is welcomed. No guardians to reinforce boundaries or keep wolves out of any marked borders. Not to mention Sakhmet — for all her rude questioning and ill sensation at the concept of pregnancy — would not exclude a pregnant creature easy passage.

Duly noted. Blacktail, population: 1. For now, at least. Lane imagined that the woman would have little trouble finding others who might take interest in that deer herd, if she was looking to build a pack. 

"Then you have my gratitude," Lane imparted with a smile. "If you ever need anything, you have a friend in Duskfire Glacier. Just ask for Lane." Perhaps once the woman was ready to establish her pack officially, she might be interested in forging an alliance with her neighbors to the north. It would certainly be convenient for the Duskfire scouts, to have an additional ally at the halfway point between the Glacier and Moonglow.

I will come visit Duskfire Glacier and you when the time is right. A thin smile, warm but not wide. Humbled perhaps that even with her rudeness this woman still saw fit to be kind.

Perhaps, if she ever had more here, she could risk a trip that far. As of right now, she could not risk losing her small claim.

I can escort you down the plateau, if you'd like.

It was the least she could do to make up for her behavior.

Feel free to write a fade or just archive!

The woman agreed to seek Lane out in Duskfire Plateau, and Lane acknowledged her response with a smile and a wave of her tail. The would-be ambassador was proud to have brokered what could very well become a future alliance for the Glacier wolves.  She was already making use of this scouting trip, and she hadn't even set foot in Moonglow yet! 

"Sure. Thanks!" Lane accepted the woman's offer to guide her out of the plateau. Lane wouldn't have any idea where she was going otherwise. No matter how welcome the woman insisted Lane was, the Blacktail woman probably didn't want some stranger wandering aimlessly around her home, poking her nose here and there. Lane would follow her lead.