Calanthe found herself wandering beyond the borders of Round Stone Crest again, the second or third time since she had joined her pack. The last time had been to escort Draven to Bowed Maple Bend; the time before that, she had gone out on her own to familiarize herself with the lands she might one day scour as the pack's Hunter. This excursion, though, wasn't for the sake of duty or soothing the wounds of a pack mate. This time she wandered on her own accord, seeking out somewhere she could be separated from the gloom that lingered over her home territory.

She didn't begrudge anyone their grieving, but being surrounded by so much of it made hers even greater. She knew very little she could do to assuage any of her pack mates, and the knowledge that there wasn't really much to be done made her feel more useless than she had when she was first welcomed into the pack. Hunting was a good way to distract herself, but she didn't dare overhunt within the pack's territory, and she could only entertain herself for so long with squirrels and rabbits and birds before she needed something else to do. Perhaps a few hours or so so herself would prove beneficial in the long run.

She didn't howl before she left the territory - she didn't expect to be gone past sundown, and in any event she didn't want to worry anyone or have to field any questions about where she was going and why. Part of her recognized that this excursion required her to shirk her duties for a day, and yet she shrank from telling anyone the honest truth about why she felt doing so was necessary. How could she cover up her motivation when it was a relief from so much pain that called her away from her pack mates? And spirits forbid if she had to explain herself to @Raela or Draven or @Gent; she couldn't bear even to imagine how they would look if she broke down and told them the truth - and she knew she couldn't lie to the three of them. She didn't have it in her to be so deceitful.

Instead she quietly slipped across the borders and made her way eastward, this time readily tracing her vanished trail from so many months before. It didn't hurt this time to let herself remember the loneliness she had felt when she travelled westward on this road. Neither did her chest feel ready to crack open when her thoughts briefly swayed towards other times she had wandered as a yearling, when Kenelm had always come to bring her home again. Why regret what could not be? Kenelm wasn't coming to find her this time; it was time she let the past lie and move forward.

Before she knew it, she found herself at the western edge of Nightingale Palisade. It was peaceful here, calm and overgrown with lush plant life. Here, she knew, there were plenty of birds and smaller prey creatures, and perhaps a herd of deer might even pass through here. She hadn't come to hunt, though; the quiet here was the sort that one nearly feared to shatter, like a fallen autumn leaf that was still perfectly formed and had colors more brilliant than the most glorious sunrise. Just for the moment, she wanted to stand on one of the lower spaces among the hills and let herself be surrounded by the quiet and the calm. All of the world could wait until the storm inside her heart had calmed itself again.

Calanthe jumped at the sudden call, her peace and quiet rather rudely shattered by the sound of someone who sounded rather less than pleased to have found her here. Her calm swept away under the fury of her instincts screaming to the forefront of her mind, and before she quite realized she was moving she had leapt to her feet and snapped her head and ears around to face the other wolf. He was a dark, muddy brown in color, and from here she thought he seemed a bit dirty on top of that. His body was held in a defensive, almost aggressive stance; the wind was against her, making it impossible to tell his scent from here, but something in the way he carried himself and behaved spoke of a man who had no pack to belong to.

Calanthe's own body tightened down, her head lowering and her tail inching upward to ready herself to run or fight as the need arose. She tried to fight the pull of her instincts against her muscles and bones, but the best she could do was a barely-neutral stance that still spoke very faintly of agitation as she called back, “Hello, there!” She offered nothing further, no apologies or explanations for her presence here - she had most certainly been here first, and he had stumbled on her. Nerves fluttered in her chest beneath the courage she had dragged hurriedly around herself, but she didn't - couldn't - allow herself to falter before this man. He wasn't close to pack lands, and that meant she was on her own here, too, but if he wanted to fight she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of chasing her away without getting a little comeuppance in return.

It was bravado, and foolish bravado at that, and she knew it in the quiet corner of her mind, but it was too late now to stop herself from putting on this dangerous show. Look down on me and give me strength now, the quiet part of her whispered to her father's spirit. See me as you're sleeping and let me see this through - then I'll return, I pledge my word.

Calanthe's ears twitched at the sound of the stranger's voice. His accent was odd, and the words were hard for her to understand right away - but she caught the gist of it well enough, and not knowing exactly how to respond to being referred to as a gem helped startle her away from her pretended aggression. When he completely dropped his own threatening stance soon after, the woman reflexively took a step back from him, only to stop before she could move the next paw back as well. She would not give him the satisfaction of making her run... even if that wasn't his intent any more.

What in the world was he after?

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said slowly. “This is a long way from any pack to the east.” An easy enough thing to bluff about knowing; she was aware there were eastern packs, but where they were exactly remained a mystery to her. She only knew that none were close enough for their scent to have tainted this area.

She was still hesitant to tell the man anything of her own errand here; he was too strange, too unknown to trust with the shadows in her heart, and she still wasn't entirely sure she wanted him to know she was also and good, long way from her pack. This dark-furred stranger with his eerily pale eyes was too much of an enigma for her liking... and too much of an enigma for her to turn tail yet and bolt. She wanted to know more about him - from a distance. For now.

“Are you... on your own?” she asked, somehow managing to step forward a few paces again. Her head remained low, but now her features were etched with more curiosity than unease and her tail had fallen limp behind her again. Her pale yellow eyes searched the stranger's face for any sign that he might lie to her as she waited for his answer.