Larkcall Lowlands white cyclosa

When Spieden left the monadnock that morning the sky had been bright blue with just the fewest streaks of white. The sun was much too low to really call it sunny, but she would take what she could get. She was still getting used to the place, trying to get over the uncomfortable feeling that it didn't yet feel like home. As if that was a feeling she could force if she simply tried harder.

She'd gone further out than she normally did, searching for nothing in particular. She kept the monadnock in sight, even if just a small speck on the horizon. With how flat and almost featureless the landscape, was it was easy to lose ones bearings. She didnt pay much attention to the dark clouds that were collecting on the horizon, not realizing that they were much closer than they looked. She might have started heading back earlier if she had.

The winds picked up and the sky darkened as storm clouds collected overhead. Spieden quickly turned around, setting her course straight for the monadnock once she realized the trouble that was brewing. But her strategy was flawed, and quickly the stone was blotted out. She could barely see a few feet in front of her, the maelstrom formed a shroud of white and the sun was all but erased by the dark clouds overhead. She narrowed her eyes against the snow and ice that was carried on the howling winds. Spieden pushed onfor a while, but hill after rolling hill she was hit with the feeling she wasn't even going in a straight line anymore...

Spieden was about to give up and burrow down into the snow, hoping to wait out the worst of it and possibly spend the night there when she saw a shape emerge from the squall. A pale wolf, barely set out against the white flurry that surrounded them. "Hey!" She yelled. She didn't recognize them, but figured they were stuck in this blizzard just like her. Maybe they could help eachother. But then just as quickly as they appeared, they were gone. "Hey, wait!" She hollered again, her voice barely rising over the howling winds, "Come back! Hey!!!" She yelled as she started running after them.

On some level, Capable sensed it was not a good day to take one of her longer jaunts away from pack territory to investigate the surrounding lowlands – but ever since the Wild Rye Fields wolves had so happily made themselves at home, she’d felt the need to keep moving, to keep searching, like maybe there was something she could have done to discourage their neighbors from practically planting their furry hides right on top of the monadnock. That Spieden had arrived (with two children, no less) at Whitestone had been a complete shock, and not one the large female quite knew how to handle, either. It set her heart doing queer little flip flops in her chest, and she found herself missing the lonely willowwacks outside of the Willow Ridge. The silence had been good for thought.

It was the wind, now, that broke her silence, and while they were unlikely to witness another paw strike out from Valhalla this time of year, Capable was old enough to know that a winter storm was not something she wanted to tempt, either.

Turning back towards home, the burly female moves as quickly as she dared with the low visibility, head tucked near her chest when she heard a distant voice. Ears pricked, and she heard the shouts again, though the howling wind obscured the actual words.

“Hello!?” she called back into the growing storm, squinting against the snow. “Who’s out there?”

bring me home, bring back what's stolen,

Capable

like you're supposed to

Perhaps she was just chasing a ghost, but as she ran she heard someone call out in response. Spieden suddenly put on the brakes, sending out a spray of snow all around her as she came to a stop. "It's me! Over here!" She shouted, swinging her massive head from side to side as she tried to pinpoint exactly where the voice had come from. She shoved through the swirling ice and snow, finally seeing a shape outlined in the blizzard.

Spieden stepped high, picking her paws up over the deep snows as she moved closer, noting with confusion it wasn't the pale wolf she had seen earlier. She wasn't quite disappointed, however. Spieden's dark tail waggled behind her, her heart warmed to see the familiar russet face in amidst the icy landscape. She sidled near to the other woman, leaning in closer so that she might be heard better over the wind.

"Maybe I am just a jackass from down south, but damn the weather comes on fast out here." She cursed, wincing as the icy gusts nipped into her shoulder. "Can barely see my own nose its so snowy. Don't suppose you know the way back?" She said, a little embarrassed to admit she was lost.

“What the shit, Spieden--” she found herself mumbling under her breath, struggling through the deep snow towards her companion. At the very least, it wasn’t one of Morganna’s children – Valhalla help them all if one of the little Archers froze to death in the snow because they wandered off in a storm and no one found them. The thought actually gave the wolf pause, but… Well, she had no reason to fear that. Yet.

Bumping her shoulder into the older female’s as she scuttled closer, Capable allowed herself the brief moment of shared warmth, even as the falling ice and snow threatened to blast all the fur from their faces in the howling wind. “Hah! I knew it. You really are a jackass from the south,” the redhead rumbled fondly, amusement twinkling in light brown eyes despite the deadly potential of the situation the pair found themselves in. Still, how could she resist an opportunity to tease like that? The Coho had practically offered it up on a silver platter!

Another shot lay still on her tongue, but after a moment of consideration, she swallowed it down. Best not to tease Spieden too far, now. “Yeah,” she murmured instead. “Could find home with my eyes shut, these days.” Which she might actually have to do, if the weather continued like this. “‘sides, not all your fault. I got all big for my hide and thought I could run a patrol before it rolled in…even if a knew better.”

Sigh.

“Quite a pair we make, huh?”

Wait, did I actually just say that?

bring me home, bring back what's stolen,

Capable

like you're supposed to

The small nudge was returned with one of her own, the warm point of contact welcome in the frigid air. It only reminded her how nice it would be to get out of this blasting chill, and curl up warm in a den.

The jackass from the south could only grin, what could she say? Guilty as charged. Even with all the years behind her, she still had a lot to learn. Thankfully the ruddy female didn't seem to hold her relative ignorance of the north's weather patterns against her.

"Thank the stars for that," Spieden snorted, "Can barely see my own paws as it is." Eyes didn't even do much good in the current whiteout conditions.

A... a pair? Spieden blinked as her stomach seemed to do a funny little flip flop. Was that supposed to be... A nervous laugh threatened to escape but she held it down, she wasn't a tittering yearling. Instead she smirked, her tail swaying as she brushed past the red woman. "We'll make a nice pair of ice sculptures if we don't get moving." She said with a wink.

"Well, lead the way then." Spieden outstretched a forelimb, gesturing to the white void ahead.

Capable was glad to see the older female seemed more interested in the fact that the guardian in training was able to navigate them back home than the reason she was out in the storm in the first place. Her shoulders relaxed by a fraction and she shook some of the snow building up on her back, careful only not to fling it in her packmate’s face.

With her head ducked down, the redhead took the hint, none the wiser to the butterflies swarming in Spieden’s gut. “Stay behind me, then,” she advised. The Coho woman was large, but the beta was just as sizeable, if not slightly larger. Her bulk would provide some break in the wind for the swarthy female, and hopefully, having a path through the snow would make it a bit easier for Spieden to get home. Now, why that was so important was a bit beyond Capable – after all, the woman was an alpha in the not-so-distant past. It wasn’t as if the other wolf was incapable of taking care of herself.

And yet.

And yet here the redhead found herself, wanting little more than to cut a path and lead her packmate home. It certainly wasn’t the packmate part – she wouldn’t take the snow in the face for someone like Lorcan or, ugh, Wraith. Eyes narrowed to slivers, she glanced over her shoulder at the other wolf. “You okay back there?”

bring me home, bring back what's stolen,

Capable

like you're supposed to

Spieden nodded, falling into step behind Capable, her grey paws fitting into the woman's pawprints. The muscular redhead was a bulwark against the brunt of the wind and snow, at least keeping Spieden's eyes from stinging. How Capable could find her way in this, she didn't know, but she did seem to know where she was going at least. There weren't a lot of options for places she could settle her eyes. White snow to the left and right, up and down, but somehow Spieden didn't mind the view provided directly ahead of her.

"Hmm?" Spieden glanced up suddenly, worried she'd been caught ogling the guardian's fluffy backside. Maybe she'd gotten away with it. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. No complaints back here." She answered. "You know, just enjoying the scenery." She chuckled, leaving it open as whether she was remarking on the blizzard, or something else entirely.

"Say, you didn't see anyone else coming this way, did you?" Spieden suddenly asked, remembering the spectre she'd seen earlier. It was like they just vanished into thin air. Hopefully they weren't out there freezing to death, not that Spieden was of a mind to look for them anyways. "I saw a white wolf running this way, just before I bumped into you. They wouldn't stop for anything, though."

“…the scenery, huh?”

Capable might have quipped about the damnable snow, but the laugh that followed left that open to discussion. The redhead probably wouldn’t ever call herself a view – wasn’t exactly feminine or your stereotypical version of beauty – but if Spieden thought so, who was she to argue?

For once, her quick tongue had no immediate remake, and the beta was grateful for the change in topic. The woman gave pause, halting and peering back at the older wolf. “A white wolf?” If another member of Whitestone Monadnock was out and about in the awful weather, it would really not be acceptable to leave them behind. It couldn’t be Craw – his mask made him to distinguishable, nor was he stupid enough to get stuck out in this. The only other pale wolf she could think of was Morganna’s new little friend, but surely she’d stop and come back, wouldn’t she?

“Don’t see any other tracks. Or wolves.” And she couldn’t smell much, not with the wind whipping around them like it was. The whistle was all she could hear. “Look – I don’t think we outta go looking for them, if they didn’t stop. Either they don’t care ‘bout the snow, or they’re running for something, but I don’t wanna get turned around so bad we don’t get back, yanno?”

bring me home, bring back what's stolen,

Capable

like you're supposed to

The question seemed to distract Capable enough that she suddenly stopped in her tracks. Spieden nearly crashed into the woman's backside. Fortunately Spieden put on the brakes and stopped quick enough, reeling back to keep from bowling the other female over.

"Yeah, I figured as much. If they wanna play kamikaze with a blizzard, that's their problem." Spieden roughly snorted, fully in agreement with Capable's assesment. It just surprised her that Capable hadn't run into the wolf either. But a white wolf in a blizzard might as well have been a drop of water in a vast, stormy sea, it'd never be found again. Maybe in the spring thaw they'd find whatever was left of them, the poor fool. Spieden lifted her chin, motioning that they should keep going.

"So, the pack moved here from elsewhere, right?" Spieden asked, recalling their previous conversation at the frozen lake, where Capable had mentioned that they had all moved north after some sort of familial dispute on the alpha's part. Capable would be a transplant to this place, too. "How do you like it up north?" She was just curious, having made a relocation herself she was still figuring out how she felt about it.

Largely unaware of the faux pas she’d just committed, Capable shifted slightly, turning in place to nudge at the other woman’s face. Once, to reassure a packmate (that’s all it was!), and a second time, her pink tongue flashing out over Spieden’s cold nose (to make sure she wasn’t actually about to freeze to death, of course!) before pivoting again, and setting off, her pace a motivated march. She’d jog, or even trot, if she thought she’d be able to navigate them both safely, but the last thing she wanted was for one wolf down with a twisted ankle or broken leg – especially herself. Spieden did not need to freeze to death out in the middle of ass crack, nowhere, because she was trying to show off.

She had kids, after all.

Yeah. Had to think of the kids.

Capable shook some of the snow from her coat before realizing that the swarthy female was speaking ahead, and crooked one ear backwards. “Eh, like it better, for sure. We came from Willow Ridge – that pack’s still around, far as I know. But this ain’t really all that north, not for me. My…family’s from some place up in Denali. Moose’s Tooth, this big old mountain days and days away from her.”

She stopped for a moment, focused only on the sound of breathing as they marched towards the monadnock they called home.

“…Capable isn’t actually my name, you know.”

bring me home, bring back what's stolen,

Capable

like you're supposed to