The apples were overripe and sweet on her tongue as she bit into them, plucking another, and another from the soil beneath the slowly changing tree. The cold months would be upon them soon, and delicacies like these would be harder to come by. Maybe that's why she'd had so many, or maybe there was another reason altogether. Whatever possessed her though had long since become irrelevant because the more she ate, the less she cared.

Only when the heat in her cheeks, and the numbness in her lips could no longer be ignored did she move. Her steps though careful, and calculated in her mind, were clumsy and uncoordinated. So it was with very little grace that she stumbled her way to the water's edge. She remembered somewhere in the haze of the too-ripe apples, thinking that the lagoon looked beautiful. The moon-kissed ripples were gentle enough that the night sky reflected a near perfect image on its surface, as if she could step into it, and in turn, step into the sky. The thought made her giggle. Oh gods, did she just... giggle? Maybe she'd had a few too many.

Celandine shook her head, as if it could clear the fog from her mind, and her body swayed with the effort. In fact, her body seemed to sway without the effort. Yeah, definitely too many.

Now that Birtie was recovered and clearly getting along okay and the children were older Kajika had left the territory to hunt. At least that was what it had started out as but then he just kept walking. It had been so long since he'd left the cove for anything longer than a short trip to the hot springs or poison path. He felt he needed this, to just forget his duties as an alpha for a little while. Surely Birtie had things under control and Moonshadow to help, they wouldn't miss him for a few hours.

Well a few hours had turned into a little longer as he soon found himself in unfamiliar territory. The dark male decided to make the most of it and do some exploring. Why not? He was out pretending he wasn't an alpha anyway. He stepped carefully and staying on alert for any dangers, the last thing he needed was to go home injured. He was midstep when he stopped paw still in the air, was that a giggle?

Kajika was sure he'd heard a giggle, “Hello,” he called out unsure what to make of what he'd heard.

A  low voice broke through the silence, causing a pale ear to twitch, and uncoordinated limbs to spin. The movement was apparently too much for Celandine's head, because while her body had stilled her mind kept swirling. At first the alpha had been tricked into thinking it was Skoll, or Renier who had called out, but that wasnt right. She knew their voices as well as she knew her own, and it hadn't been theirs. The woman blinked once, twice, three times before she was able to call out. "Hello?" She tried to stand a little straighter, and still the sway in her stance, unsure just who or what she was dealing with. Better to be safe than sorry.

He wasn't sure if he was surprised or not that he'd gotten and answer back but he had. It was just one word, not much to go on but he moved forward anyway. He'd quickly determined the direction and was soon facing a female wolf but something seemed off. He stopped a few feet away in hopes she wouldn't think him a threat. “Here you are. Is everything okay?” He thought it best to ask that first just in case she wasn't. He also looked around to make sure there weren't any dangers in the area. It wasn't often he heard wolves giggle like that so it might have been a little alarming.

Celandine felt her head tilt as the man came into view. Inky with amber eyes. In a way, he resembled Anduin, but their differences easily outweighed their similarities. The most obvious being the voice that came falling from his lips. In response to his question, the woman's ears came forward. Had the apples not been in play, she might have been a little more eloquent, but as it stood... "Yeah" She briefly looked over herself and their surroundings, her own innate paranoia making her unsure of weather she had simply missed whatever gave him cause for concern. "Why? Should it not be?" She tried to hide the slur in her voice, though the effort was in vain.

While waiting for the woman to answer Kajika note that she seemed to be swaying. The biggest clue that something was off was when she spoke. Her words seemed to run together, he hadn't ever heard someone talk like that. This was something he'd never encountered before. Other than that she seemed okay and now she was waiting for a response from him. “Firstly your out here alone so the polite thing to do is make sure everything is okay. Secondly, did you know your swaying and your words are running together?” he asked with raised brow in case she didn't know or maybe she did, he really couldn't tell.

He had absolutely no trouble pinpointing her current condition, which only made her try harder to conceal it. Celandine's brow furrowed with the effort, and she subconsciously worried her lower lip. "Am not." Gods what was she, a child? "I mean, I'm not, and I'm not alone either." Although it was a lie, the leader still felt the need to throw that in there, just in case he tried anything funny. "But you are?" It came out as more of a question than a statement, though she meant it to sound like the latter. She wondered if, in her current state, whether or not she would be able to escape if things went south, but didnt have any sort of confidence.

Worry for the woman's condition showed on his face more than anything else. He felt she shouldn't be alone, anything could happen to her and he couldn't let that happen. The dark male wouldn't be able to live with himself if it did and he could have stopped it. She seemed to be in denial based on what she said next and he chuckled, “Alright then, maybe you should try walking a few paces and see how it goes?” he suggested with a raised brow. Next she denied being alone, “Well should someone appear to watch over you I will leave you in their care but until then I'm afraid you have to put up with me.” He was surprised by her next question but he nodded, “I ventured down from the mountain, some time away seemed needed.” He didn't have anything to hide and it was rather obvious to anyone with a nose that he wasn't alone.

Her eyes narrowed at his suggestion that she walk a few paces, not because she was particularly angry about it, but because he'd ripped open one of her secrets. "No you. You should try walking a few paces... that way." Her words lacked any real bite, but her nose flicked towards the horizon behind him anyway.

It would seem as though her lie about having company was just as easy to see through as her current demeanor. A pity. There was no fighting him in her woozy state, so she simply sighed, and allowed herself to sit. "You live on the mountain?" Even the haze of apples in her head couldn't negate the curiosity swimming through her head. "It'll do that to you y'know. It calls you back, and back, and back, and then it suffocates you." Because the mountain never truly let anyone leave.