Windsong Fjord Gut Instincts

He couldn't recall having ever slept so deeply before. But then Tumblebelly remembered that he couldn't recall many things at all at this point, so the whole waking up feeling really refreshed thing didn't feel as special. Still he was up, much less cold thanks to his new friend, and rearing to go. While he was busy procrastinating getting up, he went over things he could remember. He tried to think hard how he'd ended up where he did, and knew that the best way for him to find her would be to go out looking for her. Although Tumble was firmly aware of how huge the world was, he also had a good feeling in his gut. He'd done pretty good so far, relying on his gut.

And right then, his gut was hungry.

He carefully left the warmth of his new friend's side to get a good look-see at where he was, instantly shivering upon his departure of the den. It was safe to say he'd never been in such freezing temperatures before, and even the snow was much different than the snow he'd seen back home. This snow was fluffier, and instantly better than any snow he'd seen in his whole entire life. He could do without the wind, and also might have preferred to be lazy for just a few moments more.

Instead, Tumblebelly went to work, sniffing and digging through the snow. After he'd found his target, he dug with more of a purpose. "Hey--!" he shouted, and realized he had no idea what his friend's name was. Not the one he couldn't remember, but the new one. "I found something to eat!" Plunging his head into the hole he'd excavated, Tumblebelly struggled to pull the frozen frog from the dirt. This was comparably harder than pulling a frog from the mud.

Feeling it give, Tumble gave it one good yank and ended up with just a foot. He ate it. "It's a little bit frozen, but I think I can get it out if I dig a little bit more," he tried to dig around the thing, deeming that a better approach.

"My name's Tumblebelly by the way. You're going to help me find my friend, right?"


@Sahalie

Sahalie was usually a late sleeper, and it was no surprise that her uneducated companion was up before her. She did not wake until suddenly he was yipping for her attention, and she jolted up right, her head narrowly missing the top of low roof. Groggily, she pulled herself up out of the den with her forepaws, basically slithering on her belly as she tried to stretch herself out. The den might have been made by a bear but damn it was not exactly spacious. She blinked several times as she watched the red man—much more vibrantly red in the daylight with a dry coat—dunk his head into the snow, pop up, and resume his frantic digging. Slowly, she crawled to her feet and walked over to investigate, his lively approach to the morning invigorating her. She tried not to get in the way as her muzzle inserting itself near his paws so she could peer down the hole. A frog!

His name was odd but she couldn't deny that it was adorable. "Oh," she woofed, scooting back to look at him, "you mean your Green friend?" The giggled, poking at what she had imagined were his delirious, frozen ravings. Except her laughter began to crumble as she felt all her other responsibilities tug at her paws, "Well uhm... I dunno I. I mean I got a pack so I can't exactly go traipsing all over the realm with you." But she did want to help. She felt bad.

"I'm Sahalie."

He didn't want to admit it, but he couldn't imagine his previous companion anything but green. Not wanting to admit it, Tumble gave her a good natured grin. "Yep, that's the one I'm looking for," a couple of more scoops of dirt and snow and the icy frog came out a little bit easier. Although half of fat frog was hardly a good meal, it was at least something to start his day. He chomped down on one of its back legs, letting the rest of it fall to the ground for Sahalie to eat. Undeniably, a frozen frog was not as satisfying as the squishy, crunchy warmness of a muddy one. It would just have to do.

Tumblebelly's chewing turned a little bit less eager as the girl said she couldn't help him. He swallowed the frog. "That's okay. I'm pretty good at adventuring by myself," he'd done it for most of his life, even though he often found it more fun to explore new places with a little bit of company. "You'd probably just slow me down anyways," having such a bad mishap at the river, he hardly was in the place to be gloating.

"Where am I, anyways? And where are you from? Where's your pack? Why are you here all alone? I never got to go exploring alone back home," it hardly seemed fair that she got to. "We always mostly just were stuck on the island. Which is good and all, but after you've splashed around in Snakey Creek for the hundredth time, it loses a little bit of its charm."

He was still clinging to the Green Friend story, eh? Her ears flopped about and she tipped her head, staring at the curious man as he continued to dig. He was not ashamed or even the slightest bit doubtful about having a green friend, but it didn't make even the slightest bit of sense. She barely knew Tumblebelly, and she did not want to draw any drastic conclusions, but either he hit his head very hard or he was very weird. At the same time, though, he was dirtying and scraping his paws away only to offer half of his meager frog to her. Tumblebelly was a nice man, so did it really matter what he believed about the color of wolves? Maybe he was just more worldly. She had been surprised as cub to discover that wolves came in shades other than greyscale. Why not green?

At least he was not upset when she turned him down, and she found herself laughing at the insinuation that she would slow him down. Sahalie hadn't exactly fallen off a cliffside, into and down a river, with a giant gash in her head. Tumblebelly would be lucky if he made it out of the fjord alive, probably. "Suuuuure," she said with a snort and an eyeroll, but her eyes were crinkled still from her laughter.

"Uhm," she floundered as the man-boy released a barrage of questions at her, "Slowdown slowdown!" Even without the questions he still uttered some strange things about being stuck on an island. An island that had a creek sounded like a very big island. "Uhm okay uhhh. I guess this is a little ... crashcourse." Taking a deep breath she hoped she put on her best Teacher Face that she used with Marina and Mako.

"This is Relic Lore. It's very big. I don't even know how big. See those mountains that way?" She flung her snout to the south, where the white, hard peaks rose just above the trees and the cliffs, "That's the Serpent's Pass. I lived on the other side of it, way way way south. But I live up north now." Not that she liked it. Her heart lingered a little on the word "south" as if was still afraid to leave it. "But I came down here to hunt. The herds are mostly gone up north." And it's a wasteland.

"How big was your...err...Island?"