He needed somewhere to conveniently lose Crowe, and his first thought was to find a cave too small for the larger male to fit through. However, Rais knew no caves here that had an exit from both ends, and in that case they'd still have to emerge out from where a possibly annoyed-from-being ditched Crowe could be waiting. If underground would not work, perhaps the opposite would? Rais had a pretty good sense of where the most inaccessible places on the mountain ridges were, after all he spent a good time tucking away any choice scraps of meat for himself far out of reach of others. With this in mind he started up a rocky slope, which grew steeper as he moved up it. It was a tricky incline, and with a few jumps and a scrabble he made it to the peak, where he then turned around to check the progress of his packmates.
All the while, she seemed unaware of Rais's intentions of ditching the mass of white fur behind them... at least until it occurred to her they were running flat-out now and approaching a rather intense... incline. Incline was perhaps a gentle word for it, however. Asta paused for a moment as Rais climbed it fairly easily (though she knew it couldn't have been) and turned back to face her and Crowe. She took that moment to see where the big male was, made a mental note, then looked back up at Rais. That had taken some fancy footwork. No doubt it would be easier for smaller feet to make the climb... I think he's making this hard for Crowe on purpose! Asta suddenly chuckled as the silver male's behavior before came to mind... Well. Maybe he was trying to get rid of Crowe? A puzzle for another time maybe, for now she was going to climb! This would be a fantastic challenge. If Rais thought it'd be hard to follow him well... Asta would prove him wrong, even if it wasn't so much meant to keep her down...
Asta's paws gathered beneath her as she began the first leap, then the next, and the next. Again, she wasn't necessarily more graceful than any other wolf, but she seemed to know all the right places to put her paws to keep from going back down. Her momentum took her up, up until she reached the peak and there, with just her forelimbs over the edge Asta scrambled a little with her hindlegs(likely skittering dirt down the side... and possibly into Crowe's face if he wasn't too far behind. Very much unintentional...) then with a little more effort managed to hoist the rest of her lithe body right onto the edge. She panted lightly for a moment before she began to laugh softly. She got to her paws again after that, so she could stand beside Rais and mirror him: look down for the Crowe-wolf.
About halfway up Crowe saw Asta's rear end disappear over the top and immediately was pelted in the face with rocks and dirt."Hey watch it up there!" His voice boomed up the face. After a lot of effort Crowe finally pulled himself up and over the peak and turned to face Rais almost forgetting Asta was there. His yellow eyes burned with all the fires of hell. Play these games Rais and I will take your position away from you at my very first chance! Had this not been a pack mate he would already be dead. But that fact was there, and Crowe simply had to deal with Rais' little "game". Instead of calling him out he merely smirked at the younger wolf.
"Ah! Almost thought you wouldn't make it there for a second! I forgot how steep these slopes can be." Rais joked, round eyes crinkling at the corners. Rais then craned his head about to take a look at the view the elevation afforded the trio, finally letting his eyes catch on the eastern edge of the pass, where the land dropped and opened into the forests of the Vale. "As you can see from up here," Rais continued with black nose pointed towards the landmark, still the amiable tour guide, "The pass lets out in the foothills over there, and it's an easier gateway into the mountains. It's a route deer and caribou frequent, and they'll soon be taking advantage of the thaw and heading higher up to graze. It's not too hard to find a place to trip one of them on if you care to catch something." He rambled, paying most of his attention to Asta as he spoke.
Ah, there the Crowe-wolf was, not too far behind after all. He didn't have the climbing speed either of the smaller wolves possessed, but he was making it. Well, good on him. Especially after her own... well, shower. The young woman peered over the edge and winced, verbalizing her apology a moment later with a hasty "sorry" before backing away from the edge so Crowe had a bit more room to maneuver once he'd reached the top. He was big, but he'd made it this far. Asta was perhaps a little grateful he was on "their" side; she didn't want to imagine what it'd be like if he were part of an enemy pack, a lone wolf, or... anywhere other than the Pass, even.
Her thoughts didn't linger there for long, rather she turned to Rais who now offered his commentary from their new vantage point. Asta listened eagerly, but her eyes were for the new land within which she now lived - the place she would be calling home. She could not suppress the wave of her tail behind her as her eyes scanned the uneven horizon, then fell on the woods as Rais mentioned them. The woman became still again, her attention caught nearly fully as he mentioned hunting. Asta made a mental note: she'd need to check it out up close some time. She diodn't know exactly where or how she'd fit into the pack just yet, but she always had done well in the area of hunting... if all else failed, she could try that. Besides, exploring the area around the Pass couldn't hurt either.
Turning her head, Asta finally met Rais' eyes with her own yellow ones, a grin splitting her muzzle. "Oh, that sounds perfect," she nodded, her eyes flickering briefly to Crowe to see what he thought perhaps, then back to the place where Pass met Forest.
So with this in mind he waved his tail and put his sickly grin back upon his maw trying his very best to look cheerful and spoke as if he were friendly. Though the words sounded strained and almost wrong he got them out, "Thank you Rais, I may starve if it weren't for that information, you see I am not fast enough to catch them at a run, so I would need the element of... surprise." The malice in the last word was evident, with the knowledge of where prey ran, Crowe would indeed find his outlet for insanity, and maul his prey rather than deal a quick killing blow. But with any luck, his pack mates would merely think he enjoyed torturing prey, and only prey.
If there was any tenseness at all between the two males, Asta appeared to be unaware of it. Of course, by tenseness I refer to Crowe's annoyance more than anything. It was something just barely hidden. Either Asta was completely oblivious and more naive then she liked to think or she was making an effort to ignore it and it was working wonders. The woman turned her head, yellow eyes falling on the paler ones belonging to Crowe. He had that smile on his maw again... it was no more comforting than it had been before, but Asta forced the small smile on her own maw to widen nevertheless.
Crowe's words made sense to the little woman, but she found herself turning her eyes back to Rais as Crowe finished. She perceived a certain darkness in his last words. She could've dismissed it as nothing, but something in her gut told her this was more than just a love of the ambush - of a hunt. Maybe she was reading into that too much... but even though she enjoyed the thrill, the chase, the killing bite... she did not think of hunting with such malice in her heart. It was good, fun... honorable, even. If Asta had comprehended he tortured his prey (she didn't get quite that far, honestly) she would've thought Crowe sick and deeply twisted. She would've been disgusted. But she did not know, and so she mentally shrugged off the unsettled feeling as best she could before smiling at Rais.
"We shall have to hunt together one day," she said, her eyes on Rais more than Crowe, but she did eventually cast her gaze back to the white wolf to include him as well. "Thanks for showing this to us, Rais."