Whitestone Monadnock a proper polish welcome

"Yeah, she's lookin' at the big bug on your head," Mako quietly snickered, leaning over and nipping at his sister's crown. But his attention shifted back to the meeting in front of them at Marina's nudge. It seemed something was finally happening, and he watched awkwardly as the Monadnock lady seemed to be having some sort of conniption over their family name, and then Skana? His grandma? Sure, she seemed pretty neat for a dead grandma, but definitely not worth tripping all over herself over. He didn't even consider how strange it was for someone outside of their family to know of her. And then as if Morganna stumbling all over the place wasn’t bad enough, both of them started going all wonky. Mako huffed, giving Marina a confused look out of the corner of his eye.

The Morganna lady seemed to recover from whatever meltdown she was having sooner than his mother did, going on to ask about their pack. He stared at the back of his mom’s head, a peculiar look across his face as he waited for her to answer. “Mom.” He said quietly, trying to catch her attention. When subtlety didn’t work, he stood up, walking to his mother’s side and nudging her in the shoulder with his head. “Mom, MOM! She asked you a question.” He hissed, sounding a little exasperated.

Spieden shook her head, blinked and looked at him, seemingly out of whatever lala land she’d been drifting off in. But obviously his mother had missed what Miss Morganna had just asked. He looked to the sable and cinnamon coated woman, a sort of apologetic look on his face. Well, Mom did say that if they were asked any questions, they should answer them.

“We’re from Oak Tree Bend,” Mako addressed Morganna, not really sure how in the hell he was supposed to talk to the leader of another pack. “... Uh, ma’am.” He added as an afterthought.

(This post was last modified: Jan 04, 2017, 12:25 AM by Mako.)

@Marina

Since visitors could materialise at any time of day, it was not always possible to be in the best location to deal with them. Fortunately Craw and Morganna were usually only both absent from the monadnock at the same time when they were out roaming the lowlands together, and all other times at least one of them was nearby. It was important from more than just a loner/joiner/scout viewpoint; it comforted Craw to think that authority was always represented on his little rock in the tundra. Once Wraith got back, he could relax a little more.

The thought of how many new faces his travelling Second would be met with on his return drew a snort, for it was as though the fate had waited for the dark wolf's absence before systematically filling his ranks. Craw had always thought Wraith the more personable, pleasant one of the two of them (or three of them, if you included Morganna), so this seemed a curious and amusing concept... maybe Wraith had secretly been patrolling the neutral zones shooing away everybody he crossed? No, of course not. But Craw entertained himself with the scenario for a few moment as he trotted through the tundra, paws pointed back home, distracted only when he heard yet another unfamiliar female voice.

Unless he was much mistaken, that had come from Whitestone. Silly thoughts dissolving as his ears perked up, eyes focusing more sharply on the shape of the monadnock in the distance, the spider upped his pace a little.

Quite quickly, four wolves became distinguishable, right at his borders as he'd predicted. Recognising one of them as Morganna, even from this distance, he let himself relax a little in the knowledge that their visitors were being dealt with... and yet as he watched, still trotting towards them, he saw her move in close, saw the jutter in her movement, and something felt wrong. Alert for danger, when he drew close behind the three vagrants - a woman and two children, had to be her children - he saw and heard and smelled nothing which alarmed him. Nothing save for the very strange manner which had come over Morganna.

He caught only the words offered by the youngest boy, the respectful tones doing much to placate his rising tension, grunting his arrival in case they hadn't noticed the spider come up from behind them. Moving around the side of the gathered wolves, giving them a comfortable berth so as not to startle them - but also because he was suddenly entirely unsure what to make of them, he stared at his Archer. Just as quickly his eyes went to the older scarred woman who seemed to have cast this spell over his mate, his manner more perplexed than hostile - though he was not that far away from becoming defensive. "Morganna? What is this?"

(This post was last modified: Jan 04, 2017, 02:28 PM by Craw.)

“Bug on my--”

Marina snorted softly, burrows furrowed as she threw her shoulder back into her sibling. It was winter! How did she fall for that?

“Ha ha. Very funny,” she snorted softly, doing little to hide the smile growing in her buttercup eyes. She really shouldn’t be encouraging Mako’s stupid jokes, but – well, it was the most amusing thing that had happened in days, and smiling was much better than whatever else everyone was doing. Except their mother wasn’t smiling, and neither was the Morganna lady. In fact, they both seemed to be doing their best impressions of a trout out of water, and Marina allowed herself a soft snort as she eyed the two adults.

Weirdos.

Eying Mako as he answered, she shifted her gaze back onto the stranger. Presumable alpha – like mom. Or like mom was. “Way far away from here,” she added. Should she had more? Marina was opening her mouth to maybe sort of explain the situation when another wolf appeared; this one had a weird looking face and Marina frowned again, bumping into her brother as she watched the pale wolf address the first pack wolf. “He’s ugly,” she whispered into the other pup’s ear, careful to keep her voice low – at least she’d learned how to tell secrets. “You think he’s gonna be mad?”

You know. For the fish mouths.

Her expression was still complex as the woman before her mentioned that Skana was her mother and that she had thought she died five years ago. Her lips quirked down momentarily, she should have used more tact broaching the subject, because obviously there were a lot of gaps to fill in, but surely it could wait until they were all fed and rested. Clearly her words had shaken the woman, as much as her surname had shaken Morganna. Her attention was caught again as Mako informed her from where they had come and she finally detected a hint of familiarity in their scent. "Sahalie left too?" a look of puzzlement clearly on her face as she addressed the children once more. Then what was she doing all the way out in the lowlands? Surely she would have thought to take them to the Ridge first where she already had ties with @Sven?

Not to worry, she was sure all would be revealed in time. Clearly something catastrophic had happened, or the woman wouldn't have travelled so far. Craw's presence did a great deal to drag her back to the present and she managed to smile, even if it was a little strained. "This is Spieden, formerly of Oak Tree Bend, an' her children Mako an' Marina. They're joining us." The last was said with certainty, a glance offered with a hint of apology and promise to explain later. She moved forward to brush her flank along each of the loners sides to mark them as their own, before she turned back towards the monadnock. "Let's get yer settled in. It's a long journey from tha' far south, I'm sure yer all want ter rest."