Swiftcurrent Creek sätaron

The edge of Apikuni & the Emberwood, what would be the western border of Swiftcurrent.

skuka focused on the terrain. she moved quickly between the shadows, deftly but not silent when obstructions crossed her path; climbing over swaths of fallen trees replete with moss, gripping with her toes.
she had left tey'gan with his brother. it surprised her how the two of them interacted, and she was spurred on by a kind of homesickness. better to put her agitated energy to work than to wallow, thought the hunter.
there was a village here—that much became evident by the absence of prey, the many game trails along the mountainside, and soon enough a prevalent note of wolf as she crossed along a hilldside of redwood. the scents on the wind were plentiful and made her nervous, so she did not approach beyond this fringe upon the ridge, and looked out over the meandering river from a great distance.

Arric was always found at his borders. A constant guardian tempered with edge. He had not felt so jumpy in sometime. But Akavir had been gone too long and it smarted. Blue eyes fell on another across the river and he lifted head upwards. Nose twitching to try and drag their scent.

A bark of greeting
 Then he waited. Too many had been coming near. It made him wary
 But yet they needed bodies
 Needed wolves.

darkness called to her—quite literally.
her ears were up, her eyes wide a moment as she scanned the area beyond her physical limits: the rushing of the river gave way to a cobby, clay-hewn edge and wetstone; there were burgeoning growths all along the embankment with trees pillared in to forest—nothing to indicate life beyond the green.
she looked again, and only on the third pass did the dark canine shape manifest in her pattern recognition.
a low boof issued from her, but she ducked immediately after and moved, snaking her way along the riverside and out of view. when skuka appears again she is nearer to a shallow gap; there were large gray stones here, and if she wanted to she could cross at least halfway, to stand in the middle of the pulse. here she pauses, looking, and spots the man again—training on the white fur encircling one eye.
the noise she makes is inviting, while her body holds a tenuous caution to it.

She was bright like Rev. Her fur like sun spun gold. There were different brights Arric knew. Some were only skin deep like this wolf, like Reverie. Amd some were like Arlette bone deep. Light that simply spilled out. And how he loved her for it.

The wolf was there amd then gone. He blinked attempting to find her in the large overgrowth, but it was hard. He caught movement. Slowly. Then there she was. A place she could cross if want but also space, divide between he and her.

He moved a few paw steps closer. But stopped at the edge. He feared she felt unsafe and that wouldn't do.

I'm Arric. You approach Swiftcurrent Creek.

she had suspected a tribe lay claim here—the scents carried across from the other side, where the man stood and which the man held, confirmed as much. she could not count how many but it didn't appear to be a high number. perhaps that was why the man drew closer, so that only these shallows and their step-stones separated them.
skuka watched the man move with great interest. he was incredibly tall and broad, and she felt very small in comparison despite being a tall individual herself. he carried himself with a fraction of restraint, and when he spoke his tone was... not outwardly warm, exactly, but also not dismissive or antagonistic. her ears gave a twitch.
but, she did not know the words themselves.
nostrils flaring—as skuka now had all the information she needed—she ducked back again and moved as if to seek the shadows amid the tree-line again. these were not people she knew and her curiosity was not that strong.