Calanthe's fur pricked uneasily as she wandered past the boundaries of the Crest pack's territory and out into Stonewatch Timbers. She hadn't done this save for one other time since joining the Crest, and the last time she had stayed just outside the borders and to the east, where the forest was more familiar to her. She had come from the east, after all - now she turned her paws north, through the sliver of timbers that separated Round Stone Crest from the great swath of tundra land she now knew to be called the Larkcall Lowlands. That tundra was her intended destination; she had even been sure to wake as early as she could manage so that she could arrive before it became too late in the day, though she had resigned herself to the fact that she would probably still return late into the night, if not the following morning.

Such an excursion might have made her a bit nervous, if it wasn't for the fact that she had already received permission from  @Gent and @Minka both to go so far from the Crest - though it had come with Gent's stipulation that she return as soon as she could, which was fine with Calanthe. She was only visiting the tundra at all so that she could familiarize herself with the layout of the land; surely that would only be an asset once she began hunting for the pack. If she brought back a kill this time, so much the better, but for now her primary focus was on exploring the Lowlands.

The trees gradually gave way to a great, open expanse of grassy land, marked only by rocky hills that rose close enough to each other to make the whole land seem to have frozen mid-ripple. With no trees to break the wind, Calanthe found herself buffeted more intensely by cool air and the scents and sounds it carried with it. Excitement long locked away began tingling through her legs again; this was no mundane stretch of land. There were secrets here, and she was eager to discover them.

She gave herself a hard shake, trying to work off some of the nervous energy that seemed to buzz through her fur before continuing forward, travelling somewhat to the north-northeast and pausing frequently to use this or that crest to scan the area from a higher vantage point. She wasn't being as careful as she perhaps should be; the thought hadn't yet occurred to the pale woman that there might be other wolves here as well, or that there were other, far less rational predators who competed with wolves for food and other resources - nor had she considered that she was more visible on higher ground, especially here where the only growing things were hardy grasses and tough little shrubs and bushes, all of them too short to conceal her from this altitude.

Her fourth or fifth perch treated her to a view partially blocked out by something that gleamed in the sunlight. From where she stood, the light reflected perfectly off of what she assumed must be a pond or small lake, making Calanthe's eyes water from the brightness. She hopped down from her hill in two great leaps down its face, then trotted on towards the water, curious to see how wide it was and how deep it might be. She didn't plan on doing any fishing, but neither would she keep the location of this place to herself if it did prove to be a good fishing spot. And even if it didn't have any fish, at least it would provide a place to stop and get a drink, so either way it would hopefully turn out to be a valuable resource for future excursions.

It took Calanthe maybe half an hour to reach the water; for a long while during her trek, it was completely out of sight, and with the wind blowing in the wrong direction she had to rely entirely on the fact that it lay to the west - in the same direction in which she was walking. She assumed it must be situated in some little depression in the ground, and that this was why she couldn't see it. All the same, so far her little adventure was going swimmingly, so rather than worry that she might walk straight by the pond, Calanthe continued to meander along at an easy pace, her head swivelling this way and that as she drank in her surroundings.

She knew when she had reached the pond when she was blinded a second time by the sunlight bouncing off the surface of the water. With a muffled curse, the pale wolf slid carefully into the depression - for the moment too irritated to notice that she had been right about there being a depression - and then dipped her head and rubbed at one eye with her paw, as though she could bat the sun dazzle away. Despite her best efforts, it still took several seconds for her vision to clear enough for her to see again.

She gave an irritable snort and shook out her mane, then lifted her head and gasped at the sight before her. The pond stretched out almost beyond her ability to see its opposite shore, though it was shallow enough that here and there small islands of turf and water grass rose up to break the otherwise crystalline surface. At a glance, Calanthe thought the thing must stretch out at least twenty or thirty feet across at its widest, and from the edge of it she could still see to the bottom, making it less than two feet deep, surely. That made it a little on the big side for a pond, but too tiny and too shallow for a lake.

In one or two places, enough sediment had built up beneath the water (and enough weather-worn stones had surfaced around the shores) that the pond was very nearly broken up into one large body and several tiny satellite pools. Nearly, but not quite, because even these almost-land bridges were still fully submerged in a few inches of water - with the exception of the rocks themselves, of course.

Her pale yellow eyes were wide in her head as Calanthe stepped closer to the edge of the pond, peering down into it from above. At this angle she could see all the different rocks and pebbles that lined its bottom; dipping a careful paw into the chilly water she scrapped her claws carefully along one rock, stirring up the thin layer of silt resting atop the rocks and sending glittering ripples skating across the surface. Those might even be the first real ripples the pond had seen in a long, long time, she realized with a childlike sense of awe. How many other creatures came to this place, and how frequently? She could tell it must be a spring, rather than a gathering of rainwater - there wouldn't be so much history in and around it if this was simply a basin that filled and emptied and refilled as the seasons changed.

Stepping carefully - those first few ripples were more than enough for now - Calanthe picked her way across the stones until she reached one of the bigger turf islands, then hopped to the next one and the next until she reached the center of the pond. Again she looked down into the water, and now she could confirm that its deepest point didn't seem as deep as she stood tall on all fours. Less than two feet after all, then, and no fish, sadly. No little tadpoles or frogs, either, but maybe it wasn't the right season for them. She had never really paid much attention to slimy water creatures besides the fish.

Something out of place in the edge of her vision finally dragged her attention away from the lovely water. Her sense of wonderment vanished like the fragile morning mist and was replaced immediately by a sharp pang of anxiety as she realized she was not the only wolf here. Worse, although the newcomer's fur was white, she could instantly tell it was not @Alphinaud, who although a newcomer to the Crest was nonetheless a pack mate. No, this stranger held himself differently than Alphinaud, and seemed just a bit larger than Calanthe's pack mate. She cursed the wind for blowing in the wrong direction - and then cursed herself for not being more careful.

By now she had heard about others of her pack - both past and present members - who had met with grizzly disasters while wandering alone beyond the Crest pack's boundaries. @Raela's encounter with the outsider @Vitani rocketed through Calanthe's mind, and the young woman froze for a moment. Could she be mistaken about this wolf's gender? Vitani was a white wolf, too, according to what Calanthe had heard...

...No, no, she was right. This was a male wolf, and therefore not Vitani. Calanthe's legs felt weak with momentary relief, and it was only by the work of a miracle that the woman didn't fall into the water outright as she quickly hopped back onto solid land again, one ear still turned towards the stranger. She kept her pose as neutral as she could once she reached the shore, though she knew she must still seem a bit uncomfortable as she closed some of the distance between them. She could only hope this man wouldn't mistake her uneasiness for aggression; she had trained under @Gent to defend herself, but she knew she was a great ways off from being anything even resembling a serious threat in battle...

She stopped some fifteen or so feet from the stranger, not wanting him to feel as though she was coming to start any trouble. Besides that, she wanted to give herself plenty of room to bolt should he come barrelling after her, although she couldn't imagine why he would. Better to play this encounter safe rather than be sorry for failing to do so later on.

“Hello,” she called with what she hoped was a relaxed smile. The chances of it looking more nervous than friendly were pretty high, unfortunately. “Lovely place, isn't it?”