Sunspire Mountains this circumstancial consequence

For @Falwasi, set in some nondescript locale to the west of Northstar Vale!

On the backside of the Plateau, the mountain ranges rose up proudly. It had taken most of his morning to finagle his way across and through them, leaving him by afternoon wondering why he had even bothered with taking what seemed the hardest path possible. But on the backside of those mountains, another valley had nestled itself deeply. And in spite of his wandering about, Mordecai hadn't realized it was even there to begin with. With another piece of the puzzle unlocked as far as his mental map went, he had delved down into the plains and forests of this little valley quietly.

The place did seem some travel, he was able to note. At one point, he supposed there may have even been a pack resting safely. The region reminded him of the Spine, though the basin walls of the Spine were less jagged and more rounded. Here, this place had towering mountains overhead, eluding to the sensation that he had just breached some fortress. It was an entertaining thought, but one he cast aside as a narrow creek bed popped up through the woodland. With the sunlight filtering through the bare trees, the copper-and-gold Ostrega had come to a pause, drinking steadily from the cold waters of an unnamed water source.

30 seconds to mars — echelon

She had traipsed carefully around the infamous Mount Apikuni, only to continue her journey silently and secretly across the upright mountain. It seemed as if wherever she went, someone or something was on her tail, and no matter how hard she tried to shrug it off, it wouldn't shake. That being said, steering so near Sunspire wolves was not the best idea, but Falwasi was impulsive. It would not be until she was caught that she would acknowledge her.. irrationality. Hindsight is a beauty, darling.

It was long past her arrival at the summit, and now she was crawling down the last ridge into the lush valley, with one final hop and a soft thud onto the birthing greenery. The warrior closed her copper eyes and inhaled slowly, her senses flooding with new smells. It had been less than a month since the battle, and Falwasi's wounds were healing nicely. She was no longer deaf, her swelling had gone down remarkably, and she felt.. fine. The worst of her wounds was permanent, though. A faint scar bore into her skin above her right eye, a reminder from fellow Kadence that next time she would not only be deaf, but blind too.

Falwasi shot her eyes open at the smell of another wolf. His scent was unnoticeably familiar in the female's mental address book. Her steps were silent, cautious but confident all the same as she neared the inevitable source of the smell. She paused behind a thick berry bush, regrouping her thoughts. If it was a Spire wolf, she would disappear before they could register her face. If not..

"You smell different." The serenity of her tone as she spoke the assertion matched her features as Falwasi emerged before the burly male. She walked towards him, stopped a few respectable feet away, and dipped her pale crown towards him. "Mordecai," she greeted, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. It was a surprise to see him here; it was far from Spine land, and the whole image of him now led her to believe that he was not with his pack anymore.

If she had wanted to plan a moment of attack, that would have been it. Her statement broke the silent train of thought that Mordecai had been entertaining, though he did what he could to conceal the jarring sensation of having been crept up upon. In the time it had taken her to recall who he was, he found himself pulling names and assigning them to faces of past and present. The female to his side was familiar, even smelled familiar, but time had eroded where it was that she had come from. But after a moment, no more than a second or two, her name came flying back to him from some imaginary rolodex.

"You look like you've had a rough winter, Falwasi," he said, offering her a kind smile. Her wounds, however she had obtained or received them, were more or less healed in his eyes. He was curious of the stories behind them but did not ask outright, instead going for a more neutral, less invasive approach.

"How are you faring now?"

Despite the offered smile, Falwasi angled her head slightly to the right, reminded by his words of the mild but apparent wounds she wore. She was not embarrassed nor ashamed of them — nor proud of them. They were simply there for her personal awareness, and always there to remind her of their loss. Perhaps if she'd fought harder, she might not have escaped her death, and Scimitar would be left with only Kieran as aid... It was a whole web of could-have's, would-have's, excuses and truth, but she could not differentiate them. They were too similar.

"How are you faring now?," Mordecai asked, releasing the complicated wolf from her equally complicated thoughts. She shifted her eyes to look at him before moving her face. "I don't know," she said, a gentle crease appearing on her forehead, "Physically, well. Mentally.. I've been held in a hiatus." This was true; Scimitar had yet to reveal the next step, and she'd been in pause since their meeting. He'd already elaborated on his idea of relocating, and it seemed he was taking it to the next level.

Falwasi studied the male before her; he didn't look patently different from the last time she'd seen him, as far as she could remember. Although her memory was good, it wasn't extraordinary. "What about you?"

When she changed the topic back to him, in a way he was thankful for it. While it seemed Falwasi had held up well through the winter, there was something else there. A deeper pockmark than the rest that suggested to him that something had most definitely happened. It may have been a sensitive topic and rightly so, he avoided it.

"I've been managing," he said with a lopsided smile. "Took to the road again, as I'm sure you can see. Ventured out for a little while to see what there was north of here and as luck would have it, I came back here." He left out the parts of leaving the Spine and joining the Plateau. He imagined she had figured out the former; the latter would only come if she was familiar with the Plateau.

"At least the winter's been pretty mild. I've seen a lot of game around these parts so far. Or at least the signs of it." No doubt they liked the nestled features in between the mountains. Good for them, also good for the wolves that would no doubt go hunting in them.

Fal has a crush on his smile xD

With a lopsided smile that Falwasi could not help but find attractive, he complied with the change of topic and proceeded with his answer. "I see you've chosen the Plateau," she remarked, putting the scent with the facts. In her earlier months in the Creek she had met a few Plateau wolves, but only recently their Alpha, Dante.

At his mention of abundant prey residing in the Sunspire Mountains, the grizzled female looked around the two slowly, saying, "It seems tempting to hunt around this area, but our packs have a treaty that I would not care to provoke. " Although no news was good news and they hadn't heard from the Spire in a while, one could never be too careful.

Falwasi watched as two hares hopped close past the pair into the forest, causing the female to elicit a friendly huff at the further appeal. "Now they're teasing me," she remarked, returning her gaze to Mordecai with an amused grin.

D'aww, I find it funny when others crush on Mordecai. It's kind of endearing, actually, because I don't think I've ever played a character that other characters have been all AYYY YOUUU~

He nodded; he had in fact gone to the Plateau. Out of all the likely places he could have gone, the plateau had cropped up at the top of them. It hadn't quite been intentional, but Mordecai often went with spur of the moment events. If he had continued down the coast, perhaps followed Caiaphas on that particular day, he may have decided to stay there. But, as fortune would have it, the sirens wouldn't be gaining another consort in the form of his likes either.

Then rather curiously, his interest was piqued by her next choice of words. He held off until she had pointed out the hares, however. "Treaty? Between the Plateau and the Creek?" An oblivious nature crept across, as he misunderstood what she meant. Dante had never mentioned that anything had happened between the two, and his brow furrowed with confusion. This time he only hoped that Falwasi would be able to clarify, and he would gain a little history out of the mountains.

He seems like the perfect gentleman >:)

Falwasi was quick to correct him, forgetting about the hares as rapidly as they had come. "The Creek and the Sunspire," she answered, understanding that when she had said 'our', he'd misinterpreted it for his own. The she-wolf had forgotten that Mordecai might not have been familiar with the more northern bound packs, so with her words she'd hoped to have enlightened him.

"Two exiled Creek wolves formed the pack," she explained, thinking back to what Galileo had told her. "Things heated up when Fox — former Creek alphess — went too close to their borders with two other members. The wolves were held captive except for Fox, who took off." Though she knew the basic summary, Falwasi did not think she would be much help to him if he pursued a history lesson. She didn't know all the dirty details.

With a sigh, Falwasi rolled her eyes: "Drama," she said, "It never comes to an end."

I do think he would make a good one! Perhaps he should go start a harem somewhere lol... >_>

"Ah," he said as she clarified, only then listening in as she went into a brief explanation of what had happened. It was an interesting thing to hear of, another pack taking wolves capture. Mordecai wasn't one to outrule that it didn't happen, but thankful that he had been fortunate enough to avoid such circumstances. It seemed like whoever this Fox was, the fact that she wasn't the leader of the Creek now was probably a good thing.

And when it came to her comment about drama, Mordecai could only offer a chuckle. "That's why I try to avoid it. Sometimes easier said than done though, I suppose. Makes sense why there's a treaty," and he was glad it wasn't between their respective packs. And for the most part, he could have only hoped that both parties were holding up their own ends. Whether or not that was where the healing marks on Falwasi had come from, he couldn't have said.

"Have you had a chance to get out into the flatlands? There's a new pack on the mountains to the south." With Silvertip having residents again, he felt it necessary to share that little nugget of information.

Definitely, lol

It was true, that bypassing drama was easier said than done, and nearly impossible in the Creek's, particularly Falwasi's, case. It would tailgate them, and she so badly wanted to stop in her tracks and let the drama crumple into their asses. But if she did that, she would end up getting hurt too.

Her ears twitched when Mordecai brought up the subject of a new pack in the flatlands. The flatlands were certainly a place of interest to Falwasi; they were not too far from Creek land, and she often found herself travelling towards them. She particularly enjoyed the journey across the mountains, even though it required a generous amount of physical activity. The view from both summits were beautiful, and the elegant wolf found it a common practice to sleep atop either.

"I haven't, recently," she replied, seeing Dante in her last entry of her flatland memoir. "I was going to head there this week." Perhaps if the russet male planned on returning soon, they would cross paths on the way.

As always, she was still a venturer of the wilderness. It hadn't been all that long ago that she had encountered him in a much different place. Under a completely different set of circumstances, at that. But his time at the Spine was well behind him now, at least he wanted to believe. Cara hadn't come knocking at his door yet and neither had any of the others there. Their interest in him had passed, perhaps as easily as his interest in being at the head of their pack had came and went.

"Well, I'd advise you to steer clear of their borders for now. They're on Silvertip Mountain. I think they're still in the process of settling, not really interested in entertaining visitors," he surmised with a chuckle. "I passed by there a few days ago to learn that much about them." Who led it, what they were like, he hadn't the faintest idea. Perhaps later on it would be worth returning to the mountain's area, maybe once they had settled. A point he felt like sharing, as well. "I'm sure they'll be kinder once they've settled, though."

Mordecai was kind enough to give her a run-down of the new pack, to which she listened to intently. Although they had only met twice, he seemed decent and so she trusted his judgement on this occasion. If she did, in fact, choose to explore near them, she would do so carefully.

In his words, Falwasi noticed the advice. It seemed he enjoyed, or was instinctive on giving advice. As their previous encounter had come to an end, the former Alpha had recommended she take a different route, to which she did not oblige. Where maybe Mordecai liked giving advice, Falwasi did not like taking it.

"You're advising me.. again?," she said, brows knitted slightly as she held back a 'seriously?' expression. If the question was demanding clarification or an explanation, Falwasi did not know. It would be whatever Mordecai played it out to be.

Instead of the usual thank-you to such a thing, he was met with a question. One that briefly caused his smile flash onto his face, not entirely sure how to take the question that she posed. She didn't seem particularly miffed by it, but who knew for certain. "Am I?" he countered momentarily. His gaze shifted to the land beside him, and he tried to recall if he had done the same the last time. "I guess old habits die hard." Maybe then, it had been to ward her away from the Spine and the likes of those who didn't take easily to strangers.

He found it amusing, really. Looking out for others, as though it were really his duty to do so. Perhaps when he had been in charge of others, but now? Mordecai supposed he could give advice no more than boss someone else around. He wondered where the notion had stepped up in him to do so. "I don't doubt your judgement, of course," he added on, as though it would help him save a little face with her. For all intensive purposes, the last thing he wanted to do was weaken the civility that they had fostered in their prior meeting.

Of course, he supposed he hardly knew her as well.

"Mmmm..." Falwasi hummed with a pensive expression. "You don't doubt," she repeated, "But you don't trust either." And he had no reason to. They were mere acquaintances at this stage.

At that she walked casually away from the male, no more than a few feet, before turning around and walking back towards her original position. Falwasi had few habits of her own, which consisted of pacing, and other pastimes. She would discover a retraceable pattern and train over it so many times that the grass would be mowed down to nothingness. The repetition was anticipated, and therefore solid. Safe for her thoughts.

She sat down and looked at Mordecai solemnly for a moment before engaging quietly: "Do you have any other habits?" The reason for this, she knew, was that the male looked to be more or less composed and tame, but their conversation was divergent to his demeanour. Then again, the same could be spoken for Falwasi.

It wasn't the way that he had meant for his actions or words to be taken, but Mordecai listened and observed all the same.  He supposed there was a degree of mistrust that he carried, but in a way it had never been meant in a negative light.  They could all be leery of one another in different degrees, be it that they were friends or not.  Much in the way that Falwasi paced, something in which had he spent more time in her company, he may have likened to a certain restlessness.

But did he have any other habits?  His brow furrowed thoughtfully; he couldn't have said off of the bat what they were.  "I'd imagine I do," he said, "but I can't say that I put a lot of thought into them."  Deep down inside, they were habitual creatures at heart.  How they behaved, how they learned, it was all very habitual.  Very instinctual too.  He probed for her opinion more.  "Do you think habits are a bad thing?"

The two spoke at length for some time more, before ultimately parting ways.

Adding in an ending since it's been about a month with no reply. :C