Whitestone Monadnock Sarah smiles

Chose this song because of the irony as the name and it sort of fits their relationship anyways xD @Sahalie

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

Kino ventured to the base of the oddly formed cliff, its presence looming over him in a way that made the fur along his shoulders prickle. It made him feel like he was being watched with a wary eye and he, in turn, turned his topaz gaze on it with some disdain. How an inanimate thing could make him feel that way he would never know, but he gave himself a shake to try and rid himself of the feeling.

He’d come down here with the simple task of making sure that their water source remained open for the pack to quench their thirst. Ice had formed thickly over the surface of the shallow lake, but here and there were spots which were broken through in order to keep it available to them. He knew where the other holes were, but decided he might as well open another one anyways. Venturing onto the ice he moved a little ways from the shore with short, shuffling steps in order not to fall. Last time he’d gone out onto the ice he’d managed to fall on his ass and make a fool of himself. He was rather determined not to repeat that action. Once he was in a place that he liked he paused, peering around himself through the mist that had collected and made their new packland rather...ominous. His light pelt blended in rather well with the environment, but the temperature had a tendency to make the liquid droplets freeze to the end of his hairs which wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

He turned his mind back to his work, breathing out a puff of cold air that formed a cloud in front of his face. Then, with a deep breath he rose up onto his back paws and came down hard on the surface with a grunt. A faint crackling was heard. He repeated it, muscles bunching at he rammed at the surface with gritted teeth as it jolted his forelegs. After his repeated attempts, it took a 5th times before the ice gave way and his forelegs and chest were soaked in the frigid waters. His breath escaped with a hiss and he pulled himself out, backing up and poking around to further break up the hole with his paws. Prickles likes needles moved along his legs and chest and he clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. Man, he hated doing that.

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume

The morning was misty in a way that made her heart ache, as her thoughts invariably returned to the blue woods of Oak Tree Bend. The nostalgia was so strong that it made her sad, yet somehow it made the godforsaken rock she lived on a little more bearable. As she scaled down the rock in the halting, clumsy way of a foreigner she felt a little less frustrated and more than once she paused to breath in the cold, heavy mists that wrapped around her. The sky was so thick around her that, as she walked towards the shallow lake she didn't even see that Alastor was out here. The flash of his darker markings as he moved was what gave him away at last, and Sahalie felt her heart thud again as she remembered how easily the boy blended in with Spectral Woods. Alastor was taking to his self-appointed duties well, she assumed, as her eyes moved up and down with him as he stamped against the ice.

This was not a lake for skating.

When at last he punctured the surface and nearly fell through she moved forward, up to the edge where the frozen water began. "Hey, I can think of more productive things to do than freezing yourself," she drawled with a taunting giggle. Internally, though, she cringed, thinking of Tumblebelly and his sodden, shivering form. And then she remembered all of the drama over the kiss and Alastor's frustration with her going out and meeting all these strange men. Sahalie didn't attempt to move out closer to him, knowing that there were so many holes in the surface of the lake that she could just fall right through if she wasn't watching, and she wasn't particularly interested in a path. She was more interested in the planning they had to do. The sooner things were decided, the sooner she could leave. The sooner they could stop mooching off of the Monadnock.

(This post was last modified: Jan 30, 2017, 02:41 AM by Sahalie.)

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

His auds flickered backward at the sound of pawsteps on the shoreline and he turned his head to peer past the mist, taking a few shuffled steps forward to make out the form of his dark friend. "Hey, I can think of more productive things to do than freezing yourself," she quipped and he chuckled, shuffling the rest of the way to the shore. When he got closer he made sure to give himself a good shake, splattering what little water that clung to his pelt onto her with a mischievous grin. It felt better, more normal, now that they were back to joking with each other. Things felt a little lighter even, which made living here at least a little more bearable. As long as she was around, things would always be more bearable to him.

“Sleep, probably. It was freezing without you last night so I didn’t get much,” he said, though the relaxed posture he held and the grin he still held showed he was simply poking fun at her. The mist had likely washed away any scent that had clung to her pelt. Plus, they’d made an agreement to trust each other. It seemed like Morganna had had Hal running errands lately so he had tried to not think much of it. She’d always had a good reason.

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume

There is a moose carcass that has been scavenged by coyotes nearby. +15 Health

Sahalie waited for his smile to slip, but it didn't. Alastor was not accusing her of anything, though she wondered how he might react if he found out about her own late night bastardization of a rendezvous. "Uhh, well, more on that later." It wasn't really what she had come here to talk about: justifying where she slept at night. There had been no obligation to do that before—especially not after Alastor's soul-searching journey to find his sister. He probably wasn't even really that interested in why she was gone—maybe—but on the other hand he did seemed to be attempting to pry as gently as possible. Like he had to tip toe lest they blow up in another fight again. "Uh, anyway," she mumbled, fighting to steer the course of her own attention back to things that were actually important.

"I thought maybe we could talk about....stuff..." Yeah, that was real specific. "Pack stuff." It felt a little silly, two children having an adult discussion like it might have been some kind of make-believe. Sahalie had no idea how packs were actually formed, anyway, and that made it all the more difficult for her to know. It dawned on her that @Larkspur would be able to shed more light on the matter, but she also didn't want the old man to laugh in her face if she came to him with nothing. "I was wondering if you...had any ideas about like...what we're supposed to... do?" Like how simple was it? Did they just pick a place? Were there any rules?

"Like where do we even go?"

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

When she said she wanted to talk about stuff his heart gave a stupid little flop in this chest, his brow quirking upwards in a curious fashion. Then, she quickly added on pack stuff and a bit of disappointment settled in his chest but he gave a nod to show that he was listening. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting her to want to talk about, but he’d been foolish to think it would be anything otherwise. After all, the subject was the most important thing on their plate at the moment.

She asked if she had any idea how to form a pack and honestly...he had no freaking clue. It was just as much of an enigma to him as it was to her. “Ah...no,” he said with a sheepish look, a little embarrassed that he’d given her the idea but had nothing to back her up with. “I mean...I feel like some things are pretty common sense. Find a place and once you decide on it, set up some borders to let others know ‘Hey, keep out’. That sort of thing. And, I don’t really think just the two of us could do it alone. I say maybe two more? We already have Cas and I’ll assume that Larkspur will come with us so that should make it kind of easier,” he rattled off, head tilting in his usual way to show that he was in thought. “Do you, uh...do you think Spieden and the kids will join us?” he questioned gently, unsure. He didn’t know the woman very well. In fact, other than her name he didn’t know her at all.

As for the territory, he also hadn’t given much thought to that. He gave a small ‘hmm’. “Perhaps the Red Fern Forest?” he said. It was very pretty most of the year and he already knew the territory like the back of his paw. Honestly, the thought of forging a pack there excited him.

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume

(This post was last modified: Feb 01, 2017, 11:03 PM by Kino.)

Larkspur strode towards the duo, tail giving Kino's face a good thwack or two before settling in between the two yearlings. Just where he belonged. "So I take it I'll be watching over three babies," he had no idea who the other wolf they were going on about, but somehow he doubted that the two youngsters would be recruiting someone his age. "And possibly three additional babies," he also knew little of Spieden, but the idea of two much younger children joining them didn't exactly make Lark feel any better about it. But he was here, for better or for worse, and regardless of what anyone thought. After all, Sahalie's opinion was the only one that really mattered.


The idea of heading south -- anywhere not there -- seemed alright to him. Which was also sort of silly, considering he had been wanting the opposite for months.

"And then we'll head on over there and just start peeing all over the place?" Larkspur's knowledge of Relic Lore was limited, and mostly consisted of the Spectral Woods, then a gray area of between there and the Larkcall Lowlands. Somehow, he doubted that the two yearlings' experiences were the same. @Sahalie had known her birthpack, and Kino... well, that boy's history was a bit of a mystery to him.

"We could always just run Oak Tree Bend out and take the woods for ourselves," he was almost not joking. He flashed the two a grin. God forbid Larkspur do a little bit more than poke fun at the two. Honestly, though, could you blame him? Two kids, getting together and discussing a future. It was so sweet it made him sick.

(This post was last modified: Feb 02, 2017, 12:11 AM by Larkspur. Edit Reason: redundant post is redundant )

lalalala

Nope, Alastor had nothing either. She had hoped that since he had more pack experience (by virtue of being in three packs when she had only recently left her first one) it would translate into more logistical knowledge. It did not. Though, as he continued he pointed out some of the basic things that she had been too stressed out to consider herself. Packs were, after all, just over-watered areas of land that wolves repeatedly returned to pee on. So they just needed to find a place and... pee all over it. That was simple. But even two more wolves did not seem like enough to deter any other apex predator or wolf from coming through any borders. How could four wolves keep up with all the marking and the hunting? It sounded insane. Sahalie had come from such a large pack, and was still in a large pack. To her, there simply seemed to be a need for all these wolves. But maybe Alastor knew better. "Uhhhh..." Spieden was a different story: where the teenagers had been having a hard time fitting in--as teenagers often do--she seemed to be acclimating alright and determined to make Whitestone her new home. "I don't know." It seemed unfair to uproot her. She was not sure about the children, either. "I haven't really gotten a chance to talk to her since we been here." 

Just hearing the familiar name, even if it had not been very long, overwhelmed her with homesickness. At least Alastor wanted to return to the east. She felt this too. They would not live in the north, and, while she had not explored the west much... she was not sure that it was the place for her either. "Mmmm," she said as she considered the idea of surrounding herself with the red ferns. "Maybe we can check it out I--"

Honestly, to see Larkspur appear so suddenly was a bit of a surprise but watching him thwack Alastor in the face made her giggle. She was not offended by being called a baby. She was a baby, especially when it came to this. Though her face scrunched up when he mentioned more babies--thinking a little more literally than Spieden and the soon-to-be-yearlings. What babies?. Then Larkspur went on to say the exact thing she had been thinking out loud, only it sounded utterly foolish, and her ears flickered. She wasn't sure if maybe he was joking or not, though the next thing absolutely was a joke. "Nooo" she said, half-feigning outrage through a smile, "I can't take that away from them." Not after Serach and Aponi had worked to get it.

She looked down at her paws, a little embarrassed. "But I definitely wouldn't mind being close..." Just to see the blue mists occasionally would be a comfort.

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

Kino could only nod to her uncertainty. Of course Spieden had just gotten done running from something, it didn’t make much sense for her to run again. Besides, she’d picked this pack on her own and had stayed there even when Hal and Kino had not which meant she had to have picked this place for a reason, right? The woman had children to think about and a new life ahead of her, perhaps it was a little unfair to expect her to displace all of that again.

The sound of pawsteps approaching came and he turned his head in time to get a few good whacks right to the face. At first he was confused, brows scrunching together before he saw who it was that was joining them. Then, his confusion turned into a scowl and he turned forward grumpily. Ah yes, the burr that hadn’t seemed to fall out of their fur had joined them. What luck. And, the man even had the audacity to shove himself between them. He swallowed the growl that wanted to bubble up his throat, schooling himself to a more neutral expression. “The only other option is further down south, but I’m not sure where we could go there. Everything is the copse is so thick. I mean, it would make for good defense but it’s even murkier than spectral is,” he commented absently, still miffed at their new company’s presence and their forced separation.

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume

This pack would be very different than the one he'd been born in. If anything, Whitestone Monadnock was more like his old pack, just with him on the opposite end of the totem pole. He didn't like being on the bottom, and even now it bothered him. The sooner they could get out, the happier he'd be. The two children him-hawed over where exactly to go, speaking more vaguely than he would have liked them to. Sahalie trailed off, and he patiently listened to Kino suggest south of their old home, but then quickly talked negatively of it.


Larkspur waited a moment, just to see if either of them were going to come to a solution. Alas, neither of them did. "First, we need to find out where Spieden stands," and by we he meant not him. "While still treading lightly," he warned. They didn't know where Spie stood, which meant that she could be against the whole thing completely, and also mean bad news for them. He wasn't sure of which bad news, but it was better to be safe than sorry. "When we're ready, we'll gather, uh, the other one," he couldn't recall her name. "Then we'll be four strong, if we don't have Spieden. Four's enough to take on a grizzly, and take down a buck, so it's enough to protect a pack.

"Then we head south. We can go scope out the whole area. Around Spectral Woods, the Red Fern Forest..." Lark trailed off, not knowing any more official names of things. "Wherever. When we find somewhere that we like, we name ourselves and share a good meal." Larkspur looked between the two, and even though Kino was probably trying to murder him with his icy cold stare, he felt...

He sort of felt home.